2005 November - she's the one

archive for November of 2005

time flies

Posted November 29, 2005 • Comments Off

The other day:

1970:

This week is the first time we’ve seen Mike and B.D. together in a long time. Not quite thirty-five years, but a long time.

Have some Doonesbury trivia.

every little thing she does is tragic

Posted November 27, 2005 • Comments Off

I know I haven’t scanned those last two crossword puzzles yet.

I go back to work tomorrow, at the same place, and am scheduled to work all week. This is great because I’ll earn more than half my January rent this week if I get at least 32 hours, but it’s killing me inside. Maybe it’s just because I took a week off to go home for Thanksgiving, or maybe it’s because my sleeping is still completely out of whack from staying up all night to catch my flight home, but I can’t bear to think about getting up tomorrow morning.

Whenever I think about it, I get this very real, very physical sinking feeling in my heart. Like everything in my chest just slowly dropped about half an inch. I can feel this tangible dread, and it’s all I can do not to cry out.

Once again last night (as happened most recently Tuesday night, and as has happened several times for the last two months) I woke up around 5 am with really bad abdominal pain. It feels like bloating, like it would be easily relieved by going to the bathroom, but that doesn’t fix it. Today it did a new thing, which was it spent the rest of the morning higher up, in an area I think of as “stomach” rather than “abdomen.”

Lisa’s pretty well convinced I have an ulcer, and honestly I think she may be right. I tear myself apart with worry, I take overlarge doses of Aleve almost every day, I tend to drink caffeinated soda on an empty stomach … all the things that are supposed to rip holes in you.

I just don’t understand why, if that’s what it is, it doesn’t hurt all the time. Maybe it hurts at 5 am because that’s when my stomach becomes empty after digesting everything I ate that day. Maybe if I tried to eat crackers or bread or something right before I go to sleep, that’d help. I just don’t know.

Meanwhile, the worrying never stops. It just gets worse. I had a nice break from it while I was home, but it started back up yesterday as soon as I was conscious again.

The worrying never stops. It’s so cold here, and what if one of these months I can’t pay for the heat? It’s almost Christmas, and what if I can’t buy even a few little presents for everyone I love? I wake up, and I’m scared. I go to bed, and I’m scared.

I spend the days with my work and the rest of my life secondary concerns. My primary activity is counting dollars and cents in my head, trying to figure out if and when I’m going to run out of money. I put gas in the car, even at a dollar a gallon less than I paid a month ago, and wonder if I can get by on half a tank this week. I cringe at the frequent realization that it costs me $8.65 and almost three hours to do my round-trip commute to DC. That’s every day. A five-day week costs $43.25. More than two hours of my pay, after taxes, just for the privilege of spending fifteen hours on buses and trains.

I’m only thirty-two years old, and I’m not a mother. Nothing in my life should yet give me cause to worry so much it physically hurts me. I wish I could just stop it.

Washington Post Sunday crossword, November 20 (contains answers)

Posted November 24, 2005 • Comments Off

Title: “Pass the Drumsticks!”
Theme entries: phrases and names containing words associated with drums and drumming.

23A, With 112 Across, drummer’s favorite nursery rhyme?: TOM-TOM the
25A, Drummer’s favorite candy?: Tootsie ROLL
35A, Drummer’s favorite art shop?: TATTOO parlor
42A, Drummer’s favorite party activity?: CONGA line
62A, Drummer’s favorite TV program?: The GONG Show
87A, Drummer’s favorite recitation group?: BEAT poets
93A, Drummer’s favorite slacks?: PEDAL pushers
109A, Drummer’s favorite appetizer?: potato SKINS
112A, See 23 Across: piper’s son

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

19A, Eye part: UVEA [I must note, my mother as good as knew this one]
23A, see above
51A, De ___ (too many): TROP
83A, Pernod flavoring: ANISE
61A, Yeanling‘s mom: EWE
94A, Sibyl: SEER

Overall:
I messed up 3 squares in this one, but really it’s only one, the D in DEMI, because I at first wrote MIMI and was able to turn the I into an E, so that’s fine, and the other is the Y in JUNKY because I was filling in a bunch I had planned in my head and just wrote an E like a typo and that shouldn’t count. I got no letters outright wrong, and thanks to my mother helping me talk things through while I ate my eggs and sausage this morning, none were left blank. This was a fun theme, and I liked that there were so many theme entries (8) after so few in the last puzzle. Plus, only six things I had to look up, which is great.

Washington Post Sunday crossword, November 13 (contains answers)

Posted November 24, 2005 • Comments Off

Title: At the U.N. Cafeteria
Theme entries: things you say at a cafeteria breakfast, with country names punned in.

23A, Famished diner’s remark?: I am really HUNGARY today
40A, Request for sugar?: Please SWEDEN my coffee
68A, Request for a nuking?: KENYA reheat the sausage
93A, Diner’s complaint?: There’s GREECE on my eggs
117A, Request for seconds?: Bring me SAMOA that toast

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

15A, Ship to Colchis: ARGO
33A, Sibelius’s “___ Triste”: VALSE
34A, Everett of “Citizen Kane”: SLOANE
115A, ___ Ysidro: SAN
126A, “Algiers” star: BOYER
11D, Athena’s shield: AEGIS [technically it’s a loaner]
41D, Radio pioneer De Forest: LEE
70D, Harbor barge: HOY
93D, Upholstery fabric: TABARET
107D, Playwright Rice: ELMER
118D, Playing marble: MIB

Overall:
I messed up 5 squares in this one and got no letters outright wrong. I did leave three squares (the Y in HOY, the B in TABARET, and the B in MIB) blank and had to look them up before filling them in. This was a funny theme, but it was too easy. Only five theme entries, but they were long ones, and a whopping 11 things I had to look up afterwards.

GOD people piss me off.

Posted November 21, 2005 • Comments Off

One guess.

“Hi! I just came out of the woodwork to say this. I have one job. It was invented for me so I wouldn’t get fired when you took over my two old jobs and did them far better than I was capable of. The job I have isn’t really a job; it’s the sort of secretarial busywork that would be more efficiently done without the layer of administrative nonsense I represent. Even though my job should require no effort, I suck at it and do it slowly and without skill. But be warned: if you step in and do it for me—faster, better, more accurately—and if I find out about it—I will undo your work and introduce mistakes. Then I will write to people who report to you and point out that I did so, just so you know I’m still here in all my useless, unfireable circus freak glory.”

“P.S. *peer*”

CIMG4320 (Small)

Posted November 19, 2005 • Comments Off

J_Dub posted a photo:

Washington Post Sunday crossword, November 6 (contains answers)

Posted November 19, 2005 • Comments Off

Title: Hot Shots
Theme entries: a verb, then a plural noun that both starts and ends with S and the letters in between are the same as the verb.

23A, Pawn auto parts?: HOCK SHOCKS
25A, Bring weapons to Buffy?: TAKE STAKES
49A, Gather thread?: POOL SPOOLS
79A, Apprehend garden pests?: NAIL SNAILS
105A, Destroy trades?: KILL SKILLS
107A, Go trouserless?: LACK SLACKS (heehee)
3D, Outdo chic magazines?: LICK SLICKS
16D, Hit radii?: POKE SPOKES
68D, Discuss corn?: TALK STALKS
71D, Jeer at artists’ attire?: MOCK SMOCKS (heehee)

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

19A, Peter Gunn’s gal: EDIE
22A, Order to James: HOME
29A, The Big Apple’s Toots: SHOR
95A, “The Art of Loving” author: FROMM
100A, Russian city on the Oka: OREL
9D, Training table site: MESS HALL
109D, Botanist Gray: ASA

Overall:
I messed up 3 squares in this one (I had NEEDY instead of SEEDY and Eddie Murphy instead of Audie Murphy) but got no letters outright wrong. What an awesome theme. It was harder than you’d think! 11 theme entries (high), 7 things I had to look up (low). We’re right back in this thing.

Washington Post Sunday crossword, October 30 (contains answers)

Posted November 19, 2005 • Comments Off

That lapis ring came, and I don’t like it. Anyone want it? It’s a 7-1/2.

Title: Halloweeners at Work
Theme entries: first-person statements roughly about work, with words related to Halloween monsters.

23A, Mummy’s boast?: My project has wrapped up
37A, Werewolf’s worry?: I’ve got a hairy problem
59A, Ghost’s complaint?: My staff has disappeared
85A, Witch’s gripe?: I’ve had a spell of bad luck
123A, Frankenstein’s beef?: This job is a real monster

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

64A, Preacher bird: VIREO
65A, Like Nash’s lama: LYING (I don’t get this, but I’m sure it’s right)
109A, 8, to O: ATNO (oh my god explain this to me, it’s like code) (ohhhhhh, I see. Bastards.)
6D, Propyl suffix: ENE (I knew this, I just didn’t know what propylene is)
61D, Burnoose features: HOODS
91D, Outlaw Younger: COLE
104D, Actor Buchholz: HORST
110D, Truckee feeder: TAHOE (says here the Truckee is an outlet of the lake, so I guess that works)
125D, Box score figs.: BAs (it is one of my life’s goals to relearn how to keep a box score)

Overall:
I messed up nine squares in this one but got no letters outright wrong. This was a silly theme that I had entirely too much trouble with. Plus there were only five theme entries! There were 9 things I had to look up, which is way better than the previous week at least. I still don’t get how “The one-l lama, he’s a priest” leads to lying, though.