RSS Feedthe time that i somehow made it through the week alive
what an amazingly exhausting week that went by rather quickly.
i wasn’t able to sleep much this week. it was rather horrible. my ability to sleep is diminishing by the day. it has become increasingly evident over the last few weeks that i just don’t seem to be able to get more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night and even those aren’t the best. i manage to get more on the weekend but that’s only because i take advil pm to help get some sleep (ironically i’ve had headaches everyday for the past week or two). the results came back on the sleep study that they did on me the previous week and they found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. very, very annoying. i did manage to get a ridiculously expensive prescription for my stomach medicine out of this though. i started doing the mail order service to get 3 months worth of pills at once. it cost me a $100 co-pay but even more amazingly is the $800 that insurance was billed on top of that. so now i have this bottle the size of a red bull can that is filled with almost $1000 worth of my stomach medicine. that just blows my mind.
work has been incredibly busy. i literally spent half of the week on the phone negotiating. so much to get done and while it’s a bit stressful, i have to say that it’s incredibly fulfilling. over the last few weeks i’ve expanded my role at the agency to include some interactive media duties and i have to say that i’m having a blast. i love being able to do my traditional media planning/strategy and then also getting to work on interactive media strategy. so yes work is crazy busy but i’m loving every minute. one of the other planners on my team and i are even entering into the media portion of the cannes young lions competition which is rather exciting.
speaking of work … my client did an AMAZING thing this week and gave me tickets to the live taping of death cab for cutie’s performance on the pbs soundstage show. i can’t even put into words how exciting that is.
that’s pretty much all i’ve got for the moment.
the time that i couldn’t sleep and it made me a sad panda
so last week’s sleep study was rather interesting. they hooked all kinds of wires and then had me sleep. that was no easy task. the wires were rather short and connected to this metal box that they had to put in bed with me. i toss and turn a lot at night and every time i would turn around the box would jam itself into my back. good times. so now i just wait for final results to see if anything was learned from all of that. good times.
between the lack of a decent evening of sleep and all the self-induced stress from work, i’m starting to wear thin. there’s just so much to get done and not enough time to do it all. plus me being exhausted all the time doesn’t help.
that reminds me … i’m tired and it’s time to go try and sleep before the drowsiness fades.
the time that i couldn’t sleep #1492a
erg. i had been laying in bed for over an hour when i realized that i wasn’t any where closer to falling asleep than i was when i initially tried going to bed. so, as i have been taught, i got out of bed to take a break before i try going to bed again. so here i am sitting in front of the tv watching iron chef america and killing time before i try to go to bed again in 45 minutes.
speaking of iron chef america, i have randomly become obsessed with food network shows this weekend. i have added four more season passes to my tivo list just from shows i have watched today.
speaking of food … i’m trying to start getting healthy (yes, something i’ve tried a million times before). i have been eating the most unhealthy foods recently and i can honestly say that i’ve never been this large in my life. my medium clothes are starting to feel tight and my pants are starting to have issues closing. i need to start taking some drastic measures or i’m seriously going to regret it. i really need to try and be a bit more active outdoors once it starts warming up again. i also need to start eating better and managing my diet better. i just can’t allow me to do this to myself anymore.
and back to tv … speaking of good tv shows … this weekend i started watching united states of tara on showtime. wasn’t sure how i was going to like it based on the synopsis:
A woman struggles to find a balance between her dissociative identity disorder and raising a dysfunctional family.
it didn’t sound so great initially, but after watching the first episode i have to say i’m hooked. i was scared after the first 15 minutes of the pilot because I wasn’t sure how the story was going to play out but i must say that after i realized it’s a dark comedy i warmed up to it immediately. the personalities that this woman goes through are complex and interesting and the response of the family is confusing yet intriguing.
and now i’m bored. i need to find a new book to read. it’s been a couple of months since i’ve ready a good book. hmmm. i will make that something to accomplish this week.
speaking of this week. it’s going to be an interesting week. i’m about to kick off negotiations for an ad campaign but at the same time i’m releasing rfps this week which comes along with having to let people down and having to deal with those who refuse to take no for an answer. good times to be had by all.
i am still amidst my first box of paperwork that i am trying to get scanned and shredded. this is taking a lot longer than i initially expected. there are about 500-1000 pages of documents to be scanned in this box alone. i can’t imagine how many others there are in the remaining 4-5 boxes of paperwork i have. once i have all this scanning done it will surely make the next move rather easy. getting rid of all this stuff will take care of like 20-25% of all the boxes i filled when i moved last. i have four more months to complete this scanning project and get rid of all the other clutter that i no longer need.
after that task is done the next problem to tackle will be the lack of hard drive space. between all these documents i’ve been archiving and all the tv shows i’ve been transferring off of my tivo and onto the external hard drive, i’m set to have a serious hard drive space issue soon. my temproary quick solution will be to just add a usb hub to my apple time capsule and keep adding hard drives like crazy. i will have to come up with a better solution at a later date.
hmmm i just realized that the number in the title of this entry (1492) is also the year columbus sailed the ocean blue, right? [sings to self: in 1492, columbus sailed the ocean blue.]
this weekend was rather boring. joe is sick with the stomach flu so the weekend was somewhat sidelined after i had to stay up all friday evening worrying about him because he had to go to the hospital [ugh, brings back bad memories of my jan '06 trip to the hospital for the stomach flu]. it was getting late on friday and i was working myself up into a panic attack so i finally just took some advil pm and knocked myself out for my own good.
so yeah, the weekend was spent worrying about joe and trying to mess up my sleep schedule even more. not that there’s a lot to do out and about on the weekend in the dead of winter. it wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so cold outside. it was just way too cold this weekend to do anything. not that i could do much since i have gone back to being anti-social. that is something else i’m going to try and fix this year. i’ve reverted back to my anti-social ways of not having friends to hang out with and it’s beginning to suck. last weekend i had brunch with josh which was fun and then this week i am having drinks with my friend michael. that’s two social outings in one month, a decent improvement i suppose. still a lot of work to be done though. i need to figure out how to make new friends
okay enough of coming up with random stuff to talk about. i suppose i will go find something else to do around here before i try sleeping again.
the time that i had a case of insomnia
i have tried sleeping four or five times this evening and of course have had no luck. tomorrow is going to suck. i will be having to chug down the mountain dew just to stay away i imagine. bleh.
i thought about putting a great deal of thought into an entry here but i am going to get an episode or two of lost in before i have to start getting ready for work. damn this show is addicting.
the time that i was just freaking awesome (one of many)
so the new shoes that i have are awesome. i laced the shoes up in a very skaterish way (“props” to Joe on that one). i think i have to buy they grey one’s so i can wear them with everything.
i have a couch now. so the couch and the tv just make my place normal for once. the tv alone is amazing. i can’t get enough. hd television is pretty much the most amazing thing ever.
bleh. i’m sleepy and need to get to bed. i just can’t think. more later.
the time that the weather was a huge letdown
i’m so tired of these bogus winter storm predictions that just don’t come to fruition. i get all excited thinking it will be bad enough to warrant the office being closed and then it just doesn’t happen. granted it did snow a lot today, it certainly didn’t get bad enough to not have to go into the office tomorrow.
i’m just hoping the journey to work isn’t as bad as it was today. it was sleeting this morning and to make it worse i think my umbrella is at my friend john’s place. the walk to the bus stop was bad enough with the wind blowing cold ice into my face but it got so much more worse as i stood on the corner of foster & ashland waiting for the #92 bus to come. there was a point while i was standing there that i just wanted to go home and climb back into bed, either that or just start crying. it was at the point that i realized that as much as i love winter with its snow and cold weather, i’m so done with it for a while. spring and summer need to hurry up and get here.
speaking of spring and summer arriving shortly, it looks like i’ll be playing on a softball league starting in may. this should be fun(ny). i’ve warned my friend who got me to join that i haven’t played since i was 7 so this is bound to be an interesting adventure.
in other horrific news, my cable card that is in my tivo messed up sometime today and random channels aren’t showing up. tonight’s episode of project runway didn’t get recorded! i’m hoping it gets fixed soon so i can catch a re-air sometime soon. rcn totally blows, i think i need to consider the move to the equally bad comcast.
i’m trying to decide what i’m going to do apartment-wise as my lease will be coming up for renewal in four months. while i do have plenty of time to find a new place, i have less than 60 days to decide if i want to move or give it another year here. i have this horrible fear of not being able to find something decent in my price range. do i want a 1 bedroom or a large studio? do i stay in andersonville or try a new neighborhood? roommate or no roommate? too many decisions to make.
i’m 5% closer to purchasing the couch (for a total of 95% sure). i think i’m going to go this weekend to check it out once more before i order fabric swatches and place my order. oh yeah, and i should probably make sure it will fit in my place as well.
and now it’s nearly 3am and i’m not asleep yet. i probably shouldn’t have taken a nap earlier this evening.
the time that i had a horrible case of insomnia
yeah, i can’t even remember the time i had insomnia like this. i’m saving my last ambien pill for tuesday evening so that i can make sure i get enough sleep prior to returning to work on wednesday. i think i probably had too much caffeine this evening which didn’t help matters any. i’m trying to be as productive as possible since i’m up anyway. i was able to add a couple of new features to the site, relatively small but somewhat useful.at this point in the holiday break i’m actually looking forward to getting back to work. one week of sitting around and doing nothing isn’t all that great. i’m starting to get a bit restless.my boredom says hello:
so i’m trying to figure out what the weather is and my two different operating systems are providing different temperatures. thanks to the wonderful parallels virtualization software i can run both windows vista & mac os x at the same time and as per the first picture below the apple widget claims it’s 25F here in chicago and 45F in austin. however, at the same time the microsoft widget claims it’s 29F here in chicago and 35F in austin. they just can’t agree. wow, i must be pretty bored if i have resorted to writing about that.
okay. the sun is coming out now. i guess i should try to get to sleep again. i think i’ll call this my mid-morning nap.
the time i came back home to chicago and it snowed
i have returned to chicago and was graciously greeted with a winter storm. although, in my opinion it most certainly didn’t turn out to be as bad as i had expected. no pics from this snow experience as i only bothered to go outside and walk through it once and when i did, it was just way too wet to want to deal with the camera in it.
my sleeping pattern was thrown off for some reason. i just couldn’t get to sleep last night and ended up with about two or three hours of sleep last night. i tried to nap but after an hour or so i woke up and just couldn’t get back to sleep.
no big plans for the next few days. going to try and take advantage of these last four days of vacation and just relax and catch up with a few friends. no big plans for new year’s, going to a party with a friend but i’m hoping it will be a low-key evening for the most part.
i’ve been entertaining myself with wikipedia over the last few days and i’ve learned some AMAZING things, including some interesting things about lake michigan. lake michigan covers more surface area than the country of croatia. the average depth along the chicago shoreline is 15-35 feet, however the lakebed it littered with tons of crap including ship wrecks and airplanes from world war II. history lesson for the day.
and now i must return to finish the last movie of the day. just about to finish the holiday which caps off a full day of other not-so-great films such as i, robot and maid in manhattan (shut up, don’t even start with me. there was seriously nothing better on tv.).
