Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

Yesterday's responses to my call for hysterectomy stories was overwhelming (in a good way) and incredibly helpful. I was touched by the care and compassion of friends and complete strangers, who shared intimate details about their experiences. I fucking love the internet.

This morning I was lying in bed, checking in with my body. I do it every morning. It's my pre-flight check to make sure nothing is so wrong that I might not make it through the workday. I...have never typed that out before, and now that I've done the equivalent of saying it aloud, I realize how bizarre it is. Who does shit like that? Me, I guess. Anyway. I was checking in and made myself aware of the near-constant slight abdominal pressure I've known about for a long time (at least a year, perhaps more). I always thought it was gas or something not sitting right or maybe I just needed to pee. It felt like menstrual cramps, but surely I wouldn't have menstrual cramps if I wasn't at that part of my cycle, right? Lying there this morning, I realized/admitted to myself, that's probably the giant fibroid. Gross.

I don't often have regrets, but I am very much regretting not wearing tights under my skirt today. I am freezing. I've got a lot going on this weekend, but hauling out the winter wardrobe on Saturday is a must. I don't have a record of when I switched out wardrobes last year, but I think this might be a record for lateness thereof. Hurray for boots, sweaters, and tights! I am not a fan of cold weather, but I least I enjoy cold weather fashion.

Here's a job I would've been really good at, y'all. But that would also mean living in a big city, so...no. Ah well! Last night at Henna Time I sold hdsqrl and radiantmephit on Hamilton, and that was great. I also started following Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter because he is fucking hilarious and I'm starting to develop such a crush on him.



This has been in my head all week so I'm sharing it with you, too. God damn I love this song so much.

This is me, enjoying my second year of not gearing up for KCRF. Feels good, y'all.

What doesn't feel all that great is the sneaking suspicion that my ongoing headache might be caused by that tooth that needs fixing. Even though the tooth doesn't feel sore at all, the pressure/pain is definitely on that side of my face and most of what I thought was sinus pressure is located right around that area. Soooooo I decided not to wait for a combo filling/impression for bite guard appointment (I have to wait a month for insurance to come through on the bite guard business) and made an appointment to fix the tooth on Thursday of next week. Yay. That's henna day, too, so my henna partners will have a lovely time avoiding my drool and the random henna spill.

I am thinking really hard about taking a vacation day tomorrow for a four-day weekend. My reasons for not just going ahead and doing it are weird and complicated and I'm honestly not sure I understand what's going on in my head, so if someone wants to chime in with thoughts, they're welcome. Basically, I feel like I'll be seen as slacking because I already took off so much time in July. This happened before, where I took off a lot of time in single-day increments and was reprimanded for it and it was complete BS (I mean, it's my vacation time to use as I see fit, right?) but it still bothers me. The other reason is utterly ridiculous. Basically I'm below 175 hours of vacation (172 to be exact) and for some reason that makes me...miserly of my vacation time. One hundred and seventy two hours, though. Come on, Manka. Jesus.

I would like to get some sewing done this weekend, but my dance card for the weekend is filling up in unexpected ways. Not all bad, just unexpected.

I dunno. I dunno. Blah. But at least I'm not sewing last-minute costume stuff for Renaissance Festival. That is a good thing.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha WELL the grad director just stopped in my office on her way out the door and there's something we need to work on together and since she can't stay to do it today she wants to do it tomorrow so I guess that's that decided.

Uncertain about the efficacy/wisdom of yesterday's morning walk. I really enjoyed the walk itself, but by the time 1:00pm rolled around, I was too exhausted to go on my hourly walkabout. My legs were heavy and I needed a nap. This morning I woke at 4am from an uncomfortable dream, but managed to fall back asleep. I woke up at 5:45, which was not quite too late to go to the gym, but my body was just not having it. I barely made it out of bed in time to get ready for work, an hour later. Stupid fucking fatigue issues.

I need to get off my ass about getting seen at the Mayo clinc. The idea of that is so stressful, though. My insurance does work with the clinic in general (I called to check), but I have to make sure that each physician/specialist I see there also contracts with my insurance or the local Blue Cross provider and is a PPO provider. Ugh. I shall postpone thinking about that until after Comic-Con.

Tonight I need to run a bunch of errands so I don't have to go to the south side of town this weekend. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to overschedule my last weekend before leaving for San Diego. Saturday morning I'm headed to Kansas City to see THe Latenight Callers do a brunch show at Record Bar. After that we're stopping at Costco to pick up some stuff (including new tires for one of our fleet of cars). Sunday I've got my session with Andrew and then it's henna time (which takes about six hours for me since I do that two-step process to get it black). I was supposed to do my three-week touch-up session the week I hurt my back. So I didn't do the front and top of my roots during the intervening weeks between the last full-head session and my roots are SO BAD Y'ALL. So bad. It's gonna take a lot of of henna and indigo to cover this shit. I'm mostly gray on top, now. Yeesh.

So if you wanna hear about the uncomfortable dream: The world was very Old West, with horses and hangings, etc. I was the leader of a rebel group (of course) who fought the Evil Government by saving other rebels and protesters from public execution (rather like the Merry Men saving Robin Hood from hanging). I happened on an impromptu hanging (don't you love those) of an old woman who was a librarian fighting censorship. I didn't have any backup, but I managed to save her anyway. I had to have one of the people I was traveling with hold my pet rat, though. He was A Very Good Rat and was slightly sentient and I often had to leave him alone when I went out to save people and I felt bad about that. Then the scene changed and I was in my home and found him in a drawer where he was sick and dying because I'd left him alone for too long and I felt like such a horrible person I had to wake myself up. I'm still feeling a lot of residual sadness for my dream rat. Enough that watching a video of something completely unrelated to rats or sick animals made me tear up.

And this is why I'll never have pets again.

I'm gonna be sad when Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart break up. They're so cute together.

I think I might have figured out a physical goal that is not dependent on my crazy body issues. I might join CrossFit Lawrence for a year. No "this many pushups" or "get down to 15% bodyfat" goals. No. Just stick with it for a full year. I need to figure out what my budget will allow. Probably weekly sessions, tops. I think that will be quite a kick in the pants, and kinda fits with Scott Sonnon's thoughts on goal-setting. Because, yeah. The idea of working that hard for a year scares the shit out of me, and lack of routine is one of the common complaints about CrossFit. There are certainly people there who'll be my support and accountability teams! I'm gonna give them a call--see if someone's willing to talk with me even before I sign up for the free intro class.

The Musical Blades show last night was really good. My 20-eyes did not arrive yesterday (tragedy!) so I had to make do with the ankle-boots that arrived on Thursday. My ensemble wound up looking decidedly 60s/70s era skinhead (forgive me, I fucking love that look) and one of the Blades remarked "God I love it when you dress like a thug." Best. Compliment. Ever.

Now I must go run a couple errands before nottygypsy and hdsqrl arrive for Henna Time.

It's a chilly Sunday morning. After yesterday's glorious temperatures, today is a bit of a downer. It doesn't help that it's 9:50 a.m. and I've been up for (can I do the math?) nearly six and a half hours.

Ugh.

Fab fab fab day yesterday wherein nottygypsy and I introduced hdsqrl to the joys of hennaed hair and Due South. I think she was pleased with both. I can't believe I have to wait for another henna application session to get more Benton Fraser. That's another six weeks, people. Nearly the end of the year.

Life is hard.

I have only two more holiday presents to purchase, not counting whatever the hell I'm getting for mckitterick, which I can't count yet because I have no clue at all what it will be and looking at the number of ideas I have and the state of my finances, I'm wondering if a coupon book for sexual favors might suffice. Usually I'm very good at gifting him, but this year I got nothing*.

Anyway, I have two more holiday presents, and I'm trying to decide if I want to venture out today to get them. I love having my holiday shopping done before Thanksgiving, and I haven't managed that the past couple of years. I'd considered spending the entire day in my PJs, but I might need to get out of the house just to get my blood moving.

*Long-time Smoker actors and attenders will get extra amusement from this statement.

mckitterick's schedule and mine haven't meshed this week, so I've been able to fall asleep and wake up on a similar schedule as I would if left to my own devices. Asleep by 9:30 (or, sometimes, 9:00) and up at 5:30 or 6:00. I get up feeling awake, but still tired. I thought the daytime draggy feeling was a result of just staying up too late, but now I guess not. Maybe another indication that I need to move the thyroid meds up a notch? Something else to mention to Dr. Burt.

I'm very pleased and relieved to be heading out to nottygypsy's today for a much needed henna+indigo. I didn't have time to do a root touch-up this month and my white hairs are getting out of control. Craziness! Of course, everyone says they can't see them, but they have got to be lying. Or delusional. Because it's there in black and white, people. Literally.

Last night I pulled myself together enough to run the drills that miischelle's been leading during the Monday classes. My loose shimmy absolutely sucks. After a while, I gave up layering and just did a loose shimmy (or, rather, performed my best attempt at one) for a full song. It's an amazing thing how one's body gets into a muscle memory groove (rut?) and resists attempts to break free. I've got what one dancer referred to as Sonic Shimmy down pat and I can do that for ages without thinking about it. But a loose shimmy? I have to think to myself "one-two-one-two-one-two left-right-left-right-left-right up-up-up-up-up-up" or I fall back into that tight shimmy that's just a hair shy of a vibration. So! Goal! Get that loose shimmy added to your dance repetoire, missy. No more one-trick-pony shimmy. My choo-choos could use some work, too. I fucking hate doing those. Pity they look so awesome.

Thanks to this post on CuteOverload, I have a new desktop background for November. It's appropriate, I think.

I got maybe four hours of sleep last night. Bad, bad, bad G.I. issues. I think maybe I didn't eat enough yesterday, and the protein shake right before bed was a terrible idea. Lesson learned! Today's goal: Eat More. Most of my adult life, I've been diligent about not eating when I'm not hungry or not eating if I don't feel like eating. It's difficult (and weird) to get past that and force myself to eat when I don't wanna.

Another gold star goes to nottygypsy for helping me henna/indigo again last night. I think we've got our mixes/techniques down now. Remember, though, next time: shorter movie!

I'm never ready for winter. Especially since we didn't get much of a summer this year. It arrived late, never got hot for long, and then left early. Hmph.

Last night after I got home from a farewell dinner, my hair smelled like a burger joint (not surprising, considering the location of the dinner) and I couldn't stand to sleep in it. So I washed it, which made me a little nervous. I've been leaving the henna/indigo unwashed for at least five days for everything to settle. But this morning I didn't notice any fading--even after I blow-dried the remaining damp spots before I went to bed. Hurray! And then, thanks to a couple Benedryl, I slept almost all the way through the night. I woke up once, but was able to go back to sleep after fifteen minutes or so. I couldn't believe it was really 7:00 when the alarm went off. It was so dark! Ugh.

Guess what I learned today! I'm about to lose vacation time if I don't use some soon. I thought I could go up to 240 hours of accrued time, but no, I can only accrue 208 hours. My current paycheck shows me standing at 200 hours, but I took off eight hours for Columbus Day. Still, that puts me at 192 hours. I wasn't planning to take off any time until after New Years. Guess Again! Looks like a late autumn stay-cation is on my calendar. I mean, time off work is awesome, but I'd rather have waited until January, when the weather is super shitty and I don't want to go outside.

Final note: After over twenty years off the acting stage, I've been invited to be in a staged reading of Andre's Mother by E.A.T. It's their last production before the director, Paul Lim, retires. Magic 8 Ball says: Possibility. Confirm Soon.

One teaspoon of xanthan gum mixed with one cup of water, whisked, blended with one teaspoon of salt and 100g of indigo and enough water added to make a paste: WIN! nottygypsy, you're gonna be thrilled at how well this goes on. It's almost smoother than the henna.

Fetish's glucose levels came back a-okay this morning. This was after breakfast but no shot. The vet says this means she doesn't need insulin shots, just kept on the canned food (which she is finally eating regularly with enthusiasm). Yay! He said diabetic symptoms can come back, so I need to keep an eye out, but for now, tra-la-la, no more daily injections. That's the good.

Poor nottygypsy spent hours doing the henna indigo treatment on my hair last night and it didn't take at all. This morning when I looked, the indigo stain was non-existent, but at least I could see reddish roots. In the fluorescent light of the Wescoe bathrooms, though, I can see white roots. So boo, hiss. It's a good thing there's only two more weekends because I am so not going through that any more. Not worth it. It looks gorgeous and makes my hair feel wonderful (when it actually, you know, works), but the cost, the time, the tedium and the smell far outweigh the pretty.

My throat hurts again. My back is still achey. I am way tired. I need a vacation.