stressed

It's 2 pm.

Today we picked up the stray cat that lives in the fixture cage behind my Wal-Mart. We took it and Cocoa to the vet, where they both got shots, and we learned that the gray cat is a nine-year-old female American shorthair who tests negative for feline leukemia and feline AIDS. She'd been declawed and probably spayed too, but not microchipped.

They're not getting along.

The washer, dryer and dishwasher are running, as is the vacuum in the garage downstairs, where Patrick is busily cleaning the car of all the fur. The cat's been crying nonstop since we got home. Cocoa's whining, not knowing who or what this new thing is, why it's making the sounds that it does, and why it won't stop.

~*~*~*

I lost my voice Thursday night over dinner with the in-laws. I called in sick yesterday, with sore throat, and slept through most of the day. I'm still not entirely well. My music class is on Tuesdays instead of Mondays, which gives me just three more days to get my voice back.

My usual disease is back: that feeling that everything takes too much effort, that it's all so much more trouble than it's worth, and that I really shouldn't even bother.

I have sensitive skin.

Who knew?

The $7 foundation I smeared on for the fashion show left me with tiny adult acne all across my forehead, and a large red bump on the tip of my nose that instantly brings to mind Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer. Thankfully, no one at the store commented on my new growth. Until today, that is, and only because Ate Jerushah wanted to commiserate.

Customers have been most kind. Yesterday some old guy approached me, asking where the desk clocks were. I gave him directions, after which he apologized, "I knew that. You know men -- we look for any excuse to talk to a pretty lady."

This isn't vanity, in case you were wondering. It's just incredible and humbling that even on a week when I have particularly bad skin and frizzy hair, I get unexpected compliments. And yeah, I can't help but think that maybe I just look like I need them.

CNBC.com's Million-dollar portfolio challenge

My portfolio's been doing...alright, these past few days. Last week I'd invested $250k and, with about $750k in cash I was in the top 31% of players. By Monday, having spent all my money, I was down to the top 83rd.

Having offloaded some losers and bought up Zoltec (ZOLT), SanDisk (SDK), and Fremont (FMT), I've risen to the 57th percentile.

~*~*~*

In other news, I'm sort of in a fashion show at the Hyatt Regency this Saturday. And, I want these shoes:


Dune Pancake

Currently 75 British pounds, or 105 euros
Via Shoewawa.

PS- Tomorrow is free iced coffee day at Dunkin'. Enjoy!

loneliness

It's 2 a.m., and I'm wide awake.

I talk to so many people now in the course of my day, and yet I am lonely.

Cocoa puked on the rug and there are dirty dishes in the sink and it seems that all I ever do is invisible work.

I'm so tired of people saying I don't work.

I don't know anymore what it would take for a rewarding and fulfilling life. It seems like it all requires so much effort, and that it would be so much simpler to fast-foward to the end of it all. How many sleeping pills would it take, I wonder absently.

I'm not suicidal. I'm just bored. And, just maybe, in despair.

He left angry, and I find myself once again wondering what has become of our marriage. He will be back in a few hours, insisting he was merely annoyed, and that I trouble my head too much about such things.

I worry we are growing apart. I am the one who's changing, so I guess I'm growing away from him. There is a push-pull that comes with it -- you don't wake up overnight and find yourself completely remade. There are justifications, subtle jabs, prevarications, and the sad, quiet days when there is nothing to do but lay down and let it all run your over. If only you could see it coming, you think. But no, things are never the way we'd like them to be, are they? They are interspersed with calm days and giddy days and surprisingly normal-like-the-old-days happy times that make the rest of it that much worse, smoothing things over so the next wave will catch you completely by surprise.

I tell myself that the waiting has got to go, and that for as long as I still look to be cared for, I will never be happy. But the old me waited and wanted to be coddled and was, for a long time, happy.

Or maybe there are just the growing pains that come with this latest self-reinvention. I will weather these changes. I will let them pass.

4 wisdom teeth extracted today.

All I've had to eat since dinner last night has been one bottle of Ensure, a single Lay's potato chip and the filling from one Totino's pizza roll.

I was in the dentist's office at 12:40 pm, and all done by 1:30. Got home and slept till 5, and am fine for the most part. If I feel like I have gauze in my mouth, it's because I do.

Two of the extracted teeth came out whole and quite pretty. The other two had to be removed in two large pieces.

At this point I'm only taking penicillin, and rinsing every 6 hours with chlorhexidine gluconate. I have hydrocodone tabs on standby in case I need them for pain, and promethegan suppositories in case the hydrocodone makes me nauseous. Luckily I'm not in any pain.

irresistibly cute pumps!

Introducing Scottie, by Charles Albert. $34 at Delias.com
Via Shoewawa.

In multicolor plaid,


Monochrome plaid,


And black-and-white:

i don't mean to be a stranger

For the most part I've been bombarding myself with all kinds of music. What's been sticking:

Lisa Tucker's AI rendition of "Signed, Sealed, Delivered"
Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow's "Picture" duet
Rod Stewart's Great American Songbook series
KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"

Mondays I now have an early potluck dinner with the (mostly Filipino) 5 pm crowd at work. Tomorrow's menu is paella valenciana, chicken and pork adobo, carrot-raisin salad and fruit salad. I'm thinking of throwing together a strawberry-spinach salad.

I don't think I ever mentioned Martha. She's my new favorite trainer, leading the Thursday Define classes at my gym. She's five-foot nothing and solid muscle: cut but not ripped. I die every Thursday but come back for more the following week, in hopes that by the time I reach her age I will have abs like hers.

In other news, Friday was blondes-in-Uggs day. I clocked in from lunch to find a handful of male coworkers helping a pretty schoolteacher with pin-straight hair shop the Stationery bins. WTF? Customers are not allowed in the backroom, but there she was, with a couple of sales associates and two assistant managers, looking for supplies for her grade-school class or something.

I got home early and took Cocoa for a walk. We passed a lady in tan Uggs and matching too-short skirt picking a fight with some guy for not being there when she arrived, or not giving her a key or something, making her look like a Friday booty call.