The Inmates Run the Asylum

I'm a little stressed this week.

Had to make an unexpected trip to the hospital on Wednesday. Mom text me early that morning, asking me to call her. Now, since this is my mother, it can be anything from someone's dead to the Howlin' Mad Smurf wants to tell you something completely pointless. So, I called her to find out that Grandma (her mother) is in hospital. Apparently, her glaucoma meds were causing her to go into renal failure and she ended up in ICU. My aunt was on the way up from St. Louis and my mother wanted me to go to the hospital to keep my aunt in check, as she had a fear that my aunt would end up arguing with the doctors and get pitched from the hospital.

Mother also requested me to go because, though she wanted to be there, since her fear of hospitals was so well known, she was afraid that if she showed up, Grandma would think she was dying.

But I went and Grandma cried when she saw me. Yeah, that reassured her, Ma.

In the end, I had a nice visit with her and the rest of the family. She was moved to a regular room yesterday, and was sent home today. She's a tough old lady, for sure, and I'm glad the doctors got her fixed up so quickly.

In other news, I'm going to Cubs Con with luchalibrarian a week from today and I've hit my typical traveling IT'S TOO SOON I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME I NEED MORE TIME stress. I'll be fine once I get going, but for the next few days I'm going to feel like I have too much to do, not enough time, and I'm not going to be ready. I think Hammie's birthday and my birthday happening literally the two days before I leave is just adding to that stress.

In further stress news, I realized today that the manuscript I've been working on for the novel contest needs a lot more work than I remembered it needing. There's no way I'm going to get it done. I won't stop rewriting/revising it, but it's not going to work for this contest. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that yet. I'll look at the other manuscripts I have and see if there's anything I've got that's closer to being done, but I'm not very hopeful. I'm thinking this is a lost cause and I'm not going to be able to play. Not happy with myself on that one.

So, yes, by the time I hit Chicago, I'm going to be more than ready to rock and, as my family says, blow the stink off.

I come to you, dear flist, on bended knee asking for help and advice.

My mom was nice enough to let me use her computers and internet while I was without and as such, had to endure my blathering on about the Cubs. Honestly, it was only fair since she was the one who made me a Cubs fan in the first place and I grew up listening to her rant about Paul Assenmacher (you'd think the guy tripped her Grandma or something; even today, if you mention his name, it sets her off).

So, Mom decided to give me an early Christmas present in the form of Cubs tickets, only she couldn't decide what game I wanted to go to, so she's just giving me the money. My excitement lasted until I told my dad, who grunted with disapproval and did not make any comment. This told me two things: 1)my parents will always act like they just got divorced yesterday and 2)Dad doesn't think I deserve to go.

This year has been rough and he's had to help me pay my bills a few times. I don't like asking him for money, but life is full of things I don't like doing and I plan to pay him back at some point (I owe him a lot of money from him helping me out over the years). He doesn't like asking me for money either and even though he didn't say so, I know he thinks that because I asked for money I don't need to be going to Wrigley, even if someone else is paying for it. I know he wants me to use the money to pay my bills (I imagine he wants me to get a "real" job, too, but that's beside this particular point).

Mom gave me money last Christmas to buy clothes. I spent it on bills. In fact, I spent all of my Christmas and birthday money on bills. I haven't been able to afford to do anything big since DragonCon '08. I really want to go to Wrigley. I need to go to Wrigley. I need to get out of my house, get out of my town, and get some happy juices flowing. But, if I go and then have to ask Dad for money again next month (any amount of money, even five bucks), the shit is going to hit the fan.

So I reason the only way I'll be able to go is if I make sure I've got money to pay my bills next month, which means I've got a little less than 3 weeks to come up with about $250. If I can't come up with the cash, then the money Mom is giving me to spend on tickets is going to have to be spent on bills. Again.

This is where you come in, dear flist. No, I'm not asking you for money. I know I'm a rotten and terrible friend, but even I have my limits.

But, I do need help getting the money. I'm already selling stuff on ebay. I'll be putting more action figures up in the next few days (wrestling, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) as well as some magazines (Wrestlemania collector's issues), if you know anyone who might be interested.

However, that stuff hasn't been selling well lately and I can't guarantee that eBay alone will get me the money that I need.

I've thought about putting up some short stories up for cheap downloads, but honestly, I don't think I've got the promotional skills and popularity to make much money off of it (I'm still willing to give it a try, though; every bit of pocket change helps).

Aside from that, I'm not sure what else I can do. Does anyone have any ideas that don't include prostitution? I say that not because I look down on streetwalking as a distasteful profession, but because, let's face it, hookers work on commission and I've never been good at sales. To be honest, right now I probably couldn't give it away.

So, anybody got any money making ideas or can help me sell my stuff? I'd really appreciate the help. I know everyone else is going through stuff right now and this is really kind of a frivolous thing to ask for, particularly since the mess I'm in is truly a mess of my own making, but it would mean everything if I could go. I swear, I'll be a grown-up responsible adult and get a real job and trudge off into that zombie wasteland of maturity just as soon as I get back from the game.

Please, help this depressed fat girl get to Wrigley Field.

From several people...

What was the #1 song the day you were born? Search the date and then post your #1 song on your LJ - preferably with a Youtube vid if you can find one!

You will get no YouTube video from me because the #1 song on January 12, 1980 was "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes and I DESPISE THIS SONG'S EXISTENCE.

Meanwhile the #1 song the day my sister was born was "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes.

Figures. She gets a sexy voice singing about a legendary actress. I get a jackass who fails at cheating on his girlfriend via the personals and has questionable taste in alcoholic beverages.

My sister has always lucked out like that.

So, they moved up Dad's retirement date from March to January 8th.

Since he takes the entire month of December off for vacation anyway and would probably be on vacation until about the 8th, he's basically going from vacation to retirement.

I'm doomed.

I woke up this morning feeling awful. I kept hoping that I'd feel better, but it never happened. As such, I basically put in the minimum required effort for the day, which pleased no one, least of all me.

I am cranky.

Careful, Tokyo. I may crush you.

*grumps*

My face is less lumpy today!

The swelling has gone down some in my face and it's not quite as tender as it was. My eye was still swollen and ouchy, but the bites themselves have shrunk. Ice got rid of most of my eye swelling pretty quickly.

I took Benedryl thinking that maybe it might help with the swelling and the itching and not knock me on my ass. I was wrong, at least about the last bit. I took a two hour nap.

So, no doctor today. Hopefully, I'll continue to improve over the weekend and I won't need to go (there's been some urging that I go anyway, just in case, and I appreciate it, but I wouldn't be surprised if my last words were "Nah, I don't need to go to the doctor. I'll be fine" because I'm just that way). If not, the hospital is right down the street.

Now watch me jinx myself by posting about my improvement.

Carrie and I were entertaining ourselves watching the neighbor's cat Loki hang out on our front porch and Spot bitch out his presence from the window when something caught my eye.

At first I thought it was a hawk. It roosted in a tree across the street with four other huge birds. Carrie was sure they were hawks. "Get Pete inside! Tell Loki to go home! Those birds will get them!"

I didn't do that because I'm lousy at following instructions. Instead, I got my camera and went outside to try to take some pictures. I snapped a few shots, warned the doves on the wire above me not to take a crap on my head, talked to Loki, and started having my doubts about them being hawks. There were too many of them and they were too dark in color.

Carrie came out and we discussed it. Crows were suggested. So were vultures. Finally, we decided what these huge birds were: Doom Birds. Five huge black birds gathered in a tree had to be a sign of doom or, at the very least, some sort of birdie gang meeting.

I showed the pictures to Dad when he got home and he said they were crows.

But, I bet they all had little leather jackets and switchblades and I just know they were up to no good.