facebook can bite me

okay, yeah, I’ve been awake for a few of the wrong hours, so maybe my patience and tact are a mite slim. and I like having a sheep thrown at me as much as the next person. but seriously. facebook’s annoyance quotient has gone seriously through the roof with all the quizzes (half of which won’t even let you see your results until you’ve spammed 10 other people, the fckers) and FUNWALL and hooha and crap. so that’s it. I’m done. if I don’t respond to your movie challenges or guess the latest celebrity couple critical contests, please don’t take it personally. I’ve just decided that facebook is the antichrist.

random life stuff

twice in the last few days I’ve had people remark to me on how I’m always moving, work hard, etc.– this from random  folks who have no real stake one way or another in flattering or insulting or really passing any sort of judgment– they’re just commenting on something that looks weird and noteworthy to them, one of the the samples ladies, one of the shipping guys– and I’m sure part of it is cultural: I’m a whitegirl, driven by that ingrained protestant work ethic fer shizzle; but part of it is also personal– I’m just like that– a few years ago I articulated it for the first time: I have two speeds, Go and Idle. lately I’ve been spending my downtime in wicked Idle, like seriously– mostly hanging out in bed, reading, snacking, watching movies, reading and reading some more, snoozing. and then I get up and Go again. lately I’ve been thinking a bit about how I don’t do all of this very strategically or smartly– I could, say, take some of that downtime and allocate it to rather less down activities, in my own interests, say, improving myself, my station in the world, and so on. I’m quite sure that a lot of other people with my amount of education are working a lot smarter than I am, and this troubles me somewhat, that I runrunrun but not to any particularly chosen or outlined ends, only expending energy and then recovering and doing it all over again. but, too, this is a particular phase– I am nothing if not superduper phasey. generally speaking, the last few days I’ve felt remarkably calmer and more peaceful and even happy with the course of my life– it’s nothing that I’ve envisioned or plotted or planned and it’s awfully hairbrained and kind of pointless in some ways and could use some tweaking and tucking, but really, yknow what? it fits. this is the way I am. and it’s not all bad. hello, perspective from today.

bad belly stew

ingredients:

  • too much pasta, just prior to bed: wolfed
  • one weekend of sheer avoidance
  • 6-8 issues with no apparent solution
  • stacks of unopened mail
  • one more monday looming

proper emulsification depends critically on knowing and then repeating to yourself exactly what you really should be doing, while not doing it.

slosh & ferment.

wake at 3:45 a.m. & enjoy!

life as a gas-guzzler

who’s driving this thing, anyway??

oh, right. it’s me.

so what’s with all the swerves and cul-de-sacs?

I’ve heard that some people actually call up triple-A ahead of time and get triptiks so they know where all the construction is so they can avoid it. I’ve heard that some people actually, yknow, plan their course. like, rather than meandering.

then there are some of us who drive without insurance (tho not me anymore, thankyouverymuch) and plow into ditches.

some of us go yee-hawing off the paved highways at top speeds and earn glorious views for their daring.

some of us putter along the dark forest track with the lowbeams on.

some make a habit of zooming up the parking lane and cutting in front of others without signalling even.

me, the road that winds out behind is an interesting, curvy one– but sometimes I have real concerns about the course ahead.

sometimes it’s good just to get out and walk, literally. george agrees.

the avoidance two-step

it’s back and forth and round and round I go. some things get accomplished, some things accrete, and I circumnavigate them. I wake up again and again in the middle of the night and read and write words with no particular path or agenda. refuse to evaluate relative success too closely. have meaningful conversations with friends, in person, by phone, via email. feel marginally saner. do some prep for annual salary review, plan to do more, and retreat soundly into fiction for the duration of a sunday. fail to take any photographs. okay, enough, this is not going to devolve into a litany of failures, which is always far too easy. sometimes the gorgeous world sucker-punches me. sometimes I manage to feed and clothe and care for myself somewhat like an adult. sometimes I lie awake long into the night and wonder what equilibrium looks like. most importantly I keep going in some direction that looks something like forward.

4 a.m. again

I can’t sleep. I keep doing addition in my head, and the pieces fly around. and the pieces get heavy and dive-bomb me. I’ve been here before. I’m leaving soon. everything is unimaginable at this hour. I write notes to friends that are laden with melancholy and dissatisfaction and then send them. then regret that they weren’t cheerier. this trend leads to self-isolation, and I don’t want to do that again, not just yet. it’s not really that I want to be alone, tho I make it that way. sometimes, being alone is a thing you do with leftovers. work the upside. which doesn’t necessarily make it chosen. see what I mean about the middle of the night? yeah. I guess this is where paper journal steps in. sarah out. xo.

homeowner to-do list

3:30 a.m., post-bath.

– connect roof vent tube to bathroom vent, reconnect fan
– back bedroom: paint walls, floors, closets; put in low cupboards on eaves closets, built in shelving above; put rods in closets proper
– stairway: runner; shelves?
– fix up basement front room for a workspace: add shelving; paint walls, ceiling, floor; put in carpeting? area rugs?; get new dehumidifier; figure out why dehumidifier keeps tripping the circuit breaker
– laundry room: add three-quarter bath; paint to brighten walls, ceiling, floor
– all basement: new window well windows to brighten

an ode

oh, laptop, how I love thee. when my body is exhausted, joints sore with insomnia, susceptible to chill, sneezing and blowing, but the racket in my brain sprung in small hours won’t kindly shut up, I can lie most pleasantly abed, muffled in flannel, propped by pillows, and give vent to the odd bits I can’t seem to slough. like projects in compulsive collection. like interstellar transcriptions. ibook, my trusty buddy, so shiny and white, so portable and flexible, so handy with usb and firewire ports for flash drives and dv recorder downloads. the best debt ever. debt being something I have a degree of expertise in.