Get Your Trek On

It's 6:30 am on a Friday morning, and I have yet to fall asleep.

This happens occasionally - once every two or three weeks - and I'm fine with that. I will sleep exceptionally well, tonight - Friday night - and be ready to "go get 'em" Saturday.

The insomnia - being awake all night - is either a precursor to a developing migraine, or is the direct cause of a migraine. I tend to think it's the latter, due to the other migraine precursors that accompany it: thirst, difficulty concentrating, restlessness, etc.

For a couple of weeks, now, I've been trying to limit my caffeine intake. In some people, caffeine can apparently cause migraines rather than helping end them. Or so my migraine tracking/recording app tells me. So I've cut out caffeine: no iced tea , no coffee, no chai, no chocola-

Oh. I made pecan-flour brownies the other day. I've eaten one per day since Tuesday.

Oops.

Okay, so after tomorrow, I'll be better about the whole "I'm not ingesting caffeine" trial. I promise.

Yesterday - Thursday, for those of you playing along at home - I began my application for government disability payments. Seeing as I'm unable to work, and my beloved husband is paying for everything, right now, including medical bills and student loans, money is growing ever tighter. At the least, I'd be able to pay down my loans and cover my own medical expenses, if I received Social Security Disability.

I'm conflicted about applying for benefits. On the one hand, my husband has a good salary. On the other hand, feeding both of us costs a lot of money, particularly as I can't just eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch every day. So food, medical bills, transportation to and from the doctors, etc., all adds up quickly, not to mention the joys of home ownership, where you "get" to pay someone to come repair your roof and a hole in the ceiling of the laundry room.

Regardless, it will be at least two months before my Disability Application is judged and either approved or denied.

In the meantime, I have a new device with which to experiment that is supposedly helpful for migraines. My dear aunt sent me information about a device called the Cefaly about a month ago, and I have since discussed it with my neurologist, who gave me her blessing to try it (she also gave me a prescription, because you can't just buy it without a doctor sprinkling the transaction with holy signatures and whatnot).

The Cefaly arrived last night, to my surprise - I thought it would arrive Friday - but I haven't tried it, yet. Its inaugural use will take place tonight, during which time I can role play a character of my own imagining from the Star Trek universe, because this is what it looks like:

That's just a couple of inches away from making the user look like Geordi La Forge's sister from another mister, right there. Seriously, lower it 2.5 inches, and BAM! Star Trek: The Next Generation, I'm ready for my walk-on role!

Supposedly, the Cefaly stimulates the trigeminal nerve running from your brain into your forehead, which decreases the number and severity of migraines. There's an electrode that's applied to the forehead before the Cefaly device is lowered into place. My electrodes are fancy blue hypoallergenic ones, because I'm a delicate flower, and also, blue is more futuristic and (I imagine) Trekkie approved.

There's a chance the thing might not work, of course, and if that's the case, I can return the device within 60 days for a full refund (except for the electrodes). It's a no-lose situation, the way I see it.

And maybe - just maybe! - this futuristic diadem will allow me to conquer my migraines once and for all.

Keep your fingers crossed, Dear Reader.

Smart Phones and Credit Card Fraud

About six months ago, I was perusing the Cracked website when I came across an article in their "personal experience" series. The personal experiences range from being a professional dominatrix to what it's like to have a hand transplant (that's rejected).

Six months ago, the personal experience series was about a guy who spent $9,000 playing Game of War, famously advertised using the breasts of Kate Upton and Mariah Carey.

And can I just say that it's awesome that they're using Mariah Carey as a sex symbol? I mean, aside from the whole "objectifying women to get money" thing, she's 46 (or 45, depending on who you ask), and she totally rocks that metal bustier. Look out, Wonder Woman, she's gunning for you!

More to the point, though, I thought that someone spending $9,000 to play a game on their phone was absolutely stupid. How the hell could someone sink that much money into their phone? I thought there was no game on earth that could make me drop that much cash - or, you know, credit - on a silly game. That was what happened to people who had no self control.

Ahem.

No, I haven't lost $9,000 to an iPhone game, but I did spend about $50 over the course of 3 days, without even realizing it. I was playing Bejeweled a lot, and kept seeing ads for Township, which seemed like a more involved version of the Farmville game that initially launched on Facebook 8 years ago (and which I enjoyed playing for a while). I thought, 'That would be a nice change. Something I can dip in and out of periodically throughout the day." I downloaded it. It was free, after all!

Within about three hours, I was out of the valuable T-Bills (not treasury bills, but Township bills) that are required for... everything. Almost everything. I'd misunderstood how they were used, and only realized my error when they were all gone.

No worries, I thought. I'll just buy some more, just this once. Two dollars later, I was charged up, again. Easy.

But things have a way of snowballing, don't they? Instead of checking it occasionally, the game is timed so that some things are ready to be harvested after 1 minute, and some after hours have passed. So if you didn't constantly check in, you might miss the harvest, and with it the opportunity to earn more coins - not T-Bills - that were needed to do... stuff.

You could pay to build a market using the coins, but when you don't have enough building materials at the end of construction - and no contractor to chew out and threaten with a lawsuit - you have to use the T-Bills to buy materials.

And they go quickly.

One building required 100 T-Bills to complete, because the damned train kept delivering the wrong materials. (100 T-Bills is about equal to $5.00)

Fortunately, despite the fact that I eventually spent $50 on the game, I stopped myself after only three days. Three obsessive, can-hardly-watch-Sherlock-because-I'm-playing-the-game days.

This morning, I deleted the game - and the 1500 citizens for whom I'd worked so hard to create a lovely town. I'd started thinking, the night before, 'I need to delete this app. It's a money pit." But I didn't, because then the money I'd already spent would be wasted.

But I decided to drop the game at 6 am, after suffering a night of severe insomnia, possibly (probably) worsened by the game that had become somewhat addictive.

And then it happened.

At 9 a.m. I received a phone call from my credit card company, alerting me to possible fraud.

'Oh, good grief!' I thought. 'This is just what I need!'

Can you see where this is going?

The credit card company had noticed two suspicious transactions from 'a record store' (also known as the iTunes App Store), close together and for larger amounts than were typically charged 'at that location.'

So this afternoon, after guiltily informing my husband that the app had been deleted, and looking sheepish when he said, "It's not like you spent $20 on the game, or anything, right?", I called the credit card company and said, "Nope, that was me."

Except I said it to an automaton, not a real person.

Granted, I downloaded Tetris for my phone, but that doesn't require in-game payments to get ahead, just quick fingers.

Hey, a girl needs some variety in her digital life, right?

Up All Night

Apparently, "Up All Night" is the name of a song by the singularly-named Drake, which doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Cher, or Madonna, or... um... Donovan.

You've probably never heard of Donovan, because he's old school. Sigh...

I've been up all night because my circadian rhythms are decidedly arrhythmic, and I couldn't go to sleep. Fortunately, I had a bit of creative writing to do, so that kept me company. Now, I just have to stay awake until about 9:00 pm tonight so I'll be able to get a good rest in before I start work tomorrow.

TOMORROW.

Tomorrow I will be employed again.

Kind of trips me out, to tell you the truth. I've spent almost 11 months out of the last 3 years in some unemployed state or another, and that's not counting the two months of unpaid leave I took for medical reasons.

And here I was all worried about feeling poor when I go to grad school. Pshaw. I've got this whole ohmyGodI'mpoormom&dadcanIhavesomemoney? thing down pat.

But Ms. StrainedConsciousness, you protest, about what were you writing?

Look at you with your correct sentence structure! No ending sentences with a preposition for you! I'm so proud!

But I digress.

I am writing about, um, fellas.

What sort of fellas? you respectfully inquire.

Um, ones I've dated. And some I haven't. But mostly ones I have.

(around the globe, my ex-boyfriends feel a chill wind on their neck and a sudden feeling of inexplicable panic, and they wonder why).

It all started with a creative writing assignment. I wrote about a middle-aged man (who I did not date) that I met at a restaurant, and we happened to be going to the same movie. We'd had a nice conversation apres dinner, so we sat together at the movie.

We saw Lost in Translation, which was kind of prophetic, because afterward, when he gave me his business card, I couldn't figure out if his interest was platonic, or if he had other intentions.

The creative writing assignment only had one dictate: Evoke a mood of your choosing.

I evoked extreme discomfort and uncertainty, and according to my classmates, I hit the nail on the head.

The story got me thinking about other fellas I could write about. (stupid end-of-sentence preposition) Just recently, I had a spate of creativity, and I've been hard at it for the past few weeks.

Each story involves at least one man who's left some sort of imprint on my life - ex-boyfriends, that guy I had to file a sexual harassment complaint against, etc... - and a few of the stories have multiple guys in them, either because one led to another, or because my experiences with them coincided or had an effect on how I viewed the other/s.

My mom thinks I should try to have them published, and I've thought about it. But then, do I really want my family and all my friends to know everything about my various relationships through the years?

That remains to be decided...

Two Big Accomplishments

First big accomplishment (okay, not that big):

I finished reading Shantaram.

READ IT...

SERIOUSLY.

It took me a while to get through, but it was worth it. And it only took me a few weeks because I got bogged down with the 15 design magazines I had not read in the past two months, and the needlepoint, and my own creative writing magicalness.

Magicalness: officially a word since... today.

Second big accomplishment:

I finished my income tax amendment forms and am now ready to ship them off to Austin, where some poor schmuck can... crud, I didn't sign them. Okay, time to rip open the envelope, address a new envelope, and then whisk them off to Austin.

Argh.

Okay, now they're signed and dated, and that Herculean task is finished. I swear, every year it gets harder and harder to file my taxes.

Granted, it's my own fault that they're hard to file, but I'm investing for my future, here, IRS! Give me a break! That whole "simplification of the tax code thing" the people on Capitol Hill keep talking about? I am right there with you! Please, simplify!

It makes the idea of hiring an accountant really attractive, right now. Except I'm unemployed, so I can't afford to hire an accountant.

Them's the breaks.

(SEE? It's so terrible that my grammar is breaking down. Seriously, they must be stopped!)

What the Heck

I just checked my bank statement to see if my unemployment benefits were paid out. Yes, they were, but not as much as I thought they would be.

Instead of being paid for two weeks of unemployment, I was paid for one week. The Workforce Commission has changed things up since the last time I played this game, and now you don't get that first week of benefits until you have been unemployed for four weeks.

So let's get this straight: I have been unemployed for two weeks, and was not given severance pay, and I didn't actually get paid for any of the weeks in January, but they're only giving me $415. To pay for all the bills I've accrued during the past two weeks, and whatever expenses come up during the next two weeks, I have $415.

This makes no sense to me. But then again, I'm not a bureaucrat, so...

So although I thought I'd have plenty of money to get me through the next two weeks (when I can reapply for my next payment), now I'm not so sure.

Gargh.

And I also have to figure out why my rent payment was credited back to my account. I paid it well before the first of the month, but now... It's all right back where it was, with a note that says "Payment Reversal" that must have been done by the property management company. Alas, no one is in the office, today, so I have no idea why there's an extra $775 in my account.

For once, I kind of agree with the "mo' money, mo' problems" thing: hopefully my "mo' money" won't get me evicted (haha).

Round Two

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about being put on unpaid leave. I wasn't laid off, per se, but was just put on "unpaid leave" until the work in the office picked up again.

This morning, around 9:00 a.m., I received a phone call from Mrs. Robinson, saying that I needed to come in to get my chair, and that the guys needed my CAD license key back, etc...

In other words, I was laid off without actually being told I was laid off.

Kind of crappy.

I immediately got up, got dressed, and checked the internet for what I'm supposed to do in regards to health insurance. Our firm - er, my former firm - was under 20 employees, so no COBRA for this gal. However, the State of Texas requires that firms grant me up to 9 months on the group health insurance plan, so long as I reimburse the firm.

Whew. I went ahead and applied for unemployment benefits - which I can't receive until the last week in January, even though I haven't received severance pay or anything - and then awaited the arrival of my sainted (and tired) mother, who was loaning me her minivan so I could clear out my stuff at the office.

I showed up at the office, and the first words I said, right after, "Hey, Mrs. Robinson!" were "So I'm assuming this means I'm actually laid off, now."

She said yes, that until that morning everyone in the firm had been working on different assumptions.

Oldsmobile and our book keeper - not the most competent woman - were dead certain that I had already been laid off. Mrs. Robinson was instructed last week to write a letter to the insurance company telling them to cancel my health insurance benefits.

Ahem.

Radio, Scooter, and Pacman were all working on the assumption that I would eventually be back in the office and that my unpaid leave was temporary.

What we have he-ah is failyuh to communicate.

I informed Mrs. Robinson that, pursuant to State of Texas Regulations, I had the right to 9 months of insurance, so long as I reimbursed the company. I didn't mention that, seeing as they failed to go over all my health insurance options with me at the "exit interview" (which never happened), I could file an official complaint with the Texas Department of Insurance.

I'm nice, though, so I won't file a complaint... unless the book keeper tries to tell me that they're going to defy State of Texas regulations.

I cleared out my physical possessions (including my Ice Age III action figures, aluminum desk accessories, and wireless mouse - both of which were purchased by myself) and loaded them onto my Aeron chair, which served as a handy dandy cart for transporting all my stuff.

I will return on Wednesday to download the digital files showing all the work I performed at the office (I took the extra copies of Specifications I had, since the firm already has record copies).

Because of some rumored hiring going on at my former employer's office (not Oldsmobile's, but a different firm... the one that laid me off in 2008), the guyzos all thought I would have a brand spanking new job to go to all wrapped up and tidy in a little bow.

Heck, I was pretty certain I'd have another job, but wasn't really getting my hopes up. I'd been talking with the former employer every week about the possibility, after they first approached me to discuss my coming back.

About thirty minutes after I returned to my apartment, my cell phone rang.

"That was XYZ Firm," I said to my mom, who was napping on my sofa. "They don't have a job for me, right now." I shrugged. I wasn't really certain about getting the job in the first place, and as time dragged on (almost a month) I got the feeling that it just wasn't going to happen.

My feeling was right on target.

So now I'm looking for a job. One I won't have to move to take. There's plenty of great design jobs out there. They are all, however, in Baltimore, or Shanghai. So tomorrow, I send out resumes, and a letter of introduction for my little entrepreneurial venture (which is now up and running), and we'll see how things go from there.

Once again, I'm back to playing it by ear. But this time, I have rent to pay.

When It Rains...

In my universe, when it rains, it generally rains dog turds, and lots of them.

After being kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really fired (so I can't claim unemployment, but I also don't get a paycheck), my car's blinker quit working.

I thought it was just a bulb that was out - even though it didn't work on either the right or the left side - or a fuse that needed to be replaced. My car was also past-due for an oil change, and it needed to be inspected.

In the end, yes, I did need new turn signal bulbs, but I also had to have the whole turn signal assembly on my steering column replaced. What with the oil change and the inspection, I ended up forking out $475 at the mechanic's shop.

I was miffed.

In addition, my dentist gave me a little lecture about grinding my teeth, and how my grinding my teeth when I have a migraine (or in my sleep) can exacerbate the problem. I need a night guard to prevent teeth grinding (in addition to a filling for a brand-spanking-new cavity), which is going to run me about $400... on top of whatever the filling will cost.

And then, there's the hospital bill I received today, for that three day stretch I spent lying in a hospital bed getting pumped full of drugs to try to combat the migraines I was having. That's another $575. Granted, without insurance, it would have been more like $10,500, but that's pretty cold comfort to this gal.

And I have no way of earning money, right now. Except for that entrepreneurial spirit I was talking about a while back, for which I now have a website, and am awaiting my logo (being designed by a friend) before I start publicizing it and, hopefully, earning a bit of extra cash, too.

I still have a couple of other tricks up my sleeve, so I'm not ready to commit seppuku just yet (I am kidding! Totally kidding!) but the next 24 hours - at the end of which I find out if this trick is an ace or a deuce - seems to be dragging by horribly.

I think I'm going to start accessorizing with umbrellas.

An Intimate Dinner

For one.

I had planned to go to Happy Hour, this evening, to watch the baseball game and pretend to be a Rangers fan along with the rest of the normally apathetic architects, but when I checked my account balance - it was pay day, after all, and I needed to make sure my money was deposited - I discovered that I'd paid more on my credit card bill this month than I realized.

Quite a bit more.

On what? Well, replacing the clothes that fell apart (and which I will be paying off for a couple of months, it seems), but mostly on... you guessed it: Doctors' bills. $600 worth.

Woohoo! Yes! $600 in one month! So I stayed home and watched "North by Northwest" on the DVD and ate a meal comprised of random food from my refrigerator, cobbled into a "wholesome meal."

Awesome!

Almost as awesome as being accused of "ganging up" with the contractors against Oldsmobile, today. Who accused me? Oldsmobile. My cohorts in this gang? Pacman and Connie.

Hmmmm.... Neither Pacman nor I like Connie. We both have a low opinion of him.

Why was I accused of "ganging up" against Oldsmobile? Well, the contractor ordered the wrong stone, we think, for the house. The contractor pointed to the mock-up of the stone and said, "But it's the same color under all that dirt. The mock-up's just dirty."

During a discussion with Connie - at which Oldsmobile was not present, because he had to leave - Pacman and I requested that the mock-up be power-washed. But only half of it should be power-washed. Then, we could compare the stones properly.

We - Pacman and I - were attempting to explain the logic of this to Oldsmobile, and he began accusing us of colluding with the contractor to prove that the stone on the site was the correct stone.

He would not let us explain ourselves.

He left for an appointment in a snit, as he is wont to do, and returned later, even angrier, because his appointment was delayed by a lax employee at the City of Dallas, and he started in on us again. When we tried to explain, he cut us off, accusing us of colluding.

We finally stopped trying to explain.

We let him tire himself out roaring at us, accusing us of deception, trying to change his opinion, conspiring with the contractor (who we don't like or trust, mind you) against him.

And then when he was good and out of breath, we explained.

We are somewhat back in his good graces.

I have a feeling, however, that I am no longer seen as an innocuous presence in the office; that I have become "one of the guys" at last, meaning that I am finally to be subject to the same fits of temper they are subject to regularly.

I'm used to high maintenance employers. I excel at high maintenance employers. But they're usually of the benevolent kind, who are high maintenance in a "I carry granola bars and spare pens and pads of paper in my bag to keep them fed/supplied" kind of way. The kind who expect you to wipe Wite-Out off their face before meetings.

That kind of high maintenance. Not yelling, accusing high maintenance.

Maybe I'll keep my head down for a few days. Beginning Tuesday. Because Monday, we go look at the stone again.

Which brings me back to my original point: I don't get paid enough for this job.

OCDesign Taking Over My Life

Once again, I took out my OCD tendencies on the company archives. We ran out of archive tubes for the drawings, however, so I unleashed my fury on the jumbled slides of past projects and miscellania littering our slide and materials library.

I accomplished a lot. Whoever last attempted the project had no idea what they were doing. In all honestly, I don't always know what I'm doing, either, as some of the projects in the slides are older, less prestigious projects that aren't much discussed around the office. Putting them with their fellows is difficult, at best, and I can't exactly ask Oldsmobile for help, as he can't see the slides well enough to tell what they are showing.

During my lunch hour, I performed my daily cruise of the Dallas Craigslistings in the furniture section, and found a pair of lurvely orange chairs, very mid-Century Modern and fantastic. They are not quite what I'm looking for for my apartment, though, although the $200 price tag (for the pair!) made me stop for a second look. And then a third.

Of course, the idea of chairs for the apartment - to replace the love seat that is looking rather sad, even under its colorful coverlet - got me on a roll, and I obsessively began collecting images on the interwebs of the shape of chairs that would be acceptable for my apartment.

Because, you know, I don't need lampshades or anything. Or clothes.

I gave up looking for chairs online - I found the ones I want, and they're beautiful, but some jerk in Elle Decor already owns them, sheesh - and began obsessing about other facets of design.

Facets of design that include my personal appearance. In particular, a facet of design called My Face.

This is not an unusual phase for me. I'll go through a period of time where I'll roll along, same old same old skincare routine, and then BAM I will want to try something new, because what I've done for the past 27 years just isn't cutting it in the pore-refining category.

Over the weekend, I had a little bite of the Skincare Bug, in the form of trying to use a mudmask my dad brought me back from his last trip to Jordan. I had used some of it about a year ago with no ill effects, and decided to do it again.

It appears that Jordanian mud masks do not last more than one year. It smelled, quite literally, like perfumed crap, and the salts and solids refused to reincorporate with the liquids, so it was rather runny, blobby crap, indeed. Not a pleasant experience.

I manage to mix a bit of it together in my hands to the right consistency - at this point, I honestly don't know why I was proceeding - and rubbed it onto my face.

I have sensitive skin. Skin that is sensitive to past-its-expiration-date once-wonderful-now-crappy perfumed mud. It burned. It stung. I cursed.

I was nowhere near as happy as this lovely young lady appears to be:

The resurfaced top of my lovely rental vanity was covered with watered-down muck by the time I succeeded in rinsing off all the mud/muck-mask.

I pity my neighbor. Every time I whack an elbow in my closet (once per week, on average) or slather something on my face that I shouldn't, she has to hear me bellowing at the top of my lungs, usually in language about as offensive as the mud-mask turned out to be. She should get a discount on her rent, akin to ambassadors who get hardship pay for living in uncomfortable or hostile environments.

So my disastrous dalliance with the mud-mask launched me on my newest skin-care expedition. When I had my facial a few months back, the aesthetician used some lovely glycol peeling pads on my face. I cannot locate them online. I could call the Spa at Nordstrom and inquire about them, I guess, but they're really expensive.

Or, I could go to Sephora when I go pick up my jeans (they're being hemmed, and not for free, because I wanted it done correctly), and hunt around until I find the particular product I saw recommended in a friend's copy of Real Simple magazine. It's the mid-range one, pricewise, and it looks promising.

Hmmm... Of course, that's one fewer shirt next month.

Decisions, decisions.

The Gods Must Be... Kind of Mean

The Good News: I found my beloved teardrop necklace. It was sneaky, hiding under the stiffener-board in the bottom of my cowhide duffel bag.

You read that correctly: cowhide duffel bag.

The Bad News: The Gods of Lost and Found Articles decided to exact a price for my being able to locate my necklace. The price? An earring, sent into a death spiral down the drain of my sink.

I considered buying a wrench so I could save it. I went to Home Depot to price wrenches - the big kind, that you use to remove P-traps where your favorite earring lies, lonely and abandoned.

Buying a decent wrench - because I do not buy cheap tools - would cost more than buying a new pair of earrings.

I bought a new pair of earrings.

Ralph Lauren makes this particular pair every season. They're little silver pebble-shaped studs, and they're unobtrusive and classic. Like my teardrop necklace.

So I paid my pound of flesh to the Gods of Lost and Found. And then I paid about 6 pounds of flesh to Seven for All Mankind to buy a pair of new jeans, because they last a long time, and they're low maintenance, and they hem them for free.

So my clothing budget for the month is gone on a pair of earrings and a pair of trouser-cut jeans, and I will just have to wait until next month to buy anything else, I guess. Hopefully, it will cool off by that time, so I can break out my fall/winter clothes. Hopefully, but - this being Texas - doubtfully.

Teardrop

I have lost a necklace. I have no idea where it is. The last time I remember seeing it - or wearing it - was when I was at my parents' house.

The necklace was incredibly special to me, not because someone gave it to me. Quite the contrary, it was special because it was the first piece of "real" jewelry I bought for myself: not silver plated, not costume jewelry, but a simple Elsa Peretti silver teardrop from Tiffany's. I had seen it and coveted it, and I wanted it terribly.

I managed to scrape up enough money, about 8 years ago, to buy it for myself, and I have worn it almost every day since then, save for those days when the pearls I received for my 16th birthday were more appropriate, or when I decided to be a bit more outlandish, and threw on the North African silver mail necklace I picked up in the flea market in Amsterdam.

Not having the necklace leaves me feeling uncertain, because I don't have my old standby to wear. I'm having to delve deeper into my jewelry box, past the tiny gold-leaf-encrusted ceramic heart my sister gave me, that hangs from a waxed cord - the only piece of heart jewelry I think I will ever wear - and into the jewelry box, to pluck out a necklace of heavy stones with a carved jade pendant, or the bronze necklace with the red coral beads, big around as your thumb, that dangle from the ends.

Perhaps the missing necklace will be good for me, and force me out of my comfort zone. I design for a living, and perhaps I should be riskier with the way I design my appearance.

But then, I have always had a penchant for the classics, and clung to the things that worked.

For years, I wore the gold locket I was given as a baby, until it fell out of the pocket of my purse while I hunted for a valet ticket. The restaurant washed their patio, that night, and no one had turned it into the lost and found. Gone forever, a gift from my great grandmother.

A pair of favorite jeans, ones I've owned for 10 years and that I fancied incredibly expensive when I bought them, recently ripped at the hem. Or, rather, they ripped a good 3 inches above the hem. I am left with yet another dilemma: do I patch them, as they are still holding up decently in other places, or do I toss them out? I wear them often in the summer, since the denim is now so thin that they are too chilly for winter wearing, but they do look tired. Particularly with the gash that cuts across them right above the arch of my foot.

For a while, I didn't buy clothes, because I had just bought a sofa, I was being more financially responsible and saving more money. Then, I didn't buy clothes because I had mountains of medical bills to pay and no energy to shop. The medical bills aren't flowing as quickly, these days, and I did buy myself a few things to wear, recently, but now I'm struggling with another question: I need new clothes, because the torn jeans, in addition to my first "expensive" pair of jeans that I bought 4 years ago, are verging on unwearable, so do I buy new clothes, or do I put that off and replace the necklace? Will the necklace have the same meaning it did before, now that I am able to replace it more easily (although that amount of money is one with which I will never gladly part)?

Or will it just be something pretty that hangs around my neck?

Day of (No) Rest

I decided to put my long weekend to good use by accomplishing as much as possible in a short amount of time. So far, I have done almost everything I intended to do.

1) I went to Container Store - it was torture I tell you! - and bought a cannister for cereal (which gets soggy as soon as I open the box) and a cannister for epsom salts (in which I am supposed to soak every night). I then proceeded to buy a lovely plyboo shelf for my monster 11x17 printer, so I can keep my little 8.5x11 printer underneath it. They seem very happy in this arrangement. I also bought a binder for a later task...

2) I went to Fry's Electronics and bought a DVD player so I can get back to my pilates-lite and a new shredder, because all the medical crud I've shredded this past year did my old one in.

3) I went to Design Within Reach and pretended that I would buy an Aeron chair from the nice guy, David, who waited on me and helped me choose between multiple chairs. I will most likely buy a chair from someone else (gently used if she has the right size for me) after I get her contact info, which is on my computer at work, but not at home.

4) I took the electronic part of my old shredder to Best Buy. They recycle electronics - including small appliances - FOR FREE. Sweet. And I didn't have to drive through a sketchy neighborhood like I would have had to do if I went to the City of Dallas' e-cycling center that's open late on Saturdays.

5) I cleaned house. I sneezed a lot. This part is only about 1/3 finished. Okay, okay, 1/4 finished. I might need to find a housekeeper.

6) Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Dear God, where does it all come from?

7) I began organizing medical invoices and paperwork from the past year. This took about two hours. It's why I bought the binder from Container Store. So all my bills are organized by date of service with their receipts - if I have them - stapled to the invoices, and the Explanations of Benefits right alongside the doctors' bills and receipts for MRIs and CT Scans and surgery.

8) I got a jump on my income taxes. Say what? Yes, because I have so far spent 1/7 of my projected income on medical expenses, and I didn't want to wait until January or February or something before I started making my yearly spreadsheet. In previous years, I haven't had enough expenses to warrant claiming them on my taxes - I was always just under the minimum you can claim for medical expenses. This year, however, I appear to be well on my way to outstripping that minimum, so I decided to go ahead and start the spreadsheet so it won't be quite so huge come February. I have a couple of receipts that are missing their explanation of benefits, but I'm thinking I can hunt those down on my insurance company's website.

Numbers 7 & 8 are essentially how I am spending my Saturday night. Woohoo! Party!

I am officially old. Heck, I take Centrum Silver (doctor's recommendation, because I need the extra oomph), so I'm practically a senior citizen, right? Right...

Preparing to Meet My...

This afternoon, my mom received a voicemail from a woman in her Sunday School class, who urged her to call a nutritionist friend of hers, currently in Dallas from Pennsylvania. The nutritionist, to whom we will refer as Ugga Mugga, has successfully diagnosed multiple ailments within the aforementioned friend's family, and has her Ph.D. The friend suggested we call to make an appointment with her before she leaves on Wednesday, saying that she might be able to help me find the seemingly inexplicable source of what ails me.

In short, on Tuesday, I will be going to see a woman who I perceive as being something of a witch doctor.

She uses acupuncture methodologies during her diagnoses, and I have a two hour appointment with her.

Fortunately, my parents are offering to foot the bill, seeing as I doubt my insurance would have any truck with Ph.D nutritionists attempting to diagnose what supposedly was a problem to be cleared up by routine surgery.

What will be the outcome of my visit with Ugga Mugga the Witch Doctor? I don't know. I do know that I was able to pull myself together for long enough to discuss with her some of the ailment's background and the surgery, and hardly cried at all.

That, these days, is a triumph indeed.

And as we all know, the most important detail in life-threatening medical situations, after you've been crying, is to make sure your mascara isn't running. Never fear, dear reader: my mascara is still firmly in place.

Still Reading... A Lot

I spoke with the nurse at my doctor's office, this afternoon. There's been a hitch in my recovery - as in, I'm experiencing the same painful symptoms I had before surgery, which should have been relieved by the surgery - and she told me 1) Not to drive myself anywhere (I haven't been); 2) Not to undertake any strenuous exercises (no problemo); and 3) go get this prescription for painkillers from the pharmacy and tough it out until my appointment on Wednesday.

Crap.

I had hoped to be able to return to work on Monday, but since I can't drive and my mental faculties will be impaired somewhat by the lovely opiates I'll be taking to get me through the next few days, that's not an option right now. I'll have to call my office tomorrow and tell them as much. I had already hinted that I might not be back on Monday, seeing as my recovery was slower than I had planned, and they seemed okay with that.

Not encouraging.

The upshot of all of this is that I'm still reading like a ... like a ... I've run out of metaphors here.

I'm reading a lot, okay?

And I haven't been back to the bookstore because 1) I just dropped a load of money paying for apparently ineffective (but necessary) surgery and 2) I can't drive myself to the damned bookstore.

Ahem.

So what have I been reading?

Mystery novels. I usually don't read them, and in fact, they are one of the last types of book I usually pick out for myself (The Girl_________ trilogy excepted), but my mom is a lover of mystery novels. We have gobs of them floating around, and so I've been scavenging for ones to read.

I've discovered I like P.D. James, especially since she uses the same characters over a period of 30 years and they don't age during that time period. It's a pretty sweet concept, and one I'm sure many Hollywood and Highland Park ladies would love to turn into reality.

I read a Michael Jenks mystery set in medieval England that was okay, but I'm not going to go searching out his books after this. They were kind of dry, and short on the descriptive passages that I so enjoyed in Dame James' books (I think she's a dame... she has a title, anyway).

Nevertheless, I might have to go to the bookstore this weekend to see about buying some books. There's only so much murder and mayhem I can stand.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Best of Times

I am an aunt. My 8 lb. 3 oz. niece was born on July 25 at 1:29 pm. I'm overjoyed at the prospect of getting to spoil her rotten for the next 18 years of her life (and then some). My mom and I drove down to Houston as soon as we heard and met her Sunday evening, and I got to hold her.

Of course, as soon as she was put into my arms, I burst into tears.

That's how I roll, Dawg.

Right.

She's an incredibly lively baby, opening her eyes and looking around within hours of being born, kicking her little legs and moving her arms, amidst the motionless babies of the nursery born shortly before her. Amazing. The nurses all seemed as flabbergasted as my mom and I were. But then again, being the daughter of my sister, she's bound to be an over-achiever.

I kid! I kid!

As an aside, she was born at a hospital dedicated solely to women, so there were pregnant women everywhere. It was kind of... creepy. Something sci-fi about it, although I can quite pin down what it was. They moved around in big packs, too, with their mates alongside them. They give tours of the hospital to expectant moms on weekends. Crazy.

I also found out today that I am receiving a bonus on either Friday or Monday, which should be about the size of one of my paychecks (I hope).

Worst of Times

I have been placed on furlough. Without pay. My bonus and this next paycheck are the last ones I will receive until I am able to return to the office full-time, which is looking to be 2-1/2 or 3 weeks from now. Radio talked to me about it when I went into the office for an hour this afternoon (he caught me on the way out the door).

Then I talked to our book keeper, this afternoon, who informed me that I still had 60 hours of vacation left for the year (I have no idea how, unless I made up more hours than I realized for doctor visits) and about 30 hours of sick leave left.

I guess I underestimated the amount of work I've done during the past month I've been at home.

She told me I could use all that time towards the next couple of weeks I'll be out, if I need to. I think I won't, though, and I'll just live off the bonus and this next/last paycheck (I'm not going out, and not eating much in general, so expenditures are low, right now, with the exception of medical bills). God only knows what might happen post-op, and I want to be prepared in case I have to miss more work.

She also told me that they're going to go ahead and reimburse me the full amount that I paid towards the CT Scans (even though the whole amount might not be applied to the deductible at this time) because with the surgery, at least that much will be applied at some point, and they'll just figure it out from there. She was under the impression that I hadn't paid anything yet for the CT scans, so didn't realize I was already out almost $1000 that I'd have sitting on my credit card until the whole insurance debacle gets sorted out. So I'll get a check from the company next week, since I have to pay my credit card bill. She was much more understanding about the whole thing than I thought she would be, honestly.

At least the furlough won't change my insurance status, since I'm still technically employed. And the bonus will cover living expenses while I'm not getting paid. And I'll be able to pay off my credit card instead of racking up $130 in interest for the next month.

Always look on the bright side of life.

(Whistling) De-do. De-do-di-do-do-do.

Insert Curse Words Here

That's pretty much how my day is going, today.

Wednesday, I started feeling slightly icky, and today, that ickiness became unbearable. No, we're not talking "reason for having surgery" icky, we're talking "completely new kind of icky that probably requires a dose of antibiotics." After a quick confab with Dr. W's lovely nurse, she suggested I go to the nearest Doc-In-A-Box to get some antibiotics, because we want me to be all healthy and ick-free for my surgery, now scheduled for August 5.

August 5, people. If you need an address for sending flowers, just let me know.

Heh.

It was the longest Doc-In-A-Box visit of my life, since I'm apparently a fascinating specimen with oodles and oodles of problems, any of which, honestly, could have presented symptoms similar to the ickiness now pervading. But I know ickiness from yuckiness, and this was definitely ickiness, so I convinced the doctor it was ickiness, that I know what I'm talking about, and he prescribed a couple of medicines to help make the icks go away.

My insurance rejected one of the medicines, because I had the same medicine prescribed and that prescription filled less than 25 days ago. Nevermind that my body has chosen to need the same effing medicine again (and that I'm allergic to its over-the-counter alternatives), my insurance company refuses to pay for any part of it. The crossed their arms, frowned, and turned their disapproving backs on me.

I went ahead and paid for the (generic) medicine, because I have to have it, regardless of whether my insurance wants to pay for it.

In other words, I was already in a bad mood when I arrived home and discovered that they had refused one of my claims for a CT Scan; or, rather, their third party consultant had refused one f my claims. Not both of them, mind you, just one.

Abdominal: okay, you can have that one.

Pelvic: Oh no. That's asking too much.

I was angry, I was furious, I started crying. Then I opened the rest of my mail.

FOUR DAYS PRIOR THEY HAD AUTHORIZED BOTH OF THE CT SCANS.

Riddle me this, dear reader: What the... duck?

I called the "We're open 24/7 call us with questions" number on the second letter (the one authorizing both procedures) and the young lady on the phone said that one of them had been approved, but not both.

"Except I have a letter stating otherwise," I replied.

"I have no idea why we approved it, and then they denied the claim, and they're not open right now, but if you call back Monday, we can call to find out."

Yeah, I'm sure that will really help. So I'll call Dr. L's business office on Monday to see if they've received the same letter (they're supposed to) and then I'll call the bast... the not nice people who denied my claim.

Now I'm freaking out, because I'm scared to death that they're going to deny my surgery claim, and that I might have to pay more than the $1000 out of pocket that I've already paid because we have a ginormous deductible.

The surgery to take place on August 5. I like calla lilies.

Dr. W's nurse said their business office will begin the pre-approval process on Monday so I should be all set for August 5, and hopefully all will go well. My dad will be taking me to have surgery, and he will stay home with me all day Friday. If required, we will find someone to stay with me on Saturday, or at least to drop me lunch or something, depending on how my recovery is coming along.

On the upside, I've officially, according to a doctor's scale, lost 10 pounds, which is more than I'd wanted to lose (about 5 pounds), but I'm not going to complain.

Looking really hard for that silver lining, right now...

Running Hither and Thither

I spent most of my day running around like a headless chicken. This, in itself, is no different from how I usually spend my weekends, except for the amount of money spent.

My first task was to knock out Father's Day gifts, which I did with great elan. I wandered around Northpark for a while afterward, looking for clothes for myself, hoping I might catch some great deals, or see something I didn't see two weekends ago when I went clothes shopping (with limited success).

No dice. I have apparently exhausted my options for the current buying cycle and for my budget at Northpark Mall.

What to do? My wardrobe is still in a parlous state, so I decided to do the only thing I could think of doing: make the lengthy trek to Allen and brave the crowds at the outlet mall.

Outlet malls hold all the appeal to me that theme parks do: Jostling around with the unwashed masses, picking through clothes that were picked over in stores previously, and have been picked over again in their Outlet incarnation. The idea holds little charm for me. But my good old standbys had failed me, so I was desperate.

I hit the BCBG outlet first, to no avail. Even at "outlet" prices, and on sale on top of that, their clothes were still overpriced. Waaaaaaaaay overpriced. I almost wonder if they didn't mark them up before "marking them down." Or maybe I just always buy clothes at their regular retail stores when they're on superduper sale, so I've forgotten how much they cost.

After leaving BCBG, I walked halfway across the stupid mall to the J. Crew outlet. I found two shells and a cardigan and called it a day. The shells are both neutral - grey and beige - but are out of a crinkly silk fabric. They'll work well with multiple cardigan/jacket combinations, and aren't so ridiculously bare that I couldn't take off the cardigan if I was stuck on a construction site for three hours.

Granted, I'd be sunburned on that construction site, but that's neither here nor there.

The cardigan is basic black. I almost grabbed a black and white horizontal striped cardigan, then remembered that I already have one.

I have a thing for stripes, okay?

After leaving the Outlet Mall from Hades, I decided to go get a pedicure at the cheapo nail place near my parents' house. It was totally worth it, and my nails are now pretty and shiny and coated with a slick of metallic beige polish. The leg massage was better than usual, as was the foot massage.

And then, I reasoned, I might as well just go to my parents' house, even though I knew they weren't there for the afternoon. I wanted to hang out with my dog for a while.

What up, Dog?

Major Tom (yes, that is my dog's real name, not his nom d'usage for the blog - I don't think he'll complain about being outed) was overjoyed to see me, even more so when I left to get barbecue for dinner and let him have some of the pulled pork I didn't eat. I scratched him for almost the entire 5 1/2 hours I was with him - except for while eating, and of course when I went to get the food - and my fingers are sore, now.

And en route to my apartment, after abandoning my dear old dog, I freaked out. Because my car is really bouncy when I drive it. Which makes me think it might need new shocks and/or struts. So maybe I shouldn't have gone to J. Crew after all... Oh well, that's why they make their clothes Final Sale I guess! Oh, darn...

Holey Shirt!

While getting dressed this morning, I realized something. Something that is kind of disturbing. Something that is going to end up costing me money.

The clothes that I wear most often are those that I've owned for 5+ years.

What made me realize this? First, the dress I went to put on this morning - which I bought 4 years ago - is stained and discolored beyond repair (it's white, but with colored stitching, so no bleaching). That was okay, I'd suspected it was time to part ways with it... or turn it into really high-quality dusting cloths (I will be the only girl in my apartment complex with BCBG dustrags).

Then, I decided to wear a skirt (owned for 9 years). Nothing wrong with the skirt. Miraculously, it still fits after 9 years. However, the only shirt that I have with which it coordinates is also about 9 years old, and the pointelle detailing around the neckline is dead. The elastic has come out, stretched out completely, and pokes out between the knit border in gargantuan looping spirals.

One of my favorite summer sweaters has bitten the proverbial dust.

The shirt I'm currently wearing is a good 4 years old, and it still looks okay, but that's because I rarely wear it. It's black, and the neckline is a little bit lower than I'm typically comfortable wearing in the office. And I wear black entirely too often. It's paired with a denim pencil skirt I bought right after I started working for Oldsmobile, when its (8 year old) predecessor decided not to resume its shape after years of happily hugging my curves. Stupid Lycra. I can't believe it only lasted 8 years. On the upside, Oldsmobile complimented me on my appearance, today.

So it appears that the lampshades for my lovely lovely lamps will have to wait while I go through, look at my clothes, see what is salvageable, and what needs to be tossed, and then go hit the sales and discount clothing stores, this weekend. I usually avoid discount stores like the plague, but I think if I shop carefully, I can find some good clothes that will (hopefully) last me a long time. Maybe I'll find some more 8-10 year sweaters.

In other news, my favorite pair of jeans has a hole just south of a back pocket, but I'll be damned if I'm going to give up on them. That's why God invented iron-on denim patches, right?

Uncle Moneybags

I met my new client for the first time, yesterday, and then spent a full 95 minutes in his presence today.

I thank God I was chaperoned by one of my big-brotherly male coworkers.

At past jobs, my clients flirted with me. It's an occupational hazard when you're a 20-something female in a field where your commercial real estate clients are overwhelmingly male with overwhelmingly large pocketbooks that give them an overwhelmingly large sense of entitlement. Their flirtations were mostly benign and confined to the conference room, or cocktail parties for real estate promotions. But this character is something else, altogether.

Unlike past clients - and my present clients on other projects - who oozed money without ever talking about it except in the context of what they wanted to spend on their project, Uncle Moneybags talks about it. All the time. Seriously.

"I pay $500 per month for a climate controlled storage unit for my 5,000 bottles of wine."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand?

"I was thinking about building a 15,000 SF house in Preston Hollow a few years ago, about $5 million or so, but decided not to."

That's quite the non sequitur. What, pray tell, does that have to do with asbestos abatement?

And he's one of those people who talks about money all the time, talks about how much money he spends, and then talks about how cheap he is and how much he hates to spend money. Wonderful.

And he hardly talked to Radio at all. Most of his comments were directed towards me. Even though I'm the subordinate in the office, the little helper, I received the brunt of his attention. Radio's the big man on the project. I'm just a CAD monkey, right now, inputting the existing floor plans into the computer so they make sense. But noooooooo. He hardly looked at Radio the whole time.

Granted, I was wearing white jeans, and according to my guy friends, a girl in white jeans is difficult to pry your eyes from, but still. When I left the room to investigate things, he inevitably followed, even if Radio was in the middle of discussing things with him. Important things. Sticky issues we might run into.

Like asbestos abatement.

Sigh. Maybe next time we go, his 25 year old ex-girlfriend - who's living in the apartment, right now, while the apartment he's bought for her is being renovated - will be the only one there. I have a sneaking suspicion he'll be there, though.

Maybe it's time to invest in a couple of muumuus.

C-c-c-changes!

So much happening!

This morning, while I was at work, the maintenance man came and repaired the weatherstripping on my door, so it's all shiny and new and actually works, now! Yay!

And I received a notice from my apartment complex that, due to tenant requests, they now provide recycling services! Which means all those Economist and eviscerated Elle Decor magazines that have been going in the garbage bin will now go in the recycling bin!

So many exclamation points!!!!!!!!

I'm also now working on a renovation project for a new-ish client, rather than the lovely 1,000 SF treehouse I've been doing. It's a fascinating project, in a way, because the apartment in a Turtle Creek highrise we're renovating is essentially in the same state it was in when first completed back in 1958.

1958, people.

Granted, a few tenants have made misguided upgrades in the interim - shiny white laminate cabinets in the kitchen, with matching closet doors in the hallway, eesh - and the lighting is absolutely atrocious, but the woodwork is all in original condition. A little worse for wear, and in need of some refinishing, but still in place after 52 years. After 25 years longer than I've been alive.

And get this: the client currently owns one unit on the floor, but he wants to own all five of the units on his floor so he can combine them into one unit. One big, huge, 8 million bedroom unit in a historic Turtle Creek highrise. I don't even want to think about his monthly Home Owners' Association Fees. Actually, yes. Yes, I do.

They would be what I make in 4 months. Just for HOA fees. For one month. That's not including the cost of the mortgage or anything. I know, I shouldn't be astounded. And let's not forget, that includes all of his utilities.

Heck, it's a bargain.