FYI to Me

If only.

Cancer

Some problems follow us around and won't let us forget them. Notwithstanding the incessant difficulties you face, these very problems will coax you into trying something quite daring – and with wondrous results, too.

Leo

All has not been going exactly as you wished regarding a situation in which you have built some high hopes. Though your plans have recently been fraught with delays and disruptions, things are about to change. You are now entering more settled times.

Getting the Feeling I Wasn't Totally Happy With the Last Change?

Heh. Need more customization and things so I can bring in the other stuff and I'd like to start making the journals different. ie: The "Gets Out (a little) More" journal - well, I want it to look like it did while I was using it during the trip. Yanno?

And I can do that but it needs to be done with a high degree of customization and bit by bit-tedness while I wrap my head around this alien space. I think this layout, with boxes on the right side for the sidebar will be the final layout in regards to borders, header area etc and the only changes will be to the colors and headers from now on.

Like you care, right?

A Visit to Another Dimension

Before heading out for my doctor's appointment today I received a phone call from the Major's clerk to re-schedule my appointment for the change in my trade.

A Major? Holy eek! I have to see a Major? Nobody told me that!

I thought it would be some Sergeant or maybe even a Warrant Officer but a Major? That is way too many ranks above me. The Commanding Officer of my UNIT is a Major.

Up until that phone call I was all calm about it but now at least I have a week to freak out about how badly I can screw that up. I have to salute him for god's sake. That stuff scares the hell out of me.

I hopped on the bus downtown, grabbed a mocha and chatted with my mom on the cell before hopping in the elevator up to the doctor's office.

The cutest little old couple were already in the elevator and on the way the wife asked me how school was now that I was back in it.

School? As in University? heh.

I informed her I was quite a bit older than university age and she responded by telling me how wonderfully young I looked.

I proceeded in to see the locum filling in for my doctor today - a very pregnant and chirpy lady who hung out and chatted with me for a while before deciding that my arms are still killing me because (and I quote) "Sometimes we make our bodies unhappy and it takes quite a while until they are happy again."

Okay. Thanks. I guess I'll just wander off and, after two months of resting, rest some more.

Till my arms are cheerful and giggly.

Sort of dazed at this point, I headed into the local grocery store whereupon the clerk at the checkout says to me..."Did you just get your hair cut?

I'm thinking, "do I know this woman? no. is she mistaking me for someone she does know? oh crap, did a stranger just notice that my barber cocked it up for the second haircut in a row?" before saying, "Yesterday I did?"

"It looks FANTASTIC" she burbled, "SO many people just can't carry off such short hair!"

I got the hell out of there, I tell ya, and back on the bus home lickety-split before someone pounced on me and started pawing at my leg and drooling all over me.

Good lord, kids, this is why I hate leaving the house. What the hell is going on out there?

Catching Up. Slowly. Gently.

For the last couple of months there was no TV, no newspapers, no news, very little internet (and seriously, when you only have 10 minutes of internet, what's going on in the world isn't the highest priority) and five phones for 100 people.

You could say, if you wanted, that even the girl who refuses to pay attention to the terrible things in this world, is feeling a little behind.

Thankfully, I have two months of Maclean's (Canada's weekly newsmagazine) to plow through.

Some tidbits. Of the sort of news I find relevant.

...To Your Health

It was a great week for anyone reluctant to give up their favourite vices. First came an Oregon State University study that found drinking beer might help inhibit prostate cancer. Unfortunately, you'd need to drink more than 17 beers a day to get the cancer-fighting benefit, which raises concerns about liver damage. But another team of US researchers reported that people who drink four or more cups of coffee a day cut the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis by 80 percent.

Researchers warn that this is not a recommendation to treat alcohol abuse with coffee.

What do you do when that new guy at work just sort of feels all wrong?. Ahhh, there's a book for that.

How To Spot the Office Psychos.

In fact, Dave is a composite character depicted in Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work, a new book by University of British Columbia psychologist Robert D. Hare, one of the world's foremost experts in the study of psychopathy, and American organizational psychologist Paul Babiak. According to the authors, psychopaths comprise roughly one per cent of the general population -- which translates to 300,000 or so in Canada -- and they've all got to make a living somewhere. "The number of people with psychopathic personalities suggests that most of us will come across at least one psychopath during a typical day," write Hare and Babiak.

Well, that's heartening. Only one! The rest of those freaks are just ordinary people with garden-variety issues. Whew.

Ahh, another book. Although I'm not sure what the entire two page article was really about since the only thing that caught my eye was the following paragraphs. Which reminded me eerily of the last couple of months.

The Future is Spelled C-H-I-N-A

In 1932, back in the Fu Manchu days, when the inscrutable Oriental had a powerful grip on occidental culture, Perry Mason's creator Erle Stanley Gardner wrote a story called "The Danger Zone," and observed en passant:

"The Chinese of wealth always builds his house with a cunning simulation of external poverty. In the Orient one may look in vain for mansions, unless one has the entree to private homes. The street entrances always give the impression of congestion and poverty, and the lines of architecture are carefully carried out so that no glimpse of the mansion itself is visible over the forbidding false front of what appears to be a squalid hovel."

Not any more. Confucius say: if you got it, flaunt it. The glittering skylines of the coastal megalopolises ascend ever higher; on the ground, the lobbies of the chain hotels and the local franchises of the upscale boutiques are swankier than their American branches. But this is merely a latter-day form of "cunning simulation," a new "false front." Behind it lies the vast Chinese hinterland -- a billion-strong rural backwater all but entirely cut off from the showcase cities on the coast, until some rustic catches SARS from the prize pig in the rec room and decides to toddle up to town for the day. In the west there are restive Muslim populations, and in the east the so-called guang gun -- "bare branches": since China introduced its "one child" policy in 1978, the imbalance between the sexes has increased to the point where there are 119 boys for every 100 girls, the most gender-distorted demographic cohort in history. The pioneer generation of that 20 per cent male surplus is reaching manhood now.

Asked about this on the radio a year or two back, I suggested that maybe China's planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, and promptly received a ton of indignant emails. But that brings us back to Sax Rohmer's planchette board. Ask a question about China's future, and the answer comes up C-H-I-N-A-M-A-N, emphasis on the M-A-N, as in millions and millions of them, with no available women: as a general rule, large numbers of excitable lads who can't get any action is not a recipe for societal stability.

And, last but not least, the most disturbing thing of all...

Adidas Goes Art House

For it's new Adicolor shoes, Adidas commissioned seven online short films, each representing a color. The final installment, "black", is done in stop-motion animation and is one of the most nightmarish, unsettling pieces of marketing ever produced - involving a drunk panda bear and a fish with a death wish.

In fact, other than pink and blue, they're ALL quite creepy (white stars Jenna Jameson) but black certainly wins the prize. They're all at r000g000b000.net.

Homeless

I'm at Eva's tonight and let me tell ya - pretty damn excited about full cable TV. Although I'm only actually going to watch the channels I'd watch anyways. (This keyboard sucks, Eva, do you like it? I think I hate it.) Anyways, I get to visit my plants one more time (and they look very nice in here) and compared to my 'old' place it is lovely and cool and QUIET!

And since I've actually seen how bad that border looked on another system which doesn't scroll it - I've just taken it off.

All of my stuff is in three different storage rooms in the basement of the building. One room (ick!) used to have a hot tub in it until some child DROWNED in it. It's a creepy room too, I totally kept thinking I'd see this little kid every time I opened the door.

The movers (I actually picked the right one out of the classifieds to call since I still don't know where my daytimer is and that's the only place I had it written down) are coming between 9 and 10 am tomorrow so I will actually have a good portion of the day to unpack a little.

I've had my last massage. *sob*

When I packed my backpack to come to Eva's (I am excited, really, this will be the first time I've actually slept in a bedroom since December) I realized after that there were no clothes in it. It's all bits and pieces of paper I have to sort out, insurance stuff I have to send in, things I need to look through because for some reason I've marked something interesting in them for posting so I can leave some posts for you guys, etc etc etc. It's sad, really.

Anyways, for now, since a few people had asked me what would be good to send in care packages I have included a little link over there on the right-hand side. I'll add to it if I think of anything along the way, as well.

And, since it's yanno, HOT, there I've also added a handy forecast so at any given moment you can imagine how truly uncomfortable I am and take a moment to send 'cooling' thoughts.

Punishment Comes In Many Forms. Some Subtle. Some Not.

What the hell kind of horoscope is this?

Leo (July 23 — Aug. 22)

All your troubles are over. Your problems are solved. The great matchmaker Cupid has pricked you with his magical arrow. Okay! It's time to receive your next dose of medication or go back to sleep. Keep your fantasies alive.

Yeah, Cupid was hitting me with something right at the time they took my mug shot this morning, but I wasn't really feeling the love, I tell ya. It looks a lot more like a really large Purgatory sized mosquito had just pierced my jugular. And, since I forgot to buy cream for my morning coffee - an uncaffeinated jugular at that.

It may be that the army isn't charging me (a fact that the retired navy finger-printer lamented this morning) but I'm pretty damn sure the universe is doing it's best to make everything even more difficult than it usually is for me.

And if you know me, well, that's saying something right there.

After I posted yesterday morning, my internet quit working so I phoned the cable company and for some reason, they'd disabled the modem so after 20 minutes on hold while they figured out what happened they decided that instead of technical support, I needed customer service. So, they transferred me - and dropped the call. I called back. Waited on hold. Re-explained. Didn't get transferred cause the guy in technical support re-enabled it.

I went out for the afternoon.

When I got home.... no internet.

They have this funky thing on the phone line that if the wait is say.... 10 minutes ... then you can leave your phone number and your call stays in line and then someone calls you back - theoretically within that 10 - 15 minutes. So, I left my number. At 6:30 pm.

At 9:30... no one had called me back. So I called in again. They'd disabled it again. "Oh, we'd done that since we hadn't heard from you." I talked to three seperate people there THIS MORNING, pal. Nice try.

"Ahh, so this is a move. What's your new address?" It's not a move. I am disconnecting my service BUT NOT UNTIL THE 30TH LIKE THAT WORK ORDER SAYS THAT YOU SEE RIGHT THERE ON YOUR SCREEN.

"We can't seem to find your modem. What's the serial number?"

*sigh* So, they re-enabled it again and I made them promise to put notes saying that it shouldn't be fucked with anymore.

I get up this morning. (Yes, I know, look how amazing I am, it's a wonder I do actually). Guess what?

Oh, you guys are way ahead of me here. But let me just say it for the ones who didn't get it.

No internet.

Someone 'inadvertently' disconnected it.

But technical support couldn't fix it. So, back over to customer service.

"Where are you moving to?" ARG! TIMBUKTU!

So, if I disappear completely, strangely (and early) over the next few days.... it's not my fault, I am not dead (although there may be a news story involving innocent cable internet people, a hot fork of discontent and a crazy woman with her brains leaking out of her ears) and eventually, I shall return.

Because, and only because, I refuse to let the universe win. And someday, this neon sign of the gods over my head will sputter out.

If I can just hang in until then.

Chaos. Do We Expect Any Less?

In typical Jen-like fashion, I have a whole list of the things that need to be done before I leave this weekend.

Today, I have already NOT done two of them. Once Cabot-cat crawled in to lay his body along mine, tuck his head under my chin and wrap his arms around my neck before letting his entire body go limp and starting to snore - I was toast. There was no getting me out of bed this morning. Moments like that, they are meant to savor.

Next up is a doctor's appointment and then more boxes with Eva. She's also taking care of all my plants while I'm gone (she did last time except she came here and this time, the plants are going to her house). Although I'm feeling pretty bad about having to destroy teeny spider's web and displace cute teeny spider who lives on one of the plants.

Tomorrow is the big whammy - fingerprinting, a meeting with the lawyer and a facial.

Wednesday? Free day. Well, it'll be the things I didn't get done today, a haircut, shopping, more packing. It works out that I can't move until the 1st and the landlord is moving someone in here on the 30th. Dilemma, yes? So it looks like I'll be moving ALL my stuff downstairs into storage starting Wednesday and staying at Eva's place on Friday night. Because of course, in this Jen's life, nothing goes smoothly.

Thursday is my first court appearance. But, I don't think I'll be there, just the lawyer. Apparantly I get no points for showing up and frankly? I can just as well do without it this week.

Friday is mad rush day. And a final massage.

Saturday - hopefully the movers actually show up. EARLY. And then I can unpack some of my little self into my new place before hauling myself up on Sunday for the flight back to Purgatory, MB.

Where, as I found out on Friday bad cop may be my new superior officer. Which actually, may be better, believe it or not, than the other option. I can call down to the unit and see what the verdict is but I have to admit, I'm the teensiest bit afraid of that.

And that is the funfilled week ahead of me. Anyone want to help shift boxes?