Reclaiming the Room

I spent the day today reclaiming the hell out of my bedroom. I cleaned for the first time in what clearly must have been months. I now have desk space again! Amazing! I had so sought a place to study and blog. Who'd have thought it would be in my own bedroom once more?

There was a terrible layer of dust all over the room, I am ashamed to admit. It's clearly been far too long since I've done this. It's interesting that I can be so organized about some things and so disorganized about others. Dusting is my cleaning Achilles heal. At any rate, I filed, dusted, organized, placed and replaced, folded and put away clothing and several other assorted tasks. I am thoroughly disgusted with my lacking cleaning. Needless to say, however, I am now having asthma fits because the dust is all over in the air. It hasn't settled back down to it's routine place on my furniture yet. Of course, to try and combat some of this dust, I have lit candles and employed the candle warmer. Hopefully, this will make a difference.

Apart from the cleaning, I did basically nothing today. I watched Julie and Julia again. I still love it, even though it differs greatly from the book. Julie Powell still strikes me as witty and amazing, though she is terribly self-deprecating. It's something I can respect, I suppose. I suffer the same thing at times. I can respect that kind of honesty.

I tried something new when we got Chinese take out tonight and regretted it completely. Who would have thought something called lemon chicken would be so incredibly awful? I think I was thinking it would be similar to a lemon pepper chicken and it was not! It was some terrible, fried substance in a gooey, thick, yellowish mess. Horrible! There weren't even any vegetables involved! In fact, I'm fairly certain that my current stomach upset is due mostly to that heinous concoction. Never again! I need to learn to stick to what works--cashew chicken or the "diet plate." Needless to say, I did not finish the abhorrent abomination.

JJ spent the day lounging and relaxing. I have also discovered that he is displeased with my mentioning him in my blog. Pleasantly, though, he did help me set up my charger and under-desk arrangement. Our room being so small and us having a full apartment worth of crap leaves space at a premium. Even the space under our desk is important. We have made some steps to combat this--such as putting CDs and DVDs in booklets rather than leaving them in jewel cases that clutter the place all up.

If only I had take a before/after picture set! Indeed, my results would seem most impressive. And, being that I've spent the whole day on them, I would even call them praise-worthy. Next time! I always think of these little ways to enhance my blog too late. Why am I not more blog-friendly?! Damn!

At any rate, it's late. I'm off to watch a few minutes of The Golden Child with my husband. JJ and I can't seem to resist Eddie Murphy movies from the 80s, even if they are painfully cheesy at times.

Today's Quote

Each day in the Writing Center, we choose a quote to put up on the board for our students to see. This has been going on since the current boss was placed in his position, and it's a practice that I've quite enjoyed. It is thanks to this practice that I share with you the quote that I chose this morning for the board. I feel it is relevant to paper-writing, the blogosphere, and life's decision making in general.

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear

.
This quote is from Byron, found in Hints from Horace.

Vignette of a Morning

Me: *yawn followed by unrecognizable, unrepeatable noise*
JJ: I love you.
Me: I sound like a dragon!
JJ: What?
Me: *hesitantly* I sound...like a dragon...?
JJ: *after kissing Me* I kissed a dragon.
Me: And you liked it!

Wicked Easter Sunday

Yesterday, as it turns out, wasn't as bad as I had initially thought. My husband and I had a reasonable talk on the way to our friend/co-worker's party. The rest of our day went quite well, actually.

The friend, Jim, had a little friendly get-together revolving around the geekiest of Geek: Star Trek's First Contact. It was a most enjoyable time. It was nice to be in a room where I wasn't the only female who liked or had heard of Star Trek. One of our other co-workers was very witty, and it was a good time for all.

The theater handed these out to guests.

Later, JJ and I made our way to the Stranahan theater for the evening's performance of Wicked. We had never been to a show of this magnitude together before, so it was a new experience for us as a couple. (Strange to think that we've been together for five years and haven't seen a stage production together before. My inner drama student is weeping.) We were a little nervous because we'd bought the tickets from another co-worker (did I mention they love us at work?), and they were the type that one purchases online. Despite our apprehension (mostly at where to go and who to talk to), the evening went smoothly.

The impressive stage set up.
The dragon's eyes lit up, and it blew smoke out of
its nostrils!

The production was amazing. The detail of the set was so intricate and elaborate! The set design was like a cross between what I would expect of vintage fairy tales and a steampunk adventure. The costumes were amazing, and the singing was superb. The Emerald City scenes were just wonderful. There was so much to enjoy about the whole thing! Our Elphaba, Marcie Dodd, was performing her last show with this cast because she was taking a break. What a fabulous show to end on! It went really fantastically well!

Green is Good bag which held our souvenirs.

My only critique comes from what the actual musical itself does with the original work. The book is very different. It's like the first half follows the book and the second half makes everything up because it would be too difficult to stay true to the plot of the book. It's disappointing, but I can see how it might be difficult to parlay the real story into a stage production. Nessarose, Elphaba's sister, sort of gets the short end of the stick in the stage production, as she is transformed into a whiny, heart-sick, bitter little thing. Fiyero's life is completely changed because he's not actually married, but rather he's in a relationship with Glinda. Not only that, but Elphaba and Fiyero live at the end, which is totally different from their fate in the book. I will admit, though, that I really loved Glinda being portrayed as kind of ditsy and self-centered. The actress in our production, Natalie Daradich, was wonderful!

Front and back of my awesome new water bottle!
This is how the Platzs' go green! :)

JJ bought me some souvenirs after the show so that we'd have something to remember it by. He bought me a metal water bottle and the soundtrack. It was a great experience. We finished our night off by having a quiet dinner in a nearly empty Big Boy. All in all, not a bad way to celebrate our distinctly secular Easter Sunday.

I had to have the soundtrack!

Easter

It's Easter. The husband and I find ourselves at school, working as usual. Great.

We're also fighting. He found a friend on my Facebook who was someone that he felt greatly threatened by in the past and had asked me to stop talking to. To my husband's defense and credit, it was someone who I only sort of stopped talking to, so I can understand why he would be upset. The thing is, if that person--we'll call him T--were really a threat to our marriage, he'd have been a threat long ago. I was talking to T long before JJ and I even got married. T, himself, is also married.

Of course, this has sparked a rash of conversation about my being a terrible liar. He can't seem to see beyond how other people make him feel. He doesn't think about how I feel. I wish he'd stop to think about why I do the things that I do. He complains that I don't talk to him as often as everyone else, but when I do talk to him, he gets snippy and nasty with me. He never stops to consider that I wouldn't want to talk to him because he's being so foul and rude.

I feel guilty for lying to him. At the same time, I feel like I shouldn't have to feel guilty. I mean, this is an Internet friendship. I've never even met T. Now he's talking about skipping a friend's party because we need to talk. I feel like our marriage has been coming apart at the seams for a while now because he's been unraveling lately. JJ is in a not-so-great place right now. I feel for him, but at the same time, I don't want to suffer too. I love him and I want him to be better, but I don't want to be in darkness myself.

I'm conflicted. I don't want to be a divorcee, but I don't want to feel like all of my moves have to be sanctioned and chartered by my husband. I want autonomy! I want to be able to sit downstairs and spend some time by myself if I want to. I want to be able to go our separate ways in the mornings and come together again at night. I want to be like a normal couple!! We spend hours and hours and hours together, but all I ever hear about is how uninvolved and unloving I am. The sad part is that the more he pushes me about being unloving or not paying him enough attention, the less I want to be around him. A big part of me thinks, "What's the point?! He doesn't even get it when I'm around anyways. He's going to be bitching if I'm here or away, and at least when I'm away I don't have to hear his bitching..."

Of course I feel awful about this. If it will fix something, I guess I just won't be Facebook friends with T, but I guess I'm just afraid I'm sacrificing a friendship for naught. I don't feel like anything will change at all. This just gives him another excuse to be distrusting of me and accuse me of not loving him as much as he loves me or paying him as much attention as he feels he needs.

We may end up making it to Jim's First Contact party tonight. Hopefully, we do because I'd really like to go, but "talking" looms over my head like an axe. At any rate, I'm not missing Wicked. I have waited far too long to see it! More to come later. We'll see if my Easter shapes up to be as awful as it's feeling like it will be...

Good Causes

Last night, my husband and I spent the night sleeping in a tent for a good cause. Student Government, Phi Theta Kappa, and the GSA all participated in Tent City, an event to raise awareness for homelessness in the Toledo area. We also collected donations for Sparrow's Nest, an emergency shelter for women in Toledo.

We had a lot of fun, but I'm definitely not the roughing it type! I was up until well after 2:00 Am laughing with Barb and Nick. Heath, one of my bosses from an older job on campus, stopped by and decided to hang out with us. We had a really good time.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of people there last night that I didn't know. Those people, as people are wont to do, thought they were much wittier and more amusing than they actually were. Nick and I were also pretty sure that two of the young men, who disappeared for quite some time, ended up getting high when they ran off to Giant Eagle to pick up a cookie-cake for no good reason at all. The only reason I went to bed when I did was that I was tiring of their banter.

You know the scene in the movie Role Models where Paul Rudd's character says something to the effect of, "I hate camping! There's always some douche bag with a guitar who doesn't quite know how to play it..."?? I lived that last night. One of the guys who was cookie-cake high brought his two guitars. Bad enough to have one guitar out in a group full of people around a make-shift fire pit, but two? Why in the hell do you need two?

The fortunate thing is that I did have some fun. Better still is that I'm done with it now. Best is knowing that, even though we just sat around and laughed, it did help to bring homelessness to the front of the minds of the people who watched the evening, late, or morning news. At least that is worth my spending a night freezing my butt off and sleeping on the lumpy ground. I can feel good about that.

I decided that, as my husband intently watches Spartacus: Blood and Sand (which I occasionally watch with him because of the sex and full frontal nudity--I can admit that! But, in my defense, the women are watched just as intently as the men!), it was time for me to once again hit the keyboard. It's been a busy week, making it far too long since I've last blogged. All this, of course, while I enjoy some Greek yogurt--my obsession as of late.

These are some of the highlights (or lowlights, depending) of my week:

• a women's empowerment workshop called That Takes Ovaries!, run by Student Government, which included the women of Second Chance, a local organization that helps former and current prostitutes and sex slaves to turn their lives around
• a talk on sex trafficking which also included the directors of Second Chance
• a thrown-together thesis proposal about the ethical and philosophical relevance of Poison's "Nothing But a Good Time" (an embarrassment indeed)
• a special movie-viewing with the French club at the University of Toledo for the GSA; the movie was Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma and it was an excellent movie
• reading for the induction of new Phi Theta Kappa members at Alpha Omega Pi's chapter induction ceremony
• game night with Amie and James at their house

Basically, things are busy, but well. I still feel like I never get enough sleep or have enough time to do things. I did have less sleep this week than usual, but things aren't that out of sorts. I'm still ridiculously behind in philosophy class. I didn't have enough time to complete all my chapter reviews for psychology this week, so I missed a few more questions on this test than I normally would have.

This car accident really messed up my study schedules. I'm far behind in Philosophy. I have two tests, two quizzes, and one assignment to make up. I'm really behind in my reading for Multicultural Diversity--which, I might add, I was already behind in before the accident. Now it's worse! I'm also behind in World Religions, but I think I might be able to swing that because I just have to write some journals. The only classes I'm doing alright in are Psychology and History of Western Art. Ugh! I really do need to get to studying, rather than playing around here.

Right now, I just want cake and sleep, and not necessarily in that order. Where can a bitch get those?!

Swinging at the End of My Rope

I'm pretty sure that today is evil. I was running late this morning. My exam in ART 105, while I feel good about it, was still an exam. I got into a stupid debate about health care with a friend who basically tried to make me feel like an insincere Republican for not being thrilled about it. I've forgotten all my tampons at home so, at some point, I'll be bleeding all over myself.

I just want to collect my salad of field greens, turkey, home-made croutons and Greek dressing with extra virgin olive oil and real chunks of feta cheese and go home. (I would also bring my Greek yogurt. Even if it is Yoplait, which I had to buy instead of Chobani because Kroger was out.) I want to curl up in a little ball on my bed, heating pad strapped to my lower abdomen, toss in Steel Magnolias, and bawl until I feel better. I hate being menstrual. HATE.

I really need someone to hug me and make me laugh right now. And, a little less drama couldn't hurt either. Though, in this case, I can't help feeling that my level of hormones isn't the arbiter of some of this drama.

I just keep thinking, "Please don't freak out or cry today. Please don't freak out or cry today. Please don't freak out or cry today." Maybe making it a mantra will help...

One Day Wasted

On the upside, I emerge from yesterday a much more well-rested woman. On the downside, I have wasted yet another day's pursuit of study-catch-up. The other, slightly more positive spin to that loss is that I'll be able to accomplish more and think clearly having been rested. So, you know, six of one, half a dozen of another, really.

JJ and I basically spent the morning and afternoon post-meeting in bed. I slept until 1 PM, but then a pee dream woke me up. Have you ever had a pee dream? I'm pretty sure it was my subconscious's way of telling me that I had to go. I kept dreaming that I was trying to find a bathroom and that I finally gave up and peed in a trash can. This, of course, is something that I wouldn't be caught dead doing. Odds are more in favor of me peeing myself.

Anyways, when I did finally wake up at 1 PM, it was because my dreams were finally getting to me, and I really did have to go. In fact, I had to go so badly that my bladder actually hurt. And, of course, my twin was in town so he was in the shower. I had to wait. And I couldn't use another bathroom because, as previously mentioned, it's that special time of the month for me that inspires women to kill their men and, of course, all of my "feminine hygiene products" were in that bathroom. This makes me ponder a need for spreading a few sundry tampons around to the other locations in our house.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure that John's new girlfriend didn't love seeing my pace-the-hallway version of the potty dance while listening to the shower running. Or, maybe she's a woman after my own heart and she did enjoy watching me suffer. Either way, we had a pretty good time sitting and chatting before dinner and a little bit after dinner too.

After waiting out the bathroom, I was pretty much awake so I surfed the web and did yesterday's blog. That evening, I went to bed at something like 5:30 or 6:00ish. I don't lead an exciting life. Mostly, I'm just lucky if I roll out of bed on time before the crazy day begins.

On the upside, JJ and I created a mess last night after we both spent a few hours awake at the same time. More details than that, you may not want. (Composing my sentences like Yoda, I certainly am.) It was pretty nice though. This morning started late--as they all should--and we got Panera for lunch. French onion soup for the win!

Strangely, as opposed to yesterday's over-active bladder, today I'm feeling strangely dehydrated. I've had two bottles of water in the last hour and I'm about to have another. This is pretty strange considering a bottle of water usually lasts me more than a day. Hopefully, a little more water and a little more sleep will leave me feeling even better tomorrow.

Best Laid Plans...

I had some really great plan for a really witty post here, but due to my over-tired brain and the fact that I've forgotten what my plan even was, it's fallen by the wayside, as my plans are typically wont to do. I'm running on day 7 of my work week, with another 7 to go before I have a day off--and, no, I am not exaggerating. I'm actually pretty mad about it.

The reason that I was unable to use my typical Saturday for a day of much needed rest was due to a meeting. A meeting that had to be held at the unreasonable hour of 8 AM. Really? We could find no better time than 8 AM? That's total crap. I mean, don't get me wrong here, I'm sure that a better time wasn't really sought either.

I feel like the whole "Customer Service" meeting was a total sham. It was a revisiting of the most basic, rudimentary topics from speech classes or public speaking. I mean, at least 80% of the presentation was pretty much verbatim from what our class discussed in Interpersonal Communications. Welcome to SPE 102, bitches. Also, I've been in customer service for over seven years, dudes. I think I've figured it out by this point.

More than that, our bosses promised us that when other student workers were not doing their jobs, they would discuss these matters with those people directly. This was supposed to be an alternative to sending out ambiguous e-mails or making blanket announcements at token meetings. Since our main problem lately has been a lack of responsibility for paperwork, I had mistakenly assumed that these problems would be discussed. It was discussed, as I should have expected, in a blanket announcement about people taking personal responsibility for their work.

This is so frustrating to me. I guess I really believed that, first, this would be a whole new work experience when we got new bosses. Second, I thought that, at the very least, these people should be living up to their promises to us. I find it completely ridiculous that they expect us to be more "personally invested" in our work. I am invested, so much so that even my bosses have commented about my propensity to go above and beyond for them. So what is this unbearable crap all of the sudden?

I'm 99.99% sure that the main reason I'm so angry about all of this is my total lack of sleep. I haven't slept more than 4 hours at a time in 6 days. I'm reaching the end of my rope. After some decent rest and reflection, I'm sure I'll get over this. It's just disheartening and frustrating, and sometimes I really do feel like they don't have my back on stuff. (I left that meeting today thinking, "Great, guys. Way to pull a Lynda!"--our old boss who was a HUGE fan of inadvertent disciplining. By that I mean, memos aimed at one person but sent to all, meetings targeted at one person but required for all, etc.)

What really makes me mad is that I should have been able to sleep in today. Except, we had to have this stupid meeting...and the whole thing comes full circle. Odds are that all of this PMS doesn't help either.