June 17, 2003

It seems like so long since I wrote.  It was quite a stretch there where I wrote very nearly every week day, for what?  Three months or so?  I love writing in this journal.  It's so... cathartic.  I guess that's what journals are supposed to do and online journals are particularly purging because it's a matter of stepping out of the shadows and saying that you are going to be open and not have any dark corners or words unsaid. 

I never knew how verbose I was until I started this journal, blathering away about the mundane things (and otherwise) going on in my life.  I open and page here and the words just start flowing even when they won't on the other pages, like the soap  stuff.

I don't really want to talk about what's going on with Eric being out of work for 3 weeks now with rent and bills imminent.  He's angry all the time.  I have a migraine all the time and I'm working my ass off to find the grace and spiritual solution to this.  The kids act like they have PMS and are emotional and volatile.  The days are melting away, one into another and in some ways, it seems like we're growing further and further apart.  I'm stuck with kids all of the time (wired kids, I should say).  When he's here, he's angry; when he's gone, I'm trying to keep kids from pinging off the walls and each other.

So that's all I want to say about that until more happens.

Little dog is a week and a half gone now, so I guess she was just a visitor.  What a sweetie she was.

Speaking of pets, last night was another emotional mess.  Eric came back around 10pm and asked if I'd seen Creep (Josh's cat).  I hadn't in a while and he said there was a cat on Garfield (main drag by our house) that looked exactly like him.  Well, crap.  Eric took a flashlight and walked back down, then returned, saying he couldn't tell because the cat was so mangled.  He asked if I'd come out and look and I just couldn't.  There was too much pain and fear going on in my life to deal with the loss of a really sweet pet.  After he left to go get the cat and bury it, I realized that I owed Josh a positive ID, so I went outside just as he was returning.  I looked at what was left of the very putrid cat and knew it had to be him.  The markings (what was left of them) were identical.  I went inside for a good cry and Eric set about burying the cat.  He'd just finished the hole (He asked me where I wanted him buried and I told him just in some out of the way place, so he chose the middle of the front yard - go figure), when Creep walked up, sniffed the dead cat and gave Eric a, "Whatcha doin there, bud?" look.  I was never so happy to see a cat in my life.  I took him inside and Delena brushed his fur while I opened our last can of tuna for him (it was packed in oil, so I could afford to lose it).  Talk about dodging a bullet.

Today, after General Hospital went off, I was stunned by my degree of revulsion for the show "The Other Half."  I used to watch the show regularly until Dr Phil started coming on at the same time on NBC.  I never thought much of it, blowing off Danny Bonaducci's flailing, over-the-top histrionics, Mario Lopez's "aw shucks, aren't I cute" shtick and Dick Clark's grandfatherly "now boys!" approach to little more than stage mannerisms.  For some reason, probably some festering man-hate that has yet to manifest in little more than an intensified awareness of how different "they" are and an increased appreciation for man jokes, today they all just hit me wrong.  ABC has never pretended that they weren't a rip off of "The View."  I used to watch "The View" until they all started to get on my nerves in various ways.  "The View" always struck me as a somewhat natural situation.  Four women with very different personalities and filters sitting around a table with hot, steaming mugs of whatever, talking about the hot topics, laughing together and bringing in friends throughout the visit. 

"The Other Half," on the other hand, seems contrived and almost painful.  Four men who would likely have nothing to do with one another in private life are pushed together onto barstools (how appropriate is that?) to talk about some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard.  If they were going to put them in easy chairs, hand them a beer and a remote and televise every belch and fart, it would be more real.  If they put all three in coveralls and stuck them under the hood of a different vehicle every day, that might make sense.  Instead, they put them in drag or get them to try different waxing (legs, not cars) products, talk about their feelings and conduct interviews with the sluttiest looking psychologists and __________ (fill in the blank with whatever expert specialist is needed for the days fare) they can find.  What is the point of this?  Are real men supposed to watch this show and identify with what these chimps are doing?  Are women supposed to be feeling that men are somehow identifying with who we are and the lives we live by their designated proxies wobbling around in high heels?  They air this and take off Iyanla? 

I think I'm jaded.

I had such a fright this weekend.  I was posting items to the site Saturday night right around 11pm and on one "save" I got the prompt "folder cannot be found or does not exist.  ??!  I figured it was some Front Page glitch, so I saved my changes locally, then rebooted.  Same thing when I tried to log onto my site to update.  No such folder found.  Went to the website.  Gone.  WTF?  It persisted through a half hour or so, so I called up tech support and was told by a lovely woman that *gasp* my home directory had somehow been deleted.  That meant *gulp* my site was gone.  I knew I didn't have it backed up anywhere.  Not a word, not a keystroke, anywhere.  I knew I still had the columns from my writers in my mail files where they'd been sent and could recreate, but all of my work and likely all of Sage's would just be gone.  We both compose right on Microsoft Front Page and save directly to the site.  This,  my friends, is why it's not a good plan to work that way.  Tania, my tech gal, said she'd call me back within  a half hour and let me know if they found anything.  I waited an hour, then called again.  She'd tried to call, but my Privacy Manager had booted her out.  They still had no news, but were working on it and she'd call me back in a half hour.  My panic was rising.  I couldn't imagine losing 3 years of work just like that, because someone at the web host company screwed up.  I stretched out on the couch and thought about how to proceed.  With Eric glaring his disapproval almost every time I sat down to the computer, I knew there was no way I could build and archive and create more than a shell.  I decided I would only print new stuff and screw the archives.  I worked out in my head how I'd do it to conserve time.  Yes, I even thought about taking it as a sign from the heavens to just dump the whole site and re-enter the world again without a keyboard attached to my hands. 

After two hours, I called back and learned Tania had gone home!!  Dennis assured me all  of my files were in place and my file path was screwed up.  Site would be back up the next morning when their little NOC guy came in and corrected the file path.  Since I knew he wasn't going to walk into the office, slap himself in the head and shriek, "Eye on Soaps is down!!!" and get right to it, I expected it done by noon or so.  It was up by 9:30am.  *whew*  I was never so happy to see blue in my life.  The page was up and down through Sunday, then down almost all yesterday.  Turns out they were having some trouble with the server where my site is parked and now it's fixed.  Of course, as soon as the site was up and running on Sunday, I backed up everything in my hard drive and on CD.  Dodged that bullet too.

These two incidents, the cat and the site, definitely are connected.  I guess it's something like appreciating what you have or having to be willing to let go of something to get it back.  Regardless, my head hurts.

I got really excited when I saw that Excedrin had a pain reliever specifically for tension headaches in the head, neck and shoulders, which is exactly where mine hit.  Ran to the store and found that they were on sale for $5.00, $3.00 off the regular price!  Looked a the active ingredients and my heart fell.  500mg acetaminophen and  50mg of caffeine.  >:<  Since a Pepsi has about 40mg of caffeine in it and a Tylenol has 500mg of acetaminophen in it, this was no big whoop.  Dammit.  I thought I was onto something.  Went home and took two more Tylenol.

Kiddies are clamoring (not for me, for the computer... I'm nothing more than a glorified ATM that spits out whatever they need:  food, computer time, a cup of Kool-aid, clean undies), so I should go.

Say your prayers, folks.  Katrina's not going to crack, but she might split a bit.

Much love,