| Thursday November 28, 2002 -- 10:30am Happy Thanksgiving. For real this time. My family will be arriving in less than 2 hours, and yet I cannot seem to do anything useful like shower, get dressed, sweep the floors, wash the dishes, etc. Clearly 12 hours was not enough sleep for me last night. Jeesh. I am on Day Two of no little purple pills and Day 4 of not enough little purple pills. It's a combination of Dr. L being on vacation, my complete inability to manage my own life, and curiosity. So far, it's no problem. I'm kind of hoping that being off them for a week will induce another manic fervor when I go back on them next week. I could use a good manic fervor. I haven't been going to Wing Chun. It's been 2 weeks now. Sifu's admission of his crush on me was too much. Actually, it would have been tolerable if only he hadn't snuck that little kiss on the neck in last time he hugged me goodbye. Ew. Ew, ew, ew. It's like incest. Super-creepy. I know I should go back and tell him he is making me uncomfortable and he needs to keep that stuff to himself if he wants to be a truly good Sifu, but it's ever so much easier to just convince myself that I never much liked Wing Chun in the first place. Sigh. Sometimes I hate being female. In fact, most of the time I have a hard time seeing any benefit in it whatsoever. Dresses. I like to wear dresses. If I was a guy, I wouldn't be able to do that all the time without being completely ostracisized for it. Guess I'd better go put one on before the family arrives. Wednesday November 27, 2002 -- 6:00pm Next year, for Thanksgiving, I am going to make a huge, traditional dinner and invite all of my museum kids over. (Boundaries? What boundaries?) It makes me angry to think about the kids whose parents are too self-absorbed to provide their children with any meals, never mind a huge, warm, decadent feast. Today I spent a good chunk of my time at work looking for the Christmas tree and ornaments. I managed to find the tree, but getting it and myself out of the closet it had been unceremoniously stuffed into was a challenge. I couldn't find the ornaments, and now I am having a vague memory of us having given them all away after last year. This is a problem. The pregnant iguana is getting ready to lay her eggs. She's digging around, making a nest, and they're warming up the incubator down in the office. On the off chance that (a) the eggs are fertile and (b) they all actually hatch and (c) most of the babies survive, we'll have about 40 baby iguanas. Every single day someone calls the museum trying to give us their iguana that they don't want anymore. What the hell will we do with 40?!? Happy Thanksgiving! Monday November 25, 2002 -- 8:20pm Ok. Forget the negative stuff I said yesterday. I got some seriously good Baby Therapy today and am feeling much more sane and, incidentally, delusionally powerful. Madelyn is freakin cute. There is nothing like having a sleeping newborn curled up like a little peanut on your chest while you ingest whatever noxious substances you damn well please because it's not your baby - Wah, Hah, Haaaaah!!! It's not that I don't want children. It's just that I am not one of those WomenApproaching30 who are all hysterical about it. If I don't have them, it's ok. Anyway, Natalie rocks my world completely. She comes home from daycare and we unzip her jacket, only to find a piece of paper folded inside. "What is it, Nat?" She looks at me, then at the paper, then back at me. "It's for you!" As if something had told her she had to scribble with a red crayon, without really explaining why, and now it all made sense. I finally achieved my goal of being a Bad Influence on her, too. Her father asked her what she wanted for dinner, so I suggested cake. "Yeah! Cake! I want cake!" "Oh, thanks, Deana!" Heeheehee. Here's a picture of Natalie with Madelyn, on Wednesday, about 2 hours after Madelyn was born. So, I've been having quite the series of musical crises today. First of all, there's a slew of new groups called things like The Vines, The Hives, and The White Stripes, and they all sound kind of like the Beatles, only with better amps. A little voice inside my head tells me that I'm almost 30, and I should be appalled, declare it "noise" and start listening to "smooth jazz." But the truth is, I really like it. But there is a far more serious problem, actually. It's really bad. I mean, the mood disorder stuff? Bah! That's nothing compared to this. I really like Eminem. Well, I guess admitting you have a problem is the first step. Then there's the fact that every now and then one of those really bad songs from one of those really bad '80's glam rock groups comes on the radio, and I know every single word. I can't really be held accountable for that one though. It's not my fault I grew up in the '80's. Sunday November 24, 2002 -- 6:15pm Well, all the hysteria is over, at least for a day or two. The Hudson River exhibit opening was yesterday, and it went really well overall. Angie and Jake seemed happy and got a lot of much deserved praise. I was worried early on in the day that there wouldn't be many people there, that it would be another enormous museum failure and I'd have to drown myself in the Estuary tank, but by the time the opening ceremony started, there was a large crowd of impressed families. It was great - until the performer set the fire alarm off. That created a bit of chaos - made more embarrassing by the fact that several members of the hated Board were there. But, whatever. It was handled and we even handled it quickly enough that the fire department didn't actually have to come out. After, I went over to Angie and Artie's with Jake to celebrate. A good time was had by all, as usual. It is nice to have made friends. At around 11pm, we went for a walk in the woods behind Angie's house. I was tired, and had many adult beverages in my system, and thus was probably feeling a little melodramatic... but, still. It was so amazingly beautiful. We didn't use flashlights, and the moon was covered by clouds, so all there was was contrast to guide us. The white of the snow, the black of the trees. There was something very humbling about it, and I was afraid to talk. It was so quiet out there that it made my ears hurt. Now I'm home, and the place is a mess and the whole thing smells because I need to buy cat litter, and I feel cranky and sad and embarrassed because I am almost out of meds again and haven't paid my school loan or bought groceries in months and am basically a wreck. But other than that, I'm doing fine. Thursday November 21, 2002 -- 4:55pm I would also like to welcome Daisy Grace Carpenter, who checked in on Sunday. Congratulations Josh and Kate! I have to confess that I tend to slack off a bit at work after 4pm - which is when pretty much everyone else leaves. I justify this by remembering that I have been here since 8am and still have 3 hours ahead of me. Violence Prevention Training (which was really gang prevention training) was interesting. I learned a lot more than I'd ever really hoped to know about gangs, and it was pretty sobering. It's so weird to me how I am the resident "expert" (I am far from expert) at the museum when it comes to things like gangs, teen issues and so on. I mean, it's my job, but it still feels strange when I start talking about stuff and I get blank stares or surprised looks from my co-workers. I guess I should get back to work. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon making Christmas ornaments as samples for the upcoming Breakfast With Santa insanity It was kinda fun. :) -- 7:40am Welcome to the world, Madelyn Rae Sheehan!!!! Born yesterday, Nov. 20th, at 3:45pm. Congratulations, Dana, Chris and Natalie! Ok, people. There are some seriously wonderful babies happening out there. Let's do something about the state of the world before they get saddled with it. Where to start, where to start.... I'm off to a "Violence Training." I'm hoping that it's actually a violence prevention training. I mean, I think, if hard pressed, I could incite violence without any special training. Preventing it, however, I could use a few pointers on. Dee and I both had very psychic moments yesterday. At 4pm I was sitting at my desk, writing a workshop or something, when I suddenly decided to call home and check the messages, thinking that Chris had gone into labor. At about the same time, Dee did the same thing. Of course, neither one of us got the message because Dana didn't actually call us until 8:30pm (totally excusable). But I'm pretty impressed with our radar, given that both of us made the call only 15 minutes after Madelyn Rae (hehehe) was born. <Insert theme to Twilight Zone here> Gotta go prevent some violence. Have a beautiful day! Wednesday November 20, 2002 -- 8:45pm Oh, sure. Day 2 of my TV Solution, and there's nothing worth watching on. However, I think I'd be a good contestant on The Amazing Race, or whatever it's called, because I am good under pressure. As long as I had a partner who would do all the talking and let me do all the thinking. I think we'd be right on. Tuesday November 19, 2002 I think I just figured out the real answer to my problems with chronic depression: TV! I'd explain, but the commercial break is almost over. Puffer Fish are very cool. Sunday November 17, 2002 -- 8:00pm Probably the most challenging decision I make in a day is what color to make the text on this thing. I can't deal with the pressure, and they're all impossible to read anyway.... so I'm going to be dull for a while. Sorry. Wait a minute! No, I'm not sorry! I have received exactly one ego-boost since putting out the request last week! The only person I am the least bit sorry to is Marc. Sorry, Marc. And, also, congratulations! (I'm not even going to tell the rest of you what I'm congratulating him for. PPBBLLLTTT!!!!) I would like to know why, at the beginning of each winter, everyone up here acts like they have never experienced snow before. I do not say this in a snotty "I Am So Much Better" sort of way. I kind of do the same thing. I guess. Only I am a natural Balancer, so, while everyone else is driving like your grandmother, I am driving like a 16 year old boy from Florida. This past week was total crap. Here's hoping the coming week brings major improvements. I slept until 2pm today. This would be excusable, if only I had gone to sleep at 6 or 7 in the morning, but really it was not quite 2am when I fell asleep, which means I slept for 12 hours. The only reason I even woke up was that Minnie was licking my face, trying to get me to feed her. Eish. I guess this is make up for the couple of nights last week when I was randomly awake after 4 hours of sleep and could do nothing about it but get up and do dishes. One of the larger fish in the Estuary tank ate one of the smaller ones. Not quite small enough though. He swallowed the poor thing head first (thankfully) and its tail was hanging out of his mouth for 2 days while the front end digested. Yum. Thursday November 14, 2002 -- 6:50pm So, today was terrible. Fairly productive, but terrible. Yesterday was also terrible - technically today was more terrible than yesterday, but yesterday felt worse to me, since it had more to do with me. Anyway, it is has been a terrible couple of days. Yesterday was terrible in that I'm-Not-Doing-My-Job-Well-Enough-Despite-My-12-Hour-Days type of way. Today was terrible in more of a An-Educator-Messed-Up-A-Program-Severely-Then-Accidentally-Crushed-the-Head-of-One-of-my-Favorite-Snakes-Then-We-Fired-Her sort of way. So you decide. It was my little buddy, the Northern Brown Snake. His head got crushed, but he didn't die right away. In fact, no one from Animal Care even knew about it until about an hour later, which is a whole other thing. It seemed dead when we got to it, but then we saw it move a little. Which meant Angie had to complete the job. It was fairly gruesome and really sad. I have little else to report. Except that it is Dee's birthday on Sunday and I have the best gift idea, and I'm very excited. Sunday November 10, 2002 -- 7:15pm Aw, man! The Simpsons have sold out to Burger King! When did this happen? This is exactly why I don't watch TV, kids! But the show, Futurama, is the funniest thing I have seen since this. Ok. Maybe that's not so much funny as it is scary, but Futurama is funny. A little scary too. I have finished the ice cream (which is both impressive and disgusting) and have moved on to beer... and no one is allowed to say a damn thing about it until I get some freaking ego-boosting here! I mean, really! -- 12:30pm Whoa now, kids. Don't all bombard me at once with the ego boosts! Come on, people! There must be something nice you can say about me! Saturday November 9, 2002 -- 3:46pm I spelled "Edie's" wrong. It's Edy's. Kind of funny, given what I was complaining about. -- 7:30am I am having ice cream for breakfast, and no one can stop me. It's Edie's Espresso Chip: Coffee ice cream with espresso "chocolaty" chips. That is highly annoying. It should be "chocolatey." With an e. It will probably bother me all day. Incidentally, if anyone feels like doing something to boost my ego, today would be the day. Except you will not be able to find me because I am going back to bed as soon as possible. |
 |
 |