Last week, I started feeling my niggling little cold morphing into what was the undeniable signs of wimpy lung bronchities. Sometimes I wonder about living in an iron lung: could it really be that bad? Would you have to work on spreadsheets? Couldn’t you just say “Oh, sure, I could whip up that spreadsheet, with conditional formatting and a triple layer pivot but did I mention that I’m stuck in an iron lung?” And then people would feel badly about asking me to do shit and go the hell away. Is that the same as being a Bubble Boy? I’ll bet now that there’s the internet, it’s not even that bad.
I finally gave up and went to visit my doctor. When I got to the doctor’s office, they made me put on a stupid Spamthrax mask. I don’t have Spamthrax. I actually got the Spamthrax vaccine because of my stupid limp lung condition, but whatever. I humored them.
Long time readers of this blog (and yes, I’ll be putting the archives back at some point, with all of my free time and shit) might remember that I used to go to Dr. Perky, who was so very awesome and also, perky. Dr. Perky transferred to do some work for the government (I imagine that she uses her perkiness to operate on aliens in Roswell or perhaps give Malia her flu shot) and I got my current doctor, whom I don’t believe has a nickname. She’s lithe and beautiful and always has amazing make up and I thought immediately that I’d hate her, but in actuality, I love her even more than Dr. Perky. She is Awesome. Dr. Awesome. A few years ago, she confessed that she saw me at the farmer’s market with Esteban one morning but didn’t want to say anything because she was afraid we’d think she was stalking us. And this last time, I was mentioning her nurse, and when I stumbled over the name, Dr. Awesome said “Oh, it’s Debbie. In fact, whenever you don’t know a woman’s name in Wisconsin, just say ‘Debbie’ because she’ll probably answer. For guys, it’s ‘Mike’.” She also called one of her co-doctors “a farty bastard” or something like that once, and for that, she can now do no wrong.
Also, when she walked in the door of the exam room and saw me sitting, she said “Oh my god, you can take off that stupid mask.” And rolled her eyes. LOVE HER.
Dr. Awesome agreed that I was well on my biennial route to having pneumonia (seriously, what’s with the even years?) so she hooked me up with the Limp Lungs Cocktail of prednisone, codeine cough syrup and a Z-pack. None of these things by themselves work at all, two of them might work, but the trifecta? Works every time. Not being sick is nice, but I loathe being on the ’sone. Between the spurts of fake energy (I feel totally like kicking ass on all of my household projects, but then I try to carry a (fucking) laundry basket across the house and I start to sweat for half an hour and my muscles quiver and I get very close to swooning, not in the Jonas Brothers way but for a much more weak and pathetic reason), the lack of sleep (hellooooo grudging 1 am bedtime!), lack of appetite (I imagine this is how thin people are able to stop eating something really delicious, because I earnestly am choking down most everything just so that I can take the stupid medication without burning a hole in my gut. I don’t WANT to eat anything, unless it’s a Hostess Fruit Pie, which of course, I won’t because I have vowed to only eat baked goods if they are less than 365 days old) and the general random bouts of fever for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, I’m kind of miserable.
I was supposed to have a business trip this weekend to Tampa but that got pre-empted, so instead I spent all weekend trying to get Weetacon business in order. Every year, it gets down to T-minus 7 days and I am suddenly faced with so many things that could have been done months and months ago! Stupid things! Like, why do I always wait until the last minute to make the annual collage? Or why am I always messing with the Charity Raffle bags on the Tuesday before people are arriving? These things aren’t time sensitive! It is because I am stupid, I think. And also because, in hindsight, I am prepping for other things that end up getting kibboshed and then having to redo and whatnot. But this year, I am determined! It will not be that way again! Triumph! Prednisone! Huzzah!
Today was the first day in the last ten when I actually felt well enough to attempt to run an errand or twelve. Actually, I shouldn’t say that: I did attempt a trek to a mega craft store because for some reason, I was absolutely convinced that it was crucial to fetch Charify Raffle gift bags and that all planning could move no further until I had those items. Which was totally the Prednisone talking, because just driving across town felt like way too much exertion, and then I tried to engage two different workers of mega craft store with questions and managed to confuse the hell out of both of them. Heck, I knew what I was trying to say and I couldn’t even understand what I meant. They ended up giving me major discounts, I think because they thought I was a crazy woman. Also, I sweated at them the entire time. Hey! Who needs those stupid Michael’s coupons, just go into the store sweating and speaking in tongues and they’ll hit you with a 60% discount just to get you to leave their store.
Today, I ended up going back to the mega craft store because I have two Amy Casey prints that have been languishing in my house for ages. Well, one was for ages, and the other less time because it showed up on 20×200 and I had to gank it for my very own last month. I thought about turing on the sweat again and speaking like Margot Kidder, to try to coax another discount because seriously, when did custom framing become more expensive than, oh, a CAR. Seriously, to have two prints framed, it costs more than the car my mother bought for me to drive in high school. In fact, it costs more than that car and also the GAS for that car, which, by the way, is quite a lot because I think it was a 72 Grand Prix, which was so large you could sit three chunky teenage girls in the front seat and not have any “cootie overlap”. (God, we were dorks.)
I also made a stop at the laundromat with our two (TWO) down comforters that had been doused with pug pee in 8 days time. Seriously, the dog is 99.99% housetrained, but apparently that two hundredths of a percent occurs on whatever unfortunate down comforter happens to be on our bed. The laundromat wouldn’t take the down comforters, because they both had labels that clearly said DRY CLEAN ONLY on large tags that were impossible to hide casually with one’s hand. I ended up dropping it at the actual dry cleaners (oh fine), where it will cost an arm and a leg (but not as much as having something custom framed… yes, still bitter).
Then I hit Target, where I had a list that I followed more or less to the letter. The only bad thing was that I was plagued by a trio of stay-at-home moms. They were always within one or two aisles of me and were always but always talking. I couldn’t help but hear their conversation, tried as I did to ignore them. I felt like I was getting dumber, just internalizing it, and finally changed my route around the store (does anyone else do this? Up through the clothes, then across the back, then zig back through housewares and then hit the H&B and media section, ending up in the groceries? Just me then?) and yet the bitches followed me! Always an aisle away! Could not break them! I rushed through the last bit of my shopping and then checked out, where I was cringing for the total (because yeah, totally didn’t follow the list to the letter, and lied at the beginning of this paragraph. I cannot walk through the dog and cat aisle without caving, people. Can. Not. Do. It.) but it ended up not being too bad, which was just weird. And then the three chicks got in line BEHIND ME and continued with the same conversational thread they had been on since the detergent aisle! Did she? She did not. I swear, I was like, oh my god, whatever, you’re so lame. And then my kids were like, so tired, and I was like, yeah, I’m over this.
I am almost positive that they were sirens, luring me to the rocks. Or perhaps a Greek chorus, scaring me the hell out of there. Either way, I hope I don’t see them and their weird Monday Shopping With Bump-Its In Their Hair outfits ever again.
Ok, that last paragraph just went to a very weird place, so I’m taking this as a sign that the Prednisone is starting to take hold again.
Me: What? Certainly not. I’ve posted more since then.
Her: November 21. I check frequently.
Me: Huh. But…but…the Year End Video counts!
It didn’t quite go that way. Mostly it went that way. Because yes, I did the opposite of Hollidailies, it seems. And also, I suck.
January is already kicking my ass, is what.
So, some things: I’m going back to graduate school this semester. Oh settle down, inner crazy monologue, it’s not necessarily going to stick or anything, I just had this longing to take another writing workshop and it seemed like a really good idea last fall when I was under the delusion that I’d have all this fucking free time in January. You see, I have good intentions, especially during these darkest months, the raw truth of the matter is that I pretend that I’ll have all of this awesome free time once the craziness of fall subsides and then the holidays, which are also crazy, and then New Year, which is (say it with me) crazy, but really, I’m just kidding myself. I hate January. In spring, my nostalgia colors January as though it is one unending evening spent dreading the next day, which is essentially what it feels like, except that really, I’m fucking knackered this month and I just figured it out why. Because I am stupid.
So, there’s the writing workshop, which has eleven million books to read, which apparently I think I’m going to flip right through since it’s on writing creative non-fiction and hello, four point eight million words written on a fucking blog much? And also, I swore that I’d resume taking Ave to obedience training once I started working again, and like an asshole, I didn’t sign up for the last session on time and thus, had to wait, and now we’re going to do six weeks of quality time on Saturday mornings, which is when I normally do all of the things that hold my life together, things like grocery shopping and laundry and marital bliss-related activities (we have refined the art of going to Starbucks). And on Sundays, I’m apparently permanently going to need to go over to my Aunt Drusilla’s house to help her understand how her PC works, all because I gave her a damned MP3 player last year and she doesn’t understand how her CD collection could possibly fit on something the size of a pack of gum.
And I really really wanted to do another session of pottery. I heartily love pottery. I love pottery more than I rightfully should, quite honestly. I get on the wheel, make my pottery type stuff, and for a beautiful three hours, I am completely not thinking about anything other than making my hands work in ways they don’t understand. You can mesmerize yourself with the tactile feeling of a lump of gushy porcelain clay spin spin spinning between your palms. And the smell, the dusty talcy smell! It’s a grounding force, that smell. And as much as I hate glazing (boy howdy, do I hate it), it’s really all worth it for the Saturdays spent hunched over a wheel, giving oneself chapped hands while shaping mud that’s cold like it was stolen straight from the grave.
The other awesome thing is that it’s a stress reliever. The stress of my job is something I am having a hard time getting around, and I can tell when it’s building up because I start biting my nails in my sleep. I did it again two nights ago, bit my left forefinger to the quick until it bled, all while dreaming of something I’m probably glad I can’t remember. Pottery is good. Very good.
And then there’s Weetacon. Weetacon! The best most amazing time of the year. Last year, when the Badness was going on, I wasn’t sure that there would ever be another Weetacon, particularly when the economy seemed so foul and the amount of energy expended seemed so ridiculous. And now, it is so. We’re having Weetacon in less than two months. Weetacon, which absorbs way more of my spare braincells than I’d like to admit. Sure, I pretend like it ain’t nothing but a thing, except that really, I agonize for hours over little details like scheduling decisions and venues and color schemes. For as OCD as I am, every year, I’m kind of stunned that this thing turns out at all, much less that people want to come back year after year.
And here’s the incredible thing: it sold out last week.
This is my sixth year throwing this thing and we’ve never sold out two months in advance. We usually sell out two weeks in advance, or have one or two spots left, depending on where I set that high water mark, but this year… oy vey, 8 weeks on the dot and the mofo sold out. And then there was a waiting list, two of the three of which were veterans who had been to the first two Weetacons, and one (Trance Jen) who had never missed a Weetacon yet, not even when she was nearing death’s door with some kind of pre-H1N1 Hanta virus thing that knocked her flat all weekend. Waiting listed!
I talked to Esteban. I talked to the bus company about renting their biggest bus. We took a deep breath and then said “Fuck it. Let’s do this shit.” Ok, Esteban didn’t say that. I did. Under my breath. And then we raised the cap, to the highest possible point we can raise it, no kidding, that’s as big as this thing can get. And then we got another bunch of registrations. LIKE THAT. Wham bam thank you ma’am.
Everyone’s coming. Weetacon veterans that missed the last one, two, or three are coming back. It’s the second highest incidence of new folks (since the second year. We don’t count the first year, because everyone was new.) People who have been telling me for years that they wanted to come to a Weetacon are booking flights. Veterans are bringing their spouses. There’s a whole lotta love, baby, so much that the Bad Bar just may turn Good for one night only.
Because of this, something had to go. It was either the day job or pottery, because I’m certainly not going to slack on Weetacon. Not this year. Not these people. Can’t do it. Nope. Not going to do it.
It probably doesn’t hurt that the pots I make look like they were crafted by chimpanzees. You know, the smart ones that use sign language, but still. Chimpanzees.
If you’re interested, there’s still three spots left in the Bigger, Better, Uncut Weetacon. Seriously, look at this roster. It’s insane! Everyone who is anyone. Everyone that I love. All in one place. And still room for you, baby doll.
So many of you have either commented or e-mailed that you want to come to Weetacon (March 5-7, 2010!) and see what it’s all about (and let’s face it, could there BE a cheaper readymade weekend getaway? Plus, I defy you to walk out of Weetacon without having made at least one amazing new bff) but are freaked out by a) meeting a bunch of new people who seem to all know each other already b) seeming like an internet stalker c) how cold it is in Green Bay in March and d) the fact that you don’t know anyone there. Trust me, guys, we’ve all been there. And yes, I absolutely know that it’s kind of unnerving and very “first day of a new school and what if I don’t have anyone to sit with at lunch” to walk into a room full of strangers, but I promise you that we take our new folks and press them into our collective bosom to the point that I sometimes worry that they think we’re a creepy cult of Pineapple Fluff (it does seem that way at times, but that’s just because everyone is just so enthusiastic about what is a weekend filled with amazing people, hilarious new experiences and a lot of butter-soaked carbs). In fact, in effort to help answer questions about the weekend, we thought we’d break the cyber barrier and have some actual authentic voice-to-voice communication before the big weekend. What a freaking radical idea.
So here’s the dealio, my little Weetacon-curious friends, below is a series of several conference calls to help answer questions, give more detail and make that oh-so-important leap from us being pretend friends on the internet. I’m going to attend all of the calls, and have asked several Weetacon alums to join (including people who were first timers last year) so that you can ask questions and get acquainted with a few people so that you will at least have a feel for the personalities behind the Weetacon bio pages.
I can host up to 96 people at one time, so even if you don’t plan on joining us in March, you can just lurk in the background and eavesdrop. I honestly don’t care! In fact, you can think of it as an extended metaphor. Besides, if no one asks any questions about Weetacon, maybe we’ll start talking about all the dirt that we’re not allowed to publish on the internet.
The conference call schedule to discuss your trip to Green Bay and any questions you may have about Weetacon 2010:
Saturday December 5, 4-5 pm CST
Number: (641) 715-3630 (Note: this is an Iowa area code, so use a cell phone with free long distance)
Participant Access Code: 960765#
Topic: So tell me why I should come to Weetacon exactly? (Alternate Topic: We promise not to steal your kidney and leave you in a bathtub full of ice)
Topic:Oh my god, how many sweaters should I bring? No seriously, I’m freaking out whenever I look at that weather map on the back of USA Today. Why is Green Bay violet, y’all! I’m going to die, aren’t I?
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