Wednesday, April 30, 2008

idk

i really don't know what to write about today. if anything. this morning i was definitely feeling in need of a mini-vacation. i just want a few days, weeks, months of a break. i could sleep in, clear out the crawlspace, recuperate a little. a hotel would be nice. and not one of those vacations where you need a vacation to unwind from your time off either.
if i didn't have all these doctors appointments & the upcoming wedding next month maybe i could take another day or two off. but is it ever enough? i don't suppose it is when you're completely unsatisfied in your job & have no idea what you want to do when you grow up. especially when you don't feel like you're a grown up when you're pushing thirty.

hope everyone has the opportunity to take a vacation, mental or physical, some time soon.

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Monday, April 28, 2008

hormonal

so i know i've been regularly down in the dumps. today is much the same, particularly as i am anticipating the curse my monthly reminder of the glories of womanhood.
what set me off this time was the fact that my saved voicemail messages, some of which i'd been keeping for over a year and a half, are no more. i realized that i no longer got the message to access saved voicemails after checking my mail & wrote to verizon customer service. they said i'd have to call tech support, so i did that today on lunch. 20 minutes (which is actually a pretty reasonable time) of working with bryan (brian?), he discovered that indeed my voicemail was working fine. though he was surprised to discover that it only saves for a maximum of 21 days. messages from my brother for my birthday, the first voicemail from s & others. *sigh*

"hi m. it's s. i went out with some friends last night and i forgot my phone so that's why i missed, that's why i missed your call. it's not that i didn't call; it's just that i didn't have my phone. i'll talk to you later.
"waking up with you in my arms was a wonderful feeling. *muah*"

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Sunday, April 27, 2008

mouse potato

ergh! i need to get off this couch or at the very least get this roasting 'puter off my lap. things need to get done & that's (barely) happening when i hit refresh every 5 minutes or less.
i'll watch the next 3 innings of the cubs v. nationals game, then get dressed & go outside to enjoy the nice sunday weather & finish my book (that i claimed i was going to finish yesterday, but instead surfed the interwebs until i had to get ready for the party). no wonder i don't getting any 'real' writing done anymore. i'm too busy accomplishing nothing checking my e-mail/facebook/blog comments.

i need an intervention. unplug the computer, maren.
do it now.
m-out.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

sesquicentennial post

isn't that, like, the best word ever? this is my 150th post on this blog. and since it's been around for 3 years that's only an average of about 50 posts per annum. barely one a week. pathetic compared to some of my awesome bloggy friends who even post multiple times per day.
not much going on. still in the dumps over you-know-who, planning to go to a sushi dance party tonight & i'll be helping to prep the food, it's a gorgeous saturday & i just got my hair cut (haven't had even a trim since december & whoa does it feel good-i got a good chop-chop on my last terrible breakup, which was nothing in comparison to this one & that was incredibly cathartic), saw s this morning & hopefully he'll come to the party tonight because i don't want to be the only one with custody to 'our friends'.
i'm letting the breeze blow through the apartment & i plan to finish reading my book (agatha christie-lord edgware dies). then maybe a nice, not too sweaty because i don't want to ruin the beautiful smoothness that is my hair, workout. little nap & off to the par-tay! a good saturday all around.

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Monday, April 21, 2008

chiro

this morning i called to see when i could get an appointment with one of the two chiro docs i e-mailed last week. the options were the older, traditional doc & the younger one at the hippy place where i had acupuncture 4 weeks ago. i agreed w/ s that i sorta lean towards the hippy-ish one for that sortof treatment, but i'd had two recommendations for the other one. thought i'd go to both of them & see who i was more comfortable with. well, i tried the older one's office first & no one answered the phone, so i called the hippy place & the receptionist said he'd check with the doctor since i requested a later appointment. he called me right back & said the doc could see me at 4.30 today. howdy! sure since my shoulder was twinging a bit.
so i skipped lunch and left work early. i end up being quite chatty with doctors. maybe it's nerves or something. i mean, he was asking me questions, so felt obligated to answer them thorougly. ha!
anyway, dr. r made me feel very comfortable as this was my first official chiro appointment. he used a technique my friend e in chiropractic school recommended where he put these wedges under certain parts of my body. then he clicked me with this gun, button-looking thingy along my spine & neck. feels pretty good & i'm headed back on wednesday for a check to make sure i'm still aligned.
this isn't just for my cricky shoulder, but to assist with my joint inflammation & the gi stuff. and i also asked if he ever treated ptsd because my friend e had mentioned that they do that kinda thing too. yep, he said they have lots of things to do for it. that's good.

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

crying hangover

oh, the hyperventilating. and the headache. lord, the headache.
i just spent the last 3 hours crying. s pretty much told me that his feelings for me have faded (as if they hadn't when he originally broke up with me 2 months ago.) he was just more adamant about it this time because i asked some direct questions.
there's still some possibility that this is all ptsd-related, but i can't pin my hopes on that like i kinda had been.
i am so spent. how am i supposed to find someone else i can be that comfortable with? no one has made me feel more like my true self in 29 years.
addendum~and apparently s called my friend m & told her that i was upset & asked if she'd call me to see if i needed to talk. d@mn him! why does he have to go & be nice like that?

it should have been me that made it with you/sadly all my dreams turned blue/it should have been me that made it with you/but that's not your point of view---'blue' the clarks

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Friday, April 18, 2008

am i overreacting?

this is only my most recent note to my landlord about the dude who lives above me.

3/17/08-once again, disturbances from the apartment upstairs woke me from a deep sleep. on sunday evening/monday morning at 3:30am, i woke to the sound of music reverberating through my ceiling. loud talking between at least two people and the sound of walking/thumping continued for approximately 40 minutes. it also sounds as though the stereo that is the brunt of the problem is located in or near the bedroom area, which is the main cause of my problem. since the beginning of the year, i have had to pound on my ceiling on a number of occasions to stop the noise.
this has been going on, off and on, since at least september of last year. i have neglected to document each of these occurrences because i hoped that they would at some point stop. i don’t think it’s too much to ask that noise levels between the hours of 10pm to 6am are maintained at a reasonable level, if not during the entire day.
thank you again for your consideration of this matter.
sincerely,
me
xxx x dxxxxx street
apartment 2
3/26/08 at 1:20am-music and bass vibrating through my ceiling wake me up. it sounded like there were multiple people in the apartment above. after 20 minutes of this, i pounded on the ceiling for approximately a minute to get them to stop or at least turn down the music to a reasonable level.
4:45am-again, the same morning, i heard loud talking, singing and yelling (“woooo! woooo!”) from upstairs. being unable to return to sleep after more than 15 minutes, i had to pound on the ceiling again.
4/8/08 at 10:10pm-music at an unacceptable level began playing from the upstairs apartment. the tenant also started singing along loudly in spanish. the noise is so great that i was able to distinguish specific words that he was singing. persistent stomping also rattles my bedroom as though someone is going to break through the ceiling. the music and singing continued until well past 11:30pm when i had to pound on the ceiling repetitively to get him to stop.
4/17/08 at 10:22pm-loud music started playing after i was in bed and my apartment shakes from the reverberation. i pounded on the ceiling within a couple of minutes. i could hear someone moving around in the bathroom, then water running & then the music stopped.
4/18/08 at 2:47am-stomping and loud coughing/retching noises woke me from a sound sleep. thuds, stumbling and tripping noises continued and then someone shouting “woo, woo-woo!” came through clearly, more than half a dozen times. music began playing noisily. i pounded on the ceiling again and waited for a response. after ten minutes the clamor continued, so i pounded harder and bruised my wrist on the texturized ceiling. this was my own fault. i waited and the music stopped, but was followed by a “boom! boom! boom!”, which could only be made by someone jumping, waiting a few seconds and jumping again. three times i heard a male voice curse audibly in spanish, using the word b#tch or whore (puta). i can only assume this was directed at me. finally, the noise subsided and i was able to try to go back to sleep after that unsettling incident.
i can't bear the idea that i’m bothering you with so many complaints as i have onsidered this my home for the past 6 years. especially after this experience, i am quite concerned for my security in my own apartment. i worry that by reporting these disturbances, i am only opening myself up to further retaliation.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

fallout

not that it hasn't been in the back of my mind, if not the forefront, but this article & this one only served to elucidate my feelings.
i guess i've known for quite some time that the va sucks in treating veterans properly. this point was brought home to me probably as much as two decades ago by an elderly neighbor who served in wwii as a decoder (sorry, not sure of the correct terminology. she decoded both messages announcing v-e day & v-j day, along with many, many more, i'm sure. she had plenty of health issues, severe asthma particulary, and she had to travel 200 miles to get to the state va every time she actually had an appointment. considering she was in her 70s then, it made things incredibly difficult.
now our veterans who've served in iraq & afghanistan are getting screwed over, even if they make it back. if they're not suffering from some physical injuries (from loss of limb to hearing loss), a huge percentage have mental health issues (ptsd, depression) that need to be treated as seriously as any physical ailment. according to the article more than 300,000 vets & only about half have sought help. i know this from personal experience with both my brother & s. my brother would never admit to any kind of stress. he's just that kind of tough guy. i don't even know half of the stories that my parents do about his time in iraq & i'm sure that's only a fraction of what horrors he actually experienced. in s' case, he's been on antidepressants for over a year and sees a psychiatrist for therapy monthly. the nice little chart of symptoms for ptsd states: "feeling numb & loss of interest in relationships & activities, feeling on edge, getting angry easily, having a hard time sleeping, and overreacting when startled" and for traumatic brain injury: "changes in mood & behavior, trouble remembering & concentrating"
huh, doesn't sound familiar at all to me. nope, i don't know anyone to whom that applies.
i'm so glad that s is getting the treatment that he needs, but other veterans are having trouble finding therapists who will be compensated by their insurance. i imagine that this doesn't help keep the suicide rates down if it takes months to find someone to counsel you.
healthcare in general is abysmal, but we need to do more. the government needs to do more. i just wish i knew what that were.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

burritos will kill me

so i've now had two ginormous 1.1lb steak burritos from chipotle in as many days. they delivered an order free to the clinic yesterday. (either they're hurting for business because last month they had a free to any hospital employee day too or looking for more business orders.) so i had my tasty & calorically immense burrito for lunch yesterday. one of the nurses was gone since last week & thus, i took hers home tonight & totally maowed (sic?) down on it.
i think, with all the rice & black beans, my digestive system will cause great difficulties & rebel against me. also, i will have to work out doubly hard (see last post) tonight. urgh! bad mar!

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

well-being

thought i'd jot down a quick post before i get going on a before-bed workout. probably not the best thing to get all hyped up just before i need to go to sleep, but at least i'm going to do some sort of exercise. especially after the free chipotle burrito for lunch (860+ calories!?!) and um, the er, milky way i ate after work. derr...
so the general idea of this post is that i need to focus on my well-being: physical, mental, emotional. the workout is obviously the physical side. mental, i'm gonna say is the writing part, even if it is just this dull little blurb at the end of the day. that and the emotional third are the things that are the most difficult to focus on for me. i never in a kajillion years thought that i'd find a physical (however puny) workout would be the "easiest" part of my life. i'm definitely not saying that i'm satisfied with my weight, shape or anything like that, but working out is something i actually enjoy & look forward to doing it as often as i can. when i'm not being terribly lazy on the interwebs.
at this point, i have no idea how to fix or aid the emotional side. that's something that's in disarray solely because of my relational turmoil. little as i've posted, i'm still completely baffled by where i am, where we are, right now. s is no closer to knowing what he wants. yet we see each other at least a couple times a week, dinner, running errands, etc. i don't know if he's just humoring me. he's always been an extremely friendly person, he feels bad about how hurt i am & there's nothing that can change the deep connection we have/had. maybe it's all just habit, spending time with me/comforting me/occasionally sleeping with me that he can't break the cycle. or maybe it's more than that.
i just don't know.

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Monday, April 14, 2008

pretty, ain't she?



i'm typing this on my brand, spankin' new laptop! my first ever & i haven't had my own computer that connects to the (hijacked) internet in my apartment in 2 1/2 years. i've been borrowing s's laptop since i got out of the hospital in october. he had to loan it to his sister a couple weeks ago, so i've been jonesing for a fix since then.
so we'll have to see if i write/blog more now that i have some sleek inspiration.

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