Today was one of those strange days in my body where I'm in pain but I feel like doing everything, so I did everything. I did not clean the house or take the dog on an extra-long walk, but otherwise I feel pretty fucking accomplished for a scrambled egg brain.
I organized all my vintage maps by region into folders in two small plastic boxes.
I went to an estate/demolition sale that kicked ass. $7.50 for stuff that I can sell for $100+ and it's all easy to mail.
I purchased key ingredients for the completion of two of my ongoing projects.
I went grocery shopping.
I took photos of some of the new things I got at today's estate sale and almost completed getting them listed online.
I'd planned to go to the bar and listen to the Irish band and be social, but I'm completely exhausted. My logical processing ability started its downward decent a good six hours ago, and at this point I'm likely to bite anyone who touches me, possibly including my dog. When I first got back from all the running around errand stuff and I was light-headed and woozy and trying to breathe and re-establish myself on this plane of existence, I looked up and there was my dog, sitting tall in the middle of the dining room, staring at me. I stared back. It was perfect.
Now I don't want the computer touching me, either. I don't usually get like this. Weird.
Showing posts with label general productivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general productivity. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Peachy Fuzz
I am super fuzzy out of it today. I am not in pain or anything, and I've had an extremely productive morning all things considered, but I am a total space cadet. I actually finished my crystal chandelier and did absolutely everything I physically possibly could without a second, taller person around and/or a ladder to install it in my hallway. Then I took apart the chandelier destined for my dining room as much as I could, but I can't get into the center where all the wiring comes together. I think I'm not strong enough and it's just too old and rusty crusty from spending 50+ years untouched, but I got all the other pieces apart and took pictures at every step so I won't have problems remembering how it goes back together. Then I went looking for the sockets I bought, thinking I'd at least make the sockets and the socket covers the same size and get that done, but as I looked through my container of hardware stuff my brain fizzed and bubbled as it tried to make sense of the mass of objects. Sometimes, I can very quickly glance at a group of things and then look away and tell you how many there were, what colors they were, things like that; this was the exact opposite. I stared and stared and instead of "wrench" and "socket" and "hammer" I saw mushmushmushmushmush. So no driving for me today. I'd planned on going to sell some lamps, but Man plans and God laughs. I need to find another micro-concentration project. That's what I'm good at today. Small tasks with one thing at a time. I could polish a huge box of silver if I had such a thing. Maybe I can take more photographs or make more envelopes. That feels useful and takes the right kind of functioning.
It's hard for me to express my fuzzies in writing. Writing seems to be one of those micro tasks that I can do amidst the fuzz. I will space out for who knows how long in the middle of a sentence, but that doesn't come across if I'm able to pick up the sentence and you read it all at once later without the five minute lost-inside-my-head-following-some-random-train-of-thought pause.
I fear the crazy in me.
Ok, I may be going to The Mall and Target with Aural Girl. Get me out of the house, and with a baby sitter so I don't walk into walls. I need Draino and a few other things, so this is good. Last night I finally got her and Possible Boy to watch Dr. Horrible. I'm not sure how much they actually liked it, but I probably over-hyped it and then we had to watch it on my tiny little computer and Possible Boy and I were both in odd (not bad, but odd) moods and I ate half the olives my parents left after Sunday's dinner.
Speaking of olives, I need to eat again.
It's hard for me to express my fuzzies in writing. Writing seems to be one of those micro tasks that I can do amidst the fuzz. I will space out for who knows how long in the middle of a sentence, but that doesn't come across if I'm able to pick up the sentence and you read it all at once later without the five minute lost-inside-my-head-following-some-random-train-of-thought pause.
I fear the crazy in me.
Ok, I may be going to The Mall and Target with Aural Girl. Get me out of the house, and with a baby sitter so I don't walk into walls. I need Draino and a few other things, so this is good. Last night I finally got her and Possible Boy to watch Dr. Horrible. I'm not sure how much they actually liked it, but I probably over-hyped it and then we had to watch it on my tiny little computer and Possible Boy and I were both in odd (not bad, but odd) moods and I ate half the olives my parents left after Sunday's dinner.
Speaking of olives, I need to eat again.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Between A and B
Possible Boy said everything I've ever wanted to hear a person say about something I wrote. And he meant it. Really, really meant it. If I could make myself cry honey and rose petals.
Aside: Other Girl needs a different name in here. It's the code name that seems wrong every time I write it. NBF always cracks me up to call him New Best Friend because how the name came about, the irony of it, the double-edged smirk. Possible Boy is a bundle of still-blooming kinetic energy, so I think of him as Possible Boy like a super-hero name: Super Man, Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Possible Boy.
I discussed Other Girl's need for a new name with Other Girl and, plied with wine, we decided on Aural Girl. We think it's funny.
We can talk now. All the things I was so careful to hide. Hide the crazy, right?
I want to fix him. I want to take all of his sad and make it go away. I don't know how to make my own sad go away, and I'm back on my weird self-defeatism again. When I feel physically ok, what am I doing to make money or somehow improve the world every moment of the day? Oh, look, it's that little hole in my heart. I can't just stuff it full of imaginary Possibilities and dreams to distract myself, so how do I fill it? I ate all the cookies last week. Warm dog, that feels good. I want something bigger, something to pop or burst or push me in some direction. I have to recognize that I'm the one who makes the choices, chooses to pop and burst things, can set things in motion at any moment. But I keep waiting for something external to happen; peg my emotional currency to random forces. I'll just keep playing until I get one good score, take a nap until I wake up refreshed, walk my dog in any direction until we come across something interesting. If I'm a feather in the wind, then I don't have to take responsibility for any of the decisions I make. Decisions have consequences and then I dwell dwell dwell. That came up in therapy today. Therapy that I had over the phone because I forgot we switched it today to her new office. I definitely didn't remember when I crawled back into my nice warm bed this morning post-writing, but I've been weird about it changing to a new place on a new day. What the fuck? People go about their business all the time with changing appointments and things. Ok, so this has been the only constant appointment in my life over the past year, but I also walk my dog every day and go to the bathroom and ingest food. The other things that I don't keep constant, I wrestle with my real commitment to them being constant. What is my life? What do I want it to be? How and when do I remember I'm alive? At least I'm not jumping off airplanes or anything, but I over-analyze every thought and action and then try to insulate myself from myself by hiding in the hole in my heart and reading or watching Hulu. Never mind all the things I got done today because look at all the time I spent not getting things done. Look at all the oxygen I wasted.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
I'm not the only one like this, but can I use that to inspire myself to keep improving? Hello, Annabell! Do you not remember what you were like six months ago? I'm making insanely tremendous leaps here. Patience. Rome wasn't built in a day, and other such sayings and aphorisms and blah blah blah. How much do I coddle myself and say "look how well you're doing!" and how much do I yell at myself to get the fuck off my ass and stop analyzing my lack of motion and (apologies to Nike) just do it? Carrot, stick, carrot, stick. Isn't there another way? An easy answer? Something solid and definitive I can hold onto? I wanted a human to be that thing I could hold. I've imagined that as my panacea. I had a friend a few years ago who was adopted, and she always thought finding her birth parents would be her "cure." White wales and golden fleece, why do people all feel so incomplete?
My parents have all kinds of faults and difficulties and incompatibilities, but there is no question in my mind that they are the ends of one anther's beginnings. They also still have the incompleteness and the insecurity and the melancholy.
Books and movies and television are filled with lies. Like drugs, they get us high on the illusion of a simple answer, a simple happiness, definitive answers and paths from point A to B with story arc and happy ever after. When I wake up and remember I'm trying to narrate myself in a complicated universe, I throw temper tantrums and curl back into my head and books and tv and don't want to do anything that doesn't go into the story. No paying bills or daily tedium. No routine. You don't write about all the days you got up, flossed, brushed your teeth, walked the dog, ate cornflakes, watch Colbert Report, and then farted around on the computer for two hours before showering if you even bothered to shower. The narrative skips to what you did, and I feel I'm failing myself and the narrative and my debt to being alive every moment that isn't story-worthy. At least, that's how I feel while I'm writing.
While I'm talking to Possible Boy, I want to make everything whole, in myself and in him.
While I'm talking to Aural Girl, it's scaffolding around an archaeological dig; building up more support, digging a little deeper.
And then there's the general flock of Boys at the bar. It takes so little for them to tell me I'm pretty.
That's enough rambling and ranting for tonight.
And they all lived happily ever after
and had direction and purpose and willpower and shined like cattle guard on the Little Engine that Could.
Amen.
Aside: Other Girl needs a different name in here. It's the code name that seems wrong every time I write it. NBF always cracks me up to call him New Best Friend because how the name came about, the irony of it, the double-edged smirk. Possible Boy is a bundle of still-blooming kinetic energy, so I think of him as Possible Boy like a super-hero name: Super Man, Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Possible Boy.
I discussed Other Girl's need for a new name with Other Girl and, plied with wine, we decided on Aural Girl. We think it's funny.
We can talk now. All the things I was so careful to hide. Hide the crazy, right?
I want to fix him. I want to take all of his sad and make it go away. I don't know how to make my own sad go away, and I'm back on my weird self-defeatism again. When I feel physically ok, what am I doing to make money or somehow improve the world every moment of the day? Oh, look, it's that little hole in my heart. I can't just stuff it full of imaginary Possibilities and dreams to distract myself, so how do I fill it? I ate all the cookies last week. Warm dog, that feels good. I want something bigger, something to pop or burst or push me in some direction. I have to recognize that I'm the one who makes the choices, chooses to pop and burst things, can set things in motion at any moment. But I keep waiting for something external to happen; peg my emotional currency to random forces. I'll just keep playing until I get one good score, take a nap until I wake up refreshed, walk my dog in any direction until we come across something interesting. If I'm a feather in the wind, then I don't have to take responsibility for any of the decisions I make. Decisions have consequences and then I dwell dwell dwell. That came up in therapy today. Therapy that I had over the phone because I forgot we switched it today to her new office. I definitely didn't remember when I crawled back into my nice warm bed this morning post-writing, but I've been weird about it changing to a new place on a new day. What the fuck? People go about their business all the time with changing appointments and things. Ok, so this has been the only constant appointment in my life over the past year, but I also walk my dog every day and go to the bathroom and ingest food. The other things that I don't keep constant, I wrestle with my real commitment to them being constant. What is my life? What do I want it to be? How and when do I remember I'm alive? At least I'm not jumping off airplanes or anything, but I over-analyze every thought and action and then try to insulate myself from myself by hiding in the hole in my heart and reading or watching Hulu. Never mind all the things I got done today because look at all the time I spent not getting things done. Look at all the oxygen I wasted.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
I'm not the only one like this, but can I use that to inspire myself to keep improving? Hello, Annabell! Do you not remember what you were like six months ago? I'm making insanely tremendous leaps here. Patience. Rome wasn't built in a day, and other such sayings and aphorisms and blah blah blah. How much do I coddle myself and say "look how well you're doing!" and how much do I yell at myself to get the fuck off my ass and stop analyzing my lack of motion and (apologies to Nike) just do it? Carrot, stick, carrot, stick. Isn't there another way? An easy answer? Something solid and definitive I can hold onto? I wanted a human to be that thing I could hold. I've imagined that as my panacea. I had a friend a few years ago who was adopted, and she always thought finding her birth parents would be her "cure." White wales and golden fleece, why do people all feel so incomplete?
My parents have all kinds of faults and difficulties and incompatibilities, but there is no question in my mind that they are the ends of one anther's beginnings. They also still have the incompleteness and the insecurity and the melancholy.
Books and movies and television are filled with lies. Like drugs, they get us high on the illusion of a simple answer, a simple happiness, definitive answers and paths from point A to B with story arc and happy ever after. When I wake up and remember I'm trying to narrate myself in a complicated universe, I throw temper tantrums and curl back into my head and books and tv and don't want to do anything that doesn't go into the story. No paying bills or daily tedium. No routine. You don't write about all the days you got up, flossed, brushed your teeth, walked the dog, ate cornflakes, watch Colbert Report, and then farted around on the computer for two hours before showering if you even bothered to shower. The narrative skips to what you did, and I feel I'm failing myself and the narrative and my debt to being alive every moment that isn't story-worthy. At least, that's how I feel while I'm writing.
While I'm talking to Possible Boy, I want to make everything whole, in myself and in him.
While I'm talking to Aural Girl, it's scaffolding around an archaeological dig; building up more support, digging a little deeper.
And then there's the general flock of Boys at the bar. It takes so little for them to tell me I'm pretty.
"She had begun to notice something strange.
Her ugly duckling features
Had undergone a change.
In short, she was growing pretty.
For the
first time in her whole life--pretty.
And the shock so stunned and thrilled her
That she became
Almost immediate
Incurably
Insane."
(From The Fantasticks by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt)
That's enough rambling and ranting for tonight.
And they all lived happily ever after
and had direction and purpose and willpower and shined like cattle guard on the Little Engine that Could.
Amen.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Half Measures and Slow Sinking
The sum of today's productivity:
- Cleaned my kitchen (bleach spray makes me feel like I'm doing something)
Took photos of cards that may need to be retaken, but I didn't actually bothered editing the photos (yet) so I'm not even ready to say if I need to retake them or not - Went to therapy
- Wrote the beginning of something that I realize ties in with my old creator/creation Frankenstein/Golem/Genesis/writer thing that may or may not some day solidify into an actual work of something whole. Golem musical is still the closest I come to a mazzoh ball in that idea soup.
- Talked briefly to Birdie to determine that my weirdness about another work-related thing is now entirely moot (was probably moot to begin with, but I'm weird, thus weirdness) so I should go ahead and write an email and get something going whereby I decorate a person's life in exchange for vegetables. Have I sent the email yet? No, of course not. Today is a day for half-measures.
- I gathered some newspapers off the floor of my office and moved a few things around and took out the dirty dishes. It would be a stretch to say I actually cleaned my office, but these things are at least a step in the right direction.
- Took my pills on time
- Told my mother I wasn't going to take my parents' opera tickets this weekend because I'm trying my hardest to go to my brother's NCAA Division III Soccer game in Iowa on Saturday
Some people teach, others build shelters for the homeless, others cure disease. I'm doing little to justify my use of oxygen and since I'm annoyed with myself, I'm curling up and doing less. I thought about going to the bar for human contact, but somewhere along the line I decided I didn't deserve to go out. Maybe not my best move, since now I'm going to spend more time at home smelling like bleach and fake-tidying my office while watching random tv episodes on Hulu. I should eat something, too. I've gotten away from the regularly scheduled meals thing again, even though I know better. The self-punishing torture misery thing is really satisfying and cleansing when done right for just a day or two, but I have to be careful not to get sucked in. It has to be a low point I bounce off of, not a sticky mud puddle.
If I don't go to at least one lighting store tomorrow to sell my shmancy lamp, please bitch-slap me.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Raggedy Annabell
I ran myself ragged yesterday.
Biofeedback was much more successful. We played with my posture and the muscle under my back right pointy wing bone is much tenser than its left side counterpart. Finally got my jaw and temples relaxed, too.
Then I drove to a contemporary art gallery in the west loop to find out if my Miró lithograph was real or not. The gallery had a note on the door saying it was closed for the rest of August, but I called the phone number listed "in case you need to get a hold of anyone" and it turned out the owner was there and happy to help. He taught me all sorts of wonderful things about looking for dots in the printing and other useful tips as we ripped off the back of the frame and discovered my print is quite definitely out of a book. Considering I paid $10 for it, you can't get something framed that nicely for$10. Still, it would have been nice to have found a gazillion dollar treasure. I could use a jackpot. Get rich quick. The education is infinitely valuable. Next estate sale I'm buying myself a magnifying glass and a small flashlight.
I wasn't far from Jan's Antiques and I'm still missing a bobeche to complete my chandelier, so I figured I'd stop by and look again. I'm starting to give up on finding a single one to match and now looking for five of about the right size and style. I hadn't eaten all day so I got a salad from the coffee shop next door, then made my way to Jan's. Closed. Poop. Hungry and feeling my head, I wandered back towards my car to eat my salad when suddenly my steps felt funny. I looked down at my feet to see I'd just walked through fresh cement. Three sunken footprints nearly ruining a day's work. The street worker was very nice about it and managed to smooth things out again while I stood there apologizing over and over. There's a lot of galleries in that neighborhood, but all I could think was that the man fixing the cement was the real artist as my feet disappeared.
There's a Salvation Army I'd never been to on Union right in that area, too. So I went. Turns out it has an entire "antique boutique" and much of it is laid out more like an antiques/salvage shop than the standard Salvation Army digging free-for-all. Good if you're looking to buy a specific piece for less. Bad if you're a treasure hunter hoping to find something worth a gazillion dollars mixed in with rest of the junk.
There was another antiques auction last night, but I decided I haven't sold enough stuff to go buy any more. No more buying until I've unloaded some of these pieces. So I drove to Jazzy Junque, which sells lots of cookie jars and such and my mom once actually bought a bunch of salt and pepper shakers much like the ones currently sitting in my car. Jazzy Junque had a "We're moving!" sign in the window with their new address on Lincoln. Fine. I drove to Lincoln. Clearly, they haven't moved in yet.
At this point I was exhausted and a few blocks from Trader Joe's. Time to spend all the money I hadn't made on food I can eat and enjoy. $50 later, my house is now full of delicious things that follow my annoying dietary restrictions. Two vats of rice milk so I can have cereal all the time without worrying about how friggin' expensive rice milk is at Dominicks. Dried fruit so I will have fruit even after the fresh stuff is gone because it never lasts that long in my house. Mango in frozen, dried, and fresh form. Avocados for my Mexicanish food because only at Trader Joes can I get avocados for less than a dollar each. Dynamo juice, whatever the hell is in that, because it is tasty and has lots of calcium now that I can't have milk. More yummy chicken sausage things because they are very easy to make and are delicious and I'm craving protein a lot.
I dealt with more of the bills that have been evil black clouds over my soul. They're in the mailbox. All that's left:
I had a brilliant idea last night involving knitting, coffee shops, and coffee sleeves. I want to just come up with ideas and help start them but then have other people be the ones to really run the day-to-day stuff and I can go on to my next idea.
My therapist wants me to come in today at 2:30 instead of 3:30. There's no real reason I can't, but I don't want to. I want to fuck around my house as long as possible. It's gloomy outside and I'm fussy.
Last night I fell asleep before 7 and woke up around 9 with a bad migraine. I'd say around a 7 in pain. I'd really wanted to go out and be social, but there was no way I could be around noise. Instead I had a whole long text message chat with Possible Boy, who was at home dog sitting Other Girl's Jack Russel/chihuahua. It was really nice. I'm much better at texting than talking with Possible Boy. It gives me time to edit. I still want to write letters or notes on paper. You can't give a box of text messages to your grandchildren. There's nothing permanent. I like ephemera, dammit.
Cereal sounds good. Dog should go out. I should make at least one of the easy phone calls before heading to therapy. Blerg.
Biofeedback was much more successful. We played with my posture and the muscle under my back right pointy wing bone is much tenser than its left side counterpart. Finally got my jaw and temples relaxed, too.
Then I drove to a contemporary art gallery in the west loop to find out if my Miró lithograph was real or not. The gallery had a note on the door saying it was closed for the rest of August, but I called the phone number listed "in case you need to get a hold of anyone" and it turned out the owner was there and happy to help. He taught me all sorts of wonderful things about looking for dots in the printing and other useful tips as we ripped off the back of the frame and discovered my print is quite definitely out of a book. Considering I paid $10 for it, you can't get something framed that nicely for$10. Still, it would have been nice to have found a gazillion dollar treasure. I could use a jackpot. Get rich quick. The education is infinitely valuable. Next estate sale I'm buying myself a magnifying glass and a small flashlight.
I wasn't far from Jan's Antiques and I'm still missing a bobeche to complete my chandelier, so I figured I'd stop by and look again. I'm starting to give up on finding a single one to match and now looking for five of about the right size and style. I hadn't eaten all day so I got a salad from the coffee shop next door, then made my way to Jan's. Closed. Poop. Hungry and feeling my head, I wandered back towards my car to eat my salad when suddenly my steps felt funny. I looked down at my feet to see I'd just walked through fresh cement. Three sunken footprints nearly ruining a day's work. The street worker was very nice about it and managed to smooth things out again while I stood there apologizing over and over. There's a lot of galleries in that neighborhood, but all I could think was that the man fixing the cement was the real artist as my feet disappeared.
There's a Salvation Army I'd never been to on Union right in that area, too. So I went. Turns out it has an entire "antique boutique" and much of it is laid out more like an antiques/salvage shop than the standard Salvation Army digging free-for-all. Good if you're looking to buy a specific piece for less. Bad if you're a treasure hunter hoping to find something worth a gazillion dollars mixed in with rest of the junk.
There was another antiques auction last night, but I decided I haven't sold enough stuff to go buy any more. No more buying until I've unloaded some of these pieces. So I drove to Jazzy Junque, which sells lots of cookie jars and such and my mom once actually bought a bunch of salt and pepper shakers much like the ones currently sitting in my car. Jazzy Junque had a "We're moving!" sign in the window with their new address on Lincoln. Fine. I drove to Lincoln. Clearly, they haven't moved in yet.
At this point I was exhausted and a few blocks from Trader Joe's. Time to spend all the money I hadn't made on food I can eat and enjoy. $50 later, my house is now full of delicious things that follow my annoying dietary restrictions. Two vats of rice milk so I can have cereal all the time without worrying about how friggin' expensive rice milk is at Dominicks. Dried fruit so I will have fruit even after the fresh stuff is gone because it never lasts that long in my house. Mango in frozen, dried, and fresh form. Avocados for my Mexicanish food because only at Trader Joes can I get avocados for less than a dollar each. Dynamo juice, whatever the hell is in that, because it is tasty and has lots of calcium now that I can't have milk. More yummy chicken sausage things because they are very easy to make and are delicious and I'm craving protein a lot.
I dealt with more of the bills that have been evil black clouds over my soul. They're in the mailbox. All that's left:
- a call to my neurologist's hospital to figure out how much I actually owe because they bill my parents and me for the same things and then send me refunds for payments made on some things while saying I owe money on others and are the most confusing billing people ever
- yelling at RCN for charging me a $75 early contract termination fee when I never terminated my contract (glad I caught it...I'm on automatic billing for them...WTF?)
- finishing the census survey I'm required to fill out BY LAW
- straightening crap out with People's Gas. Again.
I had a brilliant idea last night involving knitting, coffee shops, and coffee sleeves. I want to just come up with ideas and help start them but then have other people be the ones to really run the day-to-day stuff and I can go on to my next idea.
My therapist wants me to come in today at 2:30 instead of 3:30. There's no real reason I can't, but I don't want to. I want to fuck around my house as long as possible. It's gloomy outside and I'm fussy.
Last night I fell asleep before 7 and woke up around 9 with a bad migraine. I'd say around a 7 in pain. I'd really wanted to go out and be social, but there was no way I could be around noise. Instead I had a whole long text message chat with Possible Boy, who was at home dog sitting Other Girl's Jack Russel/chihuahua. It was really nice. I'm much better at texting than talking with Possible Boy. It gives me time to edit. I still want to write letters or notes on paper. You can't give a box of text messages to your grandchildren. There's nothing permanent. I like ephemera, dammit.
Cereal sounds good. Dog should go out. I should make at least one of the easy phone calls before heading to therapy. Blerg.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Countess
I went to a psychiatrist for the first time in a few years. No more Effexor! Yay! Switched back to Prozac (which worked well for me back in 2000ish) as of today, plus he's going to talk to my neurologist about just how high and terrible my stroke risks are to see if I can get on birth control after all. I still think birth control would help all kinds of non-pregnancy-related things in my body, like the friggin' ovarian cyst that I had and my evil evil periods and my migraines in general and my cyclical swinginess.
He asked me about the last time I was happy. I have happy moments and hours and days all the time. Then he asked me the last time I was happy for a whole week. Um, summer of 1999? And even that's questionable. I also think I sound like the whiny over-privileged child of a doctor and a social worker with no valid reason for a lifetime of negativity. Then again, that's a very negative thought and doesn't help matters.
I have been feeling better emotionally this past week, for whatever reason. I camped out at NBF's for a number of days with ouchy brain, this time prepared with clean underwear and plenty of my medication. I've been to the gym five times since I joined January 31 and that's certainly helping emotional matters, since it's a place I can go and I only have to be a certain level of functional and I don't have to talk to anybody but I can if I want to and then I get to feel all pleased with myself for having gone to the gym and doing something productive and self-lovey. One of the boy people who works there (I've only actually seen him twice) is cute and sarcastic and makes me a little girl-stupid, but in a good way.
There's another maybe boy who clearly likes me a lot and/or really wants to get in my pants and I'd love to say more here about him but I don't actually know who reads this thing anymore and I don't want to hurt anyone or anything along the way, so email me if you are a reality friend and entitled to details.
Head is pressury distracting hurty.
The whole "tackle the big projects first" thing does not work for me. I have to start off doing something that's technically somewhat productive but I don't mind doing to get myself geared up for real work and the "big" projects. I never was one to jump into pools, but rather start with my toes and slowly lower myself in as I got comfortable until I was ready to duck my head under.
Yay ten billionth water metaphor.
Anyway, now I tackle. Or, more acurately, begin dipping until I am ready to tackle. But just writing is a start for me, and I made myself a headache journal template so it's easy and has exactly what I personally need to track. Two semi productive things! (cue thunder crack and Count Von Count cackle).
He asked me about the last time I was happy. I have happy moments and hours and days all the time. Then he asked me the last time I was happy for a whole week. Um, summer of 1999? And even that's questionable. I also think I sound like the whiny over-privileged child of a doctor and a social worker with no valid reason for a lifetime of negativity. Then again, that's a very negative thought and doesn't help matters.
I have been feeling better emotionally this past week, for whatever reason. I camped out at NBF's for a number of days with ouchy brain, this time prepared with clean underwear and plenty of my medication. I've been to the gym five times since I joined January 31 and that's certainly helping emotional matters, since it's a place I can go and I only have to be a certain level of functional and I don't have to talk to anybody but I can if I want to and then I get to feel all pleased with myself for having gone to the gym and doing something productive and self-lovey. One of the boy people who works there (I've only actually seen him twice) is cute and sarcastic and makes me a little girl-stupid, but in a good way.
There's another maybe boy who clearly likes me a lot and/or really wants to get in my pants and I'd love to say more here about him but I don't actually know who reads this thing anymore and I don't want to hurt anyone or anything along the way, so email me if you are a reality friend and entitled to details.
Head is pressury distracting hurty.
The whole "tackle the big projects first" thing does not work for me. I have to start off doing something that's technically somewhat productive but I don't mind doing to get myself geared up for real work and the "big" projects. I never was one to jump into pools, but rather start with my toes and slowly lower myself in as I got comfortable until I was ready to duck my head under.
Yay ten billionth water metaphor.
Anyway, now I tackle. Or, more acurately, begin dipping until I am ready to tackle. But just writing is a start for me, and I made myself a headache journal template so it's easy and has exactly what I personally need to track. Two semi productive things! (cue thunder crack and Count Von Count cackle).
Monday, November 20, 2006
Pig, Dog, Sloth
Apparently I am the "messiest bartender ever." I always have a penchant for pigginess, but I think my spilling and my using the surfaces designated for clean glasses as my "work space" have more to do with my height than my porcine inclinations. You see, we are supposed to pour all drinks on the bar. For normal-sized people, this is no big deal as the bar hits them somewhere lower- to mid-torso. For me, the bar is chest-high. This means I am pouring drinks with my elbows raised up to my ears. It is much less comfortable and much harder to do than were I a few inches taller. Thus, my propensity for spills. The surface at a more natural height for my drink preparations is meant only for clean glasses and the vat of ice. More than once BL has stopped me from trying to prep drinks over the ice vat. Spilling here could be catastrophic (or at least a pain in the ass), and when there is sticky residue around the "clean" glasses, no one is happy. But it's just so much easier. I never used to think of my size as a handicap, but in this job, it seems to be. A
side from the bar height, I have to push these big stupid carts back and forth all the time and they are bigger and heavier than I am and people laugh at me as I struggle past them. The first few times it was funny (little girl, big cart) but now it's just rude and frustrating. If my shoes don't have good treads, my feet slip on the carpeting and the cart goes nowhere. When the carts have to go upstairs, I additionally have to lift them over the rut in the elevator. This frequently results in failure and me getting stuck with the elevator yelling at me and/or crap spilling out on both sides of the closing elevator doors. I hate it. I also seem to sell far less alcohol than the other bartenders. I always suggest alcoholic alternatives to people's drinks, but I'm beginning to wonder if they just don't order booze because I look too young to sell it.Saturday night was the show closing party with open bar for all theatre employees. BL mostly left me to my own devices, cleaning up in back while staying available for my "What goes into a ____?" and "What glass do I put ____ in?" questions. I learned how to make all things martini-related and got decent at estimating liquid quantities quite early on. I also got to invent random drinks for people, which is very fun, though I didn't get so much as a sip myself for fear I'd pass out the second alcohol touched my tongue. We didn't get out of there until 2:30 AM and had to split cabs because the buses no longer ran by the theatre, but I made $50 in tips behind the bar plus $16 in tips from earlier plus 7 1/2 hours of work (a few of which should put me at overtime), so the money was finally worthwhile.
But huzzah! I am on day 2 of my three days off! Yesterday my dog woke me up around 10 to go for a walk, so we went out briefly and I went back to bed. I woke up again around 3. Clearly, I needed the sleep. I took a long hot shower and shaved and moisturized and did all the other beauty regimen things I've been neglecting. E and I went for dinner and drinks and gab to a bar in Lincoln Square and it was lovely except I crashed before 9. Apparently 11 hours of sleep wasn't enough. I was back in my bed and asleep by 10, straight through until this morning.
Today has been dedicated to getting my to-do list to-done. My fridge is restocked with milk and OJ and my freezer is completely packed with frozen dinners for the weeks to come. If I get up early enough tomorrow I'm getting my car's oil changed and all checked out and happy for winter, and no matter what I have to get some laundry done before my double-shift at work on Wednesday. Tonight I fully intend to watch television, which is something I haven't done in weeks. When leisure time is so limited, it's hard to figure out how much to allocate to getting shit done and how much to rest. I need a chart.
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