12-21-99 Cats are selectively intelligent as I am learning more and more. Thank goodness Feep has yet to learn how to open doors or shoot a shotgun or other dangerously intelligent things like that, but she has learned exactly how far on the edge of the bed she can sit at to be beyond
kicking range. I do not sleep well at night, because of this I sleep in during the days as much as I can, otherwise I don't think I could function properly. There are two things that keep me from a full night's sleep. Those things are my husband's sinuses and my cat. I observed a sleep study on TV once where a person would repeatedly wake
themselves up by thrashing their legs about for no apparent reason. I used to wonder what would cause someone to do such an odd thing, but now I know... My husband snores, he does not do this on purpose and I hold no ill will towards him because of it -- but the fact of the matter is still that he snores. Well, at 2AM I have absolutely no muscular coordination nor do I have the ability to utter the words,
"Honey, you're snoring again". No, instead I thrash my leg out and nudge him until he stops. If that proves to be futile I'll grunt out some high pitched pleading noise or just pound my leg against the bed to get his attention. This action has become almost a reflex for me. I hear a noise that sounds remotely like a snore, the leg thrashes out until it ceases. In another year or so it might
just be a programmed automatic thing. I just hope it doesn't work when I'm awake. Another twist to this is my cat, Feep. While one leg is busy battling the snore attacks, the other leg is my cat's favorite toy. When I stretch out at night Feep makes a powerdive for my feet and proceeds to bat at them frantically. In my half asleep state my first reaction for this is to curl my legs back up, and then
slowly flex them out again as I relax... which prompts another bout of pounce-batting. This is where the ever important border of how far my feet will stretch comes into play. You see, eventually I awaken enough to realize that my feet have been converted into a cat toy and I begin to sluggishly lash out at the cat to get her to shoo (again, I have no fine motor skills late at night and no coherent ability to talk).
Feep has learned that this is my weakest moment and takes full advantage of it. So when I'm lying there with my foot stretched out to full length trying to nudge the cat off the corner of the bed she sits calmly outside the boundaries of my range, and will proceed to LICK the bottoms of my feet just to aggravate me further. I know she doesn't do it because my feet taste good, and Feep is evil enough to know she's
pestering me so I can think of no other motivation behind this beyond the fact that it allows her the satisfaction of knowing she has manage to thwart the great pink demon who tosses cloth mousies at her head. Maybe I should just give it up and sleep on the couch. ---------------- My
Deadlands game was Saturday evening, and a portion of Saturday afternoon (after cartoons of course) was spent doing more Christmas shopping, and here I thought we were done. This time we purchased presents for my in-laws' dogs, some food at Wal-Mart while we perused the horribly inadequate music and video game section, and then swung to the Army Surplus store to get Scott some BDUs. While I was there I snatched three more MRE packets for Greywolf. I wonder if he'll
have to bother with Christmas dinner now? Saturday night I played my game and had a fairly good time, although it ran somewhat late and I didn't creep home until 2:30AM. The next morning I was too tired to make church, and as I've been making a regular habit of missing church my husband was none too pleased. Part of it is that Sunday mornings seem to be
the time that my stomach rebels against me. I think its because my eating schedule on Saturday is usually off and it affects my digestion, but that's only really part of the reason why. I'm also still mad at the priest at church, and I start to feel like a trapped animal when everyone there swarms me and they all say "We've not seen you in awhile!" over and over and over. Last time I went I got so
worked up I was shaking. The more it happens the more I feel like I'm being judged. Compounded by the fact that I feel like I'm being forced to join the priesthood right alongside Scott. What the hell happened to all of the talk of "You don't have to do anything special to be a postulant wife. You don't have to join this or be responsible for that or anything." Now its all changed and I'm supposedly required to make appearances alongside my
husband for social functions. I feel like I'm being blackmailed almost. If I don't show up for the Cowboy dance then my husband won't be able to get ordained. Nobody told me this before I got married to him, nobody warned me that I was required to make more appearances and do more than the average person, in fact I remember being REASSURED that this would not happen! But now that I'm married I've got to take on a bunch of responsibilities as well.
Well... I can't. I'm sorry. I am not a people person. I don't like crowds. I don't like big social functions. I don't like doing things in front of a lot of people. I am a recluse, and the more you push me the more I will instinctively curl away. My calling is for one-on-one dealings, my strength is in small numbers. Stick me in a crowd and I will start to get the nervous
shakes. Force me to deal with crowds and block off my exit and I'll break down. I love God, I love Jesus, I love my church... but I can't stand lots of people hovering around me. I feel bad about taking communion from one of the priests because although I'm not exactly angry at him or hating him, I just still feel a pain. It's hard for me to look at a man with God's authority when he gave my husband some
advice that made me angrier than I've been in years and drove a wedge between us for several days... and when Scott told him the advice was wrong he didn't apologize for it. That's why I still feel a pain. ---------------- Sunday night I was awoken by my husband (who had just eaten an onion bagel, and woke me more with his breath than
with his voice) and we went to try to observe the shuttle launch. It had been nixed for launch on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and originally the plan was that if it didn't launch by Saturday it would not launch at all. But conditions couldn't be more perfect Sunday and they decided to try it again. So at about 7:30PM Scott and I plopped down on a blanket at Cocoa beach and stared at the crystal clear sky
for half an hour. There was no breeze at all and as this was a sudden decision by NASA there was no crowd either. I'd never witnessed a launch from the beach, and it turned out that the spots that we thought were the launching pad weren't, and the shuttle itself took off from a spot hidden by some hotels. It was obvious when the shuttle launched though as there was a bright orange yellow glow that lit up the sky,
brighter than the moon and almost as bright as the sun. We watched it launch out over the ocean and even got to see the boosters break away as it slowly faded out into a spot on the horizon, and eventually even that winked out. We'll have to find a better spot next time. But nothing is impressive as a night launch. ------------------
Yesterday I did more Christmas shopping with some money my mom sent. (If mom wants to send me cash I won't turn it away, but I refuse to look on it like a bribe for my affections) and quenched a craving I'd been having for awhile for Long John Silver's chicken. There is no longer a LJS store near me so I must travel far and beyond to satisfy these cravings. Unfortunately my common sense keeps me from traveling
such a long way for a meal... but it doesn't say anything about stopping by one when it happens to be on the way to my shopping destination! I just need to get one more present for Herbie, and then I'm done. ------------------- Which brings us to today. I was doing fine this
morning and in a keen mood, but after lunch with a fellow muck admin and an incident online I'm pissed off. A muck I'm also an admin for is going to be running an idle character purge. I like having information to back myself up with. I believe that we need rules and guidelines so that if someone whines we can back ourselves up instead of being accused of picking favorites. The guidelines I decided to set was
that if someone had been inactive for six months (inactive meaning that they might have logged in to chat, but never roleplayed or ran anything on this specifically themed roleplay muck) then they would be removed. My companion didn't want it to be run like this as the purge would also get rid of characters that hadn't caused any trouble or hadn't been able to log in due to other circumstances. He'd mentioned these
misgivings to me before, but never to the affect of "I want you to do it like this, not like that" so I'd largely ignored him. Consequently during lunch today we butted heads over the issue. What bothers me is that I'm not sure if in my enthusiasm I missed him mentioning it, or I just ignored it because he always like to grump over things, or if he just didn't say it passionately enough for me to notice at all.
What grumped me even more wasn't that he was
challenging me over it, but that for awhile he just put his hands in the air and said "Okay, have it your way but I don't have to like it" which is a habit I'd dearly like to break my friend of. He'd have probably made snipey passive-agressive remarks about it and just let himself get angrier and angrier about the whole thing. I do not like standing in front of a cannon with a burning fuse anymore than I like for someone to repeatedly jab me over and over again. Still, do I say "Okay" and teach him a lesson about being more assertive, do I react to his obvious queues and risk encouraging more of this behavior? Argh.
We came to an agreement that seemed mutually satisfying, but I still came home from lunch in a somewhat drained and grumbly mood. After that I hop online and the subject of work comes up. I tell
people that "I type reports for insurance adjusters. When someone gets in a car accident I'm the one who tells you if you deserve money or not." After that comment someone promptly left the room, followed by a second person who was a fairly good friend of mine. (The following is directed more at the latter incident that the former, but...) If I say something that pisses you off, ask me for a
fucking apology, okay? Storming of in a huff, growling behind my back or even hinting at it in front of me without actually confronting the issue or SAYING WHATS ON YOUR MIND will only serve to piss me off even more. I am so freaking SICK of people who have a beef but don't ever do anything about it, even more sick of when I try to find a solution to the problem I get smacked in the head for it. I'm sick of
people who hide what they want to say behind veiled and political comments. If you think I'm a mean bitch, then tell me so. If you think I'm being cold, unfair, cruel, or want me to do something else then TELL ME... I'll either reasonably tell you why I won't or I'll agree with you and change. I know that some people can be unreasonable. I know that there are some people who will never be honest with
you, or who will lie out their nose to win an argument. I know there are people who don't care if they're being unreasonable or complete and utter jerks. I know that you can't solve every problem or win every argument. But I still get sick of finding myself in a situation where I could do something about it if allowed a little hand in things or if someone would just speak openly to me. I can't fight shadows.
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