>The Best Thing on TV

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Mythbusters.

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-dimpled-car-minimyth.html

I don’t have a car, but if I did…..

It’s very cold here, but slowly warming. Up to 25 from 18 degrees fahrenheit earlier. I have been having more pain the past several days, so much so that yesterday I vegged on the couch instead of here at the desk. My homemaker came and the first thing she said upon walking in was, “Why are you there(on the couch)? Is everything okay?”, which tells me I spend waaaay too much time on the computer. LOL It was pretty funny.

I’ve also been sneezing and sneezing and sneezing since the super fixed the ceiling and caulked the window. Allergic to something, I am. Living on allergy pills. Not fun. but it is a beautiful sunny day, so I am enjoying that. The inspector came to check that the ceiling was fixed, and I had two deliveries from Amazon. Good thing I was up and dressed early (for me) today. I am trying the Amazon subscription service for the first time. I ordered a few things like baby wipes and I’ve forgotten what else that I use on a regular basis but can’t always get to the proper store to purchase. So we’ll see if it actually is cheaper and more convenient. Don’t know til I try. You schedule delivery for whatever time period you want, like twice a year for the wipes. They are great for cleaning up after a spill or just making the bathroom look neater. Whatever. Time for lunch.

>Boxing Day

>I went to my friends’ yesterday. I was tired, but felt pretty good otherwise. It was just the three of us and her brother, whom I had met before. We had a lovely dinner and then played games. Poker was one. I don’t play poker, but I won the first hand by bluffing. Yay, me. It was a very fun day and I really enjoyed myself. Then I came home. Misery, misery, misery. Remember the face hurting from the other day? Apparently I am severely allergic to either the paint or the window caulk that the super used, cause I was fine while I was out, but I have been sneezing and feeling horrible since I got home yesterday. Face hurting and all. I could open the windows and try for fresh air and freeze, or I can just sneeze and feel rotten some more. Choices, choices. I hope everyone had a lovely, fun, and happy Christmas, and no allergies.

>Christmas

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Yes, world, it’s almost Christmas. So here I sit, feeling sorry for myself. My face hurts from sinuses, my body hurts, my legs hurt, I feel lousy all over. It’s Christmas. I want to be happy. But I miss my husband, I miss my family, I miss my life…the one I had before it all went to shit. I can feel sorry for myself once in a while, can’t I? I want to go to my friends’ house tomorrow. I want to celebrate. I want to feel well enough to make the cheese crackers and take the shower and get dressed and go and have fun. I want to. I don’t know if I will. Sometimes, it just gets to me, all of it. I try really hard not to think about past Christmases, remember the excitement of putting things out from Santa for the girls. Planning the dinner, making the rolls to have with coffee and present openings. I miss that life. I miss that jerk Tom who left me and then died. What a lousy thing to do. I can’t even dream that he would come back some day, not that I’d want him to, but still. I miss him. I miss holding his hand. We always held hands. I miss my kids. So I just want to say a big f-ing shit, world, but I still hope you all have a happy Christmas.

>Really Good Stuff

>I had to make a new folder in my bookmarks for really good stuff I don’t know where else to file. I was doing my usual thing…following links here and there and reading, reading, reading, when I came across this blog and post. Link at the bottom. I happen to think it’s Really Good Stuff.

Yes, I am not religious. I have mentioned this. I am also not the sharpest tool in the box (thank you Smash Mouth), so when I come across places where people can articulate their arguments extremely well and very understandably, I am a happy reader. On this link are many, many people who do this, saying things I wish I had the vocabulary and thinking skills to articulate myself.

I don’t bother about whether anyone else is religious. If going to church, or holding specific beliefs, or visiting psychics, or casting spells is your thing, more power to you. It’s none of my business. So long as you don’t use any of that to discriminate or deny human rights or cause harm to me or anyone else, that is. If reading arguments stating an opposing view offend you, don’t click the link. It’s that simple.

Here is the link:

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/12/open-thread-11.html

>Two Questions

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Anyone here use Facebook, and if so, what are your experiences with it? Good, bad, indifferent. I’ve heard lots of bad and not much good. Enlighten me, readers, please.

Question Two: Readers, you may know I am totally and completely addicted to Torchwood, so much so that I am currently listening to BBC Cymru, the BBC Welsh Station. The question is, is it really possible to learn a language through hearing it or watching tv programs using it? I know I’ve heard someone say they learned English by watching tv, but really? It all just sounds like gobbledygook to me. Do I have to see it, i.e. watch a Welsh tv station, if that were possible? Even then, I don’t see how it’s possible. Anyone?

>Snow, Snow, Snow

>Yes, it is coming down hard. Blizzard warnings. 24 degrees. How can you not love winter? I ask you.

I was up all last night, slept all day, and now I am up all night tonight. But it’s the weekend, so who cares. I’ll get back in sync. I saw a blue-light (not K-mart) little thing that you can use for 15-30 minutes in the morning and it will help with the totally screwed sleep schedule. It says. A lot of reviewers say so too, but it is kind of expensive, so I am deciding. I would love to be less of a vampire and more of a day person, but I have always had the delayed sleep cycle my entire life. It just got a lot worse once I got fibro/cfs. If I do get it, I will post whether it really does work or not.

Way cool Christmas lights, and good music, too:

>!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>I direct you to this blog, by Elizabeth of Ontario. I wish to point out the picture in the post named “Anguish”. Here is how I feel. Here is my deepest self. Here is the anguish of illness. Made visible for all to see. Elizabeth, whom I only know through blogging comments, is a remarkable woman, it seems. Please view her blog.

http://fibromyalgia-art.blogspot.com/

And her other blog:

http://asofawithaview.blogspot.com/

>Warmth

>The super came today and caulked around my windows. No more freezing. I love my super. LOL

Having a very good spell lately. I’ve cooked here and there, kept things tidy, decluttered a bit more, and gone out shopping with a friend. It’s gotten really, really cold now, so I think I won’t be going out again for a bit. It’s 12 degrees right now. Twelve. Degrees. Fahrenheit. Oy.

I was just watching the vid in my December 8 post. God, I love being a geek. I love all the science stuff, I love Doctor Who, whose theme is in the vid around the seven minute mark. I love my computer, where I find all this cool geeky stuff.

Here’s something geeky now:

>Not The Greatest Picture Ever

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Even though I was tired and pained and foggy when I got up, I managed to get some actual work done today. A bit at a time. I cleaned around the windows, since the super is coming tomorrow to see about caulking them so I don’t freeze to death; I cleared out under the sink, put in some nice plastic-y shelf lining, and rearranged my tools and cleaning stuff under there; took out the stove drawer to retrieve my favorite skillet that had slipped behind, vacuumed there, finding also two cat toys, put the drawer back by myself, which I couldn’t do last time, and rearranged the skillet and baking pans; moved the box of videos away from the window where it was resting while I figure out where to put them; and I guess that’s about it. Had leftover Chinese food for breakfast and dinner. I do love leftover Chinese food. So all-in-all, I would say it was a good day, and I am happy.

>Internet Friends

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Found this in an old post of a blog I’m checking out:

“If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal. There are too many to list; you know who you are.”

And from a reply to that post:

“……….But you know, everyone can’t live right next to me. Kindred spirits are friends no matter where they live geographically. The internets are just another way to bring us together.”

Having met one of my closest (in real life) friends through the internet, and one or two really special people who are/were strictly internet friends, I can say that having the internet has made my life that much richer and more fun. It also lets me keep in touch with people I love in real life, but who don’t live close enough for day-to-day interaction. What do you think, readers? Has the internet enriched your life, or no?

>Yesterday (and Today)

>Was a good day. Went out with a friend. It was beautiful…cold, sunny, a nice winter day. Got a new thumbdrive, since I lost my old one.

It was the second day IN A ROW that I woke up with no pain and in a great mood. So I was very happy all day. Two days in a row is unusual lately. I was very silly all day, because I like silly, and I don’t care if people think I’m crazy. Well, I am crazy, so what does it matter what they think?

My apartment failed the inspection because of a patch in the bedroom ceiling that hasn’t been painted since the air conditioner leaked there a few years ago. The inspector sees it every time he comes, so why did he fail it this time? That means I have to be cognizant and presentable for the super to come paint it, then I have to be cognizant and presentable for the inspector’s return visit. I hate HAVING to be cognizant and presentable, because if my brain isn’t working well, it’s very, very difficult to achieve both those things at the same time. Having a chronic, debilitating illness, while fun to say, is a pain in the butt sometimes.

Put in two new videos. Check them out. Does anyone remember those old John Cameron Swazey Timex ads?

I’ve been updating some things on the pc recently. I had done IE8 awhle ago. I hate IE8 and all the previous versions and only use it if whatever I want to do absolutely, positively refuses to work in Firefox, so it’s really not that important. I also just downloaded SP3 a few days ago, after waiting til they got the bugs out, she said in hopes that they did. I did notice an immediate upgrade in how fast things load, especially IE8, which was interminably slow to load before. Today I downloaded the latest Firefox version. I haven’t been happy with the recent ones, so was still using 3.0.10. I hope this version does what I want it to. I save my install files in a folder, so I can uninstall this and go back if I don’t like it. One thing I’ve been having a problem with is when I try to do ‘sort by name’ in my bookmarks, it freezes things up, so I have been doing the sorting manually. Good old drag and drop in the ‘All-in-One-Sidebar’ extension, which is one of my favorites. Oh, the reason I upgraded FF is because none of my Stylish styles are working. The Stylish icon in the status bar stays blank, but right-clicking shows that the styles are there and should be working. Haven’t downloaded them back yet, so we’ll see if it’s fixed. I’ll keep you posted, readers.

>Blog Layout

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I finally figured out where to change the width. Outer-wrapper in the ‘edit html’ window. Yay, me.

Finally up at a decent hour, 9am. It is snowing and everything is coated in white. Very pretty, but my weather update tells me it’s going to change to rain soon. It’s 33 degrees farenheit. Ice, anyone?

Feeling good today. Woke up in a good mood and not in pain. First time since a week and a half ago, when I had a really good Sunday. Was feeling kind of sad before yesterday, and I realized that the more people I actually know in real life read my blog, the more reluctant I am to get into my feelings. I think it’s because I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, or think they need to ‘fix’ me, or do anything at all, actually, except maybe give me an encouraging word. So I am going to try to ignore that reluctance, because it kind of defeats the purpose of the blog.

So day before yesterday, after a week of feeling lousy and missing the Thanksgiving celebration, I was not in the best frame of mind anyway, and then suddenly I realized that the black hole was circling. Kind of scary, except that I can be aware of it now, and not just let it happen. Then yesterday I had a foggy but fun time when my homemaker was here. Set up an email address for her. I think she may be the last person left who didn’t have one. Talked and laughed while she worked. Helped. A lot. So today….good mood, feeling better. Life is good.

>This Post Is For You, Peter

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But first, how can you not love science?

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/05/saturday-morning-sci-8.html

Today was the day I was going to friend’s house to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving. Of course, I woke up feeling like a truck had run over me, and went back to sleep for several hours of blocking out the misery. Friend called, I had to decline going, got up, felt sorry for miserable self, ate oatmeal, vegged on sofa looking for something…anything, worth watching on tv. Got tired of self-pity, called friend to say hi to all, and what does she do but put me on the phone with my favorite person on the planet, Peter, her son-in-law. Lovely, lovely chat thank you very much, Peter. Body doesn’t feel any better, but psyche is psyched.

Bonus for today. It snowed! I love snow. I love, love, love snow. So it turned out to be a good day after all. They all do, one way or another. Life is good.