A Shoggoth on the Roof

All this week, I've been listening to the soundtrack to A Shoggoth on the Roof.
If you aren't familiar with this, imagine the works of HP Lovecraft, the notable 1920's horror writer, put to the music of Jerry Bock's Fiddler on the Roof.
It's wonderful! Fabulous!! Amazing!

There's even a real live play that goes with this music!! How cool is that?
I had planned on seeing the play when it came to the area, it was supposed to be down in Joliet somewhere. But...
Whoever currently owns the rights to Fiddler decided to shut the production down. I'm refraining from calling that party an "idiot" because I don't really know why they decided to get lawyers involved. I sure hope it's for a real reason, and not something really, really stupid.
It's not like their passing off the Shoggoth music as their own! I mean really, everyone knows Matchmaker, Matchmaker (Byahkee, Byahkee), Sunrise, Sunset (Arkham, Dunwich), If I Were a Rich Man (If I Were a Deep One), and others... so they couldn't say they wrote if if they wanted to!

Now, after hearing the CD of A Shoggoth on the Roof, I really want to see Fiddler on the Roof. But out of principle, I just won't do it. Not until I can see the play!!

Why can't those Fiddler people go sue some chimney sweep's instead, and let me see that one play that might actually interest me?

I didn't believe at first that I really might have a concussion.
Hey, after all I felt great over the weekend...

Then, Monday morning, I took up jogging again. It didn't hurt bad right away. But I could feel it growing... it's worse now than it's been in two days. Tylenol don't do squat, and my parents are blasting Star Wars Episode 1 at max volume downstairs, that hardly helps.
Starting to feel like a migraine, yet very different. I hate this.

It must be the head wound talking...

On the 9th of August I went to the Bristol Rennaisance Faire with my parents and my grandmother. It was my fathers birthday, and amazingly, he wanted to be around people!
Around 2PM, they decided it was time to go. Oh well.

Well, I liked it so much, I decided to go again last weekend so I could actually see some things. I called up all my local friends... they were all busy. Tried some people at work... nope. Even the young attractive woman I've had my eye on for far too long. The world was busy. Oh well... I don't like going places by myself, so I guess I wouldn't get to go again.
At the last minute Rob asked if I still wanted to go. He didn't have to work on Saturday anymore, so he could go.
Huzzah!

It was a blast, from the Mud Pit and Washing Well Wenches, to the joust and falconry show, all the way to the dryad climbing through the trees....I loved every minute of it.
But something happened while I was there that made me think. I can't quite place my finger on it, but what it was is unimportant.
I didn't want to be there with Rob... not that I mind him, he's a good friend and all, but...
I was having a good time, and I wanted I really care about to be sharing this good time with me. But all I had was big, fuzzy Rob.

So I thought about who I wanted to be there with me at that time.
Sure, M would have been nice... but I think a snowball has a better chance of living within a fireplace than of that happening.
No, instead my mind wandered over to that young attractive woman I've had my eye on for far too long.
She's told me that she would never date: 1) someone 10 years older than her, 2) someone she works with, 3) someone other than her boyfriend.
By Saturday night, I finally said, "screw it! I'm asking her on a date."
This would be the first time since 1989 that I would actually ask someone out on a date. Sheesh... I think it got more difficult.

I hardly slept Saturday night or Sunday night. Excitement and fear mixed in my chest and stomach. Given those three reasons, I was positive she'd say no (specifically reason #3). But what the hell, right?

I got to work early to talk to her before any potential eavesdroppers showed up, she starts an hour before I do. The whole way there I kept telling myself to stop worrying, I was just going to chicken out anyway.
When I pulled into the lot, I don't know what my reaction to seeing her car was, but it was definately mixed feelings.
Went upstairs, dropped my things off at my cube, and decided I should use the restrooms... just in case.
What was the plan again? I think to myself, ask her how she is, ask her out, when she says no ask her how her weekend was... got it.
Done, squeaky clean hands, fix my collar in the mirror, egad, is that what I look like, walk to her cubicle.
She sits on the corner of a T intersection. As I approached it, she was walking across the top of the T... and saw me.
eep Once I saw her, I knew I couldn't ask her. She was looking especially beautiful today. Try, dammit, try!
As always, she smiled, said good morning, and asked how my weekend was. Yipes, she jumped the gun!
We talked for a little bit, detailing our weekends to each other. Do it!!!
I had to find the point of new return...
Me: Ok, I gotta to ask you a question.
Her: Ok.
Oh crap, now I've done it.
Me: I don't want to freak you out...
Wow did her eyes just get really big
Me: Or offend you, or make you mad because you've given me lots of reasons I shouldn't even ask this to you.
Stop picking at your fingernails, twit.
Me: I was wondering if you might want to go out sometime.
Dork, in 14 years that's the best you could come up with?

She kind of looked away a bit, and told me she wasn't ready to start dating yet.
Huh? What did I miss?
Me: Oh, you broke up?
Idiot.
She told me how she rushed into a relationship with her last boyfriend (something I thought so before, but only because it never gave me a chance to ask her out), and really doesn't want to make that mistake again.
Ok, I can respect that. If I couldn't, she'd deserve so much better than me.
I told her that if she wanted to go out sometime, just as friends, that I'd like that because I really do like talking with her.

Then came the long, awkward silence which I tried to break up with a loud, cheery, "so what's new with you?" Or other such thing.
Then we talked about transexuals for 5 or 10 minutes before I went to get some work done (don't ask how we got on the subject, trust me).


So after a long, long time I'm back on the dating scene (or at least trying)... it's as nightmarishly awful as I remember. But hey, I did what I needed to do, was rejected for reasons I never even suspected, and as near as I can tell it hasn't destroyed the friendship we have.
It's just like back in high school when I had that huge crush on She-Who-Would-Not-Go-Out-With-Me, Bevi Davis. Last I heard, she's a lesbian, I wonder if that will happen again.

I don't know if I'm just that big a pessimist, or if I've just got the world all wrong...

A while back my ol' friend Nick asked me if I'd be willing to go to Great America (a theme park for those who don't know), if it only cost $20 to get in.
"Of course!" said I, knowing full well it normally costs around $50 to get in.
Then he asked if I'd still go if his entire family was going.
"hmm..." thought I. But eventually I said yes.
I'd never met anyone in Nick's family, he talks very highly of his younger sister, Heidi, but I know nothing of anyone else.
There were nine of them, and Nick wanted a 10th to even out the rides.

Tuesday - 8:45AM, I got to meet Heidi for the first time. Ah.. if only I was 21 again. But against Joe's better judgement, I never made any passes at her (Joe recently moved to Denver, so he never need know that I didn't put my moves on someone 13 years younger than I).

9:05AM - Everyone else arrived. Nope, I still don't remember anyone's name except for his one sister, Monica, who everyone called "Mon." For the first 10 minutes I wondered how Nick's "mom" maintained her youthfullness.
It was me, Nick, Heidi, two other sisters and their husbands, and a total of 3 young, hyper teens.

We get to the park by 9:30 or so, and wait in line for 30 minutes for the brand new "Superman" ride to open it's gates. You get to lie down facing the ground as the thing wooshes you into nightmarish twists and turns. For 70 full seconds of speedy fun, I don't remember hardly any of it (more on this later).
Ok, I was seriously not feeling good after the ride, and I blamed part of it on the fact that you don't get to sit upright for at least a minute of the thing comes to a screeching halt.

We planned to go to the Batman ride afterwards... which I believe to be the greatest roller coaster of all time!!!
The kids wanted to stop at one of the water rides. Still not feeling well, I went on the ride with the three kids, and somebody's husband from Colorado Springs. It made me a little more queasy (Gods, I've become such a wuss) when the circular boat thing went backwards, and the freezing water didn't help.

So, we made it to Batman. 45 minute wait, even on a Tuesday when everyone should be in line for that brand new Superman ride!
From the first drop, I knew things wouldn't be going well for me. I kept my eyes open, only because I knew it would be worse if I closed them.
The ride ends by going about 60 miles an hour down to 0 in the span of about 2 seconds.
Nick looked at me and said, "I've never actually seen anyone turn green before."

Walking out of the Batcave, I stopped at one point, stuck my head over the railing... wait... wait... convulse. Thankfully, my stomache was dry as a bone.
The stranger that was behind me had a look of absolute horror on his face. I would have laughed if it didn't hurt.
It was weird, a LOT of people asked if I was going to be ok... I'm seriously not used to that, this is Illinois, and people should have just shoved me out of their way.

Everyone wanted to eat. Big, fat, greasy, hamburgers.
"ughh," said I, "I'll just go get some popcorn maybe."
I didn't eat much, and just put my head down on the picnic table while they ate (and talked far too loudly in my opinion, but a whisper would have been too loud).
My mouth started to taste like it does before I get a migraine: blood, iron, something like that.
With water and popcorn in my stomach, some of the folks wanted to go on the Iron Wolf, a stand up roller coaster. I declined, and sat on a bench with two of Nick's sisters.
About 20 minutes (though, my conception of time is skewed at this point) later, I turned to the two ladies and asked if they knew where the nearest restroom was.
"Oh, let me dig to the bottom of my purse to find that map." Said Nick's second oldest sister.
"Too late," I announced. Turned my head to the side, and out came a stream of popcorn shards and water, like some kind of nightmarish fountain of youth.
It seemed neverending to me (and probably to those sitting next to me).
When it was over I appologized, telling them they should move.
"Oh, don't worry about it," was their response.
I went to the restroom (which was very close) to clean myself up, and when I returned, I asked nicely if we could move someplace less.... damp.

I felt much better after that. In the stomach, but my head was still quite painful. Nick's other sister was nice and sought some Tylenol for me (and her husband, who banged his head on some other ride), I bought the Coca-Cola chasers.

I went on a few "lame" rides, but avoided anything that involved having my body thrown about at tremendous speeds, which sucked since that's what amusment parks are all about!
Closing time came, and we left... we took two cars their so I just went back with Nick, since everyone was going all the way to Freeport (like an additional hour from Nick's place).
I don't remember the ride back at all. I remember talking to Nick, and ordering some frozen cherry thing from Burger King (but not eating it).

The day was really weird, because... after about an hour with Nick's family, I feel much more a part of his family than I ever did with mine.
Hell, if I ever puked in front of my family at an amusment park, they'd shove me on another ride and demand I get my money's worth. Nick's family offered me a lap to rest on.
I'm just not used to people being nice. It's so bizarre.


So Wednesday I woke up. I couldn't get up, but I was awake. The room was spinning faster than presto. It took a long time to get up, good thing my alarm was set for 30 minutes early, so I could go jogging (which I did not do).
I forced myself into the shower (I always do that when I'm sick, if I can get through a shower, I'll survive the day).
I felt a lot better after the shower and set off for work. At work, I was extremely unproductive. I couldn't remember any of my passwords, and had a very difficult time even comprehending my job.

Much to even my amazement, I made an appointment to see the doctor during lunch.
I told him my story... he checked me over...
He gave me a bunch of possibilities, but the only one that really stuck was, "it's possible that you have a minor concussion."
I always thought those were really really really really really really really really really really bad.
Take Tylenol for the pain, don't eat for an hour if I vomit, don't sleep more than 8 hours a day, preferably 6. And if I don't feel better in a week, go back so they can do an MRI or a catscan or something like that.
Just freakin' great... all I feel right now is the need to sleep.

Looking at WebMD, I would doubt it's a concussion, who's symptom's include
Brief loss of consciouness: Ok, I don't remember most of the ride, but I doubt that counts.
Inable to remember what happened before or after: Well, duh... if I was unconscious....
Confusion: Yes, definately, but when aren't I?
Asking the same question over and over: Yes, definately, but when aren't I?
Dizziness, vertigo: Yes yes yes YES.
Blurred or double vision: Why yes, you're holding up 12 fingers.
Ears ringing: Always.

Ok, so 3 or maybe 4 of these didn't occur to me, at least that I know of. Confusion, dizziness,and memory are all I noticed. If it's a serious head injury, symptons develop within the first 24 hours after the accident, mine were instantaneous. Huzzah, I win!
Hopefully, he just gave me the worst possible scenerio, we'll know in a week.

Oh, and I felt pretty crappy this morning too, but got better as the day went on. Right now, I'm dying to go to sleep (not for one and a half more hours though), I can actually say that my brain hurts, it's not like any kind of headache I've ever had, and everything has a funky dream-like quality to it.
I just hope this is gone by the time I wake up tomorrow, or at least by next week, I don't want to go back to the doctor... ever.

Wow... a week off of work, and I really have absolutely nothing worth talking about.
I didn't go anywhere special, or do anything exciting. I visited some friends who've moved an hour or two away, tried to get a tan (but each time I did, it went from bright and sunny to cloudy and rainy), watched a few bad movies Carlos insisted I watch, and basically just bummed around both home and town.
It was nice, and much needed after those few really nasty weeks at work.

I did manage to finish the program I'd been working on (even before my time off). Well, finished it enough to start testing. It looks pretty bad on a PC, but looks fairly good on a Mac. There's much work still to be done... hopefully testing with real players will start early next week, different people are much more random, and able to find the horrible errors. I've had to upgrade the client about 6 times so far, just fixed something else tonight.
I'm quite amazed I got as far as I did... I know how I am, and I start and stop things all too easily. I have Alex to thank for all this... thanks Alex.


Oh, I've started jogging... although I've learned just how out of shape I am, I think that's the only reason I've stuck with it so long. I'm up to about half a mile, before my chest feels like it will explode, and I increase my distance by one house length each day. It's not much, but I'd rather not drop dead from a heart attack by exerting myself too much.
My shins are killing me, but I'm not going to quit. Not yet, at least.

What the hell is going on??
I've been getting hundreds of spam in my inbox every day for the past 4 days. Even email accounts I never use are getting it.
Who do I have to sue to stop this???