Ask...

And you shall receive...sort of.

I got to work, and not only was I not on the line-up, because Will can't keep track of when I'm in town and when I'm not...but Jessie sent me home, since he had 16 servers on the floor. On a Sunday night. Yeah, not making *any* money there.

So...I think that after Lissa comes to visit, I'm going to try picking up Friday nights or something. Maybe Friday day and Saturday day. That would probably make me about a bill, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Off to cut fabric.

Meh.

I'm just kind of meh today. Not sure why, but I'm just kind of...meh. I'm working on cutting fabric for my Ugly Quilt, and I'm really not wanting to go to work, but I need to. I need running around money, and it's a good way to get it.

Would really rather stay home and play with fabric though. Meh. Or stay home and watch B-5, or stay home and nap, but...

Meh.

I say again, meh.

Well...I'm in Longview

East Texas is pretty, but I'm not so sure I'd want to live here. I've never seen so many people smoking in my life! They're all over the place. In fact, the hotel I'm at only had a smoking room available. It's not too bad, but I can certainly tell it's smoking room. Gah.

Okay, so the drive here was pretty uneventful, if you call getting directions from someone with fewer teeth than fingers, and starting the morning off with an overturned tractor-trailer full of gravel.

Not much to say tonight, really. Just tired and cranky, and wishing that there was a restaurant attached to the hotel so I didn't have to go anywhere for food.

Bleah.

John, I'm sorry. I know that I apologized before, but I'm still upset that I was thoughtless and hurt your feelings. I'll work on getting better about the issue.

WTF? (Profanity)

What the *fuck* did I do to deserve that? I guess at some point I made the mistake of actually showing that I was human, that I fucking hurt and that I'm tired.

Whoops. I seriously won't be doing that again. I'd been splitting my time between this and LJ, and right now, I'm sitting here in shock.

But today's a tough one. 12 months without him was rough. Another 6-12, well, it's doable. But not a good thing. And please, Jenn, I know you're without your husband even more. So please don't tell me that others have it worse. I know they do. But today's still not easy for me. If that makes me a wimp, so be it.

I didn't deserve that. At least I don't think I did. Shit.

I made that post ad apologized all over the fucking place. What else am I supposed to do?

So, this was my response:

WTF?

When have I ever comme into your LJ and told you that?

I didn't deserve that. If you'll excuse me, I'll try and tell you that it sucks and then, I'll leave.

It sucks that your husband won't be coming home as planned. I'm sorry for it. I hope that you hang in there and that your reunion is a joyful as it possibly can be. May he stay safe and may God watch over you all.

I'm actually really hurt. I guess I just come off as totally uncaring or something. Holy shit.

I don't know if I should be hurt or pissed off right now.

More from The Law Dog: I think we need a dictionary!

The LawDog Files: Please, sir, someone's hi-jacked my language and I'd like it back.

You've got to be kidding me. You know, if my mother were to act like Cindy Sheehan has if I bought some real estate in Iraq, I'd come back and haunt her. Rattling chains and all.

Interesing...

Why is it that I will cheerfully pray for other people, but I find it so hard to pray for myself?

Road Trip!

Actually, because I missed drill last month due to John's leave, I'll be taking a short trip to Tyler, Texas to cover a brigade stand-up or something like that. :-)

Looks like I'll be gone 28-29 July, and will be on IDT orders. Yay me.

Granted, it's a long drive from here, but not a biggie.

OH! Over 100 posts here. God, I need a life.

The LawDog Files: Ah feel, Ah say, Ah feel faint.

The LawDog Files: Ah feel, Ah say, Ah feel faint.

Well, I managed to throw this up on a friend's blog, so I'll put it up on mine, too.

:D

I think...therefore I dork.

I'll be turning in early tonight.

I got a phone call from my darling husband, and it was wonderful. We chatted about my character, and he's beginning to like the concept for her. We hammered out some details and some of them just got filled in by chatting with him. That is SO cool. He'll listen to me natter on about gaming, and then bounce some stuff back at me. Yay for gamer geek marriages!

So...here's the updated Elizaveta bio:

Born to a minor boyar family, Liza had a pretty idyllic childhood.

Her parents loved each other, and she worshipped the ground her older brother Pyotr walked on. She learned to write by pestering the priest at the local church, and by her 13th summer, she was transcribing books for the fathers. By shamelessly trading on her blonde cuteness, Elizaveta managed to not only learn to ride well, she learned to handle a sword with her brother and take care of the family estate. Very little has ever scared her, and as she's grown up, it's only gotten worse. Through the years, she's struggled to learn the "womanly arts," and her mother has pretty much despaired of ever turning Liza into a proper lady. Sometimes, Elizaveta will catch her mother staring at her, but she can't ever figure out what so concerns her Mama.

During the late fall of her 13th year, Elizaveta's mother died of a terrible coughing sickness. The next spring, Elizaveta's father concluded marriage talks, and they began to prepare for Elizaveta to go to her betrothed's household in the spring after that.

Much to Elizaveta's surprise, when she reached her new home, she found her betrothed to be all that her papa had promised and more. Ivan Ivanovich was a tall, handsome man with a quick mind and a exerburant personality. To both their surprise, they fell deeply in love. Despite their happiness, all was not well.

Ivan's younger brother, Rodian, was not so pleased with the way things had been working out, and not realizing that Elizaveta and Ivan had fallen in love, approached her with a plan to remove Ivan from the picture. Elizaveta rebuffed Rodian, but couldn't figure out how to tell Vanya that his adored baby brother was plotting to kill him. Being unable to speak when most needed had cost Liza many things in this life, but it would prove even more dear.

One afternoon, during a winter hunt, men set upon Ivan and Elizaveta. While holding Elizaveta to prevent her from helping her husband, the thugs knocked Ivan to the ground and forced him to drink poisoned wine. Leaving him on the ground to die, they told Elizaveta that her plot to kill her husband and take over the estates had been uncovered, and that her diary had been found. Aghast, Elizaveta lunged for Ivan's sword, only to be knocked to the ground. The thugs proceeded to beat her, then left her a horse, after telling her that the money and jewels she'd stolen were in the saddlebags, and they would be enough to get her to the coast.

Heart-broken, Elizaveta asked Matushka to take care of her beloved's body. Knowing that she would be killed immediately if she returned to the estate, she fled, confirming her "guilt."

That's all I've got so far, but it sounds pretty good to me.

This post brought to you by the letters D, O, R and K and the number 20.

Back to work...

For my drug money. Got a bunch of miniature quilt blocks at the show, but I'm going to have to enlarge them a bit just to work with them. I don't have that kind of patience. Nope, just don't.

Also got stuff for Christmas presents, and I'll be starting those soon. I've got ideas for two of them the, but the others...whoo. I have no clue what I'm getting my darling husband. And yes, I know what Mom and Dad A want, but they can't have it. If they're not careful, they'll end up with another Cabbage Patch doll. :-)

Not much else going on. I'm thinking about pulling my material out of the dryer and getting it set up to work on tomorrow. If I'm not careful, I'm going to end up with nothing but the underpinnings done, and I'll be in the Naked Iron Dress Competition.

I've been really down the past few days. My meds aren't working the way they used to, and I'm having more and more and more trouble getting out of bed. I missed church this morning because I slept through my alarm. I haven't done that in ages.

I just have no energy in the mornings. Once I get up and get going, I can slog on through the day, but...ugh. Getting up is kicking my butt. Seriously. I have an appointment with my GP on Wednesday, so we'll have to see what she says. I don't want to add another med to my routine, since I have a hard enough time remembering to take my meds as it is.

Gah. I don't wanna play no more.

And there was gaming...

Sort of. I managed to not get my character done, but I did sit in on the group and they're fun. I've decided on a basic concept, but I'm not sure how we'll flesh her out. (Yes, I'm playing a female character. I never play male characters. I'm not wired for it.)

So, here's the idea. I'm playing a Ussaran ship-owner, who is cursed and has a hunted past. I also took a hubris for the extra points. I had four to chose from, so I did the ultimate gamer decision making and rolled the D4. I ended up with reckless. Not sure how I'm going to work all this in, but there's a chance I could end up as a part of a secret society.

So far, I'm thinking of having her go to sea after her husband is killed in a "freak" hunting accident. After killing her husband's younger brother, who was next in line for the family fortune (sorry Jason!), she's now hunted for murder. Evidently, the cursed part comes in from my childhood, at least according to the book, so I'll have to figure that out, but after killing her brother-in-law, she ran to the sea to hide away and to get away from the men pursuing her.

Luckily, fortune favored her and she's managed to work hard enough to get her own ship, but she's gotten the feeling through her life that Matushka's not thrilled with her family and so...perhaps she's going to head out to Montaigne.

I get an extra five points for a well-written character history, so I think that I shall do it in the form of...can you guess? A journal. I know. It's shocking.

BTW, if you don't game, this entire entry can be summed up with "dork dork dork."

See...this is why I left paganism.

If I believed in a heaven, I don't think I could believe it's only for some.

This is a comment in response to someone else's hope that anyone killed in the Israel/Lebanon conflict, including terrorists is escorted straight to "paradise" by flights of angels.

See, this is where the touchy-feely nature of paganism/neo-hippie-liberalism/diversity theory/everyone-is-good-and-no-one-is-ever-bad-and-we-should-all-just-get-along crowd loses me. No, everyone is not good, and no, heaven isn't just some speakeasy gin joint where you go when you've got nothing else to do.

If you break the rules, or you refuse to acknowledge the things that God requires from adherents to Chrisitianity, then...um...right. You and I probably aren't going to be hanging out at the same shows in the afterlife. I mean, I'm NOT saying that you're going straight to Hell, do not pass "Go," do no collect $200, but I am saying that you and I probably won't have the same IP address, okay?

I mean, seriously, why is it that anyone should be allowed to get into the Christian Heaven? I'm not asking to bebop on over to the Sumerlands, or take the three-day-tour of Tir nan Og, or to go hang out at the Hindu after-hours party. But for some reason, Heaven's just supposed to be open to all comers, regardless of whether or not they're actually Christian.

How does that work again? Heaven's not a charity event, tickets to be purchased at the door if you forgot to get them at the office.

Seriously.

I used to think, when I was neo-pagan, that if I were wrong about the whole paganism thang, and I died and ended up in front of God, He'd look at me, tell me I wasn't a bad kid, pat me on the head and let me on in, but I was wrong. I might not be a bad person, but that's not the litmus test of whether or not you get into heaven. It's not whether or not you kicked puppies or stole candy from babies. I mean, God's not thrilled when you do that kind of stuff, but you could probably do all that and still make it in (although I swear you'd better be sitting in the nosebleed section at the Garth Brooks concert in the afterlife) but there's one important thing you have to do.

You have to profess a belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of the Living God, and all that other nifty stuff in the Nicene Creed. You know the one I'm talking about. If you need, I can hum a few bars.

Seriously, it goes something like this:

I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages.

Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not created, of one essence with the Father through Whom all things were made.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.

He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.

And He rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

And He will come again with glory to judge the living and dead. His kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Creator of life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets.

In one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen.

That's part of the whole deal. You gotta hang with us on this whole belife in Christ thing. If not, you're not a Christian, and you don't get to sneak past the velvet rope to get in to hang with who we think are the cool kids. Your party is next door. BTW, that's some pretty kickin' music. Can we borrow your DJ?

I guess it's not inclusive enough to make some people happy, but hey...them's the breaks.

(The exact quote is: I pray that the children, and civilians, and soldiers, and even terrorists that die in this conflict are taken straight to paradise and welcomed by flights of angels.

My comment to the OP was that this was where we parted ways.)

Go me!

I figured out how to change the width for the text on my blog. I am teh shiznit, lemme tell ya.

I'm also in the middle of another argument on LJ. Have a I mentioned that I'm incapable of passing by a post and not opening my big yap? I'm also incredibly grateful for this blog so that I can natter in peace, mostly. :-) I like being me, and sometimes, having to fake being someone else, someone who is unfailingly polite and conciliatory gets old.

Ah well. Such is life.

Now, if I can just figure out how to tweak out the blog a bit further. :-)

Have a killer headache...

And I don't know why.

Owie.

Phone calls and distance...

Oh, and driving! If I haven't mentioned it, or if John hasn't, I'm a terribly impatient driver. Terribly. Horribly. Awfully. I tend to get really wound up while driving and I've been known to yell and berate people at the top of my lungs if they do something I consider to be stupid or inconsiderate.

Granted, they may think they were perfectly justified in making that lane change, but they didn't check with me first, and do I have news for them! I mean, seriously. Why exactly didn't they read my mind and figure out that I wasn't in the mood to slow down for their silly butt? However, I do think it's dangerous, as well as stupid, for someone to move into a lane doing 10-15 mph slower than the other traffic in that lane and then...not get out of the freakin' lane! Hello?

Anyway, I got stuck in traffic this morning. Bad traffic and it caused me to miss my crazy-person appointment. I called to let them know that I'd be late, and she said that if I didn't make it in my 0915, to not bother. I looked at the speed of traffic, the next exit sign, and asked to reschedule the appointment. The ever-helpful Bernadette (I've dealt with her before) informed me that she'd let Dr. Wolf know, and danged near hung up in my ear. I managed to get her attention long enough to ask to reschedule the appointment, and she told me that Dr. Wolf would call me to reschedule. That worked so well last time, that it's been over 60 days since my last appointment. So...looks like I'll call back next week and get another appointment.

Foo.

I know that I had a point in here somewhere. I really really did. Somewhere. I'll find it shortly, I'm sure.

Then, I won't be on the computer, and I'll just forget it again.

I hate being blonde.

OH! Phone calls. I've gotten to talk to John three times in the past 12 hours and it's been wonderful. I'm actually feeling pretty upbeat and optimistic and the next six months aren't looking like the death sentence they were. Oh, it still sucks and it's still way longer than I want to spend away from my darling husband, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm relatively sure it's not a train. Relatively. Mostly.

So...one of the girls in my unit is trying to get me to go to OCS with her. Gah. How scary is that? Me, an occifer. John's all about it, but I would have to start running now. I need to anyway, but gah. Let me repeat. Gah.

The plan for the Iron Dress proceed apace and I think that I'm going to take apart another dress for the forepart. It's a maroon wool, and the cloth that I'm thinking of using would look great with a maroon wool forepart, or even a maroon wool bodice...Hmmm.

Great. Now I've got more ideas. Someone stop me. Please?

W00tness!

And there is much w00tness! More to follow later.

Suffice to say, it's a good thing. Sadly, it's not about John, but it's still good. Good thoughts and prayers appreciated.

Well...what to say?

God, what a wonderful two weeks. How fast they flew by, but oh! How wonderful they were!

I don't even know what to say, except that I miss having him here already. It might have something to do with having to make my own coffee this morning, but it's more than that.

It's not waking up with a warm body curled up behind me, or rather, not waking up when that warm body gets out of bed to stagger bounce to the coffee-maker and then return holding a coffee cup triumphant.

It's not snuffling into that mug while sitting at the breakfast bar and watching him fix pancakes or eggs (which he hates) or whatever while I blink blearily at him and he natters on like I'm actually awake.

It's not having the need for another pillow on the bed, and not having to bump him back with my butt as he creeps across the centerline of the bed to snuggle. It's also not clinging to the side of the mattress like a particularly robust mountain goat because he's a bedhog, but I'll take that any day over not having him here.

It's not giggling maniacally at him at 0114 while wrestling on the living room floor, and not hearing him giggle back while wheezing about how we have to talk about the fact that I'm an insane night person.

It's not rolling my eyes at the towels tossed casually over the top of the bathroom doors to dry, or the hand-towel stuffed on a bar. It's not being able to wander into the kitchen and ask him if he wants to take a shower with me, even if there's no nookie involved.

It's not being able to rub my face against his right after he's shaved and smelling his shaving cream. It's not laughing when he tells me (again) that he really likes the smell of my hairspray, and not laughing when he gives me that "WTF?" look when I bury my nose at the base of his throat and tell him how much I love the way he smells after a long day.

It's a lot of "nots" right now, but looking back on the past two weeks, there have been so many "haves" that I can hardly believe he's mine, and that he's actually still in love with me. The past two weeks...how to describe them, except as a gift from God?

We did get to spend time with the 'rents, and that was wonderful. I think that we managed to squick his brother with the gooeyness that is us, but that was fun, too. Jason was very patient when we were role-playing and didn't throw a single miniature at us, too. :-D Very cool.

One downside, and it was a pretty big one, was that Ryan, John's cousin, ended up in the hospital. He and John's family went to Austin with us for liturgy, but Ryan ended up not feeling well, and vomiting, so...we ended up at the ER with him. I'm a bit more of a worry-wart than I like to let on, but God, I was so scared.

He's an insulin-dependent diabetic, and he ended up in DK. It appears that he had a lovely viral stomach bug (which he kindly shared with both John and me) and when he got to throwing up, he couldn't stop it, and that just sent his blood-sugar out of control. Evidently, there was some concern about him not taking care of himself while he was here, but the blood-work showed some viral ickiness, and then John and I both got sick and...so...he got out of the hospital yesterday evening and I put him on a plane this afternoon. I would cheerfully have kept him, but he's got a life in Virginia and needed to get back to it. Foo, I say.

Well, that's about it for me. I need to see if I can find my flippin' corset so that I dont' have to make another for the Iron Dress competition, and get to work on that. Gah.

BTW, in case anyone is wondering...

I'm handling this much, much much much much better than I did last time. I've got support in place and a routine to get back to, so I'm not sunk in nearly as deep a depression as I was worried I would be. I have an appointment with the shrink on Thursday, and the GP on the 27th, so I'm also trying to get better about taking care of myself. I've promised John that I would eat better than I had been and I will.

Anyway, I should go curl up and get the vestiges of this headache to go away. John, I love you and miss you greatly.

Right now I hurt....

And I don't know when it will get better. We've only got six months left, and since we've been playing this game for about 23 months at this point, we could do it standing on our heads, but oh my heart hurts. I'm so tired of saying goodbye, and I know that we got married in spite of the looming separation, but still, it aches.

He is my best friend. He is the person I want to wake up with (although we could work on the time we wake up...) and the person I want to see before I close my eyes at night.

Well, well, well....

This is interesting...

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins.

I'll quote a few of the things that John and I found interesting.

"Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church."

I've heard this, over and over again. No one wants to be part of some stodgy church that isn't hip or whatever the newest bit of wisdom is.

"It is not entirely coincidental that at about the same time that Episcopalians, at their general convention in Columbus, Ohio, were thumbing their noses at a directive from the worldwide Anglican Communion that they "repent" of confirming the openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire three years ago, the Presbyterian Church USA, at its general assembly in Birmingham, Ala., was turning itself into the laughingstock of the blogosphere by tacitly approving alternative designations for the supposedly sexist Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Among the suggested names were "Mother, Child and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer and Friend." Moved by the spirit of the Presbyterian revisionists, Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher held a "Name That Trinity" contest. Entries included "Rock, Scissors and Paper" and "Larry, Curly and Moe."

In fact, I think the Presbyterians have given us a whole new set of things to giggle over.

"When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church."

Boy, you ain't just whistling Dixie.

"So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure."

I've mentioned it before, and I'll say it again. There are some things I don't agree with the Orthodox Church on, but I still won't leave. I expect my faith to be comforting, but not comfortable.