Hello again. Since we last spoke I got partially laid off at my job and have been thinking of nothing else since. They cut my hours from full time to part time. In half. Unemployment payments make up almost the other half, so it’s not too bad. I’m still totally freaked out constantly. I keep being hired by these Internet companies that want to pay me $2/hr. I apply for local jobs too, they just don’t hire me. Wow.

Today I applied for a job exactly like what I’m doing now, but at another company. And full time instead of part. It’d be awesome if I got it. I am tired of thinking so hard. DAMN.

I have plans to make money with my own blogs and websites, etc., but I know that takes time. Not the thing to be doing now. And yet, I have nothing to do but sit here all day. Okay, half the day. I’m waiting to see if my article was approved for a website I just started working for. If so, I guess I will write more. It involves a lot of research. I know nothing about the subjects. Grr. I mean… uh… .

Is this a bad economy thing or am I unemployable? It would be a good idea to get some specialized training, I guess. At some point. Probably medical coding. Since I’m such a bad typist. Otherwise I would say medical transcription. And then for the love of God an Accounting degree of some sort! Even an associates! That is assuming I am never going to make a living from my writing. Safe assumption, right? Grr. I mean, wait a minute. If I write non-fiction for my own websites, I could make a lot of money there. I think I know just how to do it. Why am I not doing it then? Because something always interrupts me. A new job online, or someone calling for an interview. And then I remember, “Oh, yeah, my life is in flux.” I can’t exactly make plans. Pfft. I should, though. Make plans while I wait? Something like that. Easier said than done. This is very unnerving.

The company I work for, the one job I do have in reality, is kind of going under and on the verge of being bought by another company. YEAH. I feel the stability! Why am I not taking an anti-anxiety pill? ‘Cause I’m tired of taking daily naps, that’s why. Sheesh.

When will my life belong to me again, dammit? That is all I ask. I want to work, go home, and BE at home. Leave work at work. You know? Excellent. That is all. I still feel like I’m at work. Daytime has a buzz to it, though. I don’t mind it when I am actually at work. But being at home and feeling the bzzz is weird. You know, like the emotions of people being busy. Like that.

I’m supposed to be hanging out with my sister! If she’s even at home. Whoops. I’m hungry. Anyone have a…. what am I craving? I need to work more food into my budget. I guess.

Checking my article again…. still no change. Hmm. Stopped to check my email. Totally forgot what I was doing. Argh.

Well, this is gonna be shorter than usual. I can’t even watch Netflix! I had to put my account on hold to save money. Did not think I would be sitting here in February still with no idea what I was going to be doing. Unbelievable. It’s funny I thought I was bad off before because I had no time. HA!

That’ll teach me. To have thoughts. I guess.

Pondering what I can string together to make a meal in my kitchen. I have Ramen noodles, but those are not filling. Or healthy, let’s face it. Um… huh. Not a clue. Crap, my life sucks! I just had to be a novel writer…. DUMB.

Fine then. I’m gonna go now. See what I have cans of. Yep. Etc. Hmm, search for more jobs maybe…. this makes sense. Bah!

Later.~

I just ate some grapefruit. These titles are so irrelevant. Or barely relevant.

Hi. Me again. How are you? I’ve been all freaked out and stressed out and busy, so I haven’t written in here. I missed it, though. I like rambling on with no organization or focus. Weee!

I started my new herbal/natural blog. It’s cool. It’s fun. I write in an organized way there, though, like I’m trying to make sense and be articulate. Nothing like this place. I also finally released my romance novel. It’s doing well. At least as well as expected. Making no sales, but I’m serializing it, and I get more readers with each chapter. Nice. People like romance. Mandra continues to beat the crap out of anything else I’ve ever written, in terms of how many downloads it’s gotten. Wowsers. That’s kind of nice. Weird, but kind of nice.

I made a booootiful cover for my new romance novel. Very pretty. Very simple. Strangely noir. Hmm.

I finally got my car registered. Turns out in my state you can’t get a title until you register the car. ???? In most other places I think it’s the other way around? So I was waiting for a car title to come to me, and that was never gonna happen. The county treasurer’s office finally wrote to me and said, “Come register your car already!” Oh, okay. ???!

Habitat for Humanity picked up my old car finally. Turns out I needed a lien release from ten years ago to go with the title. Hahahaha! The bank didn’t even have a record of the loan anymore. They had to create a new lien release. GARR! Lot of trouble. I thought my new car didn’t have heat, but it turns out it does have heat. My stress level is lower now.

So, let’s talk Dollhouse! It bugs the crap out of me that fans, critics, creators of the show are always putting down the first 5 episodes or so. “It had a weak beginning” blah blah blah. The first episode is my favorite. I hate it especially when the creators of a thing put it down. Are you insulting me for liking it or what?! “Ghost” (the first episode) is just perfectly perfect. For me anyway. I do love the Alpha episodes. Who wouldn’t? But “Ghost” is the bestest.

I’ve read reviews of last night’s episode. People seem to be utterly amazed that Topher could make a woman able to breastfeed without having given birth. We already have that technology, people. It’s called hormone pills. Lots of women breastfeed their adopted babies. Don’t piss me off, America! Oops. I’m moody. Plus that’s not the only reason Echo went back for the baby. She was already glitching and remembering all her imprints. Hmm… complex. Oh, those were spoilers, by the way. WHOOPS. I think you need a treatment.

I’m watching last year’s Smallville. It is so damn good! Eeeee! And I thought it wouldn’t work without Lex. Bah! Very nice! I must see what happens next. I can’t afford to buy the season right now, so I’m renting. And I don’t have the channel Smallville is on anymore, so I can’t watch it now even if I want to. Same with Supernatural. Maybe I’ll write more novels. Pfft. Whatever.

I just bought my monthly batch of vitamins and herbs. I spend $50 a month on that stuff. Damn! So funny. Years ago, when I was on Prozac for 3 weeks, it cost $50 a month. And that’s for one pill. That does one thing. Vitamins and herbs each do many things. And are apparently cheaper, cuz I take a lot of them. Still, how many people have a $50 vitamin budget? Weird.

This reminds me of a chat I had with my mother the other day.

Me: Did you know marshmallow is an herb?
Mom: No, it’s not.
Me: Yes, it is.
Mom: No, it’s not.
Me: Yes, it is.
Mom: Marshmallows don’t grow on trees.
Me: I didn’t say marshmallows grew on trees.

Pause.

Me: Marshmallows at some point probably had the herb marshmallow in them.
Mom: That’s ridiculous.

Hee hee. So weird! Sigh. Anyway, marshmallow is apparently good for the lungs and stomachaches, among other things. Interesting.

You know what’s bizarre?! I bought these things, taquito type things, that were supposed to be full of cheese and vegetables. I microwave one and bite into it and there are all these cubes. Cream colored. I think, “Is that potato?” I put one in my mouth. It’s kind of chewy. Hey, it tastes like that fake tofu chicken–AHHH! I realize it’s real chicken and spit it out. Yeck! There were three taquitos in the package. I cooked them all up so I could look inside to see what was in them. Sure enough, cheese and chicken. No vegetables anywhere! I look on the box. Yes, indeed, the box says they are cheese and vegetable. Unbelievable! So, yeah, they put them in the wrong box. Bummer! Not buying that brand again. It’s funny my fake tofu chicken really does taste like chicken. I haven’t had meat in years. I assumed my tofu stuff was just an approximate meat-like flavor. Yeeks!

I should probably not be eating cheese anyway. I fell off the wagon. Hey, I have a strawberry banana soy protein shake. I’m having it!

That was anti-climactic. I’m waiting ’til after this blog entry to have it. Hmph.

This seems like a longer ramble than usual, but have you been to alice.com???!!!! It’s awesome! It is the land of cheapness with no crowds. Suck it, Walmart! Not that Walmart doesn’t have its charm, but crowds, yeck. I just bought a bunch of household crap there (alice.com). Every two weeks I buy stuff from them. Payday. Shampoo, Kleenex, body wash, paper plates, moisturizer. Etc. Yes!

I’m a little weirded out that I think I swallowed a piece of chicken. Before I knew I was eating chicken. YUUUUUUccckkkkk!!! No!!!!

Wow. Calm down. I ate a bunch of grapefruit afterwards. It seemed like the anti-meat. Heh. And now we’ve come full circle. See what I did there? Unplanned! Rambling is the best. Hee!

I think I’m in a better mood. Certainly better than I have been. Must go now. Gotta have that protein shake. Yummeeeeyyyy!

Later.

Now that I’ve called this “Toxic”, I think my work here is done. I was gonna bitch and complain about everything. It was gonna be fun! Whatever.

My computer is slow. I have too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. My health sucks crap lately. Even though I’m losing weight. Hurray! Just not fast enough. Well, probably at a healthy pace, though. Grr.

I’m trying to get my romance novel released under my pen name and it has been so…. slow going. I’ve got a little bit of an audience built up, and I haven’t even finished editing the book. Though, really all it needs is some spellcheck, punctuation check, etc. And I have to design a cover. And learn how to use Create Space, and the Kindle uploady thing, and Smashwords. Three things I have never used before! Then I have to copyright the book. Then add webrings to my site, cuz you can’t add them ’til you have content on your site. And serialize my book. While selling it. ???!! It’s a thing I’m trying. I’ll let you all know if it works and I become a millionaire. Pfft. I think I would be happy with a hundred bucks. Not really happy, but hey, close enough.

I’m thisclose to thinking I have some kind of diabetes. I know, right???!!!! I’m eating a sort of diabetic diet and losing weight. I want to lose weight and get rid of the potential diabetes so I don’t even have to worry about it. So I can be in denial that it was ever there. See? I think I have electrolyte imbalance issues. Low sodium. I have all kinds of issues! Menstrual issues it makes me want to pass out to talk about. Not that you need details, but goddammit a person shouldn’t bleed that much. It gave me vertigo and made me so dehydrated I started to lose my voice. Ew. (Herbal tinctures with alcohol in them probably didn’t help the dehydration…) It sapped all my energy. I walked around slowly, like I didn’t have enough oxygen. Totally bizarre!

TMI, but I had to complain about it somewhere. I’ve been told to go to the doctor about it, but I work in a doctor’s office. They pretty much have 3 solutions to the too-much-bleeding problem. The pill (which will fuck up my hormones and make my blood pressure worse), endometrial ablation (meaning they burn the lining of your uterus, so no kids for you), or hysterectomy (also a big fat no kids for you). I guess they could also inject me with progestin. ?? Which has it’s own side effects. HMM. I have 6 or 7 different herbs, vitamins, etc. that I take. They work well enough, but I have to set my alarm to wake up a few times a night to take my pills. Sucks rocks! In case anyone wants to know what they are because they have this problem: shepherd’s purse, lady’s mantle, cramp bark, raspberry leaf (makes me so sleepy/dizzy and nauseous, but works), spirulina (blue green algae also good, or chlorophyll), vitamin c, and ibuprofen (this may be the best one, but wean yourself off of it, don’t go cold turkey, headache). Phew, I feel better. I imparted knowledge. You’ll have to google them all to find out why they work, though. I just don’t want to go into it! Oh, I also take vitex (chaste tree berry) daily. I forgot.

You know, I bought a whole domain name for this kind of gory girly talk, but I don’t want to have to build a site up and blah blah blah. Too much effort. It bothers me that this herbal stuff is stuff I should have been taught in high school. By someone. Mother, whoever. But she doesn’t know this stuff. Someone should be teaching it. This should be old hat to me now. I should have moved on to other more important things by now. Instead of learning all this shit by trial and error. Grr. I get mad about stuff like that. How the world should be. I hate reading articles and having them state things as medical fact just because it hasn’t been proven yet. Like that herbs don’t work because they haven’t been proven to work. But who pays for the big studies to prove things work? Drug companies who don’t want you to be able to fix yourself. How would they make money if you could do that? You know, I’ve noticed that people who live to be 90-something or 100-something have very short medication lists. But people in their 60’s and 70’s with huge long med lists, they die younger. At 60 or 70 something. I don’t know what this means. Maybe the people were already sick and needed the medicine. Maybe one pill makes them sick and they take more pills to deal with the side effects of the others. My friend’s mother took a high blood pressure med for years before it was discovered it caused diabetes. And by then it was too late. She now has diabetes. HMMM. Yeah, I think I hate prescription drugs. Some can’t be avoided I’m sure, but a lot of them can be. Grrrr. Have you seen that ad for the asthma medication that says, “May cause asthma related death”? Whatever!

Didn’t know this would turn into a health care rant. Health insurance companies could save a lot of money if they encouraged herbal or natural solutions for things. HMM. LOL. The German Commission E does it. I think that’s kind of like the US FDA. ?? Ooo, intriguing, I just looked it up. The German Commission E was formed in 1978 to study over 300 herbs and make recommendations, and the commission no longer exists, but their recommendations are still followed. Ooooo! Neat!

I’ve gotten sidetracked. I wanted to rant! I’m drinking Gatorade. Rehydrating. Then eating a protein bar to balance the sugar in the Gatorade. Egads! High maintenance. Yes, that is what bothers me. I am high maintenance. Very annoying. And I’m getting very sleepy. I haven’t slept through the night in a week! Tonight I will though. Weaning myself off the pills and tinctures. ‘Crosses fingers.’ Hope it all goes well. Yeeks. THEN, tomorrow I go dogsit for a week. So, I can’t work on book stuff. Two weekends lost. But I am dragging my friend to the Harry Potter movie next weekend. Weeeee!!!!!

And then, for the love of God, I hope I can finally get some work done on my book. Get that stupid thing published. I mean it’s not stupid! Hee hee. It’s actually quite good, I think, if you like that sort of thing. Romance. Hmm. I probably need my ibuprofen. I’m starting to get that withdrawal headache. Argh. A few more doses and I’ll be free of it. For a little while. You can tell that one’s a drug, it has the worst side effects. But it also works well. HMMM. But so do the others. Just… I think it works more forcefully. Something. Less gentle. And I felt like being less gentle.

Man, I’m tired. Bah. Apparently this is the end of my rant. I guess I’d better go before I fall asleep at the keyboard. Adios.~

Alright! I’ve never devoted a whole entry to one subject, but why not? Here goes.

Dollhouse. Yup. Love it. It’s a TV show, in case you wondered. Friday night. Fox. Apparently only 4.1 million people are watching it. Hellooooo! There will be plenty of spoilers in this review, by the way, for people who haven’t seen it yet. So be warned!

Where to begin? Characters. Yikes. I just got myself a spoiler by looking up Miracle Laurie on IMDB. So, don’t do that. Okay, let’s start with her. I love her! She’s so cute! Okay, I’m not exactly objective. I love this show. But she’s so sweet. She’s the Willow/Fred. Okay, there I had to do it. Compare these characters to other Whedon show characters. But I love the leftover lasagna that was brand new. So funny. I don’t want to say too much about her now since I see where this is going. Darn you, IMDB!

I’m also wondering why Boyd Langton is written as “Boyd Langton/…” on IMDB just like all the actives….. ?? Typo? Moses! But then again Echo and Sierra are not written that way, so…. I’ll ignore it. Okay. Boyd. He’s awesome too. Let’s just assume from now on that I think every character is awesome, because it’s pretty much true. I like how he’s the good guy. Even though he works for a pretty evil organization. Claire Saunders too. They seem to be the “good” ones. Non-evil. Whathaveyou. I love the sweet relationship between Boyd and Echo. Nice! I love that he got nervous before she sang. I love that he demanded they rescue the kidnapped girl in episode 1. He’s a good guy. Stupid enough to pull an arrow out of himself, but still.

Claire Saunders. So different from anyone I’ve seen Amy Acker play. She’s goood. I mean as an actress. And the character is morally good. So far. Unless she’s the one trying to kill Echo or somesuch. You never know! But I don’t think so. I like her. She’s got secrets. She’s the one who knows everything and is bothered by everything. It’s nice. I mean, someone has to have a conscience!

“Victor/…” I can’t remember his imprint’s name. I love the criminal guy he plays. So funny. That’s all I’ve got for this one so far.

Evil security guy in a very nice suit. Have not caught his name. IMDB says Laurence. I like his… asshole-ishness. There’s really no other word for it. He’s such a jerk. But apparently in an entertaining way, cuz I like his character too. So mean. It’s nice and refreshing, I just don’t know why I feel this way. He’s the Jayne of the group! Okay, I’ll stop doing that now.

Adelle DeWitt. DUDE. She’s great! I absolutely love the little smile she puts at the end of everything she says. As if to say, “Let’s not have any trouble now, okay?” With the little head tilt. She’s controlling in a gentle polished way. I love that. She hardly ever gets ruffled. Just quietly in charge. Nice! She reminds me a bit of people I know in real life. I should probably be afraid.

Paul Ballard. He’s the Mulder. (Okay, Mulder’s not a Whedon character, but whatever!) Why does he have no partner? Okay, I’ve seen too much X-Files. I like this character a lot. Funny, badass, etc etc. Totally being played, but - okay, I guess now he knows he’s being played. Just not by who. (Whom? Lol.) Anyway, very clever, very rulebreakery. It’s a word. I made it up. It’s a made up word. By me. Hi.

Topher! Let’s all talk about Topher. Possibly my favorite character. He’s evil, but cuddly. Laid back. Genius. Amoral. You know the type. (Or hopefully you don’t personally know the type or I will feel sorry for you, but I digress…) I love how he teases Boyd. And now how he teases Dr. Saunders. “Scowly babies”. And how he makes fun of Laurence. And…. “Seriously? Gun?” Oh, my favorite laugh out loud moment, when Echo says, “Something fell on me,” and Topher says, “I bet it was something great!” Lol. Damn! And somehow he reminds me of Lorne on Angel. I must have my wires screwed up….

Echo/Caroline/Etc. Love her, of course. I love the kind of wobbly way the actives walk when they are all blanked out and childlike again. It’s so cute. I so want to be an active. So I can float around the Dollhouse, get massages, go swimming, sleep in a built-in coffin-like bed… Wait. Anyway, this character is the whole point, so I will try to focus. I’m sleep deprived. I loved the character of Miss Penn. I hadn’t seen Eliza play anyone like that before. And apparently Eliza can sing too. I guess Faith was in prison or something during “Once More With Feeling.” Darn! Anyway, I love how Echo has a personality that’s all her own. Making friends with Sierra and hiding it. Realizing she has to hide it. That was frickin’ awesome. Eeeee! Very unexpected. Let’s jump over into what I think of the whole show. ‘Jump’…
…
…
…
‘Land’. Okay! I hate it. Kidding. I love it because everything is unexpected. From the ads last week I thought this week’s episode would be like an episode of Las Vegas. I braced myself. What am I, stupid? Dur. Obviously, it was going to be unexpected and great. But will the world see that? Will the world agree? I don’t know. But I am going to buy every season on DVD. Whether it’s one or five or… eleven. (Shite! Could that happen?!) The dollhouse reminds me of Wolfram & Hart from season five of Angel. I love that. Topher’s work room/office reminds me of Firefly in some way. Now I’m comparing things again. I would hate to be a professional TV critic and praise this show and have people ignore me and have to watch this wonderful thing crash and burn. So I hope it even squeaks by enough to keep going so there can be many seasons. There’s a kind of stress I don’t envy. Working on that show and wondering all the time how it is doing.

I feel like I still haven’t reviewed the show. I’ve just babbled for many paragraphs. Okay, Dollhouse: unexpected plot twists and turns, deep and meaningful this and that, very funny moments, awesome complicated characters, smart and thoughtful stories. Yep. It’s doomed. I mean, no, it’s not! Think positively! Sheesh!

Later.