Schitzophrenic Post - You Have Been Warned.

Today is astralfire's 40th Birthday. I got him his birthday present a couple of weeks ago though, when I got mine. He has a shiny iPod Nano that I was recently informed was the best present EVER. :D

We were going to go to the Georgia Renn Faire, but we both had too much work to do. Maybe next week will still have pleasant cool weather and we can try again then. Otherwise, I might be missing another Renn Faire season because it just gets way too hot here in Atlanta for me to be out.

Friday I got to do something nice for two people, John De Lancie got his computer all fixed up, and darthkud got to hang out on stage while John was doing the rehearsals for Tosca, and got tickets to opening night. Which reminds me, if you are a Dragon*Con or Star Trek sort of fan, go to the Dragon*Con website, there's a cool bit of info up in the top right corner box for you all.

Yesterday at 1:30 PM PST my biological mother passed away after a long and very painful fight with (untreated) cancer that had spread throughout her body.

For those of you that don't know, I first found my biological family a little over three years ago, the day before Thanksgiving. That Wednesday evening was the only communication I ever had with my biological mother. It was a short call, maybe around an hour or so, and she carefully sidestepped everything I asked, while making it clear that she really didn't want to have further communication with me. This was underscored by the fact that she didn't want anyone else in the family to know I had found them. If my sister R- hadn't already known, I wouldn't have had any contact at all with any of my biological family for the last few years.

I don't understand why she was the way she was, but I figured out everything I needed to know in that one hour I spoke with her: she was never going to tell me what I wanted to know no matter how long either of us waited. So, I made peace with it and moved on, fortunate in the fact that my sister was willing to give me information and our family's medical history.

Over the last few months, as J-'s health has declined, my sister and I have spoken more frequently, and I am glad I could be here for her. It helped her that I had gone through something similar when Daniel was ill, and I suppose comforted her on some level because as you all know I am not one for keeping secrets or sugar coating bad situations, so when everyone else was lying to her, I guess I was the one person she knew who wouldn't.

In the end, J- took all her secrets with her, just as I knew she would.

R- asked me today if I wanted to know when the funeral was being held, in case I wanted to come out there. I do want to know when the funeral is, but I don't think I should go. I just don't know that dropping me in on the family while they are grieving would be a good idea - and it would be hard for them not to know, my sisters (all three of them) and I all look pretty much exactly alike. Not to mention, it has always been my firm belief that if you can't see someone in life, there's no sense in going when they are dead. Of course, if I did go, it wouldn't be for J- it would be for R-.

In other news, Dragon*Con has me snowed under already, and every time I go to Emory, someone hands me a new project (yay for the work! boo for not having a life heh). As a result, I have not been able to play WoW in almost three weeks, and my PvP rankings are suffering! /cry

I continue to adore my PSP and it's shiny glowing electronicness. Thanks to it, I am getting very conversational in Chinese (Mandarin)! Every time I have to be in my car, I plug it in and listen to my Chinese lessons. I am practically giddy about how quickly I am catching on to the words and structure of sentences! I suppose my brain hasn't rotted as much as I thought it had. I really do need to find someone that speaks Chinese well enough for me to practice with, that or I have to twist someone's arm into learning it with me, heh. The PSP is also going to make going to the gym a lot less dull and boring - yay for movies that fit in your pocket! :D

The unfortunate thing is that since I have started back on my exercise routine and healthy diet (not a diet really, just making sure I eat enough, and healthy foods), I am continuing to struggle with eating ENOUGH. I am regularly 600-800 calories short every day ( I burn about 3000 and should be eating 2000 ish, but I average around 1200 on a good day). I just get wrapped up in what I am doing and completely forget to eat some meals, and really, it's impossible for me to eat that much in a day if I don't try to eat a little bit ever 4 or so hours (which I am suppose to be doing any way because I am hypoglycemic). I am not sure how to get that worked out unless I set some sort of alarm that goes off ever 4 hours to remind me I have to go eat something, but what a pain in the arse!

I am also not sleeping well, and have been averaging 4 hours a day for the last three or more weeks. A lot of it has to do with just having so much work to do that I have to stay up and do it, or if I do manage to go to sleep, then I auto wake in a couple of hours because my brain remembers all the stuff I am not doing because I am sleeping. I know I am not sleeping enough because I am going straight into REMs the instant I fall asleep. Starting tonight, I am going to try going to bed and sleeping for 6 straight hours. If it doesn't work by this weekend, I may take the sleeping pills I have for a couple of days to try to get back into a healthy sleep cycle.

And on that note, it is bedtime!