Update

Some of you may have noticed that I have been a little lax in updating - not that I was ever terribly good at posting more than a few times per week, but there have certainly been fewer posts coming out of me since my surgery. To all those people that noticed, I'd like to say two things: First, thank you; and, second, it's not my fault.

Surgery certainly did not help my ability to type blog posts on a regular basis, but neither did my laptop crashing, and having to wait for a new one to arrive. Yes, that's right kids - I'm running Vista and it really is just about as annoying as you've heard. (I have to approve practically everything my computer does now, and a lot of things seem to be incompatible with it - including the Internet security suite that shipped with the system. Brilliant. I spent a lot of time trying to remove Vista and replace it with XP but my computer doesn't play as nicely with XP and it seems to with Vista so it looks like I'll need to take some time and learn to love it.) Then I went on a trip to Chicago, and spent this past weekend with the lovely and talented Violet. (You can see photos from my excursion on Flickr.)

My weekend in Chicago was amazing. Not only was the company fantastic and special but the city itself is amazing. If it hadn't been so fucking cold, I would have simply stayed there and found a new job for me to utilize my legally trained mind. However, it was very cold. Most of my time was spent either indoors or walking outside, yearning for the next place that I would be able to feel the warmth of artificial heat, as the sun surely was not going offer me any relief. I got to see a great exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago, sample delicious pizza at Giordano's and take in the downtown city sites - not to mention a fantastic brunch, and that was just the first day. The people there are really friendly and nice, the food is phenomenal, and the public transit system is quite impressive. Just a fantastic city to be in and I was sad to leave, but that likely more had to do with the company.

My laptop and I are still learning to get along. It finally got me to surrender last night and reinstall Vista. I do have to say that the system resumes from sleep much more efficiently in Vista than any other Windows OS I have used in the past, and I am going to try and run Open Office as my default Office program, as I see no reason to pay for a Microsoft office suite when I can get a perfectly good one for free, as can anyone else I want to share documents with. It has the inter-portability functionality of Adobe pdf, without the pdf. I may, however, lose my electronic journal, as the journal I was told would be compatible with Vista before I downloaded it, doesn't appear to be compatible with Vista now that I've downloaded it - go figure. I'll have to wait and hope that they release a patch, but until then, something else will have to be found.

My arm is still recovering. It's still really difficult to move in many ways, but it has certainly improved when compared to a month ago. Occasionally, I catch myself accidentally reaching for the car door with my left arm and it doesn't cause me nearly as much pain anymore. I have been doing stretching exercises for it - my arm, not the car door. These are, generally, some of the same physical therapy exercises I did before ever having surgery but now they really hurt when I do them, whereas before they only caused mild discomfort.

So far, my year seems to be off to an eventful and exciting start. I cannot wait to see what it looks like by the end of this year.

Let It Snow

I grew up walking a quarter of a mile to my bus stop, past the lake, in 80 below wind-chill factors in sneakers and jeans. Sure there was the winter coat that I would zip up and dig my face into, but a hat was rarely an accessory any of us wore. If I can swim in the lake while there is still ice on it, why the hell would I need a hat?

When I moved to Florida, I found it sweltering and oppressive. Then again, I also didn't have air conditioning and it was the middle of summer. I used to sit and pray for it to get cooler. It never worked. I'd be sitting there hoping that the heat would forget I was there, so that I could move without risking the production of additional sweat. Sooner or later the sun would set and it would only be 80 and maybe then I could sleep. Oh, sleep. Wouldn't that be nice. Why would anyone live here? Where had my mother dragged me to?

Then I started college. There is something to be said for living in a part of the country that allows for women to walk around scantily clad all year long. There was also something to be said for never having to worry about wearing boots, tracking in snow, slipping on ice, walking around the lake in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, without anything more than a light jacket. And air conditioning helped immensely.

I remember going to visit one of my friends at the University of Massachusetts over a winter break and having to concern ourselves with whether the car would make it to the top of the icy steep hill. First of all, what the hell is ice, and second of all, what's a hill? It was quite the adventure, but I feel that if I'm going to take my life into my own hands, I should be doing it while jumping out of a plane, not driving around a university campus.

"But don't you miss the seasons?"

When I went to get my third advanced degree, I moved to northern Florida. They actually had days there when it wouldn't get above 40. Can you imagine? Not only that, but the humidity would drop to something less than fifty percent. Insanity, I tell you. I had to get a humidifier in an attempt to stop my then persistent nose bleeds and had to use moisturizers on my hands every day so that they wouldn't crack and bleed. This was in addition to the thick ski jacket I had to buy. How the hell is someone supposed to live in 30 and 40 degree weather? I couldn't wait for December to be over, so we could get back to warmth.

"Florida has made you weak."

I know I could live in the cold. I grew up in the cold. We used to get so much snow, the National Guard was called in every year to plow us out. We'd be trapped in our houses, waiting for the Guardsmen to arrive and rescue us from out own private prisons. I know all about boots and electric blankets, thermal underwear and Thinsulate gloves, hats, and scarves. I'm sure that if I took the time, I could recondition my body and be jumping into partially frozen lakes in no time. I could get used to starting my car in the morning to make it warm enough for my drive twenty minutes later, and shoveling the driveway. But why the hell would I want to? Especially when I can live in a lush tropical location where I look out my window and see palm trees and where I never, ever have to worry about lacing up my boots or donning my winter coat.

A Chance to Do Good

Alright, folks. Here's the post wherein I give you the opportunity to help women in shelters across our country and to do so at no cost to yourself - it's free dammit, so do it.

Women's shelters in the U.S. go through thousands of tampons and pads monthly, and while agencies generally assist with everyday necessities such as toilet paper, diapers, and clothing, this most basic need is often overlooked - feminine hygiene products.

Seventh Generation, a green paper products and cleaning products company, has a do-good attitude and will donate a box of sanitary products to a women's shelter in your chosen state - just for clicking the link. Talk about easy! Just click here.

Thanks for helping out. Please pass this on to others.

[Thanks, Question Girl]

No Television

When I was transitioning from college to law school and living off campus for the first time, I was robbed. They stole my CD player (and whatever CDs were in it at the time) and my television with the cable box. The robbers neglected to ever look in my roommate's room that contained at least $50,000.00 worth of musical engineering equipment. The loss of the television was particularly poignant, as I had just gotten the cable installed the day before. (Yes, I know that it might have been the cable guy that robbed me.) However, I think I felt the loss of the stereo much more severely, as it was the only item I replaced that year.

It was odd, the amount I accomplished when I had no job to speak of, no classes, and no television. I started reading books all the time. It was as though I had one growing out of my arm wherever I went. Anywhere I walked, my book was sure to be in hand. I'd show up an hour early, waiting for a movie to start and just sit there reading. One day, I missed two showing of a movie I wanted to see because I was too busy sitting in Barnes and Noble reading this book I had just bought. "You're still there?" "This book is so good."

People would start talking about TV shows and I'd have no idea what they were talking about. "Alyssa Milano is a witch?" "What the hell is a Pokemon?" My life consisted of reading books and watching movies. I had high hopes of perhaps finding a job, but not a lot of places were looking for a person with a degree in history and the places one might think of a a good temporary career didn't want to hire someone with a BA. "Why would you want to work here?" They really made such an excellent point. Why would I want to work there? I actually didn't. And then, just when it was starting to look like I could become an assistant manager for a local drug store, I got hired as an intern for a very, very large company - in their information technology department.

The time I spent without a television was perhaps the most productive time of my life, if one measures productivity by getting out of the house and reading massive quantities of pages. However, law school helped to change all of this. By the end of the day, I could barely convince myself to read a menu, let alone another book. I spent no less than 8 hours (often 12) doing nothing but reading and editing all day long, and when I wasn't editing, I was teaching other people how to edit or the finer points of tort law. Television became an escape - a place where I could escape the pages that would haunt my sleep. (One really hasn't lived until they go through semesters with bronchitis and a sinus infection, hopped up on too many medications and too little sleep, having night terrors involving the Commercial Code or the Internal Revenue Code. Fuck the DaVinci Code. That thing has got nothing on the archaic workings of the generation skipping transfer tax system enacted under Title 26 of the United States Code.) Yeah, you English majors got to read Yeats, Emerson, and Shakespeare. I had foreign policy and history authors no one had ever heard of and now I had Congress and the Treasury Department. Something tells me one of us was having more fun.

Television is now no longer a luxury. It's one of the only places I can so easily escape from all the pages of words that surround me day after day. "How do we transfer our home without losing our save our homes cap?" Yeah, go ahead quote me some Whitman, but when someone wants to make sure their newly born daughter will actually be protected if anything ever happens to them, I know who they're going to call, and I better be able to tell them something better than "Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends."

Bits and Pieces

I just got put on antibiotics again last night. I think this is the third infection I have had since my surgery. Oh yeah, I know how to have a good time. The medication - the five pills I was prescribed - was $60; my insurance saved me about $13. Way to go insurance. I swear there's got to be a better insurance package out there, and I think I should be on it.

I got to see Harry Connick, Jr. last week. It was really cool. I did miss seeing (but not hearing) the first half of the show, though. They oversold several rows and lots of people had tickets to the same seats. So I left my friend to enjoy the show and went to join the angry mob. Anyone that says angry mobs don't accomplish anything clearly has never been to a concert in which their seats were oversold. We were able to get a complete refund for our tickets and still see the show, but we also missed half the show negotiating the settlement and getting it all processed and then had to stand for the whole thing, which was unfortunate for my friend because she had not worn her comfy shoes. Even more unfortunate, in my opinion, was the refund money went to my friend's ex, as he had bought the tickets. On the bright side, while I was with the angry mob, I happened to see my surgeon (not an angry mob member). He started fixing my sling and asking how I was doing, offering to phone in a prescription for more pain medication the next day (those are only $10 - yay ). As he was doing this, the woman on my right chimed in with more helpful advice. She turned out to be a physical therapist and the younger woman next to her was also a doctor. It was cool because I was able to get lots of free medical advice. Plus, the second half of the show was fantastic. There was far more improvisation and it was just great. Unfortunately, the crowd was weak - apparently, they only really get passionate about seats, not about music - and he only came out for one encore. However, it was still really good.

I took a page of my own advice and started reading some archived material of a blogger I know. It had actually occurred to me to do this several months ago, but I never had time. You might be surprised, though, at how much one can accomplish when they're miserable and sick for a weekend. The process was immensely informative and not a little bit frustrating. I suppose that could be the danger in exploring the past - you poke around enough, you're liable to encounter some unsettling things.

In two weeks, I'll be in Chicago. Freezing. "Today it was warm; it was in the 40's." "You quite clearly have lost your entire sense as to what in fact constitutes warm, as that would leave me shivering in a ski jacket, gloves, and hat." "I was in a tank top." "You are simply sick and misguided. Someone needs to teach you that there are places with sunlight and warmth that actually involve being more that ten degrees above freezing." It shouldn't surprise me, this is the same woman that went to Chipotle and then went to meet her friend for dinner. "Wait could you repeat that?" She did. I laughed. "What's so funny?" "Let me get this straight, you went to Chipotle, got a burrito, and then left there to go meet your friend for dinner?" "Well I had the bowl, not the burrito." "This is great. It's so going in my blog." "I don't see what's so funny," she said after suffering a fit of laughter.

This weekend is likely to involve more bed rest, more blog reading, and maybe, just maybe, I'll make some actual progress in this book I have been attempting to finish for weeks. It's good to have goals.