Venting

I need to vent.

That's not an apology, it's a warning. I'll start by saying that I intend to vent about parenting stuff. No, this isn't about you. This is about me. That would be why I'm writing it on my site.

If that's the start of a post you don't want to read then I recommend watching the Christoph Waltz video. He's hot AND funny.

Now...

Here's the thing - I'm part of the whole "child-free" thing, I guess. Not that "I guess" about how I feel, just that I don't like that it's become a movement and I'm not much on being part of groups. I honestly don't give a shit if you want kids. Actually, your breeding makes another compelling argument for me not to have kids. There is no need for me to do it. The species will carry on without my contribution.

I'm also not much on children. Actually, to be more accurate, I'm not much on the children most people are raising. Shitty parenting makes for shitty kids. I personally know some really awesome kids, but they are unfortunately few and far between.

Now let me explain - it's not just that I'm disinterested. It skeeves me out. Completely.

Pregnant women and babies generally make me immensely uncomfortable. The thought of actively seeking to touch someone's pregnant belly makes me gag. The sound of a baby crying will drive me out of a house. The whole thing makes my skin crawl.

A big part of that is my absolute disgust with hearing the gorey details about other peoples health problems. I have seen pictures of some of the most horrific injuries in the name of research but I seriously don't want to hear about every detail of your last pap smear.

Most people do me (and most of the population) the favour of keeping that kind of shit to themselves or, at least, to only dole it out upon request (which is greatly appreciated, btw).

Somehow tho, pregnancy seems to shut off that all too important internal censor. Suddenly every bodily function is up for general conversation, every medical problem is gossip.

I don't give a shit how far along you are, there is never a time that I need an announcement every time you pee and I will never, ever ask how constipated you are. I also don't ever want to hear the words "contractions" and "dilated" again.

It seems like even the idea of having a baby is enough to make people insane. It's the only time that it seems to be socially acceptable to tell people how much you're having sex. Which, for the record, is also something I am not interested in. Ever.

One more thing - all baby pictures look the same to me. One bald, ugly, tiny human looks pretty much like every other one I've seen. I'll be more interested when they start speaking more, crying less and get their bodily functions under control.

Now, all that said, I'll make you a deal. You keep this nasty shit to yourself or at least away from me and I promise not to start randomly showing you some of the more interesting make-up reference pictures I have in my collection. And take if from the girl who has made a hobby of collecting some of the morbid and disgusting images of what humans are capable of doing to one another, you're getting off easy.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

So, How Was Your Monday?

Chances are it was better than mine.

Sunday I was fine. Paul came over for supper and we hung out for a while. I played with the new puppy and everything was great. My room is a mess and kind of intense for new pets so I decided to close the doors and sleep in the living room with the cats and the puppy. (It certainly isn't unusual for me to sleep on the couch.)

At about 1.45am I woke up with what I thought was stitch in my side. I spent about 20 minutes trying to stretch it out but instead of getting better it got worse. Within an hour I was struggling to get a breath at all. It felt like someone was crushing my ribs.

Here's a Pro Tip - Panicking makes breathing really difficult and when you're panicking because you can't breathe, it makes things worse.

So at about 2.45am I called my mom who came over to see if there was anything she could do. There wasn't.

This is probably the point at which I should mention that I have a MAJOR hospital phobia. I have broken and set bones myself rather than go to the hospital. So when I heard myself saying "we need to go to the hospital", it dawned on me just how serious it was getting.

Another thing I learned - When you show up at the hospital gasping for breath, they don't make you wait. I got a room in record time and had more tubes and things stuck in and to me than the Borg. I got intimately acquainted with both Morphine and Gravol, both of which made me incredibly groggy and neither of which made it any easier to breathe or less painful.

After a lot of drugs, more questions than I've ever been asked in my life, a CT scan, giving enough blood to cover any possible test and eating an icebergs worth of ice chips (which I had to BEG for from the first doctor and then was given as many as I wanted by the second) they decided that it wasn't any of the more horrible of possibilities.

No blood clot, no heart attack, nothing that needed surgery. It is, in fact pneumonia. It's not usual for it to come on so suddenly or severely but I guess I'm just lucky.

They loaded me up with antibiotics and gave some prescriptions. I even got some food, which I managed to keep down for almost an hour. Then I finally got to go home.

All things considered, it was a pretty shitty day. Today I'm feeling a bit better, still hurting everywhere and breathing is a luxury I promise never to take for granted again. But I'm better than yesterday.

So if anyone needs me, I'll be at home, being sick and hanging with the cats and the puppy.

Sick Today

I felt like posting something but not enough to be creative. Sorry. I'll post again when I feel less like shit.

Grumpy Today

I'm trying really hard to be as pleasant as possible while I'm stuck at work but honestly, I'm just not feeling it today.
Yesterday I had to go to the dentist, something I've been putting off for the better part of a decade. Two weeks ago I broke a large piece of one of my molars out and yesterday was the first time I could get in.
Let me pause here and say that my dentist is one of the world's nicest people and I really do like the guy. It's his job I don't like.
As always, the bitch who cleans your teeth was, well, a bitch. A seriously cunty bitch. She even gave me shit because I said "ow" when she stabbed my gum with her pick thing. Then she gave me shit for not flossing, right before getting the floss stuck on my broken tooth and trying to rip it out (which nearly took out the tooth completely). When I said "ow" again and "that really hurts" she snapped at me.
"Fine! You get it out then!"
What the fuck, bitch?
After that, the dentist had to freeze my mouth, drill out most of my tooth and fill it (which I get to again soon as there's another cavity he wants to deal with... sigh). The freezing I hate, it's damned uncomfortable, the needles suck and it makes my face feel huge. The dental work is a load of suck. On top of which I spent most of my evening popping pain killers, drinking cold water (it was helping numb the pain) and feeling gross.
Today my head feels like someone was kicking me in the face all night and as you may have guessed, it's making me a tad grumpy.
Stupid teeth.

Monday, Bloody Monday

So I'm home sick today. Am I sick? Technically no. So why am I home?

This morning I woke up at 5.30am and about five minutes later I got a nose bleed. This wouldn't seem like a reason to stay home but let me assure you, after 45 minutes, a call to the health line, a whole box of kleenex, half a roll of toilet paper and having to decide wether or not to go to the hospital it most certainly is. 

I'm also going to take this opportunity to share a few other things I learned this morning. 

- When your nose gushes blood for 45 minutes it tends to get a little troubling. 

- The health line is unbelievably busy at 6am.

- Even while potentially bleeding to death, I'll still insist that I don't really need to go to the hospital.

- Losing a lot of blood at 6am will leave you weak, dizzy, light headed and with a serious headache.

- Blood thinners will actually thin your blood. It's not just something they made up. Thinned blood does not clot as well as one might hope.

- If your nose is bleeding enough, chances are good that a fair portion of the blood will run down your throat. This is likely to make you gag.

- Swallowing too much blood will probably make you nauseous. 

- If your nose is bleeding enough for you to be spitting blood, there is a problem.

So now you know and you can skip trying this yourself.

That's right, Kill the Body, doing stupid things and hurting ourselves to educate you - the unwashed masses.

Don't Be Alarmed, This Is Only A Test

I know, every asshole you bump in to is talking about exactly the same fucking thing lately. No, not taxes. Swine Flu. It's the new Susan Boyle of illnesses. It doesn't even seem like it's been that long since the news hit and I'm already sick to death (pardon the pun) of hearing about it.

Don't get me wrong, people are sick and others have died. That's a whole lot of awful. But statistically tens of thousands of people die in the US of the flu every single year. That's not even the whole world. And that's definitely not including all of the other horrible ways people die every single day.

Am I saying we should all laugh in the face of Swine Flu (I'm personally picturing a pigs face with an apple in it's mouth... how odd)? No, not really. People are getting sick and you should have a healthy respect for that (no pun intended). Just like you always should. But should you freak out like it's the end of the fucking world? No! Seriously, calm the fuck down. Put down the hand sanitizer and the bleach and the disinfectant and take a fucking breather for a sec.

Honest to Bob, guys, Death is not lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on your stupid ass with his piggy germs of doom. I'm sure the guy has better things to be doing, to be frank. You'd think they'd announced the beginning of the zombie apocalypse or something. The oinkers of death are not going to come swooping in to your town like locusts or (gods forbid) like the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz. Really. I wouldn't lie to you about this.

If we can't all calm the fuck down about this, it's going to turn very quickly in to a witch hunt. Reading some of the comments on certain news sites, that is what's troubling me more than the actual news.

Now, can we please talk about something else?

Are You There God? It's Me, Gwenhwyfar...

And I know you're mocking me, you bastard.
I woke up this morning a full hour before my alarm with a migraine that has now dug itself completely in to the left side of my head. Despite the massive dose of painkillers I've taken it doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon.
Then I came to work, being the wonderful employee I am, head still pounding. Luckily, I have a fairly easy job. It's normally pretty quiet and I thought nursing my head wouldn't be too hard.
Not so much.
It seems there's a leak in the plumbing, so the guys are here working on it. With power tools. Really. Loud. Power tools. And let me tell you, that is doing wonders for my head.
Finally, just because I know the Gods can't let a good thing go, they've got the radio going and once again I am listening to Pink screeching her way through "sober". It might be tollerable if it weren't the fifth time I've heard it today. But the radio stations all seem to be hell bent on torturing me with the same goddamned song every fifteen minutes.
Fuck.

23 Hours And Counting

In a little less than an hour I will have been up for a full day. Don't ask me why. I'm really not sure. Insomnia is a cruel master. The kind of cruel that some people pay money for in dimly lit, houses of ill repute and sticky floors where everyone wears black leather, it's not uncommon to see people being lead around on leashes, the floors are sticky but no one really wants to know why and no one should ever see fully lit. (At least, that's what I imagine those places are like.)
Insomnia coupled with a handful of painkillers and a new video game. It was just more than I could possibly have stood a chance against. I mean, honestly, I haven't even had any coffee. I just wasn't tired. (Although I did take out my contacts a little while ago, my eyes were starting to hurt.)
I'm starting to feel it now tho. I'm having trouble thinking clearly and speaking coherently. Also my arms are feeling distinctly waterlogged but then so are my legs. I guess, at least, I have a matched set. Right? Maybe I'm actually tired. Maybe it's the drugs kicking in. Maybe I'm dying from some new and exotic disease. Who knows?
If it is indeed the latter, I would like to leave my coffins to Janna, my cats to Robin, my bills to Amanda and everything else to Cole. Enjoy.
Oh and by the way, since I mentioned the new video game - God of War is so fucking awesome it hurts my brain. I'm just sad that I'm nearly finished it. I wish there was more. Kratos and me, we make one hell of a team. He's one fuckin wicked dude. We spent all day yesterday and all last night killing all manner of evil shit. And, goddamn, did we ever fuck the minotaur's shit up.
Boo-ya.

Please Send Help

Scratch that. Send drugs.
I'm on day seven of this headache and nothing so far has worked. I've been through ever pill bottle in the house and now I'm on the Head-On at Janna's suggestion that it might work. But to no avail. I'd cry if I didn't know that crying only makes my head hurt more.
I'm actually thinking of naming it. It's old enough and big enough to deserve it. I've even decided on a name. Marvin.
"Why Marvin?" I hear you asking. Because I've been watching too much Muppet Show again and every time I see Marvin Suggs and his muppaphone I feel a connection to those poor fuzzy little muppets.
Actually, the more that I think about it, the more I think that from now on all of my headaches will be named Marvin.

Aaaaaand Sick.

Goddamnit. GODDAMNIT! I do not have time for this shit right now. The cold I was dealing with all week was annoying, but this is bullshit. I am officially sick of being sick. Someone bring me a kleenex.

I'd Sigh If It Didn't Hurt To Do So

After finally getting over that stupid flu/cold thing I had the last two weeks, I am now getting sick AGAIN! Last night at work I noticed my throat was starting to get a bit sore. When we finished watching a movie at my bother's place it was considerably worse. Then this morning I woke up to find I'm having trouble swallowing. It just keeps getting better and better.
The best part of it all, I actually have a whole three day weekend. I was planning on chilling out, and maybe getting a few things off my "to do" list. But no, I can't have a lovely germ free weekend. I get to go find some medication and hope that I feel better by Tuesday.

Further Proof God Hates Me: Part 2

This is the longest I've been awake in two days. I'm not just kind of sick. I'm pretty sure I'm dying.
Some of you reading this are my friends. If you really love me, you'd put me out of my misery.
I'm going back to bed.

Further Proof God Hates Me

I'm getting sick. I can feel it in every fiber of my being. Germs invading, system failing, mucus glands oozing. Go figure, I just started a new job, I have three orders for baking and I'm in the midst of an insomnia attack. God hates me.
I woke up at 7am yesterday to find that my lungs were burning and my cough was getting worse. Today was met with a repeat of that accompanied by a scratchy throat and achy... well... everything. And as an added bonus I'm really, really, really, fucking tired. All of these things have added up to one cranky Gwen which was compounded by some asshole wearing too much perfume and giving me a splitting headache.
Please, for the love of Fabs, would someone just kill me now and put me out of my misery? Or at least bring me medicine and an extra pillow? Maybe some soup? And a blanket? And if you're on your way anyway, I could really use a tissue. Thanks.

Stupid Ice

I slipped and fell yesterday. I'd love to tell you it was an entirely graceful move on my part, but that would be a lie. I hit a patch of ice on my steps, luckily it was the bottom step and I was going down so I didn't crack my head wide open and I fell into the snow. Unfortunately I fell hard enough to jar my arms and back. So at the moment everything from the tips of my fingers to my elbows and my entire torso are completely stiff and sore.
Stupid winter.

That's Gonna Leave A Mark

You know what'll put a damper on your day? Getting a giant splinter jammed in to your heel. I can't say whether or not prior knowledge that it is going to happen helps at all. But I can tell you the a surprise stabbing sucks. A lot. The following need to dig said piece of wood out of the foot with a pin also sucks. A lot. And finally, the continued pain throughout the day and night - you guessed it - sucks. A lot.
All in all, it's not something I could, in good conscience, suggest you try. Which may or may not have something to do with the throbbing pain in my heel that spreads out to my toes and up to my knee.
Let me conclude by saying "ow".
owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow

Personal Update: The Last Three Days

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. *Painkillers* Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. *Painkillers* Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. *Yawn* Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. *Painkiller induced sleep* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *Wake up* Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. *Painkillers* Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. *Painkillers* Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Etc.

By the way, too many painkillers make you feel very odd. Not a good kind of odd either. Just a heads up.

In Theory

Being sick enough for all of your co-worker to notice (and avoid you and your disgusting germs) and having a boss who is awesome enough to notice, pity you and send you home to sleep it off sounds cool. In reality, it is lame, all kinds of lame. Because, while having a sympathetic boss (who doesn't want your disgusting germs) is really wicked awesome, you're still sick enough to be sent home from work.
At least I made up for completely forgetting work on Tuesday (stupid call-in) and impressed the hell out of my boss by "dragging my sorry ass in to work" (her words, not mine). I just figured my alarm had gone off, I was awake, I might as well go.
Also, getting a nose bleed while you have a cold/flu sucks more than I can say. I seriously think I'm falling apart. To bad my warranty ran out. Those replacement parts cost a fortune.

Stupid Germs

I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that being sick as an adult sucks balls.
When you're little everyone is there to take care of you, make you food, bring you medicine, make sure you have enough pillows and blankets. All those great things that made sick days from school not so bad.
As an adult no one is there to make me food or bring me drugs or even call to make sure I'm okay. I haven't had even one person offer to bring me a blanket or a pillow in years. And staying home means calling in sick to work and losing money.
What kind of shitty deal is that?

Health Update

My arm still hurts.
Seriously, this shit is getting old. It's been over a week. If this shit hasn't worked itself out by Monday I'm going back to the damned doctor.

Baroque*

It's an old joke, but I'm too lazy to come up with something better.
Monday night in what can only be described as an act of complete grace and beauty, I fell on my face. Well not technically my face, I caught myself with my arm. So I guess I fell on my arm.
Where did I fall, I hear you all asking.
On the floor.
I decided that actually using the steps is for suckers and just skipped the step down. And in all honesty, the fall wasn't so bad. The hitting the ground sucked ass, but the falling I didn't mind. I don't remember much of the fall though. One second I was standing and the next the floor was awfully close to me. Strange how these things happen.
And as a complimentary gift to go with my trip I got a lovely stay at the doctor's office where they kept me at no charge for 3 fun filled hours, a complete set of x-rays and a super nifty sling!
I just don't know what to say! I'm so over-whelmed. And in pain.





*And it's not technically "broke" it's a sprain and I jarred the hell out of my shoulder and elbow. Whoo!