here you have it

over my head?

project:

finding out why my former employer won't re-hire me after i quit last august when i thought i was going to move to new zealand for a year.

as i dig deeper into asking more questions than i'm getting answers for and getting blown off by the human resources department so much that i had to get my former labor union involved, i am getting hints by more than one credible source that i've been fouled, and have grounds to "make a case." whatever that means. how far am i willing to take this? because it could go. far.

project:

being able to afford, both financially and emotionally, taking full time classes and paying my rent and eating.

being an adult is complicated. hard, even. but having student health insurance and a bus pass will be "premium."

project:

softball.

thank god for softball. this season is going to be awesome. we've got a bigger league, 3 lesbian teams, and more fans than we can shake a bat at. i can't believe how much time and organization are required to pull this off. in addition, i've volunteered to run a blog for each of he shamrock-sponsored lesbian teams, which is fun, but turning out to be more consuming than i'd thought. my issue is that the free hosting site that i'm using right now (blogdog) doesn't write any html for me, and i don't know how to write an image into a post, which is a huge part of my vision for the site. the hosting site that i would really love to use for all of the teams' sites is really easy, versatile, and sharp looking, but costs $150 a year. anyone have any suggestions?

in the mean time, here's what i've tossed together so far:
theLteam.blogdog.com

< breathe >

birthday weekend summary in pictures: or, how i turned into a nose pool

the weekend of my birthday turned out to be so awesome that my body couln't handle it. no, i'm not talking about a massive hangover, although i would have preferred that to this. but i get ahead of myself. the beginning is a great place to start...

the weekend would have been a total success based solely on the fact that jennie and i had almost three whole days for which to sleep in and wake up together without one of us having to go to work. three cheers for synchronized days off of work. seriously.

saturday

it's true. we are getting old. for mike's visit this year, instead of copious amounts of jagermeister and adjoining appointments at betty ford, we had a nice dinner at lao lan xaan and fancy-schmancy champaigne drinks at the opus lounge before wearing ourselves out on club 5's dance floor.

sunday

with minimal, responsible drinking hangovers, we lounged around jennie's apartment pretty much all day. jennie made us eggs and potatoes, and scored mike's top secret lentil soup recipe.

after the trip to portage, where the mighty amtrak took mike homeward, i returned madison just in time for sunday dinner! i am totally loving that jennie has sunday dinner. this week, she made a totally awesome baked macaroni and cheese. so. good. if you've never had baked macaroni and cheese, you haven't lived. gwen relieved me of my tradition of running to the grocery store as soon as the first guest arrives by bringing a couple sixers of oberon, my new favorite beer. she also brought me the most awesome tie ever, fancied up gwen style. as soon as i get my scanner out of storage, i'm going to try to make it the banner of my blog. until then, you'll just have to continue to be bored with the tank girl banner i've had up since the conception of this blog. deal.

monday

the day. my birthday. 25 turns around the sun. older and wiser. blah blah blah...

my voice was a little scratchy when i woke up, but i payed it no nevermind. there was work to be done. today was the main event: the food fight. i had to get from the grocery store the object that started my dream: a green jello mold, complete with embedded tiny pieces of what they call fruit. at the grocery store, jennie declared this trip her most disgusting ever. and after an afternoon of cooking, we had a refridgerator full of food nobody was going to eat.

kicked off by a slightly premature popping of the cork of the cheapest champaigne shannon could find, it was on. two kinds of pudding, three whipped topping pies, three kinds of jello, a case of shaken soda cans, blue mashed potatoes, a bottle of catsup, some greenish frosting, and god only knows what anna and rachael brought, the food fight of my dreams was on.

the suprisingly good quality 99 cent swimming goggles from the local big lots were a huge success.... but apparently encouraged people to aim at my head.

the whole thing was thouroughly disgusting. but so satisfying. but so gross.

and after we were all cleaned up, we ordered some pizza and ate some cake.

in honor of anna's birthday, which was on wednesday, and desperado, the hugest show of her career so far, we decorated the cake with horses and a slightly modified cowgirl. you can't really tell in this picture, but we colored her (previously purple) boots black, cut her hair, and gave her a tattoo. jennie cooked all day, and i played with a doll.

in honor of my rapidly deteriorating ability to speak, we all drank tea instead of beer, and everyone went home at a respectable hour. it was a good day.

and then i called in sick for the next two days to stay home and battle the mucous within. seriously, i've never had congestion this bad. sometimes i feel like i'm breathing through a straw, and my abdominal muscles ache from coughing. nay for nyquill, which makes me hallucinate and then feel like a brick for 18 hours. yay for tylenol, which eases my sinus headache; yay for the red sage herbs called "dragon gallbladder nose pool," which help my sinuses drain so i can sleep; yay for vick's vapor rub, which i still can't smell, but takes away the breathing-through-a-tube feeling; and yay for that stuff that carmen gave jennie which loosens congestion in a very effective and non-side-effect producing way. i haven't been this sick in a long time. and while the whole experience is ridiculously tiring, it does show me just how important it is to keep my body healthy, and that i need to pay attention to it more.

here's to healing.

in other news, and speaking of healing:
i have been officially accepted to continue my education as a bachelor of science/pre-med (hopefully, it'll be another year before i am eligible to apply for the pre-med part)! i'm excited. i'm scared.

until next time, get a load of this:
bestweekever.blog
so effing funny. if i had internet access at home, this is where i would be all day. total snarky snark fest... in the entry about the pussycat dolls selling dolls of themselves, "each doll sells for $15, which is roughly half as much as the actual pussycat dolls sell themselves for." hah!

my, how time and life fly

wow. here it is. april. it's april agian. winter is over, my bike has been scheduled for a springly tune up, the cat is kept occupied by a whole mess of birds outside the windows, and it's almost my birthday.

until recently, i had chalked up the celebrators of spring as weirdos who like to gush about babies and flowers. now, clearly as a result of my old age, i am appreciating spring in a way that i don't think i've ever really put a finger on before. of course, there's all that stuff about not having to lug around cumbersome winter coats and trying to keep track of mittens and scarves. there's also the awesomeness about absorbing the warmth of the sun, wearing light long sleeves, and easy biking. no more numb feet and fingers. no more biting wind. instead, days warm enough for shorts, nights cool enough for blankets. the promise of bare feet oh so soon.

with spring also bringing my birthday, i also tend to reflect on the last year of my life, and try to get rid of some of the clutter that i tend to carry around. spring cleaning. one of the things that i've been thinking about lately is how dramatically my life has changed as a result of the loss of my hospital job. there are good changes, like being able to take time off whenever i want it without having to submit the proper paperwork and wait for seniority appropriate approval from management. but there are also things that i miss, like making over $20 and hour, free health insurance, free bus pass, and the feeling that i really am doing something to help people. one of the things that i used to blame on my job was that i felt like i never had enough time off. never had enough time to really relax and spend a day being creative and productive. last august, i was unemployed for a couple months, and have been working second shift in a coffee shop ever since. i have recently realized that the problem wasn't the job, the problem was being focused in what i felt i needed to do. not going to work until 1 in the afternoon as opposed to 7am does not encourage me to balance my checkbook, go grocery shopping, do the dishes or visit my parents any more frequently. i still haven't gotten to any of those art crafty projects that i have had bouncing around in my head for the last year or so. i still haven't taken a random weeklong roadtrip vacation, learned bike or auto mechanics, or taken any more art classes through the uw union's craft shop. the only thing that i actually have been able to increase dramatically in my life is the amount of hours i sleep every day, which is, on average, somewhere between 10 and 11. seriously. so what's my birthday lesson this year? it really is all about me. i am responsible for making the decisions in my life, and i can't blame my job or anything else for the lack of things i do with my free time. among other things. i have to either be ok with what i am doing and where i'm at, or work to change it. placing blame and pointing fingers are not means of getting things done.

words that are easy to write. we'll see how well they can be practiced.

another thing that i have come to appreciate is internet access at home. oh, how i long for 24 hour a day, 7 days a week internet access in my bed, on my couch, in my pajamas, and not in a coffee shop. i love coffee shops, but i wanna write at home, with a happy kitty asleep on my lap. oh, luxury.

old business:

last weekend's getaway with jennie to the chanticleer guest house was fantastic. i'll probably post the rest of the pictures when i get a descent internet connection that 5 other people aren't using at the same time.

new bizniss:

the birthday food fight it totally gonna happen! i'm going to try to make a stop by a dollar store today to buy a handfull of goggles and a case of generic soda. i've always wanted to shake the shit out of a can of pop and open it up so it sprays all over. basically, i just want to do all of the things with food that i was trained not to do when i was a child. except put peas in my nose. i never wanted to do that. hopefully i'll be able to convince someone to be exempt from getting food thrown at them so they can take pictures for me. you can use my camera, any volunteers?