Posts (page 2)

My Dad would have been 62 today. R and I will be going out to the cemetary tomorrow -- we're taking care of some other things, too. I will talk about those later on in the weekend.

I may have said this last year, but it still holds true -- my Mom is older than my Dad, and sometimes that makes my heart twist and my head hurt, because it wasn't that way for so very long.

Big storm came today
Bah! No subways anywhere
Walk -- and melt in sun.

Hi, guys...

I'm still alive, Internet, and we have things to discuss. Things! Soon! Can't discuss them just yet...but watch this space.

In the meantime...here's this morning's pre-melt, pre-commuter nightmare discussion:

R: "I have foibles, you have foibles."
Me: "Foibles! That sounds so...cute! Like cousins of Tribbles!"
R: "Or Weebles!"
Me: "YES! Foibles are furry little things that don't fall down!"

There's now fossil evidence that penguins were once five feet tall and roamed Peru. Their beaks were a foot long!

Now, I wanna know: World of Warcraft has no penguins, not even in Winterspring, a vast snowy spot with yetis and other angry snow creatures. I don't think they even have penguins as mini-pets. :( It's time to correct this oversight -- bring penguins to WoW!!!

Not having an easy time with things, lately. I'm sick of being in constant pain. I'm also terrified of ending up like my mother, who at 59 has had two hip replacements, one of her knees replaced twice, and needs her second knee done.

On the bright side, I saw a new orthopedist yesterday, who examined me far more thoroughly than my other one, the one who I've been seeing since December, has ever done. I'm now being treated for not only my foot and Achilles tendinitis, but also for poor ankle strength and tendinitis of the lower kneecap. Essentially, my left leg is all messed up...but now something is being done about it. So things can only get better from here, right? Right?

My weight isn't helping...I'm not 300 pounds, but I'm not a size 3, either, the way I was in college. (Granted, that wasn't very healthy, either...) It's been a vicious cycle for me that I need to break. I sprained my ankle, so I didn't do as much...so I gained more weight...so my tendons got stretched and strained and hurt...so I didn't do as much...so I gained even more weight...and so on, and so on. :P My doc yesterday told me what I can do, at the gym, to help with that while not aggravating my damaged bits. :) So let's see how I do.

I also got a cortisone shot in my heel yesterday that should help get things relaxed -- not cramped and tight. I have to tell you, that was possibly the most painful and excruciating procedure I've ever had done on me without the use of anesthetics. It was a 3-inch (maybe 4) needle...into my foot...and it huuuuurt. I almost passed out. My stomach was lurching, too. I really, really hope I don't ever need one of those again.

Sorry this isn't a more sparkly entry...maybe things will be better tomorrow. I'm trying to do things that will make me better, but right now, I'm pretty down. :(

This past weekend, we had The Camping Trip That Wasn't.  One of my friends from high school organized a camping trip.  We were headed for a campground in upstate New York, six adults and my friend's three-year-old, and everyone was quite stoked.  It would have been my first "real" camping trip (my only other camp experience involved Girl Souts, my troop leader's backyard, and spraining my ankle by tripping on a tent peg) so I was all bouncy and asking R "Hey, how do you pee in the woods?  Do you need to bring toilet paper and a baggie?"

We were all meeting up Friday night -- three of us were coming from Long Island, and the other three from Manhattan.  R and I had even purchased a tent, sleeping bags, and a lantern for the event -- we were prepared, baby -- so we were blissfully determined to be blissfully ignorant and ignore the weather, which was calling for some rain showers. 

Late Friday afternoon, however, we got the call:  "Major rain and thunderstorms all weekend.  We're switching to Plan B.  Abandon your tents!"  "Plan B" involved our friend's mother's "getaway" cabin in the Poconos -- very rustic, on the border of a huge state park, but not quite the "roughing it" weekend we'd envisioned.

We had a thunderstorm and monsoon-level rain within three hours after we'd arrived, so we knew we'd made the right decision.  It pretty much stayed that way all weekend -- we didn't even get to see the park.  It was still fun, though, as we all got to reconnect and chat.  We cooked, we drank, we played poker and Trivial Pursuit.  It was all good -- and thank heavens for the getaway cabin, for which we were all eternally grateful.

I did come to a realization over the weekend, and it's one that I need to think on.  A lot.  See, R and I have discussed getting pregnant.  No, we're not married (yet), but I'm 38.  If we're to have a child together, we need to start pretty much NOW. 

Being around my friend's child, though, has made me really worried.  'Bella was great -- she played equally well with adults and on her own, made friends with everyone, no temper tantrums, no fussing.  But it really drove home to me that when you have a child, you're pretty much around them all the time.  Which, yes, no duh, but...

Example:  we were all playing poker, while 'Bella was playing with her toys.  I lost and dumped out, so I was asked to go take 'Bella "on the boat" (the stairs).  :)  I was happy to do that, but after about 20 minutes or so, I really wanted to get back to the grownups and see what everyone was laughing about (and see if R had any chips left).   I liked Bella, but I wanted to hang with the adults, so we wound up going back to the table where everyone was together. 

This freaked me out a little.  I should be able to spend more than 20 minutes playing with a child!  But...suppose I can't?  Suppose I'm lousy at it?  Where do I get the patience from?  How do you sit through your 500th episode of "Blues Clues" without going nuts?  And what happens when you can't understand what they're saying?

Meep?

The photographic wall, it has been hit.  And no, I don't want to take a picture of it. 

Here's the deal:  I've always loved taking pictures.  For my birthday this past May, my wonderful boyfriend R gave me a Nikon D50.  I also signed up for a "Principles of Photography" class at the School of Visual Arts, since I didn't know an f-stop from a bus stop. 

Camera = yummy goodness.  Class, while brain-bending (Monday nights, summer semester, 6-9:00 pm, you do the math) = still yummy goodness.  My teacher was great, an insanely smart guy. 

Now, the class was straight lecture -- no homework, no critique.  There just isn't time to cover what's necessary and include critiques, and this isn't a class about composition, it's about reciprocity law and hyperfocal distance and Kelvins.  And math.  And let me tell you, I suck at math. The last class was a week ago, and we applauded my teacher.  He deserved it, too. 

But.  Now I've got my head full of theory, and I've been taking pictures this entire summer.  So knowing all of that, I went to Riverside Park to take pictures the other night.

With the exception of maybe two, they suck.  They're insipid and boring and the color's wrong and they just suck.  I didn't feel good about them.  When I took this one, I knew it was a good picture.  This one, too -- it's not a huge dramatic picture, but it's a funny moment that I happened to catch.  The ones at Riverside?   I didn't get a "happy gut" feeling, just an "eeehhhh" feeling.  It wasn't working for me, and I think it shows.

Maybe I've taken too many pictures this summer, and I need to stop for a bit.  Or maybe I know just enough to trip myself up, and I need to take some time off from theory and switch to "auto."  No manual, no thinking, just go "clicky."  I dunno.  All I know is that I know how much I don't know, and it makes me unhappy and frustrated. 

Put the camera down.  Step away from the camera...  >:P  Camera ban for two weeks, maybe?

Do you have any tattoos? If not, if you were going to get inked, what would you get?

Newp.  It's one of the things that I keep saying I'm gonna do...yet don't.  However, if and when?  I want a triskele on my left ankle, something like this.  I'd want to draw it myself, though, make it more stark.  And the triskele, for the record, means a lot of things to a lot of people.

If you had a band, what would you call yourselves?
Question submitted by Zoot.

Ooooh...well, when I was in a band, we were called "Flowers Inside."  :D  We were goth-emo-feminist (with two guys in the band, even) and we sang all about bad dates, death, and suicide.  Then I got engaged...and was really happy...and found it hard to sing about death, so I quit.  Our alternate band name at the time:  "Bitch Tits and the Pussy Boy Brigade."  (The two guys gleefully accepted being the Pussy Boys.)

But a band name for now...  I have a few:  "ElmoHead," with a logo of...Elmo's head.  "School Crossing."  And "Walk, Don't Run," which would just *have* to be an 80s cover band.

So I just resurrected my blog at www.metrocake.com.  It's a Moveable Type blog, so I'm wondering/hoping that I'll be able to cross-post from there to here.  If they can do it for LiveJournal, I'm sure that can happen here too...eventually.  :)

I'm gonna see... :crosses fingers!: