Things I am thankful for:

1)  I had the guts to chop off my hair.  It’s still taking a great deal of getting used to, but I’m really enjoying the length.  Takes about 15 to blow-dry in the morning.  Even less time to wash and condition.  My formerly long hair had been forcing me into a 30 min shower just to make sure all the shampoo and condition were rinsed out.

2) My husband.  It’s been 10 years since we found each other at Theoryland.  9 since we started dating, and 6 since we got married.  With or without kids, my love, I’ll be happy growing old with you.

3) We have the werewithal to get out of debt. Finally.  (I’m going to ignore the fact that we may have to just fall right back into it if we have to resort to IVF.)  It’ll take patience and hard work, but it is currently doable.  A lot more than it used to be.

4) Our friends.  I grew up with no friends.  I was a high school loner.  Then I moved to Texas and was welcomed with open arms by my cousin Joyce.  She helped me come out of my shell and that eventually led me to join Chi Omega.  Currently, the Wolfking (Hope he likes that designation, or I’ll have to go back to the drawing board) and I are living in a wonderful neighborhood with a lot of other couples around our age and either starting families or trying to.   It’s a lot of fun knowing your neighbors like we know ours.

5) Our extended family.  Mine drives me nuts and drives me to drink, frequently.  But, I wouldn’t trade them for anything.  The Wolfking’s familyis going to come down for Turkye Day on Wednesday.  I’m truly grateful for their acceptance of and love for me.

6) My thyroid is finally working again and woke up my pituitary glad.  So, my endocrine system is fully functional, I think.  Might be able to get pregnant without help next year.   Or as least no more help than Clomid.

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

When I first moved here in 1990, the relief from my allergies was extreme.  My two biggest triggers, ragweed and cottonwood trees couldn’t grow in the Houston area because the conditions weren’t right.  It was generally too wet for ragweed to grow properly and the soil too acidic from all the pine trees and too clay-ey for the cottonwoods.  While the soil hasn’t changed from the clay, somehow, Houston has gotten drier in the last few years and the pine trees have been cut back from recent developments.  The ragweed has invaded in force.

I’d noticed it getting worse as the years went on, more and more fields of that nasty yellow-flowered plant were invading.  And my allergies have gotten MUCH worse.   So, when I used to look forward to autumn in Houston because of the cool, sunny days and the low humidity, I’m now dreading the rest of the season because I can’t breathe normally from the junk this prolific plant sprays into the air in the name of reproduction.

DOWN WITH RAGWEED!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m terrified of having more than one child at once. But yet, in December, if not sooner, I’ll start taking Clomid. I’m not really sure of the stats of multiple births from Clomid, I just know it’s a bit higher than with unassisted conception. And if that doesn’t work, the hormone shots raise the probability of a multiple birth even higher, and if those don’t work… well, IVF is the last step and we’ve all heard of the Octomom.

Thing is, I’m friends with two sets of parents with twins. One was “natural,” for lack of a better term, the other was IVF. Watching those parents with those kids is daunting. None of the four of them seem to have enough hands at any one time to deal with their twins. I don’t denigrate their parenting abilities, far from it. I just watch them and wonder if I could that good a job, or will my kids be the kind on the 6 o’clock news some day?

Age, in this case, has nothing to do with it. Both sets or parents are older than Tim and I. And the twins are the first born. Tim and I are set up for kids, for the most part. We’re trying to have a few less debts to pay simply because day care is going to be so awfully expensive, but we’re old enough and secure enough and we own our own house, which I guess, is more than most couples just starting out.

I’ve also gotten the whole, “Relax, kids will happen,” speech. Nothing pisses me off more. (OK, well, there are lots of things that do, but the list is too long. We’ll just say it’s in the top 20.) Kids won’t happen. Not by themselves. My thyroid went on strike sometime in my 20’s leaving me with endometriosis and a wacked out endocrine system, I also caught every single infection and virus that was around to be caught. My hormones haven’t been right since college. Which means the only thing regulating my cycles was The Pill. And when I went off five years ago so we could start working on kids, the fit hit the shan, hormonally speaking. I’m not yet experiencing anxiety over it. I am trying to come to terms with never having kids, but I’m not freaking out over it. Occasionally, it’ll back up on me, though: for instance, with my nephew, Velociraptor who wasn’t planned at all for my sister. But he’s a precious human being and a little stinker. Sometimes, literally. Or sometimes, in church with all the little kids dressed in their Sunday Best and looking adorable. Sometimes, someone’s story will hit me in just the right spot and I’ll start bawling. But for the most part, it doesn’t affect my daily life. I never wanted to be 50 something for my kid’s high school graduation, but if I keep up my workout routine now, I at least won’t FEEL 50.

Maybe having kids later in life is a good thing. It’s a reminder that I’m going to have to live a lot longer so I can see my grandchildren grow up. It’s a goal to be able to be functional at an older age than my grandparents were. As long as my thyroid doesn’t kill me, that is. But then, there’s no reason for it to. They caught the malfunction early, earlier than in even my mother and grandmother, so it may not get as bad as it did for them. Maybe God’s purpose in not giving Tim and me children earlier was so that my thyroid problem could be found and treated to its fullest extent.

Tonight’s my day off from running, plus it’s raining cats and dogs. Tomorrow, Tim promised to go with me, at least to walk. So, I’ll probably walk with him with the dogs and then go for my run, taking pride in the fact that an asthmatic with thyroid issues and a bad back is running two and half miles.

The problem with this blog is that I set a lot of restrictions on myself. And I had to. I don’t want to include work. I want to keep as much of my marriage private as possible. I don’t gossip about my friends and I like to avoid political diatribes. So… I’m left with writing about writing and writing about pop culture and my extended family.

And I don’t like writing about my extended family, either.

And I’m back to the writing about writing. I don’t mind that, but I’ll bet my only two readers would get tired of it. Quickly.

As far as writing goes, as y’all know, I’ve found a good idea for an urban fantasy. The vampires will stay evil, for now, at least. There will be no real love interest right away, at least not for the main character. It takes place in Houston. Because this is the city I know best. Heck, it may even be set in Clear Lake. I did grow up there, after all.

I do have some questions I want to ask my two loyal readers.

Do you enjoy urban fantasy? If so, who’s your favorite author and what’s your favorite book/series? What do you like about it? What makes a good urban fantasy world?

I think that I live with Wizards. Or possibly, I am one myself. Nothing else can explain the extreme run of electronic bad luck we’ve had this month.

First, two weeks ago, the screen to the laptop died. Not the laptop itself. THAT is fine, but the screen. So in order to use it, we have to treat it like a CPU and attach a monitor and a keyboard and mouse. At least until we can afford a new one.

Then, while Tim was out of town, the graphics card in our massive CPU dies. It was a $3000 paperweight for about a week till we found one on sale at Best Buy.

Then, on Friday, we’re getting ready for Nerd Night. There was pizza and beer a plenty. The Lizard was actually in a good mood, as was Tim, and The Queen was drinking a lot of beer to get over wanting to murder her physics professor. Replete with beer and pizza, we settled down for a nice friendly night of Guitar Hero (and listening to The Lizard bitch about Emo Music), when the graphics go all wonky and turn photonegative in spots. Optimistic, we reboot the XBOX 360.

The screen won’t turn on. At all.

Uh oh.

You see, this XBOX360 was the SECOND one we’d bought. We bought our first one back when it first came out. That one had the Dreaded Red Ring Of Death. We’d gotten the replacement policy with Best Buy back then and the thing died two weeks before the policy expired. We got the Halo Edition in exchange, AND bought a new replacement policy. Friday, when the 360 died, we packed it up, found the old receipt and discovered we had one MONTH left on the replacement policy and took it back to Best Buy. They’d apparently not had it returned in a while and were unsure of what to do to compensate us. So, they refunded us the whole amount of the Halo Edition and we got an Elite in exchange.

Now, we just have to replay all the games to get our achievements back.

The Queen is required to stay 50’ away from all electronics.

Also, I hope there’s no more hurricanes in the near future till they fix our power grid beyond the gerry-rigged piece of shite they’re passing it off as.

Tim was looking for his shoes last night while we were getting ready to go find a new graphics card.  I found them and pointed them out.  Unfortunately, I was standing near the staircase when I said, “There they are.”  I turned to go get my own shoes and instead of turning away from the staircase, I turned in to it.

You guessed it, I clocked my knee.  It hurt so much for a few minutes, I thought I was going to throw up.

I am officially the clumsiest person I know, and that includes an ex-dancer who forgets where her feet end.

My knee hasn’t yet turned purple, so it’s gonna be a bad one.

If you’re a fan of Twilight in any capacity, stop reading NOW.

You’ve been warned.

Stop reading.

OK, last chance…..

I have never watched nor read anything that would have every single Suffragist and Women’s Rights Activist spinning in her grave as much as this book/movie. But, the ideological issues are not the biggest problem I have with this novel & movie. There are plenty of reasons to hate it on technical merits.

1) The Lack of Plot: Yes, the romance can be the plot in and of itself; but only if there are OBSTACLES to said romance. Even Romeo and Juliet had to deal with their parents. There was a bad-guy vampire. I do not know why he wasn’t used more, other than Meyers’ lack of experience or squeamishness. Using him wouldn’t have taken away from the romance; it would have added to it and perhaps shown why Edward was worth Bella’s longing and pain. If I’d written it, James would have been stalking Bella from the first. Maybe because she smelled good to him, too. Maybe because he really wanted to piss off the Cullens. Maybe because he’s just an asshole. The reasons are myriad. Edward would have been a bit too late occasionally to rescue our useless heroine, making her use her brain, perhaps? Maybe Jacob could have done something like grown a backbone a bit earlier and also rescued her at least once. Because stopping a sliding car one-handed while cool, is really rather tame by today’s vampire stories standards. Either way, the villain would have been a part of the story from the beginning, not put in as an afterthought because Meyer’s couldn’t figure out how to end the story without some sort of fight scene. Which Edward nearly lost.

2) The Weak Characterization of Bella: In the novel, this girl is a Mary Sue. And arrogant about it. She mothers her mother, she mothers and bosses around her father, who seems slavishly content to let her because omgmydaughtercamebacktome! Instead of, you know, parenting. I dunno if any of you know any cops in person, but being bullied by their kids doesn’t happen all that often. She bullies and bosses around her friends.  But, this seemingly strong-willed girl turns into a hormonal mush at the very sight of a boy who, for all intents and purposes HATES her. He sneers at her, he avoids her, he looks at her like he’s going to throw up. So why didn’t she just tell him to take a flying leap when he starts being nice to her. She’s got half the school boys throwing themselves at her, but she’s not interested. She’d rather have the overly pale guy who hates her take her to the prom than one of the many cute boys any other girl would be glad of. Instead she plays match maker to get them off her back so she can moon over The Boy Who Hates Her. Instead, of you know, telling him off. Elizabeth Bennett didn’t tolerate such nonsense from Mr. Darcy without telling him what she thought of him. Why couldn’t Bella tell Edward to stop being a dick? Or JUST STOP TALKING TO HIM, period until he had to rescue her from the big bad vampire stalker James? (And yes, feminism aside, most romances require the hero to rescue the heroine at least once.)

3) The Weak Characterization of Edward: First off, why sentence the poor boy to be perpetually 17? Couldn’t he be 21? Second, why have the younger vampires reenroll in high school umpteen million times? Why not let them be “homeschooled?” It’s not like they did a lot of socialization while attending high school. And now, the actual character flaws. Why would someone as old as Edward be interested in Bella? At least Spike and Angel lusted after Buffy because she was The Slayer, not because she smelled nice and was 16. I’m the last one to object to age differences, sometimes you just click. But usually, there’s something unusual about the parties in question, like the aforementioned Slayer. There was nothing special about either Bella or Edward. There weren’t even any important events surrounding their meeting, like the signing of the treaty with the werewolves, or the arrival of the Cullens. Actually, I can’t really complain about Edward’s characterization because we’re not given any. He’s defined entirely through a 16 year old’s eyes. And frankly, 16 year olds are rather shallow. He’s pretty, he’s cold, he’s rescued her, he’s mysterious. He calls her spider-monkey (seriously, wtf?), he glowers lovingly out from under his brows…. Oh, and he glitters in sunlight and likes music. Oh, and as he keeps telling Bella, while still stalking her, “Stay away from me, I’m dangerous.” Just ONCE, I wanted her to tell him, “Hey, dumbass, who just walked up to whom, here? Why don’t you leave ME alone, since you’re so dangerous?”

The cultural implications of Twilight should be fairly minor, I hope. I doubt there are bevies of teenaged girls who now think stalking or being stalked is cool in real life. However, I do worry that this novel, along with the Disney Princesses crap, our daughters are going to grow up believing that Prince Charming really will rescue them from their dreary, rainy existence.

Because frankly, girls, ain’t no one gonna rescue you from a car sliding out of control across an icy parking lot, try moving the fuck out of the way.

After all, when Anakin and Padme Skywalker make more sense than your romance, you’ve got some problems.

I didn’t get to cut off my hair, darnit. But we still went to Austin for Tim’s friend J’s birthday. A two-and-a-half-hour drive took four hours due to some jackasses who had to rubber-neck some guy getting his tire changed on the side of the road on a four-lane highway. It was J’s 30th birthday, so he invited us and all their high school friends over for a party. It wasn’t a wild thing, by any means.

After a rousing game of Battle of the Sexes, which the girls won, naturally, there were tequila and vodka shots. And because my stomach lining has stopped speaking to me long ago, I had one of each. I lost count of the beers, though. Met J’s girlfriend, who is the same age I am, coincidentally. I dunno what it is, but Tim goes and gets an older woman, all his buddies follow suit. (hehe) (PJ’s dating a woman 16 years HIS senior. One-upper. )

I got along well with both women, so it was good to talk to at least two others who don’t think I’m odd for marrying/dating a man 6 years my junior (or more).

Saturday, we go to PJ’s dojang to watch him teach a class. He’s a black belt in Tukong Musool (sp?), a Korean style of martial arts. Tim and J got to be practice dummies. They spent the rest of the weekend whining about their sore hands. (OK, not really, but it’s funnier that way.) Good news is, they both want to go back to martial arts. Bad news is, while J can drop in on PJ’s classes, Tim cannot. So, gotta find someplace where Tim feels comfortable and that will help him with his leg.

We reluctantly cut our trip short by a day, but only because Tim has to go out of town for training for a week.

So, I’m going to cut off my hair tomorrow.  It won’t be too short, since I have a tendency to ‘fro (without a LOT more work than I’m willing to put in) when it’s anywhere between a pixie and a bob.  So, it’ll probably end up about mid neck in length.  Right now, it’s down past my shoulder blades.  I can tell from the texture, though, that a shorter cut is necessary ASAP.  My hair is fried from dying it blonde for a few years.  OK, 5 years.  Without a break.

Cutting it short would do two things.  It would get rid of the fried stuff.  It would also allow me to grow out the dye.  I have two reasons for wanting to do that.  It’s apparently bad for a pregnancy to dye your hair during it.  The chemicals can apparently travel through your blood stream and through the placental wall.  I don’t know how accurate this theory is, but I think when I finally do get pregnant, the kid’s going to have enough trouble without my adding challenges to his existence.

Also, I went gray at 25-26.  I am curious as to how far the gray has gone.  It’s also gotten quite dye resistant.  Which is one of the reasons I went blonde.  In the blonde hair, it looks like highlights.  When I’m my normal ash blonde/auburn, it stands out for what it is. Gray.  I do not look old enough to be gray yet.  Tim doesn’t look old enough to have a wife with gray hair yet, either.

I haven’t had short hair in quite some time.  Since Middle School, I think.  It’ll be interesting to care for, that’s for sure.  I’d like to try to find a dye close to my natural color till all the dye grows out, but I haven’t yet found anything remotely  resembling my normal calico hair color.

I’m nervous about cutting off that much, though.  I like my long hair.  I like the weight of it, the way it feels when it touches my arms.  I’ll miss it, until I grow it back out, that is.  My hair does grow quickly.  Almost abnormally so.  But still, it almost feels like I’ll be having a major organ removed.   One that’s a bit rusty and overused, but still a major part of me.  But unlike an organ, my mane will grow back.

Maybe if I keep saying that, I’ll believe it.

I had to take a couple days off from the new novel. Our laptop broke. So, Tim’s been using the big computer to play Guild Wars and I’ve been doing a lot of chores around the house. The inspiration is still sticking with me, however, and I’m trying to arrange things so that I can concentrate tonight.

In the meantime, I’m working on a longer post that will let my geek flag fly a little higher. You’ll see. Maybe it’ll make you groan; maybe you’ll laugh or call me stupid. Or all of the above.

In the meantime, I’ve worked at my company for 10 years and they still can’t spell my name right.  Ah, well, as long as it’s spelled right on my paychecks!