Bethanie's Brain

I hate it when there are alarm bells going off in my brain about someone and I can't quite place why or what the problem is, or therefore, and perhaps most important, what the hell I should do about it. I have somehow managed to become entrenched in such a situation and, if you hadn't guessed, am failing to manage to extricate myself. [Insert disgruntled emoticons here...] These are the details, without going into... overmuch detail. (erm... ha.) I have this "friend"... OK, "acquaintance" would be much more congruent with reality, but I think she considers me to be in her "friend" category as she probably considers everyone she's known for more than 5 minutes to be a "friend". (Yes. One of those.) I met her through work and got sucked into an outside work thing that she's doing and.... well.... I want out, because she's actually really fucking crazy. Worse, in a way, she's supposed to be teaching me something -- something ...

I suppose I should have seen this coming. I'm a loner. Always have been. Unlike most people, it isn't actually possible for me to have more than one or two good friends at a time. I just can't manage it. I need to be alone, because it makes me quite insane, if I am forced not to be. So that's the good part of divorce. I will get the alone time on a regular basis, whether I need it that week or not. The rest of it, at this point, however, is a big ball of pain and failure. The failure, in the end, is the worst part for me. I don't fail at things. Ever. And to have failed at this -- arguably one of the most important bits of one's life -- is inexcusable, abominable, and so completely, fucking frustrating , that I don't even have the words really. The pain, on the other hand, I can deal with. If you've ever read Dune , you'll remember the "litany agaist fear". I don't remember the exact words (and I can't find my fucking book to loo...

Boss Lady had a meeting today with somebody who arrived when I was away from my desk (they have to walk by me to get to her), so I didn't know who it was. I could hear them talking, but they were speaking in Chinese, which I don't understand well enough to figure out who the visitor was from listening in. And then the visitor laughed - a good laugh, genuine, not fake. And then I smiled, because I knew exactly who it was. It's a good thing when you can recognize a person from their laugh, and it makes you smile, you know what I mean? .

As long time readers will know, I have no religion. I have never met one that could hold me. The Christians, the Buddhists, the pagans - in one way or another, they all espouse the One True Way, a concept that provokes my brain into instant and utter rebellion. (I will NOT be told what to think. I will NOT be told how to see the world. I will NOT be made to believe without question. And this thing you call 'faith' that you want me to drown myself in? You can shove it.) And yet I cannot call myself an atheist either. It's not that I'm waffling or hedging my bets or reserving my right to say 'oh, well, maybe ...' at the last minute. I simply don't think you can know one way or the other (which is why, technically, I'm an agnostic, but whatever). All the same, I have these moments - like when I stumbled across this: Dreaming the Dead . It's a post on Holly Lisle's blog about a dream she had in which someone who died appeared in her dream wit...

It's funny the way the brain works. Sometimes it's in Create Mode -- that's when I'm writing -- and sometimes, like now, it's in Sponge Mode. Sponge Mode is just what it sounds like -- the brain just wants to soak up everything it encounters. Eventually, it will get saturated and things will start to drip out. In other words, we'll be back to Create Mode. :D For the moment, though, I'm a thirsty sponge. So thirsty, in fact, that as I mentioned before, I signed up for a class at FPU, a class in Human Genetics, a graduate level class, come to that (eep!). I'll be in way over my head, no doubt, but that's OK. That's where I've been with almost every manuscript I've edited over the last 5 years. I'm used to it. But on top of that, I'm doing the homework for the statistics workshop I'll be taking in October and I'm peeking at the epidemiology textbook I have every once in a while and I'm still working my way through ...

One of the many, many wonderful things that I love about working at Fabulous Private University are the benefits. They're seriously great. Seriously. Take the free health club, for instance. It's free! Anything and everything I could possibly want to do while there is free - machines, weights, showers, towels, lockers, a lock for my locker, and any of 28 different 'group exercise' classes. (Really, there are 28; I just counted.) There's aerobics. There's Tai Chi. There's Ab Blast. There's Upper and Lower Body Blast. There's Yoga. There's Power Yoga. And there's Pilates. And yesterday. I tried it. I got talked into it because a bunch of the gals in the office started going, and - in front of them - I opened my big mouth and started complaining about how slowly my efforts at Hip Reduction were going. So they bought me a mat and made me go. And so I went. And today.... it hurts to breathe . And you know those abs I miss so much ? I know...

Thanks to the Evil Pollen Pixies, I woke up this morning with my eyes stuck shut and otherwise looking like 2-day old roadkill. So I hiked over to FPU's Medical Center and got in to see one of the nice residents, who told me to take cetirizine (a.k.a. Zyrtec) and "hit the Flonase hard" (yes, those were his exact words). I already had the Flonase, but had never tried cetirizine. I got some and noticed that, compared to the 825 milligram antibiotics I was taking last summer, they're tiny : only 10 milligrams. Doubtful, I wondered if they'd do anything , popped one and went about my business. For about 20 minutes. And then I got knocked flat on my fat ass for the next 2 hours. The Husband claimed he called during this time and that I sounded "high as a kite". And perhaps I did. I don't remember much except having extreme difficulty concentrating on more than one thing at a time. By the time he got home with dinner, it was all I could do to stay a...

My Beloved Subaru turns 13 this year and her age is really starting to show. The list of Things That Need Fixin' goes on and on, and so we've slowly, reluctantly come to the conclusion that we will need to replace My Beloved Subaru and probably sooner rather than later. So I started looking at cars. We need something that will get me from the Heart of Suburban Hell to Fabulous Private University 4 days a week without costing us a gazillion dollars in gas. Yanno, like a Prius. We need something that will tote 2 little girls and all their associated crap and still have room for things like breathing. Yanno, like a minivan. Since my commute takes me into the middle of Itty Bitty City and I sometimes get stuck in traffic, The Husband thinks we need something with an automatic transmission. Yanno, like most people drive. We wouldn't mind having something that sits up a bit higher and therefore has a bit more visibility. Yanno, like an SUV. I want none of these things. The...

(Or: QUIT IT - That Funky-Motion Camera Thing is NOT COOL ) First, let me say this: I get motion sickness really easily. Really easily. I cannot sit in the back seat of a car without keeping a constant watch out the front window. I cannot sit in the back of a bus. I can't even sit sideways on a bus (Some of the shuttle buses at Fabulous Private University are set up like this. When I see them coming, I walk instead). And if you didn't think any of the above qualifies me as motion sickness impaired: there are certain TV shows that I cannot watch because they do this funky thing with the camera where they jerk it all over the place. The camera people, apparently, think they're really clever. It makes me puke. Now The Husband - who does NOT get motion sickness (like, ever, as far as I can tell) - thinks this makes me certifiably insane. (He also thinks this means his mother, my mother and his sisters are certifiably insane. Right. Clearly. It's just us. All of us...

So here I am -- out of town at a professional training conference and I HAVE THE HOTEL ROOM TO MYSELF. No requests for snacks every 5 minutes from Ms. Five. No constant demands for attention from Ms. Baby. No grousing from The Husband about how much everything costs here in the middle of the Big City. In other words, it's QUIET . Like I said: REALLY weird.

In my backyard, Ms. Four, standing on the top of her slide and singing at the top of her voice: It's a grand old flag, It's a high-five-ing flag.... In my head, the title of my next NaNo: The Adventures of SUPER-boob and her ever-present sidekick, Lop-side (what? it was 4AM, i'd been up for 2 or 3 hours with Ms. Baby and her approaching teeth...)

You can do an extra large load of laundry that consists entirely of Things That Are Pink. You trip over Barbie dolls, Polly Pockets, tea sets and 700 Things That Are Pink before breakfast. You’re pretty sure they make colors other than pink, but you can’t remember what they’re called. You know how many Disney princesses there are and can identify each one on sight by her name, the movie she stars in, the name of her prince, and the color of her dress, hair and shoes. The smaller people in your house have more makeup and high heels than you do.

You know you're lazy when instead of going out to the car to retrieve the CD you want, you download it from Napster. Just so you don't have to get up. Sad. Very sad. Bordering-on-pathetic sad. OK, OK. Just pathetic.

Event #1: Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. I just about cried listening to the story on NPR on the way home from work today. It's that fantabulous. And it's about fucking time. Event #2: The first Buddhist and Muslim Congressfolk were also sworn in today. Halle-freakin-lujah. Also about fucking time. (Sidenote to Event #2: Dirt City Paranoia has an especially excellent post related to this Event that I highly recommend.) It's a good day for the revolution...

This headline was reported the other day by several online news agencies (go ahead, read it, it's short): Ancient astronomical device thrills scholars Synopsis (for those in a real hurry): Basically, somebody has studied an ancient Greek device, reconstructed it and found out that it does amazing and very sophistocated and advanced things. Scientists are astonished that an ancient civilization could produce anything quite so amazing, sophistocated and/or advanced. Stories like this always leave me shaking my head at the scientists. Well, not at the scientists, but at their reaction to how complicated ancient civilizations were. I mean, why is it so amazing that ancient peoples could create complicated things? This shouldn't amaze us. It's not like they were Australopithecus or Homo erectus or something. They were us , Homo sapiens sapiens . We create complicated things all the time. Why shouldn't the ancient Greeks have been able create things just as complicat...

Right, so I just spent the better part of an hour labeling most of my past posts. Yes, I just went through the whole goddamn list and opened every post I've posted since I started posting and thought up a bunch of snappy-sounding labels for them. I'm ridiculous, I know, but I've been itching to do this for over a year. Now I feel better. So organized. So clean . So refreshed! So envigorated! OK, yeah, that could very well be the caffiene talking.

I am not a shopper. Well, let me rephrase that. Slightly. I am a shopper, but only for certain items. That is to say, I do not like to just “go shopping” in the conventional sense where one spends hours joyously wandering around some mall with one’s girlfriends spending gobs of money on god-knows-what just for the sheer pleasure of it while one’s significant other sits mournfully but patiently on a bench somewhere with other significant others. I know I am betraying my gender, but unless it involves books, textiles or shoes, I am not that kind of shopper. I’m not sure why exactly. Probably a combination of things. I don’t like crowds of people. I don’t like looking at every single, stinkin’ thing in the store. I prefer to get in, get what I need and get the hell out before the crowds of people get me, which is probably why I don’t like stores that aren’t properly organized (TJ Maxx and its ilk are a nightmare). In addition, I don’t like buying things I don’t really need (unles...

It’s my first day back at work after maternity leave. Somewhat sleep deprived, I arrive at my office just before 9AM. I sit down in my swivel chair and turn on my computer, then go get some coffee from the kitchen. I check my email first. Nothing new. Not too many people know I’m back yet. I get started on my first project. Then suddenly, it hits me: I’m still in my pajamas. Not only that, Ms. Four is watching Sesame Street just behind me and Ms. Baby is sleeping in her bouncy seat about four feet away. I’m at home. I’m working. I love my job.

It will never be cold enough here for me, but last night I got to wear pajamas. It got down below 50. We left the windows open. We threw another quilt on the bed. I'm not sure we needed the second quilt (not with the pajamas on anyway), but there's just something about the weight of that extra layer. It was positively delicious.

I went blog surfing for the first time today. Not sure what I was looking for. Not sure I found anything. But lots of people are writing about The Anniversary, so I thought I ought to contribute, if for no other reason than to record what I remember. (And let me forewarn you by saying that I found out I was pregnant two days after September 11, 2001, so everything about that day is colored for me by a hormonal haze. What does that mean? Well...) The smell of bagels. I was at some meeting that morning, a meeting with breakfasty snacks, and the odor of fresh bagels about knocked me out. Shaking. I was living in the Mountain time zone and hadn't listened to NPR on my way in to my office, so I had no idea what was happening until my boss called me. I turned the radio on and just sat there shaking so hard my teeth chattered and I couldn't seem to stop. No planes in the sky. We lived out West where the sky is really, really big and you can see lots and lots of it all at o...