These were all made my me, by request from Necktie.

Feel free to use them. A link back would be lovely.

– If you’re complaining (“Those aren’t your blinkies! You stold one from my friend who didn’t give you PERMISSION because s/he foolishly believes that someone will pay her/him for making animated GIFs! WAAAH!”), please be certain to include your email address so I can contact you. If you don’t, I’ll delete your message.

Adopted

The blinkies below were all taken from sites that allowed free ‘adoption’. I realize some of them might just possibly have been on those sites without their makers’ permission (gasp!), but since I think the widespread ‘culture’ of blinky-makers is absurd I’d like to place my argument here.

Blinkies are silly and should be free

Many sites which showcase custom blinkies have absurd rules: You can adopt only if you sign up, You can adopt only if you promise to use a Javascript to keep people from being able to “steal” the artwork; You can’t adopt at all but you can order custom images for money; You can use the images but you MUST link back and run a script… It’s stupid.

These little images are perfectly adorable (no doubt about that!) , but they’re not valuable. Copy-protecting a blinky is like locking an empty pop can up in a safe: no one cares about the nickel but you.

I’m not making any money posting these images here, and I sure as hell ain’t hurting anyone by giving these childish little images free exposure. I mean, come on, people. They’re blinkies. Any good graphic artist could crank out hundreds per day; we we all know they have no monetary value whatsoever.

If you really do own one or more of the adopted blinkies shown here and you want me to remove them, naturally I will. Just contact me. But think about it: your work has made it to the site of a total stranger. Isn’t that the point? Do you really think I’m damaging your livlihood somehow by showcasing your work for free? Are you honestly offended that I liked your work enough to want a copy of my own?

Just a thought.

Now: on to the blinkies!
Continue reading Blinkies →

The Law of Fives is one of the oldest Erisian Mysterees. It was first revealed to Good Lord Omar and is one of the great contributions to come from The Hidden Temple of The Happy Jesus.
 

POEE subscribes to the Law of Fives of Omar’s sect. And POEE also recognizes the holy 23 (2+3=5) that is incorporated by Episkopos Dr. Mordecai Malignatus, KNS, into his Discordian sect, The Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.

The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.

The Law of Fives is never wrong.

In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: “I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look.”

Continue reading The Law of Fives →

I miscarried.

I sat here reading about labor, that was a Godsend and helped me to think of the pain as a natural thing, I started breathing through it even before I really realized how bad the pain was getting. I had to pee, and it was nearly noon, so I took my cell to the bathroom with me. Brett called while I was in there, here to take me for lunch.

So I went and got in the truck, and talked with Brett for a quarter of the drive, and by then the cramping was intense, so I told Brett that I was in pain… he comforted me (as well as he could while driving) and we continued the ride home. The bumps on the road hurt, my uterus was cramping, and my lower intestine was (and still is) feeling very, very sore and tender.

I didn’t cry until I got home, in the kitchen Brett reached for me and I let it out. We sat on the couch and he held me. I was hungry, so when I stopped crying we went back into the kitchen. He made tuna melts and heated the soup, and I went to the bathroom.
Continue reading 0w+0d →

Dr. Blair is really nice; Reni was right. He came in wearing a green tie with a cartoon character on it. The appointment was inconclusive.

I took the entire afternoon off. We hung out at Jim & Joy’s. Brett worked on his truck (he broke a tie rod end yesterday) and I hung out in the front yard with Joy and Ella. Ella really liked being outside in the spring breeze. We got me a bean burrito from Taco John’s and then drove to Keosauqua. I checked in, filled out some forms, and then went with the nurse.

She weighed me, asked me about my bleeding, had me pee in a cup (the cups there are weird and they come with a towelette you’re supposed to clean off with BEFORE you pee), took me to an examining room and took my pulse and blood pressure the old fashioned way. Apparently they don’t use digital instruments there, except thermometers. The good news is that I had lost a little weight on my diet, I’m 152. She asked me my pregnancy history. She asked me if we were trying to get pregnant, if I’d be upset if I miscarried. She left to get the doctor.
Continue reading 6w+2d →

I have tubercles! (Montgomery’s tubercles. They’re sweat glands. Brett looked it up this morning.) They’re weird little bumps on my boobs. I’m so knocked up! Eek! I’m happy, though. Brett’s gloating in an I-told-you-so kind of way. He hasn’t doubted it for a moment.

Since I have a doctor’s appointment today, and they’ll probably be poking at my boobs, I decided to shave off those hairs in the shower this morning. While I was doing that little chore, I discovered these bumps all over my areolas. I got out, dried off, and showed them to Brett. He said, “Yeah, you’re supposed to get those.” So I went and looked at my breasts in the mirror; they’re covered with light blue lines too: veins supplying blood flow. My breasts at least are definitely pregnant.
Continue reading 6w+1d →

“6 wks from Last Menstrual Period – Length of embryo measures 4 mm.”

Here’s my weekend.

I went home at lunch on Friday because I couldn’t deal with work. I was still bleeding lightly, and was crazy emotionally. (By crazy, I most definitely wasn’t feeling like me.) My appetite had become moderate; I had no desire to eat more than a small portion of anything. (For instance, I ate half a burrito on Thursday, and the second half of it on Friday. I never do that, I wolf the entire thing in one sitting.)

Saturday, my lower abdomen felt tight. Really tight. I couldn’t do those exercises (Kegels?) if I’d wanted because everything was already as tight as it would get. There was continuous cramping on the right side of my uterus, like a day-long charlie horse. I did some mildly physical stuff, walking around the farm (went to the triangle pond with the dogs) and housework and stuff. I bled heavily for a pregnant woman, but if it were a normal period I would have called it quite light; less than half of a normal period flow. My breasts hurt and there were occasional sharp pains in them.
Continue reading 6w+0d →

“A first trimester ultrasound is considered an essential part of pregnancy care.”

So yesterday was WEIRD. Brett called me at a bit before noon ask me to meet him at Jim & Joy’s. I’d been a little insane in the morning, in the sense of my ‘no no no no’ fit when Gerri came in and asked me to deal with a customer, but I thought I had it all together. Right before I left for lunch, I went to the bathroom… and there was blood. Not a lot, in retrospect, but at the time I thought that my period was starting, that I was miscarrying. So I went and got in the Jeep and drove circuitiously to Revelations, where I thought to get some soup. While parking, the Jeep started going THUNK!THUNK!THUNK!THUNK! I thought, ‘Great, now the fucking car’s going to break, I’m bleeding, I feel like crying, and I NEED SOME SOUP.’ I started walking to Revelations but turned around and got back in the Jeep and drove sort of toward Jim & Joy’s… but ended up going home. I had chills so I ran the heat at max the whole drive home.

When I got home, Joe was there for some reason, but that’s another story. I sniffled myself to sleep after getting into bed, and woke at 1:00 when Brett called my cell phone. I didn’t answer it, but I got up and went downstairs and worked up the nerve to call him back and tell him that I was home, spotting, and freaking out. I’ve never been so weird in all my life as I was to him on the phone, but I really couldn’t help it. I wanted him to come home — well, I did after he offered to — but I was too embarassed to actually HAVE him come home. He said he loved me at the end of the call and I nearly lost my mind. I was having a bonafide psychological episode. Ack! It’s so weird to be insane!
Continue reading 5w+4d →

“Vaginal bleeding during pregnancy may be the first warning sign of a miscarriage. However, about 20 percent of women have vaginal bleeding during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and less than half of them miscarry.”t

Oh, let’s hope I’m in the right percentage.

I started spotting yesterday before I left work. It continued, lightly, throughout the evening. (Most of which I spent sleeping.) I’m still spotting slightly. I’m SO nervous I’m going to lose this one too… I’ve had too many miscarriages to want to have another. I don’t want to feel like that again.
Continue reading 5w+3d →