I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Thanks to my LJ friend eumenide for telling me to do the obvious and call PG&E.

They sent out a guy immediately, and I asked him to educate me on all the parts of the furnace and what he’s doing as he goes along. He had no problem doing so.

The problem is totally carbon monoxide poisoning, and even he looked scared.

The guy says that the thing that directs the flames upwards and out of the house is no longer working, so the flame is yellow instead of blue, and the flame is curling back down towards the floor and the fumes are in the house with nowhere to go.

He says per his liability, he MUST disconnect the unit from the outside gas source, so that’s what he’s doing, now. And he’s gonna check the stove and the water heater too.

Special note to people in the U.S., in California specifically: this is FREE.
PG&E does not charge for this, nor do they charge to come out at the start of every winter to inspect your furnace!

DO NOT DELAY! CALL TODAY! I’m serious, people. I’m sure that DTE for you Michiganders does the same thing, and so on.

NOW I TOTALLY have something on the landlady.

So it’s 2pm and the landlady JUST came by after saying at 8am that she’d be over SOON with a new heater. She gave us an electric tower heater. I told her about the poisoning, that I considered going to hospital but due to haziness just didn’t go and that was bad on my part.

I told her I was not happy with her response time, that she should’ve gotten us a space heater last night. She gave BS excuse that everything was closed after 6pm. I told her point blank that’s BS and told her we had to go out at 10pm to Walgreen’s to get a space heater, and all they had was a heater so small that it only heats the bedroom.

At that point she said that all I’d mentioned was the carbon monoxide issue and that if I’d only stated that by turning the heater off that it would be cold in the house, she’d have come right over with a new heater! I told her that’s the worst pile of shit I’ve ever heard, that turning a heater off means HELLO NO HEAT!!!!

She then went on to say she’s hot right now in this house and can’t understand the urgency in why we even need a heater NOW, and asked if I am sick!!!! She said she can understand the need for TONIGHT but maintained she came over as fast as she could given the timing and store hours for her favourite hardware store.
I told her I’M THE ONE LIVING HERE and I’M THE ONE WHO IS COLD, THIS HOUSE IS 65°F AND THAT’S UNACCEPTABLE, and as a landlady, she is RESPONSIBLE for providing me with heat ASAP when I say I had to turn the furnace OFF.

She asked if I’d turned the gas to the furnace off, or just the thermostat. I told her I turned off only the thermostat, that she’s never taught me how to maintain the wall register. She opened up the bottom of the furnace register and turned off the pilot light, and complained about cat hair she found in there.

I then stated the severity again of CO poisoning. She stated she understood and believes me, but I don’t believe her. She said she only trusts her one guy and he’ll be out friday unless he can get here sooner (i.e. if one of his other appointments cancels).

My man lived for three years in a house with a gas furnace wall register. I don’t know that he ever cleaned it or knew how. I certainly thought it was self maintaining. We’re not mechanically inclined people outside of computer chasses.

I have no idea if cat hair under the register is enough to cause a clog and therefore carbon monoxide poisoning. I do the best I can to vacuum weekly just under the register but didn’t know I could open the bottom part up and clean more thoroughly, especially with a pilot light on full time.

I consulted with a friend about this, he said “burnt cat hair and not enough inlet flow? yes”, it could cause blockage / CO poisoning. He wants the furnace guy to still look for corrosion issues though before the landlady passes judgement on me as a bad housekeeper.

We moved into this house in July, 2006. There was no heating technician summoned by our landlady at the start of last winter to make sure the heater was in proper working order. Same with this winter season – no one was called out to inspect the heaters. I will raise this issue with her when I next see her.

When I first moved into this house, I DID tell the landlady that I never lived in a house with a gas furnace, and so I had no idea on how to maintain it. She told me not to worry about it. Well. Bite in the ass that was.
Of course I do not have my statements in writing, nor hers, even from today.

The bottom line is, she’s at fault.

If there’s pipe corrosion, she’s SERIOUSLY at fault and I don’t know what the next steps are to nail her.

If there’s no pipe corrosion, then she’s still partially at fault for not showing us how to clean the wall register by opening the bottom portion, because I mentioned at move-in that I’d never maintained a gas furnace before.

The landlady just called – her heating guy can’t make it out til FRIDAY.

I asked if she could call PG&E – she said all they’d do is shut off the gas (then we can’t even use the stove/oven).

She’s going to bring over a space heater in the meantime. It better be a NICE one.

Meanwhile, the house is 64°F. I’m chattering cold in anything under 73°F (hence why I left Michigan a decade ago!!!).

We bought a cheapo Walgreen’s space heater for the bedroom last night while I was still in a hazy daze from being POISONED.

Last night, I was thinking about everything in the past five days with regards to the carbon monoxide poisoning. I was really dyslexic and had a very hard time writing it down. Pasting here w/ updates/corrections today:

January 24th: worst headache I’ve ever had – officially called it a migraine. I was in the house full time, bedridden due to girl do0m.

January 25th: let on to my man that I’d been having nightmares. I was in the house full time, bedridden due to girl do0m.

January 28th: woke up in whimpering neck and shoulder pain with another migraine that lasted over 4 hours. The pain went away when I stepped out of the house for a few hours. Got paranoid at that point that the house has high levels of carbon monoxide, cuz I realised too that the house had been smelling funny when the furnace goes on. I can’t remember if it was around the 24th, 25th or 26th of January when I realised this about the furnace. When I went to bed on January 28th, I cracked open the window so we wouldn’t die in our sleep, I was that paranoid. Even though we don’t normally run the furnace at night, the thermostat is usually set to 65°F, and sometimes the house temp dips below that. I could’ve just turned the furnace OFF, but well I wasn’t thinking correctly. I WONDER WHY.

January 29th: charlie horse to the right foot in the wee hours of the morning. Was out of the house for much of the day, no migraines. Picked up the carbon monoxide tester on the way home, and you know the rest – the headache/nausea came back and the tester alarm went off twice, indicating high levels of carbon monoxide present in the house.

My neck and shoulders were killing me last night, and I was REALLY tired by 9:30pm, despite having had a big ‘ol mocha earlier in the day, which always keeps me going to at least midnight. I had that same sort of fuzzy vision I get when I’m stoned on Tylenol3 for girl do0m. I know I should’ve left the house as soon as the alarm went off, but I thought opening all the windows would suffice. My lower legs ached, too.

The treatment for poisoning is high dose oxygen mask according to emedicinehealth.com. What I did instead was try to breathe as much outside air as possible. It was 45°F outside last night, and 65°F inside the house with the cold night air pouring in through open windows. I kept stepping outside for a few minutes, then coming back in the house, but the dizziness didn’t go away.
When my man came home from band practice, he took us out to the store and drove me around and let me roll the car windows down every now and again.

But when we got home, all I could do was just go to bed. As you can see, we made it through the night alive. :p

AWESOME, I TELL YA. :/

Yesterday I got another migraine. It lasted for over four hours and was accompanied by nausea.

My friend and I stepped out for a bit to go look at dresses, and over the few hours we were out, the headache went away.

Got back home, went about the rest of my day. By bedtime, the headache returned. It was a headache, not a migraine, but I was worried. I never get migraines.

I told my man that the furnace has been smelling funny lately, too, and that because I never get migraines, I suspected carbon monoxide poisoning. He didn’t take it seriously, mainly because he’s not experienced any headaches or nausea. But he’s not home all day like I am.
Although, he did agree that the house does smell kinda weird when the furnace is running, now that I mention it…
But yer not supposed to smell carbon monoxide, which is why he didn’t take me seriously.

Today I bought a carbon monoxide tester. Plugged it in, let it sit for a bit. Fine, no problem.

Turned on the furnace.

Half hour to 40 mins later,

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!

Ok so the instructions say to press the reset button and wait four minutes. If it goes off again, GET THE HELL OUT OF THE HOUSE AND CALL THE GAS COMPANY.

Four minutes later,

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!

All windows are open now, and yes I have a headache and nausea again. Called the landlady. She’s on the horn with her heating guy now.

Good times.

BTW, carbon monoxide testers are sold at your local hardware store for as cheap as $25.

9:34pm Edit: Been thinking about everything in the past five days with regards to the carbon monoxide poisoning.
January 24th: worst headache I’ve ever had – officially called it a migraine. In the house full time, bedridden due to george.
January 25th: let on that I’d been having nightmares. In the house full time, bedridden due to george.
January 28th: woke up in whimpering neck and shoulder pain with another migraine that lasted over 4 hours. The pain went away when I stepped out of the house for a few hours. Got paranoid that either I’ve got brain cancer (see my cancer fears) or the house has high levels of carbon monoxide, cuz I realised too that the house had been smelling funny when the furnace goes on. I can’t remember if it was around the 24th, 25th or 26th of January when I realised this about the furnace. When I went to bed on January 28th, I cracked open the window so we wouldn’t die in our sleep, I was that paranoid. Even though we don’t normally run the furnace at night, the thermostat is set to 65°F, and sometimes the house temp dips below that. I could’ve just turned the furnace OFF, but well I wasn’t thinking correctly. I WONDER WHY.
January 29th: charlie horse to the right foot in the wee hours of the morning. Was out of the house for much of the day, no migraines. Picked up the carbon monoxide tester on the way home, and you know the rest – the headache/nausea came back (it’s still with me despite windows open and me freezing) and the tester alarm went off twice, indicating high levels of carbon monoxide present in the house.

My neck and shoulders are killing me, and I’m REALLY tired now. I have that same sort of fuzzy vision I get when I’m stoned on Tylenol3. I know I should’ve left the house as soon as the alarm went off. I thought opening all the windows would suffice. My lower legs ache, too.

The treatment for poisoning is high dose oxygen mask according to emedicinehealth.com. For now, I’m just trying to breathe as much outside air as possible. It’s 45°F outside and 65°F inside the house with the cold night air pouring in. I keep stepping outside for a few minutes, then coming back in.

My man will be home, soon. Maybe we go to E.R., dunno yet.

George seems to be going away, now. The cramps went away last night by around 9pm, and didn’t return until I was out shopping with my friend early this afternoon. When the cramps and bleeding returned, it was mild. It seems to have dissipated again.

The store I went to with a friend wasn’t on the Sunday Wedding Dress Shopping agenda – I skipped that this week due to george. I’ll be hitting wedding shops tomorrow, though. Anyway, while I was at this local consignment shop, I saw a black dress, and my friend said she’d been eyeballing that one for me, and wanted me to try it on. So I did, and IT FIT PERFECTLY. It’s a black gown, a-line style dress. My friend convinced me that if I don’t use it for my wedding dress, I can always use it for other nice events, or to go to Convergence. And the price? Only $38.

Twist my arm! I bought it!

When I came home, I decided to give my father a call. Yes, I caved in, first. I called and sounded chipper, and in like fashion, both he and his wife were chipper. I asked if he’d read the last email I sent. He said he had, and said it’s okay, he’ll deal, but he’s still not happy with the idea of a Halloween theme, nor is he happy with how expensive our tastes are. Ahhh, ok, so here’s part of the confusion. I told him I’d sent him all that to let him know we needed a baseline from him – that we were looking at all these venues not knowing what kind of budget we’d be gifted with from him. My father finally gave me a firm budget he wants to gift us with, and now we can continue looking at more reasonable venues. This also means I have to talk with my man again about the reality of our budget, and see if his father and father’s wife are willing to budge on their “no money til we see a signed marriage license” nonsense.
It is likely that the guest list is going to have to be halved, sad to say. We just don’t have the money even for a $10K wedding, now, unless we put it on a credit card or two. It’s good to finally have solid numbers to work with, though. No more dreamland wedding planning.

I have my energy back today, and got some housework done. I also went crazy looking for wedding pix of friends so I can use these for ideas in planning my own wedding.

{insert deity here} hates me something fierce. I’m a woman, but I can’t have choclate, because it makes the pain worse AND makes my face and back break out. I’ve confirmed this too many times to count over the years.

I can’t take a nice salt or bubble bath because it brings on EVEN WORSE pain in my ENTIRE pelvic region, and of course, naturally, more bleeding. The bathroom gets transformed into a scene from Carrie.

I’ve confirmed three times now over the past year with the bath test. And get this, today, I wasn’t even bleeding heavily anymore. I woke up with only very minor cramps. My man suggested I have a nice bath, and I thought that to be a very nice idea, so I had a bath.

George says to me, “Have a bath? Oh well THAT’S a mistake, how could you even THINK of having a bath? I guess I’ll just have to KILL you now! *stab stab stab*

The pain is so bad that it’s radiating down to my KNEES.

My period started two days early. It’s now officially been six days. Gah, need a 2nd Tylenol3…

I’ve been having nightmares and now I wonder if the migraine I had yesterday was because of the Tylenol3.

I was having another nightmare when my man phoned me at 5:11pm. In the nightmare,

I was in some large sterile-looking apartment or house. Some of the walls were stark white with nothing on them, and some of the walls were antique white with nothing on them. My furniture and belongings was haphazardly placed throughout the house. My Ma was there, looking the way she used to when I was a teenager.

I was feeling depressed and we were going through stuff together. I had a white coffee mug filled with tea or something, and my white landline wireless phone next to me on a desk I was sorting through paperwork at. The phone rang and I answered it. It was a woman about a job, and could I meet her in the next 20 minutes for an interview? I said sure and got the details, and we hung up.

I called to my Ma that I’d be going out soon, and I got up from the desk and went to my bedroom to get ready. My bedroom in the dream was as big as a Victorian kitchen – huge and tiled. The walls were antique white with very little on them. I entered my bedroom and walked towards another desk. This desk contained my computer, and as I went towards it, my Ma came into the bedroom and handed me her big brown leather purse, and walked out again. She was going through her old stuff, and had never been happy that I always went through all of her stuff as a child. I did this monthly at the least, rifling through her purse, her big three-tiered dark wooden jewelry box, and her dresser drawers, just to look at everything, because her life was so magical in those places. Her favourite things became my favourite things. This annoyed her to no end.
Now here she was giving her purse to me, and not seeming too happy about it, because it was tied to memories of me always rifling through it, so it’s not like it was ever her purse, anyway. I immediately grabbed the purse from her and without looking at her, I thrust my nose into it and breathed deeply. The purse still had a faint smell of the leather it was made out of, her checkbook, money and cigarette case, makeup powder and keys, anything else she ever kept in there.

As soon as I huffed the purse, I felt severely depressed. Those days were gone. My childhood is gone.

I was choking back tears and had to get ready for this interview I promised someone I’d go to.
I turned and looked on my desk – there were several pictures from my childhood sitting there that I’d wanted to hang on my bedroom walls. I began tacking them up (most were without frames, and looked glossy and thin as magazine paper). One picture I kept looking at, which was especially thin, was a picture of my brother and I when I was about eight or nine. The walls we stood in front of were also beige or antique white, but the room we were in was filled with dolls and stuffed animals and marionettes.

I looked closer at the picture and realised my brother looked like a girl. My next thought was, “that’s not my brother at all!” I thought that must be one of my childhood friends. I stared closer at the picture. It wasn’t a human child at all! It was a very tall doll with a long neck, wearing knickers and a hat with a little ball on top, like a medieval page boy or something. Then I saw the balljoints at the elbows and knees – yes, this was just a life-sized doll I was standing next to in my playroom in the picture. How strange.

Realising I was wasting time, I quickly got ready and went into the office or whatever room I’d been in before, and told my Ma I had to go. She was in a depressed funk herself, and so she was short with me. I told her I’d be back soon. Then she said she needed to go to the store or something. I either protested a little or went willingly with her. She drove in her car, but about five minutes from home, she got lost. I immediately panicked – this was supposed to be a short to-the-store-and-back again and now she’s lost!?!? I’d be late for my interview! I had a fit right there and put my head on the dashboard of the car as panic overtook me.
Ma aborted the outing and turned us around and remembered how to get home. I sulked back inside the door, more ready to cry than ever, and went to the office. I slumped into a chair and picked up the white landline wireless phone. I called the woman, whose name I thought was Jennifer, but was really Susan. I called her back and apologised for being a no-show. She sounded pretty disappointed in me and didn’t want to hear my excuse, but I gave it to her, anyway. I asked if I could reschedule but she didn’t want to. I hung up the phone and was about to cry and throw a fit when the phone rang in real life, and I awoke.

He just wanted to check on me, the sweet thing. After we hung up, I wanted to cry, but choked back the tears. It’s only a dream, it’s only a dream…

Dreams always contain some truths. I’ve been upset since going to Santa Rosa and coming face to face with my pretend life from childhood. I miss my childhood innocense, freedom and creativity.

I don’t know what all the white and off-white signified in the dream. To me it signifies sterility, but one source I check for dream analysis says “The color white represents purity, perfection, peace, innocence, awareness and new beginnings. If your dream prominently features the color white, you may be experiencing a reawakening or have a fresh outlook on life.”

(Note: my landline wireless phone is white in real life. :p )

The whole bit about my Ma’s belongings, down to her purse and the smell it contained, is all true in waking life, except that she had willingly given me that purse when I was still a child.

The part where I disappointed the potential interviewer – I think that’s a line out of my recent real life conversation with the business seminar woman, when I called to cancel the weekend because of the pain I’m in. She didn’t sound too happy that I was cancelling, but what else was I supposed to do, show up in this state and moan and bleed all over everyone? Bah…

The antique or Victorian look to the pictures I held is odd. The dream dictionary says, “To dream of antiques, symbolizes your time honored values, tradition and proven wisdom.”

I created a marionette when I was a child, and later in life I found out my father’s mother used to have dozens of marionettes and that she put on plays for children in Ontario, Canada. I even got a photo to prove it.

Could it be that marionettes showed up in my dream because of a combination of my childhood memory, knowledge of my family photos, and having recently seen Blade Runner, which featured dolls and marionettes in it?

No idea.

It’s a dream, after all. And I often dream of things from my childhood when I’m on Tylenol3. I think it’s because it suppresses my breathing, to be honest. Why my childhood though? No idea.

Woke up this morning in dying back pain. Had to do the ‘turtle’ or ‘child’ pose, then had to get on all fours, then had to put knees on floor and flop stomach first on bed…. sounds like this should be an exciting sexual encounter, eh?

Alas, welcome to Various Stretches To Ease The Pain.

My man warmed up my rice heating pad and laid it on my back for me. He rubbed my back, too. What a lovely man he is! I love him so.

The headache is a dull pain in the back of my head, now. I’m not nearly so sensitive to light as I was yesterday. I can handle my man walking on the bare wood floor in his boots this morning. I can handle hearing the sound of my fingers on the keyboard.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get some business website work done today.

11:46am Edit: Aggggghhhh massive squid attack… looks like horror flick… pain… setting in… badly… ramping up…

*sigh*

so much for working today

Today the george pain was bad enough that I took a total of two Tylenol3’s throughout the day, and an ibuprofen600. That’s not as bad as it was last month when I had to be on T3 every 4 hours for a few days. Ugh. I realised just how much of that shit I took when I grabbed the bottle of pills today and wondered why so many were missing. No wonder my liver enzymes are high!

Today while working on my astrology site (got about five hours of work done today), I got thee worst migraine. I don’t normally get migraines, but honestly, I can’t remember getting one this bad before. I had to dim the monitor to the lowest setting, dim the overhead light, and set the background to all of my open windows from white to dark grey. I couldn’t listen to streaming audio anymore because the sound pierced my ears, even on low volume. Even the clicky of the keyboard made my eardrums feel like they might burst. Even drinking caffinated tea didn’t help the headache go away. I felt nauseated, too. I took frequent breaks and finally called it quits after 5 hours of work.

I laid down but my back hurt from the george pain. I put my rice heating pad over my forehead and eyes and that helped ease the headache pain. When I got up, my left eye was swollen and bloodshot!! I think all told, I took two naps and slept a total of two hours today. This of course means I’ll be up all night. It’s already after midnight. Then again, the george pain is returning…if I take a Tylenol3, I’ll hopefully be out again.

My friend came over on her birthday to deliver an alternative remedy called HeadOn. She’s adorably sweet. We often have pill exchange for our health issues, heh…
She took one look at my face and eye and told me that’s exactly what a migraine does to one who suffers frequently from them. Ugh, I truly sympathise with her, and with my old coworker who gets them so bad that he is left bedridden.

Anyway, I had my doubts this HeadOn thing would work, and I was right in a sense. The headache and eye pain never did go away, but the menthol in the HeadOn stick makes my forehead and temples feel tingly, almost numb, and cooled down instead of feverish. So all I gotta do is just get some peppermint tea on a washcloth to get the same effect next time. I won’t be using this HeadOn stuff again, now that I know one of the ingredients is a known carcinogen!!!!

My man gave me a massage tonight, which felt sooooo good. Too bad he can only massage me for up to ten minutes before calling it quits because his hands and arms hurt. Ah well. If only I could afford to go to my masseuse regularly.

Regarding my father, I didn’t hear from him all day after sending the email explaining our stance for a themed wedding. Last night I had nightmares all night. I’m just going to wait for him to call me or write back to me. Ball’s in his court.

The bleeding’s really ramping up again, so I’m gonna go.

I worked for eleven hours yesterday and feel like very little was accomplished.

George showed up two days early this week, and then proceded to dawdle all week. Now I have to cancel the business seminar I was planning to go to. In detail: george showed up as I was getting ready to go bowling on Sunday. I had stabbing right side ovarian pain the entire day, with moderate spotting. To also get TMI on you, it was dirty blood, which confirms visually for me that I’ve treated my body badly in the past month. I’d also not been taking the Chinese herbal medication, which is supposed to get all the dirty blood and clots outta there. This moderate dirty spotting has lasted SINCE Sunday. That’s a total of four days now. I’ve not had uterine cramps until today.

I told my man last night that if george doesn’t ramp up BEFORE noon today, I’m calling to cancel the business seminar.

Guess who ramped up at 12:04pm?

I now have light uterine cramps and the blood has gotten brighter. The death cramps are on the way now, that’s how it works. So I called the woman organising the event and cancelled and explained why. She’s going to refund me the money, thankfully.

I told her, I told myself, and I told my man that I hate to live by my illness, I hate to let it dictate my schedule, but honestly, this illness has kept a pretty accurate schedule for the last 21 years. I don’t think it’s going to make an exception for me this weekend, SORRY.
I always feel like I’m letting people down out of fear and paranoia when I cancel or call in sick ahead of time due to george. In some cases, I really am letting people down and in some cases they really are upset with me. Take for instance the job that fired me for this!

But you know what, people? A business seminar that costs money I don’t really have right now is NOTHING in the grand scope of things when it comes down to my health and well-being.

It’s NOTHING.

There’s another business meeting happening next week for much cheaper. I’ll go to that, okay?

And then there’s this:
I had my first near-freakout over wedding planning yesterday. Yes the cat is publically out of the bag, I’m getting married! I will now devote a category to that and begin daily rants, because I can’t keep this stuff in any longer.
We began shopping for rings last summer and got frustrated within a month or so, mainly because of the way we were going about it. My man wanted to have me pick out my own ring, then order it, then when it arrived, get down on his knee and propose.
I thought that was the dumbest thing ever, because if we’re shopping for rings, I already KNOW we’re getting married, so getting down on the knee is redundant. He got all offended and hurt, and I couldn’t apologise enough to make it better, so I called the whole wedding off until we could understand how our brains were parsing everthing.

THAT was the problem – I had NO IDEA I thought a proposal and a ring were supposed to BE a certain way, else I get upset. I just thought ‘that’s how you do it, why would it be done any other way?’ and had no idea that I’d get upset if another way was approached.

And we’re still going through this on various levels. Badger had no idea he’d be the one pushing for the big girly wedding, while I shrank back and said HOLY SHIT, THIS IS TRAUMATISING, LET’S GO TO VEGAS.

We started looking at wedding venues again in November or December, and looked at rings from time to time. This month, I started looking for a wedding dress. Cue up the horror flick music!
I tried on a dress that was perfect for me on my first outing at the wedding dress super store in Fremont. Only problem is, it had no tags, they wouldn’t let me photo it or have my friends photo me in it, they wouldn’t tell me where geographically the dress was made or who the designer is, and they wanted $1,600 for it!!!! So I told them I’d think about it and fled the place. I’ve been looking at other dresses.

Yesterday, the super store called and asked if I still wanted the dress. I told them no, it’s out of my budget by $600, sorry. The woman quickly said they’d offer me a one time discount of $999 on the dress, but I had to put money down on it TODAY, IN THE NEXT HOUR.
So I said ok, let me call you back…

Commence panic mode and frantically dialing all my attendants and my father for advice.

All told, I spent three and a half hours on the line with my father and his wife, and with two friends, discussing my priorities and budget. I’m the one who finally decided that a $1,000 budget for a dress is TOO MUCH, and I’d like to lower that to $600 tops, please k thx bye.

The good thing that came out of all of this is now I have an idea of real money that my father is offering towards the wedding. Since last night, I’ve been sending him all sorts of info on venues we’ve been looking at, as well as laying out budget expectations. So this is good. I got dad dialed in on this now, finally. Before this, he didn’t want to deal, didn’t want to discuss other than “you have my support”. Now he’s attentive.

I am not supposed to drink alcohol for three months because of high liver enzymes. Yesterday’s little panic pushed me over the edge. I had a glass of wine. I’m sorry. I really think I’m going to need xanax to get through the wedding planning. But first, let me call some yoga places, that’s the healthier route. Oh and exercise – I need to get my ass into a gym, stat. My man has a membership but never uses it because he works late all the time. I can’t go unless he’s with me, then I can get in for $5.
So I’ll need gym buddies and yoga buddies. Yes, that is a plan. Sending the email out now.

Tonight my man and I will look at another wedding venue and talk and discuss.

Oh, it was this month that I officially decided on all of my bridal attendants, too. I waffled for so long, mainly out of fear. It’s a big step. A big decision. There’s three, and MAYBE there might be a fourth, but only if my man’s attendants reach three or four as well.

And the last headache – the guest list. OHMYGOD the guest list. We JUST got it down to 80 people this month, down from over 100. And of course I’m wracked with guilt at having to omit people. If money was no option, I’d be at nearly 200 people, I kid you not. Sadly, money is a huge issue, and I’ll be the happiest person ever if I can just realign my expensive tastes a bit on the dress issue. My goal is to come in several hundreds of dollars under budget on the dress. I’m not looking at wedding dresses only. I’m looking at gothic dresses, Victorian dresses and bridesmaids dresses. I look great in an A-line dress with some gathered taffeta poof.

Lastly, I have NO idea if this journal is the best outlet for my wedding rants. Maybe start yet another journal? Hmmm. Maybe. Maybe not. I never pay attention to who reads this.
I also have no idea about traditional wedding etiquette or who I might be pissing off or who might think they’re invited just because I tell them I’m getting married. I do worry about that, so in every day public, I need to STFU about it.
I’m empathic and always worry what the other person is thinking and feeling. But the thing is, I HAVE to turn that off. I HAVE to ground myself now.

People will know if they’re invited or not if they get a friggin invite. If someone doesn’t get an invite, it doesn’t mean I hate them, it means we simply didn’t have enough money to make it happen for more than n amount of people. I just want people to know that going over the guest list has broken my heart every time so far for the last six months. As long as people know that, I hope they’ll not get upset with us.

One wedding book I was reading said that per tradition and etiquette, I should have my parents and my man’s parents give us a list of friends and family THEY want to invite!!!!
SCREW THAT!!!!
If they want to pony up a few thousand extra dollars, then perhaps they can invite their friends too. Otherwise, HELL NO, WTF.
I have great friends. They all agree I should burn that book. ;)

Ok, the pain is ramping up, time to take more pain meds.