Thursday, April 17, 2008

In which I am covered in salad dressing and despair

As Anonymous so aptly noted in the comments of my last post, I've been gone for a while now. I've been in a bit of a rough patch, I'm hanging on by a seemingly invisible thread at work and it's just sapping my energy to do much else that requires higher brain function.

Since we last spoke I:

  • did get an iPod, it's cute and green
  • almost finished a very large, oddly colored afghan
  • made a Clapotis for my Mom's birthday
  • went to Florida to visit my parents and see the new house they bought there
  • helped with one day-long conference with a speaker that was determined not to exist (kids and drugs and no one want to speak about it? Seriously?)
  • was a major player in a day-long conference that no one wanted to sponsor (hospitals saying they're sorry for f'ing up apparently strikes fear in the heart of drug companies and lawyers)
  • ate $40 crab cakes (on someone else's dime)
  • inhaled a metric crapload of mohair fiber
  • watched a lot of dvr'd tv
  • committed myself to spend a weekend sticking mailing labels on 8,000 brochures for yet another day-long conference for which I am almost solely responsible
  • took approximately 3 billion pictures of manatees
  • did some serious research into non-pharmaceutical treatments for depression and came to no firm conclusion on validity and safety
  • invited Mel to come visit and go to Maryland Sheep and Wool with me (p.s. She accepted!)
  • had my right eye swell shut for 24-hours due to a medication reaction (and, yes, it was a workday and, yes, I did go to work. For I am a goofus)
  • spent too much time feeling sorry for myself about workload, lack of energy and assorted life obstacles
  • went to the Homespun Yarn Party with Eva and bought pretty yarn
  • avoided turning on my home computer with a zeal matched only by my desire to eat my weight in Tastykakes

and, most notably:

  • managed to cover myself from bangs to belt in Italian dressing, thanks to an exploding squeeze bottle at the weekly Grand Rounds I run. In front of my boss. And others.
So, that's what I've been up to. That and reading.

12. The End of the Alphabet - CS Richardson. Arizona book club.
13. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctor and the Collision of Two Cultures - Anne Fadiman. Hospital book club.
14. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen. Still an excellent book.
15. Serenity Found: more unauthorized essays on Joss Whedon's Firefly Universe - edited by Jane Espenson. Such a good TV show I'm forced to read about it.
16. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield. Hospital book club.
17. The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower VII - Stephen King.
18. Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere - Hank Stuever. Highly recommended, especially for suburb dwellers like me.
19. Back on Blossom Street - Debbie Macomber.
20. Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs. Arizona book club. Didn't really care for it. Neither did the book club.
21. Death du jour - Kathy Reichs. But that didn't stop me from reading her second book. However the second book has stopped me from reading her third.

Pictures when my brain starts up again.

5 comments:

Stephanie said...

oh goodness. Sorry to hear life is so crazy. Hope things calm down soon and that you and Mel have a blast at MDS&W!

Mel said...

Oh no, not the dreaded Salad dressing explosion. I hate when that happens. Hang in there, I bet a lull is coming 'round the bend. But not until after we shear our way through the county fairgrounds!

noricum said...

*hugs*

Anonymous said...

You might like Anne Fadiman's other two books, which are completely difference from The Spirit Catches You. They are Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader and At Large and at Small, and they are essays about books, book people, and reading. And they're wonderful.

Anonymous said...

We want manatee pictures!