Where does the time go?

On this day, 12 years ago, Mike said, "Hey, I kinda like you." I replied, "Yeah, you're okay too."

On this day, 3 years ago, Mike said, "Hey, I'm marrying you." I replied, "Oh, shit."

Okay, so those aren't exact quotes. Still though, 12 years is mind-boggling. 12 years is seriously encroaching on half my lifetime (a fact that I am resentful of, incidentally). There are people on my board who were three years old when our non-friendly relationship was tentatively broached (and I'm resentful of that as well).

I had plans for this year. Plans which fell through due to three key issues. One involved unexpected family loss. The second involved the-disease-abbreviated-as-fm. The third involved my ability to completely lose track of days, weeks, even months at a time. In other words, I come into our 12th anniversary with empty arms.

I suck.

So in an effort to make amends, I do something rare for me -- I bare myself in a semi-public arena. (Not that kind of bare.)

12 Things I Love About You
The Random, Non-Sequential Edition

1. The vigor with with you play with Jett. You don't just sort of toss the ball or kind of wrestle for the bone. When you play with Jett, it's a full-on, lip-curling, growl-invoking extravaganza.
   
2. How, when your hair gets all mussy and stands up at strange, odd angles, although you hate it, you keep it that way because I think it's cute.
   
3. Your intent, unrivaled enthusiasm at sharing knowledge with me. Whenever there's something you know that I don't, there's no arrogance, no ego ... there's only a sudden intense need to teach.
   
4. The way that when I come to bed, even if you're dead asleep, you always manage to at least make a little happy noise.
   
5. The visible thrill you get when you puzzle something out. Something scientific, mathematical, literary, video game related ... Your pride and joy at any and each is equal.
   
6. The way that, at your birthday and Christmas time, you regress to all of about three years old.
   
7. How you will go out, absolutely any time for any thing that I may spontaneously want, and you do it like it's something you not only want to do, but that you're genuinely happy to fill whatever momentary void is in my life. Add in to the fact that you have to walk to go get it, and it's even more endearing.
   
8. That thing you do. You know the one.
   
9. The way I can trust that every time I take a shower and you're home, you'll come in after I get out and make sure that spot on my back that's hard to dry gets a proper pat-down.
   
10. The spontaneous little one-word text messages you sometimes send from work.
    
11. Even though nine times out of ten it results in a furious blush and desire to hide myself away forever, the fact that when it comes to making me laugh, you have zero shame.
    
12. The way that you're always, always, always there when I need you.

Jet Wolf wuvs her Dork Boy.

In less "gragh"y news ...

Mike's 11-day vacation began today. And the day before he goes back to work, Amy arrives for a week. Wow, I'm so used to being on my own (well, except for Jett) what am I gonna do with, like 18 straight days of having people around? I'm thinking possible murder spree.

On the flip side, I today (finally!) finished prosing Ep14 after many, many delays which I shall mostly blame on the Olympics. Which, I must confess, I'm glad will be over soon so they can stop distracting me so. Tomorrow I shall likely spend all day in the editing process. Never fun, but so very necessary. In a rare show of optimism, I'm hoping to at the very least write the teaser for 15 (working title of "Rebirth" ... see how good it is to check my Blog?) tonight. Seeing as how I've spent all day trying my best not to fall asleep and there's those pesky Olympics again, I can't say how likely I think that is. And then I just remembered that I haven't done the poster for 14 yet ... shit.

Today Mike presented me with a bit of a surprise ... Jem volume one. Yes, I now own Jem DVDs. I think I laughed for a good ten minutes when he gave them to me. Also with them I received a rough copy of his Jem Drinking Game rules, which he will be soliciting my help in refining, and confirmation that we will be playing some time within the next few days.

I know of only one rule that absolutely must be included -- "Pizzazz becomes 50+ feet tall: chug."

They test me!

Gryah! Why do they keep thwarting my attempts to get all the Tara figures? First the Women of Sunnydale one, now this ... ARG!

Now what will I spend my money on?

Yeah, so it was the weakest season after "CwDP". And okay, so the cover art is easily the suckiest of them all, with an inexplicable reuse of an SMG promo pic from the previous year and <eye roll> Spike. But hey, let's hear it for an obscene number of commentaries, outtakes (which I've seen and are pretty funny ... <wuvvin' Aly>), and the series completion so I can have high quality videos in all respects. And it even has "The Gift" montage. So what the hell, order Buffy S7. Mum, this means you.

Evolve or die.

I was going to make a post/rant later about the Olympics, but then I went and found out that Mike did one and pretty much hit all the points I was going to make. Nicely done: Check it out.

Go Tigers.

You know, I find it very interesting how many American athletes at these games that I keep hearing are from my old college, LSU. I mean, what the hell? People from Louisana have no business doing well at things. <smirk>

Better.

I'm happy to report that after almost a week of much discomfort, my throat is back to normal again. Or close enough for me, anyway. Hooray for solid foods! Now if only I could get my appetite back ...

The fatigue is still an issue. I actually slept until 11am today, which is unheard of these days. And I still half feel like I could lay down and just nod right off. Very irritating, but at least I still have a month before school starts again.

Ep14 (tentatively entitled "Empowered", for those of you Chosen fans reading this) has been scripted. Novareinna, being over in London settling up all of grandad's affairs, obviously won't be able to help with the prosing process, but I think I can get it done with little problem. Since Mike's off today, I don't know how much prosing I'll get done, but with some concentrated work on Monday and Tuesday, all should be well.

I saw an ad today that cracked me up. It shows a fair-haired little pixie-like girl, dancing on the front lawn. She was all happy, and it was telling us all about how much she had to look forward to in her life. Oh, except for the fact that when she got older she'd have to deal with the over hundred billion dollars that Bush had spent in Iraq. Of course, this sweet, innocent child's expression fell, and she looked near on the verge of tears. Then we see that the ball and chain is not only figerative, it's literal, and she's unable to move under the weight of the ball shackled to her ankle.

I mean, they might as well just come out and said, "Bush is evil. He makes your child cry and tortures kittens for fun."

Don't get me wrong, I'm as anti-Bush as the next person, but come on. Try some subtlety, please. It'd make a nice refreshing change.

One-Two Punch.

It's so sad it's almost funny - I just got word that my other grandfather died yesterday. This is the one on my father's side, and I won't even pretend to be even a fraction of as close to him as I was to Ted, but ... <shaking head>

Ups and Downs.

I feel pretty crappy today. Though I'm assured that my throat problem is, slowly but surely, clearing up (and it's certainly not getting worse) I think I've just had enough of it now. And I just feel poopy all around. Very tired, very much like I want to do nothing but sit here and stare at the wall ... but I'm so close to finishing Ep14 and really desperately need to get it done, and it's not like I can even sleep and ... bleah.

However there's some good stuff in today. With everything else going on, I forgot that I won that "Best Willow/Xander Author" thingie at the Willowy Goodness Awards. I was reminded of it when I received another nomination today over at Walk with Heroes for "The Thought was Nice". So thanks to those who nominated and those who voted. You've brightened my day considerably.

Assorted Randomness

As I try to snap out of the disoriented state the phone woke me up to, I thought I'd toss out a few random things that nobody really cares about.

• This MST3K tape that I just found and had never watched before (while sober) is so old, it has a movie promo for Sister Act on it.
  
• I'm surprised that for all the Buffy sites I check out pretty regularly, I hadn't heard that Eric Balfour had a new series. Hawaii, apparently, unless my eyes keep lying to me during every Olympics commercial break.
  
• Speaking of, I really, really hate Bob Costas. And pretty much the entire American commentating team during these Olympics.
  
• I'm really sick of my tonsils practically touching.
  
• If I have to eat one more bowl of soup, I'm going to cry.
  
• Combining the high and low versions, "Always" has become my most downloaded Buffy video, at 976 downloads. Or, well, after the S8 opening. That sucker's at 1901 downloads.

And now I'm back to trying to write, as I feel semi-awake again. Stupid fucking mono.

Welcome to Paradox

The fatigue is the biggie with fucking mono (and yes, that is its new full name). But interestingly, one of the side effects for the steroids I'm on is insomnia. Now I'm something of an insomniac anyway, so I didn't think it'd affect me much.

Based on last night -- wrong. I drifted off to fitful starts and stops of sleep around 11pm last night, waking up every half an hour or so. Then at about midnight-30, I couldn't go back to sleep until gone 3am. Cue another round of repeated wakings up, until at 5:45am or so, I couldn't sleep again at all.

And now my headhurts and I'm verging on becoming whiny.

It never rains ...

The past few days, I've been suffering a bit from throat problems. I felt almost constantly like there was something caught in my throat that I couldn't dislodge. It wasn't particularly painful, but it was bloody irritating. In light of recent news, it was pretty well overshadowed and I mostly ignored it. And then yesterday morning, I woke up to unbelivably huge tonsils.

Now when I say "huge", I don't know that I'm painting a sufficient enough picture for you. I'd say my glands had swollen to about the size of golf balls. My tonsils were so close together that, quite literally, I had less than a finger's width of space between them. It was ... woah. I could still breath mostly okay, but as the day progressed, they began to swell up a little bit more, and I was suddenly struck with the mental image of me choking to death in the night. I wasn't fond of that mental image.

So off we went to the doctor, with me proclaiming all the while that this year, in many respects, has sucked ass for me. But off we went. You know your condition is pretty bad when the nurse checks your throat and, in a stunned voice, goes "Wow." She swabbed to test for strep, then left. I saw the doctor next -- and she echoed the "Wow." -- and they found out that it wasn't strep. Next came the blood test, and then the results.

I have mono.

I have fucking mono.

How the hell did this happen? And why the hell did it have to be a disease with such a stigma? JW-kissage is Mike-exclusive, and, like, I hate people so I'm rarely around them ... I really and truly am at a loss for how I got it. It's transmitted like a cold or the flu, so our best guess is that Mike was exposed to it at a young enough age that he developed the immunity and became a carrier, and that he got it from someone at work and passed it to me.

But still. Fucking mono.

So, for the next month, give or take a week, I have a course of steroids to take for the swelling ... not the fun performance kind either, though I find a vague sense of irony that I'm sitting on the couch taking steroids while watching the Olympics.

And then there's the extreme fatigue to look forward to. Me, I'm wondering where the hell the extreme fatigue has been. I mean I've really just had what is, for me, normal fatigue. I guess I'd noticed me nodding off more during the day for the past week or so, but I just thought I was really lazy, coupled with the extreme heat. But there's been no real fever, save for a week or so back when I had a bad couple of days of feeling crappy and spiked at 102°, but ...

I can't just have strep like normal people, ooohhhh nooooo. I have to have fucking mono.

It's all relative.

It's funny. Earlier today, I had every intention of sitting down, right about this time, and start complaining about the Olympics. Cuz it's that time again you know, and once again we're stiffed. Is it so wrong to want to see the opening ceremonies when they're actually occuring? Shouldn't seem like we're asking too much.

But a few hours can make a heck of a lot of difference.

In the time period between then and now, my grandfather's died.

It's really hard to try and articulate this. It's probably the biggest loss I've ever experienced, and I suppose I still feel sort of in shock. My mother aside, my grandfather was the blood relative that I felt closest to. For all intents and purposes, he filled the void my own father could never be bothered to fill, and ... Well, it's an odd day when I find myself pretty much without words, but here we have one.

And I don't know what else to say. So instead, I'm sharing these. I don't have many here with me -- most of my photos are still in Louisiana. But I had these scans ... and all told, this is a pretty shitty tribute. Really shitty, actually. But it'll probably be the best I can manage. Quite the wordsmith am I, eh? Hope these stocked up on their requisite thousand words each.

Now how much would you pay?

Up for less than a day, and it's already got a $1500 bid. Ahh, to have that kind of money ...

Hostway - I love them.

I'm going to take a moment to do something that I rarely do, and that's to actually praise someone that I pay money to.

I've been with Hostway since I first opened up jetwolf.com in June 2000. Out of all the companies I've ever had to deal with for any stretch of time, I think that Hostway is by far the best. Their technical support is top-notch (not that I've often needed it, but every time I have, they respond within about an hour), everything is solid and my site is rarely down for more than about half an hour every once in a very rare blue moon, and their packages just keep getting better and better.

In the past year, for the exact same price I've been paying since 2002 or so when I upgraded, they've upped my bandwidth to unlimited and, as of today, nearly tripled my file count to 30,000 and doubled my server space to 1.2 GB. And all that's for under $30/month.

If you're in the market for webhosting, you really should consider checking out Hostway. jetwolf.com, ultrace.com, novareinna.com, asifcomic.com and btvschosen.com can't be wrong.

<passes out>

Ep13 is completely complete. All edited, all ready to go. Only took me about a week and a half longer than I wanted it to. Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to write ... as proven my my headache. Jeebus. And now it's time to leap almost immediately into 14 so I can try and reclaim lost time. Arg.

</bitch>

Hold me.

I just received this piece of spam with the following subject: "polyhedron they'd stirrup".

I'm oddly terrified.

Completion.

The revised version of "Groove Thang" is now up and available for download at 4Paws. I also added a mailing list for ease of keeping up with updates to that section. Though if you're reading the Blog, you'll probably see them here anyway, but ...

DVD Mysteries

I wonder if it means anything that whenever I open my S6 DVD set, the Willow and Tara discs are always on top of each other.

Even more disturbing though ... does it mean anything that whenever I open my S4 DVD set, the Oz and Spike discs are on top of each other? O_o

It's Vivid.

The folks over at Vividcon have contacted me and asked me for a high-quality copy of "Groove Thang" to show at their fanvid convention. Very exciting stuff. Despite having been making vids for years (sporadically, true, but), this will be the first time any of them will, to my knowledge, be shown to a group of people. All I can say is, I'm glad I'm not there. :P

Unfortunately, as it turns out, I don't HAVE a higher quality version of that one, as it comes from a time before I was saving them. So it looks like it's upstairs for me, as I recreate this bad boy. I figure I'll actually cut it all direct from DVD (save a couple of S7 ones, which I obviously can't do that for just yet) for highest quality. Which will take approximately five times longer, but will be worth it in the end, methinks.

I figure most of today will be shot working on that, which means tomorrow is a high concentrate of prosing.

Ahh, so much to do, so little time ...

A New Bar is Set

I've decided that my previous upper limit of what is disturbing needs to be reset. What now tops the meter is listening to your husband singing the Jem theme song. There's just something not quite right about a man in his upper twenties singing, "Me and my friends are Jem girls!"

We just watched "The Bands Break Up", which is the one where Kimber and Stormer leave their respective groups. Mike decided to turn it into "Kimber and Stormer's Lesbian Adventure". Little 11-year old me is aghast.

Today's me, however, is rolling.

And don't even get him started on the Misfits. "I have needs ... You two, attend me!" <dies laughing>