BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART I

I'm back from my vacation! 

Full disclosure, I've been back for a week already, but I didn't have the time or the energy to write anything because of jet lag, backup of work stuff, and what I can only assume is some kind of radioactive pollen flying around my end of town due to the unseasonably warm weather that is trying to kill me, but I'm back all the same!

Have you been wondering where I went? You'll never guess in a million years. Unless we're Facebook friends, or if I texted you photos, of course. :)

I FINALLY GOT TO GO TO HAWAII!!!!!!  Not an EPCOT version, not a town in Tennessee or Georgia called Hawaii, but the real, actual state of Hawaii. The one in the Pacific Ocean!

Last year, Steve and I went to Florida for Disney (of course) and for a conference, and we accidentally stayed in a Hilton Resort property. I say accidentally because we didn't know it was a resort; we just thought it was a nice hotel until we actually got there and saw it was a full-on condo. While we were in the lobby, a lady asked if we wanted to attend one of their time-share events (we didn't) and if so, they'd give Steve an obscene amount of points on his credit card to raise his status (which he wanted) so we agreed, knowing full well we didn't want a time share. We attended, sat through the torture of the presentation and repeatedly told them we didn't want the timeshare. However, they did give us the option of paying a one-time fee that would allow us to visit any other of their time-share resort properties in the US for a reduced cost to see if we'd like to reconsider. We still didn't want a time-share, but it was a good deal, so we did that. We knew they had some resorts in nice places, so why not?

Part of me didn't think we'd actually use the voucher, but since we paid for it, and it would be our 25th anniversary that November, I made the call that we should use the voucher for an anniversary trip, and I told him I wanted to visit Hawaii. Shockingly, he agreed. The only catch was that we couldn't take the trip on our anniversary because he was traveling for work in November, plus the holidays were right after that, so we planned the trip around my birthday instead.

My job was to pick which resort we were going to visit, as they had different ones on different islands. I initially told him that any one of them would be fine (this is important to remember) but after talking with one of my friends who was in the Navy and stationed out there, who went through the brochures with me and told me what was on each island, I decided O'ahu would be the best bet. Yes, it was touristy, and yes it would be crowded, but I figured that we might as well try that one since it was the one most people visited and we'd see if we liked it. It would have lots to do, and we'd be able to see all of the things we'd heard about, like Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, and the like. So I went back and told Steve to book the resort on that island.

February finally rolled around and it was time to go on the trip. I was peeing-in-my-pants excited, not gonna lie. I even offered to splurge and get the really good first-class seats on the flight from LAX to the island (they were not available on the Huntsville to Atlanta, or Atlanta to Los Angeles flights) which made the last leg of the trip awesome. We were 10 minutes to landing when I noticed something off about our destination, though.

We were watching the flight tracker when I saw we were landing at the Kona Airport. Now, if you aren't familiar with Kona, it is not on the island of O'ahu, it is on the Big Island of Hawai'i. I mentioned this to Steve and he said "Well, they're probably dropping off some passengers there and then going on to O'ahu. Besides, I booked the flight at the airport closest to our resort." However, our tickets ended in Kona. This is how we realized that he had booked a resort on a completely different island than we thought. We had no idea where we were going.

We landed late in the day, and the shuttle took us to the car rental place. As we drove, there was NOTHING around. No lights, very few cars, and it looked like miles and miles of nothing at all around us. I wasn't angry, yet, but I was confused. We picked up the car, headed towards our resort, and checked in. Still, nothing was around us. No cities, no houses, and not even a convenience store. Everything we could see was closed. We were hungry, but the resort restaurant was closed. Our condo was very nice, but I was on edge, which made Steve on edge, and so he decided he didn't want to hear me freak out about not knowing where we were, so he went to bed. I followed. Once I got settled, I cried.

Now, before you say "Oh, you spoiled bitch, you were in Hawaii, but not on the right island so you cried? Boo-fucking-hoo" let me just explain it like this: For 8 months, I'd planned on being in O'ahu. My ex-Navy friend and I had talked at length about the things to do there. What to see, what to schedule once we were there, places to go...all of that. He and his wife even put together and texted a long list of things for us to do and see while we were there. That had been the plan all along. Now I didn't even know where I was in relation to anything, much less all the things that I'd been planning couldn't be done because were nowhere near any of it. It was black as pitch, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I hadn't even looked at the Big Island on a map, and the map I did see on the plane showed nothing that made sense. Imagine booking a trip to New Orleans, making plans to see very specific things, and when the plane touches down, you realize you're in Montana. That's how I felt. I wasn't angry with Steve, believe it or not. We'd sat down and talked about the trip! We talked about the reservations! The biggest problem was that I had told him to reserve any of the resorts to visit, he picked what he thought was the nicest one, I went back later to tell him that O'ahu was where we should go, which he agreed to and said he'd already made the reservation, and the entire time, we both thought we were talking about the same place. A failure to communicate, if you will.

So, yeah, I cried. However, if there is one thing you need to know about me, is that I generally need to overreact at first about anything that upsets me and then I can think rationally afterwards. I have to clear out the panic bugs and then I can move on quite decently! So that's what I did. I woke up in the middle of the night, made lunch reservations and reservations to attend a luau the next day, and went back to sleep knowing that I was going to make the best of this trip if it killed the both of us. :)

We got up, and I told him the plans I'd made. I told him I wasn't angry, just disappointed that we had to retool our plan, and that we'd have to fly by the seat of our pants for the week, which was fine with me. We, of course, had to sit through another time-share thing (which was part of the cost of being allowed to stay there) which we had purposefully scheduled first thing on our first full day so we could get it over with. We respectfully declined the offers, and then we finally got going on our Hawaii vacation!

More to come...

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

Hello friends! Sorry I don't update more often, but I can't stress how little I've been doing! Thanks for checking in, though. I'm glad you are making sure I'm still here.

1) Christmas was fine. We celebrated with Mr. Lee and with my side of the family. With Mr. Lee we grilled steaks and watched a video of one of Steve's Christmas concerts that his dad had to miss. It was nice. We celebrated with my family the Saturday before Christmas because so many of the younger members of the family have kids and babies, and mom didn't want them to have to interrupt Santa time to come over. It was loud, fun, and loud again. I was dressed as an elf. We played games and ate. 

We spent actual Christmas day not doing anything. It was glorious.

2) New Years was fine. We stayed home. I watched Stranger Things and cried at the ending, but I don't know why because I'm not particularly invested. Anyways, I liked it. I don't remember if we stayed up til midnight or not. I think we did? Who knows.

3) Got my haircut.. Actually, I really like it! You can see it in the picture above. It floofs well and is very easy to dry! I didn't actually cut it because of the dye job, even though I threatened to. I cut it because I was drying my hair one day and it got sucked into the intake of my hair dryer and I had to rip a whole wad of my hair out to get it loose. So, that was the catalyst! It was a little traumatizing at the salon (I went to a proper one that I had to make an appointment at and everything) seeing the absolute pile of my hair on the floor, but after I had time to adjust, I've decided I like it. I'm even going back to get a trim instead of waiting another year and a half to get it cut again!

4) Had a routine colonoscopy, and it was decidedly not fine. Not the results, those came back fine, but the beforehand preparation for it was Miserable. There was a time when I would have gone into detail, or at least the more palatable details, about the process, but I'm not going to do that this time. It was traumatizing. I had to take a whole day off of work just for the prep. I wasn't sure that was absolutely necessary to do, but I did it just in case. I'm very glad I did. Let's just say, in the span of 20 hours, I lost three pounds, every ounce of moisture in my body, and my will to live. It was the only time in recent memory that I figured I could swallow a ball bearing and have it drop all the way through me without touching the sides.  I was so dehydrated that my voice cracked and the skin on my freaking arms was wrinkled. Thankfully they let me come in early and get the procedure over with, so I was out of the hospital by 1:00 PM and could go home and eat and drink and try to function like a human again.

Oh, and they accidentally pulled my gown open in the back without closing the door of the room, so everyone who walked by got to see my ass! I guess Mardi Gras got started a little bit early!

5) I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks! A real, non-Disney vacation to someplace I actually want to go! If it goes well, I will tell you about it. I don't want to jinx it. Just know I'm excited. :)

6) Work is fine. It has been busy! Well, relatively so. My job is more about support than anything, but there was a lot of meetings and organizing, and some holiday stuff. My job is great, even if I'm not really doing anything important, but I like the company and I like the people a lot. I'm lucky to work there, I think. Also, they let me be whimsical as long as I'm not causing a ruckus, which I appreciate. 

7) I've been crocheting again after a long sabbatical. I finished an entire, adult sized afghan! It's only the second one I've ever made, and hopefully this one won't be donated to Goodwill, Well, I don't know if the other one was donated, but I suspect it might have been. Anyways, I also finished three baby blankets and some toys, and I'm working on another afghan and doing some other things trying to work through my yarn stash to get it under control. My only issue is that I buy yarn because I like it, but I don't have any real idea what I'm going to do with it. So when I try and use it, I have to go buy more of the same so that I'll have enough to make the actual project, which means my stash doesn't really get any smaller. However, I am trying, and so more blankets and toys will be made. I got a great, creepy pattern for a granny square with an eyeball in the middle, and I'm going to make a biblically accurate cardigan or purse. It will be hideous and I'm so excited.

That's really it! I stay at home most nights and listen to true crime podcasts, which isn't anything to elaborate on. Hope you're doing well and that you have some excitement in your life.

DON'T LAUGH

Ok, so I wrote a song.

Please don't laugh. Also, don't get too excited.

Lemme 'splain...

Steve was playing around with an AI music app, and he was putting in prompts for silly things. The program was doing a great job writing the songs he wanted, so far as an AI program can "do" a great job. It even wrote a song about our dogs that turned me into a snotty, crying mess because I loved it so much. It was fun, but I have complicated feelings about AI.

I think it can be a great help, and a useful tool, but I don't really think people should use it to create things out of whole cloth. I know too many musicians, writers, and artists to feel comfortable stealing from them, especially if that is how they make a living. I do use AI at work sometimes if I need a very specific graphic for something and can't find an alternative, but unless I'm in a hurry, I usually try and use those things as an inspiration or as parts for something I piece together myself. So, while I was enjoying the songs from the app and thought they were fun, they felt a little like a cheat.

He told me that you could put in prompts, or you could put in original lyrics, and the app would give you a song. Now he had my attention!

I can read music, and I can sing music, but I cannot write music. That is a whole set of skills that I do not possess, much to my chagrin. I've always wanted to write music but didn't know how to do it. Anytime I tried, I ended up playing a song that already existed. However, I can do words, and now I had a tool to help with the rest.

I've had this sentence running through my head for a few months that sounded like a line of a song, and it wouldn't leave me alone. I had tried to write something to make it into a song, but nothing worked. I was trying too hard to turn it into music rather than just putting down the words. So, in about 10 minutes, I came up with some lyrics and sent them to Steve and told him to use the prompt "Delta Blues" as the style of music and have a woman's voice sing it. I wasn't expecting very much.

Now, it's very imperfect and there are lyrics I would change if I could. They're a little derivative, and some lines are kind of cheesy, and I would much rather be the voice singing the song instead of the AI lady, but I like what the program did with it. It's more Chicago Blues than Delta Blues (the program emulated the style of Buddy Guy we think) but I'm not mad at it. I work with a musician who heard it and likes it enough that he said he'd learn to play it so I could actually perform it one day. I still know it's cheating, but I can't help enjoying the fact that I can hear a song I wrote "out loud." I uploaded it to SoundCloud so that I could have a way to listen to it easier and realized that I can share it. So I'm going to share it here.

It's ok if you don't like it, it's not great, but please don't laugh!

TaebelleKMP · Burned My House Down

OOPS

It wasn't my fault. Not really. Not this time!

Do you remember how I told you a bit ago that I dyed my hair because it has started to look like I was fading, and how much I hate to dye my hair? Do you know why I hate dying my hair? Because of roots.

I don't think about my hair on a regular basis other than to make sure it's still on my head. I hate getting it cut, I hardly really "do stuff" with my hair, and honestly, I mainly just don't want to be bald. If I look like a swamp witch these days, then I look like a swamp witch.  no one is looking at me. I also have invested heavily in scrunchies to keep it out of my face. Low maintenance in the extreme, as a rule.

However, all that being said, I did dye my hair, and I did look in the mirror about a week ago and realized my roots were showing. On the occasions that I have dyed my hair in the past; I've used semi-permeant dye so that it fades and my roots kind of blend in as my hair grows. However, I didn't look closely at the first dye I bought and got the permeant stuff by mistake. So, OK, that was my fault. My roots coming in were very dark (except for the gray) so I decided to get a color a shade darker than what I'd used before so that when it grew out again, the roots couldn't be seen as easily.

I went to Target and got my new dye (Dark Brown this time) and I went home to do the thing.

I don't have any proof that someone switched the colorant bottles, but I suspect that's what happened because when I rinsed out the dye, my hair wasn't dark brown. It was black. Elvira black.

I've had black hair before. You know that. I had black hair, and I was told well after the fact that it didn't look very good. It was a phase, and I never tried itagain. But now...now my hair is black again and I don't know what to do about it! I'm incredibly pale, so having black hair makes me took even paler!  Now only that, something in the dye made my hair crunchy. I look like I'm going through a crispy goth phase, like Noel Felding! I've tried every kind of conditioner I can get my hands on, but to no avail.

This means I'm probably going to have to get it cut, and I mean, cut short and just start all over. It'll be the December 2000 pixie hair-cut debacle all over again.

SIGH. I don't have any clever way to sign off on this, but I just had to vent. Send thoughts and prayers, and maybe a wig or two. 

HELLO AND MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

Hello again!  

Once again, proof of life, because I know you care!

Of course you care! You're here, aren't you?  Well, either you care or some random string of words in a search engine brought you here by accident and you clicked on the link thinking "This Taebelle fella must know the answer to my query! The Google brought me this link!"

Thing is, maybe I know or maybe I don't, but since we can't chat about it, I won't be able to help this time. However, I've been writing here on and off (most recently off) since 2004, so if you want to look in my archives, the answer could be in there! 

Sorry for rambling. I don't really know what to talk about, but I got the urge to write, so here I am!

Let's see...

1. OMG, I felt so bad. A friend of mine from work made some homemade Asian food for lunch and brought me some to try. One thing I didn't care for, but the other thing was really, really good, so I finished what she gave me. Unfortunately, my digestive system, now sans gallbladder, almost immediately said "Nope!" and I sat there for what felt like an eternity trying to fight my body's urge to violently remove said food from my system. I didn't want her to think her food was gross, or that anything was wrong with it, so I struggled valiantly. Thankfully she was gone from my desk when the fight was lost. I'm just glad she works in a different part of the office. Yikes.

2. For the past three years our office has been having a costume party for Halloween. I've had pretty great costumes each time, if I do say so myself, so I was excited to get my costume for this year. I decided to go as Glenda from Wicked, so I got a blonde wig, the tiara, and a fluffy pink ballgown. Of course, then I find out we won't be having the party this year due to budget restraints, but they said we could wear our costumes and bring snacks! So I put out the call to let everyone know, and we were even going to have the yearly costume contest! So the day comes, and only two of us are dressed up. Two out of a lot.  Well, there were two people kind of "bounding" as characters, but there was me, in full Genda drag, and one of our IT guys dressed as Doctor Strange. So that was a little embarrassing. I mean, I love dressing up, and we had a lot of good food, but it felt weird to be in a sparkly ballgown and tiara while all but one other person was in business casual. Usually, we get a lot more involvement. At any rate, I was very cute and I'm sure you've seen my pictures on FB and Instagram - if you do social media. Please ignore how I look as a blonde, though. That is not a good look on me. 

Silver lining, though, is that me and the IT guy got the costume prizes! So there!

3. I've been trying to write this blog post since October 9th. 

4. Our company has a smart TV in the lobby that is supposed to show the company logo, but I realized a while back that I can get YouTube on it. Usually, I put on nature screensavers or nature live cams, just to give anyone who walks by a little bit on zen. You'd be surprised how well received that is, because people will come and sit on the couch and listen to waves or birds or whatever else I have on. Sometimes I put on fun stuff, like holiday music or a fireplace, or live streams from theme parks, which also gives people a reason to pause and chat for a second. Yesterday I had a Bob Ross Marathon on. It was so soothing that I almost dozed off. Sleeping on the job is a bad look for a receptionist.

 

FLASH….AHHHHHHHH

This is bullshit. Utter bullshit. I would like to speak to a lawyer.

Warning: I’m about to get a bit TMI. Turn back now if you need to.

As we all know, (or should, at least,) when women reach a certain age, things tend to get a bit…odd. Maybe a little unbalanced. Maybe even a touch unpleasant. At least, that’s what I thought. That’s what I was taught in every biology class. Even the polite older ladies in my life hinted that changes would one day come and they might not be the best. So, you know, a genteel decline in certain biological processes would happen. Fine. I expected it, even welcomed it, because what are these changes but the eventuality of being a human woman. That is what I was told.

But no one, and I mean no one, told me that things can go beyond that and enter the world of coocoo-banana pants-awful. That is where I am right now.

If you had asked me at any point during my life between age 12 and a maybe earlier this year, I would have told you that I sometimes had it rough. Oh, I didn’t feel good. Oh, I had some cramps. Oh, I was a little weepy for no reason. You know, the same thing most women go through*. But if you had ever told me that I would get to a point where I would gladly lie in bed with a heating pad on my abdomen and Midol coursing through my bloodstream at almost toxic levels, I would have told you to shut your whore mouth because you were a liar. 

Guess what though…I’d take that heating pad/Midol combo in five seconds at this point if it meant I could just feel normal a couple of days later, because it has been a LONG time since I felt anything close to normal.

I mean, the emotional toll is one thing. What sort of biological joke is it to wake up one day and think...huh, why does no one love me? Why do I feel useless? Why have I done nothing with my life? Why don't I want to do anything? I have all of these hobbies, but none of them bring me joy anymore, so I keep buying supplies in hopes I want to do them, but they just pile up on different surfaces because I can't bring myself to do any of them. Why do I feel like crying all of the damn time? Why do I make other people miserable because my stupid brain, already riddled with OCD and abandonment issues, makes me question whether or not the people who DO stay around me even want to be there? So when I question that, they get mad. I didn't used to be like that! Even in my most PMS-iest of days, the worst I ever wanted to do was beat someone with a loaf of French bread, but now I'll have spells where I feel like the most alone person who has ever aloned? Like I am a void in the shape of a person.

The mental toll?  Let's add all of those things I just mentioned and then make it so I can't think of words in the middle of an actual conversation. So not only do I feel awful, I can't use my own dang words to express how I feel. There used to be certain words like "refrigerator" and "filing cabinet" that I couldn't think of on a regular basis for some reason. Now it's words like "shoe" and "headache" and probably a whole dictionary worth of other ones that I can't think of right this second! Imagine having a conversation and the person you're speaking to just goes blank. I fucking BUFFER when I'm talking to someone! It's so embarrassing! I also have zero motivation to do anything. I have to bribe myself to get out of bed by telling myself that I can get right back into bed after coming home from work. Nothing sounds interesting, but when something DOES sound interesting, it isn't interesting enough to make me want to do it. Sometimes I just go to bed because that's the only thing that sounds good. But then I wake up a thousand times during the night with the most God-awful thoughts running through my head. It's like someone shaking me awake just so I can think of every bad thing I've ever done. It's so exhausting, but not exhausting enough to put me to sleep apparently. When I'm not mentally doom scrolling, my brain is fuzzy and sticky, like it's full of gum someone dropped on the carpet.

Now, I get it. All of that sounds like depression, and maybe that could be part of it, but I've been depressed to the point of being medicated for it before, and this somehow feels different. This feels mean. Like something out in the universe doesn't like me and has put my voodoo doll in a shoebox filled with mud and buried me in the backyard but left just enough of a gap in it so I can see the outside world. Maybe I am being cursed by a very vindictive and very inexperienced witch, and I don't like it.

But even with all of those things, the physical toll is by far the worst damn thing I'm dealing with at the moment! I am always, always, always tired. Always. I'm jumpy to the point where doing normal things feels terrifying. I'm hungry and then not hungry, and then hungry again but the only thing that sounds good to eat is junk food (which I shouldn't eat, but do) and then that makes me feel awful. My body is doing all the stupid things that happened before, except for the important thing that usually marked the end of the unpleasantness. Don't worry, I'm not going to get any more graphic than that. I've gained weight in places that I've never gained weight before! I literally gained 10 pounds in 40 days, and that shouldn't even be possible for me. My skin is being weird. How do I have super dry skin, and still have breakouts?  How do I end up with random chin hairs? Why do I look like all the color in my face and hair is just draining away? I had to dye my hair! I hate dying my hair!!  But if I didn't, it looked like I was turning invisible!  Also, I'm starting to look my age! Do you know how odd that is for me? I've never looked my age before! It's body horror every time I look into the mirror!  

But the thing I hate the most?  The hot flashes. The Mother. Fucking. Hot. Flashes.

I hate being hot. Being hot makes me violent. I live in the south, so I know what being hot feels like, but this is something else. This is something sinister. I will be sitting in my chair, or lying in the bed, and a tactical nuke goes off in my chest and melts my face off. THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE. I get hot, then I get cold, then I'm sweaty, then I have to take off my clothes so that I don't burst into flames. A no pants day now and again is fine, but that should be because I want to and not because every cell in my body is going through fission. All of this happens with no warning, at work, in the car, at home, in bed. I will try to power through it, but I literally feel like I'm on fire. I have told my GP about it, and she told me what to take OTC for it, and I did, but it doesn't work anymore. You know that volcano lady on the movie Moana? I am her. I am melting and full of lava and anger and I hate every second of it. I've even managed to be cold and hot at the same time, which makes my brain short circuit. I have to sleep with ice packs! This is not a thing that should happen!!!!! To top it off, the one doctor that I had that could properly address the situation freaking RETIRED and then I had to find another one and couldn't get an appointment until March! For the love of God and all his angels.

So right now I'm a big, mopey, lumpy, sizzling hot (and not in a good way) person who feels like an alien has invaded my body and didn't read the owner's manual before taking it for a test drive. 

But other than that, I'm fine!

Hope things are going well with you! :)

*I know every woman is different. Some have issues, some don't. I'm generalizing here.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

Hello.

How are you? 

This is just proof of life, and to let you that nothing interesting is going on right now. Unfortunately.

I work, I eat, I sleep, and I shop for things. Mostly things to eat, hehe!

Let's see... 

1) I went to a wedding, which was nice and sweet. The bride and groom are young and in love and will eventually have a million babies. I didn't know how many instrumental Taylor Swift songs existed until the reception. I wore a blue and white dress and my matching blue Converse high tops and I danced with the groom's grandmother! She was super cool.

2) I don't wear uncomfortable shoes anymore! If I have to dress up, I just wear my glitter Converse or my fake Doc. Marten's. If I really, really have to be a grown up, I have a pair of black flats. Heels can go straight back to hell where they belong.

3) I have almost completed the Tennessee Whisky Trail, which means I've been to about 20 distilleries, and have about 10-15 more to go. I've learned that I don't really like bourbon or whisky, but I get a game piece every time I visit one of these places and I'm determined to collect them all! Doing a shot at each place is a small price to pay to reach a goal, I think.

4) Geez, sorry, I really don't have a lot going on. I wish I did. I wish I had something exciting to tell you, but mainly I wanted to let you know I was still alive (as of this writing, at least) and kicking.

Hopefully I'll have something fun to tell you again soon.

Hope you're doing well.