Year: 2006

I wrote a blog out today that included phrases like “will retake the place of the catty, manipulative, bitch you wanted to backhand a month ago” and “and sticking your nose so far up somebody else’s ass you have problems determining where your nose ends and their colon starts”. I think maybe my backspace key isn’t quite functioning well enough to be blogging about some stuff publicly just yet… So to make myself feel better, the post in its entirety is available over at The Vox Blog but only to those of you who I have set as friend or family. The rest of you will just have to sit and wonder what I’m talking about and assume you have a clue.

We had a great time at Laguna Seca this weekend. I laughed so much my tummy is actually a bit sore. I could go on and on about all the funny things that happened and all the laughing and the crazy late night trips to Safeway for sweat pants but I’m really so tired I’m having problems keeping my eyes open as a write this. So I think instead I’ll go curl up on the couch and catch up on some TiVo’d goodness and call it a night.

P.S. – I’m working on a new theme. Like, coding it from the ground up. A THEME for wordpress, not a ‘layout’. An actual functioning theme with multiple php subpages and stuff. I realized I had gotten lazy and taking a prefab theme and manipulating and molesting it into what I wanted wasn’t “fulfilling me”. Ben inspired me to start setting more goals for myself. Like, achievements. This is one. Get back into the present and start keeping up with the latest interweb goodness. I can’t believe how much things can change in a year in the world of HTML, XHTML, PHP. Last night I went to sleep and suddenly tables became passe and all the cool kids were using divs and Web 2.0 swept the globe and cured World hunger.

I could set a goal to have it up by the beginning of Novenber but I think we all know how WONDERFUL I am at meeting those goals. See, I’m setting myself up for failure here so in the off chance I actually get it all coded and functioning by then you can all go on and on about how awsome I am. If not, feel free to point and laugh at will.

Oh yeah! Julie is back!!. Go show her love becuase if she leaves the internet again I might actually have that nervous breakdown I’ve been talking about for the last four years.

I just got a flu shot. And I don’t have TB. I guess this is one of the “perks” of working at a Major Medical University. Yearly TB tests and flu shots even though I don’t ever see patients.

I’m not sure how smart it was of me to get the flu shot since I’ve been on a steady supply of headache killing medicine for four days and I can hardly breathe out of my nose. *shakes fist at germs*

Oh well, assume if I don’t post in the next four days or so that it was a really bad idea. heh

Oh there’s so much to talk about and I really wish I had the energy or the time or the desire. I’m not sure this is the place. People read aflux. More people than let on… If I went into everything here it would only escalate and revive what I let go of today.

I had to send an email today to somebody I thought I could trust with my life and let him know that not only is that trust broken, but it’s damaged to the point that I really have no desire to ever even try to fix it. Maybe some day. Maybe not. Probably not. I’m not a forgive and forget kinda person. I’m a forgive and never let myself get to the point I can feel so betrayed again kinda person. Safe.

Along with the email I sent the aggression, the stress, the worry, the bad energy… Like an emotional attachment (pun intended). It’s yours now to do with as you may. You own it. It’s not mine anymore.

I’ve been physically ill since Sunday evening. I think it’s 75% virus and 25% poison from this drama. Hopefully now I can start to recover both mentally and physically.

I’m NOT GETTING SICK. I’m cuddling with Ben and temporarily forgetting that anything else in the world matters.

So Mandi tagged me for 6 Things About Myself That are Weird. I like to read back through these and follow links and read answers. It seems like everybody is struggling to come up with six things. I bet you I could list 40. For me it’s not so much coming up with them, but coming up with the ones I can write about then face the people who read this that I hang out with in real life without feeling like a complete ass. Which I guess shouldn’t really be as big an issue as I think it is because I have no problem making myself out to be an ass all on my own without the blog. heh

1) I don’t like pizza. It’s been pointed out to me on several occasions that everybody in the UNIVERSE, except me, likes pizza. I attribute this to eating it far too much when I was younger (18-20ish) and at LAN parties all the time and that was our primary source of food. I’m okay if we get the garlic chicken pizza from Papa Murphy’s. Other than that, yech.

2) I yell at people in the car a lot. It’s not that I think they can HEAR me or that I think it will solve the problem, but it’s stress relief. I’ve been trying to convince Ben for over two years to let me get a blow horn on my car so people can hear me but he says I’ll “abuse it”.

3) I hang my clothes in color order. I hate to do laundry but I’ll never let Ben wash or put away my clothes because if a red shirt got put into the blue shirt section for some reason, my entire world might implode and I’d spontaneously combust into white hot flames of death. I’m the same way with my pots and pans. And the tupperware. And the pantry items. You’d think that my house would be very clean because of these little idiosyncrasies. But you’d be very wrong.

4) I don’t like to be lightly touched. I mean, I don’t mind if you have your entire hand on me. Or your legs are laying over mine or if Ben rubs my back… but if we are sitting on a couch and your arm is lightly touching mine, or our legs are barely making contact, or in a very crowded room and people kinda brush past you lightly… I start to get annoyed. Like, I actually find it ANNOYING!?

5) Mandy tagged me like, four months ago and I’m JUST NOW getting around to posting it. So I guess #5 is: I like to procrastinate.

6) I still lay in bed sometimes at night and “dream” that I’m some top secret government agent. Like, so top secret even the GOVERNMENT doesn’t know I work for them. Like Jack Bauer! Only more pink-ish and slightly less accident prone…

Note: I originally wrote this MONTHS ago and it didn’t work but the newer version or WP seems to allow it so, YAY! Also, I went on to lose 8 more pounds after I wrote this. Then over the course of 6-7 months got really lazy and gained it all back. 🙁 Ben and I are on the road to getting rid of it AGAIN and I’m -2 pounds from my oroginal starting goal a year ago. *cries*

Not too long ago I posted this picture at flickr and promised video of Cassidy owning me on the obstacle course. After I SAW the video and my gut roll at the end I had a small gigantic moment of OMFG HIDE THE VIDEO AND NEVER LET IT BE SEEN! Now that I’ve dropped 10 pounds(!!) though and I’m feeling better I figured, what the hell. Because really, it’s the fact that a seven year old beat me through a 50 foot long obstacle course that I should be ashamed of.

P.S. – How cool is the embeded video into blogs so easily now?!?

So, Cassidy’s father called her yesterday for the first time in three months. Nice, eh? It actually IS nice because it had been six moths since he called to ask to have her for summer…. Somebody must have reminded him it was her birthday. Or, reminded him that he HAS a daughter.

While on the phone he asked when is the next time he can see her. I’ve told him no less than five times that her school has a calendar online that he can access whenever he wants to know what her scheduled days off are. I’m not about to hold his hand through that anymore. He also has the schools name, phone number, address, etc. If it means so much to you (I’m assuming it’s about as important as CALLING her is) then LOOK IT UP, asshat.

But the zinger… He asked me how far Infineon Raceway is from us. I told him 4-5 hours because that’s how long it seemed like it took Ben and I to get there when we went but after talking to Ben, he said it’s only about 2 hours away. Anyway, he asked because he “really wants to see her and he’s going to be up there racing with Patrick (See: Worlds 3rd biggest asshole) and was wondering if he would be able to see her at the track”.

Instead of thinking for a second before I spoke and trying to be dimplomatic:

Me: So you are going to drive 8 hours on the weekend of Cassidy’s birthday to go RACE with PATRICK but you can’t EVER take a day off to even come VISIT her. Or CALL HER?!

I realized right away that my foot was planted too firmly into my mouth to say anything past that so I just something about Cassidy wanting to talk to him and gave her back the phone.

SEE HER AT THE TRACK! Are you serious! I don’t know what more humorous! The fact that you think after two calls in a year that I’d actually offer to drive her there or the fact that you think you’d actually spend time with her AT THE TRACK or that you think her idea of an OMGHAPPY birthday with her dad would be to spend it AT THE TRACK! Maybe if you paid me 1% of the $20,000+ in child support you owe me I’d CONSIDER the POSSIBILITY for .12 seconds! But probably not!

I KNOW I should not let his shoddy parenting get to me. I KNOW that eventually Cassidy will realize this when she gets older and that he’s really digging his own grave with her. But there is still the small, naive hope that one day he will grow up and start to BE A DAD. Be a person she can count on. Be somebody who calls more than twice a year when a family member reminds him she exists.

But it’s NOT going to change. Racing is still more important than his daughter. His buddies are still more important than his daughter. His girlfriend is now more important than his daughter. Work is more important than his daughter. This is NOT going to change. Ever. Time to squash that naive part of me and get rid of the last of it for good.

*deep breath*

Let go. Stop expecting better things from him. Stop trying to understand why things don’t and won’t change. Let him be the father he is going to be. Let Cassidy determine the relationship she will have with him. Just. Let. Go.

Why do I obsessively clean whenever Ben’s parents come to town? I clean for maybe an hour when my dad and Cherie come to visit. Maybe. But I spent the last 4.5 hours scrubbing, dusting, mopping, laundry, windows, ordering Cassidy around (but she loves to help out and begs me for tasks), organizing. It’s ridiculous, really.

I guess it’s because my dad has to love me even though I’m a slob but Ben’s parents can CHOOSE not to love me because there’s a dust bunny in the corner by the bar that I’ve named Stan who I water once a day and has his own college fund. But really, who DOESN’T love me. There’s so much to love. I’m cute like that.

I’m going to go scrub the baseboards with Ben’s toothbrush now.

Yes, I realize that the sidebar doesn’t work in SOME versions of IE. When I have to use IE (I only use it when checking to see if code looks pretty) I’m using Version 7.0.5X Beta 2. If you don’t have it, get it, because then not only can you view the site correctly, but the 21.2% of you aflux readers who still use IE won’t have an ancient piece of software wasting space on your hard drive.

Otherwise, join the 48.1% of us who have finally freed ourselves from that enormous pile ‘o shit and have switched to a happier, more loving browser.

P.S. – Or deal with it for a month. Because in November I’ll be debuting a completely new aflux with a look, feel and direction I’ve never gone before. TEASE! HA!

Please stop shooting our children. Please stop walking into schools (the ONE place our kids should be allowed to roam and learn and grow without being scared and paranoid) and molesting, terrorizing and shooting our FUTURE.

10/02/2006: At least six killed in Amish school shooting

Three girls, all critical with gunshot wounds and ages 6 through 12, were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital, spokesman John Lines told NBC affiliate WGAL-TV.

When you walk into a classroom and shoot a SIX YEAR OLD, you are not allowed to take your own life. You aren’t allowed to take the cowards way out. How dare you.

On Friday (09/29/2006), a 15-year-old student fatally wounded his school’s principal in western Wisconsin. A drifter in Colorado Wednesday (09/27/2006) took six female high school students hostage, molested them and then shot one to death and killed himself as police closed in.

How is it that we let people walk around who are so unstable that walking into a school and killing innocent children has happened TWICE in less than a week? How do students get so infuriated or frustrated that the answer becomes walking into a school and shooting the principal?

This is our future, OUR FUTURE. How do we go about saving everybody else in the World when our own house is in such a state of disarray?

I’m not even sure what to say about this. Seven children in less than a week. Seven families. Seven moms with broken hearts and who’s CHILDREN have been stolen from them. Seven children who had all the potential in the World to grow into flourishing and productive members of society… Seven kids who could have been my own.

I’m not which emotions is stronger. Sadness by the pain so many people are going through right now? Anger at the assholes who felt the need to kill innocent children? Fear of sending my daughter to school and assuming she’s okay and the future that seems to be unfolding before her…

I’m exhausted. We had seven kids to Chuck E Cheeses for Cassidy’s birthday party Saturday. Afterwards, The fejj brought over his girls to play and Cassidy had choosen two girls to spend the night so at one point I had 5 girls running through the house playing hide and go seek. It was hysterical. I got them to settle down by turning on Mario Kart. FTW!

They all left today at noon after a pancake breakfast and mini golf and slurpees. I fell asleep not long after on the couch because GOOD LORD THE ENERGY OF 8 YEAR OLD GIRLS! I’m too tired to even be funny. So, I’ll leave that for another day…

Her actual birthday is Wednesday so we’ll do a her dinner. We always do dinners on the acutal Big Day with the birthday boy/girl getting to choose the place. This has become a little tradition since we moved to San Jose. Hopefully she doesn’t pick The Cheese again. *crosses fingers*