how do you live so happily while i am sad and broken down?

It's seven in the evening and all, all, all I want to do in the world is go to bed.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to distract myself for the next 3 hours til I can actually do that.

So this weekend was kind of sucky... I had a killer headache on Friday night, Saturday was rainy and blah and I did laundry and not much else, Sunday was more rain and canceled tennis and the return of the killer headache. I think it's sinus related, with the change in the weather and the barometric pressure switching around. Or maybe I'm just defective, I dunno.

Anyway, I still had the headache when I woke up this morning, and I was exhausted, despite having gotten eight hours of sleep and having napped on Sunday afternoon too. So I called in sick to work, which I rarely ever do. But there was nothing on my schedule today and I just couldn't see trying to pretend I was fine for no good reason. I went back to bed and slept til 1, then lolled around the house til about 5pm.

I've been really, really lacking in motivation and happiness over the last couple of weeks. I don't know whether it's a problem with my mood, or weather-related, or just that ho-hum time of year or what. It could also be related to my diet - I probably don't get enough protein. But anyway, I realized today that I just feel lately like I'm failing at everything, which is silly, because I'm not really. My house isn't spotless, and I don't practice my drums enough, and I haven't finished every craft project I've got started, and my lawn looks like crap because I can't mow it due to all the rain we've gotten. But none of those are failures, they're just stuff I haven't done. I don't know why I'm so hard on myself sometimes, I should really stop that.

Tonight I was better. I went to Target and got some pain-killers and sinus meds. I came home and talked to my sister-in-law and my sister, and cleaned my kitchen and living room. It's a start. Tomorrow's goal - start working out of the office again. I tend to work on the couch when it gets cold because my office is in the basement, but it's supposed to warm up tomorrow, and I think I could really use the mental separation between work and home.

Another part of my funk has been caused by the complete lack of dating life I've had my entire life lately. Around October-ish, I decided to really give internet dating a go again, and to try to be more active, etc. It has netted me exactly ZERO dates. I really don't understand the male thought process... if we are both on a dating site, and you email me and I email you back, I am not averse to getting a cup of coffee with you. Just ask! I've even put it in my profile, albeit worded more nicely. What worries me the most about this is, well... before I could always tell myself that it was because I was too fat. But I really look the best I think I've ever looked, which makes me feel really awful about the whole thing because this is me, you know? They can see the real me, and still no one's looking. Oh, thirty pounds, how I miss hiding behind you! Not really, but at the same time, kind of.

So, yeah. My insecurities, let me show you them.

I'm feeling decrepit tonight... my knee is hurting me, my wrists are aching. I couldn't finish my workouts yesterday or today. I think it's mostly the cold. I've started taking glucosamine today, after months of meaning to get around to it. Hopefully that will help. I need to start doing weight training for my knee, but I've never figured out how to do that at home - my doctor said that I need to do that machine where you lift up and out. Crap, I'm bad at describing this, it's this thingy - the bar at the front. Maybe ankle weights and I could do it while I sit on the couch and watch tv. That's the kind of weightlifting I'm into.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a few days off from working out :(

I feel like I haven't really updated in a while, other than twitter posts and the occasional 'hey, look at this' link. I'm doing good, just focused elsewhere, I guess. I've been playing a lot of tennis, although our league wrapped up on Saturday for the winter season. I had my best game so far, so that was awesome. I saw My Bloody Valentine with some fellow Supernatural enthusiasts on opening day. I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because I was in a theater full of people intent on having a good time. It was cheesy but fun, and I wish the theater had had the 3D stuff because that would have been awesome.

I watched the inauguration, of course, and twittered through it - which kind of cracks me up, but anyway. I thought his speech was good, and I hope that the rest of the nation takes it the way I took it, that it's great he got elected, but that our duty didn't end there and now we have to help turn things around by volunteering, by staying involved in local, state and federal politics, and by holding our elected officials accountable for their voting.

I'm of two minds about the whole closing of Gitmo thing. On the one hand, I am happy that Obama is moving to close the torture 'loophole' - that goes against everything we sell ourselves as as Americans, and you cannot say we stand for liberty and justice and freedom for all, but we have to do this horrible thing because everybody else does it and the ends justify the means. No. On the other hand, it opens up a whole host of really uncomfortable questions, and I hope that this is step one, and step two is a really clever plan to address them. Where do these detainees go? What should the legal process for indicting/prosecuting/imprisoning terrorists be? Should there be degrees of terrorism like there are degrees of murder? There's a lot of hard questions there that I don't have the answers for, and am frankly glad that I don't personally have to come up with them. Like it says in this video, I'm glad we've elected the smart guy, because decades of going for the charismatic guy that doesn't make us feel stupid had gotten us in this mess. My understanding is that the Obama administration is asking for a 30 day suspension on everything, and I hope they come back with a plan at that point.

In other less political news, I came home on Sunday and started putting away my groceries only to notice that something was amiss in the kitchen. On further inspection, I discovered that my cabinets, which are ONLY TWO YEARS OLD are coming un-nailed from the back of the cabinet (which is mounted onto the wall). So now they're crooked and I'm trying to find a good handyman to put them back. To add to the unfairness, it's not even like I put that much food into them. Argh, I say, argh!

And that's about it. Most of my focus these days is on my diet (which is going well), making a blanket, figuring out what I'm doing with my vacation time this year (trips to Denver, home, Savannah, home), and fighting off a cold.

So I'm pretty sure I had some sort of fever last night - I woke up both hot and chilled and achy in the middle of the night, and got up and took some aspirin. I feel okay this morning, although I couldn't make myself get up until 11 (today's a travel day for me). Hopefully that's all it was, and not the foreshadowing of some illness.

So it's taken me all weekend to figure out that I think I might be coming down with something, or having allergies. I keep sneezing, and I had a low-level headache all day yesterday that turned into a monster right at bedtime. Thank God for my emergency stash of UK painkillers (way, way better than their US counterparts).

Also, I've managed to get a bug bite on my foot :( More disturbing because I only left the house once yesterday, and that was just to get the mail.

So yeah, tired, wishing for a real vacation, and dreading the weekend, which isn't actually a weekend for me, but filled with travel instead. At least I have Friday off, to go to the dentist and the eye doctor.

A fairly quiet weekend here - I'm still not feeling 100%. Friday night I went to bed not long after I got home from Vancouver, and then Saturday morning I just couldn't make myself get up early. Which I should have done because I needed to get my brakes worked on on my car. Oh, well, I'll get it done sometime this week. They're only brakes, how important can that be? :)

So Saturday I had my drum lesson and got to play on the real actual live drum kit for the first time. MAN I SUCK! ;) Two things at once, oh noes! I just spent ten minutes tonight trying to coordinate my body to do this and failing. It's supposed to go (right hand-right foot), then (right hand-left hand), repeat repeat repeat, but is unfornately going more like (right hand-right foot), (right hand-left hand), (right hand-right foot-left hand), (left hand-right foot), (entire body spaz). It's only a matter of time before my left foot becomes involved and I actually tie myself into a pretzel. There was much repeating of the word 'fuck' in practice. If nothing else, I shall learn to chant it rhythmically.

The rest of Saturday was spent doing a little shopping and then cooking myself a nice dinner to celebrate my one year anniversary of home ownership.

Today, also quiet - brunch with Gina and one of her friends, a little work on a photo album, some tv, and drum practice. My life, so exciting! :D

So after a fever-tossed night, in which my temperature rose to 101 and my cough moved into my lungs, I finally gave up and called in to work - which means not that I took a sick day today, but rather that I got to fly from Louisiana to Houston to Atlanta with a fever and chills. Fun times! But I'm home now, and the Tylenol seems to be keeping the fever in check. The cough is still annoying though. I am praying for a miraculous recovery tomorrow so that I can still visit my brother and his wife over the weekend.

I've been meaning to come on and post since I got home from my brother's wedding a week ago, but I have some how missed being able to. Jetlag hit me really hard this time around - apparently the human body is not meant to go from the East Coast to the Ukraine to Vegas to Argentina to England in one month, who knew? So I spent the two days between getting home and my company coming into town sitting on my couch in a daze. Then my friends arrived and I spent the weekend in a shopping frenzy. There may be things left to buy in Atlanta but it was not for wont of us trying. I have new clothes, new sunglasses, new shoes, and a gigantic white leather handbag that I am unhealthily in love with.

When they left on Sunday, I was so tired that I was literally ill. I went home and laid on my couch and tried to read, but my headache got so bad that I finally had to take something and go to bed. I'm also fighting off this weird allergy/cold thing, lots of throat-clearing and snot-creation. And now I'm on my way to Minnesota to train for 3 days, so I'm sure that talking for 8 hours a day will really help.

And now I'm at the hotel, and I'm off to bed. I had other things I wanted to say, but they're escaping me right now. Maybe tomorrow will be clearer :D

And glad of it! I have to say, I didn't take full advantage of this trip - I just wasn't in the mood. I didn't go out at all til yesterday. But I did have a good time - the corporate rep took all of us who were working on the cutover out to lunch at a bodega, which is a winery in Argentina not a sandwich shop. I got nice and toasty and bought a few bottles to take back as souvenirs. I also bought a couple of bottles of Argentian olive oil, as it was excellent.

Today I sort of wandered around, tried to go shopping but almost all the stores were closed. I bought a painting from an artist at a booth in the park, and then just sat around and people-watched for a bit until a gypsy started bothering me. My Spanish isn't good enough (okay, my Spanish is pretty non-exisistant) to tell her to go away, so I just left. In the end, I spent about an hour waiting for my ride in the hotel lobby.

I can't wait to get home. My sore throat is turning into something more serious, complete with phlegm-y cough. I'm guessing strep throat or early stages of bronchitis, but it could just be allergies. Either way, I think I'm going to try to get into see my doctor tomorrow, assuming I can stay awake long enough. Wouldn't do to cough all the way through my brother's wedding. Speaking of, one week from today is my brother's wedding! I leave for England Thursday night. This is all my whole family has talked about for a year, I'm really looking forward to it. I will make sure someone takes a picture of me in a)my floral dress (I am not a floral-type person, but I am making an exception), and b) English wedding hat! When in Rome and all that.

In other news, I have finished Season 2 of Supernatural. I am definitely hooked, and am now trying to figure out how I will manage to watch this and Grey's Anatomy at the same time next season. I suspect I'll be watching Grey's online. I wish all the networks would do that, it really frees me from feeling chained to the tv. Guess I could get Tivo, but I am still resisting. Anyway, back to Supernatural - ( cut for spoilers if you haven't watched all of Season 2 )

And now I'm off to bed - or rather, off to curl up in my airplane seat and hope to nod off for a few hours. 9 hour flight, ugh.