kellementology

life according to me

Category: patience

  • Waste of a morning in 20 easy steps

    Just a dose of my “business” life so far this morning — a not quite wordless Wednesday.

    An ad agency responded to my recent inquiry regarding use of their ads.  They’ve approved me, but I’ve been delaying taking next steps because it involves sitting at the Erstwhile Resident Teen’s dusty computer, signing in to my email there, printing  the agreement document, signing it, scanning it, and then attaching it to an email to send.  No, it’s not exactly rocket science, so outside of being tedious in a I’d-rather-do-anything-else-but-this kind of way, it’s a task easily accomplished, right?

    Um, no.

    1. Mobile Me says the PDF is too large.  Uh.  I’ve sent larger with no problema? Figures.
    2. I can’t figure out how to reduce the size of the PDF with STOOPID FREAKING LOUSY ROTTEN Microsoft Vista.  Crap. Crap. Crappidy Crap Crapster.  (You’re picturing Colin Firth in King’s Speech here, but without the far more colorful language).
    3.  So, I decide to use my Gmail account instead, thinking I’m pretty smart even though I’ve had to resort to this before out of desperation.  Please know the two computers are separated by a wall, so it’s always strange.  Ahem.
    4. Right smacking in the middle of writing the email, the wireless keyboard stops working.  No warning.  No blinky lights, or warning messages.  Just.  Out.
    5. I try to reconnect.
    6. I check the status of the keyboard and am not happy to see it’s listed as working just fine.
    7.  I load new batteries.
    8.  I reload new batteries because I can’t see and am not sure they’re loaded properly.
    9. I restart the computer.
    10. TWICE.
    11. Shaking the keyboard has no effect on its function.
    12. I try the “Connect” button on the back of the keyboard, but nada.
    13. Please know that smacking the keyboard with the palms of both hands simultaneously also does not work.
    14. To spare the neighbors and my blood pressure, I take a few trips up and down the stairs emptying trash, doing laundry, entertaining our high-maintenance furry teen-aged feline “daughter” with her string, assorted balls, her catnip baby, and also brush her a few times which makes her extremely happy.
    15.  I shine the floors upstairs with a cleaner that makes them look worse than when I began.
    16. I get another cleaner and give the hairy eyeball treatment to the dusty PC which sits staring blankly on the desk.
    17. I notice how hot it is today already (86 degrees!) and think WTH.  Where was Mr. Sunshine this past summer, hmmm?
    18. I finally give in and decide I’ll either steal the Erstwhile Resident Teen’s printer and install it on my Mac or try to reinstall the one I have attached to my Mac (which stopped working smack in the middle of the Erstwhile Resident Teen’s graduation project over a year ago so only a total idiot would do that, right?)
    19. I look in the mirror to confirm that I meet the qualifications at this point.
    20. Sadly, I glance at the clock and realize I’ve been dicking around with this sh*t for an hour and a half and have accomplished NOTHING.  But the cat’s happy.

    You’re laughing, right?

    Right?

    I look at it this way.  Wednesday is the day I have been promising myself to write about something other than food, so I’m thinking this is a swell topic to write about.

    I’ll do that before I install the printer.

    God I can’t stand crawling under desks.

  • Moving right along.

    As is often read, time heals all, and I’m slowly becoming accustomed to being out in the working world again.  The adjustments I’ve had to make are minor compared to what others may have to experience under similar circumstances because I haven’t had to worry about finding childcare, or trouble anyone about taking over the few responsibilities I’ve accumulated in the past two years such as car pool.  My pets are relatively trouble free now, and there’s no long commute to plan for.  Surprisingly, most of my work clothes still fit, which is a sort of accomplishment, I guess.

    No, that hasn’t been all that difficult.  What has been troubling is the loneliness I’ve been feeling.  It’s severe at times — so much so that I’ve been reduced to tears, surprised, and a bit unsettled about my unexpected emotions.  Although I’m thankfully past the worst of it, I sense a void that reminds me of a similar feeling I’ve experienced before — that of leaving something behind unwillingly, of loss.

    It’s fairly painful.

    For days, I struggled to think of pleasant things, and to busy myself with activities I enjoy, but wasn’t as successful as I’d liked.  I fell easily into my old habit of thinking of others less fortunate than myself.  Of so many who now find themselves without work and struggling to keep their homes.  And I tried to understand the uncomfortable pressure on my chest that all but screamed I was making an enormous mistake.

    To help focus on the positive, I sat down with the MoH and we made a list of all that I’d like to do with my income over the next year:  repair the lighting and drip system on the patio; replace the fencing; install an energy-efficient hot water system, put organizers in the closets, repair a few old dining room chairs, have two other chairs reupholstered….Not quite as glamorous as others may think, but concrete enough to allow me to see that a year of my time at this point in my life counted for something.

    I’m a strong believer in the idea that things happen for a reason.  That opportunities are placed before us all the time, and the extent to which we allow ourselves to see them determines whether our lives are rich and fulfilling, or mundane and guarded.  The ironic aspect of it all is that when I take the steps I do in new directions, I rarely realize whether it’s the best decision for me and those I care about.  Instead, it’s more an unknown, a tentative decision at best, and I attempt to keep my mind open to whatever may lie ahead truly believing that a unique experience is just over the hill.

    All the while, I’m chastising myself, shaking my head over maudlin thoughts and pathetic self-absorbtion.  It’s grossly embarrassing, yet I can’t prevent it.  So I heave with countless cleansing breaths, and try to relax.  I give in to the sadness and then try to snap out of it.  I count what I should feel fortunate about, and move ahead.  I look for beauty in small things, and count stars at night.  I wonder how on Earth something so good could feel so wrong.

    Only those with common experiences seem to understand how closely lives can be linked, how much one can grow to depend on community, on friendship and camraderie gained while sitting in front of a computer.  Over the past two years, lovely people who live a state, a country, or even an ocean away have truly and unexpectedly become part of my small world and enriched it more than I can describe.

    Sadly, I’m missing all of them right now, and no amount of organizing my garage, digging in my small garden, or cooking the next recipe on my endless list will make that feeling go away.

  • Thinking with asterisks

    William Zinsser says, “To write well about your life you only have to be true to yourself.”

    I knew that.  It doesn’t make it easier to choose to delve into something I don’t feel like delving into, however, and I recognize all the signs of avoidance — like grabbing my broom to rid the stairs of the dust bunnies that have taken up residence since we got rid of the carpet.

    They’re huge, shadowy puffs that seemingly morph from one corner to another, gathering cat hair and our life’s dentritus with each pair of passing feet.

    I see them as I trudge up and down to refill my coffee cup or half-heartedly perform some chore and marvel that they appear so quickly.  They’re fascinating until they become a larger mass, swept to the bottom of the stairs waiting to be scooped into a dust pan and into the trash along with my determination.

    * * *

    I’m tired of thinking about food, about writing about food.  Tired of organizing my life around the planning and shopping, organizing and preparing of food.  If I needed just one scapegoat for my lack of productivity, it would be that, and yet the amount of time it takes contradicts any lack of productivity.

    I’m tired of thinking about food.  Tired.  But that will most likely change at lunchtime.

    * * *

    I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s better to classify myself as a procrastinator, or dreamer.  Drifty is more like it.  Drifting like those dust bunnies from one point to another with little or no substance or anchor.  Well, not quite that dramatic, but puffing along from one whim to the next and incapable of moving of its own volition.  Lacking initiative.

    Meh.

    * * *

    It was foggy outside this morning when I woke up and the residual dampness has given the air a smell that comes only when raindrops first hit the asphalt.  I stand on the patio in the slight chill, my not so willing to be outside this early in the morning toes curling against the flagstones, and I breathe deeply.  The trees rustle with the slight breeze and I’m surprised to hear a bird’s call I don’t recognize, wondering where it’s coming from and why I haven’t noticed it before.  Happy thing.

    * * *

    I just finished Blessings by Anna Quindlan.  It’s about identity and the effect family can have on it — or not. It’s about quite a bit more than that, but when I talk about a book I’ve read I somehow find myself feeling like I’m completing a book report and have to supress the urge to run screaming from the room.   I’ll find myself later picking this one up to read parts of again because Quindlan’s writing has that effect on me, most likely because I can wallow in long passages of description and deep delving into a character’s thoughts to a level not unlike that of my dust ball analysis.   Unfortunately, I read just before I go to sleep each night and not many pages at that these days.  Any influence her words have on me is lost in the jumble that has been my dreams recently, and since I still can’t quite give myself permission to read during the day, my thinking is lost and with it any inspiration to write.

    Why a person needs to give herself permission to read during the day is fairly stupid.

    * * *

    You’re wondering about the silly asterisks right?  Me, too.  But it’s the only way that I could actually sit down and write something today.  Anything.

    And so I did.  I’d call that being true to myself.

    Or avoiding being true to myself, which is probably more the case.

  • Construction and Ugly Cookies

     

    I’m exhausted, and I’m always surprised when I realize it.  Like someone who doesn’t spend 12 hours a day at the office shouldn’t be tired — ever.  So not only am I exhausted, I’m annoyed that I’m exhausted.

    It’s pretty pathetic.  No, I’m pathetic.

    To give myself half a break today, I’m looking at the disaster area that used to be my house, realizing that my black mood is most likely the result of construction that isn’t due to conclude for another two weeks — well, and deciding to engage in nearly two weeks of baking and writing about cookies.  What in hell was I thinking?

    It’s always exciting when construction begins, but I’ve been through it twice before, so know that it gets stressful. I should know better, but the last two times, I was out of the house all day and didn’t have to watch and worry.  As nice as it is to be able to see all the changes happening each day, it’s not pleasant to see all the kinks in the plans, as well.  Add this additional cost to that additional cost, and the persistent drone from the talking heads on the television about the nation’s economic woes only makes it worse.  This morning I wanted to pull the covers over my head, wish the crew could let themselves in, and let them work as if I didn’t exist — which would be a bit strange considering the lump I’d make on the bed sitting in the middle of an empty room.

    Our room is the only one in the house that’s nearly empty.  The others have all had our possessions shoved into them and smaller items perched on top, stacked in ways I’d never have attempted in any other situation.  We’ve been lucky that only one thing has been broken, and it wasn’t valuable from a monetary sense, but did have some pleasant memories attached to it.

    There’s dust everywhere.  Even though plastic sheets are draped from time to time, it seems not to matter because the garage door is open, and the constant breeze through the house just distributes the particles everywhere.  In the beginning, I tried to vacuum at the end of each day in the small area where we can actually move around, but have given that up since I’ve run out of space to set things that weren’t packed.  I have dishes that have survived more than 100 years sitting in the middle of my family room.  As I stare at them, I wonder what I’m going to do with them.  Even if I purchased more boxes, there’s no more room in the garage to put anything.  And next week, the painters come.

    Being the foodie I am, you’d think that sitting in front of my Mac tending to my food blog and cooking to my heart’s content would keep me happily occupied, wouldn’t you?  And it should, but at this point, I’m tired of that, too.  In fact, I’m so tired of it, I’m questioning why I’m doing it — and not just the cookie making.  Somewhere along the line, it has consumed my entire life and I make time for little else.  Like I said — pathetic.

    All I want to do is clean my house.  I want to organize the piles and go through boxes and stacks.  I’m supposed to be choosing hardware for the doors and stair rails, but I’m not.  I should be tossing things we don’t need, and organizing yet another donation of items we no longer use, but can’t.  There’s no space to do it in.

    Taking a shower is a pain, and putting on makeup or doing anything with my hair involves squeezing into a little space in front of my mirror in between the cat food tray and litter box, so I don’t.  But when I have to, there are usually strange men walking back and forth and it’s not that comfortable acting like I don’t care if they can see me putting on my eyebrows or peering at the wrinkles under my eyes in my magnifying mirror.  But who cares, right?

    And the scariest part of all of this — Christmas is how many days away?  I can’t even imagine how I’m going to pull that off.  But I’ll try, and it will be great *whips superficial happy face from back pocket.* If one or two — okay, so maybe three bad days in the course of this is all I’ll have, then I guess that’s not too horrible.

    I just wish the intensity wouldn’t build up in me like it does, surprising me when I should come to expect it.

    And when it finally wraps its ugly coils around my throat, I don’t want to have to squelch my anger, or feel guilty over it and have to go into my “count my blessings” mode.  I don’t want to have a little heart to heart with myself about how nice it’s going to be when it’s all finished, or be thankful for what we have because we’re so fortunate, because I’ve already done that.  I do that every single day.  Relentlessly. It doesn’t erase the upwelling of ugliness that permeates every pore in my skin, and so I give in to it.

    What I do want is to take a hot bath.  I want bubbles, and candles, and wine with that bath, please, and a book that almost reads itself.  Just one bath.  That’s all.

    Maybe then, my mood could possibly improve to grey with chances of silver linings.

    But writing it here helps, and eating five or six of the ugliest cookies I’ve ever seen.

    Okay, so, maybe only sort of ugly.

    But ugly.

  • Oh Look. Writing.

    Somehow, all the time I used to look forward to — all the time I spent thinking about what I might write here is gone.  The unfortunate aspect of this is that the writing voice I hear during the day has faded, its insistent prodding, its litany of opening lines, and reminders of possible topics have been pushed aside by life.  And what a small life it is.

    Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

    It should be, but I don’t have the time right now to make it that way.  Too much dust and food, and excuses.  It isn’t that I don’t want to write here.  Honestly.  It’s more about the type of writer I am.

    I have to use a food analogy.  Sorry.

    If you turn the burner on low and let the water simmer, then turn up the heat as the water approaches the boil, then that would be me.  There’s no turning me on high and cutting to the chase.  I could do that if I wanted, but what’s the point?

    Writing is a catharsis for me and if I can’t spend the time, then the words stay in my mind.  And I’m egotistical enough to know that once I’ve formed the perfect line of words to convey the just right thought, they’ll be forgotten unless I write them down.  It’s sad.

    I do get credit for:

    1) working on a cookbook for a friend which entailed making most of the recipes and snapping photos, right?

    2) spending more time than I wanted –surprisingly — looking at products for our home renovation.

    3)  getting ready to visit several blogging friends for a week!

    4)  having to reposition myself in my home while contractors tear it to shreds and dust settles on every possible surface.

    Excuses.

    Sad, because so much has happened that I have thoughts about — some lovely, and others, not so much.  And all of which would have been written at one point in time.  But no.  And it’s horrible.

    The other problem is, even if I write here, everyone has either left the building, or has stopped writing, their bloggy wonderfulness seemingly forever ended, their words and photos, just sitting, no longer collecting comments.  *sigh*

    What to do?

    Sign up for that writing class at UCSD extension so I’ll actually write?  Continue to wallow through this strange new life of mine?

    What?