Long Overdue. Again. Yeah, I suck.

Gah. I've been neglecting again. As usual, lots of stuff keeping me busy, some good, some bad.

Firstly, I would like to point an angry and accusatory finger at the Oregon Army National Guard, or rather the people who organize demobilization ceremonies. Not that this is anything new, but they keep changing dates and times. The last thing I heard was that Joe wouldn't get a ceremony because his unit wouldn't be released until after the ceremony had taken place. That was fine by us, neither one of us is interested in a ceremony.

Well, apparently many families complained, and now they're throwing a makeshift ceremony together at the last minute. Now I have to drive farther, find my way to a new location in a town I'm not familiar with, wait impatiently through a retarded ceremony (my husband will think it's retarded too), and I'll probably have to coordinate with the in-laws who will want to go, whereas before, I was going to pick him up alone. *pouty lower lip* I'm irritated.

Now that that's out of my system...

I had a rough couple weeks at work. I discussed the accommodations issue with my coworkers, and everyone was cool with it except for one asshole coworker - and believe me, I'm mean Asshole with a capitol "A".

The guy questioned whether I even have a valid diagnosis. He said he knows people with bipolar disorder, and they don't have the problems I described of myself. He said if I really did have bipolar disorder I would be seeing a specialist and taking medication. To which I replied, um... I'm doing both...? That's why I'm talking about this in the first place...?

He then steered the conversation in the direction of not trusting me to work as many hours as everyone else because I have a later work schedule and (according to him) I just go home at 5:00 when everyone else leaves. I defended by position by saying that I've had to leave early a few times for appointments, but that I always work at least 40 hours a week if not more, often staying way late, past 7 or 8 o'clock. He said that was completely untrue, basically calling me a liar.

I couldn't believe how contentious the discussion became. Everything this guy said completely flew in the face of all of my values, and for that matter, the culture of trust and respect my department has worked hard to foster. I really wasn't expecting such an angry backlash. It was way over the top. And then he had the nerve to accuse me of exaggerating when I was countering his argument.

Nobody else in the department shared his concerns, in fact a couple of my coworkers backed me up, both calling my statements true and saying that they have no trust issues with me whatsoever because they know I work hard.

But it wasn't enough to appease Mr. Dickhead. He demanded that I somehow track my time and activities after 5:00pm. Nevermind that other people besides me have schedules outside of business hours - none of them are being asked to do anything differently.

I was pretty upset. I wrote an email to my boss, and he was frustrated too. The next day at our retrospective, I called the guy out by name on his constant attempts to put me down and invalidate the things I say. He was outraged, but once again, my coworkers backed me up. Since then, the comments have been less, but not gone completely.

And because I'm a workaholic with an overburdened sense of responsibility, I now feel like I have to work twice as hard and twice as long to satisfy this guy's scrutiny, even though I wasn't doing anything wrong in the first place.

I've had a hard time coming to terms with this. Really, it's not my responsibility to make this guy happy. His paranoia is his problem, not mine. Yet I feel like I have to prove something. Because dammit -- I kick ass, no matter what he thinks. But I've decided that if it comes up again, I'm going to get my boss involved. Nobody should be policing my activities, and I don't owe it to anyone to account for every minute of my work day. The only one who can ask for that is my supervisor, and he hasn't because he knows I do my job.

Grrr... it still makes me angry when I think about it.

Anyway, on to more pleasant things.

The Muse concert was freaking amazing. Best concert ever. Their stage set up and lighting was phenomenal, and of course they performed impeccably like the rock gods they are. Man I love them. I took some bad cell phone photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43570&id=1667793467&l=8f6f0157b9

The Silversun Pickups opened, and I was excited to see them too. I'd had tickets to see them a while back but didn't make it to the show and always regretted not going. They had a really good energy and there's something that just sort of cute about them. They're a cute band. I don't know how else to put it. Their singer/guitarist is a fairly dynamic performer. They like distortion and muddy chords, which I also like, although I think some of the audience was less than impressed. I had a good time.

Muse had this long opening sequence that really built up the suspense. There were these three huge columns on the stage that looked like sky scrapers. They began to light up, like windows on a building at night coming to life one by one. When they were all lit, they faded away into the lighted silhouettes of people walking up flights of stairs. After several minutes of stair climbing, the people all stopped and stood in place. Then one by one, they started tumbling down as if they'd jumped or fallen. Everything went black for a short moment, and then... the sky scrapers turned red and their curtain coverings fell to reveal Muse - one band member in the middle of each of the three columns, high up above the stage. Totally cool opening.

The best YouTube video I've found of it is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XpsfS1mbZg
Different perspective from where I was at, down on the floor.

The bottom half of the columns moved up and down, while the top half remained suspended above the stage. During the second song, the band members were lowered to stage level. They went back up a few times during the show. The drum kit was on a rotating platform. Colors, graphics, and video footage were projected onto the upper half of the columns, and the bottom half when they were elevated. They had these crazy green lasers that were projecting out from the stage, and also towards the stage from the back and sides of the arena - they were literally everywhere you looked.

Matt Bellamy played and sang with passion and presence, as always, though I couldn't see him much of the time because of where I was standing - blocked by tall people. I could almost always see Chris Wolstenholme, the bassist, and he was so amazing. He's so fast - total mastery of his instrument. And he sings back-up totally in tune. I had a bass player crush on him. Dom Howard played amazing drums, but always hard to see him, or any drummer for that matter, behind the drum kit. His column was often raised slightly with his drum platform on top of that, sometimes rotating around so the people behind the stage could see.

It was one of those concerts that was so awesome that it made me a drooling fangirl for a couple weeks afterwards. I desperately hope they make a DVD from this tour.

The same guy who took the video above took some other really good ones too. (I'm putting these here mostly for myself so I can easily ogle these great bands whenever I feel like it!)

Silversun Pickups - Substitution:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Squidvicious#p/a/u/2/1LExanKV_oI

The awesome Muse drum and bass jive on the rotating platform:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Squidvicious#p/a/u/1/5FtyNw9ez0A

Silversun Pickups - Well Thought Out Twinkles:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Squidvicious#p/u/4/_9WILdhTiGo

Muse - Time is Running Out (I was singing the loudest!):
http://www.youtube.com/user/Squidvicious#p/u/6/2ZwEIFFkL_M

The giant "eye" balloons at the end of Plug In Baby, bloodshot with red confetti:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Squidvicious#p/u/3/PrBs2O7_Yd0

Weezer - Island in the Sun. Yeah, it's got nothing to do with Muse, but Rivers Cuomo is just so cool. :-P
http://www.youtube.com/user/Squidvicious#p/u/13/IEtD3_KJEko

Seriously, I strongly considered flying to another city so I could see it again, following them like a groupie. If only I wasn't financially committed to buying a house soon! lol

Ah... that brings me to the house. Er... housES. Yes, that's plural.

The first house, the short sale... nothing new there. Still waiting and receiving no feedback from the seller. It's looking like a lost cause. I've been looking at listings this whole time, keeping my options open though not finding anything decent that I care to look at.

Finally, I found one, and I drove to look at it by myself and discovered that it's really cute inside (through the windows), and has a great yard. I called my realtor and asked to look at the inside. We went the next day. I love this house. In the first 10 minutes I was picturing my furniture inside and deciding what I would do with each room in the house. Then I was picturing how Joe and I would BBQ on the back patio, or sit together on the covered front porch.

I agonized over the decision to put an offer on it. I was hesitant to dive in when Joe hasn't had a chance to look at it yet. I'm really afraid to have it seem like I'm making this major life decision on his behalf. I want him to have a choice, and I want him to know that whatever we decide, we're going to do it together, and any house we buy is ours, as a family. But...

Excitement got the best of me. That, and my realtor told me that we could start the process now, and if Joe comes home, sees the house, and doesn't like it, we can use one of the many standard contingencies to back out without being penalized. So I went for it.

I talked to Joe the next day, and he actually knew what house I was talking about. He likes the neighborhood, and thinks he remembers liking the house. Of course he wants to see it - we're going to arrange a walk-through hopefully at the end of this week after he's home.

After all the excitement and daydreaming about this place, there was a long anti-climactic wait period that's still going on right now. The seller's agent acknowledged our offer by sending us a multiple offer notification. Yuck. Someone else is interested too. That was the last thing we heard. No acceptance, but no refusal either. I'm waiting not-so-patiently and hoping for the best.

Joey will be home on Thursday, and I can't wait. I'm so eager for us to finally be a normal married couple and start our lives together. No more time zone difference, bad phone reception, or unreliable skype calls. No more laying awake each night wondering if he's okay, missing his warmth. No more editing myself when we talk because there's not enough time to say everything. We have all the time in the world now, and I intend to make the very best of it. I'm so happy this is almost over. I makes me smile just thinking about it. :)