Corner of Bourbon & Division

I was saying that to someone else today. All I want to do lately is eat and sleep, which means it must be February (not as bad as November, but still not great). I'm seriously thinking that hibernation has some really great perks. Ahem. I've been slacking for weeks on the exercise front, mostly because I can't run properly in the snow and ice, and all other forms of exercise that are available to me are super boring (as far as I'm concerned: I'm sure plenty of people love using cardio machines, or whatever). I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about my supposed shortcomings here, but it's kind of difficult to let go of a lifetime of vicious self-criticism. ;)

I spent the morning at L.'s house again, although the neighbours stayed quiet. They're not as active in the mornings, apparently. So I hung out while she shovelled her driveway and then got some work done, until other friends of hers arrived at noon to take up the baton, as it were. I don't know how she gets anything done, with people coming and going all day long. Lord knows, I'd never be able to get any of my work accomplished, if I worked from home and was in the same position. 

It's a work night, so I should head to bed early. Goodness only knows if the will happen. I've been pretty iffy about getting to bed at a decent hour lately. Late January/early February has been hell on all my good habits. The only up side is that I've been catching up on a bunch of TV shows that I enjoyed but let fall by the wayside. I caught up on Criminal Minds, and while I am sad that Hotchner is no longer part of the show (although I agree that an abusive actor should not be allowed to stay on set), I am pretty keen on the new guy and his gooey soft marshmallow spot for his gorgeous dog. Today it was the turn of Orphan Black, which I've not finished yet, and I still have Penny Dreadful and Elementary lined up. I've also been re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as I think I mentioned, and it's still holding up quite well, with some extra progressive views combined with some depressingly heteronormative thinking, which makes for a bit of whiplash to anyone watching in the present day. I have so many questions about Trill society and culture now, omg.

[...]

Got interrupted twice writing this, and now I don't remember what I was saying. My mother called the first time, because she was worried about my father. He left for Vietnam on Sunday and still hasn't checked in, which is unlike him. He usually emails as soon as he gets to his hotel when he travels. Anyway, I talked her down for a bit and got her onto other topics, and then ten minutes after I'd hung up with her my father actually got hold of me via Skype. Turns out he can't connect to his university's server (or something, he wasn't entirely clear with me about what had gone wrong), but otherwise his tablet is working fine, hence his being able to use Skype. So I was able to let my mother know that he's fine, which is a relief for all concerned.

And after all that telephone call excitement, it's time for bed, if I want to call it an early night, the way I'd intended, so off I go. You'll just have to wait for another time for my brilliant musings on television. ;)

So November apparently messed me up enough that I *missed* paying some bills. Nothing major, the money was there, I just forgot. FORGOT.

COME ON.


*sigh*

Anyway, it's taken care of, but this is ridiculous. Is there a "reset" switch somewhere for my brain, please?

*checks watch*

Isn't November over yet? Feh. I always wonder if what's going on in my head leaks out in public, no matter how much I try to put a good face on it. November brings out a fight-or-flight instinct in me, and I'm always aware of this tightly-strung energy humming around me, as though the edges of my personal fabric are fraying and unraveling just a little bit faster than I can knit them back up again. What's difficult to tell is whether I'm projecting my own neuroses on others, or whether they're actually reacting to all the frantic energy I'm always putting into holding myself together until all this passes, only to come back the next year.


Okay, onto more light-hearted stuff.

I have a massive bruise on my hip, from where I fell last night. Did I mention that I fell on a (thankfully empty) coffee cup? Yeah. Insult to injury. Or injury to injury, in this case. That'll teach me to leave my mug on the floor by the sofa.

There has been a WEIRD conjunction in the fiction in my life, in which I suddenly keep running into fictional characters named Daphne. It's a little jarring, since it's usually a pretty rare name. Has it known a resurgence in popularity lately?

It's weird. I love my name, always have, have always been, to the point of being kind of obsessively protective of it (I hate it when people misspell my name or shorten it out of laziness), and it feels WEIRD when the characters are people I wouldn't approve of in life. I mean, how DARE they sully our good name? And yes, I know, they're fictional. Eesh.

I have no explanation.

No, seriously, it is RIDICULOUS that chemicals in my brain can do this to me.

Ridiculous.

I refuse to be held hostage by a bunch of freaking neurotransmitters.

I have spoken.

It's grey out, and kind of cold and rainy. There's something to be said for sitting indoors with homemade spaghetti sauce (the spaghetti isn't homemade... yet), tea, and bright yellow curtains. The cats are all asleep or lounging about, and my new table is gleaming in the dining room (I just gave it a good polish). The Beatles are on in the background.

This morning I got up early and made breakfast for me and BorderCrossing. She was pleasantly surprised to get up and find hot chocolate and steaming sour cream biscuits awaiting. As much as all my relationships (or most of them) have been highly broken, she appears to have never had a relationship with someone who wanted to take care of her, so I'm having fun feeding her and offering a nice place to crash. I also made bacon and coffee for myself, since she doesn't like either of those things.

I've been good about keeping on top of the dishes, too, for the most part. toughlovemuse was telling me the other day that "a new broom sweeps clean," but I hope it's not just enthusiasm about the new place that is prompting me to be a better housekeeper. Having people over regularly, having my girlfriend over, and generally being in a better headspace ought to count for something, right? I just hope I can keep this up.

The best thing about nesting is having people with whom to share the nest. :)

Today is a good day. There is still sadness, but that can't prevent me from appreciating what I do have, and I think that's important.

It's still November. Miaow! Miaow! Miaaaaooooowwww!

I'm doing laundry, which is a Good Thing™. Overslept, which is Not Such A Good Thing™.

No one on Freecycle has a baseball bat for me. Boo.

The reason I overslept is that an old friend from school called out of the blue at 10:45 last night and kept talking until, well, very very late. I'd forgotten how much he talks. He didn't care that it was late, as he was on-call until this morning (he's in his last year of residency for med school). I'd also forgotten how much having a conversation with him isn't so much "having a conversation" as "listening to him ramble on about himself."

I think I wrote about him the last time I saw him about three years ago, but I can't seem to find the post. He's still just as fucked up as he was back then, and it makes me unutterably sad to think that he's been miserable for all these years. I've changed so much in three years, emotionally and mentally (no matter how much he insists I haven't —I think it makes him feel better to think that I'm still the same as I was ten years ago), and he's still stuck: closeted, smoking up every day to escape his reality, hating his med school training, hating his supervisors and hating his patients. God help anyone who has him as their doctor, is all I can say.

I'm supposed to see him later this afternoon. I can't think of a nice way to tell a guy who was my best friend throughout high school that no, I don't really want to see him or spend all that much time with him.

*sigh*

Well, with any luck this will turn out better than I think it will.

The migraine is back. Whee.

Also, I hit someone with my car yesterday. Well, I hit their car. No injuries on either side, and cosmetic damage to both cars. That'll teach me to be more careful checking my blind spots. I checked, but apparently not well enough, and it was dark and it was raining, and it all went to hell. Now I have to dig out my insurance information and all that crap, and deal with all the bad on that end. This is going to be so much fun.

I so can't afford this.

At least my wordcount is over 50,000. One less thing to worry about. Mind you, I can't seem to print out my winner's certificate on the printer here at work. Something about the printer not having enough memory for the .pdf file. Go figure. Anyone have any insight about that?

Meh. Things keep going from bad to worse. I could really, really use a break from the universe right now.

Can I hibernate until spring, do you think?

Part of me doesn't really want to write a long, rambling entry about the end of November, and depression, and everything that goes with it. A really big part of me, actually.

I don't want to talk to people. I don't want to see people. Hell, even LJ seems overwhelming right now, although it's counterbalanced by my insatiable curiosity about the people I know. Just like the little elephant in the "Just So Stories." :P

Right now my strongest impulse is to call everyone I know and cancel everything I have planned for the next three months, and then hide for a while.

Obviously, that would be selfish and impractical. So I'll just have to suck it up and deal. It's what I do best.

I hate this time of year. I hate having to smile and pretend that everything's fine.

Please for the love of God don't tell me that I don't have to do that. I do. I don't even stop to think about it. If someone asks me how I am, I will automatically smile and say I'm fine. I don't really want to change that, either. I can write about what I'm feeling, but I dislike talking about it. It always comes out like pathetic whining, especially since my problems aren't that bad compared to so many others. So I won't talk about it, or at least not in depth. Smiling and saying that things are fine is my way of coping with the outside world. I fall apart on my own time. Smiling in public lets me hang onto my sanity just that little bit longer.

...

God, this entry is depressing. I'm going to stop now. Sheesh.