lagomorph

http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/02/defa...&songID=3274631

I am so exhausted right now. The bf and I rented a car and went to WV to see our families for a few days, and we got home at like 3:30 this morning. I couldn't fall asleep until after 5:30, and then I got up at 9 to return the car. And of course now I'm both exhausted and wide awake. The trip was fairly uneventful, except that I had to do nearly all the driving (I was supposed to do all of it, cause my name was the only one on the rental-long story) and I HATE driving. I get freaked out pretty easily, I have crappy night vision, and my mind tends to wander. Since it was so late, I was listening to really loud music to stay awake, except then I found myself going 90 with both hands off the wheel drumming along with Baba O'Riley. Good example of why I rarely drive: we got relatively close to the city and they were doing all this road work, and it was raining hard, and the lanes shifted and I started going "oh god, oh god, where's the lane, oh god, oh god, help me, where's the lane, where's the LANE?!" and Mark just sat there and laughed at me. But, my mom did buy me some clothes, so the trip wasn't a total loss. Oh, and about the title, how weird is it that someone did that song on American Idol? And I think I've probably told most everyone this by now, but we decided to give up the bunny. His eye thing was actually getting worse, so we took him to the Humane Society. They're a no-kill shelter and they said they could fix him up; of course, that meant we had to surrender him. *sigh* It really, really sucks, but at least by now he's presumably all better. I feel pretty guilty (actually, the people at the shelter seemed to be trying to make us feel guilty, which I thought was just great ) cause we couldn't afford to get him the surgery ourselves, but seriously....I mean, it was like $500 just for some tests, and that doesn't even begin to include what the actual procedure would've cost. Yeah, ok, or we can pay our rent! So, I'm not really sure if I should feel bad or not. And I'm sure some people think I'm a total weirdo for caring so much. My mom just keeps saying, "Well it's not like it was a person," but that's about as close as I ever plan on getting to having a kid. Hm, so this turned into a rant at some point, sorry about that.

Yeah, I know I should go back and crop the black, but oh well. Anyway, he was hiding his face from me this morning while I was trying to put the stuff on his eye, and I thought it was cute, so I left the bf holding him and took a picture.

Thanks guys! We had the first medicating just a bit ago, and it went pretty well. Only took like a half hour. We had to wrap him up in a towel like a burrito to hold him still, with just his little face poking out...hehe. That was one pissed off bunny, I tell you. At least he wasn't too sick to try to get the hell away from us. And the putting the stuff on the eyeball...gross! That's love right there. I think he actually really liked the other medicine, it's liquid and it smells sorta like peppermint, and he finished it all no problem. Val

So we went to the vet, and I think I feel worse now than I did before. The bunny is basically a pus factory at the moment (I know that's gross, sorry, but it's true.) His nose and his eyes are leaking, and he's snuffling, and basically just sort of laying around looking pathetic. The vet isn't positive what's wrong with him; he said it's either a bacterial infection or a virus, so we've got antibiotics and we'll have to wait and see if they work. The worst part is one of his eyes, which is sort of trying to fall out of his head. Apparently bunnies are really prone to abscesses, and the vet hopes that's what it is, back behind his eye and caused by all the other infection floating around there. (He's got an oral medication but there's also some goo I have to smear on his eyeball twice a day. Can't tell ya how much I'm looking forward to that.) So, either it is and it'll get better in a few days with the antibiotic, or it's a tumor or something. Apparently there's an animal ophthalmologist around here somewhere, and the vet thinks we should go to him if it doesn't start looking better really soon. Of course, that's gonna cost a few hundred dollars more than I can come up with, but I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm really worried and freaked out, but mostly I feel like crap for being a bad "mother." The vet said that we really couldn't have done anything else, and that some people might not have even caught the symptoms as soon as we did, but still...crap. I just keep looking at him sitting there and not wanting to even hop around, and it's all I can do not to turn into a big blubbering mess.

http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_081151502.html

You didn't really think I was actually going to make such a horrible pun, did you? I'm really blogging way too much lately. Maybe I'm becoming something of an egotist. Anyway, last night I went to this party, and I think there were probably a good 40 people crammed into this apartment, and most of them I'd never seen before in my life. Most of them the girl that I knew who lived there had never seen before in her life. A lot of them were these frat guy types, who I have to say are not my favorite species. However, my favorite drunken philosopher was there, so at some point around 4 am when we were all way past gone, a nice debate on religion broke out after the guy (who'd gone to Catholic school and therefore considered himself an expert on the subject) started critiquing Passion of the Christ. I'm also pretty sure that at some point he was trying to explain to someone else the difference between Renaissance and Baroque art, which I have to admit I know diddly squat about, so he could have been making it all up. The frat guys were running around "whoo"-ing and falling down, and we moved on to discussing politics. I think we got on the subject of politics when at one point this life-sized cardboard cutout of Bush came flying down the stairs, and we all stopped and just stared at it a moment, then someone stuck it up next to this guy who'd been passed out in his chair for about 3 hours. Of course when it fell over again there were all the requisite "ha ha, Bush is drunk" jokes. Um..what else. At some point this guy who I don't know but had seen once before at another party sat on my lap (and I was way too freaked to be interested) and started trying to convince me to play beer pong. Instead of trying to save me, my boyfriend just laughed. That's all I really remember, except that afterward the bf and I went to breakfast and they had a buffet, which was not bad, except I got into an argument with him when he tried to eat corned beef hash and I put my foot down. Also, I managed not to steal the numbers off anyone's door.

I certainly hope so. We're gonna take him to the vet in a couple days (just waiting for a check to clear). But I think he's doing better...he's still sneezing but a lot less often. Val

The idiot kids who live across the hall from me are having some loud, drunken party. I was okay with this, for now, cause I stay up pretty late anyway. Then I heard sort of a scratching sound coming from my door, and went and looked out the peephole. There were like 8 people standing right outside my door and one of them was stealing one of the numbers off the door! (they're stickers) Then he yells really loudly (for me? just cause he was drunk and being loud?) "I've got the 0 in my wallet!" and they all go stampeding down the stairs. So...I hate people. Just thought I'd share. Val

I'm sort of freaking out because I think my bunny is sick. Earlier today he was making these really pathetic and scary whimpering noises, and he's been sneezing a lot. I thought maybe he was just whining because we got him a new brand of hay that he's been more or less refusing to eat, and he stopped when I gave him a carrot, but now there's the sneezes, which sound kind of wet. Every time he starts I have to force myself not to call the boyfriend at work in a panic. We don't have a functional car at the moment and I guess if we have to take him to the vet we'll have to convince the one person we know with a car to drive us. Not to mention the fact that the emergency fee at the vet is $100. *sigh* Meanwhile I'm about to have a heart attack. Otherwise my life has been very slow and unblogworthy (if that's not a word I'm making it one, damn it) lately. Pretty much it's been one big hassle with my school being about three steps behind everything. I've been trying to get a copy of my transcript sent out for like two weeks, and the first time I got a letter back saying I wasn't financially cleared...the exact same day that I got a letter from financial aid telling me I was getting a refund! My bf got a haircut while I was in class the other night, which I knew he was going to, but he also bleached his hair. He was sort of hiding behind the door when I got home and he opened it for me, and I thought maybe he was sitting around without pants on or something..hehe. But then I got a look at him and he was blonde. (His hair is normally dark brown.) He kept bitching at me cause I couldn't stop staring at him for the next 4 hours or so. He's gonna dye it blue or something the first chance he gets, and naturally I'm really jealous. And finally, I was really bored tonight so I took that IQ test from viv's blog. It sucked-I haven't had math in like 3 years and I guess my brain just isn't used to thinking that way. Anyhow, I got a 138, and I did copy the little description thing but I lost it, so...*shrug* I know I took a real IQ test back in grade school, cause I got into the gifted program, but I have no clue what my score was. Maybe people who went to better schools than me got something out of the gifted program, but as far as I can remember it was basically a really good excuse to get out of class and screw around, and one time we dissected a pregnant shark.

So I just finished DD 35, and oddly enough it brought back so many memories for me that I can't even be pissed about the cliffhanger. That whole thing with Seth not wanting to say goodbye, I went through that a couple times a year for three years. My boyfriend went off to college as I was starting 10th grade, and it was far enough away from home (well, it was here in Pgh, actually) that I only got to see him at Christmas and spring break. I was so completely pathetic about it, I'd start marking off days on my calendar with like 50 days to go until he came home. The summer break was the worst, because I'd get so used to having him around. I always tried to do the denial thing and just not think about the fact that he was leaving, but usually about 3 days before he had to leave I'd just turn into a wreck. The last nights he was around we'd do stupid stuff, like he'd tuck me into bed before he left, and then I'd hold onto his leg and try to keep him from leaving. It was always completely impossible to enjoy those last days, because no matter how hard I tried not to think about it, it was always like "oh, this is the last time we'll do this for 4 months." One time I went to the airport with him and his parents, and that was the worst. Somehow it made the whole thing a lot more real and painful to actually watch the plane take off (and then there was the hour and a half I had to spend in the car with his parents on the way home). Of course everything seemed so much more interminable when I was that age, but I definitely wouldn't want to go through it again. And for something completely unrelated, the bf was doing laundry today, and he came back from collecting the stuff from the dryer with this really weird look on his face. Finally he says, "I don't really know how to ask this, but is there another woman in your life or something?" After I look at him stupidly for a minute, he tells me that he found this pink Victoria's Secret thong in my laundry, and both of us know that I wouldn't be caught dead owning that. Someone obviously left it in the washing machine and he didn't notice it, but then he decided to bring it up with the rest of my laundry (and no, in case anyone was wondering, he didn't really think I was having a lesbian affair.) So yeah, now I have this hideous pink thing that belongs to some other girl, and I'm really weirded out by it. Val

Happy birthday Topher! Val

The first time I ever read gay fiction, I'd found my way to Nifty completely by accident. I was sort of curious and thought I'd read a story or two (and luckily I didn't give up after the first really, really bad one I came to). I thought it was interesting that just by the nature of the subject, there's a lot of built-in conflict in most (good) stories. Most of the straight stuff you can find online is very contrived and, like I think viv said, a lot of heaving bosoms, and it's only really good to read if you need a laugh. And yeah, two guys together is hot and all that, but really for me I just appreciate a well-written story, which we have quite a few of here. Val

So yesterday was fun, not because I really care about football but because the entire city lost its mind. I didn't go out until about midnight, and by then it was snowing a lot and the roads were kinda icy, but there were still some diehard lunatics out running in the streets and screaming. The bf and I went to a bar in the poor ass, mostly college kid populated part of town, and unfortunately I'd already missed out on all of the rioting and fires, but I do have a few pictures of the aftermath for you. Apparently there were 34 people arrested, and the police were out in riot gear and everything. It was absolutely hilarious in the bar, because one of my bf's friends is the biggest Steelers fan ever, and I really think he was serious when he said it was the best day of his life. He came running at the bf and gave him a hug when we got there, and he kept shouting, "Best day ever!" and everyone else would go "Whoo!" The TV was on CNN, showing replays from the game, and every time the Steelers made a play the whole bar would start cheering. The aforementioned (very liberal) friend got up at one point and started giving a speech about how we were all united tonight, and none of our other struggles mattered, or something, and then he went "George W!" and the crowd went "Whoo!" I think it might be the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. Edit: Yeah, so the pictures expired or whatever and I don't really care enough to put them on again. Oh well.

Actualized type: INFJ Introverted (I) 73.33% Extroverted (E) 26.67% Sensing (S) 50% Intuitive (N) 50% Feeling (F) 51.35% Thinking (T) 48.65% Judging (J) 54.55% Perceiving (P) 45.45% INFJ - "Author". Strong drive and enjoyment to help others. Complex personality. 1.5% of total population. Preferred type: ISFJ Introverted (I) 65.52% Extroverted (E) 34.48% Sensing (S) 54.29% Intuitive (N) 45.71% Feeling (F) 54.29% Thinking (T) 45.71% Judging (J) 58.82% Perceiving (P) 41.18% ISFJ - "Conservator". Desires to be of service and to minister to individual needs - very loyal. 13.8% of total population. Attraction type: ENTJ Extroverted (E) 60% Introverted (I) 40% Intuitive (N) 55.56% Sensing (S) 44.44% Thinking (T) 51.16% Feeling (F) 48.84% Judging (J) 51.43% Perceiving (P) 48.57% ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population. I'm complex...

Dom, I'm sorry to hear that people are being stupid. The rest of us know how much time and effort you put into writing these stories, and we love you! Val

Yesterday this album I've been looking forward to came out, so I got on that AOL Music Now (the subscription was a Christmas present from the bf's mom and it's more or less a pain in the ass, in my opinion, but that's another story) and downloaded it. I was a huge fan of the show Rock Star INXS, and pretty much from the first episode I was all about Marty Casey. (picture) I thought he was just so unbelievably hot, and I don't think he did a single song I didn't like. Some of his versions were actually better than the originals, and the original song he did, "Trees", is pretty much still stuck in my head to this day. Of course, he lost, but his band (Marty Casey and Lovehammers) still got a record deal and I've been dying to listen to their stuff, and well...ugh. I don't understand how someone who has a voice just made for screaming rock and roll decides to write horrible pop crap with clunky lyrics, but there you have it. Maybe they thought it was a better commercial decision, or maybe his taste in music really does suck that much. They even re-did "Trees" and made it really boring. And on a somewhat related note, if I hear "Pretty Vegas" one more time I think I might shoot myself in the face. I didn't like that song before INXS changed it up and made it even more boring. Right, so now that I'm done griping, I finally saw Brokeback Mountain. I don't think it's been playing around here very long anyway. We went on Monday afternoon, and I was surprised both by how many people were there and by the fact that a lot of them seemed to be elderly. I guess I still have trouble getting it through my head that there's such a thing as tolerant elderly people, because they sure don't make them like that where I'm from. (Actually I don't know if they're even showing the movie in WV.) Anyway, I'm not going to bother reviewing it or anything, except to say I was impressed. My boyfriend was actually more teary-eyed at the end than I was. I was sort of amused that during the "gay" parts, when there was sex or kissing going on, everyone in the theater seemed to get restless and start shifting around in their seats or rustling their popcorn bags, but no one made any comments or anything.

So I just found out today that this whole thing with the mine fire in WV has made national news. I haven't even been paying all that much attention to it. In case I'm not the only one, http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/01/20/mine.fire/index.html Last I heard, they weren't releasing the names of the people who are missing, but as it turns out I'm sort-of-but-not-really related to one of them. He's my sister-in-law's something or other. I've never heard of him personally. We went to the same high school but I'm guessing he's just enough older than me that I didn't know him. Small world, I guess. In other news, the county medical examiner here in PA, Cyril Wecht (who some of you might have heard of because of his criticisms of the Warren Commission) is in some pretty deep crap. He's been using county resources to do personal business, and apparently he's been taking bodies that weren't claimed by family and trading them with a university for lab space. He was in trouble for similar stuff back in the 80s, when his staff was collecting pituitary glands from corpses without the permission of relatives and selling them to researchers. I remember my first year in college, when I was still a journalism student and we were learning about slander and stuff, one of my professors was talking about the local paper getting in trouble for running a comic of him walking around all Frankenstein-like and saying, "Mmm..pituitary glands..must have pituitary glands." Anyway, on to the mundane. I think I've finally more or less got the apartment resembling a real place to live. I've still got this weird bruise on my thumb from putting together the TV stand. Somehow I ended up assembling all the furniture, and people in my family are notoriously accident prone. My boyfriend would come home and be like, "So, how did you hurt yourself on the bookcase?" The bookcase in question leans a little to the right, but it hasn't collapsed yet, and it's been a month or so, so I think we're good. I spent today ironing curtains, and let me tell you I'll sell my body to hire a housekeeper before I'll ever do that again. I suck at ironing, and then throw in the clumsiness thing and walking around holding something hot attached to a cord that's just asking to be tripped over. Actually, I didn't hurt myself, but I think the curtains still kinda look like crap. I seriously need to find a hobby. I've been spending all my free time alphabetizing the CDs and rearranging furniture. I am so boring.

In case anyone hasn't seen this yet, it's way too funny to miss. http://www.jonathonforgovernor.us/Home_page.html I honestly don't know if it'd be funnier if this guy took himself seriously or if it was all a joke. I think my favorite part is, "As I have previously stated, I am evil. However, I prefer to unleash my evil side upon terrorists and criminals. Not the innocent."

Happy birthday, Sailor! Val

I read this article yesterday about how Chuck Norris apparently has this cult following among college-age people. My dad's favorite show ever was Walker, Texas Ranger, so I've quite unwillingly seen a lot of Chuck Norris in my day. For anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about, sorry, you can leave now. Anyway, there were some pretty hilarious lines from the story I thought I'd share. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. Chuck Norris frequently donates blood to the Red Cross. Just not his own. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. Wilt Chamberlain claims to have slept with more than 20,000 women in his lifetime. Chuck Norris calls this "a slow Tuesday." Chuck Norris does not go hunting because "hunting" implies a chance of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing. Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Warning, drunk rambling post ahead: Well I've done my New Year's partying and now I'm home, making mac and cheese and having a hard time typing. I went to two different parties tonight. One was at an old friend from WV's house (he lives here now) and mostly it was his girlfriend's family, who I didn't know at all. We only stayed there until right after midnight. They live in the highest neighborhood in the city, so we walked outside and were able to see fireworks that I think were being set off from the baseball stadium. Also, Brett Michaels was doing a free show in this little section of town where they have bars/overpriced restaurants/crappy live entertainment, so while the fireworks are going off we hear "Unskinny Bop" coming from somewhere below us. Oh, the hilarity. Anyway, then we drove home and walked like three blocks to the next party, which was people from the bf's work and a lot of other people I didn't know who belonged to the girl's roommates. I got kissed twice by a 40-something Rastafarian, lost spectacularly at beer pong, and saw someone fall down the stairs. Oh, and I made friends with this chick who's a bartender I might remember more tomorrow.

So the object of my intense dislike who I was complaining about in my last post called here this evening. She was actually looking for the bf, who was at work, so she decided to talk to me instead. Talk about weird. At first she seemed really confused about who I was and why I was answering the phone, and she seemed to think my name was Sarah. I finally got her straightened out and reminded her that we'd met once before, and then she was just off and running and I couldn't get a word in. I guess it could've been worse-she still seems extremely ditzy, but she was nice, and apparently wants to try to be friends with me or something. Eh...we'll see. She did talk for almost 7 mins and I'm already way over my cell phone time, so I think she owes me like $5 now. I finally have more than one piece of furniture in my living room. Someone the bf knows had this beast of a loveseat, that pulls out into a bed, that she'd been trying to unload forever. He got two of his friends to help him carry the thing, down like 5 flights of stairs, to the car, and up four more flights to the apartment. The thing weighs a ton, and the bed kept unfolding while they were carrying it. And there were a few casualties- someone took a tumble down a hill, someone sprained a wrist, a few knuckles got skinned, and my floor got scratched. Oh, and I discovered that one of the guys has a VERY hairy butt, which is something I definitely could've lived without seeing.

So here's an interesting thing. We all know about the somewhat turbulent relationship my boyfriend and I have, and honestly since I've been away for two months we're sort of having trouble getting used to each other again. But while I was gone he was going out with his friends more and stuff, which I'm actually glad about, and I don't hold it against him or anything. But there's this one girl from work who he's gotten to be friends with, and I absolutely cannot stand her. She's like 3 years younger than me (6 years younger than him) and just extremely ditzy and annoying. There's not much in the world I hate more than girls who act like that. And she's always hanging around him. She asks him for a ride home from work more days than not, and at the Christmas party (which we gave her a ride to) she kept sort of hanging around him and never really said a word to me. Anyway, I developed something close to hatred for her, and apart from the ditziness I wasn't really sure why, and then it hit me. Am I actually jealous? I've never been jealous before, in seven years. And is it a good thing or a bad thing if I am? Does it mean I still care about him enough to be jealous, or does it mean that I'm turning into a paranoid freak because our relationship seems so unstable? I don't actually think he's gonna leave me for her or anything, but I still just cannot get past hating her guts.

Ugh, so much to tell. I've been very bad and not written anything for a long time, and then I started feeling like I had too much to say and was too lazy to type it all. First of all, I am back in the city now. I've been here almost two weeks, but I just got the internet Tuesday. (The cable internet guy came an hour and a half EARLY! What is the world coming to?) Got my pets back Wednesday, and apart from the shameful condition of the bunny's nails (I have got to take him to a vet SOON to get those trimmed. I don't do it myself cause I value my fingers) they're doing fine. The guy who was keeping him is really glad that we moved and could take them back, cause his baby is crawling now and he's starting to really motor around and poke his nose into everything. I guess he thought my poor innocent bunny was gonna eat his kid. The new apartment is pretty nice, and spacious, although it looks a little bare right now. When we moved before we threw away a lot of stuff that was falling apart, so at the moment we've got one chair in the living room and a folding table with no chairs in the dining room. I've got a bunch of stuff promised to me, though, that people are supposed to take to my parents, so I think I'm gonna have to rent a truck to go home for Christmas. So on to everything I haven't written about in a month. My mom bought herself a digital camera, and I spent two days teaching her how to use it, and how to get the pictures onto the computer, and how to use the editing software. She has this notebook where she keeps instructions on how to do everything computer-related, and she sits there and writes down every word I say and draws little diagrams and stuff. She filled up like 5 pages about the camera. Thanksgiving was really sort of strange, because my brother turned up. It'd been a pretty long time since I'd seen him, and he was in an odd mood. For those who don't know/remember, my brother is about 16 years older than me, so we've never really been all that close. But he and his wife are separated and he's gotten really depressed about not having anyone to leave his things to when he dies, so he's started giving all kinds of stuff to me. It's really sort of morbid. (Although I must admit I was rather excited when he gave me Sgt. Pepper on vinyl, even if it did turn out it's not worth anything cause it's missing the paper liner.) He had all these pictures that he was showing us, of some gorgeous place out in the woods that he goes when he wants to be alone, and I offered to enlarge them for him, and he cried all over me. I decided to find some nice frames and give him the pictures for Christmas. I think that'll be the first time I ever gave him something that was supposed to be meaningful. Like I said, I've always felt like I didn't really know him, but it was great spending that couple of days with him and remembering that he really is my brother. I saw my sister briefly when I was at my parents', too, although not at Thanksgiving. Her husband's mom was in the hospital and they came to see her, but his parents only live a few miles from mine. I couldn't believe how big her kids are. One of their voices has changed since the last time I saw him, and it freaked me out. I was like, oh god, I remember changing his diapers. I should not feel this old! I can't believe it's almost Christmas. Mark and I are going to go to WV, and I feel like I just got back up here yesterday. I've only just started to shake the accent that I picked up (urgh.) Oh, for anyone looking for a bit of local color, here's a good WV story for you. My parents actually live in a two story house, and so do two of the other three people on the street (yes, there are 4 houses on the entire street, it's a dead end) but the last one was this ugly ass trailer that no one's lived in for ages. It was falling apart and most of the windows were broken, and the yard was like a jungle. Well, someone finally bought the land and came over and mowed the lawn and everything, but the trailer just sat there for a couple more weeks. Then one day a couple of guys show up with one of these. They hook the damn trailer up to it with some chains and start just dragging it out of there. (And my mom and I were being very nosy and watching this whole thing out the window. Like you wouldn't!) It took an hour or so to get it out of the yard, and then they just start heading down the road. There's bits and pieces of the thing falling off everywhere, and plumbing and insulation dragging along underneath it. So about a half hour later my mom and I leave the house to go somewhere and we end up behind the thing, which has made it maybe a mile. Still dragging crap behind it and the entire thing is bouncing up and down, and you just knew that at any second it was gonna come loose and go sliding down the road. Of course everyone was completely unfazed by this, and just pulled around to pass it, which in my opinion was the best part of the whole thing. And for those of you unschooled in this sort of thing, yes that was extremely illegal, but cops never bother to venture that far from town. Okay, I think I've been writing this for about an hour now, so that's enough out of me for today.