crank

Tonight is a night for floppy grumping. All I feel like doing is heaving myself around from flat surface to flat surface, while I sigh and try to get comfortable.

No I don't want to write the book review that is due today. No I don't want to go for a walk. No I don't feel like watching anything on internet TV. No I don't feel like weeding the front garden. No no no no no.

Maybe I feel a little like clicking from random thing to random thing on the internet, but only just a little.

Seeing as how I recommended a dish-smashing pit to two of my friends today, seems it may just be going around.

I have a feeling that the next two weeks are just going to be a litany of complaints.

Because you know what should not be allowed to happen?

PMS during NaNoWriMo.

Because also, the first half of my cycle was stressful enough, I mean really, that the last half should be more like a last almost-two-thirds. My body is telling me that is not the case, however, and I have wanted to throw something breakable for several hours now. Just to hear the glorious smash and know I caused it.

It is possible, though not probable, that I have never been as sticky grimy gross as I am right now. It, my friends, has been quite a day.

I have made three trips to three different hardware stores - one car ride, two bike rides. I have installed two ceiling fans and switched a light switch. I have done 2/3rds of my grocery shopping. I have taken out the garbage and swept the steps to the basement. I have written a long email, sent to my councillor and two community police officers, detailing the fight at - during which a very drunk woman was punched in the face and kicked in the stomach - and subsequent arrival of street cops to, the House Across the Street (HAS).

I have done this all while sweating.

Because although Shelley pointed out to me that our houses had air conditioning, this once-forgotten fact hit me square in the stubborn spot.

Sometimes I start to say that I'm easy going. But while I am about some things (I'm a good travel companion) and getting better about others, it's more accurate to describe me as some combination of wishy-washy and decision-making impaired. I'm generally content to do what other people are doing, and follow other people's decisions.

Every once in a while, though, something random will hit me exactly the right/wrong way and I'll refuse to do whatever it is. Just because I don't want to, though I may paint reasonable reasons over top of that.

Which means that I refused to turn the air conditioning on until a few minutes ago when someone who does not live in, but drinks at, the HAS was talking loudly as they walked down the street and I wanted to hurl both obscenities and something sharp in their direction. Which means that during the worst heat of the day I was installing two ceiling fans on the underside of the floor of my very poorly ventilated attic.

When I wasn't, that is, driving and biking around in the blazing fucking heat getting food and ceiling fan materials.

Which means that I have been covered in at least a thin film of sweat since pretty much 9 this morning. The signpost for schvitzy was waaaaaaaaaaaay way back there. I believe I entered the township of Ripe some hours ago.

The suckerpunch in all this is that I feel like I didn't get very much done today.

For instance: I didn't do any yoga or go for an exercise bike ride; I didn't get all of my grocery shopping done; I didn't get a letter of reference written; I have not yet written a review of two ejaculation books, though I plan to do so as soon as I hit save on this; I didn't get my sheets washed, or the tub cleaned, the compost walked to the garden. I gave up on a float Britannia Bay at about the same time I realized that I was going to have to replace the light switch in the bedroom and that I had no idea how to do that.*

Shelley called mid-afternoon. At one point, she said "But you're always busy! You're so good, you get so much done!" There's no way I could argue with the first sentence, but the second? It was nice to hear, but surprising.

Considering that the list of what I did get done kind of impresses me when it is on the screen and not in my head, I may need to rethink this "what I'd like to get done" list bullshit.

*Very easily, as it turns out.

Come to think of it, I was possibly a bit harsh yesterday. Now, I cannot deny that yesterday was No Fun. But I did feel a bit bad when CT Skyped me this afternoon to say he hoped he wasn't too much a part of that. He wasn't. A part, yes, but not too much a part.

It was just one of those days that didn't go well from start to finish. A dense loaf of mild but irritating work frustration, ugly weather, uncomfortable clothes, bad skin, inevitable but not happy news. An icing made of misunderstanding and disappointment. An unsatisfying yoga class being the cherry on top.

One of those things? Okay. A couple of those? Sheesh.

All of those?

One crappy crappy slice of life.

I've still got the aftertaste, but only traces, really. I suspect that a glass of wine over dinner in the Back House tonight might cleanse my palate completely.

Although nothing terrible happened this weekend, and, in fact, some very fun things happened this weekend, I have spent most of the past two days in a foul mood. I have no right to bitch, because everything that is happening to me, with the exception of the comuter, is good. But two of the main good things happening to me require the marshalling of a lot of small details I'm not enjoying. During weather that is nigh unbearable.

One of the very fun things is that Ivan and I ended up going to see The Dark Knight on Friday. Earlier in the week, we'd talked about maybe going, but then an early afternoon phone call confirmed no. All good. I had cupboards to scrub; Dish Mountain to be scaled; boxes to pack.

The phone rang just as it was getting dark. She wasn't getting any work done, did I want to go after all?

I looked at the dirty dishes, I looked at the boxes.

"Yes. Yes, I would like that."

The movie was terrible. I think we were the only two peope in the theatre who thought so. At least we each had back up.

It was nearly 1 am when we came out of the theatre. The air was soupy.

"God," Ivan said. "I don't get this weather here, in what, Southern Ontario?"
"I'd say Eastern. But six of one, really."
"Okay, yeah. Whatever. In Vancouver, you look outside, it's grey and drizzling, and you know it's cold. Here you walk out and it's like you opened the dishwasher mid-cycle."

That phrase - dishwasher mid-cycle - didn't stray far from my poor overheated brain as I zipped from place to place picking up this and dropping off that. There are lots of things I probably hate more than the damp film of sweat a mid-summer Ottawegian day leaves over your skin, but by god, I'm hard pressed to think of them right now.

Maybe the dry, flaking skin of a February day.

And another thing: I could probably go on and on about how much I miss my computer and why, for fuck's sake, did the p die three weeks before my long distance lover came to town? And why, for FUCKS SAKE, didn't I think this through and just copy and paste the p until he got here? There are lot's of words without p's! That's why god invented ctrl-v! Chrissakes.

Lucky for me, my friends rock. Instead of going on and on, I will just transcribe this conversation.

Me: Don't those people at staples know that right now that computer is my sex life? They're killing me.
Jennifer: Well, feel free to use my computer when I'm gone. For whatever you want.

That, my dears, is what they call Above and Beyond.

And also, I love video Skype. Pixellation and all. Take that, 3000 miles.

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.