Life With a Little More "Life"

I've been completely off of opiate pain medications for a few weeks, now. So far, I'm happy about it. I feel different without the constant haze of brain-fug I experienced (unknowingly, mostly) for the previous four years of my life.

I wake up, now, when the sun's brightness wakes me up - usually around 7:30-8:00 - as nature intended, instead of sleeping until noon because my body responded to when the drugs wore off. I have a true circadian rhythm to my life that I previously lacked.

Wikimedia Commons

When I sleep, my sleep is more restful, and I'm dreaming more often - and remembering more of my dreams - and having more pleasant dreams, as opposed to nightmarish head trips that prevented me from sleeping soundly. Some of these nightmares were probably hallucinations, in truth, rather than me actually sleeping and dreaming.

TheGuyWho3433

You know those commercials for medications to treat opiate-induced constipation, known as OIC, apparently, because giving a disorder an acronym makes it less embarrassing? Yeah, so good old OIC is a serious issue for people on pain medications for chronic illness. Even more so when the migraines - for which you take opioids - is also a source of, um, "C" (see above OIC, and just remove the C, because: acronyms). Though it isn't exactly happening quickly, the gastrointestinal effects of constant opiate use are slowly working themselves out.

I'm not living in fear of the medication completely working its way out of my system all at once, leaving me with a shock of pain bad enough to make me writhe around, incapable of relaxing and resting. The anxiety of running out of opiates is also gone; the government's strict controls and occasional drug shortages rendered this a serious concern, especially if a new patient began filling a prescription for the same drugs and the pharmacy wasn't prepared for it.

Psychologically, I'm dealing with the migraines better. I'm taking very little in the way of medication, just some muscle relaxants when it's really bad, and maybe a couple of Tylenol. I'll also pop on the good old Cephaly if it's bad and I can stand to have something on my head. In Europe, the device is marketed as an "acute" treatment, instead of simply preventative, so it's worth a shot, right? And it did seem to help, that first time I tried it, when I caught the migraine early enough, so...

The only downside I've noticed so far has left me with mixed feelings.

I'm having difficulty with creative endeavors.

I used to write for an hour or two each day, most days, typically at night once my pain medications kicked in, or in the afternoon if I had to take them to get me through a particularly rough spot. About 30 or 45 minutes after taking the drugs, I'd feel a surge of creative energy and feel as if I simply had to write. Now.

That's gone, the creative urge evaporating into the ether, so to speak.

Or into a Photoshop gradient. One of those two, definitely.

Ever since I kicked the habit, the books I was working on - all those ideas, fictional and non-fictional - have dried up. I don't feel the same inspiration that I previously felt.

It's unnerving.

I used to believe that real artists didn't require chemical assistance to create masterpieces. I'm less sure of that, now, mostly because to accept that my writing was mostly the product of a opiate-induced fever-dream would force me to see it as less valuable.

Maybe.

For now, I'm trying not to think about the significant drop in "creating" that I'm experiencing.

To distract myself, I watch stand up comedians and comediennes on Hulu and NetFlix, or take quizzes on Sporcle, both very productive.

I go to Whole Foods and buy groceries to feed my husband and myself, because eating at home is healthier than eat at our favorite local fast food joint, El Rey (even though their Havana Plate is so f!&#ing delicious).

Bayou City Bites

I'm also mentally caching ideas for a new blog - one that would relate to my professional field instead of a personal blog - and trying to come up with a name for it.

On Monday, I'll start doing a bit of contract work for my dad, editing photos of his products for brochures and website use. This will most likely take place at a Starbucks, because only suckers work from home when they can go to Starbucks and pretend to be cool, hip, self-employed graphic designers that totally have a thriving business and aren't just doing some work for their dads since they have some time on their hands.

And I'll mentally wrestle with whether I want to pick up my Montblanc, again, and continue writing that fantasy novel, or maybe start researching that history of the British in Kenya once more.

Sisters. Sisters. There were never such adoring sisters.

I received a message via Facebook, today, informing me that I had been granted a "Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award." The awarder...

No.

The awardor...

No.

The award giver? Granter? Grantor? Grantor, according to Merriam-Webster.

Okay, here we go again. The award grantor is my third cousin, the daughter of my Cousin Thom. After Thom's death, she took over his blog, To Gyre and Gambol, and has definitely lived up to his legacy.

Since I blogged about Thom, I haven't written another entry, although I've meant to do so. I've mentally composed several posts, but then didn't get around to writing them.

I've been busy. I met the man of my dreams, and on May 30, 2015, I will marry him in a smallish ceremony here in Houston. We now share a home, and he has been through a round of everyone's favorite game: "Megan's Bedridden Again!"

So we have the whole "in sickness and in health" thing covered.

Lots going on. And that's part of why I haven't blogged: I felt there was too much to catch up on.

But now, I've been given an award, and so I will blog, tonight, for the first time in six months.

So here are the questions Amy sent me to answer:

• Why did you start blogging?

My sister suggested it. I was unemployed in 2008, and had nothing to do. I would write these loooooooong emails full of details about what it's like to be unemployed to her, and she told me how funny they were. I was reading constantly, and wanted a way to "discuss" my books with people, and so when my sister (also named Amy, by the way - total fluke in the family naming thing) suggested I start a blog, I decided to do so. I initially had a schedule: Monday was a review of the bar I went to on Friday for Architects' Happy Hour, Tuesday was some amusing anecdote related to being unemployed, Wednesday was also some amusing anecdote related to being unemployed, Thursday was often a book review, and Friday was either another random story or a picture of alcohol, because I was too busy going to Happy Hour at 5:30. Don't knock it. It's how I got my next job. "You can hold your booze and won't put up with alcoholics' shenanigans? You're hired!"

• Do you have a favorite scar? Tell us its story

I actually have three favorite scars. Is that cheating? Maybe? I never claimed not to be a cheater, you know.

Three favorite scars: one beneath my right breast - 1.5" long and 1/8" wide; quasi-symmetrical ones fanning out from my waist down to my hips. The fan-shaped scars used to be bright red, then purple, but now they're a shiny flesh-tone, almost invisible unless you see them in the right light. Or wrong light, depending on your feelings about scars.

All three come from chemotherapy treatment as a 17 year old. I got all of them within a three month period of time. On December 4, 1999, I had surgery to implant a port-a-cath, which is usually implanted above the breast in teenage patients, so it doesn't interfere with brassieres. When I was diagnosed, however, I weighed a skeletal 105 lbs, so there wasn't enough fat over my rib cage to implant the port-a-cath above my breast. So the placed it below my right breast, but out of the way of the band of my bra.

The other two scars are also related to my being 105 lbs of nothing when I was diagnosed with leukemia. My doctors put me on steroids, you see, as part of my treatment, and I proceeded to eat all the food ever. I would go through a gallon of whole milk and 1.5 lbs of ham in two days. And that doesn't include the 3 a.m. scrambled eggs I would make for myself, or the Oreos, or the microwaved frozen broccoli.

I gained a lot of weight in a short period of time, and after three months of chemotherapy and steroids - and the puffiness that comes with being on steroids - I noticed that I was getting funny marks on my hips. Stretch marks. From gaining weight.

I used to be ashamed of the scars on my hips. It's helped that they've faded, with time, but I also see them as a symbol of what I went through, and who it helped me to become.

• Are you sunrise, daylight, twilight, or night?

I am the walrus. Koo koo ka choo.

I used to think I was night. I'm still a bit of a night owl, but something I've learned in the past six months is that I crave sunlight. I've actually cured migraines by sitting in the sunlight and resting, so I think I'm now daylight.

• What's the best meal you've ever had?

The best meal I've ever had... I've had lots of great meals, memorable meals, but I think the best one was on November 1st of 2014. That was the day The Love of My Life asked me to marry him, and we went to Ruth's Chris for dinner, that night. (I thought he was going to propose at dinner, but then he stole a march on me and proposed before we went to lunch.) When we arrived, one of his friends had called the restaurant, told them what had happened, and paid for us to have a bottle of champagne. At first, I thought Robert - the fiance - had ordered the champagne. But then he asked if I'd done it. Nope. There was a card on the table, and that straightened things out pretty quickly. I had filet mignon, mushrooms, and asparagus with hollandaise with creme brulee for dessert.

It wasn't the best food I've ever had, but the company couldn't be beat.

• If you wrote a book, what would it be about? Write the inside front jacket.

I've actually written a book, but it's nowhere near being publishable. There's a ton of work to be done on it. If I had a year without a job, I'd work on it, and probably get it polished up in a couple of months. It's a fairy tale about a benevolent witch - it's a matriarchal society, and men are kind of (really) looked down on - who has to go on a journey to find a cure for the coven's matriarch, who will die without this cure. So she leaves, and eventually finds the cure, and on the way decides that neither humans nor males are so bad (in fact, some of them are smokin', but in a totally PG way), and she is also disappointed in some things. The character, as I initially wrote her, is too perfect, though, too cold, and too remote. She isn't someone you really want to read about. I've grown better about having relatable characters, in the intervening years (I wrote it 5 years ago), so I think I could turn it into something publishable, if I had the time.


But as for writing the inside front jacket? I don't know if my late-night mental muscles are up to that taxing task...

• Tattoos: yea or nay?

I certainly don't have any! Long ago, I wanted to be tan, but then I had cancer, and I decided I didn't want to get cancer again, so now I'm perfectly happy being fair-skinned. It isn't pale, it's porcelain, and I'm rocking it. And I work pretty hard to keep it nice, especially after the time I ended up with a striped sunburn after floating the Comal River in San Marcos, TX. No ink shall mar this creamy canvas.

• What do you wish you were better at?

Wow. There are so many possibilities here. One: getting off my duff and exercising. Two: socializing. I sort of have social anxiety, especially after bouts of illness, and then the idea of going out with a group of people can send me into a panic. Fortunately, my lifemate is good at talking me down (even when he thinks it's just me "not having anything to wear", which is a very convenient excuse for me). Three: riding a bike, snapping, and whistling. That's I lie, I wish I could actually do those things, not just be better at them. That's right: I refused to learn to ride a bike. I need three wheels under my caboose, or it's game over.

• Which young-adult bestseller-turned move do you dislike the most?

I can't really speak to this one, since I haven't seen any of them. I've heard the Hunger Games movies are actually really good, but I'm so madly in love with the books that I'm afraid I'd be disappointed if I saw them.

• Public school or private? Interpret whichever way you like.

I went to public school. I found out, within the past two years, that a lot of students in my district perceived my school as "ghetto". I couldn't figure out why, initially, and then I realized that we were one of the few schools on my side of town that had a racially diverse population. We had Hispanics and African Americans at my middle school! Gasp! It was good for me to be in a diverse population. I didn't realize until my parents pointed it out that two of my friends were Hispanic. ("Huh? Oh. I guess they are. Whaddaya know.")

• What fashion decision do you most regret?

Dream-catcher earrings in the sixth grade. Hands down.


I'm supposed to pass this on, now, and award it to someone else. The difficulty there is that I'm out of practice with reading blogs. I never really read other peoples' blogs, much. This blog was just a way for me to vent, and to be creative and maybe have 100 people read an entry on Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam series (which she finally finished. Helllo! That took a while!).

So I'm going to be a bad sister, in this Sisterhood of Bloggers, and break the chain.

Hopefully I don't have 7 years of bad luck.

I'm a Terrible Blogger

No, really. I am.

When I first began this whole "blogging thing," I was rigorous in my daily blogging: I had a plan. I had vision!

I did not, however, have a job, which left ample opportunity for coming up with witticisms for my own little corner of the interwebz.

Now, I have a job - 5 days of the week! - and I'm remembering what it's like to have a set schedule, when there are only two days of the week in which to get everything else done. Then, too, by the time I get home from work, I've been under icky fluorescent lights for 6-8 hours, often staring at a computer screen, and the last thing I want to do is tempt fate/migraine by booting up the old dell and clackity-clacking out another post.

But enough of my making pathetic excuses for myself. It's time to get down to writing.

TMoMD is no more. I finally wrote him a nice little note informing him that I expected to hear from my gentlemen callers more frequently than once every 45 days. I gently reminded him that I had the courtesy to inform him beforehand when I knew I was going to be out of pocket for a couple of weeks, and that I expected the same courtesy from the gentlemen I date.

I then dusted off my hands rather smugly as I realized that I had just dumped a good-looking 6'-0" tall polo player.

So I'm back to the drawing board, so to speak. I recently had a decent date with a man who I'll call Andre. His profile said he's 6'-6". I couldn't decide if that was awesome or terrifying, at the time.

Here's the thing about online dating: men rarely tell the truth about their height. If they're 5'-6", they say they're 5'-8", and if they're 5'-10", they say they're 6'-0".

Generally speaking.

Andre is the exception to the rule. The man claimed to be 6'-6". And yet, as I stood on the curb talking to him (in the parking lot after our first date), and he stood on the ground 6" below me, I realized he was still a good 6 or 7 inches tall than I am. And when we were walking next to each other, I barely came up to his shoulder.

In other words, Andre is probably the only man in THE WORLD who shaves 2-3 inches off his height so he doesn't scare people.

I'm not sure I like the idea of being so ridiculously tiny compared to a gentleman caller.

I'm not the sort of gal who demands that her beau be taller than she is in heels. I dated a guy who was 1 or 2 inches shorter than me for 18 months (to date, my longest relationship). I'm not hung up on height (though if a guy's 5'-6" or under, he doesn't stand a chance). I figure if I end up with a fellow who's shorter than the average bear, it's all Mother Nature's way of trying to even out the human height average.

Whether or not I could become accustomed to dating a gentleman as tall as Andre the Giant (as we will refer to my newest potential beau) remains to be seen. At least, with Andre, it won't be difficult to spot.

Grad School: Semester II

It's been a helter skelter kind of semester, this time around. Not as deadline driven (last semester, we had a project due every two weeks for the first six weeks), but still busy.

Part of the problem is that there aren't as many hard and fast deadlines, I think. There isn't the sense of immediacy I felt, last semester, that kept me working working working all the time.

I am, however, more satisfied at this point in the semester. The prospect of spending the rest of the semester on this one project - a museum of new media - is definitely a bright one, for me.

My other classes are also going well - I'm taking a Writing, Architecture, and the City course, and a Community Development Workshop class, and a Technology course (structures, environmental control systems, etc.). Last semester, the tech course was awful. We shared it with about 100 undergrads (in theory, at any rate, as most of them never showed up) and the course was geared towards where they were in their semester, with little or no correlation to our projects.

This semester, the grad students have a Tech course all to ourselves, and we're pretty much creating the class as it goes along, telling the professor where we are and what we need. It's a tech course as tech courses should be taught for designers, easily applicable to our studio projects.

Regardless, the semester work is keeping me quite busy. So busy that I'm hardly able to blog, what with the writing for my Writing class, creative writing, studio work, and community workshop work. Lots to do...

Off to Dallas!

I am excited.

I am beyond excited.

Ecstatic might be the appropriate word.

I am going to Dallas for the weekend.

Not only will I get to see my family - both biological and the family we've chosen - but I will get to help my mom celebrate her birthday, albeit a little bit early. And I will get to see Major Tom Shadowmaker, who is taking it easy, these days. I miss the old fellow.

Unfortunately, I will have to work some over the weekend.

I am now entering the first stages of design for my 6-8 week studio project, after managing to pull an A on the Run Lola Run film center I designed in two weeks. My long-term project is a research center in Death Valley (again. My choice, though, this time). I'm thrilled, because I will get to expand on some of the ideas I explored in the previous 2 week project, and get to take them further.

For my last project, I buried the majority of my program underground, with parts of it popping out in the form of concrete cubes. This time, however, I'm going all the way. Yup, my program will be entirely buried with the exception of a few canyons/light wells dug out of the earth for entrances and, duh, light.



In other words, I am about to design some high-falutin' Hobbit holes. I couldn't be more excited.

I've always loved "nesting", both in the sense of decorating interior spaces, but also in terms of physically burrowing. My mother used to tease me because I did not sleep beneath my duvet, but wrapped it around myself, like a swaddled baby. I still wrap blankets around myself, although the duvet is now used more conventionally, rather than as a beautifully designed albeit zipper-less sleeping bag.

And my project idea - burrowing into the hills of Death Valley - has precedent in this area: it's how the kangaroo rats of Death Valley keep themselves cool during the day.

P.S. The migraines are better. Much better. I've had one in the past week. Everything's coming up roses!

Going from Bad to Worse

Today was aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks.

My migraines have ramped up in the past two days, and I had to leave the office early today. I did not, however, just climb into bed and pull the pillow over my head (well, not for very long). We have a deadline tomorrow afternoon, consarnit, and I'm not going to be the reason we miss that deadline!

I've figured out that bright light can trigger a new migraine or worsen one I already have. The fact that the office in which I work is brilliantly lit by fluorescent lights at all hours of the day does nothing to help, either. Even if I arrive at work migraine-free, by the time I've been there one hour, I have a migraine.

Blarg.

I was discussing this with my sainted mother a couple of days ago (Sunday?) and she mentioned that one of her students wears special glasses at school because the lights bother him. So, today, while I waited for my Photoshop files to process, and for my SketchUp shadows to render, I researched glasses that are specifically made for migraineurs and migraineuses, such as myself.

As soon as I buy a pair of glasses for the purpose, I will be seeing life through rose-colored glasses. The most successful type of lens has a special coating, developed by the Moran Eye Center in Utah, and they'll coat almost any type of glasses for $35.

That's pretty darned cheap, and they can do a light coating or a very thick coating.

I'll have to buy glasses, though, because I don't want to put it on my prescription glasses.

I'm blind as a bat, so I really should be able to maneuver using echolocation, by now, but I guess I'm slow to evolve. Heh.

It appears that the problem most migraineurs have with photophobia (lit. fear of light but in medical terms just sensitivity to light) is caused by blue-green light, and so, by adding this special rosy pink coating, those wavelengths are cancelled out.

Fascinating, I think.

Or, I could buy ready-made glasses, specifically designed for the fashion-savvy migraineuse. This is what all the chicest migraineuses will be wearing this summer:

I don't know about the pret-a-porter migraine shades, though. I don't want people to think I'm so cool that I can wear sunglasses all day. I'm afraid they'll feel inferior and it will lead to a drop in efficiency.

You might be wondering how it's possible that I'm on the computer at home, since light hurts my eyes so much, right now. Simple answer: Flux.

Not as in "flux capacitor" but as in "a computer program that alters the appearance of your screen to cancel out the bluish light so your body recognizes that it's nighttime." My BIL introduced the program to me, and it's helped with eyestrain (and migraines!) immensely.

Link to get it yourself: http://stereopsis.com/flux/

Busy Busy Bee

It's been a while since I last wrote, but I've been insanely busy.

After a year of unemployment (cumulatively over the last the three years), I have become a bit too accustomed to the whole "lying in bed all day doing nothing" routine. I forgot what a time-eater actually working can be, and my evenings have been somewhat hectic. Nevermind the fact that I've also been out of town for the past two weekends, it's the working every day that's getting me.

By the time I get home from the office and prepare a healthy meal, I'm exhausted. Then, I clean up the kitchen and do laundry, and I check my email to make sure no new bills have arrived in the Inbox, and I fall into bed. It's taking an inordinately long time for me to finish the (fascinating) biography of The Queen Mum that I'm currently reading.

I have two books on a wait list, patiently biding their time alongside my laptop. At least they have each other, right?

In other news, I burned my hand making myself a nutritious and delicious meal last night - and when I say "burned," I mean "currently swaddled in gauze and lidocaine gel" burned. I look like a bad Michael Jackson impersonator... a really bad one.

Because I'm bad. I'm bad. You know it.

Really Bad.

Not Off to a Good Start

How was your first day (back) at work, Ms. Strainedconsciousness?

So sweet of you to ask! It was...

Crap...

See, the thing is, my alarm didn't go off this morning. And I didn't fall asleep until about 3 a.m. because, despite the sleepless night Saturday, I had insomnia (again).

So I was 2 hours and 15 minutes late to my first day of work.

Yeah, so that's where the "crap" comes in.

I called the office, left them a message, ran into the bathroom while screaming obscenities (I probably sounded like a rhinoceros running around), and was dressed - in make-up! - in 20 minutes flat.

I didn't take a lunch break, so I ended up working about 7 hours, and everything was okay. The employers weren't upset, so that's all good.

But it was still embarrassing.

And now I'm trying to navigate the murky waters of health insurance for people who have pre-existing conditions.

It's not fun.

In order to apply to the State of Texas' Health Insurance Pool, I have to have at least one insurance company refuse to insure me. So I just spent the past two hours applying for health insurance for one company that will undoubtedly thumb their nose at me while blowing a raspberry.

They try to trip you up by asking questions about varying health conditions twice, so I just threw everything in there that I could think of that they could ever possibly want to know about, so if they found something out after I was diagnosed, they can't cancel it because I withheld information (a common ploy of individual plan insurers).

So that bronchitis I had in 2001? Yup, it's on there.

The sinusitis from 2001? Yup, it's on there.

Whoever looks at my application will know more about my digestive system, my neurological functions, and my emotional state of health than they could ever need to know.

And then I had to pay $164 "in case" I'm accepted to their plan (it's refunded if/when I'm rejected with a slap to the face).

But it doesn't matter, because they'll refuse to cover me.

Because I'm "uninsurable."

Neat how the people who need insurance the most can't get it, isn't it?

And before anyone starts railing against the tax-payer funded health pool I'm going to apply to after my rejection: It's not tax-payer funded.

The people who pay the insurance premiums (which are high) foot the bill for the health plan, along with the insurance providers, who are required to pay a tax to the state government. And no, it isn't part of "Obamacare," it's been in place for several years.

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...

Good Things Come to Those Who Get Laid Off

I have some news that is absolutely faboosh!

Starting this coming Monday, I have a multi-week contract job! With the guys who laid me off back in 2008.

Sweet.

I'll be paid hourly, but that's A-OK, because, as a contractor, I can charge more per hour than I would make on salary, seeing as I have to take into account insurance premiums, parking, and all the other perks salaried employees get that this little contractor won't receive.

As always, this leaves me with a teeny tiny dilemma: clothes.

For the past 18 months, I've been able to wear jeans to work every day, because I couldn't always count on staying in the office all day. Sometimes I had to get myself out to the construction site, and a girl can't do that (successfully or safely) in a pencil skirt and heels.

So I bought a few things, today, to help me get in the mindset for the office: two pairs of shoes, both of which go with clothes I already have; a new fun cardigan (will also go with things I already have); and a new pair of trouser jeans. They will be taken to the tailor tomorrow so I can get them hemmed properly.

In other news: I applied a few months ago to graduate programs in architecture. I've received a couple of rejections, which didn't surprise me, because I didn't feel too great about my portfolio this time around.

I did receive an acceptance letter from the University of Houston, however, along with a scholarship! It's not a full ride, or near a full ride, but every little bit helps, right? Also, it's the program one of my favorite professors at UTA recommended most highly to me, so I feel better knowing that it's respected by other architecture academics.

Houston, here I come!

Unemployment and Being Airborn

My landlady is renovating the apartment complex in which I live. On Wednesday before last, everyone in my building received nice little notifications that contractors would begin Monday, March 6, on renovations.

The walkways that link all of the apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors would be redone, the note said, and added that all those residents on the 2nd and 3rd floors would be required to vacate our apartments for 24 hours at the end of renovations. Residents would be given a $100 rent credit to make up for the cost of finding someplace else to stay.

Okay. No problemo.

And then, Monday, I awoke with a migraine. I've been having them more often, of late, because of the stress of unemployment, so the migraine was no surprise. The fact that there was no weather change accompanying the migraine was a surprise.

What caused the migraine?

Jackhammers. Loud ones. Starting at 9 a.m.

They ran all day, and so I spent the majority of the day in bed with a pillow clamped firmly over my ears.

The jackhammering finally stopped on Tuesday. Wednesday, I noticed that the walkways outside some of the apartments on the 2nd floor were completely missing. Haha! I thought. That would suck if someone needed to leave or come home!

Karma, baby. Karma.

Friday, I had physical therapy at 9:30, and left to return to my little home at 11:00 a.m.

If I could fly, I could have gotten up to my apartment without a problem. But I can't fly. And there was no walkway outside my apartment.

Hmmmmm...

A very nice construction worker saw my look of consternation and asked if I needed to get into my apartment. When I said that, yes, in fact, I did need to get into my apartment, he cheerfully brought a piece of 4'x8' plywood for me to walk across (the structure that supports the walkway was in place, just not the actual walkway itself).

Great!

Except... um... that piece of plywood stopped about 1'6" away from my door.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm afraid of heights? Because, I am. Terrified. Of heights.

The construction worker stood on one end to weigh it down, and another construction worker stood at the other, and I turned deathly pale and walked to the edge of the plywood to reach across to my door.

I have no doubt they thought I was an enormous wuss. It's okay. I am a wuss.

I'm not ashamed (lie).

As I was closing the door to my apartment and saying a little silent prayer that my apartment wouldn't catch on fire and leave me trapped with no method of egress, the construction worker asked me when I was going to need to get out.

"I'll be here all day," I replied.

Oof. No way was I going through that whole tightrope/plywood walking act again.

*********************************

In other news, someone sent me a message on the Texas Workforce Commission's website. They want me to come work for them in Houston.

For $12,000 less than I made before the recession.

But on the upside, I'd be a bureaucrat (working for their building code enforcement department), and it would be fun to be able to say, "What do I do for a living? I manufacture red tape. Hmmm? Yes, I'm a bureaucrat."

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.

Well, S***

I returned to work this morning, and immediately felt apprehensive. After my last bout of unpaid leave back in August, I returned to a clean desk and effusive greetings.

This morning, all I got was, "Oh, hey," and a desktop covered in drawings that were unfamiliar. Nobody really wanted to talk to me.

Dun dun duhhhhhhhh!

I am back on unpaid leave, and not by choice, or because my health still requires it. Nope, I'm on unpaid leave because there isn't enough work for me.

Oldsmobile took me into the conference room, and informed me that I couldn't come back to work, yet, for the reason that there isn't any work for me to do. I have to admit, I saw it coming, what with the hurricane of crap on my desk and the fact that even Mrs. Robinson didn't want to talk to me.

I kept it together pretty well, although when Oldsmobile asked me what exactly was wrong with me (I've explained multiple times but, you know, when you get to be 300 years old, you forget stuff), I kind of lost it. I did manage to tell him that the reason I've been having all these health problems stemmed from the terrible ergonomics of the office workstations, and that I'd spent $1000 on a chair to try to solve some of them.

I think he felt a wee bit guilty, at that, but not guilty enough to say, "Well, you can rearrange the storage room again, then."

On the upside, it didn't matter that I forgot my ArchiCAD license-key at home, after all.

But not really

Time to Kill

I am not working, at present. Seeing as I am plagued almost daily by migraines, it's pretty much impossible for me to work. I haven't lost my job, though, and I will get back to the office as soon as I am well again (or, as well as I ever will be). Granted, I'll be hourly when I return, but them's the breaks, and you can't really blame them for changing the terms of my employment, seeing as I require so many days off for medical leave.

So for now, I'm working on my portfolio (always good to keep it updated) and writing.

But Ms. Strainedconsciousness, you haven't been writing much, you chide.

I've been writing stories, Dear Reader, ones that have been locked in my addled brain for years, and that only now have the chance to flow out onto paper (and then into the computer).

Several years ago - 20, in fact - I came up with a ghost of an idea for a fairy tale of sorts. Later, influenced by reading The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, I refined my ideas, and they started taking shape more fully.

A month ago, I made a first pass at the story, but it had ventured too far from its starting point, from that original idea, and so I scrapped it and started over, stowing the legal padful of scribbles away so some of the ideas wouldn't be lost.

On my second attempt, I blazed through the story in a handful of days, filling a legal pad and part of a spiral notebook, then jumping onto printer paper because I'd left my writing at my apartment and couldn't get to it. Now, all of those pages are typed and printed out, to be revised and added to in copious amounts.

There are additional events and places still to be visited, and more trials and tribulations to be overcome by my character, but we'll get there eventually. I typically launch into writing and then, just as quickly, stop, bored or frustrated because I've worked my character into a situation that she needn't be in. Instead of going back, culling the wheat from the chaff, I just abandon the whole thing.

My invalid author status has a few significant precedents throughout history: Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind after either an illness or a car wreck, I can't rightly remember. And it's no wonder, really, because lying supine or on my side - the only positions in which my head doesn't pound like a kettle drum - are two of the best possible positions for writing. And I've already got an idea - another long-gestating one - in my head for another story, one I have had for a long time, but couldn't come up with an ending to.

I have an ending, and once I've finished with my current story, I'll start at the beginning of the next one.

At least I'm not bored out of my mind!

A Day In the Life

I read the news today, oh boy, while I was waiting in the doctor's office.

Okay, so it isn't quite as catchy as the Beatles' original, but I do what I can.

I started my day, shivering on a construction site, with mud clinging to the hem of my $180 jeans. I don't put my jeans in the dryer, so I hang them by their hems to dry because it usually prevents wrinkling (if the denim is soft and/or has a high lycra content). Unfortunately, this tactic also stretches the pants legs after a few washes. After you've had them hemmed. And that 1-1/4" lug sole on your ohsostylish steel-toe boots doesn't do diddlysquat when the mud is 2" deep. At least.

And Superdeeduper informed me that I should have called him over with the forklift to take the envelope containing the contractor pay-applications, seeing as it weighed more than I did.

It was a beeeeeeeeg envelope.

I stopped at Starbucks en route to the office from the construction site. Okay, it's not really on the way, and it added a good 10 minutes to the trip, but I was freezing, and I can't stand the coffee the guys in the office drink.

I was the only woman in the Starbucks who did not have at least shoulder-length hair, bleached blonde and with a straw-like consistency, and who was not dressed in yoga clothes, or something resembling yoga clothes. Half of them had cell-phones glued to their ears, and were shrieking about shoes, and organizing their closets (one thing we have in common) and how little Madison has ballet at one.

And the Uggs. They were every where.

Ugh.

I caught a couple of odd looks, standing amidst them with my cropped brown hair, voluminous paisley shawl over an aubergine turtleneck, and mud-encrusted boots (and pants hems). I smiled at the women when I caught them looking, and they looked quickly away.

Back at the office, I got to work picking up redlines for an enormous project we're doing just across the Dallas North Tollway from my little apartment.

It's a project I'll be managing next week, while Scooter is on vacation.

I meet the clients, contractor, and construction superintendent tomorrow, so they have the chance to get acquainted with me and comfortable before Scooter flees for the tropics.

Unlike Pacman, Scooter tells me before he up and vamooses, and I'll also be going to the Friday morning site meeting. It's at 8:30. I will be setting twelve alarms to make sure I get there on time. With an Egg McMuffin in my belly.

I workworkworked until 1:00, then scrammed and drove helterskelter up to Plano for a neurologist appointment. I have another one in two weeks (lucky me). I've had 10 days of migraines in 14 days (I think, I need to check the migraine Excel), and my neurologist is slightly freaking out.

But just slightly.

So now I'm tapering off my current migraine medicine (woohoo!) and will start a new one Friday night. She wrote me a prescription for a new "acute migraine" medicine (although must of my migraines are a-ugly. Sorry, I had to), but I can't take it, yet, because:

I'm starting a new migraine medicine to try to stop the cycle of migraine violence. I was exposed to lots of public awareness ads as a child, can't you tell?

The medicine is the same one you receive if you're hospitalized for migraines. The difference is that, in the hospital, they give it to you via IV. I cannot haul an IV bag around on a construction site with me, though, so I'll be taking it through the nose. Every 8 hours. For three days. And then we see if it has worked its magic.

"But what do I do with the migraine I have now?" I queried, squinting to shield my eyes from the light, even though we'd turned off the fluorescent lights to spare my poor optic nerves the strain.

"Dr. Pain gave you pain medicine, right?"

"Well, yes, to take at night."

"Snow yourself."

"Um, I'm not really supposed to do that." Visions of DEA raids danced in my muddled head.

"I'll call him."

"Okey dokey."

Granted, I still can't take my prescription pain medication during the work day because I might have to drive Oldsmobile somewhere, or drive myself somewhere, or be driven out to a construction site where I'm expected to be able to dodge flying wood pieces, if need be.

Oh, and I'm supposed to start acupuncture. Stat.

Back at the office, everyone wanted to know how the appointment had gone. I reported on my progress, or lack thereof, and shrugged.

Radio suggested I have blood work done, a full chemical workup, to make sure everything's okay.

Yeah, okay. But that will have to wait until next year. I'm flat out of vacation days, at this point, and I've still got doctor's appointments (okay, I will be out of vacation days once all the appointments are taken care of).

And now I'm in bed, writing a blog post, my belly full of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because it's the only thing that sounded good to me, and waiting for 11:00 to roll around so I can take my last dose of migraine spray (but without inhaling; it's not like sinus spray, and if you inhale , you taste it, and it tastes awful).

If you are still reading at this point... my goodness, you must be easily entertained.

About to Whine About Things Not Worth Whining About

It's getting a bit slow in the office. We were given the go-ahead today on a project (hooray!), but there's nothing for me to do on it, yet, and it's a little project, and I don't know how much we'll have to do in the way of construction drawings and millwork details, which happen to be my specialty.

I finished my assignment for Radio. He had no more tasks for me.

Pacman? Nada.

Scooter? "Uhhhhh... Yeah, but I need about thirty minutes to mark up the drawings. Do you have something to do for thirty minutes?"

Chortle. "Surf the interwebs."

"Sounds good. Go to town."

Hmmm...

I already spend about 30 minutes each day brushing up on design blogs, making sure I know what's going on in the world of millwork details, interior finishes, and the newest soft-furnishings offerings from companies I cannot afford (are you listening, Century, Henredon, and Hickory Chair? Okay, I know Hickory Chair is listening, but Century and Henredon?)

My daily blog perusal is why the guys were astonished when they said wistfully that they wished we could do interiors and I squealed and cried, "Oooh! Pick me! Pick me! Mrs. Robinson and I can do it!"

So I went back to my desk, with Scooter's blessing, and proceeded to venture into digital worlds hitherto unexplored.

I tell you, most design blogs - that is, blogs devoted exclusively to interior design - are depressing. They're cutesy and try to be hipsterish, riding the wave of zombie mania currently sweeping the pop culture beaches... or something

or they look like Z Galerie threw up all over them

or they have terrible grammar and sentence structure.

I know that my proofreading skills occasionally fall short of the mark or that I end a sentence with a preposition. I know I am definitely guilty of the rampant and irresponsible overuse of parentheses. But I also know that my sentences do not sound like a fifteen year old wrote them, and that I don't egregiously capitalize words in questions submitted to my inexplicably wide readership, the answers to which I will never respond or even read.

And I know that, although my dream house looks like the result of an Andy-Warhol/Billy-Baldwin/Dorothy-Draper orgy fueled by Dr. Pepper and lightly salted roasted almonds, I would never feature an apartment on my blog, billing it as something that is wonderful when in fact it is straight-out-of-the-Ikea-box boring. Unless it is as an example of an apartment that is boring, like so:

The above apartment was featured recently on one of the most widely read design blogs in a post entitled "Why does Barcelona have the best apartments?"

The only thing I see that this apartment has that apartments in Dallas don't have is a radiator.

That's it.

There's the cheapo flat-screen. The Panton chairs. The boring Ikea-ish white chairs. Boring rug. Minimal wall art on a boring beige wall. Light-tone wood floors (boring? Check). Why is this one of "the best apartments?" Why was it even in the running?

I save pictures I find striking to folders on my desktop at work, then email them to myself at home (compressed into zip files) where I print them off and paste them into my little OCDesign collection.

It seems like lately, there are fewer images for me to save, to collect.

Am I just becoming more discriminating (my word) or picky (in the words of an ex-boyfriend)? Or am I jaded after wading through all the cutesy, un-chic garbage (see Little Augury for a lovely tirade against overuse of that particular term)

It's 6:00 : Do you know where YOUR intern architect is?

It's actually 6:15 pm, on the Thursday, and I should by rights still be seated in my cubicle, plugging away at millwork design for a 10,000 square foot house a hop, skip, and a jump from my 700 square foot apartment.

My apartment fits tidily in the master suite.

Instead, I am at home, where I have been since 11:40 this morning.

I awoke with a migraine - to be fair, I went to bed with one, too - and trudged off to work, hoping I could make it through the day. My neurologist recently increased the dosage on my migraine preventive medicine, and it had seemed to be working. Until last night.

I made it through two solid days of rain and storm, and then BAM! migraine when the sun came out. I want to be like the little girl playing outside my building and whine, "That's not fair!" but I will refrain. Even though I did just sort of do it.

I came home for lunch, to bolt down some sustenance and to take a nap, hoping that a slight recharge would help. Also, I took my migraine "rescue" medicine at that point (dose #2) hoping it would help out a bit.

It didn't help out immediately, but it did knock me out immediately. I slept until 1:30. And then I called Mrs. Robinson and told her I would not be back today, because of the migraine.

I went back to sleep, and awoke again at 4:15, still groggy - partly from the migraine "hangover" and partly from the pain medicine I took because my back was killing me. I still have some residual photophobia, and although the sounds of my new washing machine installed by Gustavo and Alan yesterday should be music to my ears, they are causing a bit of a pain somewhere behind my left sinus. Hopefully, that will dissipate by the morning.

It came as a surprise to Mrs. Robinson and the guys that I had a migraine, today. And Radio expressed disappointment that I hadn't informed him about the one I had last Friday (which had actually started on Thursday). But if I told them every time I had a migraine, I would probably sound like a whiny little brat. I don't tell the blogosphere every time I have one.

And why does the Blogspot spellchecker not include either Blogspot or blogosphere in their dictionary? Seriously? Sigh...

At least my migraine is not further egged on by the jumping racket created by my previous washing machine. At least my new one is quieter and less mobile.

At least.

Exciting Exciting Excitement

Tuesday morning was the weekly site meeting, with Connie, Pacman, and Big'un in attendance. When I arrived at the construction site, all the fellas were up on the roof, jabbering away, having climbed up a ladder to get there.

Now, I had spent Sunday and Monday with a migraine. Monday's migraine left me reeling, quite literally. I looked like a drunk stumbling down the halls, back and forth between our office and the ladies' room, or our office and the elevators so I could get myself another Dr. Pepper to ward off the waves of nausea.

I declined to climb the ladder, but made my way up the stairs and stood on a roof terrace just next to where the fellas were all standing, Connie's superintendent included.

Oldsmobile arrived after me, and so did Big'un's mom - our client - and we discussed the project. Pacman headed off with Superdeeduper to discuss the ceiling treatment in an area of the house, and I stayed behind, listened to a couple of questions from Big'un and his mom, and then went in search of Pacman to learn the answers.

I asked the pertinent questions, gave a few answers, and then...

Felt weak. And dizzy. And I couldn't see straight. And it sounded like I was underwater.

I was, in short, about to lose consciousness.

This has happened often enough in the past ten years that I can recognize it before it happens. Superdeeduper also seemed to realize something was wrong.

"You okay?" he asked. I couldn't hear him, but I could see his mouth beneath its Yosemite Sam mustache forming the words. I said I felt dizzy, and needed to sit.

A mechanical boot was quickly uncovered, and I sat down on its galvalum surface while Pacman ran to my car to fetch a Dr. Pepper.

After a few minutes, during which Superdeeduper stood by wringing his hands, I told Pacman I was going to go home. I honestly felt better, by this time, although still shaky, but nowhere near passing-out shaky.

This has happened to me a couple of times in the past year that I've worked for Oldsmobile, almost always the day after a migraine, when I haven't slept well, and when I don't have a wad of protein (usually from McDonald's) settling comfortably in the bottom of my stomach.

I went home, fell asleep immediately, and awoke around 1:00 pm, at which point I ate an apple and... something else, I can't remember what, called the office, and hammered out the details for an upcoming excursion to another project in Oklahoma, to take place Wednesday. Pacman was incredibly concerned when I spoke to him on the phone, and I was grateful for his worry. He said Superdeeduper - a nice guy, a good'ole'boy but without the usual chauvinism of a good'ole'boy - had called the office to check on me.

I think it's time to place a call to the neurologist, though. This is the second multi-day migraine I've had in as many weeks, and I can't keep passing out on construction sites... or almost passing out, for that matter. So I'll have to prepare for another round of doctor's visits, probably medication changes, etc... none of which are pleasant, and none of which I'll ever quite get used to.

Just as I start to think I'm back in the saddle again, I fall off the horse.

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.

Ready! Set! Curse!

I will throttle Pacman upon his return from NJ.

Not only for the fact that he failed to tell me how long he'll be out of town (no one is actually certain when he'll be returning), but also because his absence has placed me at the center of a potential s**tstorm of contention between the firm, the contractor, and the owners.

Big'un pointed out to me some staining on the wood framing, and I took a look at it. Radio had expressed his concern about some areas, too, when I casually dropped the subject in conversation. It looks like mold (black spots on the wood) and not like staining (black streaks running along the grain of the wood).

I discussed the problem with the guys in the office, Wednesday morning, and Scooter helpfully suggested that I discuss the difficulty with the contractor, and that I might moot the possibility of having a bleach solution sprayed on the affected areas as a precaution.

I followed through with that suggestion today.

I now know why Pacman swears loudly after every conversation with the contractor.

Not only did he address me by a nickname I loathe and that - if he were not in his 70s - would earn him a stern "My name is Ms. Strainedconsciousness," but he became immediately defensive. And worse, he became dismissive.

I'm the fourth person to bring this up - the third to broach the topic with him - but none of us know what we're talking about. I tried to suggest the bleach treatment as a preventive measure, seeing as the areas where there appears to be mold don't receive enough light to adequately treat it with UV radiation, and he guffawed as if I'd just suggested we sing to it or something. He also accused Big'un of talking through his hat in regards to who had initially brought the staining to light (Big'un told me his dad noticed it, and that it concerned both of them).

I shot back, telling the contractor - who might need a nickname... Connie? - that we had just recently had a GC replace all the framework supporting the first floor of the house because there was mold growing in it from improper storage, that the contractor had had to pay for testing of the material, and then ate the cost of the framing. It was sort of one of those "you can do this the easy way, or you can do this the hard way" implied threats.

And then, he asked me not to discuss it with the client until he had a chance to look it over and discuss it.

And he tried to tell me that mold won't grow if it's surrounded by open air.

Yeah, tell that to the apples in my fruit bowl...

Just kidding! I ate my last apple this evening!

The EPA, however, would disagree with him, and does, explicitly, in their handy guide entitled "A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture, and Your Home."

And then he called me back ten minutes after he'd hung up to reiterate everything he'd just said, as if I wasn't listening.

So I am meeting Big'un at the site tomorrow morning to discuss mirrors in the exercise area (which is bigger than two of my apartments, just in case you were wondering), and Connie is meeting us there to discuss what he calls the staining, and what I call the mold.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, for the battle of the century. Or, at least, of the week.