decisions decisions decisions... which to do?

I want to knit a baby sock to make a change purse for my secret pal like I saw in Hallmark's.

I need to knit the baby blanket so that it is done before the baby turns thirty (actually I think the due date is late April... but you never know with me.)

I want to finish the bear fur rug for my sister's birthday. (April 25th)

sigh. too many decisions

Today is a sad day. My sister's friend passed away after a long battle with the same disease she has. It's very sad. I wish I could think of something eloquent to say, some way to comfort her, or some way to be of help to anyone, but all I can think of is the anguish in her voice when she reminded me "it's still March."

Maybe one year something freaking amazing will happen in March that will just blow every last bad thing that happened straight out of the water and when the days of February are starting to come to an end I won't have a heavy heart, but I doubt it.

Angela

the barry dying dream had to be a tip-off as to the nasty bs that was coming down the pipeline for me. at the moment I am below my lowest and heading lower; not even the fact that I finally hit -80lbs can cheer me up. I am sitting here urping up pieces of congealed salisbury steak and mashed potatoes and frowning. I better be careful or I will end up wrinkled by the time I hit 27.

a meme from chappysmum who probably doesnt even know I read her blog because I am kind of sucktastic as far as commenting goes. I like her blog though and she seems to read about as much as I do. I stole her idea for writing down all the books I read and so far I'm up around 70 for the year.

Place an X by all the things you've done. This is for your entire life:
( ) Smoked a cigarette
(x ) Drank so much you threw up
( ) Crashed a friend's car
( ) Stolen a car
(x ) Been in love
(x ) Been dumped
( ) Shoplifted
() Been laid off/fired
(x) Quit your job
( ) Been in a fist fight
(x ) Snuck out of your parent's house
(x ) Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
( ) Been arrested
() Gone on a blind date
(x ) Lied to a friend
( x) Skipped school
(x) Seen someone die
(x) Been to Canada
( x) Been to Mexico
(x) Been on a plane
(x) Been lost
(x) Been on the opposite side of the country.
(x) Swam in the ocean
( x)Felt like dying
(x) Cried yourself to sleep
( x) Played cops and robbers
( x) Recently colored
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(x) Made prank phone calls
(xxxxxxxx ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose (this is an abominable habit)
(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(x) Danced in the rain
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(x ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(x ) Watched the sun rise with someone you care about
(x) Blown bubbles
(x ) Made a bonfire on the beach
( ) Crashed a party
(x) Gone roller-skating
( ) Ice-skating

Last night I dreamt Barry died. He was murdered. My mom forbade me to go to his funeral or take Megan there. That really pissed me off and we got in a fight. But the wierd thing was at some point Barry was back, but not really. I could see him but no one else could and all I did was cry, cry, cry.

I hate having dreams of people dying.
The only other time I have had a dream about someone dying was the three times I dreamed about my grandma's death. ::shudder:: ugh.

I am off to school.

Back in highschool when I was part of the Academic Decathalon team and the FFA Greenhorn (or hand, can't remember) team, I went to alot of events. The FFA thing was FFA for nerds who don't really care about farming; I made speechs, recited the creed, took tests, and allsorts while dressed in the requisite heels, stockings, skirt, blouse, scarf, and courduroy jacket. I actually liked the FFA, but what I liked better was showing up to school in my uniform on account of a. my blouse was slightly transparent and b. the skirt my mom bought me had a side slit that went from under the knee to just above midthigh and although I was tubby and overweight in highschool (200 in my freshman year) I still got wistles. Mwhahaha. What this has to do with my title I don't know...

Oh yeah, the decathalon. The captain of our team was a girl, I can't remember her name but she was like a little whirlwind in tennis shoes. Full of energy and get er done-ness. If you know what I mean. I have felt like that recently. Mostly because we're pushing hard for Roadkill to get finished-- we still haven't had any word about the film festival since we dropped the updated version off on Tuesday, but we've been busy little beavers. Then Friday I was shopping with my sister and having "a talk" with my mom, Saturday we went hiking at the poppy reserve followed by King Kong at the dollar movies and dinner @ the Phoenix Inn (chinese) finished up with a Vanilla Creme (grande even) on the way home. Then this morning we had a drive to Long Beach for pickup shots, ADR stuff, getting in touch with an actor and dropping the film off with him, a meet with some people about doing story boards for a "real" movie (ie. not independent) and then picking up explosives so we can explode a watermelon for an SFX. Sheesh. We finished with a trip to Red Lobster and a quick nip into JoAnns. I am well knackered.

The hike @ the reserve was 2.5 miles, and I am kind of sad because my friend who I really want to come do the marathon with me probably won't. :( But the hike was great fun. Plus, I have news of a Hawaii job and a perfect reason to drag Barry to Blythe, Ca @ the Colorado river for a weekend (yes!!! love it) so I am pretty happy all around. Tired, but happy.

Tomorrow we are filming a friend of ours's senior project of a concert at a local bar. Yay! I am going to be stationed on the "hoochie mama" dance stage with a camera, all by myself. (Unless my sister comes) I am really excited. mwhahaha. Hoochie mamas... eat your heart out!

ttyl

Life is full of moments that kind of come out of nowhere and blindside you ridiculously. Today I had one of those moments. The phone rang, just like it always does, and of course I answered it, just like I (almost) always do.

"Are you sitting down?" my mother asked.
"No, why?" I countered as I wandered back into my kitchen.
"John's dead." She said baldly. (FYI I hate to do the 'she said adverb' thing, but in this case, she did say it baldly)
"John who?" I asked, at first thinking John Schwingle the guy they get their jobs through from Lodgenet. And, admittedly I was more worried that she was going to say something horrific like, 'We've got a 1200 room job on Maui and Barry has to leave tomorrow at 4 am.' or something.
"Your father."

I feel like a shit. Upon hearing that my biological father was dead my first thought was "now I don't have to be afraid anymore" since I have been scared to death of him coming and kidnapping me since I was little because at some point when I was three that did happen. Then I found out that I'm his next of kin. Which freaked me out. I found alot of stuff out today. None of it terribly good news.

I spent most of the morning not knowing how to feel, feeling curiously detatched and wondering if I should feel sad or feeling guilty that I didn't feel sad. And asking questions. I have 2 siblings I wasn't really aware of.

But what is most sad is that I grew up only hearing horror stories about my father, I grew up terrified of him to the point that when I found out my mother had told him I was in England I had a panic attack because for the first time in my life (when I was in London) I felt safe because he had know way of knowing where I was, I didn't know his side of the family, and he died alone in his apartment. He died alone.

I feel guilty that I am glad it wasn't my mom and dad (stepdad but dad none the less.)I have spent a large part of the day being thankful that it wasn't my mom or dad who died, because I couldn't handle them dying. Especially not in March.

To make matters worse, this is what I saw when we walked into Schooners (a local bar) tonight. Foltz is my last name, it's kinda unusual, and it was my Father's last name. It kinda creeped me out. We were at the bar to scope out camera angles for a video we are doing of a concert put together by a friend of ours for his Senior project. (Yeah, we're a gazillion older than he is but he helped us with Roadkill, and he and his mother are 'good people' BUT ANYWAYS) What a wierd thing to see/notice.

My father was 45 years old and he died in his apartment, of unknown causes just as of yet, alone. And that makes me feel like crying.

Gag me three or four thousand times with a rusty freaking spoon. I would rather slice my ears off, or listen to gravel and glass in a blender than listen to Kelly Pickler's rendition of "Walking After Midnight" ever ever EVER again. It was appalling, it sucked, it made me wish I could erase her voice from my mind.

What's even worse, is that every one of the judges was like, "Ooh yeah, go Kellie, it was awesome." BARF

I'm not given to hating, but seriously she sucks bad and her goody two shoes attitude grates on my nerves because there's no way she can be an honest person. grrr.

But oooh my god. Chris Daughtry was amazing. ;)

ok, there's gotta be a reason Foamy from illwillpress calls Dell "smell." I hate them. I was so angry before that I had to physically leave the room. And I don't get that angry that quickly on a regular day.

See, the pervert (dh) left his laptop on the couch. Well... the laptop fell off the couch and damaged the power cable. So, being the nice, computer savvy wife (with a debit card) that I am, I went online and ordered him a new power cable-- direct from the manufactuer "smell." I was told it would ship on or before March 8th (yeah, this was back on March 5th) and that shipping would take 3-7 days. Ok. Fine. So when the 15th rolled around and no power cable (even though they debited my account for the money on the sixth) I was pretty steamed. Where was my damn cable? I called-- no help there. I went online. It took me awhile but I found out that my cable had been shipped on the 6th and it was "en route" to the carrier. Uh huh. So I emailed them. Asking them why, if it had shipped on the 6th, I hadn't recieved it yet. I got an email back this morning saying that it HADN'T been shipped, that the shipping lable had only been printed... oh screw it... here:

Dear Ms. Foltz,Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care.I
can understand your concern that you have not yet received the order.I have
looked through your account, I apologize, but only the shipping label has been
generated and the product has not actually bee shipped.In order to resolve your
issue, I have set up a dispatch request for your AC Adapter under the reference
number *********. What this means is that Dell will be sending you Adapter on
priority basis. Please allow a timeframe of 5-7 business days for the request to get processed. Once it gets processed a new order number would be generated for Adapter and will be shipped to you next day air.I can understand that you have been waiting for your order since long, however, your patience and co-operation would be highly appreciated.As a customer care courtesy and in appreciation of you being a valued customer, I would credit $8 shipping charges back to your Visa Card, once the replacement has been shipped.Ms. Foltz, I hope you will
appreciate this gesture that we have extended towards your satisfaction and
allow us to render you with award winning customer service and support. It would
also be our revered pleasure to assist you further for any other customer
queries that you have with us upon the closure of your current issue.Thank you
for giving me the opportunity to assist you. Your case number for this
interaction is ********. Please keep this number for your records; it will help
us keep track of this issue so we can better assist you if you have any further
questions or concerns about your issue.If you have any further questions or
concerns, please visit the following website to contact
us:www.DellCustomerCare.comThank you for contacting Dell Online Customer
Care.Respectfully,Rajat~Rep ID 1954503:30 AM to 13:00 PM CST Monday ? Friday
Dell Online Customer Care

Yeah effing right if they think I want to wait an ADDITIONAL 5-7 BUSINESS days for the order to be PROCESSED. HA. I called them and once I got through their little ring of hell that is the voice mail system, I told them to cancel my order and give me my money back. When the little punk-ass on the phone was done I asked for his name and customer rep. ID number and he tried to tell me that it would be in an email (who cares, I asked for it now) so I got reeeally quiet and asked him if he was refusing to give me his information over the phone. anyhow. I got my money back.

You'd think it would have ended there but...

Roadkill is being considered for screening at the film festival, but they need to see an updated version of it to see how far Barry has gotten with the editting, and while his source files are on the external hard drive, he has been letting the Adobe Premier files save to their folder on the laptop (which is ***** and something that I never would have done since Cynthia taught us to save everything in the same place, but then again, it is Barry and he can be stupid that way.) So. We spent the day looking for a replacement cable but none seemed to work because the Smell computer had a freaking wierd connector. Grrrr. We ended up buying a cable that will allow him to remove the harddrive from the laptop and connect it via USB to this computer. oh yay)

But it gets slightly worse from there. The female lead of Roadkill was supposed to come up this weekend to do ADR work (redo her lines because of a horrible hissing noise we can't filter out of the audiotrack) and she cancelled. Grrr. The male lead (protagonist not baddie) hasn't called or returned any messages/emails regarding when he can help and Barry is supposed to have an updated version ready on Monday. I think that it's a good sign that they are at least considering it (considering the problems) and are willing to let him keep working on it.

I have had a crappy week. It looks to get crappier as we speak. All I want to do is scream out loud until I don't have a voice left.

On an UP note, and I am ashamed it took me this long to report it, my Secret Squirell (knittyboard SP 6) sent me a mega package and I received it earlier this week. It had some lovely green baby lace yarn, some beautiful bluish Noro, some lotion, some hand balm, and more stuff that I can't remember cuz I am still so pissed off. (at dell not my SP) It was a fantastic present. :) I will post a pic tomorrow.

Also, since we were @ the mall I went to hot topic and torrid, but only got stuff @ hot topic-- some buttons, a zombie postcard, and a keychain for my sister. Then I bought 2 bags and some lotion at Victoria's Secret. The first bag was canvast with purple stuff and it had lotion, bath gel, and body spray in it. The skinny rude chick at the counter told me that the other bag I was eyeing was a "free gift with purchase" if I spent another $7 (oh the free gift was $15) so I bought my sister some lotion and got that. The "free" bag had eyeshadow, blush, lipstick, lip gloss, and perfume in it. I was wowed. I can get used to free gifts with purchase.

I decided that I must find a way to be one of the "idle rich" because it's soo much fun shopping.

I am losing my taste for knitting. Actually I'm losing it for almost everything so don't fret just yet. :)

Yesterday I cast on for the Hoover blanket from knitty. It's for one of my teachers-- Ms. Jennings (also the recipient of the damned Crusoe socks). She's having a baby in April, I think, and so I just had to knit something for her. :) I like the colors I picked, turquoise and coral. In my shopping cart I wasn't too sure of them, but next to eachother I am happy. The garter stitch border will be striped but then the center double-knit panel will be solid, so turquoise on one side and coral on the other.

In other knitting stuff I unearthed my case of dpns and will be working on a baby sock in Socks That Rock: Jewel of the Nile for my SP. "Just one sock?" you say? Yes. Just one. I am searching for the perfect old fashioned style purse clasp that will fit on a baby sock. See, at Hallmark they had cute little coinpurses made out of cute little baby socks, and they were lined too. I almost bought one, but then thought, I like knitting socks, and I have some super cool sock yarn at home. I didn't think of the relative difficulty I would encounter in finding the clasp. Curses!!!

Also... for a different secret pal, I am looking for something to make her cool stitch markers, but I am not getting lucky. I even tried the warhammer site, because I used to paint warhammer figures and the first figure I painted was a little mummy wielding a mace (my favs were the Skaven because they were awesome nasty little rat things.) But no luck. So I think I may end up making them out of fimo, but I hope I don't because I suck at sculpting.

I need to stop starting with "also" but--

Also, last night Barry and I decided to go ahead and sign me up for the Portland Marathon in October. I was reading about it in this month's issue of Prevention magazine, and decided that the Portland Marathon was pretty much something like what I was looking for, a big goal thing to work towards. They even have a kids' marathon to put Megan in, which is cool, because she'd have fun.

Anyhow, take care.

I didn't finish my rug. damn damn and double damn. I can't seem to stick with any knitting project so far this year. It's very disconcerting. It's like I'm itching to bust out of my skin at any minute and if I don't I will explode. It's hard to explain.

I've lost 70lbs so far and I am starting to see deflated balloon skin in places, mostly my arms and it makes me feel a little like barfing sometimes. Sigh.

Oh well.

So on to school. We had to read an essay by Michel Foucalt (Panopticism) which although it made my head hurt, it had ever so many delicious tidbits of information in it that it seriously sparked my imagination. The beginning of the essay was about quarantine procedures during the time of the plague and so I ended up buying 2 books on the plague during break today (yeah I know, for shame) and even more of it had to do with the Panopticon design for a prison (see below.)

I was very interested in the ideas behind this, and in a little bit of serendipity, this morning on the radio Bill Handel was talking about the Japanese death penalty and how the people on "death row" there are not warned in advance as to when their execution will take place. It seemed a very tidy similarity to the watched not knowing when they were being watched in the design on the Panopticon. Then I was thinking about what intrigued me more about the Panopticon, the chance of being seen (exhibitionism) or the chance to be an unseen seer (voyeurism) and I kind of languidly declined from there as far as reason goes.

In astronomy lab today we calculated the velocity of stars in binary systems, which was fun since I like using my $16 calculator that I bought for statistics. :) And in human sex we watched a video on David Reimer and while most of it was interesting some of it was just nasty, especially the bits where they were shaving slices of rat brain to see if the brains of men and women differed. I was glad class ended early. very glad.

And finally.

I have yet. another. blog.

Dr. Gramaphobe: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Research Paper
Ah, isn't life grand. Barry wanted me to make it Dr. Seusslove... so I might change it. But anyways, I will be posting stuff on there with regularity and I will be putting up some of my papers because yes, I am just that damn egocentric that I would stick a paper up so people would read it. Preferably before I turn it in since I just re-read paper 1 for this semester and although I got a good grade I was shocked at my apparent inability to know when to is actually too. Grrrr