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Separation Anxiety

Y’all please excuse my lack of updates, as well as the lack of funnies for the last couple of weeks. I haven’t exactly been in a humorous mood lately. I’d like to say that things have gotten better, but in all honesty they haven’t. That which I’ve feared looks to be coming to fruition unless something drastic happens — a separation. I had thought things were getting better because we’d bought my new car, and replaced some large appliances in our kitchen. I thought the latter was a smart move, as it would add value to the house when/if we decided to put it back on the market again. I had thought these things meant that things were slowly progressing towards ‘better.’

Apparently I thought wrong … again.

Jim and I had a talk a couple weeks ago and he told me flatly that he still wanted to separate, and us committing to these things wasn’t because “we” were getting better, but because he thought they would make me happy. I would give everything up in a heartbeat if he asked that of me.

Then last week I brought up counseling again. He still believes that it would not help us, BUT he did agree to think about it. I thought that was a small victory. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either. A win, right?

Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

We had a huge fight last weekend. And we had two this past holiday weekend. It seems all we do now is fight. Even Jessie has noticed this. And it’s not over anything big. Each incident has been his overreacting to something, or him acting like a jerk and me calling him on it.

Last night I said something that I hoped I would never have to. I reminded him that he knew where the door was, implying that he was free to leave whenever he wanted to.

The truth is, I don’t want him to leave. But I can’t keep living this way either. I told him that I wasn’t going to let him continue to mistreat or bully me.

We didn’t speak again for the rest of the night, and I was out the door headed to work before he got up this morning.

I’m still really angry. I don’t know what his deal is recently. He’s snippy, always making snide or just plain rude comments. If I call him on it, he flies into asshole mode and we fight. I’m tired of being the first to apologize just to make things easier. But I’m tired of the fights too.

The thing is, if he were always like this … we never would have lasted this long. We’ve only been married three and a half years, but have been together for nearly nine.

A friend of mine advised me to be patient and let him work out his demons on his own; that he doesn’t mean to be taking it out on me. There have been far too many good things between us for me to throw this away, but how much is too much? But how long should I take this before putting my foot down and saying “You’re being a jerk, get your shit together or get out!”

Some days I’m still hopeful and think to myself “Hey, we’ll get through this and everything will be OK!” and others I think “Oh God, help us, I don’t see how this will ever work itself out.”

I just know this: I’m so very tired, and I miss my husband, my best friend, my hero, that sweet strong man that I married. I’m afraid I’ll never have him back.

Fears

I think I’ve mentioned before that I have irrational fears. Most people I know are afraid of “normal” things … you know, snakes, spiders, clowns, zombies, etc. Me? I get hung up over the intangible, or improbable. Ever since starting this job, one of those irrational fears has become heightened — being trapped in a free-falling elevator. Remember the first Resident Evil movie? Yeah, I always turn my head during that scene.

If I think about it logically, I know that the odds of one of the elevators at work experiencing a major harm-causing malfunction while I happen to be in it are astronomically low. In addition to that, all of the elevators have safety measures in place in the case of an emergency, such as power outage, cable or brake failure, etc. But the thought creeps into my mind every single time I step foot into one of those things.

Once I made the mistake of sharing this with one of my coworkers. Funny enough, she won’t ride in the elevator with me anymore.

So today I had overslept and didn’t have time to make my lunch, forcing me to head down to the mall to grab something from the food court. I boarded one of the elevators just like I do every day — this one happened to be one of the glass elevators (which I hate even more than the others). About halfway down, there was a loud “SNAP!”. The lights went out and the elevator screeched to a halt. “No big deal,” I kept telling myself. They’ve stopped before and would sometimes get “stuck”, sitting on certain floors, so you’d just have to get off and board another one.

But then it dropped. DROPPED! It wasn’t but just a few feet, but it was enough to make my heart skip a beat and suddenly every elevator nightmare I’d had came flooding back in an instant and I panicked.

OK, ‘panicked’ doesn’t even cover it — I. Flipped. My. Shit.

Sitting quietly for a second, my mind raced looking for answers:

“What should I do if I can’t get the doors open?”

“Where is the button I press to let someone know I’m trapped?”

“What do I do if it drops again?” Followed immediately by “No, don’t think like that, stupid!”

As if the elevator had read my mind, it dropped again for a few more feet, then opened its doors. Apparently the elevator had only dropped just enough to reach the next level so the doors could open (seeing out the window made it seem worse than it really was). I quickly leapt out of that thing as if my life depended on it. (which, in my panicked state of mind, it did!) I paced for the next minute, trying to calm myself and stop shaking — and trying to squelch the horrific scenarios playing out in my head.

About a minute later, I heard the power flicker back on, once again illuminating the car, and could hear the other cars moving along the levels above and below me. I could also see the other glass elevators moving along just fine … but I didn’t trust the motorized metallic bastard just yet. I decided it was safer to walk the next 9 stories down to the mall level, and kept a close eye on them as I ate my lunch.

Feeling a bit braver after I ate, I took the elevator back up to my floor. Thankfully the ride was uneventful this time, but I’m sure this will make for some more intense nightmares to come.

OK, new item added to the “someday job wishlist” — no elevators!

And this is where my head asplodes

This is a real conversation that I had with a real client earlier today:

Customer: I have a problem with my site.

Me: I’m sorry to hear that. Can you give me an example of the problem?

Customer: An example of what?

Me: What’s going on with your site?

Customer: The spacing is off.

Me: OK, can you give me an example of where this is happening?

Customer: On my site.

Me: Is there a specific page you’re seeing this happening on?

Customer: I don’t understand your question.

Me: Is it on one particular page, or all over the site?

Customer: The problem?

Me: Yes.

Customer: I still don’t understand your question.

Oh Lord, where did I go wrong?

This weekend, Jess and I were out and about taking care of errands and somehow our conversation gravitated to football. In the past, I’ve always loved when she would bring this subject up because it meant she was curious about what I thought about specific players, or when football season would begin, or to which games are we going this year, … that sort of thing. I’ve always enjoyed her interest in football, because not only was it something that she and I enjoyed together, it gave her a common interest with Jim as well! (I think he feels a little left out sometimes when she and I are discussing “girly things”)

Well, you can imagine my surprise when she hit me with: “I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided to be a Florida Gators fan!”

Wait — say what?

I’m not sure how it happened, but my ‘Bama lovin’ baby has been turned to the Dark Side!

Jim’s reaction to this was, “Well, at least she’s staying within the conference.”

Me, I suspect that a boy has something to do with it.

Do you see what I am saying?

“And my shoes began to squeak…”

5 points to whomever gets that reference!

I’ve had a lot going on lately, but honestly hadn’t had the energy or desire to sit down and write — or type, as it were. For anyone who hasn’t been reading/following me for a while, the more crap I have going on the more I unplug.

Not fun, but some of the crap has been kind of funny. I think the best way to sum this up would be in a meme-like format, so here goes:

In the last 30 days …

1. I’ve been called a baby killer.

This one is actually pretty funny now, but at the time it was a bit unnerving. Long story short: a website one of the studies that my department maintains experienced some down time. Because of this, a certain doctor involved in the study completely flips his shit and tells me and everyone else that because the website wasn’t up, a certain drug (which had a 50% chance of being a placebo) they are studying couldn’t be administered to a dying baby. The next day, the baby died (from a cause unrelated to the drug OR the study!), and the doctor implies that because of our “inaction” that we’re at fault. There was much panic about lawsuits, audits, and whether or not some of us would have a job …

Anyways, our boss, his boss, his boss’ boss, and that boss’ boss are all furious and said doctor has had his hide handed to him. One of my coworkers joked, “I haven’t been called a ‘baby killer’ since ‘Nam!”

2. I realized that I had erroneously packed up all available liquor in the house.

Funny enough, while the above-mentioned debacle was going on, I came home one day and realized that I needed a drink in a bad way — and couldn’t find a single drop anywhere! For whatever reason, I must have thought it would be a good idea to pack up all the alcohol and keep it in storage.

Good Lord, what was I thinking?

3. I’ve been turned down for a house loan.

Yeah, we were turned down. We’re not completely out of options, but part of me really wishes we had started trying a year sooner. I’d seen places that were practically giving away loans to anyone and everyone who applied.

*sigh*

Oh well, we’ll keep on plugging and I’ve no doubt that it will all turn out in the end — but the keeping the faith part is always hard.

4. I have been asked by a friend to match him up with a mistress.

Uh … do what?

Definitely one for the “sharing too much” category. I was catching up via email with an old friend. He went into great detail about how unhappy he is in his marriage, about how he wished he had married someone else, and so on. I feel bad for the guy, I really do … but when he suggested that I try to set him up with one of my girlfriends so he could “be happy with an affair”, I (as politely and courteously as I could) declined.

And I haven’t heard from him since.

Yikes … so, um, yeah.

5. I have had a new term suggested for Jim’s ex.

A friend of mine was listening to me rant about the latest drama stirred up by Jim’s ex over Jessie (which of course quickly became over me), she exclaimed, “Of course, she’s your stepwife!”

According to Word Spy, a stepwife is (in my case) the ex-wife of my husband.

Funny, I have plenty of other names to call her … but this is probably the most kid-safe!

She has seemed to have been in an uproar about anything and everything lately though. I was talking to Jim about a rather nasty remark she made to me one night and he replied, “You will always be ‘the other woman’ in her eyes.”

Oh give me a break.

Never mind that they ultimately split because Jim caught her cheating on him — REPEATEDLY! That said, there is some truth in what he said. For whatever reason, she has always seen me as her competition. Even now, despite the fact that I have been in Jessie’s life since she was 4, and the woman has even admitted TO ME that she thinks I’m a good influence on Jessie, she still goes off on this “I’m her mother and I will never let you forget it!” bullshit trip every time she has one of these manic (maniac) moments.

But I digress …

So those are most of the reasons why I’ve been burying my nose in a few fave books, catching up on some DVD’d tv shows, and pretty much avoiding the ‘net in general.

How’re y’all?

Seriously. How’s your day/week/month been?

Seriously miffed at WP.org

The release of my newest theme has been delayed. I had submitted it to WordPress.org yesterday for inclusion in the Theme Directory, as I have done my other themes. This morning I received a very vague rejection email and initiated a discussion as to why.

The long and short of it, I’ve posted to the WordPress.org forums, but to be honest I don’t expect anything to come of it. I would however like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

My post to the forums:

I submitted a new theme yesterday. Because I have several other themes listed here, I am already pretty familiar with the requirements, but always give them a quick once over to make sure that I haven’t forgotten anything.

I was a bit dismayed today to get the following in an email: “Thank you for submitting the Black Hat theme, however it has not been selected to be part of the theme directory.”

That’s it. Nothing else explaining why my theme was rejected. That in itself is disconcerting, so I requested more information. I’m then told “Themes from sites (or links to sites) that support non-GPL WordPress themes are not included in the theme directory.”

My theme’s style.css clearly states that the theme is released under the GPL license; this is also stated very clearly on the theme’s URI on my website.

I explained this and was then told: “Go back and look at your credit links, both in theme description and the footer of the theme. Specifically http://www.rubiqube.com/corporate-sandbox/ which has at least 3 ads for sites that support non-GPL themes.”

My theme is based on the Corporate Sandbox framework. I linked to the site crediting its author — not required, but morally the right thing to do IMO.

So my question is this: Has the theme directory submission been changed? If so, this is not listed anywhere on the requirements page. And when did credit links fall under this kind of scrutiny?

I understand that there needs to be some serious cleanup for some of the themes listed here, but this is taking it a bit far, don’t you think?

The man I credited has ads on his site. How many others here to submit themes have similar ads? Or use a premium theme with a link back to its creator?

I understand that if that’s the way the rules are now, that’s that … but for Pete’s sake, list them in detail where theme designers can see it!!!

Out of context, out of line?

This afternoon, Jim (unintentionally) gave me quite a scare. When last I saw him this morning, he was going to head by the house then on to work. I remember pulling onto the highway and watching him roll onto the lane going in the opposite direction. Fast forward to this afternoon, John called me at work asking me if I knew where Jim was. “What? He’s not there?” My mind raced. John had spoken to him not long after I last saw him and hadn’t seen nor heard from him since.

Long story short: Jim had sat down “for a few moments” at his desk and apparently had fallen asleep — he had been at home the whole time.

I was able to get a hold of him after calling the house a few times and he explained what happened. I fussed a small bit (not wanting to yell at work) and got my things together to leave for the day. A few co-workers had overheard and came by to make sure everything was ok. I was still pumped up on adrenaline and my blood-pressure I’m sure was through the roof. I jokingly replied, “Yeah. I’m going to beat him upside the head when I get home!”

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I say that in jest. In fact, I say that I’ll “beat his head in” all the time. I don’t beat my husband. I don’t beat my child. I laugh and carry-on, but it is entirely in jest. I do as my mother did — joke about it to keep from pulling my hair out and going crazy.

But what if someone had heard what I said, took it out of context, and called the police?

I ran across a Google Reader item shared by Ike Pigott linking to a post by someone who had something along those lines happen to her. Thordora had (in jest) commented on Twitter about bringing harm to her child, who wouldn’t go to sleep.

What NORMAL parent hasn’t uttered a snarky or humorously ludicrous remark out of frustration, annoyance, and dare I said it … love?

Someone following her tweets had local police notified of the “threat”. Officers arrived at her home and demanded to see her children (who obviously had not been harmed). Understandably, Thordora is upset with this person. (As I would be too!)

To me though, this reinforces something that I had come to realize through my experiences on other social networking services (mainly MySpace and Facebook) — careful who you “friend”.

Humpday Hilarities

This week’s edition courtesy of my mother and is a local one

Tailgating Dog

A lady was telling her son the other day that she saw a man driving down I-10 and a dog was hanging on the to the tailgate for dear life. She said if he hadn’t been going so fast in the other direction she would have tried to stop him.

A few weeks later her son saw this truck at the bass pro shop. It’s a taxidermist!

This is in Daphne, Alabama.

I’ve so GOT to find out who that guy is and ask what possessed him to stick his stuffed dog on his truck’s tailgate!

What kind of Alabama fan are you?

You know, there are times when I just have to say to myself, “You and your big mouth.”

I made the mistake some time ago of telling Jessie’s mother where I get my hair done. Jess and I went up there last weekend to get our hair done, and wouldn’t you know it, she was there. She and a friend of hers were getting their nails done, and the whole time she ran her mouth about how nice the place was and how she needed to start coming there on a regular basis to get her hair done.

I know, I should know better … I was naive enough to believe that she wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually go somewhere she knows that I frequent! The young lady who does my hair quickly realized who she was when Jessie walked up and said, “Hi Mommy,” and raised her eyebrows at me with a surprised “WTF?” expression on her face.

A side note: pretty much all of the staff in this shop have heard me tell stories over the years about this woman. Once the girl doing her nails realized who she was, she grew quiet. A girl who’s normally very chatty and friendly quickly became very intent on trying to quickly finish this woman’s nails.

So, Jessie’s mother sat there and ranted on and on about how big of an Alabama fan she was and how big of an Auburn fan her “boyfriend” was (the boyfriend being a man she’s admitted to chasing for years who’s recently become single), and how she didn’t see how long the relationship will last because she’s “betraying her team”, and how she can see herself becoming an Auburn fan to “make it work” …

Oh give me a freakin’ break!

She then makes a snide comment about my husband and how he’s an FSU fan. Big woop. The woman was in there getting her nails painted orange. ORANGE!!!!

What kind of self-respecting Alabama fan gets her nails done ORANGE???

Oh Good Lord, help me. This is the same woman who lives paycheck to paycheck and stays maxed out on her credit card limits, and complains about not being able to pay the utilities — and apparently just recently QUIT HER JOB! I’m guessing she’s living off her 401K, as she is still unemployed and says she’s going to go to school to become a medical transcriptionist.

And Heaven help me, once someone asked her what she was going to do about money, she starts telling the woman all about the “new job” (that she hasn’t even gone to school for yet!) and how much it will pay and how happier she’ll be.

That’s it, I’m beating my head into the wall until I can’t hear her brainless dribble any longer!

Well, long story shortened, she finally left forty-five minutes later. Once she was gone, the young lady doing my hair said, “OMG, I knew from you talking about her all this time that she was bad, but DAMN!”

LOL … yeah, she’ll make any sane person’s head explode.

Something that bothered me though, I saw a change in Jessie’s demeanor while her mother was in the shop. On the drive up there, Jessie was all bubbly and happy. That changed once she saw her mother. She became very withdrawn and said she wasn’t in a “chatty mood” when her stylist asked if she was OK. For years, my friends had often told me that I behaved the same way whenever my father was around. It was a bit unnerving to see that behavior in Jessie.

About a half hour after her mother left, Jessie finally started brightening up and returned to her cheery little self. Seeing that kind of change in her when she’s around her mother worries me — I fear she’ll grow up and turn out like me.

She deserves so much better.

As much as I love working for UAB…

… I hate hate HATE their insurance! :evil:

In all fairness, they have been pretty easy to deal with except when it comes to getting my Axert refills. Honestly, I’m having to jump through hoops just to get what my doctor has prescribed for me!

In this regard alone, they are WORSE than Blue Cross!

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