c'mon karma, didn't you know I was kidding?

yesterday I told karma to suck it. probably a bad idea.

today i kind of want to rub karma with sandpaper and then dunk it in salt-water. the stingy kind. i want to make karma pay.

last night i had a miscarriage. the reason my brain has been dead the past couple weeks? i was pregnant. only 3 weeks along, and still totally freaked out/not sure what i was going to do/feeling like crap pregnant, but still. karma didn't have to come and take my baby away. it could have let me decide for myself what i wanted, couldn't it?

backstory: three weeks ago i took Plan B. two days ago (monday) I went in to get an IUD inserted, and they told me I was pregnant. Shock and crying and excitement and every other freaking emotion followed. last night, after a lovely dinner of spaghetti carbonara and roma tomato/basil/mozzarella salad, i started bleeding. lots and lots of heavy bleeding for a couple of hours. lots and lots of heavy crying as well. went in to the doctor today - and i'm not pregnant anymore.

my doctor told me that Plan B works by keeping you from ovulating, and it does this by giving you a million times the hormones you usually have. It says that it doesn't harm the embryo/fetus/whatever if ovulation does occur - and many women go on to have perfectly normal pregnancies.

however, my doctor said that what it does do is make it very, very hard for the embryo to implant. sometimes you still get a positive pregnancy test, if the embryo implants partway, or just hangs out really close to your uterine wall. then you still produce the HGC pregnancy hormone and your test is positive. she believes that was the case with me.

it was a relief to hear that she didn't think it had anything to do with my fertility, or anything that I had done 'wrong', and i feel better today than I did last night. i think i'm in the numb stage of grief? denial? i'm definitely not angry, just kind of floaty, and sad, and wondering why the hell so many crazy things have been happening lately.

i also don't really know who to tell, or what to tell them. i feel like 3 weeks pregnant shouldn't be that big of a deal, and I didn't even know if i wanted it anyway. but to have it taken away is just kind of....hard. and i don't know how well i can really function at work, and at school, and at my other side job, and my internship right now. it's all a little bit much to handle.

guess you shouldn't fuck with karma.

alumni.

i got my park scholar alumni catalog today. the park scholars are a group of scholarship recipients at ithaca college, where i got my undergrad degree. it's a sweet scholarship - totally full ride. they pay your tuition, a stipend for rent, food, books, and even pay for a computer your freshman year. it's truly amazing - and i'm still trying to figure out why i got it. going to an art high school helped, and being first in my class - but i always felt way out of my league with the people in that group.

which leads me to the alumni catalog. i dread it. i loathe it. every year i get one, and contemplate just throwing it away without opening it.

don't get me wrong - i didn't have any enemies there, and i am interested in what people are up to. here's my problem: it makes me feel like a complete and total loser. because the people from that group? they're out in the world, moving and shaking. one writes for a big name magazine, one is on the abc morning news in Syracuse. some of my friends from the group are writers, or getting a law degree, or in medical school, or producing films. big films.

seriously? you know my biggest accomplishment in the last year? hmmmm.......let's see. i got a cat. i paid off my credit card. i didn't kill my boss.

i'm a receptionist. i answer phones. i'm also borderline mentally ill, and have a hard time just getting through the day - much less changing the freaking world. what happened to me? what did those judges see in me - fresh out of high school - that made them think i belonged in a group of kids that deserved a free ride?

so, at this point, i still open the darn thing. i was a little bit happier this time, because the layout and typography sucked. ha! that's one thing i can do - i could layout that damn brochure better than whatever student they have doing it. go me!

but seriously - should i be upset about this? is it unrealistic to think that i should be changing the world right now? and if it is unrealistic - why are they? i feel like i missed that day in class - the day where they gave you the secrets to following your dreams without having a nervous breakdown.

eh, oh well. there's always next year.

angry.

i'm so angry today. all bottled up frustration and self hate and crabbiness. i want a new job, new friends, new clothes, new life. i need a change - a big one. not a new haircut, or new shoes, or a vacation. i need to turn this ship around and actually do something with my life.

taking that first step is the hardest though. when that change is so big, so scary, so unknown. it's hard to realize that you need to take it slow, one step at a time, one small change at a time that will gradually lead up to the larger change that you want.

my instinct is to quit my job, run for the hills, give away everything i own. spend all of my recently scrimped and saved money because fuck it, i don't have what i want and who says i ever will. besides, even when i save and save it all gets stolen - taken away in a minute - and who knows if it will be replaced.

i had a hard critique in class on tuesday. i don't know if it was really bad, or my brain just made it seem that way. i was really proud of my project, really excited about it - and compared to everyone else's it just seemed ordinary. after the critique i wanted to drop out completely. what's the point of this dream of becoming a graphic designer if i'm not any good? no one is raving over my designs, no one is clamoring to hire me, and i feel like a failure. i really don't want to go to class today.

speaking of failures, my diet is not going well. i start out in the morning well, with my weight control oatmeal and fresh blueberries. i drink diet soda all day, and coffee if i need a pick me up. but right around lunchtime i lose control and have a billion candy bars, or two lunches, etc. dinner is worse - i've been eating out most nights, chinese or vietnamese. food just makes me feel better - but then i go to the gym and step on the scale and ugh.

i just want to take control of my life. fix all these nagging things that are making my life just a little bit worse - and add up to make my life nothing like what i want. i want to be a freelance graphic designer, whose house is clean and cute and who dresses well and always looks nice and goes to the gym and weighs fifteen pounds less. who can wrangle her cat into not biting her and eats right and makes enough money to be safe and happy. who can go to work from home and meet clients for coffee and has the self confidence to put her life on track. or heck, just someone who gets out of bed in the morning and does something more than surf the web all day - that would be nice.

wake up!

c'mon brain, you can do it. just start small - maybe a color. pick one color that you really, really like. is that so much to ask? then maybe, just maybe - give me a hint on a font. Not even a specific font, let's just say serif or sans-serif, or script maybe? now we've got the ball rolling. how about some images? maybe a layout? is that too much to ask?

i've been asking my brain these questions for 2 weeks now - trying to get this catalog homework assignment done. i have the photographs, and i really like them - but that's it. i have NO IDEAS. none. zip. zilch. stick that in your design cliche and smoke it, asshat.

ok, that didn't make sense - but not much is the past few days. all i do at work is stare at my computer screen, and all i do at home is stare at my tv screen. screens are overtaking my life, and apparently my creativity. i'm not even all that interested in anything else. talking to friends? eh. going outside? no thanks. cooking? no way. drinking? well, always....

so yeah, not much to report. it's hard to be witty or interesting when all you do all day is look at what other witty, clever, and inspiring people are doing. i need some motivation, peeps! maybe i'll pick up and sail around the world, or get a new puppy, or run a marathon or get a freaking life. i'll keep you posted.

oh, also? it's 84 degrees in my office today. and my boss won't let us turn on the air. seriously? because dying of heatstroke is sure to make your workplace environment more productive.

doctor visits.

i saw my med doctor today. i've been going to a pain clinic in the twin cities for over 6 months now to deal with ongoing jaw pain issues, migraines, and depression. i see a therapist, a physical therapist, and a medication-doctor/neurologist. i used to see a nurse practitioner as well (who just happens to be the neurologist's wife), but she annoyed the hell out of me didn't work out. so now it's down to the three, and i love my therapist and physical therapist. they are the glue that holds me together on the days when the migraines seem like they really could kill me, or i can't open my mouth far enough to take a bite of my salad at lunch. however, this med guy is a whole different story...

i'm not going to name names, so lets call him hobbit-man. He looks a bit like a hobbit, combined with a weasel. don't get me wrong - i'm sure he's a very nice hobbit-man. he always smiles at me, seems very intelligent, and i've never wondered about the quality of care that i'm getting. my beef is more personality-based i guess. you know that gut tickle that you get about people - the one that's pretty hard to shake, (at least for me)? well, he's like a feather-duster to my gut.











the grievances:

• he's always at least a half an hour late to my appointment, even when i'm the first appointment of the day.
• he uses really big words, and i always feel like he's talking down to me. he makes me feel like a petulant child when i want to change my meds, or bring up a new complication that i'm having.
• he makes me nervous. so nervous that i usually forget what i went in there for - leading to more internal eye-rolling from him. (ok, maybe i'm making up the eye rolling - but the guy just seems annoyed, ok?)
• no matter how many times i politely tell him that i no longer see his wife, he tries to get me to reschedule with her. he also asks why i'm not seeing her - what are you supposed to say to that? because she drives me crazy with her unnecessary head nodding and doesn't listen to a word i say? i think not.
• he also tells me that i should exercise every day, at every appointment, even though i exercise a perfectly reasonable three times a week. he then tells me all about how he rides his exercycle every morning for 15 minutes. while that's great for him - i really, really don't need that mental image every. single. appointment.
  

ok, moral of the story - i don't like going to see hobbit-man. i don't like it so much, that i hardly ever go. which means that my meds don't get checked often, or well, in my opinion. i take lexapro for depression and maxalt for migraines, and lately the combination of them makes me sound like i'm having a stroke (can't find words, slurred speech, etc) - so he cut my lexapro dose down a bit, so hopefully that will help? i also feel like i'm in a coma tired almost all of the time. this is really cutting down on lots of things, like productivity at work, creativity for school, my ability to think of fun blog posts, you name it. it hasn't done wonders for my sex drive either. truth be told, i'd rather be off the meds completely, but because of a fun little mental-hospital incident a month or so back (which I'll write about soon enough), I'm sucking it up and taking them for now.

going to the doctor at least once a week is quite spendy too, as you might imagine. i can't wait for the day when i can put that $100+ a month in my pocket, or put it towards some of the things on my wish list (like a roomba!).

other things on my mind include: starting my own business/freelance work instead of this sit at a desk job. i've been reading the anti 9-5 guide, and loving it, so hopefully that can get my started. schoolwork, as usual, and what to have for dinner tonight. i really want chinese food, but can't find anywhere in minneapolis that delivers! why, minneapolis, why? in ithaca I could get all the food i wanted delivered - pizza, chinese, thai, dessert, you name it. minneapolis - pizza. it's freaking cold here, not to mention the hail and tornadoes lately - why don't more people deliver? i guess that's a business idea for me.....