Saturday, March 30, 2013

Turning over New Leaves and Stones and Whatnot

Recently I pretty much kicked someone out of my life, and I am finding that this has strangely helped things out with my stress levels.
You see, I worked with someone who was always just a little ~too~ interested in what I was doing, where I was going, etc. And I wrote it off as being socially awkward because hey, that happens. A LOT. I was one of those people (and I still socially derp from time to time) so I understand sometimes you just cannot be on the same wavelength as those around you.
The problem came in when I, against my better judgement, allowed him to become Facebook friends with me; this on a site where I mostly just stick with friends and family. Shortly thereafter he started commenting or liking every single status I posted, and making comments that were ginormous non-sequiturs that were only funny within his own personal reference and lexicon. It got to the point that he commented so often and so much, I threatened to unfriend him because it.
That was about 8 months ago, and he had gotten better, only "liking" damn near every single post.
He had said on multiple occasions that talking with me was the best part of his day at work. I have no doubt that he was sincere, and meant it as a compliment, but it came off too heavy, too filled with import for me to really be comfortable with. I joked about it to downplay it, but he said it multiple times without changing his tone. Alas.
He had physically exhausted me with the sheer volume of storytelling/sharing when I sat next to him, so that when I moved to night shift I was actually grateful for the quiet that filtered in. It also meant that it was easier to handle the IMs, the likes, and all the other small intrusions.
But when we moved back in to the main room, I discovered him constantly looking at me, IMing me a bit more ferociously, and demanding that I friend him on other social networks, and that he find out my username so he could friend me.
It just became too much, so I slowly started to back away from it all, hoping if I just toned it down that perhaps he would relax in a month or two and get used to me being in the same room again.
But then my husband told me a story of when this guy was at our housewarming party and his wife was with him (Almost exactly a year ago). When she realized he and I were somewhere else (in a group of people touring the upstairs, but I don't think she knew that) she yelled "Where are X and Y??" and went bowling up the stairs to see where we were.
So his wife was concerned. Apparently he had talked of me often enough that she legitimately thought something might go down. And that threw up all of the warning signs and red lights and stuff like that.
I unfriended him immediately from anywhere that our social networks touched, and when the inevitable text message came asking what he'd done, I explained in detail over 6 lengthy text messages exactly why.
He never responded. He barely looked at me at work. He never asked for me to refriend him again.
I know that he's mad at me, as I was promptly taken off of the only special project I had training the new employees on how to speak with customers on the phone. (This coincided with me saying I could not come in on my day off to train someone because I had a prenatal doctor's appointment during the time they wanted me. If they took me off the project because I wouldn't chose my job over my unborn child, I will raise almighty fucking hell, because it looks like that might be the case).
Either way, when he talks to me he is stilted, and recently when he overheard I'd been on a trip and he asked if I'd enjoyed it, he was obviously mad that he found out about it second hand. But for the most part he has not approached me again, has stayed a respectful distance, and has kept professional while at work. It's about all I can hope for.
I thought the guilt of doing this would eat at me for weeks, but I am actually finding that in speaking my mind I got a lot of anger and fear out of me and out in the open. I could free up that mental space for something productive. It's been so useful, I'm about to do it again to other people in my life who have been extremely negative and self-focused but continue to try and maintain a friendship with me.
If I told you I had one of them in my house checking the expiration dates on my food and telling me my dog and husband were a complete idiot while I was trying to talk to them about things that were driving me to consider suicide, but that not one moment was really given to anything I wanted to talk about...? I'm betting you would not think it cruel of me to do so.
In fact, that one's lived in my belly for about 7-8 months now, and i think that will be my next cleansing act.
This is, after all, the Year of Living Fearlessly. That includes pissing off people who think they're being your friend when they really aren't so you can get on with your life.
 The mere thought of it actually makes me breathe easier, actually. There may be a post, there may not be. I'm trying to keep things positive here. In fact, I'll be following up with something rather nifty shortly so you guys can be rewarded for slogging through my emo!
And thank you for listening, you cold, giant, dark void of internet.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Check Out This Thing I Found - Youtube Edition

I've been wanting to return to Sharing All the Neat Things for a while now, since I've felt like my life has been slanted toward the negative lately. I need something to make me feel happy again, and I always feel happiest when I am sharing with others or helping people out.
SO... to that end, I have a few awesome YouTubez to share that maybe people don't know about. I'm hoping it'll make someof you smile or laugh or git lerned a bit.

The first is the Unknown Cameraman's channel. He's an urban explorer that goes in to abandoned buildings and documents what is seen there. Even moreso than that, he gives a detailed history of thelocations he visits so you can learn about why it was important and now suddenly it's not.
I have always been fascinated by abandoned buildings and the history of what might have happened, so this is right up my alley.
I also like that he is very respectful of the places he goes, and he generally decries all of the graffiti and vandalism visited on these places by bored people and teenagers.
A sample of his work:

If that's not up your alley, and you're more of a cooking show type of person, let me recommend My Drunk Kitchen to you.
Basically the channel is Hannah Harto attempting to cook while getting progressively more drunk. She herself is adorable, as well as very positive and caring. If you can take the pu s, it's good for a weekly laugh.
Hannah at some of her best:

Now, this isn't a channel of it's own, but a series ON a channel. In this case, the channel is SoulPancake. SoulPancake can be funny but honestly I'm not so much in to their stuff. Some of it is just random and not very fun or funny. But what I DO love is KID PRESIDENT.
He's funny, he's maybe all of 11, and he's currently on a campaign to make 2013 an awesome year.
Best par? That the kid is SO positive, despite being a "glass boy"; his bones are very brittle and break easily, but he still belly flops on things and giggles like mad.
Here, for your edification, is Kid President:

Anyway, these are some of the videos I look forward to seeing every week or so as they come up. I'm always looking for new and cool things, so if you've got suggestions, comment below! (Please no ball-shot videos or stupid foreign music videos, though. I'm tired of that stuff.)

Saturday, March 2, 2013

A Little Scare Today...

I am an overweight middle aged female on her second pregnancy (the first having ended in a miscarriage when I was a tender 18 years of age) and therefore every single article and website out there regarding age and pregnancy is fond of saying:

HEY. THIS SHIT IS GOING TO BE HARDER FOR YOU BECAUSE YOUR EGGS AREN'T FRESH AND NEITHER ARE YOU.

Which is actually retarded because it's no longer so unusual for women to have babies in their 30's. It just usually takes the world 2 decades to catch up with what's actually going on culturally and adjust its old wives' tales and general misinformation accordingly.

Let me tell you, second to masturbation I have NEVER come across anything regarding the functioning of the human body so wrapped up in superstition, 50 year old medical advice, and general bad ideas. Really. Like someone decided all of the old crap that wasn't really accurate should just be moved on to the net anyway because reasons. And half of it isn't true. In case you can't tell, it's making me angry because it means people are reading this without necessarily verifying it independently and it's just the continuation of bad information. It's already scary enough being pregnant, it's just cruel to perpetuate some of this stuff.

But all that said, we come back to the simple fact that I am NOT a good specimen of health, and now with the pregnancy and the sleepiness I am actually putting on a lot of weight. So it's gotten uncomfortable for me very quickly. I need to lose weight. And hey, let's be honest, I need to be younger.  But that ain't gonna happen (the last part, that is) I could have complications. Life is unpredictable.

I had a horrible night courtesy of a nagging cough on the tail end of bronchitis where I got utterly no sleep. I actually fell asleep for all of 5 minutes around 4:30 or 5 am. During that time I had a dream that somebody texted me and asked "How's your second heart? :D " (I've been refering to the baby as my second heart a lot) to which I texted back. "Gone. I have no idea what to do with these baby clothes now."
Yeah. Shockingly morbid.
And any other day I would write this off as just being something strange, because I have been having a TON of bizarre dreams since pregnancy has hit me.
Except that I woke up abruptly after that, and promptly experienced a very sharp cramp, followed by a dull pain.
Thinking it was just my body being irked at me for laying weird, I got up and went to the bathroom.... where I promptly found blood.
And then I freaked out.
I jumped on the internet and read through forums asking about bleeding at 2 months... and of course, all of the horror stories are front and center about horrible double miscarriages and painful ejections of fetuses and all of that glorious stuff that honestly they should have a filter for (Google? There's an algorithm for you. Return information ONLY and not blind supposition with anecdotal "evidence". That'd be pretty hot.) But the over-arching theme was "You need to get to the doctors or the ER and have an ultrasound immediately."
I actually stopped and debated, courtesy of a childhood where I was guilt tripped for crying when my ears hurt or I needed to be taken to the ER (a product of lack of money, not moral character, I am coming to realize) whether or not I should wake Bob up. After all, if it was just spotting then I was about to cause us to spend a LOT of money over nothing. I actually sat there and cried, and the dog heard me and came downstairs to curl up with me while I debated.
I finally went upstairs around 5:30 and told Bob, decided I needed to see the ultrasound and I needed to be informed if I was about to experience a miscarriage.
I think we were at the hospital perhaps 20 minutes later, including dressing time. We held hands and kept reassuring one another it was okay, we just needed to be sure.... but we were both fairly messed up and scared. I did my best to be calm so as not to upset Bob, but in a moment of awesomeness when I said "I am okay," he turned to me and demanded "NO. HOW ARE YOU REALLY?" and I got to admit I was scared. Because he is awesome, and we are partners and I think he knew it would be lonely to feel like you might be worrying on your own.
We filled out paperwork on arrival, then I was asked if I needed a wheelchair. Twice. And I had no idea, but told them I was ambulatory, so in we walked.
While we waited for them to run the bloodwork and finish wiring me up for heart rate and other fun stuff, we held hands and repeated back and forth to one another "Everything is okay." "Everything is okay." like a small mantra. We held eyes, too, because I needed to see that he believed it, and he saw that I believed it. This was fucking important.
About 3 hours, several nice people and a thorough ultrasound later and we had no answers, but they told me there was no reason for the body to try and kick the baby out. It was still growing furiously and the heartbeats were much stronger than on Thursday, plus everything was in the right proportion. The overnight PA informed me that all looked well and to just take it easy. Then the shifts changed, he told us to have a good day, and the dayshift doctor came on.
Shit bedside manner. He just rattled off what the PA had told us already, but without the gentleness. "Sometimes miscarriages just happen in the first trimester, there's really not much we can do about it but watch it happen. There's no signs as to why this started." Now, that doesn't sound too harsh, but it was his delivery. Rushed, as if having been there 10 minutes he suddenly already didn't have time for us even though there were only 2 other patients in there at the time.
Thanks. Ass. You're the kind of person people tell sour stories about. Seriously.
Anyway, we went and had pancakes and talked, and I am following the doctor's advice... lots of rest (not bed rest, just no jogging or heavy weight lifting or anything of that sort) and 3 weeks with no "relations" of any sort. That will not be a problem. I feel so incredibly unsexy right now, it isn't even funny.
I am scared, yes. We have no idea what caused it and there was a brief return of the spotting later on this evening, but it seems to have calmed now. I am just hoping nothing weakened.
Medical science is great, but just useless sometimes. Thankfully insurance covered this little side trip.
I've had enough of health things for now. I want this bronchitis totally gone, and I want to be healthy enough to exercise and lose weight. I am horribly uncomfortable and none of my pants fit me anymore, which upsets me to no end. That's no good. I need to be healthier for this kid.