February 2007 Archive

February 27, 2007
The dreams...oh god, the dreams!
Last night was a duo of some of the most vivid, f-ed up dreams I've ever had.

Dream 1
Because I watched Heroes last night, I had to have a Heroes dream. In it, I'm one of the "heroes," though I have no idea what my power was supposed to be. This one is kind of sketchy, but Christopher Eccleston is with me, and the agents are trying to kill me for something I've done. This one agent is the current assassin, and he has the power to fill your lungs with water. So I keep having to hang from my feet and drain the water out of my lungs. I can actually feel the water pouring out of my lungs as it runs out, and I'm choking and trying to inhale. I keep telling Eccleston that I'm going to kill this water guy when I find him, and I'm looking around the room and yelling it. We're in my grandparents' house, but it's much bigger--in the way a room is bigger to a toddler--but it's obvious in the dream that my grandparents are long gone; this is far in the future. Then I woke up and felt like my lungs were full of water, repeatedly.

Dream 2
After finally falling back asleep, I end up having a more vivid and terrifying dream than feeling water pour out of my lungs. In this one, I have to have a hemispherectomy, but instead of removing the left or right side of the brain, they're removing the BACK half. They assign me to a doctor that's never performed one successfully, and he seems like kind of an ass, like he just doesn't give a crap whether I survive or not. There's this mauled brain sitting in a metal hospital pan next to the surgery table, and he mentions something about that being his last patient, and they didn't make it. (No wonder since the whole brain is sitting there.)

They tell me I'm going to have to be awake during the surgery, and I start getting really upset. (Yes, I know in real life that you are not awake during a hemispherectomy.) They start shaving my head, and I'm crying that I want the hair donated to Locks of Love because it would be such a waste otherwise.

Then things start getting out of sequence. Next, I'm being cocooned in this plastic body case filled with foam that's supposed to make you completely immobile. I flash to remembering seeing them dumping one of these onto a hospital bed from a lift truck and walking away. And as they're strapping me in, they say, "The next time you'll be awake is Christmas Day." I say, "What?! Today is August 22." And they reply, "Yes, we have to induce a lengthy coma." At that point, I start feeling terrified. I beg them to sedate me because I'm so scared. They tell me not to worry, they will, and I probably won't remember a thing.

Suddenly, I'm not in the body case, and I'm talking to my mom in the surgery room. I ask her to Kev that if I don't make it that I love him and I want him to go on living without me. She kisses me, and I tell her to tell everyone how much they mean to me. Then I try to call He Who Cannot Be Named (I have NO f-ing idea why), but I can't remember his number, and shrug and hang up the phone.

After that, I'm back on the table, and I'm crying and saying how scared I am. I am PETRIFIED in this dream. They tell me they have to make "pre-cuts" before I'm knocked out, and I flash to remembering seeing a successful patient with a huge X across her face that's stitched up all gnarly and mismatched. She's horrifically scarred. I'm devastated because I'm going to look like that. Then they slash my face with the bone saw in a huge X, but it doesn't really hurt, more like getting a scratch.

Then suddenly, I realize the surgery has begun, but I'm inside a vivid dream. I'm carrying a tray in Clark Gable's mansion, but I hear the low hum of buzzing flies. I the dream, I think to myself, "The flies must be a manifestation of the bone saw as it cuts through my skull. Christ I don't want to die." I'm walking with the tray through some sort of giant indoor garden, and I enter the dining area, and there's this skeezy-looking brain on a place setting on the dining table. It's got flies crawling all over it, and I start to feel faint stabbing feelings inside my head.

I realize I'm dreaming and that this must be a product of the coma I've been put in while they do surgery. I hear flies buzzing in the next room, and when I enter it, there's a huge brain sitting on the floor, like 4 feet high, and it's got giant flies (proportionate) to the brain crawling on it. And the stabbing feeling inside my brain becomes more intense. Then I think, "WAIT! Don't cut that part out! That's the thinking part of my brain! Why are you doing this!?"

I turn to run back into the other room, but on the far side, some double doors open and party-goers are pouring into the room laughing and talking. Despite being Clark Gable's mansion, there are women there with bad 80's teased hair wearing those vaguely fashionable black t-shirts with rhinestone messages on them that say things like "Princess."

Then I woke up and was so completely freaked out, I thought I was going to have to take a panic pill. Everything is very real, and very vivid. I was THERE. I rarely have first person dreams, and this was one of them. I could feel the tray in my hands, feel the terror, and feel the pain. It was so real.
posted by Karabou at 10:03 PM EST
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February 22, 2007
One foot in the sea and one on shore
Kev had Flying Tiger with one of his friends tonight, so I curled up with leftover Papa Murphy's and watched Much Ado About Nothing. It's one of about 5 movies or so that I can watch over and over and never tire of. And every single time I watch it, I catch something new that I hadn't noticed before.

Damn you Kenneth Branagh for humping Helena Bonham Carter. /sigh Now Emma's gone off and made babies with my sister's European high school trip tour guide. And I am SO not joking about that. She has pictures of him in the hotel pool with one of her topless underage classmates. He was outrageously pompous and went on and on about how he was going to make it big in Hollywood. And, well...he kind of did. Blackmail anyone? heh
posted by Karabou at 11:11 PM EST
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February 20, 2007
Observations
Is it just me, or is Rome not nearly as graphic as the 1st season? Kind of disappointing. Need more Pullo covered in someone else's blood.

And Heroes...Jesus-chicken-head-eating-Christ. Can we just get rid of Sylar already? B-O-R-I-N-G. I hope to god they have enough sense to stick to one-season story arcs, as I've mentioned previously. But somehow, I doubt it. They'll milk it for all it's worth, and turn the show to shit in short order. Here's a season 1 ender prediction from Captain Obvious: Peter will kill/incapacitate/capture/blow Sylar and take all of his abilities, thus either becoming the ultimate dude or killing himself. The End.

Network TV just can't seem to do anything but totally f--- up a good show.
And by the by, I had a dream entirely in Spanish a few nights ago. While in the dream, I could understand everything that was going on. When I woke up, I was like "HUH?"
posted by Karabou at 9:30 PM EST
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February 14, 2007
Make-up Time!
In penance for my shitty weekend, fate decided to give me two snow days in the middle of the week. If it's a level 2 snow emergency or above, the office is closed. I got a little work done since I had the foresight to bring my laptop home with me, but I also got to do it on my own schedule. So some movie-watching got thrown in the mix.
Yesterday, Kev and I got caught up on Battlestar, and last night, I watched Million Dollar Baby. I've had TiVO'd forever and decided that maybe I should get around to watching some of the crap on there. It actually wasn't a bad movie, but maybe that's because I went into it prepared to be bored and pissed for 2 hours. Who knows. But I will say this. How the F--- did I NOT know about that ending? I mean, it's been two years since it came out. How did it not get spoiled? I'm in shock.
Today, I watched Great Expectations for the bajillionth time, followed by One Night With the King. ONWtK was total crap. I'd read about it somewhere and had heard some good things about it, but if it had had a bad CGI Beholder, it could air on Sci-Fi Saturday night. Despite it having Gaius Baltar doing his best Kurgan impression, it was c-r-a-p. Avoid it.
After that, I watched Just Friends. Ryan Reynolds is the funniest f-ing man I have ever seen. He can star in total crap and still be laugh-out-loud funny. He kills me. I <3 him.

posted by Karabou at 9:32 PM EST
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February 13, 2007
State of Dreams
Last night, I dreamed Danny DeVito was trying to kill me with an injection of adrenaline, he was hunting me down on some jam-packed college campus. I can't remember who else he was trying to kill, some guy with me. There was a lot more to it than that, but I can't remember it.

And last week, I dreamed I was in limestone quarry or something, and there's this dead guy laying amongst some puddles of water. A CSI-type guy shows up and starts examining him, and he says, "I can't figure out what poisoned him that it would turn him into a fish." And the dead guy looks kind of like the Creature from the Black Lagoon except with a normal-size head covered in scales. His eyes open, and the CSI guy yells that we should start running because he's going to think WE did this to him. So we're running along this cliff wall (very Hellfire Peninsula), and he's catching up to us almost immediately. I take out a hand cannon and start shooting at him. I blow hole after hole through his chest, he falls down, and then he gets up and starts catching up again...over and over. I'm shooting so accurately that some of my bullets are going through the cavernous holes I've already shot, and I think to myself, "Nice one." and then freak out and start running. Just as he's on me, and I'm emptying a clip into him as he keeps coming at me, I wake up.
posted by Karabou at 8:38 PM EST
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February 11, 2007
Waste of a weekend...
We watched Cars Friday night. Kev had to pin me to the couch and tie me down to get me to watch it, but it ended up not being too bad. I was pleasantly surprised.

Saturday, I got to slog around feeling like walking hell all day because I only got about 5 hours of sleep. I won't go into why here, but I was totally, utterly pissed about it. Not getting enough sleep makes my stomach feel raw, and I usually feel shaky and miserable all day, even if I nap. And having to nap pisses me off because that's 1-2 hours wasted out of the middle of my day. Very inconvenient. I took my anti-inflammatory with breakfast only to double over about 10 minutes later with nausea so bad I thought my stomach had caught fire. Apparently, the increased stomach acid from lack of sleep meant my usual breakfast wasn't enough to cushion the pill from stomach. I guzzled some water on my way to getting my hair colored and ate some string cheese, and it got slightly better a few hours later.

I tried to nap for over an hour, but just laid there twitching and feeling miserable. Then we watched Crank, which is quite possibly one of the worst movies ever made. It was just painful and stupid. I know Jason Statham doesn't need money THAT badly.

After I ate dinner and took my anti-inflammatory, I immediately felt sick all over again. I woke up at 2am feeling like I was going to die, and it continued until almost 6am. I finally fell back asleep only to wake up at 10:30 feeling like hell. I decided I'd skip the anti-inflammatories today to let my stomach heal. I barely ate anything until this evening after getting deathly ill on some soup this morning. But dinner seems to be giving me no problems. Hoorah.

I watched a documentary on Alaska on History Channel today. It was pretty good, spanning Vitus Bering's 10-hour stay in Alaska in 1741, the race to stop a diptheria epidemic that spawned the modern day Iditarod Race, and the 9.2 1964 quake that nearly destroyed Anchorage. Very enjoyable.
posted by Karabou at 8:22 PM EST
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February 9, 2007
Random Thoughts
I've discovered that not sitting in my computer chair at home makes my side feel 900% better. hrrrm. I've had two nearly pain-free days. However, this is totally putting a crimp in my WoW playing.

I recently started watching Scrubs, and though it took a while to grow on me, I now find myself laughing out loud, which hasn't happened with a TV show in a looooong time.

I'm concerned that Heroes is going to go the way of Lost and just become mind-numbingly boring with a plot that never ends (even though I've never actually watched Lost, just heard about that happening to it). When are TV studios going to realize that the 1-season story arcs a la Joss Whedon shows are the way to go. And you can still tie in some overall story arc like J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. Otherwise, it's a one-trick pony (see Laura Palmer's killer revealed).

I'm not as excited with BSG this season. It's getting kind of old. There are still some great episodes, but I tire of "chasing" quickly, and my attention span is dwindling. Rome is as awesome in season 2 as it was in season 1, making me periodically scream, "OH MY GOD!!!" and run to my computer to look up the real events. And I totally have a crush on Pullo.

LAME: The head of Cartoon Network, Jim Samples, has submitted his resignation in the wake of the Boston bomb scare sparked by an advertising campaign.

News: Anna Nicole Smith croaked. The news coverage yesterday was like a president (one that someone gave a shit about) had died. On the upside, her daughter might actually have a chance at a normal life now that her psychotic scary-clown train wreck of a mother is out of the picture. Now let's just hope that Birkhead really is the baby's father. And yes, I am clicking "refresh" on my browser waiting for the coroner's report that's supposed to be posted at 3pm. But it's not like the cause of her death will be a surprise.

Mental notes:
1) Chocolate Oranges are the suque. Chocolate Raspberries r0x0r. num
2) I must do all of my holiday candy shopping at Flower Factory under the guise of being a vendor. Ghirardelli giant chocolate bars for 83 cents is just ridiculous.
3) I love Indian food and must eat more of it soon.
posted by Karabou at 5:26 PM EST
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February 3, 2007
Bzzz...
Kev is wicked sick. In fact, he's even sicker than before I left to go to Amanda's bday dinner. Which, by the way, was a very nice evening out.

The Voltaren (heretofor dubbed "Voltron" by Amy) seems to still be working. I've been in a lot of pain today, but I think it's because I had to take yesterday's first dose with lunch rather than breakfast. When I woke up yesterday, I totally felt like John Hurt, and an alien was about to be christened into the world. Oh well, it's getting better...slowly...I hope.

But tonight was a nice evening out with friends, despite poor Kev being at home on the couch with Kleenex sticking out of his nose. I cleaned out the vaporizer when I got home, gave everything another coating of Lysol, and watched Sci-Fi Original: Grendel.
posted by Karabou at 11:21 PM EST
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February 2, 2007
I got yer bone scan right here!
Bone scan went fine today. The injection wasn't nearly as terrifying as I anticipated. Needles don't bother me so much; it's the whole "nuclear material" being injected into me. And I had no idea if I was about to be hooked up to a drum of TMNT toxic waste or what. It intended up being a tiny injection. Hah.

So I sat around the hospital for 3 hours, played Sudoku on Kev's DS, read some more of the book I'm working on, drank 2 bottles of water, ate some lunch, and the laid on a hard table and got a full-body bone scan. Laying on that table f-ed me up. My side has been hurting for hours. And I can't take anything because the Voltaren doesn't play well with anything composed of aspirin, ibuprofin, or naproxen, which is pretty much everything that works for me.

Kev's sick as hell. Instead of him driving me home from the hospital, I drove him home. Luckily, he'd already scheduled a half day at work to ferry me around. But I feel pretty shitty too. I dunno if it's the "flu-like symptoms" Voltaren can cause or if I'm catching what Kev has. Blah. At least we have the weekend to lay around and rest up. So long as I don't feel bad, I'm still planning on hitting Amanda's b-day dinner. I just need to get a good night's sleep.

And you know, it's not every day that I look at someone's MySpace site and think, "WHAT THE F-CK. WHAT THE F-CK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!!"
posted by Karabou at 11:03 PM EST
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February 1, 2007
Lemur Voltron!
posted by Karabou at 5:42 PM EST
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January 31, 2007
V is for victory!

Anyway, we got the car. We went and test drove a Nissan Altima last night, and Kev was thoroughly unimpressed. The steering wheel was practically between his knees and wouldn't come up any higher. The car pulled to the right, and when Kev pointed that out to the sales manager, his response was, "Yes, that's probably the treads or the alignment." Well f-ing DUH! Of course it's one of those two. How about you fix the damn car before you put it on the lot!

So after that disappointment, I decided to call the salesman I haggled with the previous day before we even pulled out of this car lot. I decided to give in just $100. If they would meet me at $7600, I'd do it. Why? Because it is UNGODLY cold out. Car shopping is annoying enough, much less in 19 degree weather in the dark when it's been snowing off and on. Had it been warmer weather, I'd have held firm and kept looking. But Kev's total aversion to weather below 50 degrees doesn't make this task easy in a mid-January cold snap. lol And besides, the car was really nice. We both liked it, and my mechanic gave it the okay. And it had four new tires, which is nice.

When we got there, the salesman told me I drive a hard bargain and asked if I'd be interested in a job in sales. lol I told him I liked buying cars not selling them. And then the funniest thing happened. Before we signed the paper work, the front passenger-side window motor died. THANK GOD! I had to get my front window motor replaced on my Corolla last year, and it cost me over $400. THANK GOD it died before we had ownership. So they're fixing that for free. Woohoo! Saturday, I'm dropping it off at my mechanic to have the Camry's 100k miles tune up, which will be like $500. Yar.

In other news, the anti-inflammatory I started yesterday for my ribs actually seems to be working. They put me on Voltaren this time, and it seems to reduce the inflammation and cut the pain. The only draw back is the WICKED dizziness it causes. I have about 2.5 hours of room-spinning hell after I take it. I was laying in bed last night, feeling like I was in a tea cup at a carnival. But I can live with that if it works. And that might subside after I've been on it a while. We'll see. I have to have a bone scan Friday, which I am utterly unthrilled about. But I guess it will clear up that nothing serious is wrong.
posted by Karabou at 9:36 PM EST
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January 30, 2007
9 Names
1. YOUR REAL NAME:
Kara

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle.)
Karizzle

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color and fav animal)
Blue Cat

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, and current street
Lynn Montgomery

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, last 3 letters of mom's maiden name)
Hamkaahn (mmm ham)

6. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink).
Black Russian

7. YOUR IRAQI NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, last letter of your moms middle name.
Amnaeke

8. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (dad's middle name)
Emerson

9. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one your pets)
Black Zen
posted by Karabou at 5:31 PM EST
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January 29, 2007
I karate chopped their pants RIGHT OFF!
I took the day off work today to take a car to my mechanic that we were considering buying. He checked it out and told me it was good, but he told me to low ball them on the price and then pick a number that I absolutely won't go over when negotiating up.

Then I went back to dealership and karate chopped their pants off. They didn't know what to think of me, not just because I was aggressive and stood firm at "my number" but because I knew exactly what I was arguing and had facts to back me up. I went in prepared with my arguments for the number I wanted.

Did I get the car? Not yet. And I'm fine with that. When you shop for a car, you have to be willing to walk away and not care if you got it or not. It's the only way you'll get what you want. I did get them down to $7700 from $8990. But my number is $7500 (including tax), and I'm not budging. If they want to sell me that car, they'll sell it at $7500. And if they don't, /shrug.

My mechanic told me to check out some Nissan Altimas. They're the same quality but about $2k cheaper than Hondas and Toyotas. So I'm going to check some out this week and see if they're even something Kev would want.

Yesterday gave me the confidence boost I needed. I knew I could do this. And yesterday proved I could do it not just well but f-ing fantastic. /flex

And if anyone needs a Carfax report in the next 30 days, let me know. I've got unlimited reports.
posted by Karabou at 11:15 PM EST
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January 28, 2007
Life's small victories
It's creeping up on a year. Today was the first time since dad was killed that I was able to grocery shop. I don't mean walk in with 5 things on a list and walk out. I was able to walk down aisles and think, "Oh, I think we need that." I was able to remember everything Kev had listed on the reminder board. This is the first time I have been able to do either of those. And I know most of you are sitting there thinking I'm nuts, but this is really a small victory for me.

It's a huge leap back into this elusive "normalcy." I think I hit rock bottom beginning at Thanksgiving, and it finally subsided going into January. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't care that I was in constant pain from my ribs. I didn't care about the holidays. I didn't do anything special. Nothing mattered. I drifted away from my family, my friends, pretty much everyone but Kev. And the only reason I didn't drift away from him is because he's stuck living with me (and he's a saint).

I can think of dad now and not feel pissed, or devastated, or lost. Those feelings are still abound, but they're not with me every day now. I can think of dad and just think, "I miss him." I still cry. I still hurt. But I'm tired of suffering. You can hurt without suffering. Now I can think of the good things about him. The things I miss and not the things that made me angry. I loved him. He was my dad. And I'll never have another one. I never knew it was possible to miss someone so much.

I seriously just woke up one Saturday and realized the worst had passed. I felt hopeful, and even a little happy, for the first time in months. I've had the desire to clean the apartment, pay more attention to my appearance...the little details. For the first time, I can look to the future and actually feel something positive. I'm finally coming out the other end of the tunnel. Finally.

I'm considering getting a tattoo on the one year anniversary. It will be a day of a different kind of pain. A day of tribute. Of memory. Of love.
posted by Karabou at 8:09 PM EST
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