New Year's Resolutions

1. Work Out More


2. No More Red Meat


3. ...Anger Management?

Holidays

For Christmas, I got a fabulous Tar-Jay suit and a bunch of books and pretty shirts and way too much food and a cold!

I was over-fed over the holidays by a very enthusiastic bunch. There was various kinds of meats and cookies and candies and breads. There was so much...and then I came down with a cold.

...I hate having a cold. It should be gone in time for New Year's. It's down to just a cough now. A terrible sounding cough, but a cough nonetheless.

In related news, DayQuil is my new bestest friend, even though I'm so scared of liver damage and whatever that I only take a half dosage. I even managed to lose a pound this week, even with all the food! Stupid cold.

Tweets for Today

• 17:44 Just heard thunder. So not cool. It's *December* in the Midwest. No damn thunderstorms allowed! #

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Tweets for Today

• 18:54 Kenneth Cole REACTION Women's Rose is a Rose Bootie,Dark Brown,8 M ff.im/-kbur #
• 19:27 Wine Glasses Set of 6 - Midnight Black ff.im/-kcqV #
• 20:33 Party Favorites - Wisconsin Cheeseman ff.im/-ke3s #

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Tweets for Today

• 07:24 Tweets for Today ff.im/-iywv #

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Tweets for Today

• 21:57 I'm officially done with winter. So. Can global warming kick in now? #

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Tweets for Today

• 18:17 Trying to make spaghetti without burning myself. So far, so...shut up. #

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afterwards

1. Ten days after the end of NaNo:
   
   I won, by dint of not caring if the chapters were in a logical order, or led seamlessly from one into another.
   
   So, this is when I'm supposed to be finishing/polishing/editing the novel, right? And I suppose reading the blogs of others is not nearly as effective in becoming a Real Writer than...actually getting off/onto my ass and writing.
   
   Damn it. I need to go back through and see which chapters lead where, and where the hell certain characters came from in the novel.
   


2. Three months after the surgery:
   
   The scars from the incisions are mostly healed, but they're still there. The worst feeling I've ever had was waking up after the surgery, my stomach and the lines of my fat folds marked yellow with whatever-the-hell-that-was and red with my own dried blood.
   
   I still have my prescription strength ibuprofen they gave me. Never let it be sad that I am a pill-popper, or whatever one calls a narcotics addict.
   
   My stomach still hurts sometimes. That scares me. I do not want to have endometriosis again. It sucks. I do not want to have a magical ovarian cyst. It also sucks. I never, ever want to have surgery ever again. My doctor was fantastic, and there are no complaints there, but that was the single worst experience I have ever put my body through. Of course, I barely make my body do anything, so...
   


3. Three months after joining WeightWatchers:
   
   I've been doing it online only, trying to keep track of my weight and what I eat. I've lost twenty pounds. I just barely exercise, sometimes doing a Carmen Electra workout, sometimes hopping on the elliptical to half-ass a speed-walk while clicking through my iPod. This is working; I'm no longer fat by any BMI measurement. I'm down to my original goal weight. I want to lose five, maybe ten more pounds. There's still a bit of jiggle, but still. I find this to be totally, totally awesome. I celebrated with doughnuts this morning.
   
   I didn't clear the diet with my doctor. I told my doctor I exercise three times a week. I've just given truth to the lie. And just before/just after the surgery, I was chatting with the nice doctor's office way too much.
   
   I expect to die of malnutrition very shortly.
   

Tweets for Today

• 17:05 It snowed. Traffic is almost at a standstill. Fortunately I didn't drive. Go team carpool! #
• 17:37 I made it home without dying! Take that, I-35! #

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Tweets for Today

• 17:00 I didn't break my ankle ice skating! I want to go again! ...in like a week. or a year. #

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Tweets for Today

• 15:55 Have 23,500 words on my #nanowrimo novel. #

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Tweets for Today

• 17:40 Taking a vacation day tomorrow to work on my #nanowrimo novel. #

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Tweets for Today

• 19:57 Installed Ubuntu over Windows. Am scared. #
• 20:38 Need to work on novel. #
• 23:31 Installing ubuntu over windows on my home computer. Scared. #

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Tweets for Today

• 19:03 Need to write 1500 more words for #nanowrimo before midnight. That's only five hours! #

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Tweets for Today

• 08:13 Have over 8000 words on my #nanowrimo novel, thus beating my old record of...almost 8000 words. #

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Tweets for Today

• 09:05 Vote. #
• 19:12 Microphone DIRECTLY IN THE MOUTH for the win, says CNN #
• 20:33 Obsessively refreshing www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/ #current #
• 21:05 @JohnMcCain Please concede, sir. #
• 21:38 @loresjoberg Only sometimes? #
• 22:37 @BarackObama: Congratulations, Mr. Obama. #
• 22:46 High five, victory dance, fist-bump! #

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Tweets for Today

• 16:11 I love leftover halloween candy way too much. #
• 16:15 I've written almost 5000 words on my #nanowrimo novel so far. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:27 Have written 1201 words for #nanowrimo so far today. #

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Tweets for Today

• 10:39 I'm a Goth Pirate for Halloween. #

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Tweets for Today

• 18:53 I would like for #nanowrimo to begin before I forget my (terrible) idea for my first chapter. #

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Happy Cheerful Thoughts

I got my driver's license in the mail today, for the state in which I reside and vote and all that. It will expire on my thirtieth birthday, which has made this far-off day that much more finite and real-- I need to be at the DMV that day, renewing my license. Hurray.

The license clearly has me marked as an organ donor, which pleases me. I'm setting aside certain important organs (liver, lungs, kidneys, etc.) for family members should they need them, but I'd like to consider myself an equal opportunity donor. My blood type is O positive; I'm compatible with a large portion of the public. And upon my untimely demise-- hopefully not of cancer, but, you know, that's my expected cause of death. By me, and absolutely no medical person. (You're a hypochondriac, internet; not me)

Which led me to my happy morbid thought of the evening: I don't want to be on life support for an extended amount of time unless the nice medical team has plans to take me off it very, very quickly. I guess I prefer quality of life over quantity of life.

So, I want to be unplugged (should it become necessary), but I want my organs to be disseminated throughout the populace as necessary before that happens. Or after. Not quite clear on when the organs would be. . .is harvested the right term? My feeble attempts to learn more about this topic before retiring for the evening are just making me think more and more about eventually becoming sort of insensate plant for other people's survival. Possibly after passing out at the DMV on my thirtieth birthday. There I'll be, in the prime of my life, IVs and tubes sticking into me like an incredibly pale pincushion.

...hurray!

Tweets for Today

• 19:25 Trying to get more people to sign up for #nanowrimo so i can have writing buddies whom I know. #

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Tweets for Today

• 19:23 Still need a real, um, what do you call it...plot for my #nanowrimo novel? #
• 20:11 My "I told you so" dance, my "it works" dance, and my "I have a good idea" dance are all the same. Hip bump to the air, and do a circle. #

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Tweets for Today

• 07:47 I keep telling myself I'm going to exercise before work. It keeps not happening. #

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Characterization

My last terrible idea is to do NaNoWriMo. I have a newer, even terrible-er idea: to create a character named Cecyl. Like what I named my ovarian cyst.

Cecyl will be a sickly guy. Naturally.

Tweets for Today

• 22:48 I've sent in my advanced ballot, so my superior brain has decided the election season is now over. I'd appreciate your cooperation in this. #
• 23:52 Doing character descriptions for my NaNoWriMo project, starting in one of your human weeks. Have not added any robots yet. Yet. #

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Surgery went fine

Surgery was over a month ago. It went fine. I have/had endometriosis. They cauterized it away. Everything else is fine in my insides; the cyst healed itself. I do not currently have any form of cancer, as far as anyone's been able to tell.

I've lost approximately ten pounds so far on WeightWatchers. Go Team Whatever! Current goal is to lose another fifteen pounds. That should end well.

In other news:

It's that time of the year, where Sarah Bunting challenges her readers to donate to DonorsChoose.

I donated twice so far, once winning an Amazon gift certificate in a mini-prize runoff situation that I turned around to start my NaNo research with these three books:

• No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days


• The No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit


• Will Write for Shoes: How to Write a Chick Lit Novel

The books arrived today. I'm consolidating various accounts across the board, so I thought I'd update this blog here.

Seven Days

Bloodwork came back two weeks ago.  I'm sorry for neglecting you, poor little unused/unread blog. I don't have high enough markers or whatever for this to be either. Instead, it's that third option; just a trick I did for fun. Laparoscopy for my fun trick is scheduled for next Wednesday. I'm quite frightened. Depending on your scale of measurement, I'm ten to twenty pounds overweight. This cannot help with the surgery, I'm sure.   

I joined WeightWatchers on Sunday, which is far too late to be effective for this surgery, but should help if (god forbid) something more serious should come of this. I want to be a svelte cancer survivor.  Should it come to that.  Which it won't.  Everything's good forever!

I'm trying to do this positive thinking thing I've heard so much about, which would work beter if I wasn't also trying to curb my comfort-eating habit.  The combination has made me one cranky girl.  PMS isn't helping that either, and I can't have anything for that (I think) because I'm not to have any anti-inflammatory medication... I think.  I need to do more research. 

So.  I'm scared, my tummy hurts for a couple of different reasons, trying to exercise more.  The more I exercise, the more WeightWatchers let me eat.  Damn trickery.

Cancer and You

So, the reason I'm currently so afraid of cancer is I have what is known in medical circles as "a huge ovarian cyst that hurts like hell and is very stupid and scary." (These medical circles may consist of just me. That's totally fine.)

Bloodwork was done today, to see if it's cancer or endometriosis or some third (benign) thing. So. Waiting for a call back on that. Nothing I enjoy more than waiting to hear about this sort of thing.

Even if it's not cancerous, I want it out as it hurts me and has no damned right to be in my body. Take that, stupid cyst!

...I've named the cyst Cecyl. I felt it was large enough to warrant a name.

I've gone quite mad, you see.

Hypochondriac?

I did the Komen Kansas City Race for the Cure this morning. (donate here!)

It was amazing how many people showed up, all in support of one cause.

On a far more personal level, it's amazing how incredibly scared I am of getting cancer and how inevitable I seem to think it is. I sprayed and slathered sunscreen all over myself before dawn this morning to make sure I didn't get burned.