LolaGeek

I went to the dermatologist for the first time yesterday. I have a lot of moles – my whole family is mole-y – so I just wanted to have them checked out. Also, I’ve had these red blotchy spots in the middle of my chest for like four years, so I figured someone should probably look at them. Jess had recommended this doctor to me, and she was so nice!

The exam wasn’t bad at all – they check you all over, and measure any mole that’s a little different shape or is kind of big, and mark on a diagram where it is. If you do this once a year, then they can see if there’s a change in any moles. There were a couple that they want to keep an eye on, but other than that, I’m all good. The red blotchy stuff was diagnosed as tinea versicolor. Basically, there’s a type of bacteria, or fungus, or yeast, that lives on everyone’s skin normally, and I have developed a sensitivity to it. There’s really no cure for this, but the doctor prescribed some anti-fungal kind of lotion for me to use twice a day until the spots go away, and then I can use it again if/when they come back. I know this sounds totally disgusting, but it really isn’t that gross, it’s just some red spots in the middle of my chest. It actually looks like this picture, except it’s only a couple spots, unlike this poor guy.

Anyway, that was cool, and then I got GG to really clean up the house last night! He had piles of papers and mail and stuff on the dining room table and the kitchen table, so he sorted through all those (and found some things that had been missing). While he did that, I dusted in the dining room and straightened up some other things in the kitchen. We have a table again! Then he filed some papers up in his office, while I filed some of my own papers. I think he cleaned up a stack of papers and books and magazines that was behind his office door, preventing it from opening all the way. I’m not sure if he did that or not because I fell asleep, woke up just enough to brush my teeth, and went to bed.

Matt: Well, at least one thing’s going his way – they’re having a baby. Although this probably isn’t the greatest time for that, being suspended from his job and with his marriage still on the rocks. Now, if I were him, at his review with the police I would have used my thought-reading ability to prove to them that I’m not crazy. Don’t you think repeating verbatim each guy’s thoughts would have been more impressive than saying, “I’m sorry, I made the whole thing up”?

Niki: I’m curious to see how things turn out with her psychologist. Maybe that’s the woman who can really help her get a hold of Jessica and take control of her super strength power.

DL and Micah: What a tease, cutting the scene at “I have a secret too!” I thought he was going to tell his dad about his being a technopath, but he might end up saying, “I sold my baseball card collection” or something.

Sylar: As soon as that doctor told Mr. Bennet he was dead, I knew he wasn’t dead. I am curious as to how he cheated death – maybe he sucked a power that lets him “play dead?” Also, what was that white thing on the back of his head in his final scene with Bennet? Was it a result of his tinkering with his brain?

Claire: Well, she won Zach back pretty quickly. They need to learn to lie better, though, and not be all, “Um, we were, um, doing a report! Yeah! A report! About, um, whales… no, manatees!” OMG who is her father?? Just based on that glimpse of arm, I’m tempted to think it’s Nathan. But of course it’s just as likely that it’s someone we haven’t met yet.

Peter and Claude: So curious about who these “other” empaths were that Claude has mentored! Also, why did he suddenly change his mind about Peter? One second he’s ready to kill him, and the next he’s saving him from getting caught and ready to go to work.

Hiro: “Father? GULP” (Of course, I read ahead and knew this was happening, but still cool!)

I sort of wish that they would go back to what they did a lot last year, where an episode would focus on just a couple of the heroes, instead of trying to include everyone in each show.

Heroes Lunch Invitation: Be there, or write a fictitious report on manatees.

Julie and I were just cleaning out David’s office a little bit ago. His wife will be by this week to give back his work laptop, and to pick up any personal stuff he had here, so we need to sort through everything. While we were in there, this guy who sat outside his office (but isn’t in our department) stopped by. He told us how he could tell that David’s family was so important to him, and that he would always hear David call home when he got to work and when he was leaving for the day, and he really loved them and he wasn’t embarrassed about anyone hearing.

We’ll finish up tomorrow, because we have to pick up some copy paper boxes to pack everything in, and his boss will be down from New York to sort through his work-related papers and see what can be trashed and what should be passed on to someone else.

GG and I went to see that house today. I have to say… it was disappointing. The downstairs of the house (which is all the photos I’d seen online) was great – nice big living room with a fireplace; cute dining room; a beautiful recently redone kitchen with tons of cabinets, new appliances, and granite countertops; and a handy first floor bedroom that would make a great studio for GG. Also a nice back porch and a nice big yard with a shed, that backs up to a park. However, the upstairs was so strange. There were two bedrooms, both were so small. One had a good size closet, the other had a “walk-in” closet that didn’t have a bar for hanging clothes or anything. There was also this weird waste-of-space hallway to nowhere upstairs. It was such a shame, really. If the upstairs matched the downstairs, I would totally buy that house right this minute.

It’s just as well, though. We need to stay in our house for a few more months so we don’t have to pay tax on any profit from selling it (this happens after you’ve lived in your house for two years). Also, there’s a lot of improvements that we want or need to make to our house, and what I’d like to do is talk to a realtor about which of these improvements are worth our while and will give us our money back (or more) when we go to sell, and which wouldn’t necessarily make a difference when it comes to selling. The realtor who showed us the house tonight was a really cool, young, nice guy, and I really wouldn’t mind working with him at all. I’m going to give him a call or e-mail tomorrow to see about coming by our house and figuring out what we can start working on to get the place ready to sell.

I know I want to move, but I really will miss living here. Besides the freight train at the end of the block, the location is awesome. We are in walking distance to the post office, bank, Wawa, restaurants, bars, public transportation, polling place on election day… We’ve really gotten the house to be the way we want it, and got furniture to fit the space. And of course, this was the first place we lived together, the first place for each of us (besides being away at school) where we really lived away from our families, and we got married here! So as much as I want to get out of this house, I really will miss it. We just need to take our time, and not settle for anything less than exactly what we want – there’s really no rush to move.

Julie, Heather, and I went to David’s funeral this morning. There was a viewing beforehand, but none of us really wanted to see him. Another of our co-workers had just seen the body when we arrived, and she said he didn’t look like himself at all. I prefer for my last memory of David to be visiting him in the hospital before Christmas – he really didn’t look bad at all, and he was in such good spirits and so appreciative of the gifts we’d brought him from work.

I was feeling okay, and then on our way up to the sanctuary at the church they had set up these easels with all these photos of David and his family over the years. Well, that got me started tearing up, seeing him with his wife and kids and just being a normal guy. Then we got upstairs, and they had a projector and screen in the church that was showing other photos of him while everyone sat down.

The service was pretty good. It was one of those “progressive” services, and they had a house band and played some pretty raucous, upbeat music. It was a big contrast – they’d play a song, then there was a prayer, then a happy song, then the sermon, then a happy song, then people sharing their memories of David. Anyway, the three of us were doing pretty well at the service, and then this girl in the row in front of us started crying and her mom next to her was patting her head… I don’t know, I guess I do okay on crying until I see someone else cry.

When the service was over, we said goodbye to David’s wife. Everyone was downstairs for some lunch in the fellowship hall, but the three of us had already planned to go out somewhere to lunch, so we just headed out. We ended up going to Qdoba, and GG and Brad met us there. Heather met GG for the first time on Friday, when we went out to lunch near his work and he met us, and today was the first time she met Brad. So now she knows what she’s in for, inviting us all to her wedding!

I had a headache by the time I got home, just from all the emotion of the day. I planned to nap for about an hour, and then do laundry and clean the house, but I ended up napping for more like two hours, and GG left for his show in Maryland, and I just got the laundry started but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to clean. (Boy, MyChores is going to yell at me!) Tomorrow we look at that house!! I hope it lives up to my expectations!

I signed up with LendingTree.com last night so I could continue shopping around for mortgage rates. Moments after I received an e-mail from them with the companies they had matched us with, the phone rang. One of the places was calling me already! I talked to this guy for about half an hour, and he actually was really helpful and informative. I’m glad he called first, because soon after I hung up with him, a guy from a second company called, but just to tell me that he’d be e-mailing a link to an online questionnaire that I could fill in myself. The first guy, though, took all the information about me and GG himself, and really took the time to explain how everything worked. (For example, they would probably break our total loan amount up into two loans, to save money on mortgage insurance, which is charged when you take a loan of a certain size.) After talking to him, I seriously don’t feel as lost and overwhelmed as I did before. So that was awesome!

Of course, moments after I finished signing up with Lending Tree, someone online told me that they’d had bad experiences with them, and someone else said that they give your info to more than just four lenders or however many they advertise, and people were calling her for six months.

Maybe we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, I mean, we haven’t even looked at a house yet – but I thought it was best to see what you could be pre-approved for, so you had an idea of your price range. I’m so excited to see this place on Sunday – I’ve already mentally started moving in (dangerous!). Now watch, we’ll get there and it’ll totally suck – all we’ve seen of it so far is six tiny photos and its description online.

I had a little Sacha photo shoot in the window last night with my new camera – you can see the photos on flickr. As soon as I figure out how to get my video clips down to a manageable size, I’ll put them somewhere, too, so you can all hear how insane his purring is – we call him the Purring Machine.

I knew it was too good to last – they’re blocking Twitter now at work. (There is hope – for a while last summer they were blocking Flickr, but brought it back again. But I kind of doubt they’ll see any valid business purpose for Twitter. Darn.)

Good: I talked to a realtor and on Sunday we’re going to go look at this really cute house that’s for sale. He’ll find us some other places in the area, too. (This guy seems really nice, unlike the creepy realtor who sold us our current house.) I really hope we move in the next few months.

Good: My camera was delivered today! According to UPS, it’s waiting for me at the side door.

Bad: We just found out that one of our co-workers died this morning. He had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, but it was actually getting better. Julie and I went to visit him before Christmas, and some other co-workers saw him just last week. But apparently, he got really bad really fast. It’s so depressing.

Wow, I am so glad this show is back! One hour is not long enough! I don’t think I’ll be able to write character by character like I usually do. So, let’s see…

Hiro is so cute! “Flying man!” I saw a really interesting speculation that Takezo Kensai is Hiro, which would be all kinds of awesome if he can really control his power to that degree! How great that Nathan is finally convinced about what’s going on, and willing to help (though I hope it’s not a trick again, like his paint splashing episode earlier). Isaac is looking good, and that makes Simone happy.

Niki/Jessica: creepy. How is she ever going to get out of there?

I loved the reenactment of Claire and Zach’s scene from the first episode – hopefully this means they’re friends again, whether or not he remembers why. Unless the Haitian wiped the entire school’s memory, wouldn’t someone else remember that Claire and Zach had been hanging out a lot together lately?

Hadn’t Matt figured out that the Haitian blocked his mind-reading abilities? If I were him, when nobody found Sylar, I would have asked them to remove the Haitian or to take Mr. Bennett somewhere else so he could actually read his thoughts. But poor guy – nothing’s working out for him.

Very excited about seeing more of the Invisible Man next week, as well as Micah explaining his powers?! I really like that for all the new questions this show has given us, they’re also answering some.

By the way, the Primatech Paper web site is real, and if you call the phone number and follow the directions for job opportunities, you’ll get the code to access the careers section of the site. That unlocks a form you fill out that looks like a job application, but really it’s from NBC (you’ll see it if you follow all the privacy policy links), and they’ll send you periodic text messages to your phone. I didn’t sign up, but I know what the first message is, and I think it might be related to Hana..?

Heroes Lunch Invitation: Be there, or be seen when you thought you were invisible.

Man, a lot of people are finding this site by searching for “buttjack.” Why?!

Other amusing search terms that have led to my site lately (these all led to the site multiple times):

• parrot the mascot
• tmbg tdk
• people rapping
• ikea naked