This is a whiny, pouty, and medically disgusting post, so if you read further, you've been warned.

Ugh. So, last week I had an itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy cold. Tiny sore throat. Tiny stuffed head. Minor aches, headache, etc. I decided to be proactive and irrigate the living hell out of my sinuses to get rid of the cold germs...love the lovely water pik, flushing the germs out of my sinuses...buh-by germs.

Anyhow, one of the nights when I irrigated, I got some water stuck in my ear canals. And then went to bed. Was fine for a little while the next morning until I decided to take a bath, put my head underwater to rinse my hair, and got more water in my ears. Within a few hours, I had a raging ear infection. Then I had two. Then a trip to the ER where they gave me drops for my ears. I should have been feeling better by Sunday. Guess what? I'm allergic to those particular drops. Like, itchy, burning, pain and death-wish type allergic.

Through all of this I've been taking OTC-NSAIDs. Aleve, Tylenol, etc. And I'm feeling sick. So Monday, I go to my regular doctor, tell her the whole story, she gives me different drops (which are working, thank all the dieties ever thanked), and tells me to take Dramamine for the sick feeling. Which works all right until Wednesday morning, when it abruptly and dramatically stops working. I think the problem is the pain killers, so I'm trying to wean myself off them, but if I don't take them I just want to curl up in a ball with my hands over my ears, whining. I hate whining. And through this all, I've not been able to take another bath for fear of getting even more water in my ears, plus positional vertigo, plus lack of energy.

So, round about Wednesday noon, I become concerned that the NSAIDs have damaged my kidneys, because I'm peeing blood, and I don't have a bladder infection currently. I know what they feel like, and this ain't it. So I call my husband at work, and he hies himself home to take me to the doctor AGAIN. But not my doctor, no, she's out of the office until this coming Tuesday. I go to the local clinic. The doctor there tells me that not only do I have a double outer ear infection, I have a middle ear infection in my right ear. And that I'm right, I don't have a bladder infection, and he doesn't think I've overdosed on Aleve, so he can't tell me why I'm peeing blood, but to be retested in a week, because 'sometimes these things just happen'.

Today, Thanksgiving, I've finally been able to take a bath, but still feel tired, miserable, and pretty out of it. I missed two paper deadlines in classes, two chem labs, a chem test, and the deadline for four articles for the newspaper. I have three weeks remaining in the semester to try to make up all this work, and to finish the work that was there already. I've been grouchy, out of sorts, and unclean. So, today I am distinctly thankful for my parents and spouse who put up with me being grouchy, for being here at all when I know that good and deserving people sometimes don't make it as far as I have, and for the chance that I will eventually regain the ability to hear, as it has currently deserted me.

Also, update on January trip to see Lady Gaga:

I've been in contact with her publicist, who says that he only deals with press requests seven days before the actual concert, and to check back in the new year. I have to wait until January 1 to re-pester him. GAAA! But at least I'm on the radar, so to speak.

I'm going to see Lady Gaga on January 8th!!

A once in a lifetime opportunity, I'm sure!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACm9yECwSso

I might actually do it.  I might actually try my hand at fiction during National Novel Writing Month. 

I hear a collective sad shaking of heads.  She must be crazy, (all you, my faithful readers, are saying), to take on this when she's even slightly behind on all her other projects!  When she has to schedule time for a proper bath, (instead of a shower), and when she has an unidentified mold source in her apartment that is driving her allergies crazy!  We'll have to lock her away!

Well, yes, I'm kind of crazy.  I'm also a good and fast writer.  And I'm feeling a little 'now or never' ish about this, as I'm not so good with making things up.  I used to lie a lot, and that's sort of like small fictions, but it was always realllllly close to the truth, and then I never did it more than absolutely necessary.  And I stopped about 7 years ago.

Also, I figure the reward of working on the novel, (okay, fighting with myself about creativity vs. imagination), will push me to get caught up in the rest of my work.  Either that or my ever-so patient and helpful husband, (who's helping me with characterization and plot), will cart me off to the loony bin, giggling maniacally.

So, I've not read the rules yet, but I figure I can ask for help as long as I do the actual writing, right? 

If so, do you think that people would like to read a mystery about a brand new professor of archeology who gets embroiled in department politics and solves crime on a small commuter campus?  She's smart!  She's feisty!  She's...a huge klutz!  That sound of breaking china you hear?  That's her coffee cup falling to the floor and shattering as she's listening in on a clue giving conversation!  To be continued...

...they're going to yank my credentials!  Kidding.

But seriously, I miss all of you!  I've been incredibly busy with school; chem, magazine, history, philosophy, honors class, most of which need a three page paper a week. 

Anyhow, more detailed post at a slightly later date.

Hugs!

This archiving project has thrown up some really great finds, such as a full set of log books from a local business during WWI.  If someone down the road takes a look, figures out which business it was and does an analysis of wartime economics, it would be fascinating.  Also, a hand inked music textbook from the late 1800s.  Just amazingly beautiful, 176 pages of hand written lessons on music theory and practice.

And then there are the clippings.  This woman was an amateur historian.  A local amateur historian.  And she liked to compile scrapbooks to show local people their history.  So she clipped the local newspaper, (apparently), every day for the last, oh, 80 years or so.  Had she also assembled all the clippings into scrapbooks, that would have been peachy keen.  However, she didn't have time to do all that, so what she did was copy the clippings, to make sure that if they deteriorated, she'd still be able to show them to people.

And then she kept both the copies, and the clippings.

And this is where I come in.

This is good practice for what I hope to be my eventual career: archaeological field work.  For never in my life have I seen a more filthy and abysmally tedious job.  I've decided to toss anything after 1950 because of...microfiche.  Yes, these clippings are handily archived already in several local libraries, on microfiche.  Anyone who wants to study what their grandmother's life was like can go sit in a clean library and slowly scroll through the archived copy.  No one in their right mind is going to do any sort of study sitting in a dark, damp, and grimy attic-type room with three foot high piles of clippings which are rapidly disintegrating into paper shards which tenaciously fling themselves into every gap in one's clothing.

I have already gone through one pile of clippings and found a grand total of five that I think this historical society should keep. 

And I still have eight more stacks to go...

I haven't posted in quite some time, so here's some snippets from my life.

The text message from friend was a mistake.  I e-mailed him and asked, and things have gone back to silent stalemate.  Grr...

I've taken a rest of summer internship doing archiving work for a city nearby.  It's quite rewarding except for a few things: 1. everything is covered in dust, (achoo).  2. they were amateur historians so not everything is in order and what is in order the *ahem* dear old lady put address labels into the front.  Double Grrrrr...  Those labels are NOT coming off.  3. I'm supposed to get part of my tuition paid for this but no one's stepped up yet and the date when my financial aid will hit and take care of everything regardless is coming closer and closer...

I have a cold.  Which may explain why I was so cranky when my husband...

...left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked with me sitting in the car to go deliver some parts.

I know, I know.  I'm a big girl, should be able to stave off car-jacker/potential rapist if one should wander along, but...

...why make it easy for the bad guys?  Why?  When it's such a small matter to pocket the damned keys, why do this instead?

Thankfully did not react in manner which felt like, as that would have been taking the keys out of the ignition for him, hiding them somewhere in the car, and then locking the door.  Bad, and counterproductive.

Anyway, I'm still here, I didn't croak.  Though with this cold making me miserable, I would love to be able to just sleep a year or so.  Hugs to all my reader(s).

Wow.  Friend sent me a nonsense text message last night.  Three months with no communication at all, not even when I was face to face with him in a computer lab on campus and then *ding* text message!

I have not responded.  I feel no desire to feed the beast.  The number of times I picked up my phone with the urge to write something, anything, back was frankly a bit pathetic, but I did not.  One urge at a time.

And in better news: I'm going to speak to a man tomorrow about an internship, doing something I love for school credit and profit.  Woot!

Also, this year's Magazine is really going to be something special.

Also, my husband is crazy, but wonderful.

Also, I found out I need two more semesters each of three more foreign languages to be competitive in applying for the mastership I want, so really, I won't have time for him, his bullshit, or missing him.

One day at a time.

Someone smack me, I'm becoming pathetic.

It has been three months since Friend last communicated with me.  And I miss him.  Very much. 

So much so that if he called, I'd pick up the phone.  Even though I told him that this time was the last ride on the merry-go-round.  Even though we drive each other nuts.  I don't know if it's because I'm starting on this semester's magazine preparation and really wish he was doing it with me again this year, but whatever it is, I miss him. 

I've seen him on campus twice already.  It was really hard.  I'm just sad.

So, someone please smack me.

My husband is doing the brakes.  With his father.  I love my husband.  I mostly like his father.  What I do so intensely DISLIKE is that when they get together to do car work, what was going to be "simple, it won't take more than an hour" becomes something that takes multiple trips to the car parts store, and takes several hours, even when not interrupted by a rain storm as it was today.

It's 66 degrees F. out right now, and wet.  Which is cold.  I understand.  However, when I fixed cars, you just do it.  Especially if you are anticipated somewhere else afterward.  You just DO it.  Then you dry off, have coffee and move on. 

Yes it totally sucks.  I UNDERSTAND.  And I would help, but for several reasons: 1. With these two, I'm relegated to "the girl who holds the wrench" and I know far too much about car repair to do that.  It tends to piss me off to the point of icy avoidance. 2. I was WORKING.  It's not as vital as car work, it's school work, but I've been busy.  3. It wasn't supposed to take this long. and 4. I'm in a silk skirt and a white shirt.  I'm not dressed for car work.

I hate, HATE, having to speak very frankly to my husband in front of his parents.  I don't want to be the bitch that makes him go back out in the rain.  But I want to LEAVE.  I'm just very aggravated at the moment.