So it's what, 5 am? I went to bed at a semi-reasonable hour and thanks to the dulcet tones of my husband I managed to fall asleep. I should provide a little backstory here: although we only just found out that I am bipolar (technically they told me this back in 2001 but they also told me I had PPD, which would you choose to believe if you had just had a baby? PPD, bipolar disorder... hmmm??) I have had had trouble getting off to sleep since like ever. I remember when I was 12 or 13 I'd get sent to bed and I'd jump up and do like a million and three jumping jacks...

Anyhow, when the husbeast and I were *dating* since it was a long distance quasi internet relationship, involving many long hours of phone calls, alot of those phone calls would occur right around bed time. Somehow I got "programmed" to fall asleep to the sound of his voice. Oooh, this annoys him to no end after 7 years of marriage, but I don't mean that him talking to me sends me to sleep. I just mean that it relaxes me and comforts me enough to send me to sleep.

We had bad news yesterday. His Aunt Ann passed away. He wasn't close to his Aunt Ann. But his Aunt Bryn had passed earlier this year and his Uncle Jim is already gone. That leaves just his mom on his mom's side of the family. With my dad dying in March it suddenly hit me that his parents could die. (They are old enough to be my parents' parents; aka my grandparents) I don't want them to die. I love my mother in law more than anything. She may think it's only because she has pulled my ass out of the fire financially more times than I can help, but it isn't just that. She's a strong woman who I can look up to, and I can honestly say other than my grandma she's the single woman I know who I most want to be like when I grow up. She's just amazing. I miss her, I am sad sometimes that I didn't realize what a wonderful person she was when we lived there, or get the opportunity to know her as I do now. If we lived there now I would be taking her on yarn crawls (despite her insistence that yarn should be cheap, hahaha) and knitting with her and learning all I could from her. I'd hug her even though it's not the done thing, you see. I just hope that I get a chance to do all those things.

Anyhow, it's still five am. Barry talked me to sleep again last night, second night in a row. He said some lovely things to me. There are times when I think my husband is the most obstinate, unobserving person in the world, and then he turns around and does or says something that has me melting. Like telling me that no matter how many times I have screwed up, he still loves me and he knows that I unequivocally love him. I hope I spelled that right. I slept, and dreamt funky dreams, and then woke up in a fright and couldn't tell what time it was. I must have dreamt that I had been being woken up by Megan repeatedly because I feel really tired (well, it is only 5) but I still had that feeling. But for some godawful reason I thought it was 5 pm instead of am and that I had been in bed all day long. And my heart nearly broke. Because I promised Megan that we'd go to the fair today. But parking after 5 would be a bitch, especially on $15 day... and I am reeeeeeeally tired. So I rolled over for a minute to sleep a bit more. Then my conscience caught up with me, and the fact that she has been worrying about me "not feeling good" on the day and using it as an excuse to bring a friend, so I rolled out of bed and started rushing through the house like a madwoman... only to find the house dark and quiet... peaceful. Megan asleep, the cat nestled down for the night, and Ozzy not even in need of going outside for a bathroom break. Because it was 5 in the morning. No wonder I am so frigging tired. :(

And then I wanted to weep. MAYBE I will manage to get back to sleep. But I woke up like someone turned on a switch and 5 is officially the earliest. Which makes it kinda obvious. I am heading up into a manic swing. Well that's what the Dr said anyways when he told me to see my GP and up my dosage. :(

Merriam Webster.com (m-w.com) defines serendipity:

serendipity: ser·en·dip·i·ty
Pronunciation: -'di-p&-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: from its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip
: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also : an instance of this

I've had instances of serendipity of late. Mostly linking the movie I just saw, Little Miss Sunshine (soo soo soo good) to the ugly/beautiful dichotomy of the modernist lecture we had in English lit, and then linking that to Phantom of the Opera and my predeliction for falling in love with The Beast. See, I love Phantom of the Opera, but it breaks my heart every time because I think that although the Phantom is a raving sociopath, if Christine had been just a little less shallow, she could have been the salve to his wounds. Just like it pisses me off that Esmerelda always has the hots for Phoebus and Quasimodo ends up saving her anyways. ::sniffle:: I cried for hours at the end of reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame when it gets to the part about Quasimodo dying with Esmerelda in his arms in the catacombs under Paris. hours people... I cried for hours. Like almost as long as I cried when Anakin Solo died... (not going there) sniffle. Anyhow, I was cruising on home from Little Miss Sunshine listening to Phantom on my iPod and it got to the song, "Music of the Night." This is one of my favorite songs, but I think just about everyone loves this song, don't they?

I love it because it's a passionate plea on the Phantom's part to bring Christine over to his side. Here's what I have to offer you, he's saying to her. It is one of the most romantic things ever, and if that makes me sick, so be it. But it's right up there-- I cannot believe that I am saying this after I spent my childhood afriad of him-- with Jareth the Goblin King kidnapping a baby because the love of his life asked him to do it, yes Jareth was evil, and yes he puts Sarah through hell for spurning him (as does the Phantom) but really, they are acting like men-- just slightly more bent. I can love Jareth now because I'm not afraid of being an adult (looong story but the bubble scene in Labyrinth scared the CRAP out of me. Not the puppets or the goblins. The bubble scene where Sarah is getting her first taste of adulthood, and like 3 hours of her time to save her brother goes by like *snap* before she realizes it. If you watch the behind the scenes on the DVD they do some pretty twisted stuff/sexy but undersexed if you know what I mean... and maybe I picked up on that but mostly what horrified me about the movie was the fact that you could be tempted my something you wanted so much that you would lose sight of the goal (saving your baby brother) also I had this really wierd attraction/repulsion thing for David Bowie that I still can't figure out) But when all is said and done, I still fall for the fictional bad guys. The Riddicks, Phantoms, and Beasts.

After all... you may not know this, but when we met, my husband's screenname was BarryBeast (we have the same fav. fairy tale) care to guess?

I think I have succumbed.

I just wanna crawl back in bed. It makes no freaking sense. I woke up at 5! I was like, "La la la la la, let's play!" But-- the real me was warring with the crazy me and stayed hibernated and fought for two and a half hours and now I am tired and cranky. Maybe I should have just woken up and played.

What if I'm not bipolar at all but just experiencing renewed energy after a lifetime of being sluggish? argh. Everyone is telling me I am bipolar and I hate it. I hate that in a lot of areas of my life it certainly fits. spending, impulsivity, promiscuity, not knowing limits... but still... that could just be a product of my upbringing and I know it. 3 of them could be blamed on my freaking job.

sigh. I am cranky. 10 more minutes? please?

and where's my secret pal? its the 27th... sniffle nothing. not even a card. Just an email and that one awesome (lonely) box sooo long ago. (sniffle)

I need to calm down. I feel that familiar titchy feeling coming on strong. I wanna jump out of my hide, and just, I don't know pace the floors, holler at the top of my lungs. I'm starting to get stupid impulses to do retarded things again, but not necessarily self destructive things, which is good. Nothing as scary as driving to my sister's house to douse myself in gasoline and set myself alight, just random stuff like, it's ten o'clock let's exercise! Let's go for a walk! Let's order stuff on ebay!

Speaking of ebay, I just found my dream hiking boots there. These were the hiking boots that I wore to England and then on my trip across country to Pennsylvania the same year, and the following year around the US. They don't make them anymore. I like them because they have the regular holes and then the little hookie thingies up at the top. I loved these hiking boots. Yay!

On September 30th I will be walking in Longbeach for the American Society for Bariatric Surgery Foundation Walk From Obesity. I will put a donate button on my sidebar if you wish to donate to my walk. It's a three mile walk and Megan and I will both be walking. Barry will (hopefully) be cheering us on from the sidelines! I *heard* from someone that there is a yarn store somewhere near the Aquarium (which is where the walk is being held, on Aquarium Way) it's probably in Shoreline Village, if you know of it... please tell me. The only other one I know about in the area is Noble Knits... and I've been in their store a couple of times recently. :) Oh, and if you live in Longbeach or near there and want to cheer us on, please come out! The walk starts around 8:30/9 o'clock I think.

Angela

This is mostly pictures. Today Megan and I baked a cake and made little cupcakes for Barry to take with him since his birthday is Monday and he leaves for San Diego tomorrow. I spent the day knitting, cooking, and watching horror movies. We saw The Hills Have Eyes, Demon Slayer, House of the Dead, and I finally finished Firewall. All I can say to Firewall is... DID HE KEEP HIS DAMN JOB?! gaaaaah. I made mushroom soup from the Les Halles book (but off the internet from epicurious.com) and I must say it was DAMN TASTY, omg. Here's the thing though. Cuz we had the ac going and my stove is unreliable at best... an hour on simmer... rendered the liquid enough for one bowl of soup. Which means it reaaaaaaaaaly REALLY reduced! It was POTENT! I added about four cups of water and brought it back to heat and it was still quite strong, but delicious. And I have never had non-cream of mushroom soup. I have had homemade or restaurant cream of mushroom soup, but never mushroom soup sans cream. It was really, really fab. So now I want to buy as many soup cook books as possible... and eat soup.
Earlier this year I was saying, "wouldn't it be fab if there was a place that had just soup on the menu and it wasn't freaking chicken noodle, brocolli, or freaking clam chowder all the time?" Apparently some clever people in New York (it's always New York) already thought of that and started a chain called Daily Soup, and it was sooo popular that they sold it this year. DAMNIT. But they published a cookbook, yay! It's on my WISHLIST in case anyone were wondering... lol.

While I was hard at work knitting, hubby was hard at work CRAFTING!

This is an upclose view of the wire hangers he made. 22 of them!! OMG Why?!?!

He doesn't look too very pleased...

OH MY! How many candles is that!?!?!
Happy Birthday early to my hero.

So, I have been a blabber mouth lately. As in... my sleep.

Not real life blabbering. I have woken myself up shouting at strangers in my dreams, in a very strange, Tourette's kind of way. "You stupid cow!" I was screaming at one woman, "You shouldn't drive up this hill!!" My dreams have been very frightening and vivid... when I finally get to sleep.

Back in March before I finally went and saw Dr Berman, when I was staying up till 7 am in the morning and forcing myself to sleep, only to wake 2 hours later I was pretty bad. I am sitting here asking myself this morning when I rose for the third time in a row before 7 (unlike me in the worst way) after being dead tired but unable to fall asleep... am I being paranoid, or is it happening again??

Apparently talking in your sleep can be a symptom of stress; well dh has been home for 4, almost 5 weeks, Megan is home, my sister hasn't been talking to me because I was a complete shmuck to her, my work isn't going swimmingly well, and I've been having cramps like mad. Life hasn't exactly been a rosy bowl of cherries, so it could just be that.

So, if it is stress related... what's a knitter to do (who hasn't been knitting) to destress, than pick up her pointy sticks and cast on? oooh I stole that one I know, sorry Ms Dane (who, incidentally has one of THE BEST podcasts and her 3rd season is FINALLY underway. check it out!) I am finally knitting again... woo! Yippee, I am so happy. Aloo on aluminum size one dpns. It's slow going, but not so bad. Barry is making me 22 tiny little somethings to go with this projects, because he is an amazing awesome husband.

Let me digress about my amazing awesome husband for a second.

On Monday he will be 28 years old. For the last three days he has been filming his latest project, Random Acts of Violence (and comedy) with a bunch of teenagers. LMAO. He keeps staggering in around midnight or so with a shell shocked look on his face that says, "I'm an old old man." I feel for him. I really do. Poor guy. But he is an amazing husband. Even if the placement of his stupid wireless router caused the death of my printer/scanner/copier combo.

TTYL

My tent, it seems, was displeased at having to lay quietly dormant in our shed these long summer months since its purchase. To be truthful, a camping trip had been planned quite soon after its arrival, but we ended up sleeping in the car instead.

And now, long months after its original outing, it saw the light of day! Oh what a magnificent flutter and ripple it made—like a child bursting at the seams, eager to gain freedom from the tethers which bind it to the stroller, my tent struggled to break free of its bag and romp on the high-spirited desert wind.

Once it was somewhat firmly lashed down in one corner it would playfully tug up one of its stakes and go dancing off on the wind yet again, playing and stretching itself on the breeze, free of the awful dank and cramped space its vacu-sealed factory assigned bag and box in my shed had afforded it.

Finally, as I possess not only the superior intellect, but the opposable thumbs of MAN, with much colorful language as well as even more help from my husband, I beat the damn thing into submission and am now lying prone, slack in awe and exhaustion, staring up at the ceiling of my tent watching the way the light refracts through the nylon and mesh, and listening to the tent dance in the wind in a joyous taffeta cacophony.

I think I was sleeping, but it happened the other night. Sometime, with a soft, syllibant whisper, Summer gave up her death grip on the world and she began to let go. She's still here, sending her searing heat down into the Earth and storing up radiant energy for the rest of the season. She's helping the flowers and plants store up their energy for their coming hibernations, but she let go and gave in while my head was turned.
When I went to bed she had a vice grip on the world and it seemed like she had a vice grip on my soul that would last until the end of time. I sweated and raged against her--evil Summer! Bringer of heat stroke, delirium, dehydration, sunburn, and sweaty sheets! Not to mention bored children roaming the sun baked ashphalt streets, home for hours on end out of school for months because of summer vacation. But while I slept, blissfully unaware in a dreamland of fragmented realities, she released her grasp on the world and I awoke to find a chill about my bedroom that was somewhat crisper than the morning before. And I found that I no longer needed to leave my cooler running after eleven pm, and that my room became chilled beyond comfort past 3 am in the morning with the fan running.
This afternoon I spotted my very first yellowing leaf. I smiled. Bring on the plaid! The plaited hair of the young girls as they get ready for their first day of school. Walgreens is selling buy 1 get 2 free of filler paper for 3 hole binders. The end of Summertime, that time that most children dreaded beyond anytime at all but I never did, is almost at hand, and I couldn't be happier. I am awaiting it with gleeful anticipation; my first glug of apple cider, Halloween candy, woodsmoke that comes from a chimney and not a wildfire, the sharp tang of frost in the air, and above all else, coat shopping!

***
A note to my knit sock kit swap partner Vicki! Yes, I recieved your swap! How cool was it! I have to take pictures and upload them but it was awesome thank you. I am soo sorry for not posting sooner that I recieved it! :( Life was crazy last week with finals (please don't get me started) I loved my bag and the Trekking was soo cool, I've never touched or even seen it before so I can't wait to get started. But between you and me, the keychain stole my heart! Thank you thank you thank you!! <;3 )~~ angela

Is it the influence of chick lit gone mad? Have I really been that influenced by the likes of Sophie Kinsella, MaryJanice Davidson, Julie Kenner, and Katie MacAlister? Or have I finally grown up and lost enough weight to enjoy wearing shoes?

Maybe it's a bit of both...

But I will tell you this much: I don't own enought shoes, and I don't spend enought time @ the salon. Mwahahaha. My grandmother is probably smiling down on me from heaven cackling like a demon. Now there is a mixed metaphor if ever there I have written one, and I am guilty of some of the worst. But seriously. Thursday night I was plagued by a dilemma of the worst sort. It was 9:30pm and I was seriously stressed. Waldenbooks was closed and although I had a grande vanilla creme in the cupholder of my car and I was jamming to my 1men playlist (see below) which is almost always guarunteed to calm me down, I was also foaming at the mouth in such a way that would make any National Forest ranger think that I had rabies. I could a. pop into Target for a lovely (and well deserved as I kept myself from decking anybody) trip down the shoe aisle b. drive to Barnes and Noble for some book shopping. Now the problem isn't so much the two options. It's the fact that I actually dwelled on them for a rather long period of time before choosing option b, Barnes and Noble, simply because I have never liked the shoes at Target and Payless seemed to be closed at the time...

Have I gone stark raving mad? Because frankly, between you and me, lately the only place I have begun to consider shopping for shoes is at... the mall. Where the real shoes live.

That's almost like the day I decided that $4.25 for cheap acrylic was a crime when I could spend $8.50 on wool...

1...2...3...


deep breath


IT'S FINALLY FUCKING OVER


NO MORE RACISM 101!!!!!!!!!!!

loooong and tiring day, so what do I do? I decided to put temporary hair dye in my hair and go on cam with a tiara and flamingo earrings in. ALL HAIL THE TRAILER PARK DIVA!!