I Hate Auction Sites.

Seriously, I do.

I'm selling a pile of our shit on the Kiwi version of Ebay to pare down the crapload of things we have to mail to the US and let me tell you, it sucks. By the time I've ironed, photographed, measured, and written up the description and price requirements and submitted them to be posted, a sizable bite out of an hour is gone. Multiply that by the whole stack of clothing and the time in my day is going by much faster than I'd hoped and they are still not all listed!! Who knew it took so long to post a shirt on one of those bloody sites!?!

Kudos to the people who actually make a living doing this stuff! I'll be so glad when it's all sold and mailed off to the new owners. They'd all better sell damn it.

Especially because I've probably spent more buying stuff off that site recently than I will make selling the clothes! *snort* But it was worth it, I had to have a travel case for the laptop so I was hunting a purse/laptop case combo to make the whole airport juggle a bit easier. I found it! It's red leather, very sexy.

So...anyone wanna come pack up my flat? Hmmm? I'll feed you well (with take-outs). It's warm and sunny here! There's a beach not even 5 minutes away! What's that? The plane ticket is too expensive? *sighs* If only we'd win lotto...

Less than 4 weeks to go! I'd bite my nails but there isn't much left to bite at this point...

That old melancholy feeling.

Tonight we booked one-way tickets to the US. In 5 weeks we'll be saying goodbye to New Zealand and starting anew somewhere in the States.

I know I should be ecstatic about it, but I'm not. All I feel is this deep sense of melancholy. We've been planning to leave NZ since before I even moved here, but now the plans are so permanent and I find myself asking "Why are we moving?". I know all the logical reasons why, I just can't seem to give a shit about them anymore. Who leaves a place that makes them happy for the unknown that could bring them misery? Apparently we do. What the fuck is up with that?

Okay, I'll admit it...I'm scared. Not just a little, I mean I am completely overwhelmed by this huge fear that is sitting squarely on my chest. I think it's having a lovely chat with the neurotic panic and paranoia currently circling 'round in my mind. The two of them are having quite the party with my sanity (what little I have).

I suppose the fact that I've been sick since New Year's with some "tummy bug" (as named by the urgent care doc I saw) that seems more like a tummy gila monster is not really helping the matter any. I haven't been able to take most of my medication so I'm feeling really grand at the moment if you catch my drift.

I have an ENTIRE FLAT FULL OF SHIT to sort, sell off, or pack and ship, but instead of doing that I'm sitting here with this "deer caught in the headlights" dazed look on my face, in between the bouts of hysterical tears.

I've been trying to find my happy place, but I think it's on vacation indefinitely. Probably sunning itself on the same tropical beach as my sanity. Bastards.

Stickers on laptops--why?

I'm selling my laptop to a friend (it's only about a year old) because we came across a great deal on a new one for a fraction of its original sale price and I needed an upgrade. Yay! While comparing the two I noticed I've been picking around the edges of the stickers on the older one. I don't remember doing it at all, in fact I've been trying really hard to leave them alone!

What is with the stickers anyway? Are they like adware-sticker style? Will computer manufacturers start auctioning off the "sticker spaces" to the highest bidder, you know, sort of like SUN auctioning for whose bull shit tool bars to include with their JAVA downloads? I get that some people think certain stickers (like ones indicating the processor or graphics card) give them visual bragging rights to the awesomeness of whatever is housed inside the plastic/metal shell, but I'm not big on the whole name brand thing and I'm not geeky enough to get a little tingly in my pants over the specs of a laptop! Do others not notice this, or do they just not care? Am I the only one who can't ignore the giant eyesores stuck below the keyboard?

Chris asked me why I don't just take them off and I don't have a good answer. There isn't any crucial info on them, it's only the ones with the warranty number and such on the underside of the computer that have to be left alone. So why do I not feel like I can just take the unimportant ones off? Hmmm...

I know, we can blame it on my childhood! *snort* I've been getting in trouble for peeling labels, stickers, band-aids, price tags, etc...since I was a little kid. When things are smooth and seem like they belong, I'm okay with leaving them be. But as soon as one little corner starts to lift up or the sticker looks like it doesn't belong there, I can't leave them alone until I've peeled them off! Unless of course I've been forbidden to do so, then I just THINK about peeling them off and try desperately to ignore them.

I guess since the stickers are on there all official looking I took it to mean I wasn't allowed to mess with them. But am I wrong? Can I really take them off? No one is going to give me hell for it like I got when I tore the tag off my pillow as a kid? Am I really asking this question? Why has it never occured to me that I could take the ugly things off!?!

On and on and on...

On Dentists--I have the most kickass dentist in the world. That's high praise coming from a major dental-phobe. I have more to say about him and the wonderful office he and his brother run, but for now, this will have to do. I've had 2 teeth pulled by him in the last week, both which were broken for various reasons. Most would opt to have them surgically removed since often trying to pull them causes the whole tooth to break, in which case they have to then go surgical and cut it out with some of the bone. But he was up for trying to get them out without all that and in the end they came out without breaking because the man has skills and is so damn patient!

Granted, I could feel some of the pulling today, fuck did that hurt! But it's not his fault they can't deaden the nerve there. The main nerve that gives sensation to the lip/chin area on that side of my jaw runs close to the root area of my back teeth, which can make numbing up a challenge, and since I already have problems with local anesthetic wearing off too fast or not working at all, that doesn't help matters. He did get it numbed better than anyone else ever has though, so kudos to the man!

I'm looking into ways to clone him (along with my Rheumatologist) so I can take them to the US with me 'cause I've never had such great care before. Usually I cry over having to go see the dentist, and now I'm going to end up crying over having to leave this dentist! What is the world coming to?

On week 2 of mushy foods--I miss my fresh, crunchy fruits and veggies, and I miss chewing food! LOL

On NaNoWriMo--Anyone else notice that a goal turns into a convenient whip in the hands of an obsessive perfectionist?? I am so guilty of that, and it's gotta stop. I've over the last few years been able to temper my inclinations towards things like that pretty well, but obviously I have more work to do in that area.

So I'm taking the wisdom on the topic that Jackie said in response to my last blog post and reminding myself that in the same way I've learned to give myself grace about other things, I need to be all zen-like about this as well. If I hit 50,000, WOO HOO!! If I don't, well, I still have more than when I began. One needs to enjoy the journey and release our attachment to the finish line, right? That doesn't mean we never reach any of our goals because we don't strive for them. Not at all. It just means remembering that the journey is just as important (if not more so) than meeting the goal we've set, and that as long as we've learned things and gained new experiences along the way, it's still a win, even if we don't reach our goal the first time around.

That said, I'm still going to try my damnedest to reach it! I wrote a shitload last night, so my count is a bit over 11,000 right now, but a lot of that is very "stream of consciousness" and random. I think it'll help give me topics on which to expound on at a later time this month, so it's all good!

Keep up the good work all my NaNo writers out there!!

My NaNoWriMo word count is mocking me!

Yes, it totally is. It's bad! I must confess that I actually haven't written anything since Nov.4th...today is the 9th, 5 days people, 5 bloody days behind!

"Why so behind?" you ask. Take damn elections in the US and NZ mixed with a little misery from my missing tooth, heaping spoonfuls of disbelief, sorrow, and angst over the whole anti-gay ballot initiatives passing, and a really generous dash of "psycho-bitch" attitude that I've had going on for the last 3 days, blend well with ice, pour into a lovely sugar rimmed glass and you too can have a taste of the potent brew (otherwise known as the emotional disaster that lives in my mind) that I've been intoxicated with the last few days!

In that state it seems I can't focus my brain enough to write things I actually have to think deeply about! *sighs* I woke up this morning thinking that maybe the nice me would make an appearance today so that I could get something useful done. After getting a slow start to the morning I decided to make pancakes for lunch to experiment with the coconut flour my mom sent from the US. Didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped for, which caused me to "tweak" things a bit, and things got worse and then....my not so sane self took over and for the millionth time this week Chris gave me that look that says "Who are you and what the hell have you done with my Wahz?" (Wahz--Chris' nickname for me)

Yeah.

Note to self: Do not attempt cooking when psychoself is lurking in the shadows, ready to have a nervous breakdown over every little imperfection!

So now, hours later, I'm writing this blogpost so that one more thing can be crossed off my list of "Excuses to use in order to procrastinate from working on NaNoWriMo". My work-in-progress is open, as is my NaNoWriMo profile with my word count. They are staring at me, mocking me for ignoring them for the past week. Since when did text files and word counts get so mouthy?

I swear though, readers of my blog, I WILL make progress on my wordcount today! If for no other reason than I don't want to be a whole week behind...and I'm having a wisdom tooth taken out tomorrow. I know, 2 teeth out within a week of each other? Bit masochistic of me, but I'm terribly impatient and would rather it all be done and over with as soon as possible.

Alright, I've gone and done it now...

Yes I did, I've joined NaNoWriMo! So anyone who happens to read this and is in NaNo land, let me know we can hook up and whinge over our writing together!

Check it out:


That says "Rebel" because I don't know that what I'm writing will qualify as fiction, although to be honest parts of my life sure do read like it! *snort*