New Blog!

So, ahem, I've been pretty bad about blogging. I learned with the treknobabble blog that blogging seems to be easier with a theme. So let's just see about that. Follow me to: http://kellylearnstosew.wordpress.com/.

Lazy Summer

If anyone's still reading this, sorry about never posting. :)  Anytime I have something little to say, I figure Facebook is a better forum because it will reach far more people. I suppose Twitter would be too, if I ever bothered to use my Twitter feed. And anytime I have something longer to say, well, it's usually not for public consumption, or I talk through it instead of writing.

I'm loving summer, and I'm very sad that it will be done soon. I will, however, welcome having more people around at work. It's frustrating to try to get anything done right now because half of campus is on vacation. It will also be nice to see students again soon.

Um, that's about it. I'm ready for my half marathon to get here so that I can run 3 miles on weekdays instead of 5. And I start a new medicine tonight that might make me loopy.

Camping!

I'm off to the woods. No shower, no electricity, no problem. :)

Oops

Just picked up a refill of my cabergoline prescription. I'm supposed to take it twice a week. The pill bottle says to take twice a day. Good thing I pay attention to what I know I'm supposed to be doing. And that I'm not litigious.

Convocation

Sorry for not posting, but my life at the moment is all convocation all the time. Until Saturday evening. I'm even dreaming (nightmares) about convocation. This will mean nothing to any of you, but convocation has drastically changed this year, and I'm planning a ceremony that has never existed until now. Wheeeeee! Normally I'd be in summer mode at work by now.


On the upside, we're getting a new bed (finally), so maybe after convocation is over I will actually be able to sleep through the night. Maybe.

Teaching

For reasons I don't entirely remember, I agreed to give a talk this week to a P-h-i-l-o-s-o-p-h-y of A-r-c-h-i-t-e-c-t-u-r-e class. And strangely, this has nothing to do with Matthew. Anyway, what may have seemed like fun when I agreed to do a couple of months ago now seems like work. I'm not writing anything new--it's all based on my MA thesis--but I haven't thought about any of this in a long time and trying to figure out how to best present it in a short amount of time is not easy.

Doped up

I started the medicine last night. My doctor put me on cabergoline instead of bromocriptine, which I know means nothing to anyone. But, what it means to me is that I'm less likely to have side effects, and I only take the drug twice a week instead of twice a day. Cabergoline is supposedly more expensive, but I have (thankfully!) very good health insurance, so it's cheap for me. I'm on a ridiculously low dose for the first two weeks. I feel what I think could be side effects-- kind of feel like I'm in a daze-- but I'm guessing that's probably just anxiety about the medicine, rather then the medicine itself. :) I read a fascinating study of this drug that showed what percentage of people on the drug experienced different side effects but then showed what percentage of people on a placebo experienced those side effects. 27% of people on the cabergoline felt nauseous, but 20% of people on the placebo felt nauseous too! So, I'm trying to ignore side effects and hope they're in my head.

Prolactinoma

I've just been diagnosed with something I didn't know existed a month ago. I have a benign 5mm tumor on my pituitary gland, called a prolactinoma, which was confirmed by MRI. (BTW, I'm extremely claustrophobic, and the MRI was not that bad.) You're all big kids who know how to use the Google, so I won't go into the symptoms, which are probably TMI for the blog.

The good news is that this is completely treatable with medication (bromocriptine or cabergoline). The bad news is that I will probably be on this medicine for the rest of my life, and some people experience pretty bad side effects, at least at first. I go see the endocrinologist on Wednesday to figure out how they want to medicate me. From my internet research, it seems they rarely do surgery for this (and pretty much never do radiation), so medicine it is.

Fun with Poetry, Part Four

Free verse. Not my favorite poetry form. I didn't take it very seriously...

Coffee,
    Oh coffee,
Lifeblood in my veins.

Pavlovian, I salivate when I hear the
    Drip
    Drip
    Drip.

The scent of brewing coffee
    Like an alarm clock to my nostrils
    Awakens my soul.
The bitterness on my tongue delightful,
And the heat as it rolls down my throat fills me up.

I ritually, lovingly, grind my beans on weekday nights;
I set the timer;
And in the morning, like magic, the coffee appears.

But on weekends,
    I lie in bed;
Imagining, anticipating
    The first sip,
    Until I can't wait another second,
    And I run to the kitchen to start the brew.
Waiting those sixty second until I can pour a mug,
    Like an eternity.
And when I finally sit on the couch with my steaming hot joe,
    Paradise.

Fun with Poetry, Part 3

Double dactyls--my new favorite poetry form!!

Treknobab Treknobab
James Kirk of Enterprise
Captain, explorer, set
Women to "stun."

Responsibility
To Starfleet principles
he took not lightly but
He still had fun.

*******

Internet schminternet
Al Gore of Tennessee
One-time Vice President
Prone to a gaffe.

Won Nobel Peace Prize for
Sustainability.
Then won a Grammy, now
Has the last laugh.

Fun with Poetry, Part 2

A really poor attempt at blank verse (my mind was stuck on first syllable stresses)

Smokey and the Bandit are fine kitties
Sleeping in the sunlight all the day long
Looking like the princess and prince they are.
Bandit purrs happily while on my lap,
Sounds like a jet engine as he does so.
Smokey is a little wheezier but
When she gets her purrbox going, watch out.
It is so tough to escape her clutches.
Cleaning, licking, often turns to fighting,
Wrestling, biting, and then perhaps hissing,
Maybe gall'ping trying to win the chase.
When not trying to fit in every box,
They chase the red light of a laser toy.
Sometime in the evening they start whining
Until "food time" when they run to kitchen,
Tripping over each other and their tails,
Bandit trying to eat Smokey's food too.
Then they come and snuggle with me in bed
Or stay up and chase each other all night
Sometimes watching TV with their daddy.

Fun with Poetry, Part One

My first Villanelle -- Saying Goodbye

As we say goodbye I start to cry,

In disbelief the time has passed,

Wishing time apart would likewise fly.

On Wednesday nights my spirits high,

But Sunday always arrives too fast,

And we say goodbye; I start to cry.

On our days together I do try

To simply enjoy, to make them last,

Wishing time apart would likewise fly.

On Sunday mornings I start to sigh;

Throughout the day my dread topmast,

Til saying goodbye I start to cry.

Laughing all day, beloved and I,

Together our joy is deep and vast,

Wishing time apart would likewise fly.

The moment is here; our time's gone by,

Trying to hold my tears steadfast,

But saying goodbye I start to cry,

Wishing time apart would likewise fly.

Eeek

Tonight my short story is going to be workshopped in my Creative Writing course. I'm not sure how confident I am about my story, and I don't always take criticism very well. This could be a disaster.

Grateful

I was crossing the Michigan avenue bridge toward Wacker when I saw the #6 bus start to make its way west so I RAN across the bridge and east on Wacker. The bus driver waited for me at the stop. It was probably only 30 seconds, but with the new schedule that may have saved me 30 minutes in the cold. Thank you, Mr. CTA Driver!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Go Colts

GO COLTS!!

Okay, I know Indy won the Super Bowl recently and New Orleans hasn't. I know the Saints were important in the emotional recovery of New Orleans. If these were two teams I didn't care about, I'd probably root for the Saints.

But when one of these teams is the Colts, that all goes out the window. I don't have a very good explanation for it. I'm not from Indiana, and Indy has never been the closest NFL team to anywhere I've lived. I just love watching Peyton Manning play, even if he is OCD. I guess when you grow up in northeastern Ohio, you either become a defeatist like my grandmother or you find a new team. (There are no hopeless optimists in Cleveland, at least not when it comes to the Browns. "Maybe next year" is only ever said sarcastically.)

I chose the find-a-new-team approach, at least in football and baseball. Since doing so, I have actually gotten to experience teams I care about winning. I would be thrilled to see the Browns wins a Super Bowl and the Indians win a World Series, but that doesn't seem very likely. I know Laz thinks I'm a complete traitor, but I find it very difficult to care about losing teams when I don't even live there anymore. Heck, I found it fairly difficult to care about them when I did live there.

So, I will root for my adopted team today. I love the Colts for one simple reason: they are fun to watch. I've watched enough bad football in my day to truly appreciate a team that is so talented, that can actually make difficult plays, that doesn't give up if they're losing with five minutes left. And watching Peyton is like watching a master class in how to be a quarterback. I can't help but enjoy it.

interloper

I always feel out of place at these events. I'm at a professionalization conference for underrepresented minority graduate students. I'm here for work, and I take this part of my job very seriously. But I always wonder if the people here take me seriously. I feel very conspicuous. I'm not the only white staff member here, but I'm the only one who looks young enough to be mistaken for a student. I feel like the students from other schools must think I'm pretending to be a minority, just to be invited to the conference. I realize this is ridiculous, and I'm sure, intellectually, that the students are thinking no such thing, but every time I catch someone looking at me, I'm plagued with doubt.

Plot excercise, attempt two

We were cooking lunch over the fire, a couple of packets of Tasty Bites in boiling water, our usual backpacking fare. The sun shone brightly overhead, shaded a bit by the towering trees. Sonya sighed, "I wish we had brought coffee." John rolled his eyes and dished up her food. I glanced at Bobby, who was absently scratching his leg as he tended the fire. In the distance, the figure of a man suddenly appeared. As he came closer we could see that he was tall and fit, sporting a walking stick and a large black backpack, an iconic mountaineer. Spotting us, he ambled over. We greeted him and offered him food.  Thanking us, he sat down and then yelped as he noticed Bobby. "Is that a bug bite? You need to get medical attention!" Bobby answered, "I think it was just a mosquito. I'm fine." I peered more closely at Bobby's leg and spotted pus oozing out. "It looks a little infected," I ventured. Sonya frowned and walked over to Bobby to investigate. She jumped back: "I think there are baby bugs and blood in there!" Bobby shook his head: "I'm FINE!" Bobby started dabbing at the bite with his bandanna, scrunching his face in disgust and starting to look a bit concerned. John was fiddling with his cell phone and suddenly yelled: "WebMD says it's a sign of a poisonous bite!" "Call 911!" Sonya and I shouted in unison. Bobby was flailing around, panicked, as John yelled into the phone that they should send a helicopter. "Cut off my leg!" Bobby screamed at me. I could hear the helicopter overhead as the stranger slinked away.

Plot exercise, attempt one

Betsy and Tim looked at Michael and me and raised their glasses. Tim exclaimed, "To another great vacation."

"The cruise was a great idea, Betsy!" Michael said. Betsy smiled as she clinked his raised glass.

"Can you believe this is our tenth trip together?" I asked.

Just then, a portly man in a white linen suit walked over. "Hello folks, I hope you're having a good time."

"Yes," Betsy gushed, "this ship is amazing."

"Thank you," the man responded. "I'm Ross, the program director. May I join you?" When we nodded reluctantly, he pulled over a chair and stuck it on the corner between Michael and me. It seemed an oddly casual move in such an elegant dining room. I glanced at Tim who raised his eyebrows.

Ross turned to Tim and me. "How long have you two been married?"

I giggled. "No, I'm married to Michael, and Tim is married to Betsy," I said, gesturing.

"Really?" Ross asked, "I saw you from across the room, and..." he trailed off.

Betsy shot a panicked look at Michael and back at Ross, stuttering, "you didn't think that we..."

"Yes," Ross nodded.

"No," Betsy said, in shock.

"Well, Betsy, we are friends," Michael mumbled.

"Janie and I are too," Tim defended. "But we're not... I mean, I like her."

"Well, I like Michael," yelped Betsy, knocking over her wine glass. Michael leaped to help her mop the wine.

Without thinking, I shouted, "I love Tim!" and then looked over at Michael with horror. To my surprise he seemed almost relieved as he put his arm around Betsy.

Tim rose out of his chair and leaned down to whisper in my ear, "I love you, too, Janie."

Just before turning to kiss him, I saw Betsy and Michael kissing and a smirking Ross walking away.

iphone has arrived!

My iphone arrived in the mail yesterday. I returned home from my class excited to activate it and start playing around on it. I followed all of the directions and got to a screen on AT&T's webpage that said "Error." I tried again and was told my phone had already been activated. Okay, I thought, that was easy. I turned on the phone to a screen that said "Activating. This may take a while." And it did. Half an hour later, I gave up and started playing on the phone via wifi. I could do almost everything on the phone except make a phone call. That meant I couldn't call AT&T to report the problem, and I couldn't call Matthew. We have no landline, and since Matthew's phone wasn't there, I had no other way of making a phone call. I tried emailing Matthew to tell him to turn on his computer so that I could call him on Skype. But he did not respond. A feeling of helplessness washed over me. Finally, I resorted to emailing a friend and asking him to call Matthew to ask him to call me on Skype. Thanks goodness for multiple modes of connection.

Upon calling AT&T from my landline at work this morning, I learned that they had reactivated my old SIM card instead of activating my new SIM card, so my old phone would have worked.

In any case, the new iphone (well, the year-and-a-half-old previous-model refurbished iphone) now works. And it's very cool. Yes, I'm easily wowed.

Homework

Getting back into the habit of doing homework, even for a creative writing class with no grade, is really difficult. I found myself putting it off all weekend. When I was in school, I was usually pretty good at staying on top of my assignments, so perhaps it's the lack of grade that's killing my motivation. After all, what would happen, besides public shame, if I didn't finish it?

Anyway, I did eventually finish. I'm trying to force myself to write more, even if it's not all fiction or even good or creative. Thus you get lame blog posts like this when I have a thought and then run out of time to fully develop it. :P

Fire

I woke up at 6:30 this morning, looked at the clock, and wondered why I was up. I smelled something that was reminiscent of wax melting, but I didn't know what it was. I padded into the bathroom since I was up anyway. Walking back into the bedroom and laying down, I realized I could still smell the wax or whatever it was. So I got back up and started walking around, trying to figure out what it was. I could smell it in the bedroom and bathroom but not in the living room. I started to think maybe I was going crazy, but I decided to be safe and wake up Matthew. He said he smelled it to and jumped out of bed to investigate. (Matthew never jumps out of bed for anything.) After a briefly walking around the condo, Matthew threw clothes on to investigate the stairwell. I started to get a little frightened at that point and pulled on my own clothes and shoes, and stuffed my phone and wallet into my pockets. When Matthew came back in from the stairwell, he seemed convinced that the smell was coming from outside, out the back, not the front stairwell. Our back porch is being rebuilt, and our back door is boarded up, but we can still open our inside door to see out the back door a bit. As soon as Matthew opened the door, he yelped, "there's a fire out there" and grabbed his cell phone to call 911. I could see the sparks and could see that the fire didn't seem to be moving too quickly, so I ran to get the cat's crates, which haven't been out in a year or more. Matthew went outside to meet the firemen, and I could already hear the sirens in the distance. I guess our condo insurance company knew what they were doing when they gave us a discount for being within a mile of the fire department. I opened the crates and put them on the floor, but all of my calling "Treats! Okay, time for treats," was in vain. The kitties were firmly planted under the bed and would not budge. By this point I could hear movement outside and could see that the sparks were dying down. Matthew called to tell me that they had it under control and not to worry about waking the neighbors. I did try to call the condo board president, but no one answered at his unit. When Matthew got back upstairs, I was crying. It seemed unreal that Matthew would have to deal with fire twice in five years. Everything we had experienced then came rushing back at me. The thought of losing our kitties the way Matthew lost his was just overwhelmingly sad. I guess I've always known that in a fire the chances of saving the kitties would be slim, but I had hoped that training them to come for food and treats might help in this kind of situation. I don't know if they could smell it too, or if they were just freaked out by us freaking out and stomping around the condo.

Everyone and everything is okay, as far as I can tell. The fire never made it up close to our unit, and there was never any major smoke for anyone to inhale. I'd like to think that even if I had dismissed my concern and gone back to sleep that someone would have noticed before we were totally at risk, but I don't know that for sure. I'm just glad I thought to check it out and that Matthew didn't think I was being silly when I woke him.

UPDATE: Apparently, it was a work light that was left plugged in and hanging from a metal fence with plastic slats woven into it.  The rain must have cause the light to short out and spark, melting the plastic and catching fire to the vines on the fence. The wood post of the fence was blackened, but I don't think it was ever actually on fire. If the fire had gone untended, the flames may have reached the porch. Our neighbor called 911 right after we did, so the fire probably would have been put out in time even if the melting plastic hadn't woken me up. Thank makes me feel somewhat better. The contractors will be replacing the melted plastic slats and anything else that was affected.

Technolust

I finally broke down and bought an iphone. I've only been wanting since they came out. I almost got an iphone when I bought my current Blackjack II, but the line at the Apple store was too long, and they weren't accepting online orders at the time. I've already downloaded a few of the crucial apps (Facebook, ESPN scores, allrecipes, NPR news) and bought screen protectors. I'm a little annoyed that AT&T shut off the internet on my current phone as soon as they shipped the iphone. You'd think they could manage to wait until I activate it, but at least I can still make phone calls.

What's funny, though, is that even though the real expense of a smart phone is the monthly data service plan, I cheaped out on the one-time expense of the phone and went with a refurbished 3G instead of a new 3GS. I do want voice command and a video camera, but not enough to pay an extra $150, even if it is only one time.

Now I am anxiously awaiting delivery of my new toy. I wonder if it will make me as happy as I always think it will when I watch other people playing with their iphones...

Communications Officer

I was testing the twitter feed thing because I am now the Communications Office at Treknobabble. And by Communications Office, I mean wife who keeps saying, "you need to advertise!" :)

This is a Test

Just curious whether a blog post will actually feed into my Twitter account automatically. I don't use either the blog or Twitter very often, so I'm guessing no one will really care. :) This is basically a test for a bigger project I'm working on...

New Favorite Recipe

New favorite recipe.

Resolutions

I was going to blog about how I resolve to blog more in 2010, but I, uh, just didn't get around to posting it.

I do resolve to run more often. I dropped down to three times a week after the marathon, but since admissions season started, it's been more like once or twice a week. I've been riding the exercise bike, so I'm still working out, but I do need to run more.

And I definitely resolve to write more. I'm taking a creative writing class this quarter, so I don't think I'll have much choice, which is a good thing! Maybe I'll get around to editing my novel so that people can read it too. Maybe. :)

Happy new year everyone! 2010 started with getting sick and all the wrong football teams winning. It can only go up from here!