The Devil Room in our House

I've been telling people for about a month that I'd post some pictures of the new house. Here are some:

There are three things to note in this picture. First, the wood paneling. It's gorgeous. It's really thick, heavy paneling. Some would call it knotty pine, though I'm not in the know about lumber, so I have no idea. Knotty pine? Probably. We ripped it out. Second, the enormous hole in the wall. Would you say that's CRT television size? It is. This is the red-neck flat panel TV. The back half of the TV comes out in the bathroom closet. Oh, and the holes in the wall (there's another one by the back door)? Yeah, they were covered by the previous owner's furniture. The first time we saw them was in the final walkthrough. Third, yes, that is BLACK carpet. Lovely, isn't it? You can see Stoker gathering up the pink carpet from the hallway (pink and black carpet. Who comes up with this crap?). We ripped that out too.

There were black and white vinyl tiles underneath the black carpet. Apparently these kind of tiles may have had asbestos in them, a possibility that we were totally unaware of, as you can see from the photograph. Stoker isn't wearing a respirator or anything (but he IS wearing flip flops. They're great for working on the house). I think the little spots in the photo are absestos floating around (these spots don't show up in the other rooms). Or evil spirits. Honestly, it's always been difficult to take pictures in this room, every image shows up with spots in it. We call this room the devil room. It has a thing for being black (so we're going to paint it white. Or yellow. Take that, you devil room!) and gloomy (the paneling really sucks up the light).

Notice that underneath the vinyl tiles, the floor is completely black. We think that was tar. Underneath the tar was the most perfect hardwood floor ever. It was unbelievable. No dents or scratches. It was immaculate once we sanded the tar up (but since then, as Stoker has been rewiring and dropping tools, it has gotten dented). During the sanding stage we wore masks. But I'm sure the damage was already done to our lungs at that point. The problem with the tile and everything was that the day after we closed, we stopped by the house to see how it looked. Stoker thought he'd dig right in and start tearing everything up. We didn't have a plan and we hadn't consulted anyone about how to do things, so we didn't know that it was a good idea to wear a respirator. But you'll be glad to hear that we wore them when we tore down the hideous acoustic ceiling tiles in the devil room.

Here, you can sort of see the floor underneath the tar. It might have been a good idea to use a paint scraper to get the tar up, but at that point, we were so tired from scraping the paint and glue up in the OTHER two rooms. I think if we could do it over, we would use the drum sander because it's a tougher sanding machine, or so they say. We went through a lot of sandpaper. The worst part about this was that the tar turned into a dust that settled on our hair and skin. Also, the floor took forever to sand. It was very demoralizing.

So all the pictures have Stoker in them. But I worked too, I promise. We took turns sanding and I was the one thinking about pictures, I guess. This room is almost finished. We've already stained it and coated it with polyurethane. The walls have been stripped and rewired, plus we added a wall to split this room. We made a utility room where the back door is, and where it joins the kitchen. Now we just need to put up the drywall.

Sleeping at Work

I could fall asleep right now. I'm sitting at my desk at work and I can barely keep my eyes open. It's very difficult to stay awake while sitting in front of a computer, motionless, reading manuscripts. It's even difficult, lately, when I'm reading the news.

Can you believe the news? When I was a kid, I thought the news had clout. I believed it was The News. But now I see behind the news and it's just the news. Am I the only one who blames Ted Turner and his stupid idea for a 24-hour news channel?

Maybe I'm not eating enough protein in the morning. You've heard, of course, that the experts say that if you want to be alert in the morning, eat protein. They have, and I usually do. Eat protein, that is. But lately the cottage cheese and pineapple hasn't been getting the job done (are there any Texans in the room? They might be able to help) and instead of being alert, it's like I've been tranquilized.

Even now, as I write this sentence, my eyes are closed. But, like I need my eyes open to know that I'm writing the most beautiful words you've ever read. This is the next Great American Novel. The Sleep Chronicles. Yeah, that's a beautiful title. My eyes are now open and I'm re-reading the past four sentences with a smug grin. Gorgeous. I'm very pleased. Perfect wording. Mark Twain would be proud.

Oh man, I just had a dream, it was a soap opera of sorts, the leading lady and her male counterpart were arguing. All I got was this conversation: Him: "Yes, I do." Her: "No you don't." Him: "Yes I do." Her: "NO, you don't." I'm not sure what they were arguing about, but he was standing in the parlor with his hand on the door knob, like he was about to storm out, or maybe leave quietly. It was a dramatic moment. A very pivotal argument. Maybe it's part of The Sleep Chronicles.

I don't know why I'm dreaming soap operas, as far as I know I've never ever gotten through an entire episode in real life. I think my record is two minutes, then I change the channel or turn off the television in disgust. The news is better than a soap opera. A game show re-run is better than a soap opera.

Well, I'm going back to sleep. In a few moments I'll wake up and realize I sleep-posted, that's the blogging equivalent of sleep-walking. And then I'll be tempted to delete it. But I won't. I promise.

Like Unto Insomnia, though Not

I can't sleep. It's not that I have insomnia, it's that I feel like crap. For those who know me, they know I NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, NERVER, never feel like crap. I'm basically a bucket of laughs, a bottle of bubbles, a stick of cotton candy. I'm a very cheerful person. It's just my nature. I'm round and jovial. They call me tons of fun.

So when I come to you like this, at 11:14 pm (so late!), and I tell you that I feel like crap, you must know, instinctively that something is dreadfully wrong. What is wrong is that my spine is on fire and my ear drums are about to implode. Or explode. They're doing both and I have no control of it, as anyone with ears will tell you.

Eustachian tube dysfunction my ass. Well, OK, that must be what it is because I realize my Eustachian tubes are to blame. Where's the Benadryl? I never have any Benadryl when I really need it. I'm not supposed to take it -- a rule imposed by me -- because it turns me into Mr. Hyde the next day. The first day it turns me into a sleepwalker. I'd rather be sleepwalking right now. I wish I had a bumper sticker that read "I'd rather be sleepwalking." It wouldn't be very funny, at least, not as funny as the "I'd rather be goldmining" bumper sticker I once saw. Classic.

The problem is, and I've resigned myself to this, the ears are never going to get better. Apparently the only thing that could really help them is the b.s. allergy shots. Remember the allergy racket post? Turns out, I was right about that! Either the insurance company or the allergist is cheating me. I can't figure out who because they both stick to their stories and their guns and their lies. I tried to strong arm the allergist by sticking to my guns and saying I'd only pay half of the bill they gave me, but they said they don't like that. They don't like that deal.

I haven't the energy to fight back. Is it really worth it? Over what will essentially add up to $140? I have two lawyers in my family, but I seem to have offended one into silence and the other simply told me UHC sucks. So anyway, stupid allergist. I could tell you the whole story but I'm sick of the story. It's exhausted me. Maybe tomorrow. The point is, I'm in the right. So I haven't returned for the allergy shots which aren't really free (there's the rub). I'd have to pay a co-pay every visit! In the long run is it really worth upwards of $2,000? Tonight it feels like it would be. But when this ear-hell episode passes, I'll think otherwise.

Even with all the lies and the cheating and the corruption of insurance companies (bastards!) and the greedy, lying doctors and specialists (bastards!), I still prefer it over socialized health care (commies!).

I just wanted to go one day without passing up the opportunity to use the word commie in a sentence. Sigh. Now I'll be able to sleep.

Al Gore: Phony, or Really Good Guy? And What about that Peace Prize?

Yeah, I think Al Gore is a bit of a phony. He's the toughest kind of phony to really pindown because he's kind of naive about stuff. Like when he said he created the internet (for a full run down on that, see Snopes). Plus he's really great at pretending to be sweet, and nice and all gentlemanly. Or maybe he is really sweet. Either way, the sweetness screams phony to me.

Isn't he just using the platform of climate change as a way to remain in the spotlight? He could have picked any subject, but he chose one that's deliberately impossible to prove with absolute certainty one way or the other, but which has global ramifications. Had he chosen a campaign to save the baiji, the only country immediately affected by it would have been China. That's too small. Though I think it would have done more good than the climate change battle.

I get the feeling that Al Gore really believes people have the power to damage the Earth, and I don't argue with that (though on what scale, we disagree). I think he chose an issue that has united people from all over the world -- so in that sense, he's created a kind of peace, a unity of cause. But there is also a lot of dissension that has been silenced by the easy responses of the "experts" and the "scientists." So Nobel Peace Prize? Maybe. I guess I buy that. But while they're expanding the definition of long established awards, they ought to broaden the scope of literature and include my blog in the running for the Nobel Prize in Literature. I'd even settle for a Pulitzer.

If the climate change theory is a tool that's being used to cause change in human consumption of resources and that alone, fine. Someone should admit that. But if drastic measures are going to be taken that have the potential to cause permanent damage, such as the measures that were proposed during the 1970s global cooling scare, I think Al Gore has unleashed a dangerous fury on humanity. I can't say that I think his motives are altruistic, either, and I guess that's the real reason he strikes me as phony.

Sleep, Read, or Watch T.V.?

Why can't I go to bed earlier? All my life I've been a night person and I really suffer in the mornings, like right now, when I can barely keep my eyes open. I curse the TV. On a nightly basis, Stoker gets home and wants to watch a quick episode of the Simpsons or Futurama, to wind down. The problem is that he falls asleep while watching it, and I'm wide awake laughing.

So then, I'm like, "Wake up! Drink your tea," and he's like, leave me alone. And then we have a comical little tiff wherein he blames me for keeping him awake. Ha ha. So then he goes into the bedroom and I brush my teeth in the bathroom. He sprawls on the bed and falls asleep again. "Did you brush your teeth?" I ask, because really, he might have brushed them an hour ago without me noticing. But now he's asleep again, and this question has woken him. He growls at me.

And then I say real sweetly, "Well, maybe you should just get in bed." And he tells me that he's just going to start going to bed when he's tired. Only he says it like it's a threat, and it'll ruin my life because I always want to watch the Simpsons, every night. By now he's in the bathroom brushing his teeth and his eyes are totally bloodshot from being pried open several times by my rousing conversation.

At this point in the night, after he's fallen asleep everywhere but in bed, under the covers, he's really just sleepwalking*. So I don't hold the childish fit against him, I've been known to have my own bursts of indescribable rage at being woken from my after school nap**. I respond to his "I'll just go to bed when I'm tired" jab with, "Great! I don't care if I don't watch television all night before bed."

Because I really don't. I love Futurama and the Simpsons, but moderation, people. Whatever happened to reading books? I miss books. I try to read a book and it's like pulling teeth. Stoker and I don't keep the same work schedule. Usually I'm home before him. But instead of reading, I run around like mad straightening up the apartment, or as my cousins used to call it, doing my chores. The new habit is to have the television*** on when I'm there alone. It's like a Ray Bradbury book. I have my fake family chattering away in the background and I don't feel so lonely.

How can a book even compete with free television? I can't clean out the cat litter while I'm reading a book, and that's part of the problem. And hey, what's wrong with being alone? Why can't I just enjoy the silence? What's with this dependence on noise?

I don't know. I guess it's habits. It's what you get used to. For so long I was used to being alone. I lived in Salt Lake in a house on a busy street, in a kind of slummy area (Sugar House, the greatest area in Salt Lake City) and I was alone at night quite often. It never bothered me. I used to walk down the street at night to the bookstore or the coffee shop, alone. I had no fear. But HERE, in Nashville, if I'm alone in the apartment and I hear a loud noise, I wish I had a gun.

Anyway, I'd like to read a book instead of watching television. Scrubs is entertaining, for sure, but I can feel my mind melting. Sitcoms do nothing for my intellect. Thousands of words I had learned from my years of bookishness have been replaced by obnoxious buzzwords and rude sitcom banter. That's no way to interact with people—as though you're in a sitcom. Honestly, has anyone else noticed what an effect sitcoms have on their interpersonal relationships?

Lifelong goal: become a morning person. The kind of thoughtful early-riser who sips delicious Celestial Seasonings tea and watches the sunrise color the sky (haven't you always wanted to be THAT person? Like in the coffee commercials, onlyI prefer tea). This WILL take a lifetime, for me.

Immediate goals: go to bed earlier and read books again. Is this possible?




*Remember, he falls asleep ON the bed, without brushing his teeth—and he needs to brush them, we just went to the dentist and they counseled him on not brushing his teeth into oblivion, and yes, floss more.

**"You BITCH." My poor sisters. I was ASLEEP! It's like being held accountable for your dreams. Plus, hello! It was high school. And because it was high school, I got into trouble. Double-dutch trouble, as they say. By the way, Anji, I'm still sorry about that.

*** It's free, like we'd pay for cable, and by free I mean we get about eight stations. Two of them are televangelists.

ABBA: Stress-buster

It's weird how stress makes you not want to work. At least, it makes me not want to work. It makes me want to listen to ABBA and stare at a blank wall, reminiscing about simpler times. Or it makes me want to vacuum vigorously. Clean like there's no tomorrow, or rather, that tomorrow there will be a panel of judges filing through my house to score my work.

Stress makes it difficult to focus. For several weeks the stress has been gathering. I got a cold sore last week, and then wonder of wonders, Cassi got one. Cassi's my youngest sister. She lives in Omaha. She blamed me for the cold sore, claiming that because I told her over gmail chat that I woke up with a cold sore, I cursed her. It seems impossible, but what do I know? I tell her at 9 am that I have a cold sore, at 5 pm she calls to shout into the phone that SHE has a cold sore.

Remember the Simpson's episode where Burns is in a tank outside the Simpson home, about to get revenge on Homer's mother, and Flight of the Valkries is playing (I think that's the piece)? And Burns is like, "I've waited for this day . . . " and he's wearing a helmet and looking all evil and formidable, and then the song suddenly turns into "Waterloo! I was defeated you won the war!" It's ABBA! It kills me. Smithers is like, "I'm sorry sir, I accidentally taped over your song."

Oh man. It's funny on so many levels. I was just thinking about that, because I'm thinking about ABBA and how great ABBA was, and is. Seriously, Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha, and Anni-Frid can't be outdone. They're right up there in the pantheon of rock gods.

We close on the house today. At 2:30. Remember when I was just a little girl writing about how I was in love with Stoker and I resented him for going to California without me, and then he was asking me to marry him, and now here we are, buying a house in Nashville, Tennessee? NASHVILLE! How does that happen? I was in SALT LAKE. Now I'm in TENNESSEE.

That's some crazy shit, that's all. I'm probably the only one who gets it. Well, I'll take some pictures of the house with my disposable camera, then I'll develop the pictures. Then I'll send you copies. I'm technologically backwards. I don't know how to post with pictures. Everyone else has their digital SLR. I have my camera, which is constructed of paper.

I Really AM Thrilled about the House in Nashville

I've been swamped at work. One of my (lazy-ass) coworkers left the company and I inherited one of his projects. Needless to say he had only done a small fraction of it. I was also in the midst of two other projects and so now I feel like I'm treading water, trying to get through them but going nowhere.

We close on the house on Friday. Thrilling. No, really, I'm thrilled. But a part of me just really wants to retreat to Utah. I blame the recent developments in my allergies on Nashville, and yesterday I found out that my allergist is charging ME for the allergy shots (immunotherapy) that I was doing. It's very shady. After the allergy test when they said I should do the shots, they told me my insurance would cover the shots. I didn't really want to do the shots. But, the prospect of perhaps getting over allergies at some point . . . and hell, if the insurance is going to pay for it . . . so I went ahead with it.

Do you think I would agree to pay for an allergy shot once a week? Hell no. Plus I have to drive to the hospital for the shot. I would have done the sublingual drops instead (insurance does NOT cover the drops. But is this really so different from NOT PAYING for the shots? The difference is the lie, so, NO), which I believe I could give to myself, from home. Anyway, I'm going to tell the doctor they can duke it out with my insurance company, since both of them seem to have lied to me.

I didn't have this ear problem in Utah or Arizona, though I HAVE had allergies my entire life. So, does it make sense why I'd want to go back to the mold-free desert? Yes? Good.

To sum up: house - Friday; allergies - racket, lying doctors; Utah - oasis; stray cat - new cat.

Oh yeah, I ran into a starving stray cat. A kitten really. We took her home. Too many animal ghosts haunting me for what I didn't do.

The Allergy Racket

Did I ever mention that I finally got tested for allergies? After 28 years of year-round suffering, the results weren't surprising or anything. They told me I'm allergic to nearly everything they tested for. The P.A. who spoke to me afterwards seemed to think she was telling me something new, like, "You're very allergic to everything." Laughable.

The reason I finally submitted to being tested was because I finally had insurance, and also because my ears have been popping all the time for over a year now. I think I've written about this before. Anyway, it's incredibly annoying and sometimes painful. Eustachian tube dysfunction, is what it's called. I asked the P.A. about it, "Would the allergy shots stop my ears from hurting," I asked. Then she pointed to an illustrated chart on the wall depicting the inner ear and Eustachian tube, "This is a Eustachian tube. They're a narrow opening between the inner ear and the throat."

By then I felt like slapping her. I don't have a lot of patience for stupidity, but that's the only thing I'm not patient with. Everything else, rush hour traffic, beggars/scam artists, celebrity gossip, I'm patient with (that's funny because it's not true!). Just because I'm not a P.A. or an M.D., doesn't mean I'm stupid. Right then I could have talked circles around her about Eustachian tubes and semicircular canals and the stapes and the malleus and the incus, because I HAVE STUDIED IT OUT.

I don't know, maybe there are some people who don't try to figure out what's going on with their body before they go to the doctor. As for me, I spend a lot of time typing search words like "fatigue+bruising" and "insomnia+heightened body temperature" into Google. If you type some of those search strings into Google, be prepared to confront search results such as AIDS or MS or any other incurable, deadly disease, including Leukemia. I suggest more specific terms and remember, remain calm.

But since I do a lot of researching like that, I rarely feel the need to go to the doctor to confirm anything. I think doctors are a racket. Especially prescription drugs. Never mind that I'm finally on an inhaler that has pretty much put an end to my constant allergies (except for the ear problem), what bothers me is that I HAVE to go to a doctor to get a prescription for a drug that I'm never going to NOT need. That's why it's a racket.

And I feel that this particular area is a racket: the allergy business. So I get tested and the P.A. introduces me to the Eustachian tubes, after all my years of wondering (of course) if the throat is connected to the ear. Then she tells me, "I wanted to meet with you, in particular, because you are SO allergic to EVERYTHING we tested you for. You had the highest possible response to everything: mold, dust mites, grasses." And then she tells me she wants me to start on the allergy shots right away, which should be no problem because they're fully covered by my insurance.

We fight for minute over my cats, because I am honest when she asks if I have cats and yes, they sleep in my bedroom if they want to. There's no settling the argument, because I'm not going to lie and say, "Yes, I'll get an air filter and stop letting my cats into the bedroom."

She clearly doesn't understand that the cats might as well be little humans in my esteem, and locking them out of a certain room would be tantamount to locking a child in a closet. Sure, the cat looks like a cat, but in my heart the cat's basically human. I think they call this anthropomorphism and I think it can go the other way too. My cats clearly don't delineate between me being a human and them being cats. We're the same. We're a clan.

Someday I'll learn to lie when it's appropriate. For now they call me Honest Abe. I have buckled and am doing the allergy shots. That simpering P.A. told me I won't start to see results for about four weeks. This week I asked the nurse when I'll see results. She said, "Hmm, you know, six months, maybe a year."

Do you smell a racket? The office is set up on certain days just for shots. Not knowing what the norm is for responses to the allergens—as far as I know, it's normal to get an 11 from Bermuda/bahia grass— the doctors could tell everyone that they score the highest possible rating for each allergen and they need to start the shots right away, and it should be no problem because it's fully covered by insurance.

The only reassurance I have is that I know my body. I AM allergic as hell to EVERYTHING.

Red Like a Red Crayon.

No surprises here. I got this quiz from Jodi.

What color is your soul painted? Red Your soul is painted the color red, which embodies the characteristics of love, strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection, excitement, speed, leadership, power, danger, and respect. Red is the color of the element Fire, and is associated with blood, life and death, birth, volcanoes, and intense emotions. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

My Greatest Hits

Nine of my favorite posts ever (not it order of greatness):

Blessed Brown Bananas — Back in the old days, I was a better writer, as you can clearly see. I think it has to do with having gone straight from college to writing a blog. Higher education really does make a difference.

Things Not to Do in the Workplace Bathroom — I was at my best here, I really was. Incidentally I've again run into the problem of women putting on makeup in the bathroom at work. She uses Aquanet. That explains everything.

Surcharge My Ass — How hard is it to see a good show for cheap? Very. That's why I stopped going.

Stoked on Stoker — I like to remember how neurotic I was in the beginning with Stoker. Sometimes the only way to make it through the hard times is to remember how your relationship is its own love story.

7 Reasons MSN Sucks — They really do. Oh, and another one that just dawned on me, when I log into my Hotmail account there's that annoying entry page, which is really just an advertising scam. Gmail rules.

Old and Fat — Yeah, still feel this way. But getting rid of the bastards, at least trying. As you may know, it's a million times harder to lose weight than it is to put weight on. Unless you're one of those freaks of nature who have to buy weight gainers just to break 130. Jerks.

Pink. Purse. — The day I really became a feminine girl.

Hair — In case you're wondering, I still suffer from psychological and emotional turmoil based on what my hair does from one day to the next.

Does this Mullet Match My Moustache? — You can never have too many entries about hair, especially when it comes to mullets.