crank

Do you know what I have had enough of? Small talk. Conversations with my father that take hairpin turns into uncharted and awkward waters. Neverending planning to see people to whom I have nothing to say but "Oh. Huh. Oh really? Still in Ajax. Huh. Oh. Nice. Yep, just down the street. Yeah, I probably will borrow my friends' wagons. Ha ha."

Last night Amy and I had a surprisingly good Thai dinner in Keswick. You might not think that a small town on the shores of Lake Simcoe might be the place to find a good green curry, but I assure you, that's faulty thinking. The food we had last night was as good as, and in the case of that curry, better than, any Thai food I've had in Ottawa.

The brunch I made this morning, for my mom and sister-in-law, for mother's day, during which I conscripted Amy to cook, even though it was her birthday, was very definitely not better than any brunch I've had in Ottawa. I've poached eggs before, but not very often. And cooking tip #42: If the water is not hot enough, the egg whites will disperse into the water. You won't think this is a problem until you do get the water hot enough, and the egg white molecules, thoroughly entwined with the water molecules, will cook and turn the water a cloudy white just before they create a foamy scum on the surface, just before you put the whole pot in the sink, grab a skillet, and start frying.

So yes, you can also add: kitchen disasters in other people's kitchens to that list.

Okay, I wish for things all the time. But ridiculous things. Like I wish I were independently wealthy and could hire Eric to fan me and feed me bonbons all day. Like I wish that people would stop using god as an excuse to beat on each other and that world could share its resources a little better. Like I wish it was fall all the time.

To me, these are things worth wishing for, since I don't have a lot of control over them.

Last night I was sitting in the rotunda at Algonquin College, waiting for Grace, and knitting. No one paid me no nevermind.* Well, a couple of older ladies walking by threw a curious glance to suss out what the project was, but other than that, nothing.

Or, nothing much.

A few stitches before the end of the night's last round, a man walked by, quite closely to me. He looked like a nice man, a reasonably intelligent man. He looked down and shook his head and smiled ruefully.

"I wish I could do that," he said, kept walking.

You know what I did? I giggled. Fuck's sake. Cause 5 seconds later, I was fuming, and this is what I said to him in my head:

No. You know what? You do not wish that. Because if you actually wished that, you would pick up some fucking needles and a ball of yarn and take a damn lesson. It's not rocket science.

I hate that. Don't tell me you wish something you could just do, don't tell me you wish things hadn't worked out this way when they worked out this way because you acted like an ass with poor judgement.

Wishing for something entirely within your control is for pussies.

*It made me feel like calling up my ex, who was adamant about me not knitting in public, to tell him to stick it.

Yesterday, I got into the biggest crank I have been in for a long time.

Losing my computer and starting over has certainly put me far behind where I wanted to be on a bunch of stuff. Mostly blogging and getting my damn self ready for the reading I've got on Wednesday. Many moons ago, I blogged about this story idea that was burbling, and I'd like to get something done on that, but jesus. It's hard to write fiction. I thought I was maybe ready to make the leap from blogging to fiction, because really blogging is a kind of fiction.

Not to say that I lie here, because I'm quite careful to get the facts as right as I can remember them. But writing a blog post certainly requires re-ordering life. So I figured, how hard can fiction be? I've got a clear idea of the characters and a decent outline, which is often more than life gives you.

But I am finding it very hard. I am getting up from my computer a lot. Washing a lot of dishes. Organizing things that yes, do need to be organized, but not, perhaps, right at the moment.

So a layer of stress has been burbling under most of my daily activities.

The weather isn't helping. Yesterday morning I met up with Kate and Aaron to go over some photos AMF took of us a couple weeks ago. They turned out really well, though Kate and I took turns at being a little horrified by how little clothing we were wearing.

So that was very good and productive and fun. But I had to go grocery shopping after, and I bought too much heavy stuff and I was already sore from two back to back yoga classes last week and from some sexing after that. And it's a weird time of year. I left the house wearing a sweater and a jacket because there was quite a chill in the air, but then by the time I had walked around a bit with the full spring sun out I had warmed up some. By the time I was in line at Hartman's and the woman in front of me was counting out every fucking penny, and I had possibly the stupidest and slowest cashier in the world, I was sweating but trying to manage too many bags to get my coat off and besides I was just about to go back outside so I should just hang on even though I wanted to yell at the cashier (PEARS! BOSC PEARS! FOR FUCK'S SAKE!), I was fit to be tied.

I left the store and headed west, into the wind. I got mad at the wind. Things were bad.

And what was waiting for me at home? A new computer full of promotional crap and with no software on it and no internet. I then had to spend a while futzing with it. It went okay, but there's always mysterious stuff.

Over the years, I have had a lot of problems with, euphemistically, inward-directed anger. To deal with this, I have had to take very careful stock of what sets that off. Two of the biggest triggers are having things I feel I should be good at (like, say, dealing with my computer) not go well and getting overheated. Two for two yesterday afternoon.

I was supremely glad that no one was around, because I was a very unpleasant person, and I do like to think of myself as a pleasant person. I was particularly glad that Eric was not around, because he has yet to see me in that kind of mood and lord knows, it's not flattering.

In the middle of this, Jennifer - and the loveliness of her having moved in next door is one of the things I have wanted to blog but haven't fit in yet - came over to borrow some Allan keys. It was good that she did. Though I felt a bit bad about being so ruffled at first, a good chat certainly loosened me up. Enough to call Shelley back and not be an unpleasant phone caller. That helped too.

Third aid: going for a run, though I felt a bit weird about taking an hour to run (when you include warm-up and cool down and stretching) when I still don't have anything new for Wednesday and thus nothing new to practice for Westfest.

But today I'm feeling much better. I have a bunch of hours until my friend Chris gets here, and I am *very* excited about her getting here, since she lives in Winnipeg and I don't get to see her very often. And I have a very cute boy currently asleep in my bed as I sit here tapping away. The only thing wrong with that is that it is taking a certain amount of discipline to keep myself from slipping into bed and waking him up with a well-placed hand.

There are certainly worse problems to have.