One Terrifying Thought
Help! I've become a casual gamer!
To most people, a shrug of the shoulders would suffice. If you number among the ranks of the hardcore, however, it's another story. There are many types of gamers who classify themselves as such, from the people who have been fragging left and right since Doom and Wolfenstein 3D (remember those?), to the people who complain that is no longer challenging enough so they're going to install a used ITG arcade box in their basement instead, to the people who were dazzled by the graphics of Final Fantasy (note the lack of roman numerals) after getting to the point in Dragon Warrior where they could walk up to the Dragonlord and just punch him a couple times to beat the game.
I was solidly in that last group for a very long time. After the past week, I've realized I'm no longer there, and realistically haven't been for a while. It's not a matter of "growing out of video games" or any of that. It's just the fact that so far, no one's taken me up on the 28 hour day.
The last game I truly devoted significant amounts of time to was SaGa Frontier. Not that I hadn't played more recent games, just that it had been sitting in my collection untouched for a few years. I must say, I played the hell out of that game. I went through all seven characters' full quests, beat the Ring Master, even devoted an additional save slot to keeping Rouge around instead of Blue. And I'd say I did all that in probably 120 hours or so.
120 hours. That's five days. Now, five days of sitting in one spot with a controller is quite a bit. No, I didn't sit there for five days in a row, but that's beside the point.
I'm sitting here looking at my life wondering how I made time for that much gaming. Thing is, there wasn't even just the gaming itself. There was talking about those games on forums, consulting walkthroughs when I was absolutely stuck or playing through for a second time to see what I'd missed, developing websites devoted to every miniscule aspect of one game. Oh, and the fanfics, of course. I somehow had time to not only write my own fics, but also work as a fanfic editor for a (now defunct) website. The only reason I didn't do fanart too was because I couldn't draw.
Through all that, I did other things as well. I went to school. I went to work. I even spent a good amount of time with my friends. For all that, I do remember sleeping at some point, so I'm not quite sure how I did it.
Now, though, it's another story. I bought a copy of VP2 over a year ago and I've gotten maybe 10 hours into it. Every now and then I get a chance to sneak down to the basement and play DDR for a half hour. Sometimes when I see my in-laws, we all play Wii Sports.
But that's it. I realized this week that my days of marathon gaming sessions are over. If I try to play a complex game that takes 40 hours or more, I'll lose track of where I am the first time I have to take a two week break. The cabinet that used to be filled with games is down to one shelf. The rest are gone, en route to their new owners. (I <3 Amazon Marketplace.)
Jeff was all mad at me for selling everything without consulting him first until I reminded him that a) these games have been sitting in the cabinet for four and a half years, he could have played them anytime and b) between work, Erin and airplanes, when is he going to sit down and play a 40 hour game?
He stopped complaining.
baby of doooooom.
Maybe someday I'll get the hang of this whole mommy thing. All I know is I feel completely incompetent every time she cries and I can't do anything to make it better. Even when I know there's nothing really wrong, I've done everything I can and she's just slightly uncomfortable for some unknown, uncorrectable reason, that doesn't register with me.
It doesn't help that if I hand her off to someone else at that point - anyone else! - she immediately stops crying. So much for bonding with Mommy, complete strangers are much more fun!
Next week has me really worried. Jeff goes back to work, I go back to school and we don't get to send Erin back to her real parents.
And a couple more pics...
the closest we get to family photos around here - me, Erin and Jasmine
we are not amused.
Erin's here -- now what?
Dumping ground for photos, woo!
Erin Rachael Hatton was born on Sunday, November 11 at 4:09 a.m. For those who care about vital statistics, she's 6 lb., 12 oz. and 20 in. of too cute for her own good. They let us go home from the hospital on the 13th, bilirubin levels be damned! (Though we did have to go back in today for a recheck - hopefully they'll be happy with the results and we won't have to put Erin through that again so soon.)
I suppose I should insert a birth story here in case anyone wants actual details of that sort of thing, scary as it may be. Started having actual real measurable contractions on Friday morning, though they were hardly of the toe-curling owie variety. Just enough to make me go, "Oh, contractions. Does this mean she plans on getting herself out of here in a timely manner?" By Saturday morning at around 1:30 a.m. I was at 4 minutes between contractions, so I figured I should call to see if this was what they meant by going to the hospital when the contractions were 2-5 minutes apart. Nope. These ones were mild enough not to worry, but if they continued for a couple more hours, I should go in.
Needless to say, they slowed down drastically after that, to about 15 minutes. Just my luck.
Around 4:30 a.m. the contractions got stronger, to the point where I had to stop what I was doing when they started, but they were still about 15 minutes apart. Decided to go to work on Saturday morning, much to the shock of my co-workers. The basic response was, "You're having contractions? And you're here because?"
Because if I was at home, I'd be sitting there with a stopwatch wondering why this set of contractions was 16.3 minutes apart when the last set was 14.7 minutes apart.
Got through work and spent my afternoon making Jeff time contractions. Hospital bag very much packed, all that. Contractions were still at 15 minutes when we decided to take Jeff's parents up on their offer of having dinner at their house. (If you think I felt like cooking at that point, I've got news for you!) By the time we got to their house, the contractions were more like 5-7 minutes apart. *twitch*
So we got through dinner, and by 6:30 p.m. I'd been at 3-5 minutes between contractions for over an hour. Called again, and this time was told to come in at 8:00, assuming I could make it that long. Ended up going home for a bit, feeding the cats, all the little mundane stuff until 8:00. The contractions weren't slowing down any, so it was time to head to the hospital.
When I got in, there was a little glitch with tracking down my chart (it had already been pulled for my 40 week appointment to be on Monday) but I got hooked up to the monitors, all that good stuff. For all the time I'd spent having contractions over the previous 36-ish hours, I was only 1 cm dilated as of 9:00 Saturday night. They decided not to admit me officially, but still were going to keep me overnight for observation. Sometime around 11:00, they gave me a couple of Ambien in hopes that I'd sleep through the contractions, and they'd see how I was doing in the morning. And "Hey, sometimes when the Ambien wears off, women find themselves in more productive labor."
Well, that didn't quite work out as planned. I was able to doze off between the contractions, but there was no sleeping through them. The whole concept of shallow breathing just got me hyperventilating. By about 2 a.m. I gave up and called in the nurses. By that time, I was dilated 8 cm and learning just what back labor is all about.
I was immediately hooked up to an IV to keep me hydrated, since they weren't thrilled with how much Erin's heart rate was dropping with the contractions. Of course, I was already too far along for any pain medications (lucky me!). The Ambien had me pretty much drifting in and out - mostly out - of consciousness. Somewhere in there was a moment of "Oh, I think my water broke." I'm still kind of surprised I didn't do any huge amounts of swearing.
By my understanding, I started pushing about 3:50 a.m. I remember being told to push and being very willing to do so - much commentary on how quickly it was all going. By 4:09, she was out.
So a hint: when you put the narcoleptic chick on a double dose of Ambien, don't expect her to be particularly coherent after giving birth. I'm still finding out all the details of what happened. (Something about so much fluid being expelled that my midwife's shoes were ruined, I know that much...)
Yesterday was very much an exercise in feeling completely overwhelmed. I have this feeling that no amount of medication will be making me feel particularly rested at this point, even though I started up my meds today. I keep just finding myself looking down at her thinking none of it's real, that she'll be going back to her real parents eventually. Because the concept of me being responsible for this whole other little life is a little frightening, somehow.
if someone had told me...
If someone had told me, say, last December or so that in a year, I'd have a kid and an SUV, I think I probably would have slapped them.
Today we signed the paperwork to replace my car with a new (to us, anyway) SUV. A lot of the reason is so we have a vehicle that will fit Jeff's airplane and people at the same time, and we needed something that we could flat tow behind our RV, so that ruled out pretty much every minivan out there. We're getting a 2006 Saturn VUE, which at least thankfully isn't one of the huge SUVs, and gets similar mileage to the car it's replacing. (Not as good by any means, but at least within 5 miles per gallon or so.)
But just the concept! I remember spending a lot of time swearing up and down that I would never become one of those people. Now I'm no longer allowed to make snide comments about SUV drivers. In a way, it makes me sad.
It also makes me sad that there's no flat towable hybrid minivans out there, but that's beside the point.
As for the kid, she's a couple of months away. As in two.
*faints*
inertia
There's this horrible feeling that comes with spending your time in the library. Namely, that feeling that you should be accomplishing something.
You see all these people who at least look busy. They're poring over books, dutifully rewriting and erasing things in their notes, all that. There's people doing actual research on the library computers.
Meanwhile, I'm on my second blog entry because somehow I can't bring myself to veg and watch Bleach with all these people doing actual work around me. I even worked on my novel for a while.
(Said novel is currently on page three.)
I don't know why it bothers me. I mean, it's not as though I'm taking up Valuable School Resources (TM) by anything I'm doing. Just breathing some air, sitting in what would otherwise be a vacant chair, using the smallest twinge of bandwidth. I'm not even using a school computer, after all. (As everyone would remind me whenever I have technical issues with the school website.)
The only reason I'm even in the library is because this is where I'm theoretically supposed to meet Ben if his class ever lets out. Not that I necessarily know where I'd go otherwise. I've never been fond of computer labs; the departmental ones have that lingering feeling of "you must do actual work here", and the main computer lab is that place you go where your own computer has died and you need someone self-righteous to give you dirty looks for doing "forbidden" things like using Telnet.
(I remember my experience at Binghamton's computer lab when I asked them how to use my school Internet access in OS2 -- for someone who got out of computer science by sophomore year of college, I've gone through a lot of operating systems. I think there was something about Bill Gates coming to murder me in my sleep.)
So there's a definite level of awkwardness about the whole computer thing as soon as there are people around.
stress implosion
Today we learned that life changes cause stress.
Duh.
In other news, 2 + 2 = 4, except for large values of 2. (I say this for Jeff's benefit.)
I'm thinking about all this as I sit around campus waiting for Ben's class to let out so he can drive me to work. The association comes about as this feeling of relief washes over me that I won't be working by myself tonight. Because last night, to be perfectly honest, was insanity on a stick.
Warning: long ranty post ahead. Reading of this post in its entirety may cause an abrupt and severe loss of sanity, or at least cause you to wonder why you keep showing up to read this crap. This has been a warning from your local S.P.E.S. (W.T.H.L)*
Somehow I'm starting to dread Wednesdays.
You see, Wednesdays are my early day. I have to be at clinical by 7 a.m., which means that I'm generally getting up around 5:30 a.m., which means very little sleep for Jenn. I am not a morning person. I'm also not a night person. Expecting me to stay awake through much of anything at this point is basically an exercise in futility.
(Jeff was saying that early classes are their way of getting you used to having to get up early for a real job. When I mentioned that none of my English classes were ever that early in the morning, his response was, "Well, English majors don't have to get up early for work. They're all too busy working the night shift at McDonalds." I was only slightly offended. There is a reason I've gone back to school, after all.)
So they put me in a lecture hall at 7 a.m. (well, more like 7:15 after security showed up to unlock the door) and droned on for a while about bed making. Now, I've been doing hospital corners since I was six. I never really knew there was another way to do it, assuming of course that you were actually bothering to make said bed. But I get up there to do my demonstration, and my professor's complaining that I'm doing it left-handed.
Yeesh.
Now I'm sure she's just trying to be helpful, but if you think you're going to make anything I do at this point look less awkward, I've got news for you. Waddling around at seven months pregnant with whatever-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-leg doesn't do a lot to make me graceful and elegant. I have never been graceful and elegant in my life. Now is not the time.
After that, we get to go watch videos on giving bed baths. Warning: nudity, which everyone giggles over a bit, especially those of us who have actually worked in health care before. These videos don't show nudity. They show one body part at a time, with the rest under an opaque drape. It's a far cry from scrubbing stark naked people who have become so accustomed to having aides help with their bathing that modesty has become an alien concept.
They end with body mechanics which fail to show a single pregnant woman trying to reach something she dropped on the floor.
So if you think I'm awake and happy at this point, you've obviously not been keeping up.
Work always seems to start out so innocuously, probably because I'm either coming in before we're actually open, or when there haven't been any appointments for the last three hours because the vets get a really long lunch break. (If you think they spend the whole three hours eating lunch and relaxing, though, I have news for you.) But somehow it's always nice and quiet, everything's taken care of, all that.
The thing is, the number of appointments gives very little indication as to how busy things will actually be. Take Saturday, when we had no appointments whatsoever, but everyone showed up to drop off dogs for boarding or pick up food and meds at the same time. Line out the door. And here everyone was telling me, "Oh, it'll be really nice and quiet on Saturday. Here's a list of things you can work on so you don't get bored."
Wednesdays are emergency nights at the office, so it gets that much crazier. Of course, I didn't have the full Wednesday night experience for the first few weeks -- it was decidedly quiet then, and I wondered what the big deal was. Problem is, now we're understaffed, which means I'm up front by myself, which wouldn't be so bad if I knew what I was doing. There seems to be one little thing that comes up and throws me every single time, and when the person who's supposed to be helping me is getting dragged off to do a whole pile of other stuff instead, it doesn't work well.
Of course, you have me stressing out, her stressing out, and things just kind of implode. I say "implode" because it's not as though there's some knock-down, drag-out fight or anything. Just two very stressed, very frustrated people taking it out on each other because there's no one else around to take it out on. But last night, I'm at the beginning of a panic attack, and she's getting mad at me, and I get to thinking, "Why did I decide to do this, anyway? I don't have to work. We'd be just fine if I didn't work, we've already established that. So why am I doing this to myself?"
Never mind that for me, not working is that much more stressful, because I'm constantly worrying that I'm not doing enough to pull my weight. It would be different once the baby's born, but now? Just being useless. And I can't get over the thought that if I don't earn money, I shouldn't spend it.
So last night I got out almost an hour late, which meant Jeff was waiting in the parking lot for an hour. It's now to the point where he's just decided he'll start showing up half an hour later on Wednesdays because it seems pretty much impossible for me to get out anywhere near on time. If there's someone else working with me, I can get out on time. Otherwise, not so much.
At this point, I'm overwhelmingly tired and achy, and this is when Jeff decides we need to discuss whether we're buying a new car or not. This choice involves getting rid of either my car, which I hate, or his car, which I love. It also apparently involves deciding if I can live with ending up with a white SUV.
I don't like white cars (even though my first car was white -- I forgave it for that) and I don't like SUVs. This is not a decision I want to make when I'm already feeling like utter crap.
When I finally get to sleep, I dream that my water broke two days ago but the baby has refused to come out. Because that'll make me feel better.
*S.P.E.S. (W.T.H.L.) = Society for the Preservation of Everyone's Sanity (What They Have Left)
shoot me now.
Fuckity.
There have been too many games lately where I've been sitting there going, "Damn, we're going to lose this game now." Had that feeling when Mota was left in for a second inning (hell, I have that feeling most of the time when Mota comes in for the first inning), and definitely had that feeling when Wagner was brought in to get the 6-out save. It's not as though I've been all that impressed with our other options in the 'pen, but that feeling of automatic failure is never a good one.
Of course it doesn't help that I'm yelling and screaming at the TV, and Jeff just kind of blithely looks up and says, "I take it they lost again?"
Things were looking so much better last Saturday, when I could proudly emerge from the RV and gloat to everyone that yes, the Mets had just won again. I at least had some grudging respect from my assembled group of friends, which include the token Yankees fans you always find in upstate New York, plus one who's a Braves fan. (I don't know how that happened. I haven't asked, and I don't think I want to know.) It's not as though the past several games somehow make me less of a fan, but I'm tired of having to justify my fangirl status to everyone.
I've been through worse. Hell, I've been through 1992. (The one thing that saved the summer for me was a Mary Sue fanfic of sorts chronicling the ascent of a 14 year old girl through the ranks of Mets baseball, where utter desperation had brought the team to the point where yes, we'll take that teenage girl as our left fielder! Gah, that was one contrived piece of writing, but what do you expect?)
So shoot me. Repeatedly. In the head. It's for my own safety.
