Saturday, April 29, 2006

Someone just peed of the side of my neighbor's house onto our shared driveway. I'm too old to live by stupid people who invite guests who pee off the sides of buildings. I called the police. Stupid assholes.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

What I found in my eye:

A piece of what looks like bark that is big enough to cover the letter "to" in 12 point font printed. Seems small until you actually look at a piece of paper with the word "to" and think of how huge that is compared to an eyelash, which is really the only other thing that accidentally gets into your eye. It actually scratched my eyeball enough to make it bleed a little! SO GROSS!

And I don't think I have mumps. If I get a high fever or a distended-looking neck I'll go to the doctor.

~K
How do you tell the difference between a cold, a migraine and Mumps? A blood test, I'm guessing, but how do you know when to run to the doctor? I don't want to be one of those "omg, i have teh mumps!!1!" people, but my neck feels like it's swelling, my head and face hurt and my body kinda aches. I felt totally crappy yesterday from mid-afternoon on, but thought it was a migraine. Three days in a row is definitely not normal for me, and there doesn't seem to be particularly low pressure or other normal triggers. I guess my ovaries could be swelling or something, but how the heck do you figure that out on your own?? Technically, I'm not supposed to go to work or school if I have mumps, but again, how the heck am I supposed to tell? I'll just go home and take a nap. If when I wake up my neck has trippled in size, I'll go to the doctor. That seems reasonable.

~K

Monday, April 24, 2006

Here's an article I just received from Planned Parenthood and I wanted to share it on my blog. This is
very important. Sixty million dollars in government grants going to groups that push their agenda through fear, intimidation, lies and breach of confidence is NOT something I can let happen. I hope you feel the same way, and you let your Congressmen and women know it! Helping the world in the time it takes to play a game of free cell is not asking that much, right? ;)

Here's the article:

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend to one of Indiana's Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called "crisis pregnancy center" run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their "other office" (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The "crisis pregnancy center" had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The "crisis pregnancy center" staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl's home and calling her father's workplace. Our clinic director reports that the girl was "scared to death to leave her house." They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these "crisis pregnancy centers" across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers.
What's more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They're being funded by our tax dollars.

A bill has just been introduced in Congress to stop the fraudulent practices of fake clinics, but it desperately needs more support. Tell your representative to take a stand:
anti-choice extremists must not get away with this any longer!
Go to:
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/clinics

Friday, April 14, 2006

Bigots suck.

Apparently, the Pope is a bigot.

If he is a bigot, he sucks. Jesus said to love one another, not just those who have heterosexual, monogomous, only-after-marriage sex. Did I miss the part where we can tell people they are in league with Satan and will burn in hell?

Kz
Just as an FYI, I AM feeling better about things. My side-effects are under control, school isn't QUITE so stressful, and all my hedgehogs are alive and well. Sometimes that's all I need.

I just wanted to take a minute to say that I HAVE GOTTEN SO MUCH SMALLER!!! I had to go digging through the basement this morning to find not-sloppy-looking hot-weather cloths to wear to work because my "summer" box is all way too big! I'm easily fitting into stuff I last could wear two years ago. Man, it feels awesome! HOORAY for Weight Watchers!!

And thank you, Nathan, for your call. I was out having a good time. :) I might try to transcribe your message to save it for future hilarity. It was an awesome message, good job!!

Kz

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Today's one of those days where I can't really tell if I'm down because of upsetting things or if things are upsetting because I'm down. Am I just feeling depressed and looking for reasons, or are there things going on that are adding up to me feeling depressed in general?

It's hard when you can't trust yourself. I'm in the midst of a time where I'm feeling particularly distrustful. A week and a half ago I had a five day migraine, apparently because of a change in brand of a generic drug I was taking. All of a sudden I've gone from having all my health issues addressed by proper medication to throwing it all up in the air again. Now I'm having to deal with the uncomfortable and sometimes distressing side-effects all over again, and it makes my life feel like a mess. It's really hard to feel like your life is in control when you can't trust that your body will let you accomplish the things you need to accomplish to survive, like go to work, focus in class, wake up in the morning.

I don't know if school seems stressful because of my medication issues, or if I'm having more issues because school is becoming increasingly stressful. I'm behind in my classes, partially because of the school I missed because of medication issues. I feel like things are moving ahead too fast for me to catch up, especially considering that my health seems so unpredictable.

Good news today was that we'll be able to use laptops to type our exams for the first time this semester. I don't know why I'm not thrilled about it, except that I was counting on everyone having to take written exams. Sometimes no matter if the change is good or bad, it's still terribly difficult to be happy about.

Another bit of good news is that I'm getting to be in pretty good shape. I ran 2 miles tonight in 23 minutes, which is much faster than I've been able to run for a long time. It's frustrating to have to run so far from my house, though. I'm always worried that I'll get 3 miles away and then realize I can't walk another step; that's why I carry my student id and bus pass in my sports bra. And while running faster feels good, it is rather frustrating to plan out new routes and calculate miles jogged. Eventually I'll have time to hack out a new general path that will let me run a short, medium or long run and know how far I've traveled.

It IS good that I'm in such better shape than I've been for a while. I enjoy feeling more muscle-y. My quads are ridiculously and intensely muscular (while still blending in with my pleasantly soft and squishy hamstrings), and I'm very proud to actually have an arm muscle that stands up to the flex-and-squeeze test. That test, of course, is where you flex your muscle for someone else to see, they take a look and then squeeze the muscle to see how big it is, and they're like WOW, that IS a muscle. Well, that's how it works in my head anyway.

The hedgehogs are doing well. Yoda seems to still be doing ok, and even had a bit of a living room adventure while I was jogging. Silly me, assuming he'd stay in one place on the futon while I was out! I found him hiding in a corner, which makes me wonder if Lola was bullying him around. Lola was funny tonight, too; she chewed on and anointed with my hair for the first time in ages. It's very amusing to be laying on the floor and all of a sudden feel a hedgehog burrowing into your scalp. She was kindly gentle with her chewing, and didn't try to dislodge the hair from my scalp.

Since tonight was a generally depressing waste of time, I've decided to end it by going to bed early. Maybe I'll even sleep late. There's nothing I won't do to completely spoil myself when feeling glum!

Cheers,
Kz

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Cute Overload makes me SO HAPPY!!

AHHHHH!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Some pictures of my now-doing-much-better Yoda and me. :)


Well, Yoda's doing much better. He can walk much better, even to the point that he can do his beloved pivots-in-a-circle. He was bright-eyed and energetic this afternoon when I visited him during a break in my classes. I was floored.

I also wanted to put a little post out there about Yelp. It's very interesting, and picks out good places that I enjoy. Thanks to Nathan for pointing this site out in his blog. As always, Nathan, you rock.

Back to studying!
~kz

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I WANT ONE

In other news, things are mostly good, but Yoda has taken a turn for the worse. His mobility is declining. I suspect at some point in the next two weeks I will have to make the difficult decision to have him put to sleep. It's never easy, not even when I could see it coming.

I'm trying to keep myself busy, or at least in touch with others. Feel free to drop me a line to distract me.

kz