2002-09-28

 

Those antibiotics are taking a toll on my system. Rough tummy, and general ickyness. If it doesn't improve by Wednesday, I'm going to call the derm and see about going back on the hormone therapy. If I'm going to be miserable anyway... Actually, there's a new BCP called Yasmin that has some anti-testosterone properties. I'll have to ask about that one, too. Well, season three of The Sopranos awaits!

posted by bethanye 12:31:00 PM   

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2002-09-27

 

I'm not going to go into detail here. But I am absolutely and completely relieved that I no longer work for the big p-V. Imminent reorganization of technical services simply reinforces that relief. What the hell are they thinking? Are they insane?

posted by bethanye 12:22:00 PM   

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Everyone looks naked when you know the world's address. Yes, it's a very They Might Be Giants kind of day here. Grey, kind of cold looking. I need some of the boys to perk me up. Plus, nothing speaks to me of summer days long past like Flood. I'm learning many things that (of course) I'm beating myself up for not already knowing, though. It's great to learn new things, but disconcerting, too. Sometimes, it's fun to be put out of your comfort zone, but I seem to spend more and more time there. At some point, I just want to have a whole day where I can feel like I have a clue and some value. Now, I realize that this is completely self-flagellation on my part, as opposed to reality. I don't need a pat on the back or reassurance from others (today, anyway). I just need a day where I have a sense of accomplishment. It's no worse than the flailing about that goes with any new job without particular structure - you have to find your own way. It takes time. But, wow! I am one impatient chica!

posted by bethanye 10:51:00 AM   

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2002-09-26

 

Finally, that Molly Ivins commentary is online, at the Fort Worth Star Telegram website. Should be required reading.

posted by bethanye 9:15:00 AM   

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2002-09-25

 

I am now enjoying a soy latte. Right now. At this very moment. I'm going to delight in that caffeine+soy isoflavones high any second now. Ahhh... the soy latte. Yum. I am pro-soy, in moderation. But a latte and some miso never hurt anyone without a soy allergy, right? We're leaving at 4 to go see "Spirited Away" at the Metreon - a digital DLP theater - WOO-HOO!! I am absolutely thrilled to get to see a Miyazaki film this way. We had to pick, though. At the Metreon - digital but dubbed. At the Kabuki - analog but japanese with subtitles. We went for the digital, figuring that we'll get it on DVD and it will have the japanese w/ subtitles. Also, about that countdown clock. It's not about me freaking out about getting older. Well, it's not about that yet, anyway, though I suppose it could turn into that over the next few months. Actually, it's there to remind me that I'm trying to achieve a few goals before I'm 30. Thank you, Molly, for reminding me that I still have time to commit myself to a healthier, active lifestyle before I'm 30, which I have pretty much decided is my true goal on the body-image front. [ I love you, Molly! You are truly a great friend! ] When I ride my bike to and from work, it's hard. Especially coming home. But it's wonderful, too, when I feel damn good a few hours later. More exercise should help me to improve my mood. I don't want my body, which so miraculously healed itself those years ago, to be my enemy. I want to love it as I did then, for what it can do and where it can take me. I'm tired of seeing myself as trapped within the flesh that is, in its very essence, me. I am not just a head carried around by legs and arms and torso, but the whole that can be greater than the sum of its parts. I want to feel that this body is not just a comfortable place to inhabit, but an essential part of the whole that is me. That probably sounds insipid and pretentious at the same time, depending on how you read it. But when it comes right down to it, I live in my head. So many of us do - my darling husband particularly lives in his head. I enforce disassociation between my mind and my flesh. But time and again I have realized that when I care for my body - drink plenty of water, eat nutritious (or even not particularly nutritious, but delicious) foods, exercise - I feel better in my mind. This fitness goal, for the first time it isn't about "whipping it into shape" or "making peace with my body". It's about learning to relish the sensations of a healthy strong body (like when I first tested free of cancer in 1995), and that is the body I live in right now at this second. It's healthy. It's strong. And I need to take better care of it. Hell, I took better care of my Volvo than I generally do of myself. I spend time nursing my intellect and neglect my skin and bones and muscles. I generally do spend time on my teeth, though, but mostly that's because they live in my head. Oh, hell. I just sound so California, right? Well, don't get any ideas about those hippies infecting me with peace, love, and understanding. It's all those issues of Tricycle catching up with me is all. That and the free time that comes with not working 18 hours a day. And, ahhh... does it feel good or what?

posted by bethanye 3:33:00 PM   

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Anybody read Molly Ivins today? It's in the San Francisco Chronicle, but I can't find a link to it. Yet. I guess they put that stuff up later, so that there's still reason to buy the physical paper. Anyway, it's brilliant, and I love her, and that's that.

posted by bethanye 12:50:00 PM   

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2002-09-24

 

Already visited the dermatologist! They worked me in this afternoon. This time, I'm trying the "taking antibiotics forever" method instead of the "taking hormones forever" method. I asked the dermatologist if I would ever be able to stop taking drugs for my skin. "Well, you'll grow out of it eventually." Like, when I go through menopause, I guess. Hopefully, I'll respond to the antibiotics well, because going on anti-testosterone steroids for the next fifteen years does not sound like a good time to me. I have a checkup in two months, and I set up for Stevie to get his psoriasis checked at the same time. Gotta go now. Supper's waiting for me, and I have to bike home!

posted by bethanye 5:30:00 PM   

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Oops. Eight days since I've posted anything. What's up with that, anyhow? Have I truly been so busy that I can't take five minutes to be completely self-absorbed? Well, documented and self-absorbed, anyway. The answer is "no", I haven't been that busy. Just kind of lazy. I didn't ride my bike to work for three weeks until today, and I was trying to work up to three times weekly. Now, it's going to start raining in a few weeks (supposedly). What to do? I'm going to the damn Y. That's all there is to it. I only have four months left until I'm thirty. Anyone remember the five things I wanted to have when I was thirty? 1 - not be fat 2 - good skin 3 - less (or no) debt 4 - job that doesn't suck 5 - some sort of self-improvement or a hobby So, I'm not going to make the first one. It's too late for that. But what I can and will do is work out three times weekly. Some exercise - any exercise. I will be more active when I turn thirty. I'm going to make an appointment with a dermatologist today, also. Maybe they can see me before December. Three and four are already done. We have less debt after selling the house, and are living within our means. We haven't made leaps and bounds paying off our debt since we got here, but when it's the right time for Stevie to go back to work that will improve. Five is a tricky one. I think I'm going to look into taking Spanish classes over at Centro Latino near work. If they're not too expensive. I also have a bassoon on backorder, but I may back out on that one because of cost considerations. They're expensive! And I don't want to screw over goal number three for goal number five, if that makes any sense.

posted by bethanye 11:01:00 AM   

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I can't be the only one thinking this: Hurricane Isidore should have been named "Hurricane Isildur". I keep expecting a Tolkien reference when they talk about this storm on NPR. Such a geek...

posted by bethanye 9:39:00 AM   

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2002-09-16

 

Stevie and I are just odd. There's no way around that, really. Just that we're odd. Example: We have an automatic-cleaning cat litter box. This has got to be one of the best inventions in the world. We have had it for some time, and it lived in the utility room in our house before we moved. Now that it's just down the hall, we hear it every time it goes into a cleaning cycle. It drives Bonnie nuts. She runs across the house to bat at the cleaning arm, and she's in here highest state of alert during this event. So, Stephen has taken to poking her in the back at this exact moment. She jumps so high that she does flips, apparently. b: "Honey, that's mean... But funny. Maybe I'll make that your epitaph - 'Mean but Funny.' What would mine be?" Stephen: "Hmm... How about 'I told you I'd die first?'" b: "Or, 'Does this urn make me look fat?'" We're just a little bit twisted.

posted by bethanye 11:55:00 AM   

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2002-09-12

 

MoMo's birthday. We sent her a painting we commissioned in Japantown - the kanji for peach (which is "momo" in Japanese) and a branch from a peach tree. I hope she liked it. She seemed to when I talked to her.

posted by bethanye 2:14:00 PM   

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2002-09-11

 

I'm going to just get this over with. I have a ton of stuff to do, but until I just let all this out, I don't know that I'll be worth much. Last year. This day seems so clear in my mind. I still worked at home, but I was supposed to be at the office for a 9:00 meeting of some sort. I was kind of dragging, actually. Finally was getting my stuff gathered up to get out the door, and I get a frantic call from Kimmy. "Are you still home? Turn on CNN! There was a plane wreck in NYC!" We still thought that it had been some sort of terrible plane crash then, just a devastating accident. We watched together for a while, then I bowed out... I had to get to work; I had to make that meeting. Left the TV on while I got my stuff together... and the second plane came in. Kimmy called me right back, and we just watched the replays in horror. What the hell had happened? And yet, it nagged at me... must get into the office. I couldn't watch it any more. I left the house, and got into some of the worst traffic on 635 of all time. Sitting at a dead stop at 635 and Greenville, I got a call from Molly - "Get out of the house! They still have planes in the air, and if they hit Dallas, TI is the place to hit. It would cause a huge explosion. Get out of the house!" I looked over to my right. There's the TI building. "Well, if I'm going to get blown up, it will be in traffic. Nothing I can do about it." At that point, I was already pretty emotionally exhausted. The thought of being blown up in my car was so unfamiliar I couldn't make room for it. Finally made it through some of the traffic, and I hear on NPR that a plane has just hit the Pentagon. Now for a call from my sister, who had just heard the same thing en route to school. "Why the fuck do we even have the CIA? What the hell are they doing? How is this happening? Are those dumb fucks just sitting on their asses? Arrrggghhhh!!!" Despite the horror of the situation, I still snicker when I remember that phone call. Then came the threats of car bombs at the State Department, of an unknown quantity of hijacked planes still out there. Around the time I made it into work, the towers were falling. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe. We all just stayed, gathered around our radios, not working. I left the office early - around 3 or so - went home. Took a long hot shower. Waited for Stephen to come home. And when he did, I just held him and cried. The next day was MoMo's birthday, which everyone seems to have forgot. I feel pretty bad about that now. I'm making an extra concerted effort to not forget it again. Some friends from work were married in Jamaica that day, and didn't know that their ceremony approximately coincided with the awful events. Maybe now I can get some work done.

posted by bethanye 9:31:00 AM   

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2002-09-06

 

It's all a-buzz here at work. The big trade show is coming up next week and resellers/customers will be descending upon our workplace for cocktails and food on Monday. Then there's the big party in the city on Tuesday. The presentations all week at the show, which I happily am not subject to. But then comes my "what I've been up to" spiel on Friday (a week from today) to the company. I won't write about what I've been working on here, but I will say that I'm a bit nervous about next Friday. Back-a to work-a.

posted by bethanye 11:06:00 AM   

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2002-09-02

 

Not much to say today... Except that I ate chocolate cake for dinner. Yep, I sure did. I made a delectable lentil soup and a chocolate cake at the same time, and the soup remains untouched while the cake has big hunks gouged out of it. Ah, well... I did ride my bike a little bit today, so much the better. I'm going to ride it to work tomorrow, too. We bought a new bike for Stevie this weekend, and it's big enough to fit him comfortably. Oh, and as an open letter to the asshat who stuck the "I KILL CHILDREN" sticker on the bug: You dumbass. I bet you drove in your car through our neighborhood plastering your little stickers on every vehicle. Oh, and we drove extra this weekend, to boot. Screw you. Okay, I'm back from that interlude now. Got to run before my battery dies. More lovely drivel later.

posted by bethanye 6:53:00 PM   

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