Thursday, May 04, 2006

Shedding some light on the ugly side of me


Well, the chandelier is still sitting on the dining room floor, where it awaits the services of an electrician. The cord was cut so short that I need it extended so that I can hook the chain over the center of the table. When the house was built, they centered the fixture in the dining room without considering the walkway between living room and kitchen, so no table has ever been centered under the light, which always strikes me as odd.

Anyway, if I'm going to the trouble of hanging a new light it will be centered.

Well, I'm hoarse. Steve and I just got into it over the dogs again. With the new floors in, Steve doesn't want them stepped on, particularly by dogs. The dogs, of course, don't understand this, and the beagle is constantly sneaking up the stairs. She seems to know we don't want her to do that but, with the mental capacity of a three year old, she does not have the ability to avoid doing what she wants for very long.

My suggested solution is to put up a gate at the bottom of the stairs or, more expensively, lay down runners and throw rugs.

Anyway, to stop him from acting ugly with the dogs, I had an ugly scene of my own, which doesn't stop the ugliness, it just makes me feel bad. I hate it when I'm ugly, but can't seem to avoid it altogether.

My brother-in-law, Glenn, came over today to help get our company website up and running and to get our webcam working. It seems to work just fine except with the one program my dad uses for online conversations. I'm pretty frustrated, as we've both followed the online directions precisely, checked the settings over and over, and still, it will not work. At least it wasn't just me.

I'm exhausted, both by the late hour and by the stomach problems that have been plaguing me of late. For the past 2-plus weeks I have been sick to my stomache. Puking my guts out at the corporate staff meeting, followed by days of feeling awful, one night where I was almost certain I was going to need to go to the emergency room and the inability to keep most food down.

I am surviving on apples, fruit juice, and any food without fat. Even small amounts of fat seem to push me over the edge, severely limiting my caloric intake. I'm fairly certain this is gallbladder related, but until the pain is worse than childbirth or I lose all my "baby fat" (my "baby" is 18), I will probably avoid the doctor. Hopefully it isn't something worse, or is just a stomach virus that is hanging on a little longer than most. At any rate, I'm tired.

Maybe I'm just tired of myself. I work and work at being pleasant and polite, biting my tongue and then I go into a tirade like tonight. I don't seem to get my point across when I speak normally, so I go into a tizzy, which ensures that I will be ignored. I seem to be singularly ill-equipped to persuade Steve. My methods could use some fine-tuning. A little bit of down south charm that gets a man to do exactly what you want and think it's his idea. (Us non-southerners often call that manipulation. Such an ugly word, don't you think?)

1 comment:

Beth said...

Please don't avoid the doctor. I'm sorry I haven't kept in better touch and kept better tabs on you. I am concerned. I'm sorry you're going through this. The stomach thing, that is.
I admire your vulnerability about your relationship with Steve, but I don't worry about you when conflict happens because you've weathered far worse.
I'm still debating with myself as to whether honesty is better than charm or not. I think those of us who have a strength of honesty can sometimes play that string past its point of greatest efficacy. Charm does not equal lack of honesty and I probably need to learn a little more charm myself
:-)