I'm getting so bad at this
03-12-13,

The fact is I simply cannot summon the time, the energy and the opportunity simultaneously. I can't do it at work, I can't do it on the weekends, with Spouse's head lodged up my ass, and I can't do it on the week nights, because by the time I get home, tend to the dog, get my exercise in futility out of the way, do my housework, and get prepped for the NEXT day's grind, I am so exhausted I can barely manage some dinner, let alone anything else. And Friday afternoons? Forget it. That's the one chance I get to catch up on sleep a little, and you can be damned sure I take it.

DMFT isn't making it easier this week, either. I can barely function as it is, without arbitrary government intervention into what effing time of day it is perceived to be. And it isn't just me that this screws with. You want to know if it is 3:30 am or 4:30 am? Look at my dog. No matter what the clock says--if he's still asleep on the couch...it's three--flippin'--thirty.

Not much going on worth mentioning. I hurt all the time, it snows all the time, I work out and eat better but barely lose any weight (a scant 8 or 9 pounds, doing shit that would cause a normal metabolism to shed fat like rainwater). Blah blah blah.

Spouse and I are working on finding a bathroom remodeler, and engaged in a series of running battles about what we want. He wants to eliminate the tub and just go for a shower stall. I say you can't do that if we only have one bathroom; you have to have a tub or you will never sell this dump. I told him I know he expects to make me have to live in this shithole until I am dead, so his theory is "why not let the next of kin worry about it", but I do not want to spend all this money just to hate what we end up with. I mean, I understand that whatever we have will be an improvement in terms of being actually waterproof. And in working order. But the bottom line is...if I hate my bathroom after as much as I hated my bathroom before (albeit for different reasons), have I really gained any ground? And we are BIG PEOPLE, for crying out loud. I really don't want to give up my 5-foot tub shower for a 46-inch stall, even if I do manage to get some shelf space out of it. I just plain need that room to shave my legs and get myself clean.

I learned a long time ago that he is really bad at this. Whenever it comes to stuff like this, his knee-jerk reaction is to go cheap cheap cheap. Whatever the item in question he is all "what is the very most inexpensive option and we'll take it!"

I, on the other hand, want to do the job affordably, but I also want the very best choices for my money. And I want it to actually go together, for pete's sake! That doesn't even enter into it for him: every piece of furniture in his bedroom is completely different from every other in style and color, because he went with the cheapest option every time. I would at least like to have all my fixtures to match. But they don't have to match everything. There can be some color, in walls, window treatments, floor coverings, etc. That's another bone of contention. he's thinks this bathroom is going to be bare-bones, functional, "operating room white"--and he's effing nuts. I am, by Grapthar's Hammer, going to have some STYLE in there.

Anyway, end bathroom rant. I am trying to be grateful that he's finally adressing the issue at all, but I really cannot deal with some of the weirdness in his head.

Work sucks, in new and different ways. I hate my job and wish I knew what to do about it. The job itself is so horrible it is beyond all description. And working for people who react to uncertainty with nano-managing makes me want to slash my throat.

Then there is the consultant who sits in the next bay and who is causing me to lose my last last shred of sanity; he has been sick FOR A MONTH, and because he spends each day sucking and snorting all the crud BACK INTO HIS HEAD, he will probably continue to be sick indefinitely. He sounds just exactly like an old root hog on the farm with his constant snorting. It is horrible. I wish I worked in the kind of place where I could just walk up with a box of tissues and say "DUDE. FOR F***'S SAKE. BLOW YOUR NOSE." Or take the constant page-flapping, cereal-crunching, icy drink-sloshing annoyance that sits behind me--I mean it. PLEASE take her before I do something I'll regret.

So yeah. As I said. Work sucks.

I have no idea how my mom is doing. Not so great, I have a feeling, but it snows all the damned time and I never get to go see her. I wanted to go down there the last week in the month, leading up to her birthday, but now my bossy, know-it-all SIL is butting in because Mom's birthday is on Easter Sunday. I am avoiding responding to her, because she's hell on earth, but I can't put it off much longer. I don't know why she even pretends to bother with asking me anyway. After 24 years of me constantly repeating that I CAN'T ATTEND LAST-MINUTE EVENTS IN IOWA IF THEY ARE ON A SUNDAY BECAUSE I LIVE TOO FAR AWAY AND I HAVE TO BE AT WORK ON MONDAY", they continue to do what is easiest and most convenient to themselves.

Which, of course, is to make LAST-MINUTE plans for events to be held in IOWA on a SUNDAY.

Then, too, there is the implicit religiosity of the whole gathering the family at Easter which I really hate.

Here's something on the positive side. I guess. Would have meant a lot more to me ten years ago. Niece and I are going to see "Wicked" in June. That pair of tix cost me $214.50. Which is too damned much for a mere road company performance in Milwaukee, with no Names in it. Of course, $40 of that is for all the stupid "fees" they tack onto everything. And if I had insisted on them mailing me actual tickets, it would have been ANOTHER $14.00. Blatant thievery.

And as far as the show goes, meh. Like I said--I would have been a lot more into it a decade ago. Much like Nephew and I going to see Rapp and Pascal in Rent, it is way more about sharing the experience with Niece. It is her all-time favorite musical, so she is super-stoked. She has seen it before, but not with her Broadway Musical Fan Aunt. Plus, these are probably the best seats she has had for the show; part of the reason my tickets were so high is that I feel I am officially too old to sit in crappy seats at any show. The worst seats I will tolerate at the Marcus Center (old PAC) are the front half of center loge (these are center loge, row D, 22&23, which is halfway decent).

Spouse wants to go to a concert this summer, too--Steely Dan must have really enjoyed playing Ravinia in 2011, they haven't announced a tour for this year, but they have announced concert dates in August at Ravinia. I suppose I'll have to go. Y'know, I love The Dan as much as I like anything, but I am just way past being interested in seeing them live.

Oh, who am I kidding--like you get to "see" anybody at Ravinia. You sit on a blanket on the grass and listen to them over a speaker. I can do that at home. I can even be comfortable while I listen. Cool, bug-free, and in a chair. With a lot more money in my pocket.

Okay I'm done b****ing now.