downtime sorta sucks

especially if you're, let's say, also struck with writer's block. the funny thing is that i did start a new story the other day, but when i find myself with time to think about - and work on - it, i get frozen. the thought of penning anything further just stops me in my tracks.

i am sure it doesn't help that this, and the story i'd started late last year, involve a lot of personal history mining. i didn't mind mining, i suppose, but i think i'm getting frozen (in advance, mind you) thinking about the inevitable sharing of said stories -- for example, min is in my writer's group.

how do people ever write semi-autobiographical stories? at least about people who are still alive. i can't turn off that damned internal Nice Girl for more than an hour at a time, it seems, before she just clams up. and sure, i could write pure-on fiction. but this other stuff is clogging up the drain, and so nothing lovely is getting through. or rather, nothing inordinately clunky. a little clunky i don't mind, but this...

besides work and being creatively cranky, things have been all right. we've been working through this, i took down 80% of our christmas tree, finally went to the (somewhat disappointing) downtown library, the world was coated in white for most of sunday, and i have eaten here twice in the last week. carbolicious!

in closing, i would like to thank the facebook gods for being occasionally diverting.
that is all.

everything may not be perfect

some people erroneously think obama is our next

but the truth is, today marks some real

at least as far as i'm concerned. i didn't plan to watch the inauguration festivities this morning, but when i turned on the news -- looking for traffic reports, mind you -- i got Inauguration Fever. when i got to work, after some work, i got things streaming. there were no lightning bolts, other than this: thank god, we finally have someone intelligent at the helm. is it possible we can finally start changing things for the better?

so, happy inauguration day, folks. that is all. :)

what, i'm posting already?

i know, less than a month and here i am again. wtf? i blame it on a variety of things:

1. my mom is moving out. when? hard to say, because she has to wait for her rental application to go through. where's she moving? BACK WITH MY DAD.

apparently she has to re-apply to live there, and that can take a while, so she'll still be with us a few more weeks til that settles. meantime she's with him this weekend - their anniversary, wouldn't you know - as a 'let's see how this goes+couples therapy' round.

yes therapy, which is the sole reason i feel partly ok about her going. it's not that i want them to stay apart - a big part of me wants them together - but i want them to do so *smartly*. you know, when my dad has not only taken some responsibility for his actions, but had time to prove he's being responsible. the operative words in that sentence are responsible and time. i think he is starting the responsible thing, but time? he's just started. there's no way to tell if this is all a ruse to get my mom back. it's not like there haven't been ruses the other 5-odd times she's left before.

but i digress. and in a surprising move, i told my mom exactly why i thought this was a bad idea, at this point in their process. normally i keep my mouth shut - her life and all. but surprise, she's living with us, so i'm a little more invested, and plus her being right there apparently forced my mouth open.

2. i am insanely bored at work. note, i have plenty to do, for the most part -- i just want to do something else. and i want to BE somewhere else, in an environment that is not so restrictive. but, because of the upcoming whirlygig removal (late feb, woo) i'm not going anywhere for a while. but after, well...we'll see.

on that note, i am incredibly grateful for my job. i know so many people have been laid off, work mind-numbing, back-breaking jobs and i'm grateful that mine requires neither. well, the mind-numbing, at times, but usually doesn't last long. anyway, i'm keeping my eyes and ears open is alls i gots to say.

3. i am realizing i need to get some more friends. another earth-shatterer i know. but i am talking about people i can go to the movies with, people here. i have plennnnty of online friends. i want someone to go to dinner with, hike, and in the past i've made most of my friends at work. that isn't working as well here, which means i need to branch out. it's frustrating because, honestly, i'm a little lazy when it comes to that. it's hard work and a lot easier to spend my weeknights or weekends running errands, watching tv or going for a drive. so, this is a kick in the pants note for myself.

4. i've had a serious writing problem for months. as in, not writing. what, you couldn't tell? you're so sweet lying to me like that, thanks. but it's true and i suspect/hope it may be ending soon because:

a) i've actually been *thinking* about writing the last week or so, and i hadn't thought about writing for a long time, but
b) i actually wrote this morning. it was just about a sexxxy dream i had last night (good morning!) but writing about all that passion, well, it fired the little Writer in me up.

so i am thinking good thoughts instead of the pessimistic ones. at least for a couple of hours.

ok that's it for now, time to get cracking on the day. hope you all are having a good weekend. :)

i suppose i've been taunting you long enough

with the promise of a real post that is. one with meat, although i hope the photos were a decent stopgap. and wow, i just noticed how long since there was meat, and it was mid-november. sorry, folks!

the short version is that work has been verra busy and i love the holidays but not my ovaries.

1. work? dull but busy.
2. holidays? because of #1 and other things like ARTIC BLAST 2008 i did very little decorating and our tree was out in the snow a little longer than it should've been. and i baked sugar cookies! which are also not decorated. mom made the frosting finally, last night, so i anticipate sprinklage this evening.

also worth a highlight is my earlier christmas present, a new camera and yes it is pink and no i would not have picked that color on purpose since i am not smitten with my X chromosomes. more on that later. however, it was the last one, a discounted floor model, which is probably why it is now broken. worked fine for a month and then on christmas day, wouldn't boot up. as soon as i find all the packaging, back to the store...

btw, for the most part, i loved our 14-inch snowpocalypse because a) i love snow and b) it made less people drive but c) i'm glad it's all melted now, thanks.

ok so on to #3: the reproductive whirlygigs.

i have never been a big fan of the reproductive whirlygigs. it's good i never planned to be a baby factory, since there's a history of defective whirlygigs on both sides of my family. now that i think about it, it's surprising we've reproduced as much as we have. :-D

but i digress. oldtimers may recall i have this bit of fun which - for the most part - has not troubled me too much the last few years thanks to modern prescriptives. in the last year, though, it felt like one of those gigs was whirling too much, so i went to the doctor. turns out one of those recurrent cysts decided to get a little wacky and so - presumably sometime next month - that cyst and corresponding ovary is going buh-bye.

at first i hestitated. i was annoyed at the thought - and expense - of surgery for something that was not that big of a deal. then the cyst decided to pitch a fit (primadonna) and so fine, i got the surgery ball rolling.

but apparently that was not good enough, because starting christmas eve, i got a nasty, impromptu period. thanks to my aforementioned support of the pharmaceutical industry, nasty, impromptu periods have not happened in over 3 years.

friday afternoon, i called the (on call) doctor. long story short, "it happens" but follow up with your regular doctor next week. over the weekend it got worse, and i started to worry, so sunday we went to the ER. long story short, "it happens" but follow up with your regular doctor this week.

turns out my regular guy is out til next week. meantime things are a little better, and hopefully all these symptoms will die a quick death soon, but this whole 'sometimes whirlygigs go bananas' explanation is really damn annoying. if any of you have experience with this, please feel free to share.

i will say this -- i'm really looking forward to the surgery now, if only to put a stop to this monkey business. three cheers to being sansa-monkey!

i brrrrrrrrrrring you tidings of joy

and pictures. because guess what? it's been snowing.

you can see all the pictures here and yes some of the pictures are not of snow. i think my cat is cute. so sue me.

will i write something more illuminative in the near future? a looming 5 day weekend holds promise.

got me?

i know, a little lame. i might write more later but meantime...

I Am Milk

Your holiday personality is innocent. The holidays make you feel like a kid all over again. You love every part of the holidays, and you anticipate Christmas morning. You enjoy getting presents as much as you did when you were young!

What Holiday Drink Are You?

personally i think this is pretty spot on.
also, this morning i am feeling VERY amused by the ringtones around here. in the last two minutes i've heard a christmas carol and the super mario brothers theme. that last one wants me at home with some peppermint cocoa kicking some mushroom ass.

hey there!

yes i know my blogging efforts are pathetic.
i may blog more tomorrow - i may actually have time.
then again, we're going bowling.
meantime, happy holidays. :)

i wish i could pull off orange

because i would so get this:

if this amuses you in any way, shape or form, go check out the main site. they have tons of awesome shirts, and if it were spring (no long sleeves, boo) i would so be droppin some cash there right now.

may the 4s be with you

tomorrow is the 4-year anniversary of this blog.
this is also my 444th post.
which means that i am 4ced to make bad puns involving the number 4.
(but i promise, that's the last one 4 now)

looking back at post numero uno, it's interesting that my first commenter is someone who no longer comments here. we're still friends, though not as close as we used to be, and some of that has to do with the Great Drama of 2006. that drama ultimately led to me calling RIP on this blog but then, of course, i lied and came back. along the way i've gotten many other readers, some i have no idea where from, so thanks for riding the waves with me :)

2006 was a pretty bipolar year but for better or worse, min and i continued on, mostly for the better. i chalk a lot of that up to some Really Good Therapy from a wonderful lesbian therapist in SF. also i chalk it up to honesty about Really Difficult Things. as readers both old and new know, i still try to keep up the honesty thing here, most recently regarding my parental escapades.

on that note, my dad has gone silent in terms of communicating with me. not surprisingly, he is being a shit to my mom. i am struggling with knowing how - or if - i should interact with him. i would like to have a 'good' relationship with him, but on the other hand, his lack of talking to me -- despite my earlier reaching out to him -- makes me wonder if i should just leave him alone. then, i think about him being alone -- which he is -- and that feels wrong.

i'm so glad that i'm an adult going through this, because as a kid i think their breakup would've killed me. now it's just mildly distressing. but, any of you who've had to go thru this process, i welcome your input.

work is weird -- slow at the moment, but i know that's temporary because my cubemate is quitting. we're on the same team, which means my workload is going to go up about 25%. which means no writing, not that i was doing much anyway.

the one bright spot on my horizon is the holidays. i lovelovelove november and december because of all the food and decorations and merriment and otherwise festive activities there always seem to be a billion of. i love that it gets cold(ish), that sometimes there is snow but mostly just fog and rain, but the cold is delicious because i run so damn hot. also supposedly my sister is visiting from phoenix and i'm looking forward to taking some time off, tooling about on the cheap. on that note, i am also happy that gas is nearing $2.

i know this is a rambly recap but i guess that's where i am - Ramblation, OR. for some unearthly reason i have a good feeling about 2009. i'm aware that i've been biding my time, and apparently some part of me thinks things will change in the next few months, for the better. i hope my subconscious is right. :-o

meantime, whether you're a habitual lurker, or a habitual commenter, thanks for coming round. here's to continued piquing of interests.

because i want to be +1 for tomorrow

please enjoy this fine resource, which helped me drool over this:

happy belated anniversary

yesterday was our 1-year anniversary of moving from california to oregon. am i still happy with that decision? see my obama post as metaphorical preview of coming paragraphs.

my job may be a little busier than i'd like -- although obviously i have enough time to write this today! - but at least i have a job. if i'd stayed in california, as a mediocre developer, i'm sure i would have been laid off. instead i'm on a team where my skillz pass for superior. go mediocrity! and, go occasional time for writing at mostly-mellow workplace.

and though i need to work on making more friends, at least we have a pretty friendly crew here. my writing group is pretty cool too, and speaking of words, hope to hit wordstock this weekend. if nothing else, this town is a fan of words. as you might imagine, that warms my heart a wee bit.

one of the main reasons we moved up was to be closer to my parents. now my mom is a lot closer than i'd anticipated - and that is going fine, thank you - but obviously with heartwrenching results. in the fallout from that, my dad has written me and min off as being untrustworthy and, i'm sure, a host of unflattering things he won't say to our face but directs to my sister and mother via email. classy. also classy is his attempt to woo other women while still trying to get my mom back. quite the prize, he is.

otherwise life is mostly the same, i'd guess, as it would've been in california...except that almost every day i go outside, i am stunned at all the beauty around me. not that i didn't ever note beauty in the sparkling smogopolis of san jose, but in addition to the air, there's just all the green, orange, blue, and (yes) rainbow of colors that perpetually surround us.

so yeah. color me happy to be home again.

well, a short p.s.

wtf, people.

but, you go girls.

alls i haves to say is

i am happier than this kid:

if i spoke another language i'd probably say:

and if i was gonna swear it'd be:

and since picture sez a 1000 words:
that is all.

hello from your ultimate fantasy object

You Are a Vampire

You are charming, sensual, and even a bit manipulative. You can't help but get people to do what you want. You have sharp senses and a strong predatory instinct. You go after what you want, without mercy. While you have the heart of a killer, many people are drawn to you. You are elegant, timeless, and mysterious. You are the ultimate fantasy object.

Are You a Vampire or a Werewolf?

happy halloweenie, and for the record i love you werewolves, too.

proof of boredom: 2 posts in the same week

i was really bored this morning. oh, i had work, but not enough of it, because i am a work-eating machine. so before i went to lunch, on facebook i set my status to:

Heather hopes, upon return to her desk, to be greeted by either work or inspiration.

and inspiration was what i got. i have work friends on facebook, and apparently one of them decided my hope should take the form of a post-it.

fine by me. it's staying in front of my keyboard so that i remember to take a break - mental or otherwise - more often. and, what i really meant by inspiration was, inspiration to write.

i am in a serious funk when it comes to penning any fiction, and haven't written anything new in almost two months. before this was about work insanity but the last few days, every time i think about writing i hear 'work on your goals!' from the bosslady in my head, so i drudge through personal improvement training instead.

this is another form of procrastination and i know it. the truth is, nothing is moving me long enough to write. post-post-it, i even opened up a file called 'inspiration' and started pasting in tidbits from this awesome site i randomly found the other day. i had a whole page of it, and then i had to go somewhere - for a walk? yes, after more mind-numbing training - and when i came back, i just stared at them tidbits. yeah? so? interesting? but apparently not enough.

so. any of you writers or creative types -- has this happened to you, and what the hell did you do to break out of it? do i just need a vacation? yes, i have been stressed with family stuff, but i don't think that explains it all. i'm just really having a hard time getting started, hearing a story. and yes i just figured out i need to hear at least part of the story before i begin.

ok any of you with ideas, please hammer 'em into me.

all quiet on the western front

at least sort of. saturday was an incredible flurry of activity on the part of me, mom, and one aunt/uncle set, packing up her stuff. it was a bit tricky to keep mom focused at first, but between me and my uncle (a former army guy) we got done in about 2 hours, including time for mom to write dad a goodbye note.

meantime min kept dad busy, apparently having a very nice time. they really do get along wonderfully, so much that when she had to drop him off under a bit of a guise (reparking the car), she felt horrible for a while, wondering if he would think she was just 'being nice' in order to get him out of the house. i think he knows better, but we'll see.

min met the rest of us at the safeway down the street, and i got back into the car with her. as we drove away i started crying, thinking about how lonely and confused and angry he had to be in that moment. i had woke up that morning crying over the same thing. for all the stupid, hurtful things he has done, he is still my dad, i love him, and don't want him to be hurting.

but these things go in waves, the feelings. and so it was that a while after my early-am crying spell, min stopped me and said, you know i'm really angry at your dad right now. we have all this angst, are going to all this effort because he keeps fucking up.

at that moment i felt very calm and so i said, yeah, i felt that way about a month ago. :-p

my dad is supposed to get a phone sometime today. the only way he had to contact us in the meantime, should he choose, was email. it was quite possible he would do something rash after all this (it has happened before) and so we were very glad to see an email from my dad saturday evening.

of course it was rather pleading, full of very mixed messages...and sent to me. there have been two more messages since and i am determined to talk to my mom tonight, get him her new email address. at first she said she'd reply via my account but later i realized being their intermediary is not ok with me.

that's it for now - my extremely dreary workday is about over, and i am so outta here. i am just grateful this seems to be proceeding rather smoothly so far, and hope i have not just jinxed things.

t-1

tomorrow my mom is scheduled for departure from her salem abode, heading for parts portlandish, by which i mean our guest room. the date has been set for almost 2 weeks and her slow but consistent progress forward -- along with a fiendishly brilliant plan she emailed early this morning -- makes me think she will really leave my dad tomorrow.

am i ready? hell no. but i know she needs to do it.

is her room ready? let's say, 75% and i suppose the extra exercise has been good for me. it used to look like a storage unit exploded in there; now there are orchestrated, diminutive piles of chaos. that plus putting the bed together will keep me busy til midday tomorrow when we head southward.

oh, and the brilliant plan? send min and my dad to a bookstore or thrift store while, unbeknownst to him (but knownst to us), me, mom, and other relatives pack up her stuff. there will still be some kind of an aftermath, which i am not looking forward to at ALL, but meantime my dad and min will be in one of their favorite places.

here's hoping tomorrow doesn't suck ass.

i have no excuse not to write

at least this morning, so here i am. so what's the haps the last few weeks? well, certainly not my mom moving in. she is now targeting next weekend. since she's given me a new date, i suppose this weekend i will actually work on the guest room...

what i really wanted to do this weekend was get out halloween decor. over the weekend we went to the roloff farms - home to the little people, big world show, if you watch that.

min is a big fan and was ecstatic (i surprised her) to go there finally, despite having to hobble a bit. she'd wrenched her knee the week before. we got some nifty pumpkins which i will try to showcase sometime before halloweenie.

afterwards, we went to see a bad movie but followed it with yummy japanese. 8 or so hours after that, min got up from bed and uber-wrenched her knee. 10 or so hours after that, we came home from the ER, her with a big ol knee brace and orders to rest. has she been resting? using the brace? sort of. grr.

i know i'm being a bad blog hostess, what with these sporadic posts. however, if you want more frequent - if one line - updates, you should add me as a friend on facebook. i know you're all dying for up to the minute heather news, so consider this your best source.

and since i flubbed several words in the attempt to type that last paragraph, i have a question for y'all, especially those of you who might be older than me. in the last few months i've noticed that i'm starting to misspell words -- and instead of transposing letters (my longtime favorite) -- i'm spelling semi-phonetic-variations. for example, dying became dieing. news was originally knews. so....has this happened to any of you? this rampant misspelling affliction? i feel like my synapses are starting to break down.

an update on my odd little world

• things are entirely too busy at work.
  
• but i got a teeny soda can acknowledging my contributions!
  
• a new person just joined our team, so maybe things will get better...in a month, when they're trained
  
• my mom finally came for Her Weekend of Processing
  
• yes it was productive...and long.
  
• yes she says she's leaving my dad. in fact, she says it will be next weekend
  
• i'm not holding my breath
  
• she's coming to stay with us...temporarily. she says she's excited about getting her own place
  
• not holding my breath there either.
  
• mom in the house will be good for min (for several reasons) but a big one is:
  
• about a month ago, min stopped driving. she's having (more) forgetful+depth perception-type issues. so it'll be good to have another driver in the house, for a while
  
• i am really proud of min for making that decision. my dad should've done that a long time ago.
  
• and of course, i am proud of my mom, taking some of the steps she needs to feel good about herself
  
• i will be even prouder if she actually does what she needs to by next weekend
  
  and most importantly:
  
• there needs to be a ghirardelli store in portland

grateful

this weekend left me feeling very grateful. there have been no gold-showering rainbows, no happy pills for family tension, work or health issues, but that does not stop me from being blessed. for example:

my mom was supposed to come stay with us over the weekend. we were going to have some fun, sure, but also high on the list was helping her process, so to speak, her future. be a sounding board, troubleshoot ideas, etc. because she has not done that yet, not really.

but it's been weeks since this debacle started! you might say. and to you i say: very astute. but time moves very, very slowly when you are sick. which means, no, my mom did not come over this weekend. she called friday, rescheduling to saturday; called saturday rescheduling to sunday, and sunday to cancel completely. sunday brought 'needles pricking all [her] joints', along with a 102 degree fever. i wish i could say this was horribly out of line, but unfortunately, it's only a mild deviation.

which is why, almost immediately after talking with her, something pushed me onto the back deck. it was almost 80 degrees, sunny with a wonderful little breeze. i realized that, as an able-bodied person living in an absolutely gorgeous area, i had a moral imperative to take advantage of it.

and so i did. as a nice surprise, min came too. we traipsed around a wonderfully lush park, with semi-steep paths right down to the willamette river. once we got to the rocks and blue, pearl started chasing a larger dog into a good-sized pond and ran right into it...for about 2 seconds, and then backed up. she turned around to look at me. water?!?

she did this about 4 or 5 more times, which = big big fun for her AND for us, giggling away. after that, i walked over to the river and got my feet nice and freezing, drinking in the air and peaceful surroundings: quiet chatter, dogs barking, boats scooting by, water lapping at me, wind in my hair, sun keeping everything in check.

i would give a lot to make my mom better. meantime...man. we had a good day. :)