in which our heroine asks a question of her audience.

how is the crappy economy affecting your life right now?

I will post my own answer tomorrow.

in which our heroine remembers to do her holidailies post right before bed, and doesn't come up with much.

I hate shopping in general, but shopping during this time of year is horrible. Kristen regaled me last night and today with her horror stories of going to Wal-Mart. I pretty much don't go anywhere but the grocery store for the last two months of the year. well, or bookstores. a girl's gotta have books.

last year, I did my gifting season shopping on the way to my father's house. there's a Pier 1 off the highway exit, so I stopped there and bought candles for everyone as well as bags to "wrap" them in.

this year...I've picked something out for both sets of folks at Crate & Barrel, and there's one in a shopping center (not a mall) by work, but I may just decide to bake stuff for everyone instead to save money.

in which our heroine tells the story of the latest drama.

this is what happened between 4:00 p.m. Thursday and 10:00 a.m. Friday, and a little bit after.

after a late end to my workday, I stopped at the store and got a frozen pizza for dinner and picked up my mail on the way in. I got home and found my electricity was out. I knew it was just my power because the place next door had their lights on and the parking lots lights were already on, because it was grey and rainy outside. once I got settled, I opened up the door to my deck, so I could have some light, and I called the power company to find out what was going on. the outage was due to a service interruption, caused by non-payment. I could have sworn I paid it last month, but apparently the payment I was thinking of was from October. the phone rep gave me the amount I'd have to pay to have service restored, and I panicked. it was a number just shy of my current bank balance, so I told the rep I would have to check my account and call back to make the payment. I called the back and confirmed that the amount in my checking account was roughly ten dollars more than the amount due to the power company. I called the power company back and paid the bill, then asked when service would be restored. they told me that, when disconnects are resolved by 3:00 p.m., they are restored the same day, but if it is after that, the service time was within twenty-four hours.

so I was without electricity for the rest of the day, and I could not make the pizza I'd just bought.

while on the phone, I remembered I had a strange letter in the mail. I went and looked at it. it was from the city of Sunnyvale, otherwise known as the town Adam and I lived in when we had the house together. It was a very very very past due bill for a couple hundred dollars for the water/sewer service. I don't know when, or how, the hell I'll pay for that. but, since all the house bills were in my name, it's my credit that it's screwing up.

after I got off the phone with the power company, I noticed that the battery for my cell phone was dying. I was using my cell phone since my home phone works off Vonage. no power, no cable, no phone. I don't own a car charger for my phone.

so, for those keeping track at home, I wouldn't have power until sometime Friday, which means no alarm clock. my cell phone was dying, which means I couldn't use its alarm. both phones being down means I couldn't ask someone to call and wake me up. I even tried my previous cell phone, but its battery was dead too.

I sent my manager a text message saying I had no power and would soon have no phone, so if I was late to work the next day and no one could reach me, that was why. she replied saying okay.

I spent Thursday night reading by candlelight (because I never remember to buy a flashlight) and eating Doritos for dinner.

and...well, normally my internal alarm clock is very good, within five minutes either way of the time I need to get up. but this time, it failed me. once I opened my eyes and saw sun streaming through the blinds, I thought "I don't know what time it is, but this can't be good". the clock in my car, when I got in it fifteen minutes later. let me know that it was 9:15 a.m. I sped to work, and work turned out to be very chaotic. many people were out and we were busy.

I brought up my yahoo email to go through all the messages I could not get to for the previous twenty hours. one of the emails was a balance notification from my bank. I clicked on it, wondering if the leasing office had deposited my rent check yet. the number it showed me was an overdraft of over three hundred dollars. I think I actually did a double-take. I had just deposited my paycheck two days beforehand and hadn't bought anything since; how could I be overdrawn?

well. said bank is the bank that houses the checking account that is connected to the debit card number that was stolen last month. when I last talked to them, the charges had all been credited back and I thought that was the end of it.

apparently not.

I was supposed to hear from the fraud people. I never heard from the fraud people. on Wednesday, unbeknownst to me, as a result of no contact with the fraud people, they started taking BACK the credits they issued for the fraudulent charges. so since that happened, the money for my rent check was no longer there, and that means my rent check bounced.

at this point I was sitting at my desk having a freaking panic attack and wishing that life would stop hurling fiery boulders at me. I rushed to the warehouse with my cell phone (having charged it some at my desk after bringing my home charger in with me, since I still did not have power in the morning) and called the bank's customer service, who sent me to the right place...or so I thought. someone from customer support picked up the call. I explained where I was trying to get to, and she transferred me into phone tree hell. after getting to the right place, my call was disconnected while holding for a rep. and since we were so busy at work, I simply didn't have the time to deal with it. so I did what Morgan does: internalized it and moved on, so I could get through my day.

from the minute I got home Friday, I resolved that I would refuse to deal with it at all for the weekend and would start up again Monday morning. I lost myself in Warcraft the whole weekend because I needed something to occupy my mind and disperse the stress from the previous week. I thought about things only fleetingly throughout the time off, but I didn't get worked up about it (with a brief exception when Adam called Saturday night and I told him the whole story).

I called the fraud department directly this morning (since I had the number at home, I put it into my phone before I left). they said they sent paperwork for me to sign, which I had never received. they faxed it to me at work and I signed it and sent it back. I *hope* this is finally the end of the fraud stuff. after I'm absolutely sure, I'm going to close my bank account. the way they've handled this situation is terrible, and I don't want to keep my money there anymore.

I have not yet talked to the leasing office. I'm freaking out just thinking about it, because I know I'm going to have to pay them an outrageous bounced-check fee, despite this not being my fault. and, since I now have about thirteen bucks to my name, it's not like I can give them the money right now. I know I have to deal with it, but I just can't handle it at the moment.

in which our heroine fumes about some of her past.

holidailies writing prompt: If you could change, undo or modify one decision in your past, which would it be and why?

I can answer this with absolutely no hesitation (and have been known to): unequivocally, the year in Texas. I would excise that horrible mistake from my past like the tumor that it is.

some people think it was the time I spent in California that broke me -- financially, mentally, emotionally, and in spirit. but no. I agree that I did have some hard times in California, a good number of them my own making. but stopping in Austin on the way to Atlanta was a move that cost me so much, did so much damage -- and not just to me, which is the hardest part of all -- that it is the single worst thing that I have ever done.

maybe I wouldn't have ended up any happier if I'd bypassed Austin completely, or any better off moneywise, or any saner. but god help me, I wouldn't have had Michael to regret every day for the rest of my life, and that would make everything -- everything -- better than the way things really went.

in which our heroine avoids writing about the past twenty-four hours.

I must be insane: I am doing Holidailies right after finishing with NaNo. I had to post a couple of funny things before I make the post listing how the past twenty-four hours has made me wonder if I was indeed born under a bad sign.

the first one is from work, and of course it's courtesy of my manager Renée: she was doing an order for a lady's 60th birthday, and it was being hosted by her kids, listed in the wording as "Given by the Foster children" and listing four first names after that. obvious to any thinking person, the kids' last name is Foster. however, Renée took that to mean "oh, how sweet, the woman has four foster kids" and changed it to "Given by her foster children". the customer didn't say anything, only asked for it to be changed back to how it was originally entered. Renée told this story and laughed at how stupid she was for making that mistake. she told me this around noon and I'm still giggling about it.

the second is from the grocery store. I stopped after work to pick up a couple of things. the self-checkout I ended up at was next to one of their holiday food drive displays, where I think the deal listed there was if you donate $10 (whether in money or buying the actual food, I'm not sure), you get a canvas bag with the food drive logo on it. while I went through my transaction, an employee was standing next to the display explaining to a female customer about this bag thing. and then I overheard the employee say "no, we don't donate the food to you, we donate it to a community food bank". I managed to get out of the store before cracking up. what kind of person doesn't understand the concept of a food drive?

in which our heroine spins the wheel of medical misfortune.

today I had two appointments: one with my primary care doc to redraw blood to see if I'm still anemic and also to check out my wrist (I sprained it five weeks ago) and see if he thought I need to see a specialist; and one with my endocrinologist, just the standard every-three-months checkup to draw blood and make sure my hormone levels are okay.

at Dr. L's, he got a quick rundown on my wrist situation. after doing some range-of-motion tests with me, he determined that the sprain was not worse, but in fact I have tendinitis in my still-healing wrist. that's just beautiful, isn't it? he prescribed anti-inflammatories, heat, and staying off the computer. that will, of course, make work so much fun. but hey, what can I do? the doctor said so!

then he drew blood for the anemia testing. or rather...he tried. I have very tiny, very stubborn veins. they do not like to be stuck with needles. they roll around and are generally uncooperative. this has led to my getting stuck in both inner elbow areas (on a single visit) in an attempt to find some/enough blood more times than I can remember. last time he drew blood, he checked one elbow, then the other, then eventually switched back, found a vein after a good few minutes, and then I spent ten minutes lying on the table while he tried to coax blood from my spiteful little veins. if you've never had a needle stuck in your arm for longer than it takes to get an injection or have blood drawn (for tests or I guess for donation), I don't recommend it.

so I laughed about all this with a latex tie around my upper arm, my hand balled into a fist, and Dr. L searching for a potential vein. he decided he found one in my right inner elbow, so he stuck me with the needle (I'm not a big baby about needles or anything, but damn this one hurt), and a few minutes later I heard an "...aw". turns out he got about a quarter of a vial before my vein sputtered and died. so he checked the other arm. nothing doing.

after that, he just gave me a lab form with their information and asked if I'd have the endocrinologist's lab draw a vial for my anemia tests while they're in there anyway. fine, whatever. I went back to work for a couple of hours.

later in the afternoon, I left work for the day and went to my endocrinologist appointment.

(a quick rundown on why I see an endocrinologist: two years ago, I had a lump in my neck that I had Dr. L check out. he said it was probably just an enlarged nodule on my thyroid and referred me to an endocrinologist. I picked Dr. B from the provider list based on location and positive reviews on some websites -- seriously. I saw Dr. B and he scheduled a ultrasound. the ultrasound showed a golf-ball-sized mass protruding from my thyroid. Dr B. ordered a biopsy. the results of the biopsy were "abnormal"; he couldn't tell me for sure that it wasn't cancer. he advised me to have my thyroid removed, and I set up an appointment with Dr P, the surgeon he recommended. about a week later, I was in the hospital having the surgery. I stayed overnight and was out of work for ten days to recover. the mass was benign, but my thyroid itself had patches of malignancy. I went through radiation therapy and had a full-body scan afterward and was pronounced cancer-free. I've since had another treatment and scan, and I remain so. for reasons I won't bore you with, I no longer see Dr. B; Dr. G is with the endocrinologist's office that Dr. L referred me to.)

anyway, back to Dr. G. standard procedure there is for the nurse to usher me back and take my weight and blood pressure, as well as update my chart. after she did all that, I waited a few minutes and Dr. G came in. she asked about my general health, and I told her about the wrist sprain and anemia, then I sat on the exam table.

the first thing she told me was that my blood pressure was high this visit, and she wanted to check it again. now, normally I'm right at "normal", usually hitting about 117/78, and not once in my life has it been high. today, both times, I was 140/80. then she stuck my finger to do the blood sugar test thing. they typically want the number around 99-100, and mine was 109. again high and again abnormal (I think I had a 97 the last time). she was checking the lymph nodes in my neck, praising the scar from my surgery (she always does this; I have to say that the surgeon did a really good job -- there's not much of a scar now and what's there is only a thin faint line), when she stopped mid-sentence, took her hands off my skin and exclaimed "wow, you're really warm!" I told her, again, that this is what I'd been telling her each time I came in, about how I always feel abnormally warm or cold, how my mother started feeling this way too when she was about my age, and Dr. G always passed it off by saying "but you're too young for that to be happening". (yes, well, I'm too "young" to be a cancer survivor too, but you were the one admiring my scar.) these three things, as well as the fact that I cannot seem to lose weight anymore (I'd lost some in the three-month period between my next-to-last and last visit, and I gained it back in the three-month period between the last visit and today's), she started to be concerned. (well, good, and finally; if only I didn't have to have all this stuff happening to get her attention, but I digress.)

she decided to forgo drawing blood today and instead asked me to come back, fasting, for more tests, including a glucose test. I'm going first thing tomorrow when their lab opens, because fasting until an afternoon appointment sucks rocks. for this new test, I get my blood drawn right when I come in, then they give me something sugary to drink, and then they draw blood again an hour later and then again an hour after that. so I get to spend my morning at the lab, doing my best impression of a human pincushion.

what they are concerned about is that I'm becoming (or have become) diabetic. these are fun fucking times, my friends.

in which our heroine does a bit of evolving.

the afternoon Morgan came over, I had not spoken to Patrick in six days.

Patrick and I are seeing each other, but we are undefined. there is some physical distance between us, which complicates things. he has said that if it weren't for the distance, we'd be exclusively together without a doubt. he seems to like me a lot, and that feeling is very very mutual.

he was here visiting me two weekends ago because I had arranged for us to attend an event that I knew he'd love. and he did, very much. that event was on Sunday night; every minute of the weekend before that was completely wonderful.

he left Monday morning when I went to work. we exchanged a few texts on Monday and also a call that morning when he had questions about directions. and I had not heard a thing from him since.

this brings us to this past Sunday. the day that Morgan came over.

Morgan and I are not so much "undefined" as "undefinable". we've known each other for nearly ten years. we don't have a history; we have a History. a capital-H-istory. if each person is meant to have one great love in their entire life, then I am either fortunate or damned unlucky, depending on who you ask, because I have two. the second one is Adam, who is a whole other post; the first is Morgan. though I won't go into detail about Adam now, suffice it to say that Adam and Morgan are the yin and yang of my life. Adam is sweetness and romance and love and security; Morgan is captivation and lust and sex and addiction. reading back over that, I realize that my description of Morgan casts some horribly negative light on him. it's not that way at all. he and I have gone through a lot together, but we've come out the other side, finally, and we're really okay this time. I love Morgan, I'm sure, partly because I don't know how not to, but I know I don't ever want to learn.

over the course of Sunday afternoon, Morgan and I worked our way through a large bottle of sangria and (unintentionally) some of our past, both together and apart. I started to remember that one of the great things about him is that I feel like he sees the best version of me, and while I know I'm not that person, I very much want to be. thanks to the alcohol and the talking and the rest, we had a great day together.

the next night I was sitting here at the computer, like I tend to do every night, and Morgan and I were having a conversation over email. my mind was working away, like it tends to do. I was thinking about Patrick, wondering why he hadn't called, emailed, or even so much as sent a text message, and wondering when I'd hear from him...and it hit me out of nowhere: I deserve better than this. I was not going to sit by and just live with Patrick's silence until he felt like calling. I really like this guy and his behavior is strange and it's completely unacceptable for him to treat me this way. so, inspired, I fired off a reply to Morgan and shut down the computer. I then laid down, turned off the bedroom light, and called Patrick.

voice mail. same as I got the previous Monday and Tuesday nights when I called, before I stopped trying. with strength in my voice, I told him that I wasn't sure what he was going through or what was happening in his life at that moment, but...and then call waiting beeped and the display showed his name.

I hung up with his voice mail and clicked over to the voice itself. he started out the conversation acting somewhat like nothing was different. after initial pleasantries, however, I asked him what was wrong, why he hadn't returned my calls, why he'd seemingly dropped off the planet with regards to me (since I could see him updating his status and commenting to other folks on Facebook, at least I knew he was around, but it didn't sit right with me). he said things about needing space, about thinking a lot about him and me, where we were going. he hadn't come to any decisions yet, but I think I got him to understand that all he had to do was tell me this at the beginning of the previous week and I would have been okay with it, but cutting contact altogether was not cool. he apologized and we had a quick normal chat, but I don't know when we'll talk again. what I do know is that I stood up for myself, something that I've never been that good at, and all because I finally started to believe that it was okay to defend myself.

I'm slowly becoming a better version of myself. I hope Morgan is proud. I know I am.