Herman approves
of the “new” couch.
Silly boy.
Archive for March, 2010
Home decor inquiries
If you’ve seen my pet pictures, you know what my living room furniture looks like.
I’ve got a couch and loveseat, both generous hand-me-downs from when my friend J got married. The pets obviously love the furniture. I, at the age of 34, have still never bought a new couch. Given that my pets spend half their waking hours on my couches, that may have been a smart thing.
I have a neighbor who is about to leave town. She has a nice black leather couch. I agreed to help her sell this couch, but then she offered to sell it to me at a very reasonable price.
Question 1. Would it be absolutely appalling to have both the black leather sofa and my old loveseat in the same room? My sister thinks so. I can see her point.
Question 2. Would it be absolutely appalling to have both the black leather sofa and my only-one-year-old brown leather ottoman in the same room? My sister thinks so. I can see her point, here, too.
The obvious solution is not to keep this black leather couch that I don’t really need, but it is somewhat of an upgrade, and some change would be nice.
Since I just about never have anyone over, should I ever care if my furniture clashes? I mean, given the other problems I’ve got, is this worth stressing about? Then again, since it’s something within my control, should I try to get it right?
UPDATE Oh, so here’s a picture of the neighbor’s couch, which is still in her apartment, because we could not figure out how to get it out her front door. This little problem may make this all moot.
Non-venting
I’m kinda bummed that we’re not gonna get raises at work for the second consecutive year, and that I mistakenly paid my car payment twice when I really can’t afford to do that, and about dialysis, and about being single, and about so very many things. It’s all so overwhelming; I just feel paralyzed.
But I don’t want to vent. I try to avoid trifectas of crabbiness. So here’s what I’m gonna do. I’ve got hundreds of cat pics that pre-date this blog. So I will share some, because nothing makes a blog stand out in a web of millions of blogs like more pet pictures that look just like all the other pet pictures you post all the time.
I really love my cat. Have I ever mentioned that?
(1998)
(2000)
Mid-week dialysis venting
[early Tuesday morning]
Get off your f’in phone, [tech]. It’s 330 in the morning.
I need to get out of here asap. Cannot stand this for another two hours.
And I did leave an hour early.
[tonight] One-handed iPhone typing. Mr X is as loud as he’s ever been tonight. I want to leave duct tape on his bed. I have to put the volume on my iTunes up higher than I’m sure is good for my ears to partially block him our.
Tech who was on phone at 330 Tuesday morning is off tonight.
There’s always something.
Six months on nocturnal dialysis. There is no hesitation when I say this… I hate this. Lack of peace. Lack of privacy. Feeling lousy after I come off, so I either go back to sleep and miss part of the workday, or I make it into work and feel horrible.
Now that my lone dono possibility fell apart, I’m faces with the prospect of YEARS more of this. And the months just fly by. Six months of nothing to show for in my life. With six of seven days containing either the begining or end of a dialysis session, almost every day is tainted by this crap.
No relief in sight.
Believe it or not, I do experience brief flashes of optimism. They are always swiftly extinguished. Any sort of traction seems impossible.
Shut up, Mr X!
Pushed earplugs in better; that helps a little.
Just put my blanket over my head. Feel sufficiently isolate now, but it gets uncomfortably warm very quickly.
I am quite discouraged.
What else is new?
This week in Antichrist news
Percentages of Republicans who, according to a new Harris Poll, believe:
67% – Obama is a socialist
57% – Obama is a Muslim
45% – Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
38% – Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
24% – Obama “may be the Antichrist”
How do we have civilized political discourse in America when a fourth of one of the two major political parties believes that the President might be the Antichrist? Furthermore, why does the President even engage with this political party that is unwilling to debate policy but unapologetic about encouraging this insanity?
I need to find a bubble away from all of this.
Elections matter
I’ll ignore the ugly stuff out there for a minute and savor the fact that the most important legislation in my lifetime has passed. It should be crystal-clear to everyone that the two political parties aren’t quite the same. Elections do matter. If you voted for Obama, and you believe that healthcare should be more of a right than a privilege, you can feel like your vote mattered. And if you’re a Republican, and you believe that government shouldn’t play a role in ensuring access to healthcare, you can be quite confident that your vote counted, too, since every Republican in the House of Representatives voted against the reform bill. Fortunately for Democrats, they have a sizable majority, because they did well in two straight elections. Elections do matter. And Barack Obama, for all of the blame he deserves for ceding the debate for the better part of year, deserves enormous credit for rallying his diverse party to pass a flawed, but monumental piece of legislation.
Health Care Reform: Final Arguments
I could write a lot more about this. I’m so sick of it. Looks like Congress will pass the damn bill tomorrow. Good.
Against:
(Tea Partiers Protest Outside Capitol, 2010.03.20)
Oh, and Civil-rights leader Rep. John Lewis is a n****r.
And Rep. Barney Frank is a f****t.
For:
(President Barack Obama Addresses Democratic Members of Congress, 2010.03.20)
I have the great pleasure of having a really nice library at the White House. And I was tooling through some of the writings of some previous Presidents and I came upon this quote by Abraham Lincoln: “I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true. I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.”
This debate has been a difficult debate. This process has been a difficult process. And this year has been a difficult year for the American people. When I was sworn in, we were in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Eight hundred thousand people per month were losing their jobs. Millions of people were losing their health insurance. And the financial system was on the verge of collapse.
And this body has taken on some of the toughest votes and some of the toughest decisions in the history of Congress. Not because you were bound to win, but because you were bound to be true. Because each and every one of you made a decision that at a moment of such urgency, it was less important to measure what the polls said than to measure what was right.
A year later, we’re in different circumstances. Because of the actions that you’ve taken, the financial system has stabilized. The stock market has stabilized. Businesses are starting to invest again. The economy, instead of contracting, is now growing again. There are signs that people are going to start hiring again. There’s still tremendous hardship all across the country, but there is a sense that we are making progress — because of you.
But even before this crisis, each and every one of us knew that there were millions of people across America who were living their own quiet crises. Maybe because they had a child who had a preexisting condition and no matter how desperate they were, no matter what insurance company they called, they couldn’t get coverage for that child. Maybe it was somebody who had been forced into early retirement, in their 50s not yet eligible for Medicare, and they couldn’t find a job and they couldn’t find health insurance, despite the fact that they had some sort of chronic condition that had to be tended to.
(more…)
Three Cats and Daffodils
Herman and I often encounter these neighborhood cats, but have never seen all three lined up in a row like this. I wish we’d been able to get closer, but the cats would’ve gotten anxious and run off if they had realized Herman was stalking them.
More fun with Flickr stats
I’m amused when I can find one of my pictures on the first page of Google Image search results.
silly cat faces
(#10)
capon springs weddings
(#10, #11, #21)
duke girls partying
(#1) (other pics that aren’t mine are NSFW if SafeSearch is turned off)
slug copulation
(#1, #12)
duke craven quad
(#3)
Just five dollars and a dream
Despite a hiatus in 2007, I’m still calling my NCAA pool “Toastie’s 15th Annual NCAA Pool”. $5 per entry. Hosted by CBS Sports this year. Here’s the website to sign up and get more info. (The secret password is ’1996′.)
I generally like running the pool each year, because I know I am providing an invaluable service to the community.
