Calling Dr. House

I feel like I should be in an episode of House. While getting ready for bed last night, I looked in the mirror to wash my face, and I saw...something. I lifted my chin, and there, smack in the middle of the soft-tissue area under my jaw was a perfectly round little bruise. Wha?

I touched it, expecting a little jolt of soreness - nothing. I thought back on the day. Had I rested my chin on a pencil eraser? Had I pinched that spot somehow? Had something bitten me?

I couldn't think of a thing. It was just this perfectly round little bruise in a completely inexplicable place. Blow it off, right? But I couldn't. I kept thinking about it, trying to figure it out. And anyone who knows me knows that that never leads any place good.

I mean, what is a bruise really? It's a hemmorhage. So, if you can't remember injuring yourself in any way, and I think I'd remember if I hurt myself under my chin, what could cause a hemmorhage? What kind of disease could that be a symptom of (see what I mean - never leads any place good)? Should I start Googling and see what I can find out? Do I want to know? What do I say to the specialist I'm forced to visit in a few months when my entire immune system is compromised and I have to explain that I saw the tell-tale perfectly round bruise under my chin, but I ignored it? How stupid do I look then?

Or...you know...now, obsessing about a random bruise?

Change is good. Change is good. Change is good.

Been a busy few days, because after a couple of years of pondering, and a couple of months of actively considering, and a couple of weeks (actually more) of finding out numbers and getting other folks involved, I have...put my house on the market! Aaaaa!!

Yes, I know this is a crappy time to sell. But it's a great time to buy, and I'm possibly in a position to make a good move - something that has real potential to grow for me and improve my location. So, despite the fact that I love my little house in the country, I'm going to allow perfect strangers to traipse through it when I'm not there and judge everything I've done and tell me why they don't want to pay what I'm asking. And hopefully, when I tell them they're insane, they'll want my fabulous little house enough to say, "Okay, then" and just pay me what I want for it. We shall see.

If I don't get any offers that I'm comfortable with, I'll just take it back off the market and revisit the situation next year. But I have a feeling it's all going to work out and I'll be in a new house with a whole new slew of home improvement projects by the end of the summer. Again...aaaa!

Wish me luck!

Pisces

So here's my horoscope for today:

"Your selfless side needs to get in better balance with your more self-oriented side. Have you been helping too many people for too long and neglecting your own needs? The biggest problem with giving all the time is that pretty soon you have nothing left! Putting other people first is getting less and less realistic -- you have got to start conserving your energy for your own needs. Start saying 'no' a little bit more often. It gets easier and easier each time you do it."

So, I'm sorry, but the answer to whatever you needed from me today is "no." Unless of course I actually wanted to do whatever it was, and then it'll be "yes," but only because today it's all about me and my needs. (And yes, I swear I didn't write this one myself.)

Got my refund!

Or my tax stimulus check or whatever you want to call it. Since it came from the government, which means it came from me to begin with, I should probably just say, "Got my money back!"

In any case, I shall indeed stimulate the economy by spending it. I will be using my check to buy football tickets - woohoo!!

The check will not actually cover the full cost of my 2008 UT football tickets, but I have some stock earnings that I'm also putting toward this worthy cause, so it's all taken care of. Even the fantabulous Florida Atlantic tickets - should be a game for the ages. Or another pointless scrimmage that costs WAY more than it has a right to.

On the upside, the a&m game is in Austin this year, so by being willing to pony up for Florida Atlantic "game," I'll also get tics to the a&m game. This year that game will actually be on Thanksgiving. So, after fortifying myself with turkey and all the carbs I can shove down my gullet, I'll have to pleasure of sitting in my very own season tickets spot for the annual spectacle. I figure I'll burn off most of my turkey dinner calories climbing up to my seats and screaming for my team. Can't beat that.

Oh, how I do loves the foosball - here it is May and I'm already posting about it for this season. Ees a beautiful thing, no?

My head hurts.

I'm ready for the searing blast furnace of summer if it means that all pollinating or mold-like life will be cooked within an inch of existence, no longer able to bother me by causing an allergic reaction.

Some sort of mold is in the air according to the allergy report, and I've had a headache all day, and I've been swallowing gook. I've tried Tylenol, but it didn't do anything. And it's not just pain - it's a heaviness. My head feels heavy, like all I want to do is lay it down on a pillow. And I can feel my congestion - like the airways in my nose have shrunken into small slits. I don't even know how I'm working right now. And of course I have no decongestant or allergy medication with me.

So, I'm officially miserable with no way to relieve it. And when I look out my window, I see rain, which I would guess will only make things worse. Oh, to the summer days of blinding heat where nothing can live.

Suzanne needs...

Thanks to Judy for giving me a blog post and an entertaining way to waste time. She said that if you google "[Your name] needs" you'll find out the most interesting things. Here is what Google says I need:

Suzanne needs to get dressed. (Am I naked again without realizing it?)

Suzanne needs you healthy. (So she doesn't have do any of your work.)

Suzanne needs a home. (Well, I *have* a home, but I want one closer to downtown.)

Suzanne needs hundreds of dollars worth of dental work. (Well, that's just not true!)

Suzanne needs your support. (That means money. I need money. So, I can buy a house closer to downtown. I accept PayPal.)

Suzanne needs an Honorable Discharge and intense therapy just to survive. (Well, that's just not...okay, maybe it is.)

Suzanne needs to know about the group. (I really do - in the comments section of my blog. How ARE all of you?)

The Web = petri dish of hate.

Wow. I logged into Yahoo this morning and saw a story about 100-calorie snack ideas. "Cool!" I thought. I clicked to the story, which was actually a blog, and I read it. Some of the ideas sounded better than others, but I liked the idea of the blog - low-calorie food ideas.

But then I made the mistake of reading the comments that appeared after the article. It reminded me of one of the things I hate about the Internet. It's such an open forum for hate. Some people were nice, but there were a lot of comments first dissing the article and the idea of non-organic, processed foods, and then it just digressed from there into personal attacks - on people who eat the non-organic, processed foods, on people who have children, on people who have weight problems. It was just hate, hate, hate - vitriol and ugliness.

Several years ago, I joined a message board for a soap opera I watched at the time. I thought it would be fun to talk with other fans about the show. I was wrong. I found the same thing there - hateful, angry people who use the anonymity of the Internet to vomit hostility onto strangers. I left that message board and never joined another one, and I felt the same reaction today. I don't ever even want to go back to that blog, because even though I could just ignore the comments section, I'd know that just below the last line of the article would be all that ugliness, and I just don't even want to be in the vicinity of that kind of negative energy.

There are enough angry, petty, negative people that I can't avoid during the day that I don't need to go looking for any in cyberspace. I just thank God, I guess, that I don't have to live with any of those angry little trolls that spend their days attacking people online. Makes me want to go to a maternity ward somewhere and just surround myself with innocence and people who are happy and filled with love.