sick

so i'm sick again. i felt fine yesterday, went to class with vim and vigor, came home, went to bed about an hour later. woke up feeling ok, but as i moved around a bit, i felt achy. then that zone-y feeling kicked in. by the time i was on the train to work, i felt like i had been worked over by a mob boss with the middle name of "the."

i got to work, mainlined some aleve (medicine of the gods) and managed to relieve some of the pain enough to get to work. but after a (seemingly lengthy) meeting with a coworker, i realized i heard about every other word and thought, "i should really go home." i packed my bag with some stuff i can work on at home and took off.

i got home around 3, sat around for a little while watching TV and then went to bed. ahhhhh. when you're upright and sick, it's hard to imagine how good being horizontal can be. i fell asleep, waking up 3 hours later. wow.

so i don't know if i have the flu or some other strange bug. i have this hacking cough which occasionally produces something that tastes fantastic. i don't have a fever, but i hardly ever get fevers, i'm not surprised. so, aches, pains, headache, cough. fantastic.

i tried to do my chem homework, but the numbers are all greek to me (no comments on the deltas and sigmas i use to do calculations), so i've been randomly window shopping online. it's a great way to pass the time when you can't really hold a thought in your head. that, and watching keanu reeves movies. ;) whoa.

hospital bill

i have read back in my blog and realized i haven't told the story of my first and only hospital visit.

in march of 1996, i was 22 and feeling unwell. every other day i was calling in sick and sleeping. one side of my throat was swollen and my eyes were totally puffy when i would wake up in the morning, like the upper lid would swell up. very strange.
several trips to the health center turned up nothing. one doctor actually thought i had mono, but the test turned up negative (i would have been impressed, but she then prescribed me antibiotics, which don't help with viral infections. i didn't take them).

then, one late night whilst i was stressing out over my design IV final the next day and getting very angry, i sat down and felt a very sharp pain in my left side. ooof. i twisted around to see if i could get it to go away... no dice. i got up and limped to the bathroom, thinking a nice constitutional will alleviate what i thought was gas. i almost passed out when i got up to leave the bathroom and ended up on the couch in the little antiroom of the bathroom.

i finally get up and hobble in to find annette. i drove her up to the art school, but i was going to make her drive home. she took her time getting her stuff together, not realizing how much pain i was in. while we were all gathered outside the computer studio, i threw up in garbage can from the pain. in front of everyone. ahhh, memories. i finally get annette out the door, where we go home and i go to sleep.

ok, it never ever crossed my mind to go to the emergency room. i had never experienced pain like that and my parents were never alarmists in any way and i had never had an emergency room visit. what i did find out the next day in the ER, however, is that i was lucky not to have bled out in my sleep. i had ruptured my spleen.

and i want you all to imagine a health center that would prescribe antibiotics for a viral infection trying to find out the source of my pain. not only that, but making me walk all over the health center, despite the fact that i was bent over in half. any guesses on how long it took?

6 hours.

i got there at 8am with cara, who drove. at 1pm, cara left and annette came around 2ish, when i was being wheeled out on a stretcher. she said she saw the ambulance when she came in and wondered what was going on. "yup, that's me!" i said.

strange things you never think about when you're in the hand of someone you don't know. being lifted into and out of an ambulance... i was positive that they would drop me. having a doctor swirl an ultrasound wand over your abdomen and say, "yup, that's blood in there," like you're not even there. being wheeled into the ER with everyone standing around, waiting for you. i said, "this is nothing like ER!"

i spent 2 days in ICU. i got prepped by the anesthesiologist and the surgeon. i got immunized for when they took out my spleen. but it turned out that they didn't need to take it out. it hadn't completely ruptured, so they watched it and my blood count and it healed on its own.

my mom came to visit with my sister. my friends all came to visit when i was in ICU. i got to gross out one of my friends by showing him all of things that were hooked up to me, like the catheter bag and my IV. it was around the time that beevis and butthead were all the rage and the phrase, "ow, my liver, my liver!" was being thrown around. then we found out that the person in the bay next to me had just had a liver transplant. d'oh! and i couldn't laugh, so eventually i had to ask them all to leave.

did i mention that i didn't have any health insurance at the time? i got saddled with a $17,000+ bill from University of Michigan hospital. i have been paying it off ever since.

until last week.

i called them and asked them if the remainder of the bill (around $5,000) could be forgiven.

AND THEY DID IT!! woo-hoo!

so that's the whole point of this long post. this may sound strange, but i found it a fascination journey, since i never really knew how close i came to not making it. truly, ignorance is bliss. i just got to lay there while people buzzed around me. but the staff at U-M did a great job and were really nice and honest with me, even though i was some punk kid with no guardian around (my mom was on her 5-hour journey). i don't think i'd do it again (and hopefully, it won't happen again) but next time, instead of ignoring the pain and hoping it will go away, i'll just go to the ER.

one of those days

as it happens every month, i have PMS. imagine your worst day in the whole world... not the "worst day" as in your dad died or your cat got run over by the mail truck. i mean "worst day" in the sense of everything that could go wrong did. that's what having PMS is like. everything goes wrong. and all it really takes is one tiny thing, like failing your chem exam, to set off the chain of "i hate my fucking life" events.

so far today, i've weighed myself (up a pound), left my sweater on the chair (it's 5 degrees outside), left late to drop off my car at the dealer (which was just at the dealer last week, but they couldn't get their shit together enough to fix it the first time), dropped it off (an extra $257, which brings the total to fix my brake light assembly up to $650), can't type, can't deal with the rude assholes in this city, can't deal with the fact that i cut 11" off my hair and now EVERY FUCKING PERSON is going to be saying something about it, so i've locked myself in my office so no one can see it. i just don't feel like dealing with anyone or anything today.

plus i have a dentist appointment today, where he's going to tell me i'm not flossing enough and the next time i go in, i'm going to have to get ANOTHER filling. at this point, i'm like, "who gives a shit?"

i've come to realize that i cannot do all of these things at once without losing my ever-loving mind:
1. take a hard class that requires a great deal of studying.
2. search for a condo.
3. save my money.
4. lose weight.
5. work out.
6. plan a bachelorette party.
7. plan a family reunion.

i know there's more in there, but i don't want to know about them. there are only 24 hours in a day, 8 of those spent behind this PC computer. 8 hours for sleeping (if i'm lucky). that leaves 8 hours to
1. eat healthy
2. work out
3. do my chem homework or read the 60-page chapter and understand it
4. not spend money
5. search for a condo.
6. spend time with my husband

and this stuff can only happen on tuesdays and fridays, because monday and wednesday i have 4 hours of class. thursday i have personal training, which only goes until 6pm.

and when you have PMS, sometimes getting out of bed is a chore.

and now i get to look forward to getting rid of my opening hours at starbucks this sunday, which, the night before, i'll be out for kristin's bachelorette party. and while i'm doing that, i'll be worrying about money and my weight and chemistry. it never stops. i'm never NOT thinking about those things. why can't one of those things just slide into place? why can't my working out actually make me thinner? why can't my going to class make me understand what the hell is going on in chemistry? why can't i get promoted to a salary where i wouldn't have to worry about buying a condo for $150k.

i hate every single aspect of my life. every. single. one. there isn't anything i look forward to anymore. and you know who's fault it is? mine.

Bush's tax money, part 2

my real reason for the last post wasn't to vent (no, really), it was to ask the greater public what they plan to do with their extra $300-600 that the feds will be giving them.

i plan on putting mine in my ING account. screw you, bush. i don't need buy things to make you feel better about ruining our country. and i'm not going to.

bush's tax money

so it seems that bush has implemented a tax relief plan that will hand out $168 billion to "jump-start" the economy. bush is hoping that people will turn around and purchase something with that $300-600 that the government is doling out.

now, i failed economics, as did our president (probably), but who came up with this? our economy sucks because our government/banks were stupid and have already given out money that people shouldn't have had in the first place. now we're giving them more? so we can buy more "stuff?" uh, hello? can someone teach this man about debt relief? these people who have gotten subprime mortgages BETTER FUCKING NOT run out any buy a playstation 3 or put a downpayment on a new car. they should FUCKING PAY THEIR BILLS WITH IT.

according to the Fed's G19 release (Jan 2006), the total American credit card debt is roughly $800 billion. and our debt, as a country, is $9.25 trillion dollars. now, i'm no mathematician, but that's a hell of a lot of money. here's my thought:

Bush, keep that money. pay off some of our debts as a country. that might help boost our economy better than handing out pennies in an attempt at putting a very tiny band-aid on a very big, open, running sore.

i don't know how the leader of the free world can't see the big picture. i equate our worldly financial situation to that of a stockbroker and a bum. yes, it appears that we have a lot of money, we have nice houses, we're well fed, well clothed, we've got tons of gadgets to keep us busy. but we're mortgaged to the gills. we don't actually OWN anything... the banks own them.

i don't own my car, some bank in New York does. and i don't even know what Citibank owns of mine... i've been paying it off for about 5 years now. so that computer i bought for $2000 in 2004 is now worth virtually nothing, but to ME it's worth about $4000 in interest.

the thing about america is that we're not a very economically savvy country. a lot of people don't know this credit card stuff. a lot of people don't understand adjustable rate mortgages. they don't understand tax hikes and liens and how foreclosure works. once people buy a house, the one major purchase people have been saving their money and their credit for, they let everything go downhill. they run up the credit cards. they start living beyond their means, never thinking that down the road, they might need to refinance, or have unexpected medical bills or home repairs. and when that happens and they've been living well beyond their means, they are truly fucked.

and that's what bush is doing to our country. he is making the US live well beyond its means. and that sets a horrible example for those people who have the opportunity to live free of debt. it seems we have set a new american dream: who cares if you can't afford it? buy it on credit!

so that stockbroker who looks like he has everything really owns nothing. and the bum... he may only have $2 in change in a cup and the clothes on his back, but he owns those free and clear. and he probably has no debt (anymore, anyway). so who's the bum now?

why?

i just spent the last 10 minutes of my life searching for an online picture of nicole richie's baby.

why?

do they have interventions for people with celebrity gossip addictions? and for those of you who don't, read this:

d listed

Bush's "Project Lifeline" Comes too Late to Save Him

because of his interest-only loan, President Bush has been evicted from The White House because of foreclosure. Bush's new plan to help delay foreclosures, "Project Lifeline," came a little too late to help the President and the First Lady.

"I really thought that with lower interest rates, our Ajustable Rate Mortgage would have been lower this month than it had been," laments Bush.

For those who have been a little better about their finances than the ruler of the free world, The "Project Lifeline" program will be available to people who have taken out all types of mortgages, not just the high-cost subprime loans that have been the focus of previous relief efforts.

counter-offer

we did get a counter offer-$15,000 more than we offered. i wanted to go up $5k as our counter-counter offer, but i got vetoed. i think it would be worth an extra $5k, with the second bedroom, and crown molding. but when you really get down to it, no matter how nice it is, if you're going to worry every month on whether or not you can pay for it, it's not worth it. at least not to us.

we're still looking.

Offer...

rejected.

oh, well. back to the drawing board.

condo

i think we found one. it has three things that i really wanted: dishwasher, central air, and washer and dryer in the unit. there isn't parking, but it's really close to the morse stop on the red line. it's also about 3 doors down from the Heartland Cafe. good times. we've made an offer and we'll find out in a few days if they're desperate enough to take it. but in the meantime, here are some pics:

food journal

here's what ate today: this is for my benefit and for anyone else who feels like they eat too much crap. or for anyone who wants to comment on how poorly i eat.

(6:15) breakfast: bran flakes with rice milk (200 cal)
(8:00) morning snack: banana (80 cal)

went out and tromped through 100 pounds of snow.

(9:45) my other snack: cherry jam sandwich with light bread (230)

went out and tromped through 300 pounds of snow.

got home and ate:

(10:30) oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon (100 cal), drank hot chocolate from a packet (80 cal)
100 calorie pack of hostess cupcakes (100 cal)

shoveled out my car for 30 minutes.

(3:00) peanut butter and jelly sammich (300 cal)
100 cal pack of crappy cheese-its (100 cal)

so, so far today, i've consumed 1090 calories. that doesn't include any calories i might have spent busting my ass in the snow.

here's my problem: i think i spend more calories than i really do. i also think that i eat a lot less than i really do. all i know for sure is that my waist isn't letting me fit into 50% of clothes. how do i get rid of that? how long do i have to hate myself before i'm back to what i was before christmas? i mean, jesus, i only gained 6 pounds!!! they all went to my waist?? and even after i lost 3 of those, i STILL don't fit into my clothes. so what happens if i bust my ass and i STILL can't fit into my skinny jeans?

then i get knocked up and actually have an excuse to 1) be fat, and 2) lose my waist.

update: went to personal training. then came home and ate:

(7:00) fiber-one bar (140 cal)
carrots
pasta with olive oil (220)

(8:30) deans light ice cream (180)

total for the day: 1630

not too shabby. the key here, i feel, is swapping out some of those carbs (believe me, i know i'm addicted) for protein. maybe some day.

a little snow

we here in chicago got some snow over the past 12 hours. we got up this morning and found about 7" of snow on the ground. we took the train and i walked through the unshoveled sidewalks to get to work. when i got there, i read my email: "the chicago office is closed today due to inclement weather." huh. so i left and took some pictures. i went to the lake and then took a bus up to irving park and clark, with hopes to take pics of graceland cemetery. no dice; they were closed for plowing. so i took some pics of wunders across the street. then i walked from clark to ashland where my boot got soaked through with the slush and unshoveled snow. then i caught a bus to damen and irving and then walked home from there.

here are some pictures: