Suburb of Heaven

So in the student union, there's a set of stairs down to the lower level shops. It's a giant half-circle, and for whatever reason, it's always been awkward for me to walk down - the shape means that the stairs are not uniform, and generally I clutch the handrail and, you know, feel elderly. Well, given that today I totally bought it and fell down the stairs, I think that elderly feeling is the better option. I fell on my butt, and have a beautiful bruise that, according to my husband, looks like someone punched me in the ass, plus a sore ankle. Feh, bah, and oy. I'd almost be happy if I could blame the vertigo, but I wasn't actually experiencing any (it's come and gone, and hasn't been terribly bad) but as far as I can tell, I just had slightly wet shoes and apparently slipped. I've noticed a vague linkage between being klutzy about two weeks out from my period, so we'll see if that's the case this time.

In other news, my sister has been scanning slides, so here's a photo of me from many moons ago.

As in, I am about to flee.

Hahaha! No, not really. Please ignore the nervous tic next to my right eye!

So I'm kind of a big stressball right now, and my mom's wedding plans are of course playing their part - although it's not the wedding that I'm focused on right now, but getting to it, because ticket prices rose in the couple of days between me quoting prices to her and she sending me money, and now. So I'm about two hundred dollars shy and not sure I can cover it, so unless we want to drive to Kansas City (about three hours away) for the cheaper fares, which may not make any sense at all given gas prices, I'm not sure how to handle this.

Plus work has been a bit of a chainsaw juggling act, and I've been feeling incompetent and lazy and stupid and all that good stuff.

Oh, and there's the chance I will be zipping off to Switzerland the day after I teach my first class, which is cool, except, three-day trip to Switzerland and do I know where my passport is? And, oh, yeah...fatigue. There's that, too. Teaching my second class while loopy with jetlag should be exciting! The students will be exposed to my international savoir faire, which will surely benefit them. Looks like the timing may be wrong on this for other reasons. I am mildly disappointed, but honestly, it would have been exhausting.

I hate the fact that 90% of my recent entries have involved my "flailing" tag. I need to do a couple of nice, peaceful book reviews or flailing about Leverage or something.

Despite getting spoiled accidentally about ten minutes before it started to air, it still whumped me. Holy shit, show. That was pretty incredible.

Taxes done, forms sent off to hopefully correct an error from last year's taxes, forms sent off to student loan people to hopefully get some easement in that area. Still feel like I'm drowning in bills and paperwork, but at least I'm not quite up to my nose yet.

Cats at the vet - looks like Kit's bite is easy to treat and will just take me pilling her for a bit, which sucks because she's a strong, wily cat, but I can get it done. If Ratchet continues to try and bully her, I'm going to make a very attractive pair of earmuffs out of him. I think part of the problem is that we're in a smaller place now, and they feel like they can't stake out their own territories, or maybe they're getting a bit bored. Yesterday I made sure the front door to the apartment was shut and let Ratchet run up and down the stairs and stare out the big front window. If he could fit in the harness I bought ages ago on a whim, I'd take him out for a walk, but he's the size of a small (tubby) dog and I'd have to invest about forty bucks in a bigger harness and leash for him. At least he made himself very happy marking the corners of the hallway with his face.

Bemo's ECT still continues, with them expressing happiness that he's doing better and talking about starting to taper him down to twice, then once a week. This irritates me because it was presented as something different - a course of 8-12 sessions (we're on 15 now) which would be able to be stopped without any drawbacks. Except now I'm being told that you do taper them off, and that if you just stop sometimes the patient regresses and you have to start all over again. This is not information I was given to start with. I'm not sure if it would have changed anything had I known, but I'm still disgruntled about it. Also, Dr. ECT (she of the irritating hairstyle and stiletto boots) wants to change his meds, except he won't see her once he's done with the ECT, and I'm not going to change things on her say-so, psychiatrist or no. Bemo will tell his meds person about the changes Dr. ECT is suggesting, and get the two of them to talk...but I hope Dr. ECT doesn't bully the meds nurse into changing things when there's no need for it. Except there may be a need, because while he's getting better, he's not exactly Mr. Bright and Cheerful. (His sense of humor has come back some, and the crying fits have lessened but not disappeared, but he still has a lot of anhedonia and is now worrying about what will happen if the disability doesn't come through, if he'll ever be able to work again, who would ever hire him and could he even do a job again...) So who the hell knows...certainly not me.

Also, I'm not thrilled to have to continue to take big chunks of time out of my day for this - it's about three hours, two of which I take as sick leave, and while I'm feeling very grateful for a job that lets me do it, it obviously can't continue for too much longer.

And on that note, off to see some people about a sculpture move.

I'm in the middle of yet another one of my periodic and ultimately-doomed-to-failure experiments with makeup, and once again I'm kind of baffled by the whole thing.

I didn't grow up learning how to use it, which is weird because my mom wears it and has opinions about it, but it never really became part of my girl culture. I made a few attempts here and there to use eyeshadow, which is what seemed to be the big important thing, but the whole concept of foundation and powder, of how to apply mascara or eyeliner...those things really escape me.

For some reason, I keep trying. Right now, I think it's rooted in a sort of comfort-thing, mixed with perhaps a little bit of feeling unattractive and wanting something to magically repair that. I am smack-dab in the center of "I feel young but I am so old! I have missed out on my days of carefree sex and male attention! It's only one step from here to the grave!" Clearly, makeup will resolve all of this for me.

I picked up a few things at Target - not the really good stuff because that's expensive and I feel like I shouldn't put money I don't have into something I will most likely abandon quickly - but foundation and powder and a small blush. I have a nice neutral eyeshadow that is probably too old to be used but I'm using it anyway, and some pale pearly pink lipstick that I like (along with a few others that I don't like as much). I'm avoiding mascara and eyeliner because my eyes are always doing something...watering or itching or whatever, probably because of allergies but also because I can be weird and twitchy. The foundation and powder is a little bit too pale, but it's doable. That's another thing with makeup that baffles me - how the heck does anybody figure out what color foundation matches them? I stand with my arm up against the sample palette of colors, completely confused about which one is the right one. And then obviously I'd get a little more tan in the summer, so I'd have to go buy another color, right? Otherwise I'll be Ghostface McTanarms. And the results are that the undereye dark circles are a little more concealed, and the pale red blotchy areas on my forehead are covered, but I don't know if I look better. Different, maybe. More polished? Not sure. Probably. Maybe?

The other problem I have is that it all has a fragrance to it, and usually one that I don't like. My lipstick is pretty, but it tastes horrible, and it gets on the lip of the soda can so I'm swigging Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Now With Added Lipstick Flavor.

I wonder how long the experiment will last this time. I'd love it if I could come away with a really simple routine that polished me up a bit but didn't require so much mental energy or which gave me good, consistent results. But I think I'd have to invest a lot more time thinking about it and practicing with various things and buying a bunch more stuff. And if it happens like it usually does, it'll all get stuffed into my Hula Girl makeup pouch, or my big pink basket that sits on top of my chest of drawers, to be resurrected in another year or five when I get the urge to put stuff on my face again.

I would really like to be able to change my LJ's playlist away from Woebegone: Greatest Hits of Woe and Tragedy and Yet More Woe, but damn. When I started to do our taxes on Saturday afternoon, I came across a W-2 from last year that I did not remember seeing. And I knew immediately that it meant trouble, I just didn't know how or when or in what form the trouble would come. Cue my opening our mailbox this morning to discover a perfectly polite notice from the IRS going, "You screwed up, you owe us money, have a nice day!" From Saturday to Monday - not a long time to have to wait for the shoe to drop.

If I hadn't had the warning on Saturday that something was in the wind, I would really been upset. Had kittens. Hit the ceiling. Had a cow, totally, dude. As it was, I saw the envelope, sighed heavily, and went to sit in the car to read it over and when I was done, I sighed again, put it in my purse, and drove back to work.

So tonight, I get to review our paperwork, and see if I did really botch things the way it looks like I did, and then figure out where we go from here. It's five hundred bucks. We didn't actually see a penny of our refund last year, since Bemo's student loans were still in default and they took it, but maybe we can work something out where if we're due a refund this year, they can take the money that way. Not sure. Am already tired just thinking about it.

Meanwhile, I feel like I have once again failed completely at this "adult" shit. And yet, I'm the one who continues to have to handle it. I'm feeling a bit resentful about that, and about the fact that if Bemo is too depressed/unmotivated/purely physically tired to go to the gym, I feel like I should stay home as well, since I'm already away a great deal what with working on the weekends. But it's gotten to the point where I need to either start insisting, or going without him, or something, because my activity at home when I'm not at the gym is cooking and baking, which is not the best thing to replace a trip to the gym with. In some ways, Bemo is doing better. But he's in a much deeper hole this time than I've ever experienced, so, you know, better is still pretty deep in that hole.

Anyway. The IRS and I continue to dance our dance of incompetence and finance. Feh to all of it.