Seen a couple of people add questions to the below meme, so...

20-whatever: If you could change one thing, what would it be?
My incessant need to sacrifice myself.

Stole this from Dawn (see the list of people I bother). Is long, am drunk, so hang in there.

1. You have $10 and need to buy snacks at a gas station; what do you buy?
Couple bottles of water, some SweeTarts, a microwave burrito (most brands are surprisingly good), gum, Skittles, and some of those little powedered donuts.

2. If you had to be reincarnated as some sort of sea-dwelling creature, what would you be?
Blue whale, since no-one knows much about them, so I wouldn't be bothered much.

3. Who's your favorite redhead?
Dawn and Janice are my two favs.

4. What do you order when you're at a pancake house?
This is boring, but usually pancakes. They usually have special kinds that I can't possibly make at home.

5. Do you own any... naughty toys?
Nope.

6. Have you made out with anyone on your (LiveJournal) friends list?
Nope.

7. Describe your favorite pair of underwear:
My cotton blue and white and green stripped thong. It's very comfortable.

8. Describe the last time you were injured:
Last night I got a paper cut on my pinkie opening the $222 electric and gas bill.

9. Are there any odd things that make you feel comfortable?
The smell of pipe tobacco (Dad smoked a pipe until I was 6 or so). Clean cotton undershirt. Cats purring in the bed while I fall asleep.

11. Tell me a weird story from your high school years:
Heh. I would tell the saga of George, how he came in the middle of my junior year and swept me off my feet, and the arguing we always did, and the things we did at school that we would have gotten thrown out for. I haven't heard from him in years, I hope he's happy somewhere...

12. What is the wallpaper on your cell phone?
*double-checks* It's one of the factory ones, a dolphin leaping out of the water in front of a schooner.

13. Soda?
Don't drink it anymore. Carbonation and my pouch do not get along.

14. Flavor of pudding?
Banana, chocolate, pistachio

15. What type of shirt are you wearing?
Blue cotton short-sleeved shirt.

16. Prescription medication?
500mg of Cipro twice a day, 50mg of Zoloft once a day, Vicodin as needed.

17. If you could use only one form of transportation for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tessering. Oh, go read A Wrinkle in Time.

18. How many people are on your (LiveJournal) friends list?
Um... without checking, I think 3 or 4.

19. How many people on your LiveJournal) list do you know in real life?
This is an interesting question, because it seems to assume that talking to someone over the Internet is not meeting them in real life. I have not met any of them face to face. I know one of them very well, and she knows me very well, and we'd fall into each other's arms like sisters if we ever met. How's that?

20. What are you listening to right now?
"Kingdom Hearts" music, since I left it on pause to go to the bathroom, then decided to sit in front of the computer for a little bit and found this, and decided to answer it.

21. Most recent movie you watched?
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

22. Name 5 things you have with you at all times:
Intubating catheter. Cell phone. Keys. Wallet. Pens.

23. Would you rather give or receive a foot massage?
Receive. I'm a little selfish like that. ;-) I give good shoulder and neck massages, though.

24. Name a teacher you had the hots for:
My college chemistry professor. He named me as one of the Corner of Insanity, and I loved him for it. He also gave us a good hang-over prevention formula.

25. What is a saying that you use a lot?
"I'll do it." (At work.) "CAT!!!" (when they knock over something)

26. What's one piece of advice that you think should be passed on to every child?
Don't be afraid of change.

27. Would you escape where you are to live the rest of your life in the place or time of your choice (and that would be....), if it meant you could never return?
... ... No. In my stories, I always return home, wiser for the journey.

I need more surgery.

The x-rays showed another fistula, so the doctor needs to go in and repair it.

It'll happen sometime in January.

I'll be seeing the doctor tomorrow.

I'm OK, just tired, physically and mentally.

Playing "Kingdom Hearts" is good distractions, tho... wish I had more time off to take. :-p

Just wanted folks to know that I'm at work. I may not be in the best place mentally right this instant, but I'll be OK eventually.

OK, got a hold of the surgeon on his personal cell phone. Poor guy has a cold. He called the hospital, but they're on a skeleton crew and the x-ray technician lady (I know who he's talking about, she's incredible) is not in. Since I'm not in pain until I mess with the lump, he's keeping me on antibiotics in the hope that this will calm down. I am to call him immediately if anything changed, and to call Wednesday regardless. He wants to avoid surgery if possible. I want to try to hold stuff off until the first of the year, since my leave will reset (80 hours sick, 88 hours personal).

We'll see what happens.

There seems to be one final "Fuck you" from 2005 growing in the old familiar place.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get a hold of my surgeon. I've already started taking Cipro.

Just to add insult to injury, the pink eye has caused a sty. This sucks. :-p

*sigh*

You know, I REALLY ought to know to be more careful what I wish for... I didn't really want to go in to work, so what happens? I get a bad case of pink eye in my left eye.

No work yesterday, and no work today, it's still swollen and sore and trying to look at the computer screen hurts after a while. :-p

Watched the Panthers clobber the Saints, then watched the Redskins absolutely maul the Cowboys, then got a great pork chop for dinner, so it was a very good Sunday.

Now I have to go back to work. Faaaahhhhkkkkk...

Just another day
The shame is gone
Hard to believe
That I let it go away

Lacuna Coil, Swamped

Flowers in bloom pray to Gods,
Lamenting over their being in this world of life.
Their dreams having faded away,
Flower grieve and fall.

Kenji Kawai, Kugusuuta ura mite chiru (translated)

Calling, calling now
From the place of knowing
There's more than what can be linked
Calling, calling now
Never will I look away
For what life has left for me
Yearning, yearning
For what's left of loving

Origa, Inner Universe

Jenn is finishing off the vodka, celebrating three things:

1) Surgeon told her to get out of his office and never come back (in other words, the hole and gash are fine)
2) The haircut
3) Sweet Thing is OK, we went to the vet and the reason his belly feels hard is because he's a little constipated.

What are you celebrating? Or would celebrate, if you could?

Before:


After:


The missing 12 inches went to Locks of Love.

I'm getting started on my New Year's resolution a little early... I'm deleting music from my hard drive.

Now, that doesn't sound like much, but my resolution is to get rid of things I don't want. I have a problem sometimes getting rid of stuff, especially if I think I got it to make my parents happy. I have clothes I've never worn, because they look like what Mom wore when she worked for the IRS. I need to bag those and give them to the Salvation Army.

It all stems from being convinced while growing up that I had to be the perfect, best, sacrificing one, to the point where I kept silent about the sexual abuse I suffered through. I'm 30 now, I need to let go of some things. So, my plan is to go around the house and touch everything. If I can't come up with a good reason for why I have it and why I should keep it, it's going out.

Who knows, by the time I'm ready to get a new house in a few years (don't need this huge yard), I may only need two bedrooms...

I'm trying out a memory card reader here at work, and brought in the thing from my digital camera, and found these little gems...

New Raven picture, in her Thanksgiving pilgrim outfit that Mom made.

My younger sister Becca and my Dad.

Bageera, Mom and Dad's black cat.

Desert Night, the runt of a batch of kittens Mom fostered. Unfortunately, she didn't make it, she had a liver shunt and had to be put to sleep.

Yeah, we're scared. Of a puffed up 1 pound kitten. See us run?

Just when I was feeling pretty OK about my state, the headlines of the newspaper read, "S.C. biology standards in limbo"

A proponent of teaching various theories of human origin, which include creationism, gained support Monday from the state’s public school reform oversight panel.

*headdesk* *headwall* *lather, rinse, repeat*

Another Last.fm chart, now that I found a template big enough to actually see the track names. ;-) Slightly obsessive, no? Most are from Kenji Kawai's excellent soundtrack to Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.

Been healing good. Hole is closed, gash is getting there. Feel better than I have in a while, which is nice, although sometimes I don't quite know what to do with myself. ;-)

Saw "Narnia" over the weekend with Janice and Jim. Holy Gods, it was great! Go see it, they don't beat you over the head with the Christian references, it's just a beautifully filmed story about growing up and the sacrifices you make as you do.

Added Jim to my buddies (Hey sweetie!)

Found out completely by accident a few days ago that my old Audioscrobbler account was still active, and had been transfered to Last.FM when they bought out Audioscrobbler (or merged with them, or whatever). The graphic on the side is the list of my most listened to artists for the week, and will probably always contain a lot of Japanese characters. ;-)

But as my MP3 player gets more and more insane in it's old age, I'll be moving more of my MP3 collection here to work, so it should change up a bit. For the longest, I've only really had instrumentals (ie game and anime music and some soundtracks) here. Now, since the person who wanted it that way is gone and I don't particularly care if my office-mate likes or doesn't like what I listen to, I'll bring everything in.

All tracks, random, out of 1251...

1) Rob Zombie - "Demon Speeding"
2) Nobuo Uematsu - "Cid's Theme" (FF IX)
3) Boston - "We Can Make It"
4) Dietrich Buxtehude - Choral "Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein"
5) Metallica - "No Leaf Clover"
6) Taku Iwasaki - "Alone Again"
7) Trans-Siberian Orchestra - "Appalachian Snowfall"
8) Trans-Siberain Orchestra - "The World That She Sees"
9) Evanescence - "Haunted"
10) Klaus Badelt - "Underwater March"
11) The Black Mages - "The Rocking Grounds (FF III)"
12) Nobuo Uematsu - "Wall of the Sacred Beasts" (FF IX)
13) The Union Underground - "Natural High"
14) Brian Tyler - "Inama Nushif (Montage)"
15) Jonathan Elias - "Movement 8: Benediction"

I know, I know, that's about half of the normal track count. I think my MP3 player is losing it's mind, or it's too old for the new version of MusicMatch to properly handle, because it keeps saying it's done synching even though it's not. :-p I can't even manually add playlists, it starts then says it's done.

Saw the surgeon again today, in my ongoing weekly checkups of this gash and hole. Today I even prepared, because I wanted to show him a trick the hole does: if you take a syringe and squeeze about .5cc's of peroxide in, it bubbles up real good and burns like hell above the gash.

He watched it, then said, "That's good, keep doing it."

*sigh*

There is no mental health problem that a liberal application of Dove Dark Chocolates cannot fix. ;-)