Another awesome picture from Mom and Dad's photo albums.

SWOON..

So the only thing more awesome than getting strep on your day off is picking up a COLD the next day, and therefore spending the weekend sneezing and sweating and frantically googling phrases like "dear sweet buttery jesus why is my nose running like a faucet".

Yesterday I tried to not let the sickness make me immobile, and it kind of worked. Jim brought me morning coffee and we headed out to do some errands: went to Jackpot to get the Wilco 7", Powell's for a coffee, sent my dad's Father's Day package from a magic post office, picked up Jim's foster plant. Then he headed off to play basketball and I went to April's clothing swap, where I got a few pieces of summery clothes and some social/kitteh time. Then off to the library to pick up books, and on our way to grab a (third! yay for artificial energy) coffee at Albina Press we stopped at a rummage sale at the VFW where Jim found a record cabinet--finally!- that he got for only $20. Which is AWESOME. And I got two screener dvd's for a buck apiece, so everyone wins. Last night we made frozen pizza and watched Trailer Park Boys.

I am not sure how well I slept, given that I am a coughing, sneezing, mouth-breathing mess, but it doesn't really matter because I fully intend to do nothing but rest today. Nothing! (This is me convincing myself, by the way. I have a really hard time not trying to Get Stuff Done when I am at home, and today I have to make REST AND GET BETTER the only thing on that list.) I have three books to read; Jim bought me a new Scientific American (and some gorgeous flowers) on Friday; we have tons of stuff to watch; I have a basset hound to keep me company.

You know what's also weird? I drink about a thousand glasses of water a day, but today, when I am sick and supposed to be drinking lots of liquids? I am for the first time in history not the LEAST BIT THIRSTY, and am choking down water like it's spiked with hydrochloric acid. TF? Apparently the germs have set up a clubhouse in my head and chest and there is a big NO WATUR ALLOWD scrawled on the door.

(Yes, my germs are named Calvin and Hobbes.)

Anyways, enough with the feverish rambling. I'm going to go curl up in the comfy chair and read and hope that every child from my class is at home disinfecting toys and drinking Emergen-C so that we can stop carrying thermometers and parent phone numbers to the park in a hip holster.*



*Yes, that's an exaggeration. They're actually just in the safety kit.

Kid #1: How did you get that red spot on your face?
Me: Sometimes grown-ups get red spots.
Kid #2: A LOT of red spots.
Me: The point has been made, thank you.

- Today I spent twenty minutes sitting up on the couch in my classroom with a four-year old in a princess dress asleep in my arms, snoring like a truck driver. (Her, not me.) It was the most regenerative part of my work week so far.

- Tonight we are going to the Found show at the Doug Fir. I would be really excited, if I weren't completely exhausted.

- My thoughts are jumbly today. I miss my family and my cat and my friends. I'm sluggish and my face is broken out and I have cramps and I have days of antibiotics left to take and I want the evenings to have more hours in them. Because once I get home from work and walk Wrigley and eat dinner and decompress for a minute it is practically time to get ready for bed, which is time-comsuming in and of itself. And then there's an attept to read a little before turning the light out, and then suddenly it's 6:20 a.m. and the alarm is going off again.

It's nothing, I know. I'm just feeling grumbly, and maybe writing it down here will help it dissipate.

I just watched two episodes of Intervention in a row. Now I just have to watch 146 episodes of 30 Rock and a kitten parade to undo the damage.

P.S. Don't do drugs.

And then, there are reasons that I DON'T miss Korea:

Choi Jin-sil, a South Korean actress and model who died by apparent suicide in 2008, is being sued posthumously for failing to maintain a decent image while working as a spokesmodel for the Shinhan Engineering and Construction Co, LTD.

What's worse is that the South Korean Court ruled in their favor. The heirs of Jin-sil are being forced by the courts to repay the damages requested, totaling the equivalent of almost $400,000.

So what is it that Jin-sil did to fail in maintaining a decent image? She was a survivor of her husband's abuse. Pictures were released after Jin-sil ended up in the hospital as a result of this abuse.

From The Chosun Ilbo:

The company paid Choi W250 million in March 2004 for modeling for apartment buildings. The contract included a clause that if Choi disgraced the image of the company by damaging her social and moral image through her own fault, she would repay the firm twice the modeling fee. Five months later, pictures of her beaten and of the inside of her house in a chaotic state were released.

Model and domestic violence survivor sued after death for "failure to maintain a decent image"

This is the best thing Improv Everywhere has ever done.

Today is lovely. I got up early to get the crown put on my tooth, and while that was not the most pleasant (or cheap) reason to be up early on one's day off it worked out pretty well. I went for coffee at Jim & Patty's and met some nice folks and their beautiful, friendly dogs, three of which (whom?) were Burmese Mountain dogs, and I fell completely in love with them. Then I went to Fubonn for the first time ever, and had overwhelming Koreastalgia and ended up buying the makings for a Korean supper tonight. I haven't cooked anything Korean in a very long time, so who knows how it will turn out, and I didn't get any kimchi, but it will likely be a dinner of tteokboki, japchae, and kimbap, if all goes as planned. Exciting!

Then I had to pick up my prescription, and while I was there I bought some stuff with which to try my hand at a little sewing project (which is likely to go poorly, but whatevs), and then I did a little more running around before coming home and bringing Wrigley to the dog park, where he completely wore himself out chasing other dogs and trying to outpee them. Now we're back home and he is sprawled on the linoleum, and I just put in laundry and am about to curl up with my book for a little while before I start dinner.

What is this feeling? Is this energy? A will to live? A desire to SHOWER?

Antibiotics are MAGIC, people. Take them for EVERYTHING. What could go wrong with that?

I was just out walking Wrigley when suddenly the wind started whirling around, dust and flowers and leaves and petals, and I had to close my eyes to shield them from what felt like a sandstorm. We were at the corner a block from our house when I heard a loud, horrible cracking sound, and I looked over just in time to see a gigantic tree branch break away and fall onto a car, crushing it. I saw the back windshield shatter right before the branch and leaves covered almost the whole car, leaving only the back bumper visible. My stomach lurched.

A woman was standing on the opposite corner with her daughter, and I yelled across to her "Was anyone in the car?" and it was all wind and dust and her daughter was starting to cry so she couldn't hear me, so I ran across through the swirling dirt and asked again, and she said she didn't know so Wrigley and I ran a ways down the street (on the opposite side) to check, and just then a man was running out of a house and I yelled across to him and he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled back that no one was in the car, and I felt an incredible surge of relief as I ran back to tell the the woman and her daughter that no was hurt. Her daughter was fully freaked out by this point, sobbing and crying about there being a tornado and that she was scared, and I asked how far away they lived and found out they still had twelve blocks to walk (with a bike in tow), so instead of staying outside they came back to our apartment, where we sat in the kitchen and calmed down and checked the weather reports online and talked about thunderstorms and meteorologists and assured the little girl that there was no tornado.

I just got back from driving them home, and the rain has started: big, heavy splats against the windshield, the sky almost the color of charcoal. They left the bike here, and they are going to go hunker down in their basement until the little girl feels safe again. I'm going to go hunker down in the big comfy chair in my living room and do the same.

You know what's awesome? Finding out you have strep throat*. On your day off. Also, having a fever when it is already muggy as fuck outside.

Going to go lie in front of the fan and read now.




* I kind of loved the woman who called to give me my test results, though, because when I asked "Hi, how are you?" she answered with "I'm fine, but you're not!" I like her.

For the record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_attack

Also this! http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/mental-health-social-anxiety-disorder

Lucky me.

At the beginning of this week, I blamed my stressiness on post-vacation bleh. I was sleeping poorly and kind of wading through the workdays (all three of them), and on Friday I ended the day with a pretty intense-ish parent conference (did I mention it's parent-teacher conference time again?) I have generally being feeling very FULL UP of everything yucky--worry, anxiety, sadness, fear, loneliness--but trying to deal with it, pretending everything was fine, hoping it would pass. Only it didn't, and when I got home tonight from driving 60 miles to see a dance recital (which was awesome, really) after getting stuck in PARADE TRAFFIC and feeling like an utter and complete failure at life for not remembering that there was a fucking parade tonight to begin with, I up and lost my shit entirely in what was the biggest anxiety attack I have had in recent memory.

The upside: I was in my house, and my boyfriend is awesome and patient and understanding.
The downside: He got to see me at what I feel is my worst, yet again.

Anyways. That's where I am. That's why I haven't written about Seattle yet; I have felt immobilized, anxious, incompetent. Everything--even "little" stuff like posting in a journal--has felt big and insurmountable. But hopefully tonight, gross as it was, will serve as some sort of pressure-release valve, and tomorrow will feel a little more doable.

Maybe you will even hear about Seattle.

I am worried that if I don't post about Seattle soon I will forget all the things about the trip, but it's 9:35 and I need to take a shower and start getting ready for bed. It's going to be hard enough going back to work after five days off in a row without also being tired and underslept.

However, I certainly won't forget that we got to be MUPPETS!!!





The drumming Muppet is ME (video taken by Jim):



This was basically the funnest thing I have ever done in my life.

- It's been quite a week. What? Wednesday, you say?

- Because Thursday is my regular day off and Monday is a holiday, I was able to take one vacation day (Friday) and finagle myself a five day weekend. WHAT UP STRATEGERIZING.

- The kids were confused about me not being there on Friday, because I am always there on Fridays. I had to assure them that someone else would paint their faces for them. What, your work doesn't have face painting on Fun Friday? Psssht, ADULTS.

- Wrigley continued his campaign for Most High-Maintenance Dog in History by getting the boot from doggie day care yesterday. Since he is the poster child for separation anxiety, he evidently barked for two full hours after Jim dropped him off for his "acclimation visit". We'd planned on boarding him for two nights this weekend while we are in Seattle, but the center for some reason no longer thinks that's a good idea. (They also asked that Jim return to pick him up "as soon as possible", and didn't charge us for the time he spent with them. Wrigley: master of first impressions.)

- I LOVE MY DOG SO MUCH BUT SERIOUSLY COME ON.

- On the upside, we can still go to Seattle because Colleen is AWESOME and is going to watch him for us.

- One of the other teachers at school had to go for an MRI the other day, because she was having horrible headaches and neck pain. Turns out she has the same thing that I had a couple of weeks ago (and counting): tension headache(s). A weird coincidence, since neither of us has ever had anything like this before. It is also weirdly validating; at the very least, I had someone to go "I KNOW!" with when talking about the ridiculous amount of pain and immobility and, um, fear? that comes along with intense pain in the BACK OF ONE'S HEAD.

- I meant to take pictures of the playground remodel to post, but then I didn't. I like stories!

- I have been considering a martial art type of thing for a longtme, and have neer had the nerve to actualy try one. So I got a "Kickboxing Workout for Dummies" dvd from the library which will no doubt soon LIVE UP TO ITS NAME.

- Jim got new glasses and a haircut and is dreamy. Not that he wasn't before! Oh shut up.

You know what sucks? I haven't seen my best friend in three years.

I mean, he's not LOST or anything. He just lives far far away, and that blows.

I'm feeling much better than this morning.

1. Lil Jon got Miley Cyrus's old phone number.

2. The world knows because he twittered about it.

3. His twitter name is LILJIZZEL.


The "story", although I just basically told it to you.

This makes me want to go on a road trip, lots.