social anxiety

August 3, 2009

Social Anxiety

I woke up this morning with grand plans for a blog post all about the role of vampires in fantasy literature. I spent much of the morning thinking about it, composing, and then over lunch something happened. As I was leaving the restaurant, a small group went out ahead of me: three grown men, and a young boy. He couldn’t have been older than six, but as the four of them crossed the parking lot he was joking with the others, carrying on an effortless conversation in the most natural way.

As I got in my car, I realized with a shock that I could remember that. I’d been that boy, years and years and years ago.

Sometime in the last couple years, I’ve started using the phrase “social anxiety.” It’s become a tag for my blog posts, it’s become an excuse for missing social events, and it’s become a lot of misunderstanding. I imagine it’s become a little tiresome, too. I’ve made an effort to be open and honest about it — sharing as much of myself as I can to those people who’ve earned some explanation. The last time I tried, someone asked me if I could remember when it started, but my memory failed me. Seeing that little boy outside Buffalo Wild Wings reminded me of a life I’d lived before social anxiety, though. And then I realized that, even though very few of my friends have experienced life with social anxiety, I’ve experienced life without it. That gives me a touchstone, if nothing else.

I know a handful of extroverts, but the one who stands out most in my mind is Brent Lightsey, a fellow in our small group at church. He’s so outgoing, so anxious to meet new people and make them feel at ease. It’s clear anytime you’re around him that he takes energy from that interaction and delights in everyone he meets. Social encounters really make his day.

I know a lot of introverts, too, and I’m certainly one myself. When it comes to introverts, social encounters are draining. It takes effort to be friendly, even with people you like, and when the social experience is over, an introvert needs a little time alone to get back up to speed. Then there’s the person with social anxiety. When it comes to real anxiety, it’s not just draining. It’s not just uncomfortable. Social encounters make me feel like I’m dying.

That’s not an exaggeration, not hyperbole to get your attention. If you want some corroboration, go look up the symptoms of an anxiety attack. They come in varying degrees of intensity, but even moderate anxiety attacks are often mistaken for heart attacks — to the extent that a person’s first anxiety attack almost always takes him to the emergency room. You can’t catch your breath, and you feel like you’re about to throw up. Tension builds in your chest until it aches, and often your heart races until you can feel your pulse pounding in your ears. Your limbs go weak without warning, and if it’s bad enough you find yourself unable to focus your eyes, to maintain a train of thought.

That’s not shyness. Shy doesn’t send you to the hospital. That’s not being an introvert. That’s not antisocial, either, because it has nothing to do with your attitude, with your intentions, with how much you like the person you’re talking to. It’s a physical response, not an intellectual one.

That’s not Asperger’s, either. There are people who are incapable of normal human interaction, either because they fundamentally cannot understand other people or because they haven’t developed basic social skills. That’s not my problem. I’m not the most charismatic guy in the room, but I can play my part. I can make friends, I can charm, I can be the life of the party.* It’s just that, for days beforehand and days after, I’m crippled by the physical toll of it.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been talking a lot about Courtney in the last month. Courtney is arguably the first new friend I’ve made in seven years, and part of the reason that actually happened is because we have so much in common. Courtney and I are both writers. We’ve both been writers since high school. We’re both long-time fans of the fantasy genre, and of sci-fi, and just basically both huge nerds. We’re both multi-lingual, fascinated with linguistics, and interested in all the languages of Man. We both went through the same degree program at OC — just a couple years apart. We were both in the Honors program. We both grew up in the same faith. We’re both monarchists.

After our writer’s group last month I stuck around to talk with Courtney some, to share stories about our lives. We’ve exchanged novels and shared fantastic feedback and discussion. We’ve compared music and movies and favorite authors, and we’ve read each other’s blogs in all their verbose monstrosity. It’s fair to say we’re real friends at this point.

And then last Wednesday night, in the four-minute break between class and service, I caught Courtney to comment on her novel and borrow a book she’d recommended. We stood in the aisle between two rows of pews, and discussed some of the same sort of things we’ve exchanged (literally) hundreds of pages of digital communication on, and I spent the whole time feeling ill.

The topics were things I was perfectly comfortable with, so a sane part of my mind carried on the conversation, but at the same time another part of my brain was screaming in frantic panic, trying to figure out what to do. “What am I going to say when she stops talking? Am I going to sound like an idiot?”Neither one of those was a problem — that other part of my brain was responding casually, easily, but the irrational fear was there anyway. “How long are we supposed to stand here talking? When is the bell going to ring? Are we in people’s way? Should I be talking to Jeff? What about Nicki? I just got up and left them in the pew. How am I going to wrap up this conversation? What can I say to get out of it? Maybe I should just run away. I’d look like an idiot. But I look like an idiot now, right? What am I going to say? What am I going to do?” All of it a screaming fury that I had to pretend wasn’t there.

And all of it absurd. Don’t feel bad if you laughed at any of that, because it’s ridiculous. The moment the bell rang and Courtney said, “Oh, I guess we should sit down,” it was gone. All of that frantic panic. All of the thoughts that had gone with it. But it’s not just the fleeting nature of the experience that tells me it’s false. I can find the words, I can identify the specific fears, and I recognize them as totally baseless. I do know what to say next. I’m fairly confident I don’t sound like an idiot (because people keep wanting to talk to me). I even know how to wrap up a conversation. To me, that frantic voice has to be a manufactured expression of something physical. Something more primitive, and outside of my reason.

It happens every time I talk to anyone, though. I described my encounter with Courtney so you could see the absurdity of it, because we have so much in common, and that social encounter was predicated entirely on the things we have in common. True, she’s a new friend, but I feel the same thing when I find myself in a one-on-one conversation with Kris, or even Dan. I’ve been friends with Dan for as long as I’ve been me. I experience the same thing when I call up Trish to ask her if she could pick up some Dr Pepper while she’s at the store, or anytime I walk into my boss’s office to talk about work.

It’s fleeting. Minutes after that conversation with Courtney I was better — albeit a little bit ashamed — and that’s the way these things go. The physical symptoms that went with it were maybe a little difficulty breathing, maybe a little pain in my chest, but nothing you’d really be surprised by. The full anxiety attack usually grows out of big events: a long weekend spent with family, a Halloween party with our small groups, a writer’s group where I’m going to do a lot of talking.

If I see it coming, that panic starts a long, long time before I ever lock eyes with anyone. It messes with my sleep schedule, sometimes for weeks. It messes up my appetite for days beforehand, and hits me with real nausea all day the day of. In the hours before the event, I often find myself wandering around aimlessly, unable to concentrate on anything at all. I’ll usually lie down somewhere dark and quiet, and tell myself it’s just an anxiety attack — it’ll be over soon enough — and mostly I just try to breathe.

Then when it’s over the let-down is almost as bad. There’s almost always a severe headache from the sudden disappearance of all that stress. I can never sleep the night after, with the sickening rush of adrenaline still in my system, and usually I still feel sick to my stomach, too, after days of irregular appetite. The worst of it, though, is the real shame that comes from realizing how much of the last few days (and weeks, and months) I’ve spent agonizing over something so trivial.

That’s social anxiety. In case you were curious.

* references available upon request

July 20, 2009

Journal Entry: July 20, 2009

Friday
As I mentioned on Friday, my parents came in Thursday night for a brief visit — primarily to celebrate T–‘s birthday, since they couldn’t make it here next weekend. I had to work Friday, but they drove down my way to meet me for lunch at On the Border. Then shortly after I got home we headed up to Carino’s for T–‘s birthday dinner.

My little sister’s family came to that, too, which made for quite a crowd. It was hectic, and afterward we went back to our house for ice cream cake and Madagascar. My parents had never seen it, and of course the little girls appreciated it.

They didn’t make it all the way through the movie, but even so it was well after nine before my sister packed up her kids and took them home. Mom and Dad watched the rest of it, with many a hearty chuckle, and then they slipped away, too. T– went to bed and I spend a while considering all the things I could get accomplished with a few hours of peace and quiet, but the pillow called to me. I was asleep by 10:30.

Saturday
Saturday morning T– and Mom headed up to Edmond to meet my sister and N– for pedicures, so Dad came over to watch AB with me. He played with her in the back yard while I took care of some stuff around the house, and then she came in to play with puzzles while Dad and I talked writing.

Of course, she wanted some attention, so she brought the puzzle over and sat down right between us while we talked, but that gave me an opportunity to show off how well she knows her letters (she only really gets confused between M and W, and Y and V), and even her right and left. Dad was suitably impressed.

We spent most of our time this weekend talking about his book. He’s been about to finish it for the last three months or so. I read it right up to chapter sixteen, when everyone in town has hardened their hearts against our fair hero, and then he left me hanging. So I’ve been more a demanding fan than a mentoring coach ever since, trying to bully him into getting it done. It worked. While AB and I were doing puzzles, Dad pulled out his laptop and started writing.

T– and Mom got home around 11:45, and I had to run out immediately because I had a haircut scheduled for noon. Under normal circumstances I’d have rescheduled, with my parents in town, but I had plans later in the afternoon for a writer’s group — which I found intimidating for reasons my regular reader will instantly understand — and I always feel a little more confident right after a haircut. I mentioned that to Dad (who’s quite familiar with my social anxiety), and he encouraged me to keep the appointment.

It wasn’t that bad a plan anyway, because the rest of them were just going to spend that hour eating lunch, and under the circumstances there was no way I could have eaten. So I ran up to Memorial and Penn, got a chop, and then headed back home.

That left me most of an hour to chat with Mom while Dad busily hacked away at his keyboard. Then as two rolled closer, Mom started telling him to wrap it up and he lamented that he was so close to the end, but yeah, they had to get on the road. So he packed up his laptop, we all said goodbye, and then I headed out to writer’s group at the same time they headed back to Little Rock.

I’ll give a full accounting of writer’s group in its own blog post. For now, suffice to say that even with the social anxiety going full strong, it was awesome. A great experience, and I’m looking forward to more.

At three T– had her monthly crop up at the church, and N– attended that, so while I was in writer’s group I got a text message from K– asking if he could bring Jason and hang out at my place. D– was there watching AB, and at the time it seemed like we were about to break up, so I replied and said, “Sure,” without any sort of explanation.

As it turned out, we were not about to break up. So K– hung out at the house with D– for a while, put Jason down for a nap in our room, then Jason woke up and K– took him back up to the church, and all told it was 6:30 before I left Courtney’s place. As I was walking out the door D– messaged me to say AB was getting hungry, so I called K– to convince him to come back to the house again, and then stopped and picked up food for all of us at McDonalds.

AB had missed most of her nap, but she was still a pretty good girl all evening. K– and I tried to put some new remote control software on my HTPC while she watched Dora, but it was to no avail. I could fix the situation with an upgrade to Vista and a new $30 remote, but there’s not a lot we can do with pure software solutions. We finally gave up on that when K– had to leave to pick up N–.

Shortly after that AB went to bed, and D– headed home, and I had the whole quiet house to myself. Once again I pondered all the useful things I could accomplish, and of them all I chose a stupid little computer game and spent the rest of the night doing that.

Oh! There was one interruption to it. Dad called me to let me know he’d finished his book on the drive home. Go Dad! I have it waiting in my email even now. I should have a strong review for him by the end of the day.

I ended up going to bed around eleven. T– headed to a late Harry Potter after her long night at the crop, so I have no idea when she got home. She was still awake before me on Sunday morning, though.

Sunday
Sunday morning we all got up in time to make it to Bible class, but we didn’t make it to Bible class. That just sort of happened. We ended up getting to the church halfway through, so we dropped AB in her class (two-year-olds don’t judge), and then T– and I slipped into the church library to pick a couple new books for AB and wait for classes to break. While we were there I told her all about our writer’s group.

Then the bells rang and we headed to the auditorium. Courtney came over to say hi, and then I spent the service getting started on chapter four of Restraint. I like where it’s going. I fear (like too much of this book so far) the chapter is going to be about half as long as it’s supposed to be, but maybe this one will surprise me.

After that we had lunch at Jason’s Deli with D– and K– and N–, then we all went our separate ways. AB took a nap, T– and I watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and then T– woke AB up to take her to small groups in Guthrie. I decided to skip that to spend some time with D–.

After four weeks of him suggesting we go see Transformers II and me saying I didn’t want to, I suggested we go see Transformers II. It was not good. I don’t regret seeing it, but it was not good. There was so much third grade humor in there that did nothing to improve the movie. You know me. I am not easily offended. But every bit of comedy in there felt childish, forced, and overdone — and there was lots of it. The only line I laughed out loud at was, “We’ve got Jordanians!” which — I assure you — was not meant to be funny at all. That was actually supposed to be high drama.

Anyway, after that we grabbed dinner at Moe’s, and then came back to the house to watch an episode of Dexter. That show is creepy. I cannot recommend it, but I’m having a hard time not watching the next episode. Creepy.

T– got home with AB well after nine, we put her in bed, and D– headed home. T– and I watched a random episode of Newsradio, and then we went to bed.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

October 23, 2007

Journal Entry

Wednesday, October 17th
Last Wednesday I got sick.

Well, on my drive home from work, I got a call from K– asking if I could help him try something out on D–‘s 360 (which was temporarily sheltering at my house) when I got home. I did, and the long and the short of it is that he and I spent all evening playing Halo 3 over the network. That was a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, the minute I walked in the door T– asked if she could just order pizza for dinner, and I met that suggestion with enthusiastic agreement, but as the night wore on she kept second-guessing herself and thinking something else might be tastier than pizza. I never disagreed, and in the end she so-kindly offered to go pick up some Braums for us both, and left me home with a sleeping AB, which also let me keep killing alien scum with K–.

She brought me a burger deal and a medium chocolate malt, and it was all (of course) delicious. She stole some of my fries, but by the time I was done I didn’t much mind because I could tell I’d had way too much malt, anyway. I felt over full, and kinda queasy, and that didn’t go away as T– and I watched Heroes (or something of the sort). I stretched out on the floor, and as soon as the show was over, I went to bed.

Thursday, October 18th
That’s weird, see, because it was relatively early and I didn’t have to be up on time Thursday, because I had a doctor’s appointment. Still, I felt sick, so I went to bed early assuming it would pass and I’d feel fine by the time I woke up. Somehow, though, I didn’t. I woke up feeling worse than I had the night before. I was queasy, and my stomach hurt.

I got dressed around 8:30, and headed up to my doctor’s office at 9:30. The appointment was just a follow-up to my annual exam that I got a month ago. He wanted to discuss my labs (fantastic), and see how the blood pressure medication was going (really good). It was definitely a positive review, but while I was there I mentioned the nausea and he noticed (and commented) that I was feverish, so he went ahead and prescribed a nausea medication for me, along with my BP refills.

The day just got worse from there. I spent the next eight hours in bed or in the bathroom. Around 6:30 I finally felt up to going out in the living room to lie on the couch for a couple hours, and I watched some of our Thursday night sitcoms with T–, then went back to bed by 9:30.

Friday, October 19th
Friday, I was back at work. I still felt a little off, but nothing like Thursday had been. I made it through the day at work, then went home to watch some TV with T–. I also did some of my homework for the week, and I worked on some music stuff on my computer while T– was pushing AB in the backyard. Just a general sort of busy afternoon/evening, while we waited for T–‘s parents to show up.

D– and K– and N– went out to Kang’s for sushi and karaoke for the night. They wanted me to come along. I kinda wish I could have, because I like spending time with all three of those people, but I don’t like doing either of those other two things, so it wasn’t too bad. We talked with T–‘s parents for a couple hours, then everyone went to bed.

Oh! I also got a new game running sometime in there, and started playing Portal. It’s awesome. I highly recommend it.

Saturday, October 20th
Saturday was supposed to be a Fall Festival at the park across the street from our house, and T– had big plans for it, but when we finally got everyone ready to go and drove over there, we saw the sign indicating that the Festival was, in fact, next weekend. No good. So we went garage saling instead. We ended up splitting up, and John and I went down to the south end of town to check out a hobby shop while T– and her mom went to the mall to buy some shoes.

Just as we got to the hobby shop, I got a call from Dad about his writing project. He’d hit his first big speedbump, and he was worrying about the implications of it. Luckily, the only reason he’s hitting it now (instead of this time next month) is because I’d predicted that sort of thing could happen, and I set him an assignment to help him track it down now. That worked out even better than I expected.

Anyway, we talked for over half an hour, about writing and the writing process and what to expect. I loved that. I’m really excited about next month, and all the opportunities it implies, for connecting with Dad and Heather, on things we haven’t really had in common in the past.

More than that, I’m excited about Dad and Heather and Gwyn all finally getting their novels finished. That is going to be awesome.

After the call, though, we headed back to the house to pick up D–, and took him with us over to K– and N–‘s to watch the OU game. It was a tense one, but we pulled it off. I don’t need that level of drama, though. Ugh.

After that, we came back home and had enchiladas for supper, and then watched Evan Almighty. Frankly, better than I thought it would be. I think I said the same thing about Bruce Almighty, now that I think about it. Same reaction, really.

Sunday, October 21st
On Sunday, after church we went to Texas Roadhouse, because T–‘s parents wanted to take me out for a birthday lunch. It was delicious, nevermind them making me get up on a saddle on a sawhorse so they could shout “Yeehaw” by way of “Happy Birthday.” Forget about that. It was nothing. The steak…the steak was amazing.

Then I went over to K– and N–‘s a little late in the afternoon (after seeing off T–‘s parents), to watch the Cowboys game. Not quite as bad as the OU game, but not a lot better, either. It was fun getting to see Adrian Peterson on the field, but when we got a real lead on the Vikings they had to pull him (for reasons made clear in an article I read last week), and then we just cleaned up. I’m not a fan of the trailing-for-the-whole-first-half strategy, even if we are usually pretty good about winning-out-in-the-fourth.

Anyway, we won, and T– came over and K– bought us some always-excellent barbecue from Steve’s Rib, and you just can’t beat an evening like that. T– and I went home and talked about doing our homework, and watched some TV instead.

Monday, October 22nd
Yesterday was back to work, and my big deal for the day was coming up with a plan to restart the Remnant project as a web game. B– made the mistake of asking me about that project, and I talked at him for like two hours. But, yeah, if you’re interested feel free to ask. For now, suffice it to say that you can expect me to spend a lot of time in the near future complaining about having too many projects to work on. The Shepherd and Oberon’s Dreams were already going to make that happen, but adding in a Sims version of an MMO that’s web-playable isn’t going to help the situation any.

I got home from work, checked the mail, sat down on the couch, and then B– called and asked if we could come over. T– was jumping up and down, she was so excited about the opportunity. So we went over to their place last night (they just got rid of the in-laws yesterday afternoon), and spent some time with the new parents giving our advice and (as aforementioned) regaling half of them on the nuances of a web interface for a highly-automated role-playing game.

We also had pizza, and ostensibly watched MNF, although we really only saw the kickoff. We had a great time, though. It was nice to get the invite, and great to see them.

Afterward, we came home and talked about doing our homework, but watched some TV instead.

October 16, 2007

Journal Entry

Ugh, I hate these long catch-up posts as much as you do, but part of my goal with the diary-style blog is to be able to look back a year in my life to see what was making daily news for me, and it helps with that for me to put in everything. I don’t remember much terribly exciting apart from football games, though, so maybe this will be a short one.

Wednesday, October 10th
Oh, see, look how wrong I was! Oh, wait, never mind. But, yeah, something extraordinarily exciting happened last Wednesday, but I’m not going to tell the internet about it. Sorry, internet.

We skipped church for it, though, and ended up at the hospital, and it was awesome, so you can probably draw inferences. Congrats, guys.

Thursday, October 11th
Thursday, I took off work early because I was just ready to be gone. I had Friday off as an RDO, so I decided to get my weekend started at 2:30 instead of 4:30. Definitely a good call. I spent some time playing with T– and the baby, then played on my computer some, and ended up making us some chili for supper. It was fantastic.

Then I suggested that we watch one of the Thursday night sit-coms, and save the rest for Friday (I had the whole day off, right?), but we ended up watching all three. It was a lot of fun, for a quiet evening.

Friday, October 12th
Friday really flew by. I slept late, I mowed, I went grocery shopping with T–, and…I dunno, one more thing useful. Oh! I helped her with a lot of preparation for her scrapping thing on Saturday. Apart from that, though, I spent most of the day playing Heroes. It was fun.

Saturday, October 13th
T– had a scrapping thing with Rebecca down in Norman from 9-3 on Saturday, and I’d agreed to watch AB so she could do that. As I always do when I’m watching the baby, I sent out a rather general request for help, and D– brought over his XBox and some breakfast at 9:30, and stayed around to help with the baby. While she was napping, we played Halo 3.

I’d invited K– and N–, too, but K– was stuck at work all weekend, out of town, and N– had no vehicle because they’d had to drop her car off at the shop for some maintenance. So, noon-ish, D– stayed with AB and I ran N– up to the shop to pick up her car, then she came over and hung out, too. D– got us all some lunch, and we watched the pilot of Chuck and a little bit of King Kong on his new HD-DVD player. King Kong was unimpressive, but the D was definitely H.

J– called a couple times inviting me to go to the OU game with him, but I just couldn’t figure out a way to make it work out timing-wise. T– had a good suggestion when I mentioned it to her, but by then it was probably too late. It’s a shame, though. The game was awesome.

Anyway, we went over to N–‘s place to watch the OU game, and it was kinda sad that K– couldn’t be there. Working weekends sucks. The game was awesome, though. Fun stuff. T– left partway through, to put AB in bed, and after the game D– asked if I could go to the blues bar downtown with him. We did that, and it was a pretty good time. I got in late, though.

Sunday, October 14th
Sunday…ugh. It was second Sunday, so we had a pot luck fellowship lunch at church. D– came with us, which was pretty cool, and I actually managed to find a full plate of good food that met my ridiculous demands, so that was a pleasant surprise. After lunch, N– went to a parade downtown and we were planning on going, too, but T– started feeling pretty bad (allergies), so we went home instead and she and AB took a nap.

D– and I watched some TV, and when T– woke up, we watched V for Vendetta on the HD-DVD player. Awesome, awesome. So awesome. I’d go so far as to call it boss.

All of this was while waiting to watch the Cowboys game. Ugh. It started at 3:15, but around 2:00 we started hearing rumors that K– might be back in town 5-ish, so we all decided to wait to watch the game with him. Ugh. That game….

Anyway, so, we watched the movie and just sort of burned the afternoon, then met D–‘s mom for dinner at Abuelo’s (so good), and then D– and I went over to K– and N–‘s place to watch the game.

Ugh. Y’know, it’s not like college where, when OU lost a few weeks ago, it seemed like that had put them out for the season. An undefeated season in the NFL has only happened once, and I wasn’t particularly expecting us to get one, but it was fun having that streak while we did. It’s just…argh, I hate the Patriots so damn much. Why’d we have to lose to them (and let them keep their streak going)? Bah. Ugh. I went home with a bad mood.

Monday, October 15th
Yesterday…I dunno, I had a good day. Work went well, in some indefinable way. Afteward, T– and I worked on our homework for our marriage seminar, and that was pretty unpleasant, but I think it was ultimately very productive. After that, we watched Heroes, and that was my night.

October 10, 2007

Journal Entry

Friday, October 5th
Friday night, I’d agreed to watch AB so that T– could go do some scrapbooking with her friend. Said friend ended up changing plans a little, but T– still went out to see a movie, and I had the baby for a few hours.

D– came over to help out, and brought his new XBox. B– and E– came by, and mostly they watched me set up the XBox, because I didn’t have the necessary cables in place and my TV is a monster. So, I’m sure that was a lot of fun for them. It was fun having them around, too.

We tried to convince K– to come join us, but N–‘s family was in town, and he chose to be a good husband. Good for him! The bastard….

Anyway, D– and I played for several hours, which was a lot of fun, then he left to go visit his grandma in…I dunno, starts with “Chick,” but I’m not sure how it’s spelled after that. Some place boring, anyway.

Saturday, October 6th
Saturday, of course, was the OU/Texas game. N–‘s visiting family happened to be from Texas, and big Texas fans, so that added some drama to the day. We went over there to watch the game, and they made a big party of it. K– cooked up some awesome hamburgers and hotdogs. T– provided some bacon-wrapped cheese-stuffed jalapenos that, by all accounts, were delicious. Everyone brought something, and everybody had a good time.

Of course, the Sooners trounced. Fun times.

Then we all split up for the evening, and I was doing some work in my office when I got a call from D– saying that USC had lost its game, and LSU was looking questionable. That was almost as exciting as the OU game, because it put them back into contention for the national title. Whoop! OU is now ranked four spots above USC, if I remember correctly.

Seriously. I hate those guys!

Sunday, October 7th
Sunday afternoon, we met with my high school friends Joe and Liz. I got back in touch with Joe through MySpace, and then learned that Liz was living down here in OKC. Anyway, Joe was down for a birthday party this weekend, so we got together. AB’s schedule kept it from being overly long, but it was still nice to get together and get caught up some.

Some of you think I’m lying right now, because I’m not the social guy. Oh, and we met at the park near our house, so that just seals it, because I’m really not the outdoors guy. But it was good. Definitely good.

Anyway, after that we watched the first couple episodes of Chuck (fantastic show, by the way — you must watch it), and then went over to K– and N–‘s for leftover burgers and hotdogs, and to watch Stargate Atlantis. That was fun. We got home late-ish, and T– and the baby went to bed. I stayed up late playing Heroes, because Monday was a federal holiday.

Monday, October 8th
Of course, I’d agreed to spend Monday watching AB so T– could go to Tulsa for work, so I ended up severely regretting that decision.

On the whole, AB was good, but do you remember what I was saying last Friday about turn-based games? Watching a baby is exactly like that. There so many things you have to get done, and their schedule is so rigidly defined, that you’re just constantly completing some strategy and making arrangements to complete another one, and before you know it, nine hours have disappeared.

That was basically my day. I did finish a ton of homework for our class, mostly while the baby was crawling around the kitchen floor, and watched Knocked Up, which is an awesome movie. Just incredibly raunchy, but awesome. It’s like Keeping the Faith for the married people.

Oh, I also did four loads of laundry.

Then T– got home around 6:00 and brought a pizza with her, and I spent an hour catching her up on everything AB had done during the day before heading over to K– and N–‘s to watch the Cowboys game. At the last minute, B– called to invite me to watch it with them, and I so wish I could have, but I felt like I’d already made a commitment.

And, of course, knowing what I know now (sorry, B–), there’s no way in hell I would’ve done that. The game was not at all what we expected, going into it. If you care at all, you’ve probably already heard, and I’m not going to go into the details here, but it was the most exciting last two minutes I’ve ever seen in a football game.

B–‘s DVR stopped recording with 6 minutes left in the game. Poor guy. I can’t even imagine the rage.

Anyway, yeah, awesome game. Unbelievable, and a really good time in spite of all our mistakes. It was fun. I got home around midnight, and crashed.

Tuesday, October 9th
Last night, then, was considerably quieter. After a long day of work, T– made me a quick sandwich before we headed off to our marriage seminar. Class went pretty well, we had excellent snacks (peanut-butter-infused fudge brownies and home-made vanilla ice cream), and then K– and N– came over to watch Heroes with us.

At the house, D–‘s mom and grandma were there, visiting. And they were at our house, as you probably know, because D– was watching the baby. They told us what a doll she’d been and we all visited for a while, then they headed out and we watched that Heroes episode.

That’s enough to catch us up to today. Sounds like we’ll probably be paying a visit to B– and E– tonight, assuming we’re invited, but other than that I don’t see it being a very dramatic evening. We’ll probably watch the third episode of Chuck. I might mow. We’ll just have to see where the evening takes us.

September 26, 2007

Journal Entry

It was a really busy week, last week. Some of the highlights have shown up already on T–‘s and N–‘s blogs, but I feel like I’ve got to fill out the form, anyway.

Tuesday, September 18th
Tuesday morning I had a doctor’s appointment. I’ve been getting high blood pressure readings for about a year now (ever since I learned about AB, really), and it got to the point where people were threatening me with sad faces if I didn’t go get checked out.

So I told my boss I needed the morning off, and that I’d maybe take the whole day. My appointment wasn’t until 9:00, though, so I was looking forward to sleeping in. At 6:30, T– came crashing through the bedroom door with a screaming AB and said, “Here, hold her for me while I get a rag.”

I sat up, grabbed the baby, and noticed all the blood pouring out of her mouth. She had fallen while playing in the living room, and somehow ripped that bit of skin connecting the upper lip to the gums, and it was bleeding like crazy. I got her to calm down while I was holding her, and then T– got her cleaned up, but she spent all day going through that cycle. She’d chew on a toy or suck on a pacifier and it would start bleeding again, and she’d start crying and make a huge mess, and then we’d calm her down and try to get the bleeding to stop.

Really, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was a lot of work, for both of us. So, yeah, I ended up taking the whole day off. I did go in for my appointment, though, which happened to be during the worst time for T–. But, y’know, what can you do?

Doc said I looked good apart from the blood pressure, and gave me a month’s worth of samples for a BP medicine that he said (and N– confirmed) is a really good one. I’ll probably be on it for a couple years, if not for life, but it’s supposed to be really helpful.

And, while we’re dealing with AB troubles all day, we also know we’ve got the marriage class to go to that evening. Last week’s was a tough one, discussing all the things each of us do that hurt the other. Not fun to discuss, not even fun to think about. We both had a lot of trouble getting motivated to do the homework, and we’d kind of put it all off to do during the day Tuesday. Instead, we spent the day chasing the baby, so we were really unprepared for class.

Anyway, right around 5:00, K– and N– called and offered to bring over dinner. That was fun, and brightened up my afternoon considerably. We had fajitas from Taco Cabana, and chilled for a few, then headed up to the church when D– showed up to watch the baby.

I had an uncomfortable experience in class that night, over some confusion as to how “voluntary” the sharing portion of the class was. Turns out, it’s not voluntary, but by the time I learned that, I was in a pretty embarrassing situation, with a big ol’ spotlight on me. That sucked. Anyway, at least now I know for future classes.

I’m glad we went to that class, though. Out of all of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most valuable one we do, because it was good to hear everybody talking about the difficulty they had with the homework, and discussing such things. That was definitely worth being there for.

Wednesday, September 19th
Wednesday night, K– and D– and I went to the movies. We’d talked about going to see Dragon Wars and/or Shoot ’em Up. Then we learned that Dragon Wars was a Korean-made, low-budget cheese fest, and decided to save our eight bucks (which probably is code for “go see it when D–‘s not around to make fun of us”). So, Shoot ’em Up it was.

B– and E– should get it and watch it on DVD, when it comes out (unless they have a strong desire to see it apart from my recommendation). As for everyone else…I can’t think of another human being I could recommend that movie to. K– and D– both enjoyed it, but….yeah. It’s ludicrous. It’s absurd, and probably the most violent movie I’ve ever seen. Crass, out the ass. But it was fun.

After the movie, around 9:30, we came out of the mall to find K–‘s driver-side window smashed out. Someone was probably trying to go for the GPS unit mounted on his windshield, and spooked when his car alarm went off, because there was nothing missing from the car. But, yeah, whoever did it won’t be caught, so K– is stuck with a $150 glass bill. The security guard who filled out the paperwork on it said he’d had a lot of windows broken out, in his time, and recommended a particular repair crew. K– got them out to his place Thursday night, and got that taken care of. Ugh.

Thursday, September 20th
Thursday night we had the church picnic. They claim to do one every month in the summer, but I don’t think it actually happens that often. Anyway, T– heard about this one and I didn’t have any good excuses to get out of it, so we went out to a private park across town around 6:30, and had some pot luck. T– was kind enough to make me a sandwich beforehand, so I wasn’t entirely at the mercy of the old church ladies’ cooking.

In addition to pot luck, the theme for the dinner was “Pie Contest!” (The exclamation mark is part of the title, not my own.) T– baked two apple crumble pies for the event (blogged on her MySpace), and they were amazingly delicious. I’m not a constant fan of fruit pies of any sort, but this one was awesome. It could be the massive quantity of brown sugar melted over the top that won me over. I’m no food critic, but that strikes me as a winning combination.

Anyway, I tried about seven pies. Everybody voted, and they said we’d learn the results on Sunday. So, for narrative reasons, I’ll save that information until I write about Sunday. HaHA! Building a little suspense in the ol’ blog, I am. A writer practices good writing techniques, always. That’s the rule. But, yeah, anyone who’s read T–‘s MySpace already knows the answer. And pretty much anyone who knows her.

Friday, September 21st
For reasons inexplicable, Friday night was the OU game. I know, I know, they’re a college team, but yeah…they played on Friday night. Against Tulsa, who was supposed to have a pretty good passing offense. Nobody was worried, but we’d heard things, y’know?

We had dinner with K– and N– at Freddy’s (always a good time), and then I went over to their place to watch the game. Tulsa scored first, and in the first six minutes game-time, Tulsa put up 14 points. That was a little alarming. Of course, they also used up all of their timeouts for the half, to do that. K– pointed out that they probably had to do that to get their offense some rest, which was a point well made. It was clear they were pulling out all the stops to make a statement early, but once the timeouts were gone, our guys just rolled over them. OU’s final score was in the sixties. Fun.

Afterward, I hung around and watched a couple episodes of Dr Who with K–, who’s trying to get into the series. It’s a good show. I’m looking forward to seeing more.

Saturday, September 22nd
Saturday I’d offered to spend at home, with T–. We’d had a wildly busy week, and we were planning to watch two games on Sunday, so it seemed wise to just set aside some home time. I mowed in the morning, and then we went grocery shopping together. We spent most of the afternoon working on homework for our marriage seminar, and I’m glad we did. We covered a lot of material, and even though this was pretty sensitive stuff, it was nothing compared with the week before, so we were able to talk pretty freely. That was a good experience.

In the evening, most of our work done, we watched a little TV, and then I decided to run up to Lowe’s and grab some storage stuff to help organize the garage, and my office closet. I’ve mentioned a lot of work on the garage recently, and there was really one last major change I wanted to make, rearranging some stuff to make more room for car doors to open. To do that, we needed a new place for T– to keep her catalogs and other work stuff, and she’d been wanting a closing cabinet for that for a while. I’ve also been wanting a set of stacking drawers to organize the cables and connectors and computer parts crammed in my office closet, pretty much since we moved into the house.

So, I ran out and bought all that stuff. If you haven’t shopped for storage solutions, you’d probably be surprised how much they cost. I managed to find what I wanted, though, and brought it home to put together. After that…well, I get a little manic when I’m working on a project, wanting to get it done, so I got the cabinet built, and then I took it out to the garage (and it’s probably 9:00 at that point), and then I spent some time rearranging things out there, and I finally made myself stop working on that to come inside and watch some TV with T–.

Then I ended up, a couple hours later, setting up the drawers in my office closet and working on that until one in the morning. It’s just who I am. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, Saturday was a lot of work, but I’m impressed how much I got accomplished. The improvements in the garage and the closet were awesome, and like I said, I’m really glad we got the homework done.

Sunday, September 23rd
Sunday morning, after church, we went to K– and N–‘s to watch the Vikings/Chiefs game with a bunch of friends. B– is a long-time Vikings fan, and as I mentioned back in preseason, our old hero Adrian Peterson is now starting running back for the Vikings, so we were all interested in watching it. They also invited my sister’s family over, because J– is a big Chiefs fan (and, y’know, just for the opportunity to hang out).

Early in the game, the Vikings were rocking on the Chiefs. Enough so that B– started cheering for the Chiefs because he felt sorry for J–. Unfortunately, about twenty minutes after J– left (S– had a photoshoot to get to, and needed J– to watch the kids), the Chiefs turned it around and tore up. It was an exciting game. Adrian Peterson was amazing (the commentators kept saying he was carrying the rest of the team).

K– grilled hotdogs for lunch, and they were awesome. T– brought some leftover apple pie, and it was just a big ol’ party. Everyone had a good time.

After that, I borrowed K–‘s distribution spreader and took a bag of grass seed he’d picked up for me, and headed home. In church Sunday morning, they’d said that the pie contest winner would be announced Sunday night. So, T– really wanted to go to that, but I had so much stuff I still needed to get done before the weekend ended (and that necessarily meant “before the Cowboys game started”). So I dropped her off at church, then went home to seed my yard.

The new spreader worked way better than the old drop spreader I’d used, and I was able to seed the whole back yard in about ten minutes. I then broke out some insect control stuff that’s also supposed to be spread like that (which I never used, because the old spreader took so long), and put that out, front and back. D– came over early in that process, asking me if I wanted to hit Best Buy, but I told him I was busy. So he pulled out his laptop and read some webcomics on my couch while I did yard work.

Anyway, got all the poison down and set up a sprinkler, and then grabbed a quick shower, and was able to pick up T– just a few minutes after church ended. That was a lot accomplished in one hour.

And when I showed up to pick her up, she was proudly brandishing her silver spatula! She got second prize in the contest, which was much deserved. If you haven’t already, send her a congratulations for that.

We dropped her off at the house, then D– and I ran up to the barbecue place next to Blockbuster and grabbed a small family deal to go. Chopped brisket and hot links, which was enough for all of us to have heaping plates, and still enough for my lunch on Monday. Awesome stuff.

Then K– called to say he couldn’t make it over, so D– and I watched the game together. It was an incredible game. Both teams were playing really well (Dallas vs. Chicago). In the second half, though, Romo just laid it down. I think we won 34-10. Woot woot.

Monday, September 24th
So, anyway, Monday after I got home from work, I went to Best Buy with D–. He’d finished Bioshock and the anime series he was watching, and needed something new for entertainment. We looked through all the games, but the only one that really tempted was Madden ’08 for the Wii. Then we went and looked at high-end TVs instead. That was a lot of fun. He’s still needing to make the upgrade to HD, and his small apartment (and bachelor lifestyle) makes a big ol’ wall-mount LCD the perfect choice.

Anyway, we were there for a while, then came home and T– made us some chicken crescent squares that are just awesome. It’s a recipe she started on just after we got married, and I always love it. Yumm. After dinner, it was already 8:00-ish. We watched the season premier of How I Met Your Mother, and an episode of Rules of Engagement which is another show in the same vein, but it’s got David Spade. Then we watched the season premier of Heroes, which didn’t really disappoint.

Then D– went home, and I did the last little bit of homework I had to fill out, and then it was bedtime.

Tuesday, September 25th
Yesterday, I found a chunk of free time in the afternoon, and spent a lot of it typing up the many pages of Royal Holiday that I had handwritten (and I’m starting to think it’s going to have to switch back to “Royal Holiday,” which is a shame, because I was looking forward to trying to push the short-format novel). I’m nearly caught up on the typing part, and the longhand part is nearly done, so that’s the sort of news that appeals to my manic drive to complete a project. Wahaa!

Around 4:00, I got a call from T– saying she’d just heard from the people leading our marriage seminar with a reminder that we were supposed to provide the snacks this week. Ack! I suggested chips and salsa, because I knew we had the stuff handy, and it feeds a crowd. She ran up to the store and got some extra chips, and the stuff to make guacamole. It was a real rush to get everything done before the class started at 6:30, but she managed. And she made some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches for D– and me. She’s the whole package.

So, we left AB with D–, and went to class for two hours. Our snacks were a huge hit. I think everyone there complimented either the salsa or the guacamole, if not both. So, y’know, good for us. Woohoo.

I got home, and I was feeling too socialized, so I retreated to my office for some video games. I played Heroes for a couple hours, and made it to bed around 10:30.

And, amazingly enough, I’m finally finished with that update.

August 9, 2007

Journal Entry

It’s been a bad week.

Specifically, I’ve been sick. (See how I did that, with the parallelism with last Thursday’s post?) Actually, there’s more than just the sickness, but I’m not sure how much I’ll tell. I guess we’ll find out.

Okay, where were we? I told you about last week in a general sort of way on Thursday. So I’ll start with Friday.

Friday, August 3rd
Friday was my Regular Day Off (RDO, henceforth), and we’d made arrangements with K– to take off work for the afternoon so that we could get into Dallas at a reasonable time. We were thinking leave around 3:00-4:00, and get in around 7:00, but Grandma convinced me that, even though it’s technically a 3-hour drive, if we got into town any time after 5:00 on a Friday night, we needed to add a couple hours, because of traffic across town. Ugh. So we all discussed it and agreed to leave as close to noon as possible.

Sleeping in didn’t really contribute much to that goal, but I reserve that right for RDOs. It’s just how it is. But I did have a lot I wanted to get done. Our car had been acting really weird lately, and I was pretty sure I knew why. It needed the tires balanced. It was bouncing and jostling like it had a flat even when it didn’t, which is no fun at all, especially when you’re looking at an interstate trip for the weekend. So I dropped the car off at Econo Lube ‘N’ Tune & Brakes, and had them do an oil change and balance the tires. They said it would take twenty minutes, but I gave them two hours anyway.

The shop is only about a mile from my house, so I walked home, and then decided to mow since I wouldn’t be home much over the weekend. By the end of that, I was thoroughly exhausted and dripping with sweat, but we’ll just call that good practice (ugh). I showered, then it was time for T– and me to go pick up the car, and then pick up K–.

There were some traffic issues, but we ended up getting out of town shortly after 1:00. K– drove, which was nice because it let T– sit in the back to take care of AB as needed, and she spent the rest of the time listening to her new iPod. I’d intended to try to get some writing done, or at the very least make some headway on the sixth Harry Potter book (giving it a reread so I can get to book seven), but I ended up talking with K– the whole way. Which, probably, was a much more friendly way to go about things. We spent about half the three-hour drive discussing our new iWays, and configuring the settings on the one we were using. Overall, I think we’re both pretty happy with it.

Early as we were, we still ran into some traffic in Dallas, and I think we ended up at Grandma’s a few minutes before 5:00. Then we learned my aunt Darla and her family, and my uncle Eric and his family were all coming for dinner…and wouldn’t be in until 7-ish. We talked with Grandma some, and K– spent some time on the computer picking out driving routes for our work on Saturday, and then he and I went with Grandma to pick up the barbecue for dinner. It was fantastic, and hanging out with the family is always fun. We had Darla and Jason and their daughter Hannah, and Eric and Shelly with their kids Dakota and Lauren, and Lauren had a boyfriend with her, and before the night was done Wayne and Carol stopped by. It was quite the party. We ended up watching some baseball and an interview with Nichole Ritchie, though, so it wasn’t all good.

Saturday, August 4th
Saturday, we got up around 8:00 and I made a doughtnut run for T–, then K– and I headed across town. We picked up a big moving truck (and got lucky — they were out of the 10-foot truck he’d reserved, so we got a free upgrade to the 16-foot one), then went over to his mom’s place. Err…I don’t remember how much I explained last week, but the reason for the trip was to help K–‘s mom move from a two-bedroom apartment that she’d shared with one of his brothers to a single bedroom townhouse (in the same apartment complex) now that the brother had moved out.

So K– and I were supposed to do that. Meanwhile, T– went along so that the family down in Dallas (my mom’s family) could see AB again, and with the possible objective of getting AB’s ears pierced. My aunt Darla had done that to her little girl, so T– thought she could lean on Darla’s experience to get her through the process of, y’know, paying cash to make a stranger mutilate her daughter. There’s a certain hesitancy there, in case you couldn’t guess. Luckily, T– was able to overcome that, and did pay a stranger hard-earned money to stab metal spears through AB’s perfect earlobes. It turned out pretty well. She probably sent you pictures.

Anyway, we weren’t part of that. K– and I were driving all the way across town to move his mom’s stuff. She already had all her stuff in boxes, and didn’t really have that much stuff to move. Also, we discovered to our delight that she had some of the lightest bedroom furniture we’ve ever encountered. Yay. But it was just K– and me, and her old apartment was upstairs with a very steep, very narrow staircase up to it, and a dogleg at the bottom of the stairs that kept us from just carrying stuff straight to the truck. Oh, and it was 100 degrees, and 70% humidity.

So, if not for those factors, it would’ve easily been the easiest move K– and I have ever been involved in. But, given those factors, it was still excruciatingly brutal. Took us a little over two hours to get the truck packed, if I remember correctly, and about 45 minutes to unload. We were able to get a really nice parking spot for that, and no stairs outside. Yay.

Anyway, that took us all day. We dropped off the truck, then drove the 45 minutes back across town to Grandma’s, and got in around 4:00. We cleaned up in a hurry, and packed the car, and made it to dinner (Grandma wanted to take us out, and Wayne and Carol wanted to see us one more time) at El Fenix by 4:45. I always love that place, but we all had way too much to eat, and then we piled into the car to head home.

Here’s where a lot of the other bad stuff happened.

We were about half an hour into our drive home when T– got a phone call from my little sister, who said she had slipped and fallen while holding her baby, and the baby had fallen to the floor in the process. That’s a scary thing. Even when AB fell eighteen inches, from the couch onto our carpeted floor, we were scared. My sister doesn’t have carpeted floors, though, and we got the impression that the baby had fallen a lot further. Not only that, S– was hurt, too, from her fall. And she had her older daughter also to take care of, and her husband is in Italy for work at the moment. So she wanted to know if T– could watch the older girl while she took the baby to the emergency room. Of course, we were somewhere between Dallas proper and Denton at the time, so that wasn’t an option.

S– was rather panicky on the phone, and she hung up to try to find someone in town who could watch her daughter for her. Meanwhile, T– started getting worked up worrying about S– and the baby, but again, there was nothing we could do. A little while later, T– called my mom to get more information, and that helped a little, but she also learned that a family really close to my mom and dad was in the middle of its own tragedy, because a daughter had just had a particularly tragic miscarriage, and the woman’s own health was in jeopardy. Ugh.

So we drove on, and got in contact with S– again a little while later, but there was still nothing we could do. T– talked her into just taking both girls and getting to the hospital ASAP, but apparently a few minutes after they got off the phone, S– got hold of a friend from church who was willing and able to babysit.

Meanwhile, T– ended up talking to Mom again, and she felt like there was something Mom wasn’t telling her, so she pressed her on the issue and learned that, over the same weekend, my older sister was going through some tragedy of her own. It’s not really something I’m comfortable explaining in this medium, but I’ve said as much as I have so that I can ask, if you’re the praying sort of person, please keep my sister Heather and her family in your prayers.

Anyway, that hung heavy on our minds, and we didn’t get any further news from S– until we were pulling into OKC hours later, so it was a pretty dismal drive. We dropped K– off at home, and T– called S– to see if we should stop by to visit, but she was in the hospital with hopes of getting out within the hour. Baby was fine, they’d even done a CAT scan to make sure (CT scan? Are those the same thing?), and the baby looked fine. She had a big comical bump on her head, but otherwise she’s fine. S– ended up with two broken ribs and a fracture in her shoulder blade, but the baby’s fine.

Ugh. What a weekend.

Sunday, August 5th
Sunday morning, to give S– a little bit of a break, T– drove over early and picked up the older daughter, who we took care of until after lunch. With my niece in tow we went to church, and we had services in the regular auditorium but I’m not convinced the A/C was handling its full load. That wasn’t terribly fun. The niece was surprisingly well-behaved, though. I’d go so far as to say she was delightful.

We went to Red Robin for lunch with K– and N–, and had some pretty good burgers, then took the niece back to S–‘s house to drop her off. Oh! Before we left church, we’d agreed to go to small groups with the young families class at 5:00 that night. K– and N– were going, and T– had been wanting to go to that group for a while, so I couldn’t really argue. I probably could have gotten out of it, but that’d make me look quite the heel, wouldn’t it?

So, anyway, by the time we dropped off the niece and then stopped by Best Buy to pick up a new router (not a luxury purchase — my old one wasn’t routing anymore), and Civ 4: Beyond the Sword (a luxury purchase), it was already nearly time to head to church. I installed the router, which immediately seemed to fix the problems we’d been having, and had a few minutes to test it out, and then we headed over to K– and N–‘s.

We drove with them out to the minister’s house in Guthrie — quite a drive. And even though we showed up fifteen minutes late, we were the first people there (apart, of course, from the hosts). AB’s new earrings (and just her cuteness in general) served as the bulk of the conversation until a few more couples had showed up. Somehow, then, as people were making their delicious sandwiches in the kitchen and I was stuck in the living room holding AB, somehow I ended up the center of attention. Some dude asked me how I ended up a tech writer, and I answered that nobody was willing to buy my novel, and then suddenly eight people all looked at me and started asking about my novels.

Now…most of you probably just jumped straight to the thought, “Oh, he must have loved that,” and I’m willing to say that only two or three of you know me well enough to have loaded that sentence with deep, bitter sarcasm. Because I do love talking about my writing, as you all know, and I’ve been known to hijack whole evenings and entire social gatherings, forcing everyone present to talk about nothing but my writing. But that’s, y’know, you guys.

My discomfort in social settings easily, easily trumps my desire to talk about my writing. So I have eight people that I barely know intensely interested in anything I have to say, and it was just miserable. K– was in the room, and he said he couldn’t tell. He said I pulled it off pretty well, describing the premise of Sleeping Kings in a simple and interesting way that really fascinated my audience. I couldn’t comment yay or nay to his opinion, though, because to me, that whole time is blacked out. I don’t remember a bit of it.

Anyway, we had a little devo that was not fundamentally different from the ones I went to when I was twelve, and then a lengthy series of prayer requests, and then finally things broke up, and I think we got home around nine.

Oh! Okay, it comes into play now, but I’ll just say this once to cover the whole week: I didn’t go walking. I think I did walk Thursday night, after my last post, and then I did the walking-home-from-the-tire-shop thing on Friday morning, but since then I haven’t.

Also, and I’m not certain about talking about this on my blog but, again, prayer requests. While we were at the small group on Sunday night, there was one other baby there (the only other one in the group) so everybody kept comparing AB to this other one, and those two were generally the center of attention, because everyone loves babies. Anyway, that other baby’s mom and dad were there, and T– knew the mom but neither of us really knew the dad. More on this couple when I get to Wednesday.

Sunday night, I went home and played some Civ, and then I went to bed.

Monday, August 6th
Monday I got sick. I spent all day Sunday with aching muscles because of the move on Saturday, and achy muscles are usually my first symptom of a fever, so I didn’t notice it coming on Monday morning because I confused one with the other. But, by noon, I was feeling light-headed and my skin felt hot. I sort of spent all my vacation time on T–‘s iPod, though, so I just made myself stay at my desk (I don’t interact with people much, at my job), and as the afternoon progressed it became more and more clear that I was really sick. Before I headed home, I told everyone I work with that I probably wouldn’t be in on Tuesday, because I was already feeling awful.

On the drive home, I felt so light-headed from the fever that it was like driving drunk. It was a most unpleasant experience. I got home, anxious to avoid making T– or AB sick, and basically took a little medicine then went straight to bed. I may have read a little bit, I know I drank a ton of water (rest and fluids are generally the only cure for these things), and I slept most of the evening. I did call N– to get her professional opinion, and she said what I was thinking: summer cold. She also warned me that it would probably hang on for a while. It has.

Tuesday, August 7th
Tuesday morning I still had a 100+ fever, so I called in to work and told them that, iPod or no, there was no way I could make it in. So I took leave, and spent the morning sleeping. I played a little bit of Civ, and chatted with D– some online (who diagnosed with certainty that what I had was Civ-itis, but seriously, I’m sick). Mostly, I slept. T– took the baby and went over to S–‘s to help her out with some stuff and then they went to Wal-Mart to get portraits done of the little one. That left me alone for most of the afternoon.

Then…ugh, I don’t really remember much of the evening. Apparently D– came over, and T– made chicken fried rice, which was very good. I may have read some, we may have watched some TV. I don’t really know. I ended up playing Civ until 10:00, then headed to bed thinking I’d read with T– for half an hour, but she was already lights-out. So I just went to bed. By that point, I was actually feeling a lot better.

Wednesday, August 8th
By the time I woke up, I was feeling a whole lot worse again. I went in to work anyway, and spent most of the day trying to keep my distance from my coworkers, and not let them hear my sniffling. We did have a going-away lunch for my old grandboss, at Steak and Ale, and I would have been reviled for skipping it, so I went anyway and avoided coughing on people. That was the best I could do.

T– was in Tulsa for work on Wednesday, so I was responsible for picking up AB at B– and E–‘s place after work. I wrote D– and asked if he could come over and help me take care of her until T– got home, so I could limit the likelihood of making her sick. Then, on my drive to B– and E–‘s, I got a call from K– and N– inviting me to dinner with them, but I had to turn it down because I’d already invited D– over to help me out. Then I got a call from T– saying she’d gotten done earlier than she expected, and she was already in town, but I was at B– and E–‘s place by then, so I told her I’d meet her at home.

B– and E– have been doing some work on their house, and it looks really awesome. I’m impressed how much difference nice furniture and a good paint job can make. I really like the colors they’ve picked, and in a very short time the place has gone from…well, weird-looking to very comfortable and really cool. I can’t wait until we can have a party there. The place has style.

Anyway, I spent more than half an hour getting caught up with them. I’ve been meaning to tell them in person, but I don’t mind saying it here, too: I really love having them around. They’re an awesome couple (and awesome individuals), and I’m glad to have them in my town.

So we talked for a while, then I took my baby home where D– had brought me Little Caesars (and probably thought I was scamming him, when he found T– there waiting), and a few minutes later K– and N– called and asked if they could bring their dinner over to my place to eat it. They posed it as a request, but I’m pretty sure they were offering to come keep me company. I’m constantly amazed how much effort my friends are ready to expend to take care of me. It’s awesome.

Anyway, that gave us a little party at our house. T– had some of the pizza and made a particularly impressive salad for her and D– (I’d had one for lunch), and K– and N– brought their Taco Cabana. N– also brought some really sad news. Remember the couple we met at small groups on Sunday, with the baby? Well, the husband/father was killed in a car accident sometime Wednesday. That was pretty shocking news, since I think most of us had just met him for the first time. And, of course, we all feel awful for the mother, and the days she has ahead. So, again, please keep that family in your prayers, if you would.

K– and N– went to church, and D– and T– and I watched some Dead Zone and mostly acted exhausted and blanked out. D– went home when I decided I definitely wasn’t up for a walk, and then I went to bed to read for a couple hours before falling asleep.

Around 10:00, just as I was closing my book, T– came into the bedroom, sniffling, eyes watery, to tell me that she’d caught my cold. Great.

Anyway, that’s been my week. I woke up this morning feeling worse yet, with a fever again and now really coughing for the first time. It’s painful, but I’m guessing it means I’m nearly done. I feel awful for T–, though.

But, yeah, everyone’s having a pretty rough time, this summer. Pray for my family, and all their friends. With any luck, things will turn brighter soon.