Back, but not Necessarily Better
Mood:  blue
Now Playing: "Rusty the Skatemaker", Rasputina
It's raining. It's been raining since Saturday.
I love being outside in the rain, or doing something in the rain, but when you're stuck on your ass recovering and staring out the window it SUCKS. Say it with me..."SUCKS".
The reason I'm stuck on my ass is really a strange kind of early coincidence thing. Boys, you may not understand this, so come back later if you don't like hearing about girly things.
My spread-and-scrape in July just came back with wonky results, so Doctor Shmuckatelli wants me in for a colposcopy, which I dread. I call, and wonder of wonders there is a HUGE patient backup and I can't be taken care of until OCtober 4th. OCTOBER?!?! What happens between now and then?
Not a damn thing. That means I would have to sit and stew for TWO MONTHS before it got done and over with. I wanted to cry.
Better still, I hate my damn OB/GYN. He looks at me like I'm fucking stupid every time I ask a question, and I ask a LOT of questions. Hey, why am I required to know how the female system works? Last time I checked, we were ALLOWED to ask. My bad.
And yesterday, I'm on the phone with the hub-unit, explaining when my appointment is, and the other line beeps. I hate call waiting, because you're suddenly filled with the urgency to IMMEDIATELY switch over, it might be something IMPORTANT,someone might be DEAD, dear god please don't HANG UP I'M ALMOST THERE! Anyway.
Apparently there was a cancellation, and they could fit me in at 2 PM oculd I make it and please take 800 mg of Motrin before I show up?
At this point I would like to mentionthat it was five minutes to 1 PM. That gave me roughly a half an hour to get the husband home and get dressed, because I was still in my workout clothes.
CUT TO
Doc Shmuckatelli's office:
Doc Shmuckatelli isn't there, a different dude will be taking a peep at my cervix. YAY. They take my vitals, throw me on the scale, and I promptly burst into tears. Apparently, I've gained seven pounds since this morning. Then, as per usual (and I mean EVERY TIME), the nurse asks me how old my baby is now. My baby? Yes dear, your baby. You mean the baby I don't have. The baby you don't-? Oh, I'm sorry dear.
EVERY TIME. Thank you for reminding me that I once AGAIN have failed at reproduction. Thank you, Nurse Friendly, THANK YOU. For a minute there I had almost recovered from the hysterics induced by the faulty scale.
Turns out, the LAST colpo I had was a wash. DS took a look at my shit and proclaimed it well and didn't do anything to it, and he shouldn't have done that. So this time. I was gonna get a full exam, compete with biopsy.
BIOPSY? They're going to go inside and CUT me?
Instant panic attack.
Now, I understand that this is a normal procedure and is done all the time to women, but once again I cannot explain the things roaring through my brain at the time.
So I'm laying on this table with this genteel old southern gentleman between my legs, cranking me open with a COLD metal duckbill, and jamming things up in my business. While this is happening, the room is slowly shrinking to a dark pinpoint and tears are STREAMING down my face. I don't think I've ever felt more violated in my life. Of course, the wise sage and eminent woman that is my mother says that it's a by-product of rape, but how am I to know that? All I know is that there is some MAN rooting through my insides and cutting CHUNKS out of me. And iodine? It BURNS.
So it looks like I have mild to moderate cervical dysplasia, but I won't know for at least three weeks. Wish me luck.
And now I sit here, quietly bleeding and cramping like a motha, watching the rain come down. I think that maybe I should go to bed.
Or cartoons. Maybe some cartoons will cheer me up.
But not food. Food will NOT cheer me up.

A Post Notification that I WIll Not Be Posting
I am fucking tired.
Not just a little tired, but BONE tired. My bipolar is acting up because of this, and I am depressed, therefore, I will not be posting for a few days.
Not to mention that I am now in a state of depressed panic because once AGAIN Dr. Shmuckatelli has found something wrong with my cervix. AGAIN.
I need a few days away from EVERYBODY. Jesus am I tired.

The Search for the Perfect Sofa, Part Two
Mood:  down
Now Playing: "Allison Road", Gin Blossoms
SO Sleepy....
But anyway, the continuing search for the Perfect Sofa has drawn to a close, and as per usual with me, it did not end how I planned with maximum ironic capacity.
So we go online and start looking for cool furniture. We end up finding Sleek Sofas, this rad site where they make custom furniture sets for relatively cheap. Seriously. For 1300 bucks, we were going to get a sofa, a loveseat, an armchair and an ottoman. In the perfect color. In the perfect fabric. I was gonna die. DIE, I tell you. Only widget in the ointment: it would take ten weeks to get here. TEN WEEKS. With the mom's trip up here for Thanksgiving rapidly approaching (well, not for you, but for ME it is), ordering cool custom furniture that takes ten weeks to get here is not the optimal idea, especially if we want it up here by the time she gets here. Plus, where are we gonna get 1300 dollars?
Answer: one month's advance pay from the Navy.
Problem: We got impatient.
Solution: Keep looking, just in case we find something else before the order date.
We did, and it's fantastic and CHEAP. However...
It's a grandmas couch.
Yep, we walked into the Habitat for Humanity furniture store, and there it was: a couch and armchair for 25 bucks. Throw in a recliner for another 45, and we've bought an entire living room for less than 80 dollars and we don't have to wait ten weeks. But, it is indeed a grandma's couch, with a matching armchair. Creamy off-white upholstery patterned with neon yellow and bright green flowers. I am not lying.
Of course, my bright idea is is that we take the advance pay we're getting and use it to reupholster the sofa and chair. Good idea, eh? I thought so.
Until the hub-unit called a reupholstery place and got a really rough estimate on what the damage would be.
And here is where the difference between men and women lie: options. While the hub-unit is on the phone with his jaw roughly hanging to his knees, I am considering options. This furniture purchase was, at BEST, an impulse buy due to the fabulous price. I am NOT going to let the price of new fabric get me down. HOWEVER, the hub-unit gets off the phone and immediately begins to rub his temples and talk about how maybe we shouldn't have gotten the stuff in the first place because it was REALLY expensive to recover, and we should have just bought the NEW stuff and waited....
STOP.
I'm NOT waiting if we can get cool shit that day. Once again, my instant gratification gland was pumping juice to all the wrong places. I point out that he is FREAKING out for no reason, and that so okay we can't get it done RIGHT AWAY. I turn on the computer and TA-DAA!
Microfiber slip covers in the perfect color! Problem solved. The hub-unit is covering me with kisses and telling me that he hadn't even considered it and I am telling him that it's because he's a boy.
So we will be buying slipcovers until we can recover the sofa. Hey, they do it all the time on Trading Spaces, don't they? Shit.
All we have to do is deny the fact that it is, indeed, a grandma's couch underneath the fabulous microfiber. Especially since I am so anti-grandma's couch. Sigh...

Attention Please:
Now Playing: "Found Out About You", Gin Blossoms
WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYBODY?!?!?!
Is it just Mondays and Tuesdays that no one wants to post? Come on people, you're the only link I have to the outside world! If I can't read something in the blogworld every morning I am LOST!
Lost, I tell you.
Next entry.

Cattus Interruptus
So the hub-unit ecided to get frisky, and while he was attempting to rouse me from my deep slumber and doing frisky things, Augustus jumps onto the bed and promptly throws himself on top of me. My mouth is instantly filled with white furry bits, and the hub-unit is left gaping in astonishment. I believe the conversation went something like this:
HU: Um, Augie, daddy was RIGHT in the middle of something...
Aug: MIR!
HU: No really, cat, you need to go elsewhere. How about a nice camping trip? (camping is our euphemism for "lock the cats in the bathroom we'll be having sex soon")
AUG: MIR! purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
ME: Tee hee.
HU: AUGIE! (sound of flapping sheets) Come on buddy, cut me some slack here and get off your mother....
ME: SNORK!
The cat was moved, and then-
HU: You are SO not in the mood anymore are you?
ME: giggle giggle snort teehee.
HU: Dammit.

Yes, having cats is just like having kids. Maybe I'll just stick with cats, they're easier to move about.

Best Birthday Ever
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: The sound of the dishwasher on rinse cycle
I'd like to thank everybody for their words of cheeriness on my cursed birthday, and was very amused by the fact that my tenants wished me the best before even the hub-unit. You guys made me feel MUCH better.
I was lucky Friday, because while I was griping first thing in the morning, I was a wee bit premature. Here's how the rest of the day went:

9:30 AM: Mother calls. Her boyfriend and co. have moved into a cute little two bedroom apartment with a pool and spa complex, for 1500 a month. I had to choke back a gag because now I will NEVER tell her what we pay for rent up here in WA. She may move in or something (eeek). My present, I am told, is in the mail and should arrive Monday. She then tells me my sister's a fruitcake. Duh.
10:45 AM: Wait, I'm actually getting a PRESENT? Hey today might not actually suck after all!
10:50 AM: I'm fucking going back to bed. I'm not doing nuffin' today, dammit.
11:30 AM: RING! RING! It's Jen, the friend-who-had-gall-bladder-owchies-but-doesn't-anymore. Apparently all week she's been wanting to call and check on me, but her boyfriend who is at work with the hub-unit says "dear god, don't call she's already depressed don't remind her it's her birthday don't call don't call don't for the luvvajaysus CALL." She does anyway. Someone else rembering my birthday suddenly snaps me out of my depression (ZONK!), and I agree to go have lunch at a new restaurant down the street that's supposed to rock balls.
11:45 AM: Hey, don't I need MONEY to go to lunch? Gotta call the hub-unit for moola because my damn check card hasn't shown up yet.
11:50 AM: He's on his way. Must shower and find clothing that doesn't make me look like an upright whale. Where'd that oversize tshirt go...?
12:15 PM: Jen shows up. No sign of the damn hub-unit. I think his ATM circuits must have a malfunction somewhere. Jen's man giggles nervously and tells me not to tell the hub-unit (his supervisor) that he's playing hookey from work to go see Alien versus Predator. I weigh the blackmail options, then agree to keep a secret.
1:30 PM: Hub-unit finally shows up, and actually lets me take the car to lunch. I tell him that we'll be back in an hour.
1:45 PM: San Remo Bar and Grill, Oak Harbor, WA. BEST. FOOD. EVER.
2:50 PM: Did I say we would be home in an hour? We stop for coffee and fresh donuts anyway. Tee hee.
3:15 PM: Back at the house. Jen decides to hang out while the hub-unit goes back to work, but then realizes that he gets off of work in 15 minutes and decides against it. He takes a quick trip back to work to lock up, or so I think.
3:25 PM: Father calls. Tells several dirty jokes, apologizes for no present but tells me to cross my fingers for christmas. He also tells me that I will NOT be receiving any singing from my aunt, who is apparently going through menopause and has some issues. Hey, menopause is a good excuse for anything. Besides, do I REALLY need the singing?
3:43 PM: The hub-unit comes back home bearing a deluxe DVD of the Dark Crystal (muppets! yay MUPPETS!) and a dozen long stemmed roses with a teddy bear squished in the middle. It appears he hasn't forgotten at all, he was just being an ass. Which,I might add, he is REALLY good at sometimes.
5:12 PM: I decide to make my own damn birthday cake, and I decide on Red Velvet cake, which I've never made before. But instead of Red, I decide to make it an homage to David Lynch and change it to a BLUE Velvet cake.
7:47 PM: Too many air bubbles in the cake, and it turns out lopsided. I want to cry and wail about it being the curse and refuse to touch it, so the hub-unit trims and ices it because I have already written it off as a lost cause. An ugly, blue, lopsided cause. That I refuse to touch because I failed and won't look at it.
8:29 PM: The hub-unit drags me to Jen's apartment with the deep blue something that I've created, telling me that just because it's a little strange looking does NOT mean that it's bad-tasting and I should relax because everybody's just happy to get cake anyway. I sniffle and refuse to look at my First Failed Cake.
11:30 PM: Turns out the cake is freaking fabulous, but I still refuse to look at it even as I eat my tiny diet-friendly slice. I get smacked about the head so that I will take a compliment.
1:00 AM: The hub-unit and I go home and fall into bed, and for once, for ONCE, I actually had a good birthday.
Well, at least, besides the funky blue cake.

The Birthday List
Mood:  party time!
Now Playing: "Bother", Stone Sour
NO, it's not what I want people to give me for gifts. I gave up on presents YEARS ago.
No, today I present to you, my readers, and YOU, whoever youe are, with a not-quite-so-comprehensive list of what I am and what I am NOT today, on my 25th Birthday.

I AM:
-not pregnant
-married for less than a year and still loving every minute of it
-housemother to three cats
-still mad at my father for cheating on mom
-still mad at my mom for being so fuckng bitter two years later, despite the new boyfriend
-a survivor of sexual assault
-pissed as hell that I have that distinction, when there is so much more to me
-currently cuddling the youngest monkey-cat and reassuring her that the new kitty is not my favorite and has a stinky butt
-waiting for today to be over
-invited to a friend's birthday party tomorrow night, even though my friends who are throwing the party forgot about my own.
-going to cry at some time today, whether I like it or not
-going to sit down and read all of my Stephen King novels in chronological order today, because I was told I could do whatever I wanted
-thinking about baking a cake today
-waiting for terrorists to call in a bomb threat today, so that my hub-unit can't come home AT ALL until Monday. Because that's my luck
-positive that my birthday is cursed, especially when it falls on Friday the 13th (boogedy boogedy!)

I AM NOT
-pregnant
-working out today
-doing dishes
-looking forward to the rousing rendition of "Build Me Up, Buttercup" that will undoubtedly find it's way onto my answering maching today from a member of my family
-crossing my fingers and holding my breath for a present from ANYONE
-thinking too far ahead
-a victim (woot woot!)
-going to avert my eyes when someone asks me if I'm having children because I'm already fat and married with no aspirations to college or career
-going online and buying a shitload of stuff I don't need, despite the fact that this is what I do when I am depressed
-feeling the need to screen my phone calls, even though I usually do today because of the damn singing
-going to let turning 25 drag me too far down, because while I do not have great exciting Hollywood stories or war stories or intelligent opinions, I have some GREAT stories to tell about the last 25 years.

And there ya have it. Considering that it's only 7:30 AM, I think that's a fairly good list.
I'm going to go watch all my Kevin SMith movies now. Have a good one, everybody.

"Every day should be the best day ever, and it will be if you tell yourself that"

The Slow and Deliberate March of Time
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: "Perfect Blue Buildings", Counting Crows
So much for hitting 100 entries by Friday.
The only reason I wanted to reach 100 by Friday was that Friday is my birthday, and I thought I should accomplish SOMETHING. You know, the little things.
I know, I know, everybody's going to jump on my ass and say "Queenie, you're only going to be 25, what the FAHK are you kvetching about?"
I can explain. Or, at least, try. This is one of those windows into my neuroses, and it's kind of hard to explain exactly WHY I am the way I am to the sparkly-clean masses. Did I mention that your breath smells fabulous too?
Anyhoo. Here's how I look at it"
At 15: Shit man, you can get a driver's permit! You can drive to the mall (in daylight hours before midnight) with your friends! (as long as your mom's in the passenger seat)
At 16: You can drive a car, and you might even get one. If not, you can now get a job to pay for the car you didn't get but always deep down inside thought you deserved for even LIVING to 16.
At 18: You can vote! You can buy cigarettes! You're a legal adult! You can vote about being a legal adult having the right to buy cigarettes! And if you have that car already, you can move out if you feel the need, but you probably won't because you have no idea what an adult does yet.
At 21: You can drink! You can get into a bar and act silly like the other people you know you hang out with that bought you booze before you were 21! Officially, you can do everything all the other grown-ups of the world do, including paying those bills you ran up while living at home ALL BY YOURSELF because your parents think you're old enough to take care of yourself.
But what happens after that? Oh yeah, you start getting less and less of the incentives that made you want to get older, thus making it harder and harder to look forward to getting on in years.
At 25: OOOOH! Your car insurance rates can go down!
At 30: If you're female, you want to have a baby. Or, that's what I've been told. Of course, I've also been told that at 30 your sex drive goes through the roof and I think THAT'S a crock of shit.
And then it just s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s out until there's nothing left.
At 40: Dear god, you're over the hill! You get a party with lots of funereal jokes and black stuff proclaiming that you are just THATMUCH closer to dying.
At 68: You are eligible for social security checks. Woot woot.
Personally, I think that having birthdays stops being cool the first time you tell your parents that instead of having a swank daytime party with all the trimmings you'd rather have a SLUMBER PARTY. Once your buddies spend the night instead of go home with a goodie bag, it's all down hill.
Of course, that's not why I dread my birthday, that's just my line of thought. And believe me, it may sound like I've put a lot of thought into this straightforward dread, but that's not true. I'm just relying on experience. I get depressed around this time of year because the last ten years I have not had a decent birthday. Well, it may SOUND decent, but it's not.
13th b-day: I was in New Mexico, watching a HUGE rainstorm move across the desert, effectively putting the proverbial kibosh on any plans my 13 year-old self might have had planned. Did I mention I lived in California at the time?
14th b-day: I was in Las Vegas, BEFORE they erected Treasure Island, and was too young to do a damn thing. My parents tried to compensate by driving 14 hours STRAIGHT to Disneyland, but by that time I was too tired and drained to do anything anyway. Did I mention I STILL lived in California at the time?
15th b-day: Honestly, I can't remember this one, so maybe it was a good one. But then again, maybe I just blocked it from my memory because it sucked so much.
16th b-day: I was in the Okanagan Valley of Osoyoos, British Columbia, getting a third degree sunburn so that I couldn't move. Still lived in California, have NO idea what provoked my parents to head to Canada.
17th b-day: Had dinner with my parents because my friends forgot it was my birthday. Where the hell WERE all my friends, anyway?
18th b-day: I got dumped unceremoniously on my ass by my first major relationship. Seriously. A year and a half of dating, six months of sex, and the fucker's actually been cheating on me for six months with some little 98 pound-wet-with-all-her-clothes-on bitch. He subsequently stole all my friends from me and left me to suffer a miscarriage alone three months later. Happy birthday to me....
19th b-day: Had dinner with my parents because all my friends are out partying with my ex and his new girlfriend/fiancee. I am now officially pathetic.
20th b-day: I'm in the Navy, and i spend my supposedly special day in a hotel room somewhere in Florida, huddled up under the sink because the Marines have taken over the bed and the rest of the guys are running a train on some drunk girl in the next room. Where the fuck's my cake, at LEAST?
21st b-day: A 'friend' of mine decides to throw a party for me with 'just us girls'. I assume this means just us FRIENDS, but she invites the whole list of squadron females, many of which I can't stand just because they're female. She also decorates her whole one-bedroom apartment in SMILEY FACES. We show up, she tells us to 1) take off our shoes in her apartment and 2) no smoking in the house. We all smoked, so the whole party was crammed in a six by six porch. FUN. We left shortly thereafter before the Pictionary started, and, well, Memoirs of an (almost) famous rock groupie happened. Still, no fun.
22nd b-day: I hid, and the party monsters still found me. I got dragged to a bar, and they made an ass out of me by trying to pimp me out to EVERY available guy there, and some of the non-available ones too. SUCH fun. Can't you just give me presents and take me out for pizza or a movie or something? PLEASE?
23rd b-day: I was fucking working. The guys threatened to beat my ass on my birthday, so I couldn't tell anyone in fear of my life. FEAR OF MY LIFE. HAR. HAR. HAR. FUNNY.
24th b-day: I was on the road for nine hours, beginning my road trip to Destiny. The BBF bought me a pack of smokes with a heart on it. Finally, a birthday that ALMOST had some spark in it. ALMOST.
You see? I am cursed. CURSED. BAD JOOJOO, people. I dread Friday.
At least I'll be alone all day, so I can pull the covers over my head and bemoan the fact that I am indeed cursed, and one year closer to dying.
Aren't I just a HUGE bundle of fucking sunshine today?

Bits and Pieces
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: "Stuck With You", Huey Lewis and the News
"Catawampus is one of my favorite words, right up there with "feet" and "ungawa".
Just read an article about Koko the Gorilla, and remembered being very small and reading the book "Koko's Kitten", which is about said gorilla and her first kitten, All Ball. The things you remember with the slightest provocation...
A friend of mine read my page and said that it was "visceral", but in a Tarantino way. What the FUCK does that mean?
Visceral
(a.) Of or pertaining to the viscera; splanchnic.
(a.) Fig.: Having deep sensibility
OH.
Well, how the hell is a housewife's online journal THAT? Please, cut me a break.
I've lost three pounds this last week. I think it's just clothes weight, but the hub-unit disagrees. Of course, this is the same man that believes that my birthday is NOT cursed, which of course it is.
I've been bounding about the internet, scaring up new tenants for the apartments, and what have I been doing? Fucking up the link back to the site. So people have been reading my pithy housewife social commentary and then clicking on a link that pops up and error page. BOINK! Good job, me!
New obsession: anything by Nancy A. Collins, especially the Sonya Blue books. Gotta love those vampires...
I'm going back to bed.

Emergency Vet 911, How Can I Help You?
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: "Circles", Soul Coughing
Three cats barfing.
ALL three cats.
BARFING.

If you have more than one pet, it's like having children. If one gets sick, you can be sure that the others will follow suit, and then you're stuck with a multitude of icky-feeling pets.
Augie (the new kitty) started yakking, then Pigwidgeon and Hobbes came right in behind him, prompting me to call the hub-unit at work and have him come home so that we could take ALL THREE to the vet.
An hour and lots of shed hair later, we are told that the temperature has to be taken on all three felines. Chaos ensues. Dear god, what did I do to deserve THIS fluffwaffyness? Jesus.
The vet ells us that aside from Pigwidgeon needed her teeth cleaned, there's nothing wrong with ANY of them. She says it's probably stress from getting another cat in the house, and we should isolate Augie from the rest of the kitties for at least a week. A week. WHERE?
And it turns out that Augie has Feline Herpes.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Okay, I'm done. However, since it's not transferrable to humans (the hub-unit draws a sigh of relief), this is actually amusing. In the safety of the apartment, we now call him Igotstus Herpes, in honor of the great Julius Cesar, in a way. Kind of.
You know, it was fucking funny last night at three AM.