So Neo (The One)

I wrapped up my official first year of teaching this past weekend. It was a year. Let's just move on. To be a little more verbose about it, my first year was pretty typical I think. It was a lot of fumbling around, trying to gain some understanding of just what the heck works and what doesn't while trying to keep the avalanche of paperwork at bay. I had some successes, some failures, a lot of minor headaches, one major headache, and some fun also.

So far, being off for the summer has only allowed me the time to try to recover from my severe allergic reactions to whatever is in the air out here. If I just got the sniffles and sneezed once in a while, I wouldn't mind, but I get full on cold/flu symptoms that knock me on back every time. In my last post, I was sick. I'm sick now too. Last year, I wasn't really sure what was going on because I was under a lot of stress and that depletes your immune system. But I'm really thinking this is some allergy and not a bug or mental issue. I mean, I've experienced the same symptoms so many times in the past ten months it's approaching ludicrous.

On a better note, I think we found our house. I went out looking with our agent again yesterday and had "that feeling". Almost everything about the place is exactly what we've been waiting for. It's a three bedroom ranch with a mostly finished, walkout basement and a great view over some rolling grassland. It also happens to be very close to Nick's new daycare facility, which will be a huge plus if we end up buying. We're going to do everything we can during the contract process to try to make this happen. I'm not necessarily looking forward to moving again in a month, but if it happens, this should be the last one for a while.

Oh and it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me!

Buzz Bombs

I was sick all weekend. It started on Thursday night and I felt ok to go to work on Friday, but by the end of the day, I felt terrible. A sore throat was the primary symptom, not a scratchy one but swollen. It is still making it a chore to eat food. I was also experiencing a slight fever and fatigue, but the fatigue was gone by Saturday evening and the fever left earlier. All that's really left is the fever.

The really bad part is that I think Nicholas has it. He's been cutting a few teeth this week so he's been a pretty fussy guy, but today he got really fussy. He was fussy to the point of not being comforted by anything we did. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning. For any family reading, I do not think that this is the current pandemic going around in us right now. It's just unlikely because I hadn't been exposed to anyone with the flu to the best of my knowledge.

In the meantime, while I was trying to focus on other things to avoid swallowing, I rediscovered Jeskola Buzz and have begun working on a new song based upon my frustrations with Puzzle Quest Galactrix constantly crashing to my desktop. I realize its appeal to a very niche audience, but trust me when I say I'm not writing anything for mass consumption here.

Fell On Black Days

Some of my readers, OK my family, have been upset by the general trend in tone of my recent posts. Unfortunately, the new year hasn't really brought much better to report so far.

We finished the waiting game with the buyers in Illinois. Unless something falls through, they're getting the house for $20K less than we paid for it. In total, we're losing about $50K dollars on the deal. On one hand, it will be a relief to be out from under it, but on the other I get sick every time I look at the numbers so I try not to do that too often.

We were bidding on a property out here to close at the same time our Illinois property sold. That fell south yesterday. Can you believe the sellers actually gave us a final offer after only two bids in this market? One of the sticking points was our request for three days early occupancy. We needed that time because we have to move our stuff out of the other house the weekend prior to closing and it would have shown up here a few days later so in order for us not to need storage and an extra mover for a total of just a few days we figured it wouldn't be a problem. It was. We even offered to take it from 72 to 24 hours but no go. In my eyes the paperwork was all in their favor if anything happened. We would have been responsible. I'm not sure even their own agent understood their reticence on the issue.

Anyway, fortunately for them, they have others interested in the property so good luck to them, but our bids and requests were fair and reasonable. I think they expect to make money on a house sale right now and they might, but unless they start bending just a little to the buyer's needs, their house will remain on the market for some time. So, we're still in in the apartment for the long haul, swiping plastic silverware from fast food joints, sitting on camping furniture, and sleeping on the floor.

In other news, Nicholas has been sick a couple of times back to back. The first round was whatever stomach thing has been active recently, which he promptly gave to me. I had to miss my first day back to work because of it. Then, this weekend, right as he was getting better, he caught something nasty from day care. He now has a decreased appetite and a fever of 103 degrees. We've put a call into the doctor. Between Amy and I, we've stayed up all night with him two nights in a row because he won't sleep unless we're holding him and walking. We're both exhausted from taking care of him and an extra bit of tired from all the additional work getting the real estate, banking, and moving situations in order.

Sometimes I feel like we are a virus and Iowa is trying to kill us to make itself feel better.

Whatsoever I've feared has come to life
And Whatsoever I've fought off became my life
Just when everyday seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
Now I'm doing time
Now I'm doing time
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days

Whomsoever I've cured I've sickened now
Whomsoever I've cradled I've put you down
I'm a search light soul they say
But I can't see it in the night
I'm only faking when I get it right
When I get it right
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on Black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate

So what you wanted to see good has made you blind
And what you wanted to be yours has made it mine
So don't you lock up something that you wanted to see fly
Hands are for shaking
No, not tying
No, not tying

I sure don't mind a change
I sure don't mind a change
Yeah, I said sure don't mind, I sure dont mind the change
I sure dont mind the change
Cos I fell on black days
I fell on black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
I sure don't mind a change

Green Tunes: Episode 6

I went to the doctor again yesterday. He's really not sure what's wrong with me. My ears feel like they fill up with fluid every night. When I wake up, if I've been sleeping on my right side, my right ear is clogged with something to the point where I can't hear much of anything out of it. The pressure and pain stick around all day, but it's worst at night. This happened back in September but it came back last week. When it didn't go away by the weekend, I got an appointment for the doctor on Monday morning even though I was feeling alright. However, by Wednesday, some glands in my throat were noticeably swollen and it hurt to swallow. Not a scratchy hurt but that deep hurt that causes you to clench your jaw in expectation.

At my appointment, the doc had a few ideas. It could be some kind of allergies that I've never known I had, it could be something in the apartment, it could be strep throat, or it could be mono. Here are my thoughts on the potential diagnoses. I've never had an allergic reaction to anything let alone one this strong. It could be a mold issue or something similar in the apartment. If that's the case, I don't know what we'll do. The strep culture the doctor did came back negative, but strep is the only one of these problems I've had any experience with so it feels most like that to me. Finally, mono. I hope the blood test comes back and they call me today. I don't have time for mono, but I'll admit the thought of rest is welcome.

I admit defeat. I've tried to be strong. I've tried to muscle through and smile in the face of adversity, but I'm just sad about everything now. All this sickness and loneliness is really getting to me. I'm struggling with the idea that I've made a mistake by coming out here. Amy tries to buoy my spirits and reassure me that this move has been and will be for the best, but I'm having a hard time believing that right now. I feel a lot like I did fifteen years ago, unsure if I've made the right decisions with my future and no chance of reassurance without the undying patience to know that eventually another fifteen years will pass and the significance of a single decision will seem practically irrelevant.

Hey now, little speedyhead,
The read on the speedometer says
You have to go to task in the city
Where people drown and people serve
Don't be shy. Your just deserve
Is only just light years to go

Me, my thoughts are flower strewn
Ocean storm, bayberry moon
I have got to leave to find my way
Watch the road and memorize
This life that passed before my eyes
Nothing is going my way

The ocean is the river's goal,
A need to leave the water knows
We're closer now than light years to go

I have got to find the river,
Bergamot and vetiver
Run through my head and fall away
Leave the road and memorize
This life that passed before my eyes
Nothing is going my way

There's no one left to take the lead,
But I tell you and you can see
We're closer now than light years to go
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
Fall into the ocean

The river to the ocean goes,
A fortune for the undertow
None of this is going my way
There is nothing left to throw
Of ginger, lemon, indigo,
Coriander stem and rows of hay
Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naivete
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
All of this is coming your way

Yes, Again

Nick went off of his antibiotics for the second time on Friday morning. By Friday night, he was showing behavior and symptoms of another cold. Between Amy and myself, we were up nearly all night with him. We took him to the doctor on Saturday morning and she checked his heart, lungs, and ears. Everything looked good. We slept Saturday away right along with Nick. We had our first social appointment for a lunch that we were both looking forward to but disappointed that we had to cancel. Saturday night was a little better and Sunday was decent. He seems to be doing even better this morning. Still, Amy and I are tired and getting more than a little lonely. It seems every time we try to get together to make friends, we have to cancel.

*Sigh*

Nicholas came down with another illness last week. This one didn't get as bad because fortunately he had a doctor's appointment the day after we noticed it. However, for whatever reason, he's had a harder time recovering from this one. His eyes cleared up pretty quickly but he's been coughing with a deep rattle in his chest for a week. He's on antibiotics, so hopefully that rattle works its way out soon.

Amy and I have also felt a little under the weather this week again. It feels like some mild form of stomach flu. I woke up early Tuesday morning feeling nauseous. I almost called in sick from work but I had to give a test that day so I dragged myself in anyway. I was dizzy, my stomach was cramping mildly, I felt easily overheated, and I had cotton mouth most of the day. By the time I went home at 4:30pm, I was exhausted. I crawled into bed and fell into a fitful sleep by 5pm. Amy let me off the hook that night with Nicholas and I was able to sleep off and on until 8am the next morning with only one major waking around 1am in a pool of sweat. I think maybe a fever had broken. Yesterday, I felt mostly fine again with very minor stomach discomfort, but I am still wary to eat food other than saltines and ginger ale.

Amy texted me yesterday and told me that she was feeling the same way. I think she has the same thing but she's a day behind me.

Once these issues clear up, let's hope this is the end for a while.

A Day Off

We're all feeling better. Finally! I'm still not back to 100% as my ears still get stuffed up at night and really hurt when air pressure changes. But I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I'm trying really hard to work less. Everybody I've talked to tells me I shouldn't be working so much and I agree, but I haven't been able to get far enough ahead to feel comfortable. My dean tried to make me promise not to work this weekend. I told her I couldn't promise anything, but I held up the bargain 50% of the time. I put in a full day yesterday but did not do any work today. I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to relax. By the way, it feels good.

Amy actually had something really interesting input for me regarding the hours I've been putting in recently. One night while lying awake, I asked her why she thought that I feel so compelled to work so much. Her answer was startlingly truthful. She said, "Fear." It hadn't occurred to me but I think she's right. It's fear of not being prepared, fear of appearing incompetent. These are long-time neuroses of mine and I've been trying to deal with them during the past few months, but my new job has put my self-improvement on the back burner. Back to it, I guess.

More Whining

Everyone here is down with a nasty bug. Or for Amy and I, it could be allergies. Nick is still running a fever and has an ear infection, but his eyes have returned to normal. His lungs are rattling when he exhales now, but his nasal passages aren't quite as clogged. Amy and I have similar symptoms but she's a couple days ahead of where I am.

I have to admit that I'm getting a little depressed. I'm working so hard to keep my head above water with school but being sick all the time is really wearing me out. I don't know how I'll make it to December let alone June. I'm no help to Amy with Nick on the weekends because I'm at school, working, and when I'm not at school I'm at home sleeping because I'm exhausted. We don't have any friends or family here to help us with Nick and I'm finding it more difficult not to get jealous of coworkers who have people they can lean on.

I've been told that the ragweed is what people have trouble with out here in terms of allergies at this time of year. Honestly, I don't even care what it is anymore. I just want to feel normal again. When I said "Temporary setbacks, permanent improvements," two months ago, I had no idea the setbacks would be so physically difficult.

I know that a few people read this blog now and sometimes I feel guilty for posting what amounts to nothing but whining. Nobody wants to read this. So I apologize for the sour times reporting. It's just the reality for now. Even though we know we'll come through this stronger than before and that things really aren't as bad as they might seem, it's hard to see the bigger picture when there's no sign of relief in sight. I just want to feel normal again, if only for a little while.

Inevitable

It was inevitable. Over the weekend, Nicholas caught the cold that both Amy and I have had a total of three times. He began to get fussy on Sunday and by Monday, his left eye had begun to produce goopy yellow phlegm as was his nose. I woke up late that night to the sound of his struggling to breathe. So Amy took yesterday off of work and set up an appointment for him with a new pediatrician. They prescribed some eye drops for his eye and acetaminophen for his general cold and fever symptoms. He's been pretty cranky for the past two days, wanting to be held or rocked most of the time, and he only sleeps for two to three hours at a time. His schedule is gone, understandably.

For Amy and I, it's been rough. We don't like to see him so miserable. At the same time, we've been given a crash course in the rules and regulations of taking unscheduled time off from work. Today, it was my turn. I am caring for Nick today. Hopefully tomorrow his eyes will be better and his fever will have broken so he will be able to return to day care. I'm afraid we just can't afford to pay for a house in Chicago and an apartment near Omaha and day care services we are not using. I have to sing this song:

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

I'm frustrated because I'm sick again. I have no idea why, but that cold is coming back. I started taking those foul-tasting Cold-Eeze when I noticed that I had a sore throat this time, though. I hate them, but they do decrease the length of a cold. The real issue with my second round of sickness, however, is that we still do not have insurance coverage and won't until September first. I'm not really concerned for Amy or myself as we can weather a cold without issue, but if Nicholas gets sick, he'll undoubtedly take a harder fall.

We still feel pretty unsettled here at the moment. The abrupt nature of this move coupled with the speed with which we have had to employ in order to accomplish it have taken an emotional toll on us. We'll recover, I know, but for now we don't feel at home. We're going to start looking for a house in a week or two, so I'm hoping that once we sell the house in Chicago and move in out here, our dispositions will begin to improve.

Iowegian

I've now been living in Iowa for two weeks. And I have somehow not gained 200 pounds by eating corn. ;) It's been a long couple of weeks, though. I moved most of what little I brought up to my apartment on Friday, August 1st while Amy had an interview for a job. She and Nick left early Saturday morning and I've been on my own ever since. That weekend was the hardest because I had nothing pressing to do, but once work began that next Monday, the pace picked up significantly and it hasn't slowed yet.

Unfortunately, I either was simply so upset that it made me sick or I contracted a bug from the water not long after I arrived which made that first week one of the roughest I've ever experienced at a new job. I spent much of my first Saturday in the bathroom and by Sunday I could barely sit down. If I managed to do that, I would double over in pain and lie moaning on the floor once I was done. My throat then started feeling a little scratchy. By Tuesday, my second day of work, my initial digestive problems were subsiding, but a full-blown cold had reared its head. Being wary of the water, I made friends with the local Walgreens employees after I started showing up there every morning to buy water and orange juice.

As for work, I've been busier than I've ever been in the last five years. There's a lot to know, a new confusing building system to navigate, and of course, the fear of getting up in front of a room full of people on a daily basis to conquer. I'm pretty familiar with most of the material that's being taught in all my classes. There are a few dark and dusty corners of information that I haven't used in a while that I will need to brush up on, but otherwise I know what I need to know. However, I still wonder if the day will come when the dean comes to my classroom and calls me out as a complete fraud.

I've been working long hours for about twelve days straight now and I am tired. I have one more day of meetings and instructional sessions to attend tomorrow and then Monday we're off to the races. I can't help but think of what my adviser in graduate school, Virgil, told me one semester, "All of my work is heaped at the beginning of the semester, while yours is heaped at the end. Our workloads are about even at midterm." I hope his experience will mirror my own.

It Makes Me Want to Puke

I am not incredibly hopeful now that Amy’s nausea will subside at all, let alone disappear as the obstetrician said it would. His prediction of improvement within one week of our appointment at the end of July was laughter inducing for both of us. But despite my lack of medical training and Amy’s optimistic hopefulness, our laughter was well deserved. Three weeks later, she is still suffering with nausea and dry heaves. I took her to the fruit and vegetable market last Saturday and she could barely look at the tomatoes without her gag reflex twitching ever so slightly.

I should mention that the good doctor had prescribed Zolfran (why do drug names all sound like evil alien overlords these days?), which was supposed to control her nausea. When she started taking it, we noticed very little change in the severity of her nausea. But as time went on, it seemed that the sickness was abating. We doubted the drug somewhat. We thought it was just the passing of time and the she would lose the nausea once we reached the second trimester, which for the uninitiated is the “normal” time for it to end. Almost every book with even a whiff of professional medical influence assures the reader that it will end by this time.

But I say, “Nay nay!” Tomorrow is the official first day of the second trimester and Amy was worse than she’s been in a month this morning. Her supply of Zolfran was depleted on Friday, though. Perhaps the medication was indeed helping her. But to add to the confusion, stress and lack of sleep have a distinct and noticeable affect on pregnancy related nausea. The affect is so noticeable in fact that the morning we knew we had the raccoon in our attic, Amy’s nausea increased from an upset stomach feeling the previous day to outright gagging every few minutes.

The reason I mention this phenomenon is because we have had a lot of rain in the past four days and the downspout on the eastern corner of the house had been clogged with debris. So once the ground was saturated with water and the gutter on that side of the house was full to capacity, the water went where it wasn’t supposed to: down the side of the house right onto our basement floor. As of 2am Monday morning, I was on my hands and knees mopping up water and manually running the battery backup pump in our secondary sump tank because its sensor is broken. As one set of rags became saturated, I’d throw them in the dryer while the second set mopped up the encroaching flood. I repeated this behavior for a couple of hours until the rain subsided. The clog in the downspout is now gone, but I’ll have to wait until the next big rain to ensure that the unclogged downspout fixed the problem and to see if we have any further problems that need to be addressed. (I’m not going to worry about the pump until I have to. I have never even seen water in that tank before yesterday. If you feel that it is absolutely necessary, I will happily take donations via PayPal. Just leave a comment in this message with your intentions and I’ll set you up with the email address where you can send the money.)

Anyway, these storms and the water leakage were rather stressful on both of us and I was not surprised that Amy was suffering from the same levels of nausea and dry heaves yesterday and today that she had been experiencing over a month ago. So does the return of the gagging signify that she is stressed or that the medication was working? If she’s just stressed, will it go away soon? If it was the medication, I think we may have to get some more evil overlord pills and ride out the rest of the pregnancy like this.

Decked

We spent the weekend tearing our old deck down. It was a lot of work, but I especially had a lot of fun smashing things. Well, everything except one thing. You'll see. Here's the deck as it was originally, except of course for the railing that had been intact at the top. I didn't think about taking pictures until after I'd pulled it off.


And here's some shots of the progress:







And here's what happened when I accidentally threw the claw hammer at my leg. Whoops!



See, my right arm was tired from using the sledgehammer all day and even the claw hammer was proving difficult so I decided to try to use my weaker left hand in order to strengthen it. I was swinging as hard as I could when it slipped right out of my hand and right into my shin. Fortunately, the next day I didn't have any more pain once I walked off the pain I felt the after letting it rest for the night.

Very Early Morning Ramblings

I've been awake since 4am with the dry heaves. I'm almost 32 years old and until now I've never experienced the feeling of vomiting absolutely nothing. If you still don't know what that feels like, it hurts. Bad. My esophagus feels like I swallowed a drywall screw. I feel somewhat OK now, but I'm really tired. I haven't had a good night's sleep in three days.

Despite not feeling too well yesterday (I felt alternately OK and then tired and nauseous all day), we had Claudiu and Autumn over for some chatting and a game of Settlers of Catan. It was the first Settlers game I've ever won. We hadn't seen Clau and Autumn for a few months so it was good to catch up. Now that we've done so, we've proposed a monthly game night which I anticipate just as much as my weekly role playing group and semi-weekly computer gaming sessions.

I'm starting to feel a little like my folks when they have their card parties, but I think they might still be disappointed to know that I have a slight aversion to card games. They used to try to teach me Pinochle and for whatever reason, I just couldn't stay focused on the cards. Even when we play card games that I enjoy like Hearts or Cincinnati (which is apparently known to the rest of the world by another name because I can't find a reference to it anywhere on the web), I can only play a couple of games before I start to get bored. My theory about this behavior is that I like a little bit of narrative (even the little bit that is attached to Settlers or Monopoly) with my games which would certainly explain my greater attraction to video games and role playing games. Colorful doodads to play with and dice to roll are also part of the attraction, I think.

Anyway, I've been busy this week with my freelance work taking a lot of my spare time. Speaking of which, I feel better about my career choice than I did in my last post. I was just really disappointed that I didn't see my whole name (if the ambiguous Chuck was indeed referring to me) in the credits despite the fact that I played the game for about 30 minutes and didn't think it was all that great. It's the only thing I've worked on that I might have had my name attached to so I could point to it and say, "I helped with this." I still wonder about my abilities, but the reality is that I haven't tried to find any other jobs for the last three years since I'm still relatively pleased with my current position so perhaps it will be easier with something on my resume instead of nothing. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

Eye of the Beholder

Amy was ready to return to work yesterday morning. I woke briefly as she rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom. As I was drifting back into dreamland, her voice punctuated my haze, "Can you come look at my eye?" I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and stumbled after her. When I opened the door, the light was bright and it took a few minutes before I was able to open my eyes without pain. Once I did, I got a gander at her eye. It was red, swollen, and covered with the slimy kludge that screams Pink Eye!

So after being down for four days with the flu, she starts to feel better and the virus escapes into her eye. At least that was the doctor's prognosis. I imagine her body has been playing host to a lot of malignant foreign organisms of the infectious kind and their froth finally bubbled over onto the table. Or so to speak. She spent yesterday at home, sapping more of her sick time for the year. She did go back to work today but the damage is done in terms of benefits lost.

If you ring the doorbell, I will probably answer it while wearing couch cushions and a colander as a makeshift suit of armor. Perhaps I will also carry a plunger as an extra measure of defense against the unseen soup of nasties. Please understand that I am not insane. Most definitely not. Oh no.

License to Ill

It has been slow going for the last 10 days. As of my last post, Amy was sick and as you might expect, I was next in line for the newest version of the flu virus. I actually took a day off of work on Monday, November 8th because I wasn't feeling well. I had been saving that day for sometime next year, but in the end, I made the right decision to stay home. That was the worst day of one of the nastier colds that I've had in the past few years. I'm still recovering actually, but the only symptom left is a nagging cough that enjoys waking me up at 2:30am.

On a better note, I installed my new DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, performed a full format of my hard drive, and reinstalled the operating system on the computer. Everything is now running very smoothly again. The icing on the cake is that there are no horror stories to report. After the reinstall, I promptly installed the three games that were given to me by Evan and we've already played twice. We've started with a community made module for Neverwinter Nights that's proving to a bit of a challenge. Mysteriously, it also has a tendency to only award experience points for kills to the party leader instead of distributing the points evenly. We keep switching the party leadership back and forth each time one of us levels-up.

In other game news, I finally finished Painkiller as well as Super Mario Sunshine. Since I can't seem to function without playing a game with a long storyline that can easily rack up hours of play time, I started playing Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker which is proving to be almost is fun as Ocarina of Time. I really like the cel shading, too. I don't like it any more or less than the older games' graphic styles, but it's a neat change.

Currently listening to: John Coltrane, Countdown (alt take)