• It seems that the kitty stomach flu has spread to Angelo because he didn’t eat his breakfast. However, he did eat his second meal today, including the dregs of Hopper and Basil’s leftovers. Hee Seop didn’t eat the special “bad tummy” food, but ate half of his regular food. Hopper seems fine and no one has vomited (that I’ve found).
• I’m feeling a little less exhausted today. I dragged my upstairs neighbor to Starbucks before returning home for my therapist session, so at least I got out of the apartment. Maybe the extra .5mg of Klonopin is easing my anxiety, after all. It’s still too early to tell, though.
• My therapist agreed to a phone session this morning because I was all up in arms about the cats. Anyway, she advised me to let go of the incident yesterday morning, when the desk clerk at the new gym gave me all kinds of bullshit when I canceled my fitness test. I was ready to cancel my membership, but I actually had the insight to ask myself (and my therapist) today: what is rash and what is rational? So I’m letting it go. My therapist said that if it happens again, however, that’s a different story.

  I’m not going to totally go into it but let’s just say that the desk clerk gave me very poor customer service, and I was already upset because of the sick cats and from being absolutely exhausted. If I’m unable to reschedule the fitness test due to their cancellation policy (that the desk clerk was unclear about), then whatever. It’s a free service anyway. But OK, part of me still wants that girl fired.

• I’m looking forward to having a quiet Thanksgiving with Brian, which is our little tradition. He cooks, we eat, we watch football. And probably I’ll play Mafia Wars and lurk on Twitter. And hopefully catch up on blog reading and poem writing.

Wow. What an utterly boring post this is!

Most people wouldn’t think of grad school as being fun times, but they were. Our department was big on Halloween and held a party every year. My friends and I were the bridal party from hell, as you can see here. I think I found the most hideous of the bridesmaid dresses, if I do say so myself. Another friend kindly took our picture. Happy Halloween!

Most of you already know that Brian and I road tripped it to Columbus, OH, over Labor Day weekend. Well, I finally finished uploading the pictures to Flickr for everyone to enjoy and love! You can see them here: Columbus 2009. I’ve written descriptions on some of the pictures for people unfamiliar with Buckeyes and Ohio State tradition — and believe me, there’s a lot of them!

Some highlights of the trip include:

• Meeting a blog friend, Heather, for the first time. We had dinner at Cap City Diner and I was relieved that our husbands hit it off and there were no awkward silences. Heather is just as friendly and funny in real life as she is online. And prettier! She showed me pictures of their son and 4 cats. Yay! Another couple with 4 cats! Heather and I hoped that our husbands would do the O-H-I-O (can’t find a link to this) with us while our server took a picture, but nope. Heather and I did both halves ourselves and she did a great job photoshopping the 2 pictures together.
• Our hotel. It was different from other hotels, with the exposed brick walls and Aveda — yes, Aveda — products. The Lofts used to be a wallpaper factory, I think, and seemed more like the many loft condos here in Chicago. We recommend it!
• The football game, of course! Last week we wished our tickets were for the USC game but now we’re glad they weren’t! We had tickets to the opening game against the Navy Midshipmen. TBDBITL (The Best Damn Band in the Land) did FOUR “Script Ohio’s,” which you really have to see live, before the game started because the Alumni Band performed, too. The latter ranged in age from 21 – 90. Having been a band geek myself, how cool is that? Also, John Glenn “dotted the I,” which is a HUGE honor, on one of the scripts! It was a really good game — a close one — and we pulled off a win.
• The place where Brian and I ate together for the first time. All of our friends have moved away, and many of our old haunts are no longer there, so we were surprised and delighted that Dan’s Drive-In, an old diner we called Dan’s DIVE-in, was still there. Brian and I had been studying with another friend of ours. When he went to drop me off, I was hungry and this was the only place I knew of that was relatively near my apartment and that would be open at 2am. They’ve since renovated the interior so it’s hardly a dive, but they kept the outside the same, which is cool!

We’re looking forward to taking this trip again next year!

Many of you already know that Brian and I took an extra long weekend for a vacation in Columbus, OH. No, Columbus isn’t New York or San Francisco, but it’s where we met and fell in love 10 years ago. We’re also huge Buckeyes fans and had tickets to the opening game, which happened to fall on Brian’s birthday. I got to meet a fellow Buckeye fan and blog friend, Heather, for the first time, and we had a blast. Pictures and more vacation highlights to follow in an upcoming post.

Brian and I haven’t taken a vacation, not counting visiting family, since the last time we went to a game. That was September 4, 2004 — 5 years ago — when we watched Ohio State beat Cincinnati. We may have gone to 1 or 2 other games since I graduated in 2002, but we’ve never been anywhere else because we didn’t have a honeymoon.

Money isn’t necessarily the reason we haven’t done more traveling. My depression is. This recent trip has been planned since June or July and when we made the decision, I was worried that we’d have to cancel at the last minute because I would feel too depressed to go anywhere. Not knowing how you feel from day to day is frustrating. However, I resolved that I would go no matter what. I showed up to celebrate Mother’s Day for my mom here in Chicago, even though I hadn’t once showered the previous 2 weeks. I don’t think she cared about that; I think she was just happy I was there. And that’s what counts — that I showed up. Since then I’ve been doing pretty good about keeping my commitments, but I’ve stumbled a few times.

Still, going out of town is more complicated. Not only is there the depression to contend with, but there’s the IBS. Medication helps me to be regular, but sometimes I have accidents. This is embarrassing, discouraging, and anxiety-inducing. Not only that, anxiety can induce the lack of control. For me, it increases my depression and self-loathing. It’s reached the point where I’m sometimes afraid to leave the apartment. Most days I won’t go anywhere until after I’ve had a BM because I don’t like going in public places. Also, I absolutely hate having to depend on Depends when I’m neither potty training nor super-elderly. I’ve accepted that diapers are sometimes a necessary thing, but I don’t like it.

This trip was not without some accidents. I tried really hard not to let it discourage me, but each day was jam-packed with activity, all of which was stressful — not bad stress, but stress just the same. The night before we left was the worst, and because we didn’t pack enough diapers (sounds silly since we don’t have kids), Brian had to find a pharmacy that was open 24 hours and drive there at 3 in the morning. Columbus doesn’t have a Walgreens on just about every corner like Chicago does. I was practically in tears from the pain and the worry about the trip home, but it turned out fine. Still, having to deal with this is tough.

But we had a great time, which is the important thing. I got out of bed every day and did stuff and had lots of fun. I’m proud of myself for going to the game and for keeping our dinner date with Heather and her husband, despite my last-minute anxiety. I wish we could have stayed a little longer, but I’m glad that I got through it all, the good and the bad, and that we’re home.