This year I want to start thinking about my New Years Resolutions early. There are so many goals I have that I want to accomplish, and I never actually take steps to do so. For 2009, let's get serious. I want to list a few different things, and my goal is to keep at least 3 resolutions to myself. Three aren't bad, right?

So, I'll start my list now.

• I will have a different career path by the end of this year. I will hopefully be in cosmetology school, but if not, I will at least be in a different direction.
  
• I will go to the library and study things that interest me. I will spend time on these things, and learn at least more than just the basics before moving on.
• I will make an effort to bring more structure and belief into my life. I will study religion and beliefs and develop my own structure with witch to live by.
• I will stretch every morning when I get up, and exercise at least 4 times a week.
• I will be quiet when my opinion clearly doesn't count. (Meaning that I will cut down on gossip until I eliminate it completely.)
• I will keep a journal. That's right. All year.
• I will express feelings and say things that need to be said (only to the people that need to hear them) even if it's slightly confrontational.
  
• I will save money and work towards my goal of being a mom.

Well, that's all I have for right now. I'll think of some more throughout the next 2 weeks and add to this list. I can't wait for 2009!

Wanna know a secret?

I'm slowly loosing it.

There are so many things on my mind. The medicine numbs most of them, but I know they're there and they're simmering just under the surface.

My maw is going to pass soon.

My husband hates my family.

My sister lives in a campground with a drug dealer.

My husband hasn't worked the bulk of the time we've been married.

We are in debt up to our eyeballs and he won't talk about saving money.

My grandmother knows my awful secret, and she said my Pawpaw knew too.

I have a bellydance show coming up and no one is as committed as I am.

I have to put a price on my show and I have no idea how to do that.

I have to write the actual show.

I can't focus at work again.

I'm taking medicine to numb the pain.

I can't go back to school... still.

I can't afford to buy a house, I can't afford to hope for a family.

I weigh too much, and I am unmotivated to work out.

My house looks like a complete mess.

I can't find my Ipod.

I spent too much on Christmas.

I hate the way I look.

My teeth are getting worse, and I can't afford to fix them.

I am starting to not care about sex.

I secretly hate my Mother and it hurts me to see my siblings.

I can't remember anything. Ever.

I need therapy.

My husband has something wrong with his prostate and won't go fix it.

I could get fired any day now.

I hate who I have become.

There. Now you know.

Dragoncon for Dummies

Dragoncon is the geek Mardi Gras. No kidding. These people go nuts. Virgins getting out of their parent's basement for the first time get laid, cosplayers get to feel like rockstars for a day or two, drunk people are rampant, and nudity is the norm.

I'll go ahead and tell you now that you won't get an accurate idea of Dragoncon from reading my experiences, because it's like a choose-your-own-adventure book... you could have your pick of a number of experiences depending on what you choose to participate in, how late you can stay up, how well you learn to navigate the crowded hotels, and how diligent you are about running from one place to another. There's no way to see and do everything there. There's not even a way to see and do most things there. It's a 24 hour party 4 days out of the year, and it's something every person who fancies themselves geeky should experience at least once.

That being said, I'll share what little I can remember from my whirlwind experience...

Friday night: We head down there midday on Friday and make it by 4pm Atlanta time. We walk in and I can already tell it's a madhouse. There are people walking the streets in costume, inside the hotels, hordes (no, not that kind... yet) of people are waiting to pick up badges, get their rooms, go into panels, or just standing around. I go with Keely to get her room and we make it up there in an elevator full of Jokers and Jedis fairly quickly, considering. We relax momentarily while they get situated and call Andrea, my soon to be roommate for the weekend, and snap a few pictures of us fresh faced and fancy...

We head down to meet Andrea and pick up their badges. People are everywhere. I mean everywhere. I immediately am overwhelmed by the costumes! Everything you could possibly imagine, from superheroes, to cartoon characters, real or imaginary, big and small it's all there. I just *had* to grab a pic with the first man in spandex that walked by me...

They finally got all setup and I got into the vendor halls. Miles of geek paraphinallia included comic books, t-shirts, dice, roleplaying books, costumes, art, jewelry, real swords, and even boffer swords!
Of course, there were plenty more sights to behold everywhere you looked. Here are some more costumes I caught on that first day:

I don't even know what she was, but it was freaky...

Lots of people just wore the stuff you can't get away with wearing at the office (me included, after dark of course...)

A Shaun of the Dead with live action cricket bat!

You can't have a geek convention without Star Wars characters running around everywhere, right?

We shopped and gawked until about 6:30 and made it back up to the room to change into our fancy goth outfits so we could go drinking before we hit the Voltaire concert at 1:30. Yeah, we were starting early... so what!? :P We had brought our own liquor to the hotel, so we started there, because everyone knows hotel bars suck. We got all gothed out and lookin' hot, and met Keely at the bar, where I lamented over not having my camera, as the best (and worst) costumes come out after dark... and drunk people + crazy costumes = hilarity. I did have Andrea with me, though, and we got some good pictures from her camera. This one is my favorite, at the height of our drunkenness...
So we continued to get drunk and run around looking at all the crazies... I had bought a horrible drink at the bar at one point and decided to go back to the hotel room to get more of *our* booze...
We were so tipsy that I decided I needed to get something to eat to make sure I didn't start acting too drunk (HA!) and so I grabbed a pack of Ritz crackers and took them back to the bar with me. On the way back to the bar, I think I might have offered EVERYONE I saw a cracker. Apparently, Ritz are good icebreakers because it was working. People were taking them and talking to me. In hindsight, it was ridiculous. Utterly and completely ridiculous... but you all are well aware of my kind and generous nature when I start drinking, so I shared what I had in my hands... and it only worked because these people were more drunk than I was.
Eventually we started going down, one by one. Gary was the first to go at 10:30. I heard later that he drank a half bottle of Captain Morgan's before he even got to the bar, so it's understandable. He got a little Captain out in the guy's bathroom before Keely walked him back to the room and Andrea and I waited next to a great Gene Simmions for her to get back.
From there, we went to go see Voltaire. We were a little late, which didn't matter in the least because the crowd full of goth kids were to busy feeling sorry for themselves or SOMETHING and noone was partying up near the front of the stage. We got pretty close and listened to the concert for a while. We danced and sang what we knew and there was a bottle of Jim Beam being spilled all around us. I was a little too energetic in that corset and I was the next to go. Trying to breathe and only getting whiskey fumes was actually getting to me, so I went on back to the room and crashed about 2:30. And when I say crashed I mean it... all my things including an open computer slept on the bed with me. I was exhausted and coming off a great tipsy spell. Andrea didn't even wake me up when she got back in at like 4Am! I was OUT.


I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of children (CHILDREN!) running and screaming in the hallway... oh god someone tell me it's NOT 8AM...


So Saturday and Sunday's story will have to be a different post, I'm out of time for now... check back later for more stories from Geek Paradise!

LEXAPRO DAY 3

Today has been better than the first few days this week. Well, as far as mental state and productivity are concerned. I still can't tell if it's the medicine, or I have just worked myself into this Zen state by believing the medicine will work (the mind is an amazing thing, you know). Part of me thinks that it must be the medication, because this week has been total shit at work and I have made it through with no panic attacks or outbursts to speak of. I have also gotten more done this week than I have in a long time. I have dealt with things level-headedly (i know that's not a word) and I haven't cried since Monday. I need to cry a lot, usually.

Yesterday I went home early from work because I was so incredibly tired and had a really bad migraine coming on. It's because I'd had next to no sleep the night before. So last night, after I'd gotten up from a long nap and taken some Excedrin Migraine, hubby took me to go get some Tylenol PM. I took that before laying down, and although I was incredibly restless before it set in, it did help me get through the night. Not that I didn't wake up just as much, the difference was that I was able to go back to sleep after a little while. I wasn't just there laying wide awake with too much energy. I don't want to have to depend on the Tylenol PM or anything else, but until my body gets used to the new medicine, I'll do it.

So who knows, maybe the medicine is helping. Today is the first day where I'm pretty sure I've been influenced by the medicine as far as my reactions go. I would normally have gotten angry or upset this morning. Instead, I just dealt with it, and did my work. Now if only my job would see that I am trying to make a change, maybe they'd lay off me for a bit.

*sigh* Time to go back to work...

LEXAPRO DAY 2

AM:
I didn't sleep hardly at all last night. I was up tossing and turning. I was just awake. It was horrible. Again, it's too early to tell if it's the medication, or if it was just a fluke, but whatever the reason, it was torture. David was up with me. It's hard to sleep next to someone who's tossing like a fish out of water, I'm sure. We tried to replicate our normal routine, and went back out to the couch to try to fall asleep again. It worked, sort of. We fell asleep, but it was only about an hour and a half before I woke up again and woke him up, because I was sore from sleeping so long in a weird position. It was about Five AM when we moved back to the bed, and it probably took us another good 30 minutes to fall back asleep. Of course, my alarm goes off at Six Am and I remember saying "You've got to be kidding me..." and turning the damn thing off. And so naturally, I was late. On top of that, I was called out in the staff meeting, and then discovered that like half of the work I did yesterday got deleted when I saved over it with something else. Great. Just fucking great. This medicine better work today, or I might just have a panic attack. Fuck. I'm just so very tired.

LEXAPRO DAY 1

Okay, so it's not officially Lexapro. It's like an off brand of the off brand. It's the generic form of Celexa. Citalopram, officially. And it's half of what they prescribed me for the panic disorder. The doc says that all the symptoms, the not being able to focus, remember things, the racing thoughts, the anxiety, blah blah blah are all about the panic disorder, and if we can just calm my mind down during the day, it should help. So here I am at work with a brand new shiny medicine bottle of Lexapro, and another one full of Xanax for when the panic attacks happen. So now the verdict is out.

I took my first one this morning, and I can't tell a difference. Sort of. I have been focused today and I have gotten a lot done. I have been level and my emotions have been in check. I have been sleepy, thirsty, and a little shaky for the first couple of hours after I took it, but who's to say all of that was from the medicine. They're not things that couldn't happen normally on any given day. So I think I shall record my process here (or try to, these sorts of declarations have never worked before) and see what really has changed.

For the time being, I can say that I find myself focused today. A little anxious and wary of the new meds, and incredibly sleepy.

Until tomorrow,
(hopefully)
Rach

Want to know a secret?

If I am ever blessed with a baby girl, her name will be

Kesha Michelle.

...and I love her already...

Edit: Recently, I have fallen in love with the name Suriyah, which also works with Michelle. Oh gods, how will i EVER choose? My luck, I'll get just what I've been wishing for and a boy. Then it won't be a big deal, now will it?
(David has said if we ever have a little boy, we'll name it Alexander. *squeal!*)