End of the world as we know it

Fuck. It's begun.

Things from people

From my grandmother (posted on the family blog):

Attitude is everything, therefore do not worry about tomorrow , for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. After all Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Words of wisdom with love from grandma Dorothy

That so explains my mother.

From Brian:

[O]ne’s emotional memory is a force to be reckoned with: it retains feelings longer than one might think, and is stronger than any ex post facto rationale one constructs. Unfortunate, that.

Just. So. True.

And from one of the Kids Klub kids' mothers, who is also a rabbi: The "Shema," the most important prayer in Judaism, is a Haiku.

She-ma Yis-ra-el (5)
A-do-nai e-lo-hey-nu (7)
A-do-nai e-chad (5)

That a little bit blew my mind.

Last night I fell asleep in my clothes around 9 and woke up this morning around 9:30. I think I needed the sleep. I worked yesterday from 7:15 AM until 6:08 PM (a parent got stuck in traffic). I'm scheduled today from noon to 6 and tomorrow from 1:30 to 6. Very glad to be getting the extra hours, especially with almost two weeks off for Passover and spring break in April.

Real estate is the new mesothelioma!

Much to my own surprise, the mesothelioma thing worked. I made almost $3 in one day as opposed to my usual pennies. So I looked into this further and found that even better than mesothelioma is real estate! Much less funny, but they could theoretically pay me several dollars every time anybody (my self included) clicked on an ad about real estate. So here's my thinking: I stop wasting my own blog space talking about ad sense(though if you want to join my dumbass moneygrubbing and put adsense on your own blog, please do so through the little green button bellow as it will give me even MORE money). You, in turn, forgive me for using the second line of my blog title thing to try to trick adsense, and maybe even click on the ads occasionally. I already click on Toph's whenever I think about it, so I'm happy to resiprocate.


Yes, I realize I could make a whole lot more money if I just put this amount of effort into a somewhat more real job, but where's the game in that?

Ok. I'm done now. Sorry. These are the days I even annoy myself.

More than you care to know about my current health issues

My grandma is too funny.

Today I taught my first violin lesson in Chicago. It turned out to be a bit more interesting than it should have been because my body is a piece of crap. For those of you who would rather skip the details of my medical issues (a few individuals come immediately to mind), I've put the part of the story worth your reading in purple. There's still puking, but nothing too graphic. The rest of this post mainly exists because I feel like crap and want to complain in as much detail as possible.

Wednesday I had the nasty migraine that snuck up on me in a nasty, sneaky way. Thursday I was somewhat cracked-out on medication, but the migraine had broken and I was reasonably ok. This morning I was fine. I had a cup of coffee and spent too long trying to do my makeup and was out the door for work by 7:20 AM. I completely forgot to take my Effexor. Annoying, but not the end of the world. The withdrawal symptoms (hot and cold flashes, nausea, dizziness, heart racing, generally shitty feeling) suck monkey balls, but I'd be home by 4-ish, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. Around 1:15 PM, I start feeling all hot and cold and dizzy and nauseous. I've been working on reorganizing the closet spaces at work and Friday afternoons are relatively calm, so I shut myself up in the art room and spent a solid 45 minutes sorting the supplies. By this time I was extremely hot and nauseous, but I figured I couldn't abandon the the other JK teacher forever so I came back to the class and put on my happy face. My happy face wasn't very good and I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I made it to the downstairs temple grown-up bathroom in time to puke my guts out. It was the kind of puke I do when I'm having food allergy issues. It's a peanut-free school, so I can't imagine lunch contained peanut oil, but I did eat a lot of the chicken tempura with sweet and sour sauce, which could very well have contained a lot of lemon juice. I rinsed out my mouth and ate an apple and was glad that my sickliness was just something I ate because it was out now and that should be the end of it. Back to class to help dismiss the kids.

Rebecca (who is "4 1/2 which is more than 4 1/4") had been excited all day because she knew I was taking her home for her first violin lesson. I was excited too. Once the other kids were all accounted for, Rebecca and I packed up and headed to my car. I still felt really crappy, but I'd just puked and it was getting to be the time of day it actually made sense for the Effexor withdrawal to kick in. We made a quick pit stop at my apartment and I took my pills (I take three 75 mg Effexor bad-boys) and then on to Rebecca's house for the lesson. This house is huge and gorgeous and they're trying to sell it so it's completely immaculate. Lisa (Rebecca's mom) had one of the twin babies in a snuggly around her neck and the other in an automatic rocker thing. They were watching Baby Einstein on the huge plasma TV. Rebecca debated how many chicken fingers and noodles she had to eat for snack before having the chocolate bar one of the parents brought in for a Shabbat treat and I drank a glass of water hoping to settle my stomach. We got through about 15 minutes of lesson before I had to excuse myself to "go to the bathroom." More puking.
Rebecca called through the door, "Morah Jill? Did you throw up?" I answered that I had and I heard the door start to open and Lisa yelling "Leave the door closed so she can have some privacy!" When I finally opened the door to come out, Rebecca tumbled in as she had been sitting leaned against it. "Are you done yet? Can we go back to the violin?" I was amused and embarrassed. Lisa made me sit down and drink another glass of water while I tried to explain that it was not the stomach flu and that I knew better than to come diseased into a house with infants and that I had some food allergy things blah blah blah. Mind you at this point I wasn't so sure myself what the hell my body was doing or why, but considering how unprofessional this was going I wanted to put her at least somewhat at ease. I finished the lesson (stickers and practice chart and all) and as I packed up Rebecca was allowed three bites of her chocolate bar, which she tried to argue into more as her mom told her to save the rest for dinner. The last thing I heard after our goodbyes was, "Don't you dare take another bite! ...Rebecca!"

I think I'll try to call them tomorrow when I'm more functional and try to salvage some level of professionalism on my part. Definitely the worst first lesson I've ever taught, though.

After I got back to my apartment I was unbelievably hot and woozy and still nauseous. The cool outside air felt good so I was able to empty the dog, but then I came back in, stripped down to my underwear and passed out on my bed. I woke up a few hours later feeling extremely Effexor withdrawal-y. I must have puked too soon after taking the pills, and while they dissolved enough in me to not be floating around in my vomit (I warned you this got graphic), they clearly weren't fully in my system. I called Doctor Dad to ask him what to do, but my parents' cell phones were off so I decided to just take one more Effexor and see if that did the trick. I also hadn't eaten since my body got rid of my lunch and the apple, so I made some chunky soup and baked the baby challah we braided at school (I did my own so it's booger-free) and tried to distract myself from how shitty I still felt. Two hours later, I felt a bit better but still clearly withdrawing from the medication, so I took one more Effexor. Now, it is quite late, I still feel like crap, and I'm not taking a third pill because I'm worried now that I've got too much in my system or maybe it's something else and I just have no fucking clue. My head hurt a bit and I thought it could be more migraine-related stuff, so I took my Migranal just in case. The little bit of head hurt is gone, but I still feel awful in a very strange way. No aches, not fluish, but it's this weird kind of woozy I normally associate with Effexor withdrawal and migraine cycles. I'm also still really nauseous but I know I need to keep food in me so I'm poking at Wheatables and drinking cold water with a tea bag in it for a little something more and trying to get to a point where I can fall asleep and hopefully be better in the morning. I can fix my Effexor cycle tomorrow and I'm afraid a lot of this is related to a looming whopper of a headache, but that wouldn't explain the puking the way I puked. My body does two different kinds of nauseous and puking. One way clearly comes from my head. It's when I'm dizzy or migrainey and it makes me throw up. The nausea lives mainly in the back of my throat and it's much more the gagging sort of puke. I hate this kind of puke (though far less actually comes up), because I don't even feel better after since the food wasn't the issue.
The other kind of puke is the stomach problem puke. That's when my body rejects something it's eaten or has the flu. This comes much more from my gut. I'll cramp and grumble and then my body says "haha, you thought you could eat THAT?" and out it comes, largely undigested. This is the puke that involves much more quantity, but it's over when it's over. I can go from zero to vomit to fine again very quickly. Much more efficient.
Drunk puking is the great confounder, because it is both kinds of puke at once. My stomach is trying to get things out while my head spins, causing the gaggy-throat puke. I absolutely hate drunk puking.

Maybe someone slipped me some booze in my sweet and sour sauce. That might explain some of the feeling. But in case I haven't complained enough, I feel like shit. I have prescription anti-nausea pills that actually help break migraine cycles and knock me out, but they also make me feel weird and like I need to jump out of my skin, so I generally avoid taking them. I took half of one before I started writing this, which was like an hour or so ago. I think it may actually be kicking in as I'm starting to feel sleepy. Either that or the fact that it's 1:23 AM and I had a long odd day has me sleepy. Drugs are the problem and the solution. I'm on too many pills (though I'm off most of my dailies) but then I feel really gross and I want it to stop and I go tearing through my medicine cabinet for anything that could possibly make me better. Not smart. I need a nurse. Preferably one who is dark and handsome and can cook and clean in a loincloth.

Sleep shall set me free.

and another thing

Heard this for the first time on the radio today. Kind of boggled my mind.

Mesothelioma.

mesothelioma

Still feeling off, but functional. Yay drugs.

Topher's coming. I am excited. He'll be here for his birthday and St. Patrick's Day. Oh, the fun in store.

I was just poking around at shit online when I ran into this whole world of sites claiming to "beat" the AdSense earnings system. Mind you, I've been fairly pleased with my $15.76 "earned" thus far, since it requires no more than having that tiny little thing at the top of my blog and clicking the link whenever I think about it. I don't actually see any of this money until I get to $100, but whatever. It keeps me entertained, even if I never get a penny. So back to these AdSense sites. They mostly offer to sell you lists of high paying keywords to put on your webpage that generate lots of money for every click. I figured that's the sort of thing one could probably google and find for free, so I googled it and found some lists for free. And the reason I mention this: most of the highest paying keywords involve mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma, mesothelioma attorneys, mesothelioma lawyers, malignant pleural mesothelioma, Asbestos Cancer, mesothelioma symptoms, peritoneal mesothelioma, lung cancer, and mesothelioma diagnosis all head up the list. What the fuck? Have I missed a mesothelioma trend? Is it the new cool cancer? There's got to be something amoral about profiting on cancer, but then again, I'm a hell-bound money-grubbing Jew, anyway, so I might as well mention mesothelioma at least once in every blog post and see if I become a bazillionaire by next week.

Mesothelioma.

grrrr

Migraine piece of shit mother fucker thinks it can sneak up on me so I won't drug myself early enough. Thank goodness there were only 3 kids at Kids Klub today and Elizabeth was cool about me staying home, because I really couldn't have driven. I'm just now able to deal with enough light to use the computer, though it's bugging me a little, the posting page being all bright and white and all. Should've known by my dreams the last few nights (they get more crazy and vivid pre-migraine) but I haven't been full-blown in so long I've gotten less vigilant. Poop. So how many hours am I capable of sleeping today?

I'm so vain I probably think this post is about me

I didn't mention in my last post that on the way to the airport on Friday, the cab driver asked me how old I was. I'm used to being mistaken for much younger (more than once now I've been asked if I was my 16-year-old brother's girlfriend) and while it's annoying and encourages all my Napoleonic tendencies, it doesn't really phase me anymore. So the driver's shock at my being 23 wasn't anything unusual. His informing us he needed to know because children over TWELVE are an extra dollar per passenger, however, threw me for a loop. Twelve. That's a new record. That's about half my age. That's early stages of puberty. I am not twelve. I may think and act like a 12-year-old boy sometimes, but wow. Twelve.

This may have been why I was so willing to give myself over to the makeup consultants at the Pasadena Sephora. My sister likes all things makeover, so she was all for having me be the one to get done, and my mom has been trying to get me to wear makeup more regularly since I was about 15. So with Mommy's credit card and approval, I found one of the women working at Sephora (Jesika) and basically said I have no idea what to do when it comes to makeup and I was just mistaken for 12 and I'm 23 HELP! And help she did. Instead of just pushing product, she taught me to actually apply makeup in the most tasteful, artful way, right down to the proper way to hold the proper brushes. The thing I found strangest but kind of like a lot was when she darkened my eyebrows with a deep brown eyeshadow. My eyebrows are blonde and I've never given them much thought or shaping, but Jesika suggested that my fair hair and nearly invisible eyebrows are part of what make me look like a baby. $75 later (thank you Mommy) I left with two professional brushes, a "smudge pot" of gel eyeliner, a combination blush/lip color thing, and a new sense of confidence in my makeup application abilities. Yesterday I got a cheap eyeshadow compact at Target with similar colors to the ones Jesika used, and today I did the whole thing all by myself for the first time.
It took half an hour.
The world didn't stop in my tracks as I went about my day, though Elizabeth did say, "you're wearing makeup!" If it continues to take half an hour, I may slip back into my lazy, naked-faced ways for regular days at work, but I do feel a bit like I've been on What Not To Wear or some other makeover show and I should now have a new lease on life and a party with all my friends telling me how good I look. Then again, it's just a little fucking makeup. Most of the female adult world wears makeup. I am not a unique snowflake, but I do have a foundation brush.

Neurologist appointment in the morning. First time seeing this guy. Mostly I just want my drugs refilled as the migraines have been (knock on wood) fairly well behaved.

Time to peel off my pore-cleansing face mask and get my beauty sleep.

Did I mention I went to LA?

Over the weekend my mom and I visited my sister at Occidental in LA. LA is very pretty, except for the fact that the people suck and nothing is near anything else. We stayed in a fancy-shmancy hotel in Pasadena
for free because my dad travels so fucking much he has a bazillion frequent guest points. We kidnapped my grandma from her house in "the valley" and met my mom's brother's family for tea at a strange little combination tea cafe and flower shop. I hadn't seen the LA contingent of my family in a long time, and it was very cool seeing my cousins who have turned into people since last I saw them. Lucy is 7 and a lot like my sister, while Grace is 10 and very much like me. Grace and I may start exchanging stories by email. I'm excited.

Now, for lots of pictures my sister and Lucy took with my sister's digital camera:

My mom and her brother, Gary
My Aunt Noelle, Grandma, and me at tea
My sister carrying my mother
My adorable little cousins
Me looking super-sexy in the hotel

Funky Buttcheek

Heard this on the radio today. I was amused.

funfunfun

Hannah Spencer is my hero. Not only was she a wonderful fun guest and Valentine's "date" (I put that in quotes because we are lesbian lovers and I don't want people thinking otherwise), but she did my dishes and set up a wonderful little Valentines thingy with champagne and chocolate and matching heart socks and hair thingies and I keep finding things she put away and tidied while I was at work and she did it all in an amazing, where I would have put it myself were I capable of putting things away, and non-intrusive sort of way. She should be my housewife all the time, except I'd have to be the breadwinner and I make no money and never will if I really stay a teacher.

Highlights of our visit once the weather allowed her to actually come to Chicago:

1. Hannah coming with me to work and playing a very involved game of imagination with bears and pattern blocks with one of the kids who is usually too cool for those sort of imagination games.
2. 
3. Vaughan's
4. 
5. Thinking we'd missed our pre-paid reservation for the Untouchables Tour thanks to the El randomly stopping for 15 minutes and being all ready to fight with the supervisor for our money back when we saw the bus hadn't left yet and running like crazy people and making it, and then spending the next two hours with a corny/funny old man tour guide ("Big Julie," left) and his corny/funny/crazy side-kick driver ("Ice Pick," right) going around the greater Chicagoland area and seeing the many parking lots where famous buildings in bootlegging history once stood. It was pretty much awesome.
6. Wandering around downtown Chicago in the unseasonable warmth.
7. Getting the five minute Alan Rosenberg tour after the twenty minute visitors pass and security check-in stupidity when we had the last-minute idea to meet up with my dad at his office building which happens to be the Sears Tower.
8. Long-stem red roses and silly Japanesesque drinks and yummy sushi and general Valentine's ambiance at Ra Sushi
9. Deep Blue and general excellence at
10. for breakfast and cinnamon rolls (pecans optional)

Yay for fun and friends and wonderfulness.

Next, I'm on to a loooong day of Kids Klub and then going to LA with my mom to see my sister and select matrilineal family members!

And, just to balance out the joy in life, the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse and Satan him/herself would all drive this car. It is evil and it makes me angry and hateful every time I see it.

Fucking "noreaster" piece of crap canceling all fucking flights out of Hartford keeping Hannah away an extra day. At least Grey's Anatomy was AMAZING and I've had an extra day to rest and drink OJ and fight this goddamn cold. My body has created its own weight in mucus, forcing me to snarf and hack it up like the sexy beast I am. So. Gross.

Penguins

I have the first international case of Bird Cold. Time to dig out the ol' SARS mask and head for the hills.

buy me

I am worth $1,880,260 on HumanForSale.com

:-(

Can't sleep. I lay down and all the gooey shit drips down and settles in my chest and then I cough and hack and have to sit up. Can't sleep very well sitting up. Need to be at work in 5 1/2 hours, which means I need to be up in a little over 4 hours, which means I will be cranky and tired. Thank god for coffee. Then I will be cranky and wired. Should have taken something NyQuil-esque about 4 hours ago, but I didn't have any. Went to Walgreens, but they said if I take it now I'll be a zombie tomorrow and I'm better off just hoping the shit I did take (guaifenesin and now dextromenthorphan) does something useful or I manage to fall asleep between hacking coughs.

Funny thing: I may be subbing for a teacher tomorrow who has the same disease. Damn germy little children.

Dancing with your Mom

Dancing with the Stars is a wonderful show. You've got dancing, you've got D-list celebrities, you've got drama and competition. What more could you want out of life? The two remaining female "stars" have become very good dancers (by my non-dancer standards, so Amy, Diana and Jeni are free to correct me on this) and are totally fun to watch. Drew Lachey (Nick's brother) is decent, George Hamilton is tan and funny, and you can't help but cheer for Jerry Rice, whose dancing isn't as good as the others' but he's a football player, so fuck off. And one of the two females happen to be a former Days of our Lives actress (the women in my family have watched that show for a VERY long time). The other has me somewhat facinated, because she's apparently a WWE wrestling "diva," and they tend to annoy me as I find professional wrestling very entertaining but not so much the semi-pornographic cat fight shit (I don't think I'm their target audience), but having never seen her ringside, I kind of like her. That was a bad sentence. I'm not fixing it, though. So there.

Cold medicine is useless.

Hannah's coming Sunday!!!! Then I am visiting my sister in LA the next weekend. Oh what a life I lead.

Freud bites his nails, but he won't let me clip them and I don't have enough arms to both hold him down and use the clippers, so nibble nibble nibble he goes.

mmmedication

Keeping me awake tonight: post-nasal drip and an ouchy swollen-feeling tongue. I went on the Robitussin website's "Find Your Formula" thingy. By checking off my symptoms (sore throat, chest congestion, cough, body aches) it told me to use their "cough, cold & flu" capsules. Upon further examination, I learned these capsules contained acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, guaifenesin, and pseudoephedrine. So I checked my medicine cabinet. One box of generic multi-symptom cold pills had the acetaminophen, dextromenthorphan, and pseudoephedrine covered. Sweet. But what about the guaifenesin? Praised be hypochondria, had that too, and in tablets containing four times the amount that silly Robitussin had to offer. Splendid. Though I have to wonder if I wouldn't be better off just doing a shot of something and passing out. Too late. Pills ahoy! It's way past my bedtime.

WTF

Today, a 7-year-old boy asked if we had anything else for snack because the potato chips had too much fat in them.
"You don't need to worry about that, you're nowhere near fat!" says I.
"Yes I am," says he.
"Are you kidding?" says I.
"No, I'm too fat," says he.
This child is not fat. Not even a little chubby. He's a regular healthy adorable little boy. Where the hell is he getting this from? He should be worrying about the boogie man and if he left his gloves at his dad's house or on the playground or which would win in a fight: a shark or a dinosaur, and which shark and dinosaur would be the best match-up in said fight. Not how much fat is in a bag of potato chips.
What is this world coming to?

mooooooovies

This weekend was full of movie-watching. I finally saw my two most recent netflix rentals (Bridge on the River Kwai and Full Metal Jacket), plus Big Fish (which I borrowed from my parents) and Brokeback Mountain (at the theater with my cousin and cousin-in-law). Quick thoughts on each:

I don't always love Kubrick, but I loved this one. Less bizarre and more cerebral with about a thousand fabulous lines.

I LOVED this movie. Spent the last 15 minutes of it sobbing, but it was beautiful and quirky and highly entertaining.

Well acted with some extremely funny parts and I cried at the end, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the plot. Other than them being both men, it was a fairly ordinary star-crossed lovers story.

Absolutely fantastic movie. Thought-provoking, complex characters, unpredictable plot, and surprisingly funny. If the movie was a boy, I would marry him.

Instead of counting sheep

Things that keep me up at night (in no particular order):

1. job ideas for this summer that won't suck
2. cell phone games
3. Freud trying to curl up on (not eat, Brian) my face
4. shoulder muscle knots
5. dry itchy skin
6. phlegm
7. international relations
8. movies I recently saw
9. TV shows I recently saw
10. New Yorker articles I recently read
11. George W. Bush's assfaceness
12. Alan Greenspan's imminent retirement
13. yahoo games
14. things children recently said to me
15. things children said to me 15 years ago
16. things children say to eachother
17. learning disabilities and emotional issues children may or may not have
18. thirst
19. drinking too much water and needing to pee
20. plans to get a bachelors degree, masters degree and teacher certification
21. thoughts of what I could have done differently much earlier on to have actually finished at Oberlin (major in philosophy? quit the coop? never have started at the Grape? designed my own major from the get-go?)
22. thoughts of friends and enemies from long past
23. thoughts of boys from long past
24. thoughts of boys for the potential future
25. plans for this weekend
26. plans to actually call the people I know I should call
27. my car needing work
28. my self needing work
29. doctors' appointments I need to make
30. vet appointment I need to make
31. Zionism
32. racism
33. the cold air coming through my window
34. the hot air coming through my radiator
35. things to do with Hannah when she visits
36. ways to visit people I haven't seen lately
37. ways to get all of my friends everywhere to move to a commune in Chicago with me
38. ways to meet new people
39. ways to make more money
40. ways to spend less money
41. projects to do with the kids at work
42. projects to do alone at home
43. projects I need to finish
44. my neighbor having sex upstairs
45. Freud growling at my neighbor smoking outside
46. dirty dishes
47. recipe ideas
48. dirty-feeling teeth
49. errands I need to run
50. writing ideas I'll never finish
51. counting down the hours until I have to wake up again
52. my radiator making new noises
53. emails I need to write
54. things that could have gone differently
55. things that might happen
56. things that will never happen
57. specific food cravings for things not in my apartment

That covers most of it. I didn't even have any coffee today, but holy crap I'm going to need it tomorrow. I'm subbing for the first grade all day, and while they're the most interesting class, they're also by far the most difficult. Urgh.

Not sick

I am not getting sick. I've been drinking lots of orange juice and water and sucking on zinc lozenges and I even had chicken soup last night. Therefore, I am not getting sick. My throat hurt yesterday because I'd been in a smoky bar the night before. My waking up at 5:30 AM was just because my body was bored. By taking guaiphenesin (generic musinex) instead of a cold pill, I am clearly stating that I just want this phlegmy shit out of my chest and not that I have a cold. Nope. Not sick.