God I love OK Go videos...

So, Jeremy loves Christmas music. And I hate 90% of Christmas music. Why?

1) It is repetitive as hell. Most artists can't add anything to Deck the Halls that the 50,000 other musicians who've already done it haven't. Ditto all the other popular carols.

2) I have worked retail. Which means Christmas music constantly piped in to my work environment, repeating it's repetitive stuff, for months on end.

3) I lived with my mom for like, 25 years. Which means Christmas music constantly piped into my living environment, repeating it's repetitive stuff for... about a month every year. Dad made a rule that she couldn't start on it before Thanksgiving.

The music I do like is mostly original songs (like Tom Petty's Christmas All Over Again), less popular/played ones (like I Saw Three Ships) or ones where I do like whatever twist they do on it enough to overlook the fact that I've heard this song 7 million times before (like Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan's God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman).

So... I made a CD of Amy-Approved Christmas songs for Jeremy to play when I'm in the car so that he can hear Christmas music without me going insane when we're in the car together. It is a variation on "Mannheim Steamroller Can Suck It!" a Christmas mix I made for friends at Borders some years ago.

Anyway.... Jeremy thought "Fuckin' Up My Christmas," by MC Chris was a "very angry song," sung by a woman.

Me: that song's about all the ladies he wants to do
Him: Well I thought it might've been a lesbian
Me: he talks about his wiener a lot for a girl
Him: So do you
Me: touche.......

So... I pretty much feel like a total selfish dick most of the time. A lot of times I go ahead and do the non dickish thing, but I always really want to do the dickish thing.

This time? I really didn't want to go to the new husband's house for Thanksgiving. I guess a lot of people will alternate which place they go to every year if one or more of the families lives out of town. But... I guess I'm weird, I'd rather just stay in town every year and see my family, and have Jeremy go out of town to see his family every year. I have absolutely nothing against them, either, they are nice people. People seem to think it's weird to want to just hang out with your own family every year, Jeremy's mom was especially put out when she thought I was going to do that. I'm not sure why--she would get to see her son twice instead of me once and him once. And I do visit their house on non holiday occasions, and hung out with them in town the one time Jeremy guilted them into visiting us instead of vice versa. I don't feel that bad not seeing Jeremy on the actual holiday, as we can hang out beforehand, afterwards, and basically all the time, because that is the way we are.

So here's why I just didn't want to:

--I hate the 2 hour drive
--I hate sleeping in a strange bed
--The room they put us in has no door, and they get up and start making noise around 5 or 6 a.m. Often times they get annoyed with us if we try to stay in too long anyway, I guess they don't understand non-morning people.
--I hate talking to strangers. And there were going to be a bunch of cousins and aunts & uncles and stuff there I didn't know. And time with friends of Jeremy, who I know a little bit better, but not that much.
--I like my alone time.... I love Jeremy but we spend ALL our time together. Once in awhile I like to be alone.
--I just wanted to relax and do that much... that 4 day break for Thanksgiving? About the longest break I've gotten since I don't go to school anymore. You have vacation days, of course, but most of them are filled with activities and traveling, which is a lot of work.

But... my dad's shoulder was hurt, so he didn't want to cook thanksgiving turkey like he usually does. So we were going to add in his girlfriend and my sister--who both have other things actually going on actual thanksgiving. Due to the delayed thanksgiving, I went to actual thanksgiving at Jeremy's parents. Anyway, it actually turned out pretty well, and wasn't annoying as I thought it would be. So I guess it's going to be an every year thing now, because my family liked being able to get together too (previously, my sis had troubles, as her husband's two families also do it on the day and 3 were too many for her, and I know dad's girlfriend likes being involved).

Get ready for an epic-length blog post. I got married, then had my honeymoon. So that's a lot.

Wedding: Superb. Everything went pretty much according to plan. We got off to a slightly slow start because I forgot my fancy underpants that go under the dress to make it look nice. When that's the worst thing that happens... you've done pretty well.

Anyway, first off: Julie showed up the weekend before and attended my rawesome bachelorette party. She brought an awesome mix-cd with a fantastic hand drawn polar bear winking, that said "Bearrorism" (in joke). The party was planned and facilitated by my friends Wendy, Diana, and Jenny. Wendy & Diana made postcard invitations with Cthulu on them (in joke). They are beautiful, I love having such arty friends. Esp. since they actually made a Cthulu pinata too! Jenny made tons of delicious food! We went to Curtis Orchard and we picked apples, my sister was there for that part too. And we stopped at Lake of the Woods and fed the Koi there. Then after Lori (sister) left, we ate a bunch and busted up the pinata that had candy and tastiness.

Then, the weekend of: Lothar, Pat & D, and Ryan & Brooke showed up. We had good times, and a tasty rehearsal dinner at Mandarin garden. It felt like we were at the "kid's table" because it was mostly us and our friends at one table, and then our actual family at another table. At the rehearsal, the 'Phew almost ran off after an ice cream truck, but did a serviceable ring bearer job. There were a ton of buckeyes around the field, and I was afraid of tripping on them, but Lothar decided to be our official Buckeye Commando and rid the field of them beforehand.

Then, the day of: wonderful! We got our hair & makeup done. The 'Phew wanted to get his hair done too, so he got a mohawk! It was so cute--I wasn't sure if Jeremy would like it, but he loved it too. They did a really good job on my hair and makeup, and my makeup, they actually sort of spray painted on my face, so it was nice and light and didn't feel all annoying like makeup usually does. The 'Phew was really excited about his mohawk and kept singing about it.

We got me into the dress, my photographer was super good, really fast, and incredibly nice. He even cleaned D's camera lens for her. We really liked him and made sure to give him good reviews, and Jenny is considering him for her wedding.

The weather was beautiful, so we could have the wedding outside by the bell tower like we planned. Pat put the fear of God into the 'Phew and he was really good at ringbearing after that, he didn't drop or tip the pillow and was as still as a statue during the ceremony. Pat's speech was awesome, and everything was very wonderful. Jeremy seemed nervous, but he told me afterwards he wasn't very nervous. He was very handsome in his tuxedo and I am glad I have lots of pictures of him in it!

The reception was inside Broadview, which is such a pictoresque place (both inside and out). It was slightly crowded, and one group of people had to eat outside, but otherwise everything went smoothly. It was really fun to see everyone and talk to people, and dance to the music I picked out myself. The caterer did a really great job with the food and cake, and our ushers set everything up wonderfully. Our flowers were beautiful too. Our best man gave a really thoughtful little toast that I really enjoyed. I guess since Jeremy and I planned it I am biased, but I thought it was the best wedding I've ever been to! And, of course, I was really happy anyway to be marrying my Jeremy! We were kind of sad when it was over, but we still had the honeymoon to go!

Honeymoon:

The first day in Rome Jeremy and I were super tired & jet-lagged from traveling all day the previous day, basically. We checked into our bed & breakfast in Rome, Hotel Golden. This was our absolute favorite hotel. As a B & B, it had a lot more character than a regular hotel, without being more expensive. They also had a really good breakfast every day. But most of all, the family that ran it was really nice and friendly. Before we even checked in, one of them had told us how to watch English movies on the hotel TV, find a place to buy metro tickets, find all the nearby metro stops, get to a nearby park, and how to get to all the good restaurants in the area. Anyway, that day, we slept for a few hours, went to the park, and then went back to bed. The park was really nice, it was enormous and had a lot of intriguing statuary, a fountain, a big clock, etc., a lot of old tall trees for shade, and little ice cream stands. I had my first gelato (italian ice cream, it's a little different than American) there. We had some really good food (all the food in Rome we had was really good) at one of the recommended restaurants. Oh, another thing about Italy in general: everyone spoke English (like even beggars), and lots of the signs had English as well. And the people were so nice to us, too. You hear all about how foreigners hate Americans, but it didn't seem like the people we ran into did.

Second day: the first half was a tour of the Ancient Rome area. I say area, because there are only a couple of places where the ancient stuff is really visible. Apparently the Tiber floods and covers things, leaves silt, which covers up existing buildings, and people just kept building things on top of them, so Ancient Rome is underneath modern Rome except for places where people dug it up, and mostly they only dug up the area round the forum. The Colosseum, which I guess was too big to be buried, happened to be in that area as well. The C. was impressive, I was glad to see it. I think it hit me that I was in Rome when we drove by it on the way from the airport, just like it was any other building, but it was the motherfucking Coliseum! It is sort of busted up when you look at it up close, especially inside. The barbarians sacked and looted it, people who wanted weapons hacked into it to melt down the iron framework inside, and various popes took out the marble stairs and other things to use as paving in other buildings. A lot of the ancient things we saw in Rome had been victims of this "recycling," as they put it. There's also part of the top missing, as most people can see even from pictures, thanks to an earthquake. But it's still amazing, that building has weathered all that and more, it's over 5,000 years, and I got to see it! The Romans really built to last... its so well put together that it didn't need the iron. They even earthquake-proofed it somewhat by putting sand and lard in the cracks between stones. They used good stone and strong arches. Which, though Roman's use arches in just about everything they make, because it is one of the strongest structures in architecture, we learned that they actually got the idea from the Etruscans, a people they conquered early on. That seemed to be another common thing the Romans did, learn from the best of what they encountered and use it themselves.

Then we had a tour of some crypts and catacombs, it was actually free, some other tourists had paid for it but didn't want to see it and Jeremy really wanted to. The first stop was the biggest catacombs (I can't remember the name, they have multiple catacombs). I wasn't that impressed--it's basically a burial ground for early Christians. But the barbarians busted it up, so everything was gone, just holes in the wall where bodies had been. The second stop was a temple where you could see the effect I mentioned earlier, with the Tiber covering everything. Because at the top was a 14th century church. It had been built on top of a 6th century church. That was built on top of a 3rd century pagan temple. Which was built on top of a 1st century building where grain was counted. It was really cool to see the different layers. There was even water flowing through the 1st century building you could drink, there was still a working aqueduct connected to it--and that's actually how this other stuff was found, a priest working in the church on the top could hear the water, and no one else could. He thought he was going crazy, and ended up digging up the floor to see where the noise was coming from. The last stop was this Capuchin monastery. They moved from a different monastery, and when they did they took all the previous monks who had died at the prev. monastery. They actually used their bones to make elaborate designs on the wall, and things as complicated as chandeliers. And after that, every time a monk died they'd do some process or other to clean up the bones, and they would go on the wall too. It was admittedly creepy, but it was a very interesting sight. They had lots of symbols and things, and in the last room they pretty much come out and say it: "What you are, we were. What we are, you will be." There were even children's bones (the family had donated them) to show that it doesn't mater what age you are, death comes for everyone. So basically, life is fleeting, make what you do count. There were also images of rebirth as well, because in the Christian faith, your death is only the beginning of your eternal life afterwards. I thought it was an uplifting message, and an interesting way to go about it.

3rd: The Vatican. It is hard to begin to describe everything I saw there. There are rooms upon rooms, and every pope since it was built has added something to it. For instance, Jean-Paul was nice and added a better entranceway for people to go in. Pope Sistus(sp?) created the Sistine Chapel (though it was a later pope who commissioned the famous ceiling artwork for it). And then there were popes who would basically put there name or coat of arms all over everything a previous pope made and pretend they did it. I esp. loved this guy who had a bee as his coat of arms (yeah not sure why, like Jean-Paul had an M for the virgin Mary, some other guy had a dragon, etc. etc. not sure why some other pope loved bees so much) who then proceeded to put bees on EVERYTHING so that people would think he did it. So if you go to Rome you'll randomly walk up to a fountain and see bees carved into it, or if you go up to half of the paintings or pictures in the Vatican, you'll see that guy's bees.

But some of the best places were: the Raphael rooms, paintings by Raphael that are pretty much the epitome of Renaissance painting. One painting of his, for the library, had pictures of basically the best teachers of everything. So, Alexander the great for military science, Pythagoras for math, etc. He put Leonardo Da Vinci's face on Socrates. He and Michelangelo were rivals, he worked on this painting around the time Michelangelo was doing the sistine chapel, and out of respect he actually went back in after M. finished the Sistine chapel ceiling and painted him in as the best artist to go in the painting. In the painting M. is wearing boots, because he was always wearing them and even took them off and threw them at Raphael once.

The Sistine Chapel, of course. The funny thing is: M. had never painted before that. He was a sculptor! But the pope had commissioned him for something else that didn't work out, and decided to make M. paint instead. Can you imagine being a sculptor who had never formally painted anything before and your first try ends up being the Sistine Chapel ceiling? I can see why Raphael was impressed. There are also some beautiful pictures on the sides of the walls that other artists, including Botticelli, made. One side is stories from the old testament, the other is stories from the new. The ceiling goes from God creating everything (including the famous Adam & God picture) to a scene where Noah accidently created wine and is drunk. Two of his sons are being jerks and laughing at him, whereas the other son is being good and covering him with a blanket. It is supposed to show that two are bad, and one is good, but because of Jesus, even the bad behavior can be forgiven and people can be saved. And at the sides there are pictures of prophets sort of leading the eye down to the pictures I mentioned on the side. She told us also how some of the first stuff M. did was smaller, because it looked good from where he was, but from the ground you can't see all the detail (esp. this dove that is on the top of Noah's ark). Then the other half (including the famous one with Adam and God) is large so you can see the details even from the floor.
There is another painting by M. of the last judgement as well; 30 years later they made him paint again even though he didn't want to. What changed his mind? A looot of money!

St. Peters Basilica: where to start?? The dome itself is just covered in decoration, it was done in the baroque style---which means not a square inch is unornamented. Bernini did so much sculpture. Michelangelo actually engineered the dome itself. It was supposed to be larger than any other dome in Rome, but is actually (though taller) slightly narrower than that of the pantheon, as the pantheon has a hole cut out the top that makes it stronger to do things like that. Also, nothing taller than the dome was allowed to be built near it later. This was actually a re-do, the orig. basilica was made during emperor Constantine's time, but the pope who tore everything down and rebuilt it was trying to erase the memory of a crappy previous pope from the infamous Borgia family. I hadn't known this, but it is actually built on top of St. Peter's grave. Christians had guarded his grave for a long time; didn't want people to know where it was and destroy it, but Constantine asked them for the information, and they let him build St. Peter's basilica there. Since then, archeologists have dug under there, and they did find a skeleton that was missing feet (as Peter was, because he was crucified upside down and his feet were nailed so much to keep his body there that they couldn't get his body off without cutting off his feet). There was a marvelous bronze altar by Bernini, it was made from melting down statues at the Pantheon. My favorite part of the basilica, though, was probably Michelangelo's Pieta, a sculpture of Mary holding Jesus after he had been crucified. I am really not religious, but I found this (and the other religious works I have mentioned/will mention) absolutely gorgeous and amazing.

4th: This day was a little lighter (thank god, my feet were killing me by then). We rode around the city on a double decker bus tour and got to see the city over all. We stopped off to throw a coin in the trevi fountain, and we also saw the Pantheon (this is one of the better preserved pagan temples because it was converted fairly early on into a church). We had a really nice, special dinner, including some Limoncello! Yum! (by the way, the food everywhere in Rome was really good!)

Next day: We spent most of this day on the train to Venice. When we got there, we walked around a little bit down the main street along the grand canal, did some shopping, and went to bed. Venice was nice, and picturesque, but it was kind of sad. There are very few actual natives living there anymore, the population is only 50,000. A lot of the buildings are in disrepair because it costs over 500,000 to get even the worst house (and millions for the really fancy ones), so no one can afford to buy them. Plus, with them being on those canals and all, it costs even more to fix them up and maintain them properly. But yet it was super crowded--because there are so many tourists who want to see it. And everywhere you went were street vendors in your face, very few real businesses just streets crammed full of hotels, souvenir shops, and restaurants. I think I would've liked to have seen Venice at its height. Speaking of height: it's also sinking, which causes a lot of problems as well. There were still nice bits too, though. We visited islands in the lagoon, they were less crowded. Murano had some sweet glass making factories, we got to see how it was done, and they had some beautiful & elaborate things made of glass. Burano has historically been known for it's lace, and we saw some of it at their lace museum. It also had a lot of random cute cats running around, we started calling it cat island. The houses were really pretty, they were much plainer than in Venice proper, but were all painted beautiful bright colors. Torcello was probably the least populated of the islands. They only had one cat, except he was much friendlier than the cats of Burano. He walked right up to us and let us pet him. We decided the cats of cat island made fun of him for liking humans, so he was kicked off to live on Torcello. But now he's the king of Torcello and gets to be petted by all the humans he wants. We had a "hidden Venice" tour of less famous things, including the "tits bridge" where the prostitutes used to hang out. Also we got to see the Friar's church, which had some beautiful works by Bellini and another artist whose name I can unfortunately not remember. We never had a gondola ride, mostly because Jeremy got angry at one of the restaurants--they charged us over 100 euros for a fish, which we did not expect. It was crazy--more expensive than the really nice place we went to in Rome where we got some fancy booze in addition to the meal.

Then we took the sleeper train to Paris! Unfortunately I caught a cold in Venice, so the first few days in Paris were somewhat uncomfortable--though I did eventually find some cold medicine, which made it a lot better. We did keep a rather light load though. The first day we saw the Louvre--that was exhausting in my sick state, but worth it. I saw the Mona Lisa (the most famous thing there) but I've never been a big fan. I did love seeing Hammurabi's code (I know I'm a nerd) and all sorts of art. The next day we saw a lot of Paris via hop on hop off bus, it is definitely the most beautiful city I've ever been in. I also saw Notre Dame and Sainte Chapppelle that day. Notre Dame has beautiful stained glass, and Sainte Chappelle even more so (S.C. is known for its glass and the glass is even more beautiful than N.D., though of course the architecture there is not as fancy). Then the next day we saw the Arc D'Triomphe and the Musee D'Orsay. I really loved Orsay, they have a lot of post impressionist art that I am into, such as Van Gogh and Georges Seurat. We also saw the Eiffel tower! It was wonderful, you can see everything from there. Jeremy got nervous (he's afraid of heights) and had to leave, but I certainly enjoyed it!

Lastly, but not leastly: Versailles. What a beautiful palace, but to my surprise, the gardens were even more beautiful than all the gold and decoration inside. First of all, they are HUGE, like way bigger than the palace which is of course large, being that it is a palace. And every inch had something interesting or beautiful to look at. I don't even want to know what it costs to keep it up!

Then we flew home! Anyway, I really liked Paris, it was my favorite. If you notice it's a little more lean on details: I kind of got tired after vomitting out this huge post, stopped for a month, and then resumed just now. So... the details aren't as fresh in my brain. Good times had by all!

I am terrible, terrible, terrible at remembering to blog. And then when I do, it's not necessarily anything that great :P

Anyway, I needed to share with the like.... two people who read this, something awesome:

Ben Folds covering Keisha's Sleazy. At this point, good singers doing covers of shitty rap songs has been done a ton, but I always am tickled when he does it. I found this amusing and surprisingly good considering that even though I've never heard the orig. I have this wacky idea that it's probably terrible. The video isn't particularly hilarious or anything, but whatever.



And I found something else somewhat cool, someone splicing together a ton of people at his concerts doing this sort of acapella version of one of his songs.



If you want to hear his most hilarious shitty rap turned soulful ballad, there's always Bitches Ain't Shit



Oh, what the hell, while I'm doing it, Ice Ice Baby, unplugged, by Ben Kweller



Jonathan Coulton, doing Baby Got Back



This one is just hilarious because.... the orig. rap lyrics are fucking crazy. I mean, the rap lyrics of the aforementioned are dumb, but.... not that weird. This song is dumb AND weird, and hearing it sung by someone mocking it is pretty hilarious in my book.



And this isn't rap, but it always makes me laugh because I can tell they are about to crack up while they're singing it.



Ok, I'm done. You fuckers better watch at least one of these!

Kirk (Jeremy's cat) is so gross. He throws up at least once a week and when he does it's like, 6 times, all over the house. I told Jeremy he needs to see a vet, but Jeremy says that some cats just throw up all the time and he doesn't want to pay all that money to be told that there's nothing that can be done.

Fine. Whatever. Jeremy has to clean it. Even when Jeremy's not around I leave it for him to clean up later. Which is the cat's favorite time to throw up anyway. He's a nervous cat and misses Jeremy when he's gone for the weekend or whatever and it makes him throw up even more.

Except.... this time he threw up a tiny bit like, everywhere in the house. He threw up 7 little times. And I kept stepping in it so I was like "FUCK I'll clean it up." I had no idea what I was in for. His throw up doesn't smell from far away.... but when you're up close and personal trying to scrub it out of the carpet (yeah, of course the one place he didn't throw up was the tile) it smells disgusting. I don't think I can ever get that smell out of my nose.

So.... yeah. Also he usually does one big throw up right at the get go. That one I was going to leave.... but of course, it's in his actual food bowl. So yay I get to clean that up as well.

I know I'm whiney, it's just cat puke, I should suck it up and deal with it. But ugh... so gross.

Oh, also another reason why I am a terrible human being:

the other day I thought, "Gun to my head, if I had to make out with a Nazi.... it would be Joseph Goebbels."

So I tried to get off the antidepressants. Scratch that... I did get off the antidepressants. For awhile, actually. Long enough that I was out of the withdrawal zone. And.... I ended up depressed again. I was crying at work. Over being fat of all things... (I'm not super-fat or anything, but in the last few years I've gained a ton of weight, and it's all gone to my gut. Clothes don't fit well or feel comfortable even when I buy bigger ones. And the thing about gut fat... it does not go away. You exercise and diet.... and lose your boob fat first. I could lose weight and just end up being skinnier overall but still have my gut. I don't know what to do and it is extremely frustrating. I also feel horrible about myself that I have no willpower and don't exercise or diet to keep it from getting worse).

So... crying in the bathroom, hiding crying at my desk from my coworkers.... it's like before I got on the antidepressants all over again. I feel dumb, because back when I first got on them, I had a reason to be depressed. Now... I'm just sad that I'm fat. It's stupid.

But anyway I went back on them.

In other news, I think I'm going to be switched to the true day shift at work soon. I had the choice to stay on the old shift, and it was tempting, but I never get to see my sister & her kids. All of our hanging out revolves around eating dinner, and they eat dinner at 5. So... yeah, I mostly haven't seen them except for holidays since I started at the CRC about 4 years ago. What do you bet I still don't see them? My sister never invites me over, but having her whole family come to my house is problematic at best. Her kids don't behave themselves at restaurants, and I feel weird just inviting myself over to her house. But I guess I'm going to sooner or later. I want to see my dad more too. He started dating a lady, I started dating a dude, and we stopped hanging out near as much.

The drawback: having to get up early.

So I finally have my license back, and I'm now insured by Geico at an exorbitant rate because of my previous mishaps. My previous insurer dropped me completely while my license was suspended. I feel sort of traitoresque saying this, as I worked for my previous insurance co., but: GEICO IS WAY BETTER.

Seriously. They are cheaper. And SO convenient.... I bought it online and can access all of my info online. Of course, I will not be saying this at work ;) Seriously though... my insurance company is one of the biggest. How have they not freaking made it possible to buy insurance online yet? I hate talking to people I just want to get it done. I know that's a horrible attitude to have, and I know it costs the people who would be manning those phones a job, but I'm not the only one, and they're missing out on selling insurance to people like me.

The real bummer is I looked at a couple of websites and got a couple of quotes, and I had to provide my phone number and now people are calling me 5 times a day to get me to buy their stupid insurance.

It really does feel good to drive again, though. I was tired of being so dependent on other people to get anywhere. Though with gas prices going nuts, I'm not sure how much I will actually be driving.

So tired....

I love, love, love Jeremy but sleeping in the same bed as him can be problematic even at the best of times. I feel bad mentioning it to him or on here, but I mentioned it to someone once and they said he'd feel worse if I was keeping something from him. I told him that and he agreed.

But there's no solution that I can think of. Even if we wanted to be lameass frigid WASPS from the 50's who sleep in separate beds, there's nowhere to do so. The room with the couch has a rabbit who likes to loudly move things around his cage all night. The room with a futon has a cat who would walk all over me and claw my face all night, or if moved, meow and scratch at the door (either mine or Jeremy's) aall night.

And there's nothing Jeremy can do, I don't think. I mean, if he could control flinging limbs onto me, rolling over me, stealing the blankets, general tossing and turning, etc, he wouldn't do it in the first place.

I wish I weren't an insomniac... that's a bother even when Jeremy isn't aggravating it. It takes me forever to get to sleep. And sometimes when I'm woken up in the middle of the night, I can fall back asleep again, and sometimes I can't. Also, I might be wrong, but I think the way sleep works it's bad to be interrupted a lot, with REM cycles and all that. I know I feel tireder if I get interrupted a bunch than if I just have a smaller total time with no interruptions. Also I think it's cumulative... one night with almost no sleep is not as bad for me as several nights in a row of mediocre sleep.

So yeah... first night: Jeremy tossed and turned a fuck ton. He was tired too in the morning, and didn't know why till I told him what he'd be doing all night.
Next night: his parents house. I have trouble anyway in strange places, and I guess he did too.
Next night: Home again, but he was extremely sore from a workout he got at his parents house, and couldn't find a comfortable position.
Last night: same.

I really, really envy people who can fall asleep whenever they want to, and can ignore their partner's movements. Even when Jeremy's not being that bad, I find it hard to sleep through his movements. Even when there's no Jeremy it takes me at least an hour to fall asleep initially, more if it's a bad night. Is it that much at ask for to just get some good sleep?

Oh and of course it's also hard to sleep right now because I have my insanely itchy welt I now get every two weeks because of the medicine I take, that I now have to take forever. The medicine that also puts one at an increased risk of leukemia. Because if I'm not doing everything I can about my stupid colon disease (which, if unchecked increases one's chance of colon cancer--so I guess it's a trade off) my stupid job won't let me get my absences covered by FMLA. But this itch is literally so bad that I would rather have a day of bowel clenching pain every week than itching so bad exactly half my time on earth that I think I am going to go blind, and certainly know that I'm driven to distraction. It's impossible to think of anything else.

Whine whine whine. Whatever.

So I gave this blog address to a friend. I remember how nervous I used to be to do that, because I was worried I'd want to talk smack about that friend in the future and be unable to do it. Yeah, I'm a great person.

But I don't blog enough anymore to be laying down the smack and I don't really have any friends who currently need smack so it's okay.

If he reads it, that will bring it up to a grand total of two people who read this (not counting me), I think. I know Jeremy used to read it but now that we live together I think he thinks he knows what's going on with me and doesn't need to read it. Which is probably true, I rarely have an unexpressed thought :/

And then a lot of my other friends gave up reading it when I stopped posting as much. Tina (what did I do to deserve a friend like you, Tina?) seems to be the only one.

I'm not upset or anything. It just sometimes makes me wonder if I'm too vain, all writing about the ins and outs of my life when not too many would care. But I feel bad stopping. So I guess I won't!

In other news: health has gotten a lot better. 2 and a half weeks without missing work now. It's sad that that's a victory, but it is! I'm due to see the doctor tomorrow, I need to ask him about the itchy welts the medication gives me at the injection site. But at least I'm not having as many poo issues.

Also yesterday I tripped on the way to work, the same route I always use. I got a hole in my brand new pants. And if you knew how seldom I buy pants, you would be angry about this too. I scraped that knee, bruised the other, and scraped up my hand too.

Sick sick sick always sick. With me if it's not one thing it's another. The colitis was getting better... then I stupidly decided to try to wean myself off the antidepressants. Terrible migraines, moodswings, hot flashes etc.

Finally leveled out on that a bit....

And the colitis kicks in again. What the fuck, man.

I feel bad because I've been missing a lot of work. To be honest, I think I'm very close to getting the "one last warning" before I get fired. Otherwise known as getting "shielded." Yeah, I don't know why the shit they call it that, my company has it's own weird names for just about everything. I've gotten some verbal/written warnings already.

They can't fire you for having a disability covered by FMLA, but the system for FMLA is very draconian (which I understand, if you could just get it for little to no reason it would be very abused) and I'm losing the battle. They get the wrong information from a nurse working for my doctor (I wish they'd talk to him directly), who doesn't always have the down to the minute info on me or what the drugs are doing that week. Plus, I've always had the problem that my colitis acts relatively erratically. So asking someone who doesn't have my colon what's going on with said colon is bound to get you incorrect answers.

Then there's paperwork that needs to be filed and things that need to get done on time. Which.... partially my fault. I'm not good at getting things done that need to be done. I also need documentation from my doctor all the time and when I make appointments they're always two or more weeks in advance because he can't see me sooner. Which makes getting things done on time harder.

So... to sum up: too often sick for non colitis reasons (that cold I had that lasted over a month, migraines in general, migraines from going off antidepressants), too often bad at getting colitis reasons covered in time/correctly. I keep trying to be not sick at all but it is not working that well.

Work is okay in general. Been getting back into music again in a large way, since I spend most of my time at work with my headphones on. Downloaded a lot of free samplers from Amazon and there is a surprisingly large amount of good stuff available for anyone who is willing to sift through it all. Plus Amazon owns my butt anyway, they always get me with their $5.00 album sales. Right now I just bought the new Nada Surf (which, I probably would've bought for full price anyways) and am considering the new-ish New Pornographers. Considering some full albums from bands who had good work on the samplers, too (that's how they get you!). Here's a couple:

The Middle East-Blood

Dan Mangan-Robots

John Vanderslice-White Dove

Jeremy and I have seen a couple good movies lately too. A-Team was about as good as I could've hoped for, you know those remakes don't always pan out. But it had a lot of the heart of the original. No offense to the actor who played B.A., but you were never going to be as good as Mr. T. Everyone else was about as good. I thought I'd feel the same about the new Hannibal, but Liam Neeson was a great choice. Had no particular attachment to the orig. Face, so Bradley Cooper was more than adequate. I was actually surprised at how great the new Murdoch was. I liked the orig. but this guy was good too. I realized partway through the movie that he is the main guy from District 9... his character (as perhaps a reference to District 9) does one line in a South African accent, and I was like, "Holy shiznit, that's the guy!" He must be a great actor... because the character he played in District 9 was very dynamic, he had to change a tremendous amount based on circumstances, while still being believable as the same person. And then Murdoch.... total 180, goofy as hell. The plot wasn't anything special, but it didn't need to be. Things blew up, BA had to be drugged to fly, Face charmed women, Murdoch acted crazy, Hannibal made plans. That's the A team.

I'm such a weirdo.... most exciting thing about planning my wedding? Making the playlist for music for the reception. I'm not even kidding. I mean, I want the other stuff to be good, but I really get into this shit.

Though.... a perverse part of me wants to break out that mix I once made of nothing but Smells Like Teen Spirit covers and call it a day.

Oh... and of course, planning the honeymoon ;) Also, I cried today while looking at pictures of the Eiffel tower. Can you tell I'm in antidepressant withdrawal much? :P

Oh on the last post (what Jeremy would and wouldn't forgive): I forgot to add one of the best parts. I asked him if it was forgivable to punch his grandma in the face. He gave me the benefit of the doubt and asked me why I had hypothetically punched his grandma in the face. Turns out she's hypothetically racist against people who are hypothetically 1/80th Cherokee, 1/80th Irish, or would hypothetically call someone a Polack for having visited Chicago.

Btw, don't know if I mentioned it, but we are engaged now! I am super psyched and stealing just about all my ideas from Juthar's wedding and my sister's wedding, the only two weddings I've ever paid attention at.

So, the other night I was being a jerk to Jeremy (can't remember what I was doing exactly, it's sad that I'm that often a jerk to him) and he said he'd forgive me as long as I gave him a back massage, and phrased it "I'd forgive you anything for a back massage." So of course, I started testing it immediately, and he had to downgrade it to "most things." What if....

I kicked you in the dick (forgiven)

Stabbed you in the dick (not forgiven)

Cut your dick off and made it into a bong (not forgiven)

What if I made a replica of your dick into a bong

(Why do you want a bong you don't smoke drugs?)

Well, I could give it to our friend Jenny

(forgiven, she is into that sort of thing)

She'd probably want one of her boyfriend's dick though. What if I made a replica of Rob's dick into a bong and really had to examine it closely? (forgiven)

Walked around behind you all day dressed as Hitler shouting "he dared me to do this" (forgiven)

Depantsed you at work (not forgiven)

Depantsed you in front of a crowd of strangers (forgiven)

Got drunk and showed people my boobs (forgiven)

Accidently touched another guy's dick (forgiven)

Purposefully touched another guy's dick (not forgiven)

Accidently touched another guy's dick with my mouth (how do you do that?)

Like I'm asleep at a friend's house and a strange guy comes and puts it in there (dude, that sounds like rape, I wouldn't blame you)

Accidently touched another guy's dick with my vagina (I told you I wouldn't blame you for being raped!)

Got ordained to marry people and started marrying gay people (why would I mind?)

Started marrying animals and people (not forgiven)

Started marrying animals to animals (forgiven but you might need psychiatric help)

Started marrying animals of different species to each other (forgiven, it doesn't matter to the animals)

Started marrying animals to people, but made them promise to not have sex with them (no, that's still fucked up)

Burnt down a forest (not forgiven)

But no humans die (not forgiven, how can you know?)

I'm psychic and know no humans die! (the animals and stuff still die. (not forgiven)

I'm psychic and it's the only way to save a bunch of people in the future (forgiven)

I bought you a bunch of Daft Punk CD's (forgiven, I'd just make you return them)

I gave them to Jenny and she played them all the time and you had to hear it (forgiven)

I made Jenny break up with Rob and then introduced her to a member of Daft Punk and she had a kid with him and that kid ended up creating another band that sounded like daft punk (forgiven).

Let your brother have sex with your cat (not forgiven)

I was blackmailed into letting your brother have sex with your cat (forgiven)

Another comic

So, I recently got this animation program called anime studio. I've been looking into flash for awhile and it's like 800 bucks. Anime Studio is 60. So I'm sure it's pretty jenky. But they had it on black friday for 10 bucks and I couldn't resist. I've been experimenting a little (in between toilet visits, I'm home sick today bleh), but you know even the jenky version of animation is complicated. It's interesting though.

But since I am in the creative spirit, I decided to make one of my regular non animated comics. This is actually an idea I had last christmas, but of course was too lazy to do. (click to see whole thing)

Blogger is being a dick, so just click the link

The awesomest thing about having a laptop? Compooping. Pooping and computing at the same time. By which I mean looking up internet porn and pooping. By which I mean masturbating and pooping. Poopturbating?

Seriously though, if you have a disease that causes you to spend a lot of time & painful time at that in the bathroom, you cannot underestimate the value of a distraction whilst pooping.

This post was brought to you by the number 2.

So Jeremy is the sweetest guy in the entire world. I was talking to him on the phone (he's out of town for Thanksgiving) and he mentioned his dad was sick. I sort of half-joked, "Man, I hope you don't get it and then give it to me."

It was half a joke, because I know how douchey it is to be like, "Shit, what if I get it!" when the other person doesn't even have it. You should be worried for them before you even consider getting worried.

It was half serious because Jeremy is fucking superman. I'm not even kidding... dude hardly gets sick and when he does its like for a day. I had a really shitty cold last winter and felt completely fucking awful for a week. He caught it off me, and was like, minorly sick for a couple days. Whereas..... my family is super susceptible to stuff. I, believe it or not, used to be the healthiest person in my family (I believe my sister has surpassed me with the simple act of just not getting a horrible chronic immune disease as I did). And I still had bad colds. Our stupid family treated anyone sick like a fucking leper and was like, not allowed to touch anything. Then I got a disease that fucked up my immune system, and started taking drugs to fix the symptoms, but makes the immune system worse (at least as far as fighting off colds and the like). So yeah...

Anyway, he's the sweetest guy because he said, "yeah, I was worried about you getting it too." What a sweetie :) I pointed out he should be worried for himself and he pointed out what I did just now. But still.... so sweet. I mean, if I have a cold I try not to give it to him, but I never think, "Shit, I hope I don't get this cold because Jeremy could catch it." Maybe one day I'll have a chance at being anywhere near as an awesome human being as he is, but I dunno.

Of course, right after that I was a total dick to him, insofar as I played a minor prank on him. The reason it's dickish is that he's so gullible you feel bad afterwards. A group of his friends that has also become my friends were having a get together and invited him. He said he was out of town, but that they could call me about it. They called me, I went there, we were having fun. Then Jeremy txted me asking if they called. I decided it would be funny to be like, "No, why?" and then have him think they ditched me and wonder why. So he actually called one of them up, they said they didn't invite me after all, and they were playing naked truth or dare. And he wasn't even like, "Really??" he took it it hook line and sinker, he was like, "Oh..." and then got off the phone as soon as he could to avoid further creepy naked truth or dare talk. Then he called me and I told him about it and he was cool, but I felt a little bad afterwards. He's such a sweet guy and I torture him at every opportunity, from stuff like that to attacking him with tickling when he's tired and can't fight back.

Man... I can't remember what the last post I had on here was about and what stuff is probably missing. I don't know that anyone but Tina even reads it anymore, so I could just email her, but I guess I like to have a record for myself too. "Oh, what was I doing thanksgiving Saturday 2010? Being a dick to Jeremy? I'm so nostalgic about it," though hopefully Jeremy will let me be a dick (or actually nice to him, whatever) for years to come.

So, been doing a lot of Christmas shopping. Not really going to go into it on the off chance that someone DOES read this blog ;) but the problem is it makes you want to buy a bunch of crap. So a month or two ago I was looking at amazon for gifts to people and ended up getting rock band. I've wanted that game for a long time but didn't have a playstation and/or enough friends to play it, but now Jeremy's PS2 (and the PS3 he'll get from his mom for xmas) lives here so I ponyed up the ridiculous amount of cash needed. There was a sale and I was like, "I have to buy it now." I'm such a sucker. That is also how I ended up preordering dragonage II.

I dunno.... I used to try to save money even when I didn't need to, because I feel like it's a virtue and you should know how to live on a budget in case you fall on hard times. And I mean, I can save money, even have before while making a lot less. But lately I'm like "fuck it." I saved up for school, that didn't happen. Got money when my mom died. Now my dad has to start taking deductions from his IRA and doesn't need it that badly so said he would probably be splitting the payments between me and my sister as sort of an early inheritance deal (which, the condo I'm living in is part of my inheritance too, and at the same time he set aside the same amount he spent on the condo for my sister--yeah, my family is way richer than I ever knew growing up). So yeah I need a new car someday, and I'd like to take a bitchin' vacation somewhere not on this continent someday, but I have more than I really need to save right now. That's what I tell myself anyway, I guess I could have colitis related difficulties or something down the line and not be able to work but that would suuuuuuck.

Which, I'm kind of peeved, I've been missing a lot of work (which I already don't like) and now the doctor told them it doesn't need to be protected by FMLA because I'm on this new medication that I have to fucking inject myself with (which supposedly one of the side effects is an increased chance at leukemia) and should be getting better. Should, dude. Not actually happening though. So I have to fucking talk all that shit out and miss more work to actually see the doctor and that's going to be awesome. But I really don't want to go onto the next medication he'll probably suggest, which involves getting an IV infusion for several hours at the hospital every two weeks either.

In other news I have had crazy trouble sleeping this holiday weekend.

Oh yeah, my actual thanksgiving was nice, had the traditional dinner with my dad. We are going to eat some take out at my sister's or something tomorrow (she stopped attending her own family's thanksgiving on the actual day years before mom even passed cause she had to be dragged to both of her husband's parent's separate thanksgivings) for our thanksgiving with her.

Last but not least: 007 is exceptionally cute today. So you know that is motherfucking cute!

Guh.... stupid facebook. I randomly looked up my friends from high school. And they are all: better looking, married and/or have kids.

I dunno, I don't really want kids, but having kids is a sign you've moved on in your life, you're an actual adult. You're a grown up.

And they all look good, while I look fat and tired. Which, I am fatter and tireder than I was, and I guess they aren't. So there you go.

Anyway, just more reinforcement on me not wanting to go to the upcoming reunion. It's too much money to begin with ($20 bucks, $40 if I want to bring Jeremy to prove that I'm not a total loser and at least have a boyfriend). I'm not poor or anything, I can afford it, but I only want to drop that much money for something I'd really enjoy...... like the Sufjan Stevens concert I recently dropped like 80 bucks on for us to go and see (eee! I'm excited!). And again, it's easy to convince myself that all the dicks who were jerks to me back then have shitty lives now... if I don't actually run into them and find out about their fabulous lives. And old friends I want to see how they're doing? I can just facebook them.... which is what I was doing when I concluded that they are all doing better than I am, just now.

I dunno. I've had a rough couple years (mom passing away, shitty job, etc), but things are beginning to look up a little (great boyfriend, new job) so maybe when next reunion comes up I will feel better about things.