Sunday

I'm feeling all out of sorts right now. I just woke up from a nap (6 pm? Good luck falling back asleep tonight!) and I'm groggy. I was pretty tired when I went to bed last night, but all I did was lay there, awake, trying to remember how to fall asleep. I was up pretty late, and when I finally did nod off, Lucy decided it was very important to be pet. When she wants attention, she gets hardcore about it. She'll headbutt you repeatedly until she's sure you know what she wants. Naturally I woke up at the crack of dawn, too. But I made up for some lost sleep this afternoon between the two naps I got in. Like I said earlier, now I'm afraid I'm going to be up all night.

While the weather was kind of unsettled this weekend, I managed to get in a bunch of walking. I usually come home kind of achy, especially in my feet, but I feel so good when I can get out there and get my heart beating and my blood pumping. Only thing is I managed to overdo it just a little. This morning, about half way through my walk, I realized it was too much on my left foot. While it's not been as bothersome recently, it's not better and I need to remember that. Feet take longer than just about anything to heal because they really don't ever get any rest.

I really need something to smack me upside the head. I swear I could find the bad in the most positive thing in the world. Case in point was my weigh in this morning. I had the best showing on the scale in over three months. THREE MONTHS. But rather than feel really good about it, my gut instinct was disappointment that it wasn't better. I'm retarded. But I'm much better now. I realize what a douche I was this morning and I know that I did a great job. And then I said "fuck it" and bought ice cream again to celebrate. I've got a big bowl of it sitting in my belly right now and I'm shocked at how okay I am with that. No guilt of any kind. Yay me. But the sooner the ice cream is out of my house, the better.

Our vacation plans for this summer/fall are starting to take shape. Even though every year we say that it's our last year going to Disney for a while, we're going again this year. When we were there last year, we pre-booked this year's vacation. They were offering the Disney Free Dining Plan again and we decided to take advantage of it. In case you don't know what that is, you book your stay at a Disney hotel and for each day of park admission you buy, you eat for free. You get a counter service meal, a sit down restaurant meal and a snack or two. It ends up being a fantastic deal, but the down side of it is you need to book your sit down restaurant reservations well in advance to get the places you want to eat at. (Remember, a large percentage of the guests in the park are on the same dining plan.) And the down side to that you don't know three months in advance what time you're going to be hungry for dinner. What I especially don't like about this is it forces you to make specific, rigid plans for each day. But we don't have to worry about that any longer. Ken trolls a bunch of different Disney themed websites and found an amazing room discount deal that trumps the Dining Plan deal. We're now booked into the Animal Kingdom Lodge and I'm very excited. We're trying to stay at every Disney hotel at least once and this brings us one hotel closer to completing that goal. Next year, the Polynesian!

In other vacation news, I'm trying to work out a way to go see my friend Phreddy in Austin, Texas this summer. (And Diane, too!!) I wanted to wait until this month's credit card bill rolled in before I started making any concrete plans. I knew this one was going to be a big one ($1100 in car repairs, vet visit, doctor visits, emergency room visit and a couple other unplanned expenses popped up in May) and I wanted to see the damage before anything else. I just paid that bill and now I can start looking ahead to trying to get my ass to Texas.

I think that catches me up, mostly, since my last post.

LOST

Ken sent me this today. I'm kind of excited by the thought of it.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts has announced extensive plans to convert the old Discovery Island in Bay Lake to a new /Lost/-themed attraction. Lost Island is set to receive guests by the Summer of 2011, a year after the show concludes its six-year run on ABC. ...

The immersive experience will bring guests to the islands in disparate ways, providing two distinct experiences per each trip to the island. The attraction is also unique as the exploration of the island in its entirety forms one complete experience; however, each area of the island works as an individual attraction.

"We have this great experience for the Swan station, which guests get to tour as if they were the survivors first discovering the infamous 'hatch'. But suddenly things go wrong and this station tour becomes a ride! It's an extension of the Imagineering used in rides such as The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Star Tours taken to the next level!", explained [Celandine Coda, vice chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts].

No Bounds

My lack of self-control obviously knows no bounds.  Tomorrow is one of my co-worker's last day here, so today management catered lunch.  Pizza and cake.  No big deal.  I forgot we were having pizza today when I made my lunch, so I came in prepared to eat like any other day.  I could have just ignored the pizza and eaten my lunch like a good boy, but no.  I grabbed a slice of pizza and then ate my lunch.  Sure, an extra piece of pizza on top of a large salad shouldn't do too much damage, but I followed that up with a slice of cake.  And then shortly after I finished that, someone brought me a piece because they thought I hadn't had one.  And I ate that, too.  I'm overstuffed and feeling a little queasy from the second piece of cake.  And I'm disappointed in myself that I can't maintain a level of self-control when there's food around.



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Feeling It

I'm starting to feel the beginnings of a freak out. Small tell-tale signs of it. This whole selling the house/buying a new one is going to be the death of me. Not because it's stressful (which it is) but because Ken is causing the bulk of my stress. For months he's wanted to stage the house for sale. While that's all fine and dandy, the house isn't going on the market for 11 more months. He wants to pack up everything we own and put it in storage. That's fine, but we're not putting the house on the market for 11 months. Sure, we're going to start having some work done in a few months, but even that's a few months away. There's no need to clean out the first floor of our house yet if we're not having ceiling work done until September. He can't get that through his head. He's stressing me the fuck out. But I wouldn't have him any other way. We are such polar opposites in many ways. This is a prime example. He's pulling me forward while I'm trying to reign him in somewhat. It's a nice, but sometimes extreme, balance. Right now it's verging on the extreme. Bah! I just want to be rid of this place and already have my comic room in the new place decorated and up and running.

Another Random Post

The past week for me has been a blur. It's been a little busier than usual and I think that's why it's a great big giant blur. Since my hospital visit, I've had two more doctor related appointments. The first was a follow up with my primary doctor. I was afraid I was going to walk in and be told I'm fine, take a Tylenol and go home. But I keep forgetting I like my doctor and I think he's a decent doctor at that. He gave me the once over and said that most likely I'm suffering from a concussion. Although I had a CT scan at the hospital, he wanted to send me for an MRI to rule out anything else it could be that the CT scan wouldn't pick up. That in itself made me feel bad for my pessimistic attitude about going to the doctor in the first place. Even if the MRI shows up clean, I'll feel better about it because the doctor actually did something about my issues.

I've tried cutting back on the overtime I've been working. It's been hard, to tell you the truth. Sure, it's worn me out, but I'm in that frame of mind that I have to be there between certain hours that it feels weird when I come in later or leave earlier than I have been. I'm still pushing it a little harder than I should, but I am doing better. Unfortunately, I came up with an idea this week and I need some extra money to do it. I need to sit down with my finances and see what I can swing, if I can swing it.

Last weekend we spent both days house hunting again. This time we revisited a neighborhood we've been looking at. Ken invited a co-worker of his along for some input, which turned into a whole afternoon of just hanging out. It was fun, sure, but when I'm spending both days of my weekend looking at houses, I cherish the little bit of time I have left to do things that I either want to do (read, listen to music, play online...) or need to do (clean this fucking pig sty of a house.) I already told him I'm not looking at houses this weekend. Instead, I promised I'd sit with him for a little bit to help him go through some of his crap. We're trying to purge stuff. We have so much fucking shit around here. I don't know how it happened, but it's overwhelming. We go see friends and their houses are always spotless. They have no clutter. It seems like all we have is clutter. We're trying to do something about it, but it's a slow process. It's easier for me to tell him what stuff of his we don't need anymore (and vice versa), so I'm going to help.

I'm feeling huge right now. Bloated. I usually have a salad for lunch, but today I didn't pack one. Instead Ken and I went out to lunch at Wolff's Biergarten. I hadn't been there before. It's an interesting place, to say the least. I ordered the Currywurst and fries. The meal wasn't that big, but it feels like I ate my weight in wurst. It's hours later and I'm still stuffed. I hope this doesn't mean I'm going to have a bad weigh in tomorrow. All it seems to take is one mis-step, mealwise, for me to see a number that makes me scratch my head in disbelief. Last week, I had a turkey club and sweet potato fries for Friday night dinner. It was the only mis-step I took and I jumped five pounds. It took most of this week to lose the extra pounds. I just don't get how my body works, still, after three years of this dieting bullshit.

Can someone tell me what's going on with our weather? It's the second half of June, nearly July, and it's in the fucking 60s. We're firmly entrenched in April's weather and I don't know why. There is no reason for me to be wearing pants this time of year. I should be in shorts every day, all day. Today I'm in long pants and a long sleeved shirt. And I wore a sweatshirt, too.

Still Kicking

Two of my major fears in life are dying and being a burden. I don't know which I fear more. While dying is scary to think about, once I'm dead, I'm dead. Becoming a burden on someone, however, lasts a much longer time. And give me a lot of time to dwell on it. I was afraid one of those options was going to happen to me yesterday.I've mentioned in a couple of posts, I believe, that last week I slammed my forehead on the corner of my nightstand while trying to reposition myself amongst the cats in my bed. I hit it pretty good, hard enough to wake me up and also to start bleeding. I ended up with a goose egg on my forehead. It hurt for a good day and a half. But it left me with a headache, one which I've moaned about here, too. I'm pretty sure now that the headache is a direct result of this. I'm coming up on two weeks since the incident and the headache still hasn't gone away. If I wasn't such a pussy, I would have done the grown up thing and made a doctor's appointment to have this checked out. But I still have an aversion to the doctor. It's not as bad as it once was (considering I seem to go more than a few times a year, if not more), though. I did the typical guy thing, I decided to try and wait it out. By Monday, the headache seemed to be getting better, though Tuesday was a really bad day. Wednesday I seemed better again and Thursday was about the same. For most of the day. Sometime in the late afternoon, I started getting an upset stomach. I also started getting some tingling in my face on the left side. I was a little concerned, but stuck to my "wait it out" guns. I went about my normal evening business of playing online and wasting my night. I was poking around on Wikipedia and was reading up on Edwyn Collins for some unknown reason. In the entry on him, it mentions that he had a case of nausea and vertigo which resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage. Just what I needed to read on this particular night. As I was playing online, I noticed that my left arm was starting to exhibit some numbness. It was at this point that I decided things weren't good. The headache, the nausea, the numbness in my face and now the numbness in my arm screamed STROKE to me. I went and told Ken that I although I think I'm okay, I think I need to go see a doctor right now. I tried to keep him from panicking, but if you know Ken, you know that's next to impossible. I'm not sure what time it was when we went. I'm really not too aware of many of the smaller details from here on out. I was too busy trying not to worry about myself and trying to calm him the fuck down.

We got to the hospital and after a short, confusing delay, they took me in and took my vitals. All my vitals were "perfect," to quote the nurse. I think this instantly ruled out stroke, though they didn't say that to me. I was taken to a treatment room and given my gown to change into and then began the waiting. And waiting. And waiting. I was hooked up to the machines they tend to hook you up to and my vitals were constantly monitored. I was poked and proded and had bloodwork done. I was sent in for a CT Scan. I was examined by a couple of nurses and a doctor. I got to go over my list of symptoms, many of which were brand new to Ken as I really hadn't been keeping him totally in the loop of what was going on with me. I know how he is and I'm the complete opposite. I didn't want to worry him with what was potentially nothing to worry about. He learned that I had two instances with trouble with speech. He didn't know it felt like my eyes were working independently of each other right after getting conked on the head.

Anyway, after all my tests and all the waiting, the doctor came in to tell me that with the exception of a little dehydration (I hadn't had anything to drink in probably six or seven hours), I was in "perfect health." While that was great to hear, it was awful to hear. I was so relieved that I wasn't having a stroke, I wasn't having an aneurysm, my brain wasn't bleeding, I wasn't dying, but I was really upset to know there isn't a reason they could see why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. This is exactly the result I predicted to Ken in the car on the way to the hospital. The ER doctor suggested making a follow up appointment with my primary care physican. I planned on not doing that until Ken and I had a fight on the phone today about it. (Actually, it was out second fight since leaving the ER. The first was about me going to work today. I did and he was pissed and said I should stay home. I won.) My reason again is because I'm going to go in and it's going to be a waste of time. I'm going to be told there is nothing wrong with me. I'm trying to get that notion out of my head. I have until Tuesday to adjust my mood about it.

So the headache is still a mystery, but the numbness isn't, I believe. I think I figured out what was happening. Yesterday before leaving work, I popped a couple headache pills. About an hour after that is when the numbness started. Today, about an hour after doing that, the same thing happened. I think I was having a reaction to the pills. I do feel a little better about that. Now if we can just figure out the headache issue, I'll be happy. I'm guessing I have a concussion of some kind, though I don't know if a concussion lasts this long. I'll (hopefully) find out next week.

It looks like I'm going to live to see another day.

Twist In My Sobriety

It Goes On...

I'm talking about the headache. It's still present, though today is the best I've been feeling in a week. I can still feel it, but so much less so than I have been. I slept in a little later today and I don't know if that helped or not, but I'm going to try the same thing again for tomorrow and see how that goes. If I'm not feeling any better tomorrow, I know I have to act like a grown up and call the doctor. I hate going to the doctor, especially because I'm convinced he'll tell me to take some aspirin and deal with it. I hate that I've seen the doctor more in the last two years than I have in my entire adult life. I know it comes with getting older, but I feel like it's becoming overkill. Everything on my body cannot fail all at the same time, can it? I really need to start taking a little bit better care of myself. For instance, today was the last day of our current bi-weekly pay period. In the last two weeks, not only did I manage to take a day off, but I also cranked out 21 hours of overtime. I keep telling myself I'm going to pull back because it's starting to get to me. I think this is the time I actually do something about it.

My birthday was about a month ago, but I finally got around to treating myself to some presents. I wanted to get myself a little something, but kept putting it off. Until now. I picked up a bunch of new trade paperbacks to read. I know I'm behind on my reading and I have a full shelf of things yet to read, but I wanted to get some more because that's how I am. I'm including the books I bought with the gift certificate the fabulous Sean got me. And this doesn't count the books I received from others for my birthday. These should keep me busy for some time.

I do own this series in the original floppy format, but as much as I've been itching to re-read it, I know I'm not going to dig it out to do so. I love the trade paperback format. It's a format I will pull off of the bookshelf and read over and over again.


I'm currently reading and loving Ed Brubaker's Captain America. He's also written (or still writing?) Daredevil, so because I freaking love what he's doing with Cap, I want to do this book, too. But I feel I should find a good jumping on point and the beginning of the current series is a good place. Kevin Smith did the first arc, Bendis followed him I believe and then Brubaker. I'm willing to give it a try.


A book I've been wanting to read for a long time. I've just never managed to pick it up.


As I said before, I've been loving what Ed Brubaker is doing with this book. I've never been a huge Captain America fan, but if the book was always like this, it would be my favorite series. Not this past weekend, but the weekend prior, I read the last five trades in this series. This is the most recent and I'll be all caught up for now. It's just that good.


This looks like pure joy between two covers.


I keep hearing so much good about this book that I had to pick it up. I'm anxious to see what it's all about.


See my comments on Kingdom Come above.

What else should I be reading?

Well...

I've got a headache tonight. It's kind of annoying and it won't go away. I've had it for two days. Yesterday was way worse than today, so I should be grateful for that, at least. With any luck, it will be gone tomorrow. I'm not sure why I've got it, but I did notice how yellow my driveway was today. There's a lot of pollen in the air. Also, Monday night, while trying to reposition myself in bed (the cats had me laying in the most awkward and uncomfortable position), I managed to slam my forehead against the corner of my nightstand, hard enough to give myself a little cut. With my luck, I've dislodged my brain and I'm going to end up brain damaged. Story of my life.

Yesterday was our fifteenth anniversary. It's hard to believe that Ken and I have been together that long. Fifteen years is a long time. Some days it feels longer, some days not so much. We decided to go out to dinner to celebrate and wanted to go somewhere nice. We were originally going to go to the Barnsider. It's a really nice place, the food is always excellent. We only go there on special occasions, it seems, and this was a pretty special one. But Ken changed plans at the last minute. His boss keeps telling him about a place out by her that is supposed to be amazing. An Italian restaurant called Villa Valente. We tried going there one night but couldn't find the place. When he suggested it yesterday, I wasn't keen on it, but I gave in because I knew he really wanted to try it. I don't really like Italian restaurants. Most everything on the menu is something I try to stay away from for one reason or another. Usually it's because of dieting reasons, but it's also because I don't enjoy a bunch of things commonly found in Italian cooking. I'm picky. Sue me. But we went. And for a fifteenth anniversary dinner, it really sucked ass. We had a very unattentive waitress. It took me a while to find something that looked good on the menu that I could eat and not completely sabatoge my diet. I got the braciole. It looked pretty good on the menu. The description and the actual meal were two totally different things. What I was expecting was a thin steak rolled around some cheese and spices. What I got was more akin to meatballs. And they weren't very good meatballs, either. My vegetables were pure mush and the potato was rock hard. That meal alone was enough to make me never want to go back. But something else happened that will assure that I never step foot back there. As we're getting ready to leave, Ken just happened to look up at the salad bar. A woman with a "to go" salad was there just about to put the salad dressing on when she decided to try one of the dressings first. And how did she try one? Well, she picked up the ladle out of the Italian dressing and drank it right out of it. And then put it back. I've never ever seen anything quite like that before. I'm getting all grossed out thinking about it. But I need to keep in mind the clientele of this place. It's out in a very redneck area. FrankenKlinger, whom I work with, lives nearby. Need I say more?

Not much else to report from this week. It's been quiet, just the way I like it.

Quick Monday Post

After having a fantastic week last week, weight wise, I'm fearing what tomorrow is going to bring. I've had a horrible 24 hours with food and I know it's going to kick me in the pants tomorrow when I weigh in. Yesterday Ken and I hung out with our friend Mark and Mark kept commenting that he wanted ice cream. We never ended up stopping for ice cream, but the seed was planted in my head and when I went to the supermarket last night, I couldn't not buy ice cream. I bought us each a pint of something delicious. My intention was only to eat about half (which was still two servings according to the bullshit info on the container), but before I could think about it, it was all gone. One thousand calories at 8 o'clock last night. I still think I managed to stay close to my calorie range for the day, but most all the calories in that snack were from fat. Not good.

I did better today, but I still consider it a failure. First off, some douchebag brought in Hershey Miniatures for the office to snack on. As is my usual course of action when I see a bowlful of these things, I pulled out a couple Mr. Goodbars. Four to be exact. Follow that up with birthday cake. Even though the pieces were small, I had two. I didn't need two, but I wanted two. My lunch plans fell through today, so rather than go out and get something I might regret, I had some Cheerios to try to balance out the damage I did this morning. For dinner tonight I had a big ass salad and then some fat free, sugar free pudding. All in all, I'm pretty sure I stayed within my calories again today (or not too far out), but most of what I ate today was shit. We'll see what kind of damage I did tomorrow. I'll have all day to regret my actions and refocus. :-)

As I mentioned above, Ken and I spent the day with our friend Mark yesterday. We dragged him along to a couple of open houses. Our house search is still ongoing, though right now we're not looking to buy. That will be next year. Ken and I have very different ideas on what we want in a house. Most of what we've seen we can't agree on. The first house we saw yesterday is a different builder's variation on the standard model home. This builder, though, had a much better flow to their house and the quality seemed much, much better. We had an argument about this house later in the car. Ken decided that for the price it was an amazing value (and I agree), but it was too much house. We would never use half the space. We checked out another house in another town and I have to tell you, I found the house I want to die in. This second house was SPECTACULAR. It's everything I could imagine in a house. Every square inch of living space had a purpose. We would use it all. It was also open and airy and just a perfect fit for us. Only problem is it's in a neighborhood I hate, in a town I wouldn't consider living it and it's got an incredible view of the landfill. For real. This builder is planning on building in another town that I would live in, but there is not a projected start date for that. I don't know how this works, but I'm wondering if the builder we like, in the area we like could build this other builder's house? I need to do some investigating. I want this house so bad.