It’s kitchen time! Oh God, it feels like we’ve been planning this for forever. I can’t tell you how many Saturdays I’ve lost to homebase, B&Q and that sort of lot, including today. It’s only a few days before work starts, and until today we hadn’t picked our floor or tiles yet. The units are delivered on Wednesday. Luckily we were extremely efficient in today’s Homebase visit.
We’ve also not yet picked a colour for the wall.
I’m kinda liking the top right one in this picture. But I have to compare to the tiles.
Speaking of tiles. Tiles!
They’re going to make a nice chequered pattern between the worktops and the units. And we also have floors!
Laminate, because it seems easier that way.
I can’t wait to get rid of the current kitchen, seriously.
It is just so bland!
And the oven doesn’t work.
The floor is.. well, I’m sure you can get the idea.
Then there’s the little things, like that bottom drawer there that doesn’t hang on quite right.
Plus, the boiler cupboard is, I don’t even know how to describe it.
What the hell is going on in there?? Where does that open space go? What’s hiding down there? I don’t even want to know. Eww.
So now I’m off out of the country for a few days for work, while Mr Pharmacist stays at home and in control of the situation. He has promised me to take pictures of the demo lashing of the kitchen. I can’t wait to see it all ripped to shreds. I wish I was here so I could take a hammer and offer to help! Goodbye, ugly useless kitchen!
Now, must decide which colour goes with the tiles. Oh hey, I forgot to post pictures of the updated bathroom, didn’t I?? I’ll get there, promise!
You might not believe this (my parents and Mr Pharmacist barely do!) but today I wandered into a Chinese medicine place and had acupuncture. Oh yeah, little miss needle phobia voluntarily had 11 needles placed on various parts of her body, one in the HEAD! Wow, I can’t believe I did that.
Confused? Join me in the department of back story:
I have needle phobia. I haven’t had blood drawn like a normal person since I was 15. I go into complete panic mode. And I’m trying to combat it lately. In the last few years, I’ve managed to go to the dentist multiple times and had injections, two tooth pulled and a root canal. Before Christmas, I had the contraceptive implant stuck into my arm with a needle from Hell. And I’ve always wanted to try acupuncture.
Acupuncture is said to be very good for migraine sufferers. I personally know two people who got rid of their migraines completely thanks to acupuncture and Chinese medicine. But how does a person with a needle phobia get acupuncture? As it turns out, she just randomly wanders past a place, views the sign in the window, and then does it. And I was a bit anxious, but it was fine. I had two needles in each arm, two in each leg, two on my tummy and one on my head. Then I was told to hold still and relax for half an hour. With 11 needles in my body. It’s a testament to how far I’ve come that I not only did this, but I got a full treatment plan and am going back ten more times to do it again.
Of course there’s something wrong with the flow of my chi or whatever. It all sounds like gobbledygook to me to be honest, and I don’t really believe in alternative medicine. But guys, I’m desperate. I will try anything at this point, even pay a place almost £500 to stick needles in my body and give me powder to drink with hot water that makes what can only be described as thin mud. Sandy and gray, powdered herbs. But what if it does work? What if this makes a difference? What if this reduces the level of hell that I’m in to slightly uncomfortable every now and then rather than frequent torture? It’s absolutely worth a try.
I feel like Mulder; “I want to believe.” If believing makes it work through the powers of placebo, then you know what, that’ll be good enough for me. I don’t care how I get there, I just want to get there. I want back the life my migraines have taken away from me.
I was up all night last night doing my Java coursework to reach a deadline, and I didn’t manage to complete it all. It just didn’t work! Very annoying, and a long day it has been. I’m looking forward to June and having my exams, and then taking six months off from Open University. I’m hoping that’ll help with the whole Stress thing…
One of my friends is talking to me a lot on IM about The General Stuff and it’s really helping. Today I managed to call a friend or two on my mobile (no one picked up though!) and even arranged for a social gaming weekend with a buddy next week. Yeah, it’ll be at home and I’m likely to be in my jammies, but it’s baby steps.
I’m also very lucky in that I work in a very supportive environment where no one makes me feel like my Particular Situation is a problem. In fact, I’ve never felt so looked after in a job before. My manager and my close colleagues are very helpful and make it easier to come to work on days where I’d much rather hide in the closet.
I did that once, hide in the closet. It was about two years ago and I was freaking out after I came home from work, so I went into the closet and sat there until Mr Pharmacist came home to find me. It felt safe in there, in the dark.
So I’m downloading some meditation/new age hippy crap sort of music to play when I’m freaking out or stressing out. The key to life for me is to find methods to cope, and find what relaxes me. I really think those sort of cds are really stupid but they remind me of spas and I love spas. A bit too touchy-feely sometimes but I won’t deny it’s really relaxing.
Spa weekend booked for the weekend after I finish this Java course. Carrot dangling in front of me to make it to the other side. I will cope. I fill find methods of relaxation. I will reduce the noise. I will not be broken down any further.
Now off to bed and the final pages of book six of the Morganville Vampires, a deliciously silly vampire series that stars a Very Nerdy Smart Girl who went to college early and is a wiz in physics and that kinda stuff. Gotta love it! As I said to my colleague Stephen: “It’s about a big nerd and there are vampires!” Then I hugged the book, and all the guys around me laughed at me. I redeemed myself in their eyes by linking them to the new awesome Old Spice advert.
Fantastic punch line. Great delivery. Someone put this man in a comedy, stat!
I had a sort of breakthrough in understanding what the hell is going on today. Some sort of weird instinct had me google Symptoms of Stress. I’m going to bold the ones that fit, okay?
| Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms | |
| Cognitive Symptoms | Emotional Symptoms |
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| Physical Symptoms | Behavioral Symptoms |
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I’m sure a lot of you will go “Jo, of course you’re stressed. You are only now figuring this out?” But see, I thought I was stressed out, with a side of depression and anxiety.
So this is what actual real stress feels like. Can’t say I’m liking it. I have no patience for anything or anyone, I can’t relax, I can’t have fun, I can’t deal with any sort of confrontation or any negativity whatsoever. I need soft corners and teddies and jammies and perhaps a padded room of some sort. In general I’m a bit like this:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
So that’s your proceed with caution warning, because this is where I’m at. I’m drowning, and I’m torn between wanting everyone in the whole world to go away and leave me alone, and desperately wanting love, attention and acceptance. Mr Pharmacist is doing his best, he really is.
Guess how exposed I feel, writing this. Okay, I’ll tell you. I feel completely naked in front of the internets and my friends, for one purpose only – I have to tell you that I am not okay right now. I need help. I need support. And I need you all to be patient with me even if I’m not very much fun lately. If you can’t do that, then it’s probably better to keep your distance because I don’t feel like I have control over much of anything, least of all my out of the blue emotional reactions. This is an act of desperation – trying to tell you what’s wrong in a bid to not lose any more people I like to have around. There are those who have given up, who never call or try to engage me any more because I have so little energy and life to offer them. I completely get that, and I don’t hold a grudge against those people. But if you read this, which is only posted to my own domain, then chances are you might want to know all of this.
And what I’m doing now? I’m procrastinating by writing this post, when I should be writing Java for an assignment that’s due in about 12 hours, but that I really should finish in less than three if I want to get any decent sleep tonight. And I’m tired, internets. I wish you could understand how tired I am. And those emotional reactions I talked about may prompt me to delete or hide this post before I even go to bed, I don’t even know.
I’m taking it one day at a time. That’s all I can manage right now.
I have lots of stuff I want to post about, but Real Life is pounding me pretty hard at the moment, so I’m cutting down on my online interactions in a weird sort of attempt to reduce the noise in my head. I will probably be back in this blog, but I’ve ceased the cross-posting to journal clients like livejournal, journalfen and dreamwidth.
Sometimes your health is just more important than being up to date with everyone and everything, and that’s where I’m at today. It’s tough to breathe and I just need some peace and quiet.
In case you haven’t noticed, Mr Pharmacist doesn’t have much of an online presence. I kind of cover that for the both of us. Sure, he’s on facebook, and I tried to get him on LJ once, but he just doesn’t seem to enjoy being on the computer after work at all. He’s a telly watcher, and his thing is sc-fi. It’s something we bonded over when we started dating, and he’s particularly been watching variations over the themes of Star Trek and Stargate in the last 3.5 years that we’ve known each other.
He doesn’t like being talked about on the internets, but I think it should be fine to post this because hey – he ain’t gonna read it. And I’m trying to win a piece of a motherfucking actual Stargate prop for him.
Here’s my plea on the site, grammar and spelling errors intact (that’ll teach me to type something big at 1am):
I don’t care about Stargate but I want to get this so bad. But not for me.
Here’s the thing. I have this boyfriend who I live with who I love to absolute pieces, and he is a massive Stargate fan. He’s watched it all, I don’t know how many times. And it was just his birthday. Because I changed jobs and had a salary drop (long boring story), he didn’t allow me to get him a big present for his birthday. I was distraught, because my favourite thing in the world is to give presents to people I love, and being denied running up a massive credit card bill to spoil the man of my dreams was veto’ed and then some, which he can when it was his birthday after all.
So you can see, I need to make this right. He’s got me to promise that I won’t go out and buy him something big, but if I can present to him a piece of the actual mothereffin stargate of glory, then I am not only the best girlfriend ever, and forever and ever, because who could resist a girl that manages to procure a piece of the mothereffin stargate of glory? Just imagine how many disney blu-ray dvd purchases he’ll let slide (and I’m an addict of the fairy dust of Disney, I admit it).
But most importantly I’ll see that massive surprised smile on his face that I adore so much. He’s a little boy in a man body and he lights up like a Christmas tree. Oh, and partially sighted, so he’s got a rough deal in life to begin with, and then now he has me to deal with as well, and I’m high maintenance, baby. But I just want to make him smile. I can’t think of anything that would make him smile than a real goddamn piece of the mothereffin Stargate. As a fellow geek, who just happens to not care for Stargate much, I know what joy that sort of present must bring.
Now, how do I get my hands on some BSG stash for myself.
My readership is limited and I’m sure all of you know me personally. So you know all this is true. I did take a pay-cut, I love giving presents, and Mr Pharmacist is a massive sci-fi geek. And he’s a loving, caring boyfriend who means the world to me. So if you’re registered on io9, please go add a +1 or something to my comment to help me make Mr Pharmacist a shiny happy pie. I’ve tried and failed to get into Stargate, so there’s no doubt that this? Not for me.
Also, if I get this, he’s stuck with me for life, dudes. Who could ever leave a girl who procures a piece of a motherfucking Stargate? No one would ever manage to measure up. Ever.
I admit it, I rarely watch actual television. I’m hardly ever in our lounge, the television set is Mr Pharmacist’s domain. I’m a show downloader, and not by choice.
About ten years ago, I was a passionate Friends fan. Shut up, I loved it. I still kind of do. Chandler and Monica are totally my OTP. But I knew they would get together before the showed aired in Norway, because it was printed in a mainstream newspaper article. If you don’t know me in real life, you probably don’t know my reading speed, which is at a level where I sometimes glance at a page and before my mind registers the spoiler warning, I’ve already read the next line and the spoiler is there. I was very, very vexed about this, because I really, really hate show spoilers. I know lots of people who love to theorize, discuss and find out as much as possible about a show, including reading spoilers, and fair play to you, that’s just not my thing. I need my story to unfold like it’s intended, not by skipping to the end. The emotional pay-off is just so much greater if you’ve followed the character every step.
..oops, that wasn’t the blog post I had intended to write. Anyway, I was so pissed off at being spoiled that I started downloading Friends, so that I could see the episodes as soon as possible after airing time. It’s a habit that’s stuck with me. By now, that’s how I watch television. I am completely incapable of keeping track of show air times on local television, but I know which days my favourite shows air in the US, and look for them the day after. I justify this practice by buying a lot of TV DVD box sets, especially of stuff I really liked, even though I might never watch the DVDs, at least then I’ve paid for the enjoyment. I think that’s only fair, and if I could legally use a service like Hulu, I would happily pay for it. HAPPILY. I already pay for the streaming music service Spotify after all, and I am glad legal streaming music exists here in Europe now.
All that above is simply back story to the true nature of this post (although I bet I’ll be writing about the above in more detail in the future), which is that this week, TV is killing me. Because of the Olympics (I guess), there are no shows.
The Daily Show is on hiatus this week. And then there’s all the other ones:
| Show name | Last episode air date | Next episode air date |
| How I met your Mother | 8/2/2010 | 1/3/2010 |
| The Big Bang Theory | 8/2/2010 | 1/3/2010 |
| Vampire Diaries | 11/2/2010 | 25/3/2010 |
| Cougar Town | 10/2/2010 | 3/3/2010 |
| Gossip Girl | 7/12/2009 | 8/3/2010 |
| True Blood | 13/09/2009 | June?? |
| Stargate Universe | 4/12/2009 | 2/4/2010 |
I don’t actually watch Stargate Universe, but Mr Pharmacist does – although he once called it Stargate Octopus when he couldn’t remember the name, so Octopus is the house name for the show. I don’t know either, people. And I’m sure readers will put their noses up at a few of these, to which I can only offer a big whatever, dude.
Anyway! Television has effectively STOPPED until March! Dollhouse is over, so is Battlestar Galactica, there’s nothing like Veronica Mars (oh, how I miss you, feisty blonde one) and Heroes stopped being interesting in season 3. At this point I may get desperate and start watching Lost from the beginning – I’ve only seen season 1.
Or I might actually manage to get on top of my studies with all the non-watching of tv show time I have available, GOD. Anything but that! At least Daily Show will be back next week, so at least there’s snarky goodness in my near future. The rest of you, I’ll see you in March. If I don’t die of withdrawal symptoms by then.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was recommended to me by a bookshop girl in Oxford Street, who I need to go back and thank. I could not put this book down – I ate through this in a day.
Glass Houses is yet another YA novel with vampires, but the vampires are scary beasts who you need to hide from, not creatures to have meaningful or co-dependent relationships with. Our Heroine, Claire, is in Morganville to go to college when she is pushed down the stairs of the dorms by the dorm bully who has it in for Claire after Claire made her look stupid. Claire survives, and escapes into a house share in the town, which it turns out is run by vampires. If you’re not under vampire protection in Morganville, it’s open season on your blood. And in this house, no one is under protection. Claire, having made an enemy who has powerful friends, is in big trouble.
I was honestly scared by the book. Okay, I’m a wimp, but I was on the edge of my seat (so to speak) the entire time. Well written, great world building, good characters, and one entirely unbelievable Goth girl (see the Eve diaries at the end for maximum eye-rolling effect) – could’ve researched that part a bit better. But fair enough, the world doesn’t revolve around me and my gothness, and it was delightful to have a heroine that was young, strong and very smart.
Of course this is a series, and I’ve already ordered the next three books.
In a fit of spontaneity Mr Pharmacist and myself decided to go to the cinema when we were supposed to go grocery shopping. For no good reason we decided on Daybreakers, and I was informed by the guy who checked my tickets that it was “very scary”. I answered “It’s only a vampire movie,” and I was right.
The guy probably thought I was a Twilighter who thought vampires are cuddly fluffy stuff, but I’m not a n00b to vampire movie and I can tell you right now they hardly ever scare me. Zombies are totally creepier than vampires, and in this movie they made the vampires creepier by, err, letting blood withdrawal turn them into creatures that seemed like zombie bat ish things. I don’t know either.
Plot: It’s in the future, vampires have taken over the earth and there’s too few humans to feed on. Ethan Hawke is a vampire named Edward (no, seriously) who is working at a blood facility trying to manufacture synthetic blood, while the company’s main business is draining humans of blood in a very matrix-like facility that our Edward stares at broodingly every time he has to pass it. See, Edward doesn’t like to be a vampire, and he feels bad for the humans.
I think you can already tell where this is going. Edward meets some humans, there’s a Revelation that changes everything, and basically he’s like Neo in the Matrix but everyone else are Vampires rather than Agent Smith. It starts of very bleak and interesting and goes hardcore into gorefest at the end. It of course has a totally open ending that sets the stage for the unavoidable sequel. Basically it’s a bit like Zombieland if Zombieland was about vampires and not meant to be funny. It’s unintentionally funny several times, not to Van Helsing standard as that’s a hard trick to pull off, but in the end I thought it was a laugh and it held my attention the entire movie. The best thing about it was Willem Dafoe, and how much time had clearly been spent thinking about how a vampire society would look and act like.
I’d give it about a C+.
This year I’m not going to separate between cinema and home viewings, but keep a tally over what I see overall. I’m not going to aim to beat 2009’s number as I did in fact see 52 films in the cinema last year and that’s high enough to feel satisfied 
- Daybreakers
- The Wall
- Nixon
- Girl on a Motorcycle
- The Assassination of Richard Nixon
- Galaxy Quest
- The Road
- Superbad
- Good hair
- Up in the Air
- Species
- Sweeney Todd – Concert version
- It’s complicated
- Avatar (3D)
- Gattaca
- Jumper
- Youth In Revolt
- Watchmen
- Cloudy with a chance of meatballs
- The Proposal
- Alice in Wonderland
- Robot Chicken – Star Wars
- Julie & Julia
- Get Smart
- Frequently asked questions about Time Travel