Watch this...

Then this.

Even MJ was infected with Pachelbel. I'll see you in hell, Pachelbel!

I blame Pam and Mike for this. I had a pretty gruesome nightmare last night and needed to get something else in my mind before going back to bed. This did the trick.

The (almost) aftermath...

I got all the packing taken out and felt dramatically better. They numbed up my nose very well so that it didn't hurt, and it didn't look as oogy as I expected, but I squirmed and whimpered and carried on like a child anyway. So much for my claims of being stoic! Now my voice echoes in my head very oddly, and when it's quiet it sounds like my breaths are going through a wind tunnel. Is reality always this noisy for you properly-breathing people? Very disconcerting.

My nose is still a bit tender, and one nostril is pretty swollen where the nose split slipped a little and rubbed.

There is still some nastiness as the remainder of the ick that was in my sinuses clears (I will spare the details and extra ick that I have subjected Steph to already) and as the soreness eases. I drastically need a god facial scrub. My nose is nasty. Hopefully this will last me for a while. I don't want to do it again!

I'm rather amazed at how thoroughly this surgery has wiped me out. I barely left the couch after coming home on Thursday and all day yesterday. Today I've been mostly lying around but have at least stayed awake a bit. I managed a bath without drowning (although hair washing seemed like a bit too much) and after I have a recovery nap I will try doing without my face gauze and see if I can start resembling a normal human being.

Hopefully the after-effects will be worth all of the ickiness!

Now back to sleep.

Thank you, Pam! In honor of my sinus surgery.

I'm not generally a fan of PETA. I think they do more harm to the cause of animal rights than good. But any organization that causes this can't be 100% bad.

( Rowr )

I had been slacking on my running, but in the past few weeks I've been slowly getting back on track. Yesterday, I went out for a 12 mile run. The weather was perfect, 70 and sunny but with a strong cool breeze. I kept to a very steady pace the whole time and the run felt great. Yay!

Of course, there's more to it than that. The run itself felt fantastic, but I wiped out around mile 9. Thankfully I didn't do any serious damage, but I shredded my left palm and the inside of my right arm, and either jammed or hyper-extended the joints on the two end fingers on my right hand. I landed pretty hard on my hip, but thankfully today it's not even bruised or sore, just a tiny bit scraped. Being the insane person I am, I sat for a couple of minutes to inspect the damaged, poured water over the open wounds and picked the gravel out, then got up and ran my last three miles. I don't know if that counts as dedication or craziness.

Before that, I had a couple of other interesting encounters along the route. I was passed several times by a guy riding his bike while playing a guitar. That seems like one of the strangest combination of activities I have ever seen! Need to spend time practicing your music but have places to go?

Also, while going into an underpass, I startled a muskrat who was trying to find a way into the river. At least I think it was a muskrat; it was a large brown rodent with large front teeth and about the size of a possum. I scared it as I came around the corner, and, instead of running away from me down the path, it bared its teeth at me, puffed up, growled and shuffled toward me! I stepped back a little, and it scampered away. I didn't really need that display of aggression, little guy!

As my training progresses, I'm getting better at eating properly again. I have always had a hard time with the nutrition for the run. My stomach can be a bit sensitive and I have trouble eating in the morning when I get up, but when going for a long run you have to have some food in you to make it. Many of the supplements like gels also bother my stomach. This time I had a half of an english muffin with peanut butter about a half hour before I ran, and I stopped at miles 3 and 7 to eat some sports jelly beans. I drank about 6 ounces of gatorade before I left and another 20 ounces or so when I got back in. I had a good amount of energy the whole time and very little stomach protests. This is big progress!

*facepalm*

1. Pandemic does not mean we're all going to die. It means that it has spread all over the world. Pandemic + high mortality rate + high infection rate = we're all going to die, but we don't have any of the three yet.

2. H1N1 is a cause for concern, but not being stupid. By concern, they mean show extra care. Wash your hands after touching objects in public or that others might have coughed or sneezed around. If you are feeling unwell, don't go to work or school. Cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough. Basic precautions, but very effective at preventing the spread of disease. So don't yammer about how scary it is then neglect to cover your mouth when you cough, dumbass on the train.This is also a good time to bring out the purell.

3. Scoffing at the few numbers of people who have gotten sick or died isn't a strong argument because this strain has been around about a week. Viruses that are very infectious can spread exponentially, so 20 people sick in the first week can become a whole lot more people in the 8th week. Comparing it to annual statistics of other illnesses doesn't mean anything yet.

4. Mortality rate isn't the only thing of concern. A high infection rate of even a fairly mild flu can be a big deal. Imagine half of the world being sick at the same time. Half of the doctors. Half of the police force. Half of the food delivery people. (I'd starve!) Half of the government. (Wait, let's try that one.) It's a question of keeping the basic functions of society operational.

5. I'm not even going to bring up the idiots worried about eating pork products. More bacon for me then!

Yay! I finished my Instructional Design class. This means I might actually be around on the internet without feeling guilty about not working on my homework. It might also mean a social life, but that's getting a little crazy there.

Work is going alright. Not hugely fond of my job, but hanging in there. I spent the day researching the swine flu today to see about putting together a quick educational program on preparing for a pandemic influenza. Isn't that a fun way to spend a Monday?

While I'm trying to adjust to the concept of free time, here's a fun video courtesy of Mike. (What would I do without YouTube?)

Mwah! I'm in for this year's offering!

Incidentally, bed #2 looks like the one in Dollhouse in Tahmoh Penikett's apartment. Would I ever be able to have the bed and not imagine him shirtless in it? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? And how much more to get the version with him in it?

I received my annual bonus for 2008 from work, and it's a smidge bigger than I expected. So not a windfall, but yay! Most of it will go towards the ever gaping maw of credit card debt (which I might actually finish paying off in the next couple of months!) and I've decided that some of it should go towards buying me a new bed. I have a very nice mattress, but the frame is a cheapy metal frame that I hate. I don't like metal beds, and I'm going to buy myself a wood one.

I went to the furniture store around the corner from me to see what they had and I actually found a few that I like AND can afford! Yippee!

( Pictures of beds. How exciting! )
So that's exciting. I get big-girl furniture! I will probably wait until after Easter to buy it in hopes that I can talk about it with my mother and convince her to buy me a rug for my birthday to complete my apartment happiness. I'm a schemer.

Bwahahaha!



I'm still trying to recover from my meeting. Hopefully a few more days of going to sleep early will help. The end of my semester will help even more. Just a few more weeks!

Yes, I am still alive. Work is a beyotch, as is my class this semester, and I have no other life. Hopefully in a few weeks I can be back to normal. In the meantime, Youtube is my only ray of light. Back to watching shiba inu videos!

Gorgeous actor and lovable muppet separated at birth.

I must get some sleep now. Tomorrow the Evil League of Evil competes for trivia mastery.

I saw my new doctor today, an ENT. I resisted calling him Treebeard. I think he appreciated that.

I do not recommend the experience of having a camera shoved down one's nose. Even with the numbing spray, that is not a place that should ever feel that kind of pain.

I have now been prescribed New and Improved drugs. Apparently at New and Improved prices. Yay?

If they don't help, the next option would be immunotherapy, but he's actually willing to take into account the fact that I'm petrified of needles and getting a shot every week for at least six months is like a one-way ticket to hell for me. So we'd skip that and go to the next option, which would be a minor surgery that would reduce the size of the horribly swollen bits. It's treating the symptom instead of the cause, but the hope is that it would give me enough of a break from the symptoms to get by, then when I hit my later 30s there's a chance my allergies will ease off. It's worth a try anyway.

It would be nice if there was some improvement before the marathon season got going. I'd love to see how well I could run if I could breathe.

Stolen from legal_beagle  who stole it from brookielaw .

( The I-Should-Be-Sleeping-But-I'm-Doing-Nothing-Useful-On-The-Computer Meme )

Alright, I need a new rug. The one I have (from Ikea, like just about everything else I own) looks great and is very plush and comfy, but it sheds like hell and collects amazing amounts of lint. My vacuum cleaner cries whenever I bring it near the living room, and I'm vacuuming every 2-3 days to keep it looking respectable. I don't like vacuuming, and this is unacceptable.

My mother has been after me to borrow money from her to get my credit card paid off. Borrowing money from her is the entrance to hell because it means that she owns my life and feels free to interfere at will (at least that's my observation after borrowing money to help pay tuition one semester in college) so I prefer to avoid that option. Instead I think I will ask her if she can buy me a nice rug for my living room. Then she can come visit and take credit for my nice decor.

Beyond that, I've done very well by hand-me-downs. I now have been donated a printer, a crock pot and a microwave. Go me! I really don't have any excuse to wuss out on cooking much anymore, so I spent some time going through a set of recipe cards and planning some meals. Tonight I'm going to make breaded shrimp and pasta, and sometime this week I'm going to make a lamb stew.

I am actually *gasp* not working this weekend. I have very many things I need to do, but I have worked during the past two or three weekends, and Friday afternoon I had had enough. So it was nice to sleep in today, get some housework done, and relax. Tomorrow I will enjoy doing nothing useful or practical. I might go shopping for makeup. Or if it's too cold I might just stay home and watch tv.

On the down side, I have a sore throat. I fear I might be getting sick again. My doctor thought that I might have some bigger sinus problems going on, so I'm going to schedule an appointment with an ENT. Hopefully we can figure out what's going on. I miss breathing!

Beyond that, life has been pretty much work, sleep, work, sleep, work, rant about work or coworkers, sleep. Once I get finished with all the preparations for our meeting at work things should be fine. And honestly I'm putting in more time on it now that I probably need to, but I'd rather stay ahead now instead of get caught up at the end.

I've signed up for a slew of races. I decided that races are exempt from my budget concerns. I'd rather cut corners elsewhere and have the motivation to keep up with my running. My motivation for running falls when I don't have a race scheduled.

Right now, I'm running the Shamrock Shuffle 8k in March, Soldier Field 10 Mile in May, a half marathon in May, and next weekend I'm going to get signed up for the Chicago Marathon in October. I will probably add on the Ravenswood Run in April, the Women's 10k in July, and the Elvis is Alive 5k in August. I will probably start going for some of the fun runs and neighborhood tour runs. Well, once the weather gets better!