Final assignment 1 of 3: Done.
Due at: 1:30 p.m. today
Completed at: 1:10 p.m. today
I will make no claims as to the quality of the paper, since “done” was what I was shooting for. I aim high. The more you know, n’at.
At some point, someone remind me to think about how I want to go bowling soon and how I might make that happen.
The baby and I took the day off. He started coming down with something last night. We dropped him off at my mother-in-law’s house so that we could run to the mall to grab him a few birthday gifts and right before we left he was like, “Blah.” And when we got back he told me, “I want to go to bed right away.” Never a good sign. This morning he was complaining that his stomach was hurting and he was coughing and stuff and I reasoned that he might as well stay home. If he was coming down with something serious, getting him home from school would be a total joke since the husband is at school all day today. Then came the question of who would tend to him. I sat in bed for a few minutes trying to figure out something with the husband’s grandmother, but then figured the hell with it. I’ll just stay home with him.
Not entirely the best time of the semester to take the day off, but I was really in dire need. Especially since I have a paper due tomorrow and honestly I didn’t know how I was going to get it done. Sometimes it’s all just too much, you know?
The baby seems to be doing alright now. He went to the bathroom and that seemed to help enormously. I am feeling a little duped by him, but oh well. I can’t believe he’s going to be 6 in two days.
By the by, apologies to anyone who stopped by here yesterday when my site was all fux0red. I had managed to screw something up when I was experimenting with text wrapping and it took me forever to figure out. For awhile I thought I was going to have to go with a new theme and that had me all worked up. I’m apparently very attached to this one.
Alright…now for that paper…
A bad Saturday (n): any Saturday during which you have so much homework to do that it makes you cry and your mom calls you a total of 11 times and your mother-in-law calls you a total of 6 times, both with “quick questions.”
They want me to drink, don’t they?
At some point yesterday, static descended upon our house and it is no longer safe to touch anyone or anything. I don’t remember it being this bad last year…but it’s possible I was just shocked so severely that my memory is on the fritz.
What’s my name again?
The husband was playing records last night and I stayed home because I was very, very tired. I ended up staying up late anyway watching the first two episodes of The Tudors on OnDemand. That show is alright. I seem to have trouble separating actors from their previous roles, so every time Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’ Henry consulted Sam Neill’s character, I felt compelled to yell, “Watch out for the velociraptor!” And Buckingham was Duncan in Last of the Mohicans and it seems like that guy gets typecast as The Sucker.
***
I halfheartedly threatened the baby with permanent toy removal if he didn’t get all of his toys off of the living room floor. So he piled them all up on an armchair. I’m not speaking to him at the moment.
When he’s in school, the baby doesn’t really watch TV during the week. So he gets a healthy dose of it on Saturdays. He revels in the braindeadness of it all and he keeps absentmindedly playing with the doors on our Ikea entertainment system cabinet thing. It’s slowly driving me insane because three seconds after I tell him to stop he’s back at it and since the furniture in question is Ikea, being touched has caused one of the doors to become crooked.
I’m a big sucker for gadgets, which is why I try to avoid watching shows like this. However, I did end up watching an episode the other night and they featured this espresso/cappuccino machine from DeLonghi and this morning I realized I was daydreaming about it. Even though I get pretty annoyed when I see these being used in a coffee shop, I wouldn’t mind having one at home…because I am not (or am no longer) a professional barista so I think I get to have the dummy, push-button version.
So, yeah, as soon as I have $1,500 to spend on a coffeemaker, it’s mine.
Today, I have to knock out at least some of my final projects. Saturday, I need to get last-minute stuff for the baby’s birthday party and maybe a gift or two for my spawn. Sunday is his birthday party. It’s 1 – 3 p.m. so I imagine from 2:30 on I will be nursing a migraine. Monday, the husband goes to court for the hearing of our burglar, but I’m almost positive that they will postpone again. Apparently they can postpone the hearing three times and the tactic involved there is to discourage the witnesses/victims from continuing to show up. I don’t know. The last time I was there everyone seemed pretty indignant. I think the dude will be going down eventually. If he postpones this time, that will be the third time. So I think we’ll definitely be having a hearing in January.
Other than that…classes (last 4!) Monday through Thursday. User testing on Monday and Tuesday for my software documentation. Final paper for Style due on Wednesday. Baby’s birthday on Thursday. Software documentation due on Friday. Final portfolio for Prof & Tech due on the 14th.
Then: drinks.
Classes are over for me for the week and that means that I only have four more classes for this semester. And then I have to write some stuff and then I will be done until January.* And then there will be drinking and whooping and yawping. I should really work on some stuff now but I’m really just so tired and need just a quick break from having to think about serious stuff.
Anyway, some very nice person took a glance at my Amazon wish list and was kind enough to send me a slow cooker cookbook to help me in my endeavors to feed my family good food all while working full-time and freelancing and going to school. Methinks maybe I have bitten off more than I can chew. Perhaps I’ll cut the family loose. Something’s gotta give, right? In any case, thank you very, very much nice person. Your gift warmed some cockles…which sounds dirtier than it really is.
I am currently listening to Tracey’s Holiday Mix, which is very nice and I was relieved when she confirmed that it was, in fact, the same mix as last year. Because I didn’t want to send her an email asking her just what exactly she’s trying to pull, sending me the same mix like I wouldn’t notice. But it’s a good mix, so we’re cool.
***
I’ve had several people over the past few days comment, unsolicited, on just how tired I look and frankly it’s starting to sting a little bit. They do it out of concern. I understand this. And really I’ve looked kind of tired all of my life because I’ve had baggy eyes since I was a kid and my skin is very pale so that accentuates them. Also, I’m really tired. I have a lot going on in my life and I don’t get enough sleep. I do feel that I’ve…aged a lot in the past few years. I feel like I look and act much older than I am and that bums me out. I mean, shit, 7 years ago I was this adorable little sexpot and now I’m this stressed out mom. That’s life though, right?
Over the break I do want to rehab myself a little bit. But I can’t help but think that stressed out dads don’t get told how run down and crappy they look. Maybe I’ll make a point of telling every dude I see that they look like shit, but I’ll furrow my brow so they’ll know that I’m just “concerned.”
Grr.
Can I just mention how irritated I am that both the Charlie Brown Christmas special and the Grinch have been on TV already? Talk about blowing your wad. That means that close to the actual holiday, the only Christmas specials that they’ll have left to play are total crud starring Jennifer Love-Hewitt or whoever.
*sob
It appears as though the heat is not functioning in my office which is making for an interesting work environment. I’m moving around a lot. Typing helps.
I kinda want one of them thar fancy universal remotes, but I’m severely skeptical about how well they’ll actually work. Also, we lose a remote at least twice a month and I can’t imagine what horrors would be unleashed if we lost The Remote and then we had to, like, stand up and shit. Barbaric! Our remotes always return, they usually just go traveling through the innards of our couch for a few days before resurfacing.
Also, I don’t really have $150 for a remote. There’s that, too. And our entertainment set up isn’t that fancy. I just feel like a tool having 4 remotes.
I’ve reached the point in the semester where I’m having mini panic attacks every 30 minutes or so when I think of all of the stuff coming up over the next few weeks. Aside from school stuff, I realized last night that the baby’s birthday party is on SUNDAY and we still haven’t nailed down some minor details…like what we’re going to feed everyone. (I feel it’s important to mention that my mom and grandmother just kind of barreled their way into taking over the party and I’m completely unhappy with what they’ve done. They’re having it some place that’s costing a bajillion dollars just to rent so now they’re like, “Uh, the food is going to be too expensive.” Gum for everyone, I guess.) Only one person has RSVPed to me so far, which isn’t surprising. People are really bad about RSVPing these days, aren’t they?
The baby’s actual birthday is next Thursday and I, of course, have a huge assignment due the next day. A serious con to unplanned pregnancies is that your kid’s big day might fall during a traditionally shitty time of the year. Behold our success last year. I had vowed after that not to be so ditzy about his birthday this year, so let this be my reminder to myself to have something a little nicer than a Hostess cupcake and a scented candle to celebrate the birth of my only child.
Not that he cares, of course. But you know when he looks back at the pictures when he’s 25 he’s going to say, “What jerks.”
I can’t do it. I can’t just go back to the normal routine after sleeping in and doing whatever I want (read: nothing) for the past four days. I changed clothes twice this whole long weekend and apparently that’s how I want to live my life because the thought of getting dressed and functioning is totally painful right now.
It doesn’t help that it’s raining and grey and miserable this morning. It doesn’t help that the baby got me out of bed three times for runny noses and pee breaks. It doesn’t help that this morning I plumb did not know what my alarm clock was going on about and simply turned the thing off, only to finally wake up to the harsh realization that I have to go be a grown up now.
No fair.
I now have a nosering again. I lost it at some point a few months ago during a particularly persistent head cold (and the ensuing nose-blowing) and then today I found it on the bathroom floor. I just don’t know what to make of that. It’s like it went exploring for a few months.
The hole had closed over just a tiny bit so I had to stick myself with a (sterilized) safety pin. It was very punk rock. I should have just left the safety pin in, eh? But I’m now re-pierced and sore.
Has there been any kind of study done to determine what one’s Amazon recommendations say about a person? I was just purchasing a few things for the baby’s birthday and the recommendations that came up after check out were pretty amusing: The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Chores, Transformers, and Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill. Oddly enough, I just had a mini-breakdown over how DONE I am with housework and how I just don’t want to do it anymore and no wonder women in the 1950s munched Valium and Vitameatavegamin all the time. Trouble with chores, indeed. My mom and grandmother don’t understand the angst that I have toward cleaning. My mom insists that the reason she loves cleaning and the reason that I should love cleaning is because you get to sit down afterward and admire how nice everything looks. Odd. Because after I clean I sit down and cry about how I’ll just need to do it again soon. Who else needs a drink?
I know I’ve said this before but four-day weekends really are what’s up. Even a three-day weekend every week would do the trick. Think we can make that happen?
The baby and I are still pajama-clad. We’re parked on the couch and watching Robots.
Thanksgiving was decent. Lots of food, plenty of wine. We did the usual tour: to my mom’s to eat with my family and then to my mother-in-law’s to eat with the husband’s family. My dad was supposed to meet up with us at either place, but he chose instead to just spend the whole day with his friends’ family and that really bummed me out. For some reason, I’ve been really emo lately about my parents being divorced, even though they split up over ten years ago. I’m actually very glad that they split up, but it’s because I don’t think they ever should have been together in the first place, they’re so incompatible. But in some indirect way I regret my own existence? I don’t know. I guess I just wish that whatever unhappiness they went through in the past, it wouldn’t affect us still being together as a family when we can.
Enough overshare.
The husband went out with Matt on a photographic expedition of Pittsburgh’s industrial ruins. I am not participating in any Black Friday activities because fuck that shit. Also, it’s Buy Nothing Day, which I don’t hear much about anymore but I’m always perfectly happy to stay away from the mall. However, I might have to buy something, namely kitty litter and toilet bowl cleaner, as our various shitters are in need of some maintenance.
