Freak Magnet

Aaargh

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:36:57 -0700

Just heard from my mother--my dad's back in the hospital with what they think might be bronchitis. Though they did an echocardiogram so my mom thinks they might be worried about his valve replacement. I spoke to him after I got off the phone with her--he sounds good and is hoping he gets out tomorrow afternoon (we'll see, but I have my doubts).

When I heard him ask the nurse to bring him a dry Gibson on the rocks, I relaxed a little.

Every time this happens though, it reminds me to let the little things go. Earlier I was fuming about my commute in--we had been on time all the way to D.C. but were stopped outside of Union Station for 20 minutes while they cleared the platform we were supposed to detrain on to. Even more frustrating was that I can see the campus where I work from the train (well, the bell tower). But really, who cares if I'm a half hour late to work?

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The Junkie Receptionist Returns

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:39:05 -0700

I was just downstairs talking to one of my coworkers when our former junkie receptionist walked in. Which, to be honest, scared the shit out of me. Her job was eliminated last June after her boss retired and no one had heard from her since. She was not the most stable person on the planet, had a bit of a persecution complex, and she and I had had a falling out about a year before she left. Oh! And she owns a gun. Nice combo there.

I didn't stick around to listen to her bullshit but went back to my office. I talked to Val afterward and JR's reason for being there was ostensibly to show off how much weight she'd lost. Mmm hmmm. You know, I bet I could speed up my weight loss a bit if I started visiting the crack house down the street. And even though she's lost a lot of weight, she looks like she's aged 10 years. 10 hard and skanky years.

She did spend quite a lot of time behind closed doors with the one person in the office who still had some sympathy for her (who unfortunately is in the office across from mine). I suspect JR was hitting her up for some sort of help, monetary or otherwise. I know, due to the awesomeness of the Internet, that she didn't show up for her first trial for theft (she has another one in May) and that her bail bondsman is probably looking for her.

Supposedly, she's coming back next week. Why, I have no idea. Well, we almost had a year of quiet normalcy here at the Press.

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Out of the Hospital

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:18:37 -0700

My father's being discharged today. Well, hopefully. The doctors diagnosed him as having an inflamed colon brought about by a bacterial infection. In a month or so, he'll have to have further tests to determine the cause of the infection. He was in a lot of pain for most of his stay but the man managed to keep enough of his wits about him to continually try and con everyone who came in the room into giving him some diet orange soda (he was only supposed to have ice chips).

Thanks for the well wishes!

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A Bit Worried

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:05:27 -0700

My cell phone rang at 6:40 this morning. When I saw it was from my father's cell, my stomach clenched as I answered it. It was my mom, sounding chipper and in control but in a very forced way. Not a good sign.

"We're at the hospital. Your father started having severe abdominal pain last night so we took him to the ER."

To be honest, I was still in bed when she called (having already decided to take the late train) and wasn't entirely awake. I think I managed to blurt out "what?" but she just kept going.

"The doctors don't know what's wrong with him. They did a CAT scan and his appendix is fine. He doesn't have diverticulus. They have him on antibiotics and morphine. I don't know, I think I'm going to go home and get some sleep for a bit. Plus Braddie [their cat] is locked in the house and needs to be let out. Anyway, I'm just letting everyone know what's going on. Are you on the quiet car?"

"What? No, I'm en route to the train station."

To my father: "What is that beeping sound? Why did that just start beeping? I think we need to call a nurse. Deirdre, I have to go." Click.

Ugh.

I'm at work but I'm not really getting much done. And I need to stop googling "severe abdominal pain" because it's starting to freak me out.

I called my brother Dan a little while ago (because he is the calm one in the family)--he'd spoken with Colin, my other brother, who was at the hospital but didn't have much new information. The doctors were talking about exploratory surgery but they've tabled that for now.

Double ugh.

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Diving Ft. Lauderdale

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:25:49 -0700

Boat

Scuba diving was by far the coolest thing I have ever done. Sure, one woman had to be taken off the boat by paramedics after our first dive and many other people (some other divers, some snorkelers) took that opportunity to get off the boat as well (there was a lot of sea sickness going around) but I loved it. Well, except for being at the surface. I need to work on my snorkelling skills.

I was totally comfortable underwater. On our last two dives we went down 60 ft and it was AMAZING. I descended into a school of angelfish and a few queen triggerfish. So cool. Soooooo cool.

Unfortunately, after we surfaced during the second dive, I couldn't catch my breath (I think I had pulled my weight belt too tight while kneeling on the bottom and then when we got to the surface I overinflated my buoyancy control device) and panicked. It was not pretty. The instructor managed to calm me down but after that, every time we approached the surface I felt myself getting anxious. So I ended up not demonstrating all my surface skills (you have to show you can take your tank on and off at the surface, take your weight belt on and off, snorkel, remove a cramp in your foot, tow a tired diver, etc.). So I have to do two more dives and demonstrate all those things. I didn't have any problems with the underwater skills.

And the hotel wasn't bad either. Remind me to take the comments on TripAdvisor with a very large grain of salt. No, it wasn't the Marriott but it had to be one of the largest hotel rooms I've ever stayed in with a very comfortable king-size bed and a private balcony overlooking the intracoastal waterway.

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Back to the sunshine state

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:49:33 -0700

Next week, I'm winging my way back to Florida (Ft. Lauderdale to be exact) to finish my scuba certification. I'm a bit nervous about the hotel I'm staying in, which is attached to the marina where the dive shop keeps its boat, because it's gotten scathing reviews on Trip Advisor. But I've been in plenty of skeevy marinas and hotels (the motel in Seattle was so bad I slept in my sleeping bag) but I'll tough it out. It's all about the diving, right? The hotel is just for sleeping.

I'm also a tad apprehensive about the diving. I'm not in as good as shape as I'd hoped to be by now (I am, therefore I slack--I'm trying to get better) and I'm really going to have to crank it up a bit if I want to have more endurance in June for Fiji.

Of course, "trying to get better" is a bit relative I suppose. I'm meeting JB tonight for drinks at the Dubliner where he insists we will engage in binge drinking. It's going to have to be some fast binge drinking since the last Camden line train leaves at 7:30ish. I guess if we focus, we can get the job done.

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Oh those wacky Key Westers

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:27:24 -0700

Kayak

It's kinda hard to see but this guy is using a beach umbrella to sail along in his sea kayak. Have fun tacking back, dude!

I also went out on a dolphin-watching/snorkelling tour. And naturally, we came across dolphins having sex. Apparently there's usually three or more together to do the deed. I guess it helps facilitate things. Even got to see some dolphin penis. Do I know how to live or what?

Dolphins

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Key West

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:17:18 -0700

Sunset3

Did I mention I went to Key West in February? No?

My parents go down to the Keys every year for the winter. They've been doing this for years and years. Of course, I didn't take advantage of this until last year (I'm a bit slow on the uptake). Anyway, this winter they had a beautiful condo facing the ocean. So naturally I took a bazillion photos of the sunset.

Actually, the one directly below is of the sunrise and I took it from my bed. It was a tough week, let me tell you.

Bed

Sunset

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For those of you outside...

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:14:38 -0700

For those of you outside of Baltimore:

n explanation.

Artbrat

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Geeky Editor Stuff

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:16:18 -0800

I'm training a friend of mine how to proofread. It makes me a little nervous since I edit his fiction and he occasionally does stuff like change the name of a character halfway through the story but I figured I'd give him a chance. I know the proofs are pretty clean so we'll see. Anyway, this guy and I email each other throughout the day--usually goofy stuff about how unAmerican I am because I don't watch sports ("Your hatred of sports, and by extension, America, once again defies words") so I'm glad we can now extend that to editorial stuff.

John: I'm trying to make proofreading more exciting, more XTREME!

This isn't surprising but I think I actually kind of like it.

I've been enjoying going through the Chicago manual.

Me: I'm such a Chicago geek that I've signed up to be alerted whenever new questions are added to their web page.

You can also email them and usually they'll answer. I noticed that when I worked for Princeton I got a much faster turnaround time (usually the same day). Now that I work at the deaf school, I'm lucky if they respond in two weeks. Bastards. Yet another example of the oppression of the deaf world!

John: What have you done to me??

I didn't sleep last night because I was on the Chicago site reading about judicial citations.

And now I'm constantly correcting everyone around me. My wife, my friends, I'm even correcting my cats, (Chicago recommends meow, pause, meow to ask for food rather than the antiquated meow, meow, meow)!

God help me.

Me: Hah! It is addictive. And it’s weird how attached you can become to certain things. A few years ago when the new edition came out, I thought it was blasphemy that suddenly they were allowing postal abbreviations of states in the references. What?? Not on my watch, mister.

On the other spectrum, I just got a call from my brother Colin. He started it off by saying “I have a question for an editor. In the phrase “too much fun,” how do you spell ‘too’”? To which I replied “Uh, t-o-o.” There was a shocked silence for a second and then he said in an aggrieved tone “WHAT?” In the background I could hear my sister-in-law yelling, “HA HA! I was right! I told you so! Once again the wife is right!” And then he tried to argue with me--he tried to tell me that I was wrong. The nerve! I finally convinced him I was right. He then said “Don’t tell, Mom.” Ha! He also told me if I ever had a question about windows (he’s a customer liaison for a window company), I should call him up. Uh, okay.

Of course I’m going to tell Mom. I’m his big sister. That’s my job.

Last October when I was down at the Outer Banks with my parents, I told them about how my brothers used to tie ropes to the backs of their bikes and then ride them off the pier (they would then climb back on to the pier and haul the bikes up from the bottom. I remember watching them do this over and over, thinking “I’m related to morons.” My parents were shocked! They had had no idea. Though my father said “Well, that explains why their chains were always rusty.”

At Christmas, my mother brought the subject up and they both just started laughing. Dan said “yeah, and when we started getting nicer bikes, we just stole the Cope kids' bikes and used theirs.” I was surprised when my mother started laughing at that. “You know, I don’t even feel bad about that after what that family put us and you (pointing at me). I think that’s great.”

[During a snowball fight, I managed to hit one of the Cope boys in the face. Because, as I understand it, the point of a snowball fight is to try and hit the other side with snowballs. Apparently I am wrong. He promptly ran over and punched me in the mouth. I had just gotten braces so my teeth were loose to begin…he knocked out one of my front teeth. My parents rushed me to the dentist but he couldn’t save it. So, using the braces, they shifted all my teeth over so that a side tooth was now my front tooth and then they ground it down and put a veneer on it. Which has fallen off multiple times. It’s currently chipped and I need to get that fixed.]

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