A post in which I just can't stand it any more

My ass was growing to the couch. The house is disgusting. I've been looking at the four walls, and daytime TV, for days. Health or not, I had to do something or lose my fucking mind.

I woke up about 5am, hungry, of course. I got up, made some breakfast, and went back to bed.

When I woke back up about 9am, I decided to go to the flea market. Not my brightest idea, but it was warmer today and I looked like hammered shit. There were very few places that I looked good enough to go that were open. Plus I haven't had any glass in weeks.

I walked around, taking it easy, and just enjoying people-watching and being out of the house. I talked to Mom on the phone. I found one saucer. That was it. But that was enough. I didn't know what it was, but the color was right, and I knew it was Federal Glass because it was marked. Plus I knew Justin would like the pattern. He likes Federal Glass anyway, and this saucer had a little "rope" pattern around the edge that I thought might be just enough of a jaunty detail for him without being too baroque.

When I got home, I soaked and scraped the layers of filth off of it. It had apparently had a price tag taped to it sometime around the bronze age, after which some kind of goo had been spilled on it. The tag had been taped on with that wonderful cellophane tape that the tape backing peels off, leaving a layer of gummy adhesive behind. After I finally got that all off, I just typed in "Federal Glass" and "rope" into the internet browser, and came right up with the pattern. It's not a very expensive piece, worth about $2 (I paid $1), but it is a pretty thing, it was satisfying to bring it home not knowing what it was and be able to ID it, and it was happy to rescue it from the junk pile. It made me happy to have a new piece.

Colonial Fluted "Rope" saucer in green by Federal Glass Company, circa 1928-1933

I rested for a bit, since I hadn't been out of the house and done any walking in days.

Then I decided to clean this place up a bit. I had to dust the desk to take the photo of my saucer. That is one of my most hated chores, for some reason. I vacuumed the carpets, did a lot of detail vacuuming (baseboards, under furniture, etc) in the living room, and some in the bedroom. I cleaned the cat box for the first time in days. They were thrilled. I cleaned up the kitchen, and started finishing up the wash I had left undone last week. To top it all off I cleaned the toilet. It made me feel so much better to have things look a bit better around here.

While I was cleaning, I watched Thank You for Smoking, a movie I had been meaning to watch, but hadn't seen yet. I really intended to read the book first. It was interesting for me to see the movie, having been raised by a dedicated tobacco employee myself. My dad was really into the whole freedom issue about smoking when he worked for Philip Morris. I still want to read the book, as I strongly suspect that a "Hollywood ending" was tacked on to the movie. The reviews I had read about the book described a much darker story.

Afterwards, I took a long hot shower. That was wonderful.

In all clean clothes, with the washer going, I decided to reward myself with pizza for dinner. I had been really craving it. And apparently there's no point in my watching my weight. I was watching another movie I had been meaning to see on TCM, Johnny Guitar. I hate Westerns. I hate the mui-macho manhood posturing, the formulaic plots, the horrible dialogue, and all those endless gunfights. Only to see Joan Crawford in one of her most awkward movies could I sit through it. Had Crawford not gone on to make so many other bad movies, I could say it was her Sextette. As it was though, there are many similarities.

It was (well it shoulda been, anyway) the last gasp of a woman who refused to acknowledge her age and take appropriate parts. She is about a hundred years older than her leading man. Despite the careful makeup, her obviously still slender body, and close-ups I'm sure it took hours to set up the lighting on, it's obvious she's still playing a romantic lead when she should be playing the lead's mother. The fact that she is supposed to be a siren/man-trap for all the men in the movie seems to be something that even they have a hard time playing with a straight face. The scenes she plays against Mercedes McCambridge, however, crackle with the electricity and the realism that the love scenes lack. By all accounts, by the end of the shoot, she and Mercedes really loathed each other. That totally comes through. Apparently many of their scenes together had to be filmed separately and spliced together later. It makes the movie very disjointed, however. Those scenes are so intense, and the rest of the movie feels so much like a read-through. Their emotion towards each other isn't really supported by the script or character development. There is some attempt to make Mercedes into an obsessed anti-Crawford zealot, but it feels like tacked-on stuff. Also, Crawford is on screen far too much for a female in a Western - even a female lead. It's an odd movie to watch. You can see Crawford's hand in the fact that she, the "bad girl", does in the end vanquish Mercedes McCambridge's character (that would never have flown when the production code was in full force), and triumphantly ends up with her man. I'm suspecting a re-write there, since they had played the whole movie as star-crossed and ultimately tragic figures. She the fallen woman trying to redeem herself, and he the gun-slinger trying and failing to change his ways. I would really have loved to have seen Barbara Stanwyck in the Mercedes role. She could've given Joan a run for her money.

By this time I was starving, and my pizza still wasn't here. The guy eventually did show up. He was hot in a scary kid of way, tattoos on both hands, and not smelling too well, but he was a good-looking guy. I ate my pizza, played on the computer, and watched part of Star Wars before turning in. Seldom have I presented such a complete picture of the computer nerd in repose.

I had a hard time getting to sleep. I've mostly slept for the last two days. But eventually I dropped off.

A post in which I feel a bit better

But I still didn't go in to work.

I didn't run a fever last night, but I'm coughing like crazy. I haven't done anything around the house. Daytime TV is making me even more nauseated.

I didn't do much today except lay around and doze some.

It is just against my religion to stay home on a Friday night, but I did.

I talked to Russ. He's home sick as well, and had to close the shop. He called me about getting a number to get in touch with a client to cancel her appointment.

Jeremiah texted me for a while tonight. As usual, he wasn't actually coming over or anything, he just wanted to chat for a while.

A post in which I feel worse

After a feverish and uncomfortable night, I woke up and called in to work.

I made an appointment with the doctor.

I had jinxed myself. I had told all these people in the last month that I haven't had an upper respiratory infection since the surgery last summer. Guess what I have. Sigh. I take a bit of comfort in the fact that I don't think I would have taken sick if I hadn't been positively bombarded with germs everywhere I go. Half the office has been sick, as have most of my friends.

To add insult to injury, the grand result of my workout and eat right program has been that I gained four pounds. Sigh. It was just one of those days.

I got my antibiotics filled, came home, and went to bed.

There was a Bonita Granville Nancy Drew marathon on Turner Classic Movies today, but I couldn't get into it. Even her cute boyfriend Frankie Thomas couldn't keep me interested. I dozed off and on for most of the day.

I did talk to Lisa today, finally, and told her happy birthday. Cole got his present that I sent down with Mom, and was apparently very happy with it. I had put extra money on his GameStop card because of the guilt. He said I could forget his birthday next year too if I wanted.

I talked to Miss Kat as well. I'm going over to see them Sunday evening.

A post in which I feel like shit

Well when I woke up this morning, the first thing I realized was that I was definitely getting sick yesterday. Working out last night was apparently a really bad idea. But I had two meetings scheduled today. One I was to attend, and another I had to prepare all the slides for. I dragged my carcass out of bed and through the shower. I texted James and Justin that I wouldn't be at the dinner tonight, and headed in to the office.

When my boss got in, he found me hard at work. I told him that I was doing the morning meeting and then leaving for the day. Not a peep from him, since he's been dragging his pestilence-ridden body into the office now for two weeks, and has half the damn staff sick.

I did the meeting, at which I was surprisingly supposed to speak. I turned in the month-end presentation. I sent him the slides for his afternoon meeting. I caught up on calls on the 8,000 accounts piled on my desk.

Then I left.

I went through the grocery store to pick up some juice and sick food, then went home and laid my body gratefully down.

James, bless his heart, drove all the way down from Spartanburg to bring the special stuffed peppers he had made for me for tonight, complete with veggie stuffing. Unfortunately, he brought Jeff in with him. Jeff had never seen the house before. It, and I, both looked like hammered shit. But it was very nice of James to bring food all the way down so all I had to do was pop it in the oven tonight for supper.

It was pretty spicy, and I couldn't eat a whole bunch of it, but it was nice to have a supper ready-made.

A post in which I am in betwixt and between

I woke up this morning feeling weird. I felt bad. I didn't feel like getting up. That's unusual for me. Especially if I haven't been partying the night before. I got up, had some coffee, and went to work. I still didn't feel great, but I was functional. My throat and sinuses felt funny, but I couldn't tell if it was an allergy flare, or if I was getting sick.

By the end of the day, I still didn't know. I don't want to get in the habit of making excuses for not working out, because I can get amazingly creative in that regard once it starts. I decided to go ahead and work out, and that went OK. I actually upped the level on the walker today to 2. Yeah, I know big woo, but for me to go from 15 to 20 minutes, and then up a level, is a big deal to me.

I realized today that I had forgotten Lisa's birthday, which was on the first. Actually, it has come to me a couple of times, but something keeps coming up to put it out of my head again. I need to call her or something.

I had to go to the store tonight, since I didn't go last night. I just sucked it up and went on in my workout clothes. Mine aren't as cute as the ones women wear shopping, but I figured they were just as serviceable. No one stared that I noticed. I did get kind of chilled in the store, but I figured that was just being in a wet t-shirt in the fridge section.

I got home, put away everything, had some dinner, and hit they hay. Still not feeling bad, but not really good either.

A post in which it has snowed

And the whole state was in a panic about it. As usual.

The roads did look bad. I checked the news to find out how bad traffic was, and when the temp was supposed to go up. There was a huge pile-up on 85N headed to Charlotte, and some people had sat there all night after transfer trucks (as per usual) had jack-knifed all over the highway. The highway patrol was telling everyone to stay off the roads. I ate some breakfast, and decided to take a nap.

When I woke up, I decided to finish cleaning up and get ready to go into the office. The roads were looking better. I finished up a load of laundry, and made sure all my coats were hanging so they would dry.

I got to the office about 12:15. My boss, of course, had been there since 8:35. I set to work. I had month end to do, and there is a lot on my desk right now. I put in a full day. Justin and James called. They were out playing today since school had been called and James didn't have to work. They were just shocked that I was working.

Donnie called. His cat died this morning. I told him I would check back with him later to see if he wanted me to come by. I'm glad he isn't living alone. Marty is there with him, and I knew she wouldn't be working today, since she works for the state.

Justin called back. He wanted to go to dinner. I decided that I would blow off going to get groceries (I didn't feel like going earlier, and I knew later it would be a mad-house with all the snow craziness) and go to dinner with him if Donnie didn't need me.

I finished up at my desk, and hit the gym, then called Donnie. He said he was OK, so I headed for Spartanburg. dana called on the way up to invite me to their house, so I guess today was just my day to be popular. I told her I'd go over there one night this week.

Justin and I had intended to go get Thai food, but Thai Taste was closed, so we went to a Chinese buffet, surprisingly enough, since Justin doesn't like Chinese buffet. But this one was pretty good, and they had sushi too, which was the saving grace for him. It wasn't as good as the one Russ and I went to off Woodruff the other week, but it was quite good. The tuna nigiri was excellent.

The roads were still wet and the temperature was dropping again, so after dinner, we did a bit of shopping, and then I dropped Justin back at the apartment complex and headed home. He was going down to James and Jeff's apartment, but I'll see them Wednesday night at dinner night anyway. James's new thing is that we are going to have a dinner night at his apartment every Wednesday, and everyone bring something. This week is the first one.

The roads were fine on the way home.

A post in which I finally clean up a bit

After waking and recovering a bit today, I had a call from Russ. He was going to take a freezer over to Miss Kat and dana's today, and asked if I would help. Well of course I would, but I really needed to get some stuff done around here. I started doing wash. And the more I washed, the more I found that needed washing. I had three winter coats with stains, and washed all of them. I did all the laundry, sheets, etc. I still have some throws and stuff that needs to go through.

Just as I was looking for an excuse to delay real cleaning, the movie Gaslight came on TCM. I had never seen it, and it is on my list of movies I want to see, so I decided to watch it. It was pretty good, but just as we were getting to the heart-stopping conclusion, the TCM signal went out. Yeah, I was pretty pissed about that. I scared the cat. I thought with cable you weren't supposed to have to put up with that shit!

I finally decided I just couldn't stand the kitchen floor another minute. While I was doing prep work to start in there, it started snowing. That had been in the forecast, but I had really thought it would be too wet and warm for it to stick. I was wrong. After about the first inch, I knew we wouldn't be doing any freezer delivery today, and set to in earnest. I pulled the appliances out and cleaned under them, did the baseboards, cleaned the mats the cats eat on, etc.

While I was doing this, Justin called. I figured he had called because he was excited about the snow, but it wasn't snowing in Spartanburg yet. I tried to tell him it was snowing like crazy here, but he said he wanted to come hang out anyway. About halfway here, he called to tell me he was turning around.

We ended up getting about 4-6 inches here. That's a lot of snow for us.

I finished mopping, and sat down to rest just a mo. The power then blinked twice. I decided to go ahead and get cleaned up. I usually lose power if anyone in the state does, and I didn't want to be sitting here nasty in the dark. I lit candles just in case, and showered up.

I went on to bed. I was tired. Plus I know they won't close the office tomorrow. They never close our office. And a lot of people will call in.