Believe in the Flowers.

Carol of the Zombie Jesus!

Work beckons in just a few hours, and I've been up for two and a half hours now, struggling desperately with acid reflux problems that were kind enough to stop when my insomnia kicked in about an hour ago. I'd say I'm honestly not tired in the least, as when I got up originally the sky was dark but the birds had decided that 3 AM was a GREAT time to start making all sorts of ungodly noises. Now, the sky's getting lighter by the minute. I swore to myself an hour ago when it was still perfectly dark that I would crawl back into bed, in front of the air conditioner that's running steadily and optimistically on "fan" and the "fan" that is running on "medium" in a desperate attempt to keep at least one room of this apartment livably "cool" (and yes, I know that spellcheck says "livably" isn't a word, but it doesn't offer any options that make sense, so I'm leaving it).


Severe thunderstorm warnings have been popping up off and on for the last hour or so, all about 15 minutes to our north, although the rain itself is a guarantee that I'm only waiting for right now. Thankfully, it seems we'll be escaping the baseball-sized hail yet again. Needless to say I'm okay with that, seeing as how our windshield already has a crack we can't afford to repair at the moment, and shattered dents bigger than my fist seem like an added inconvenience that I have no intention of humoring. My phone is set up to receive weather alerts from various sources - mostly the incredibly vague, irritatingly slow-updated Weather Channel - and when I hear it make that lovely little dinging noise from over by the bed I take a moment to glance at my email. Yes, I get numerous weather alerts from multiple sources. When you feel like you're living every day in fear of tornadoes and other massively unpleasant weather events, you feel justified in being over-prepared - and constantly nervous and jittery. Anyway, I tend to know that if I'm getting messages before 9 AM, it usually isn't good - either someone's trying to inform me of some life-changing event that I probably didn't want to know about in the first place, or the weather is about to try to kill me and it's time to go into panic mode until I have satiated my need to know exactly what's coming, when, and how. The problem with the updates from The Weather Channel is that they send you county-specific warnings that boldly proclaim in the first few letters that they are YOUR CITY, IN YOUR COUNTY, IN YOUR STATE, OH DEAR GOD, BETTER RUN FOR IT WHILE YOU CAN. This is, obviously, not always the case, as severe thunderstorm or tornado warnings are specifically issued for smaller areas that tend to encompass only portions of counties. Therefore, while a warning may be issued for a part of my county, that is absolutely no guarantee that my city is actually affected or is anywhere near this warning. Imagine being terrified of spiders, then getting alerts every 10 minutes or so from someone reminding you that even if you can't see them, there are typically spiders within five feet of EVERY SINGLE PERSON NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE. Especially when you sleep. And they're all brown recluses or wolf spiders (regardless of your location and their ability to survive there), and they all want to kill you. Specifically. They want to come and find YOU and crawl into every orifice. Maybe lay some eggs, who knows what they feel up to today. It's kind of like that.

So here I am, listening to the occasional and relatively faint rumble of thunder, watching the sky get lighter, KNOWING that these warnings have absolutely nothing to do with me, but dammit, I'm up waiting for the rain anyway. I can tell already that it's cloudy; the typical pretty sunrise colors that I've gotten to see off and on throughout my pregnancy-induced insomnia episodes have been absolutely glorious. Today, however, the sky is nothing but a muted, dark gray. There is some indication of texture, but it's discreet, and thanks to my failing eyesight I honestly couldn't tell you for the life of me if that texture is real or if it's me hallucinating my morning away.

Other updates are relatively innocuous - we will be staying in our current apartment until the house we wanted from the beginning of this process has appliances and flooring. Personally, I'm willing to get the hell out of Dodge as it is and live out of boxes and coolers for a while, but the owners seem to think that isn't feasible, so for now, we wait with bated breath to be told we're allowed to finally move. Our lease ends on the 16th of this month, and our original fears of being homeless between living arrangements were thankfully culled when we were informed that there was no need for us to do anything differently. Now, the problem is packing. A woman who is eight months pregnant and constantly has a two-year-old in tow has no real desire (believe me) to pack up the contents of an apartment that, originally, was intended to be a long-term dwelling. We have shit out of our ears, to be honest, and while I can't say that I'm happy about it, this is a perfect opportunity to grow the hell up and start getting rid of a few things. We've done so off and on thus far, but haven't made a serious attempt to dive into the worst of it - that, of course, being the basement and two closets. We know we have between three weeks and a month before moving day, but unfortunately, that will also be pushing it frighteningly close to the arrival of Kid #2. Here's hoping all goes well and that the little punk has no intention of making his way into the world early - I've never heard of anyone HOPING to be overdue, but this one time, my God, I want to not pop 'till the end of the month. Please grant me that one wish, won't you?

Financially we are still struggling, always struggling. Things will only get worse, for sure, when at the end of the month I finally stop working. I was loathe to set a date but realized that by putting it off I was, at best, inconveniencing the guy who had agreed to take over for me (ironically enough it's the same guy that was doing this before I took over his position). My last day will either be at some point in the last week of June or July 5th, depending on the other guy's vacation plans for that weekend, if any. If he's on vacation, I'll be working on the 5th. If not, I won't be - that simple. As it is, work has been getting more and more difficult. Standing for long periods has been hell, and the supposedly-unrelated-to-anything dizzy spells (accompanied by nausea and the distinct sensation of wanting to black out, never mind the cold sweats) have become more frequent. I am running out of clothing that actually fits, and am left with three pairs of incredibly ugly scrub pants that my mother purchased for me a couple of months ago, and a few skirts that are not considered acceptable for work. The pants, of course, are not only big around the waist but also happen to be incredibly large in the crotch - so much so that even when I pull them up to just under my boobs, the crotch of the pants is still hanging somewhere around mid-thigh. I have never felt so hideous, so exposed, so traumatized when wearing those pants. They make me feel as though I can never hope to be taken seriously.

Add in that I sweat like a half-ton man in 120 degree heat in the desert and I'm sure you can see why nonabsorbent light khaki-colored blends and I just don't get along. Because, yes, I sweat EVERYWHERE.

Pregnancy, I hate you. You're lucky the outcome is adorable.

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