Audience of Strangers

Went to bed two hours ago. Cannot sleep; partly I have a cracking headache, partly I'm hungry, partly I'm apparently just not tired. Going to grab a pita and maybe try warm milk and honey.

Lucy's right eye is getting a bit goopy; she's squinching it more shut than the left one, sometimes lightly so, sometimes noticeably so. Hoping it clears up in a day (she gets this sometimes); if not, will see about a doctor's appointment. Am particularly sympathetic to itchy eyes right now, as I just realized that I can't do the warm milk thing without aggravating my own allergies.

Anyway. Warm soothing drink of some variety, and possibly a bit of laundry folding until I feel sleepy.

Dear brain,

If you are going to give me nightmares about needing to escape a city that has been invaded by aliens that turn people into horrible monsters, could you leave out the bit where I make my mother cry? For an hour? Because that was really upsetting.

No love,

Me

Wow, nearly a week. I need to better manage my online time.

Piper is doing better with the higher dose of glucosamine. This is kind of sad because she still isn't allowed to exercise, even though she is bouncy and jumpy. We're calling the surgeon on Monday.

I am looking at the Tcho-Tcho, and there are a couple of niggling ideas in my brain (mostly along the lines of "okay, what would you be seeing there if you filtered out the racism of an unreliable narrator?"), and I have no idea where the hell to start.

Job hunt remains unproductive. Got a lot of cleaning done this week, though?

Slice of life, from yesterday:

me: "You know that red yarn[1] I have? I was thinking of making this."
John: "You don't have the right kind of needles."
me: "I don't?" (I do!)
John: "And the colour's wrong."
        (I am blinking at this point, because he does not knit but he understands knitting and that colour is not defined by pattern.[2])
        "I mean, those bits?" (He points at the bottom of the page.) "The tentacles clearly have blue. Red yarn. Wrong colour."
me: (stare)
        (blink)
        (assemble this comment with "wrong needles" and realize that he is on about the tattoo. And he is now failing to keep a straight face.)
me: "I love you very much, dear."

Snarkbeast. But my snarkbeast.
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[1] The colour is called "Don't Wear This On Star Trek."
[2] Suggested by, occasionally, sure! That is different.

I am sure my day will begin improving the very minute it does not involve cleaning up after an exploded smoothie.

(In point of fact, the explosion was cleaned up before I sat down at the keyboard, because I am not *that* addicted to the internet. And I'm waiting for coffee to brew. But for crying out loud, day, I would greatly appreciate it if you would improve now.)

I took a closer look at the candy we were handing out tonight. Mini Nestle chocolates, Coffee Crisp and Aero and Kit-Kat and Smarties. Pretty small, actually; you could hold three in one hand.

Every single one of them has the 1-800 Kids Help Phone number on the wrapper.

Probably useful, I know. But. Damn.

I accidentally hesitantly a con; mostly yesterday, but there were a couple of panels today.

I was actually unsure about going. I'm almost unspeakably glad I did.

Yesterday, there was (among other things) a single discussion that covered both "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a good dozen book recommendations, more than a dozen new books, and apparently I need very badly to see a movie called Martyrs. Also smart and educated strangers were willing to talk to me, in person, which always feels a bit strange. But nice!

Today was a bit quieter, which is good, because I am sure I am coming down with something; I was only out for a few hours. Still good to hear people talk.

Have a couple of things I need to pass along to people.

With regards to cleaning the office:

Oh dear god how do I have so much crap. Angus, stop exploring as if this was an entirely new room you have never seen before. I just moved out one box!

32°C as of 3 p.m., calculated to come across as 41 with the humidity. (That's 105 down south, I understand.) I'm going to grit my teeth, get through the trip home, and then not move outside the air-conditioning until a civilized temperature is re-established.

Going to give the e-reader a factory reset. The Kobo help desk suggested this might also solve the battery problem[1], which could be due to a firmware issue, but I confess to being somewhat skeptical. Will be very happy if it works, though.

Also! Pretty things, for values of pretty things that cover post-apocalyptic video games (no, not Fallout).

Up again. Birds this time. Plus side, managed almost six hours, nearly made it to 5 a.m., but that is still not enough. Downside, no time to get back to sleep.

I just want eight uninterrupted hours. I would settle for seven.

Please?

Two organization names that I ran into at work that keep amusing me:

• Nine Circles Community Health Centre
• Bob's Cool Air

It's the little things, really. (There's also a town called Burnt Church, and a street called Burning Glass Road.)

Everyone is very nice, by the way, which is good because I am a bit frayed. Tiny bit.

It is snowing. It is snowing a lot, and coming down so thick that the neighbour's house has that funny greyed-out look from being seen through the snow, and dammit three days ago everything was green. Okay, everything except the I-am-not-quite-woken-up-yet brown patches on the lawn, but it was green. There were flowers.

...also there is a scrape on the inside of my mouth. And I want a pony.

*sighs and continues getting ready to go to work*

I can't sleep.

This is hours later than I've been up for days, and I was really getting into the whole "waking up without needing an alarm" thing, and I just cannot unwind and get to bed.

*end whine, try again for slumber--perhaps we can discuss picking up stitches in the ravelled sleeve of care, and all*

The mercury (does anyone actually own a mercury thermometer?) is slowly creeping up from this morning, when it was -17°C (-26°C with the wind chill). Looking forward to Wednesday, when it's meant to get up to 11°C. Not - 11°C. 11°C. Okay, yes, that's the low of one day against the high of another, but that's still a 28 degree difference in two days, ignoring the damn wind.[1]

Oh, March. Aren't you just an interesting time, meteorologically speaking. And I cannot wait for the time when I no longer need to worry about my ereader freezing. Literally.

(Yes, yes, paper books don't freeze. However, the pages get blown around, they fare much less well in precipitation, and turning the pages takes longer, which at the temperature that causes my Kobo to freeze is actually a significant consideration because I do not want my fingers out in that cold. Also, Innsmouth Magazine.)

((Possibly this last could be remedied with knit gloves that had leather patches sewn over the fingerprints? Hmh.))
---
[1] That's 1°F, -15°F, 52°F, and a 51 degree difference for those of you using Farenheit.

Angus has managed to get a strand of fur into the display of the house phone.

Not on. Into. Behind the little plastic pane that protects the window that lights up and shows you what number you are dialling.

I am rather impressed.

Also today I have frogged two rows, knit six rows, and frogged six rows. Yes, that is a net gain that isn't a gain. I think I need a yarn scale.

Also-also... I don't recall. I lost my wallet, then I found it again. And I found out that the e-mail from the bank saying my replacement debit card had been ordered for me on the 23rd was not true, so I should get one in two-to-three weeks. And that's about it.

I keep reminding myself that we should see a thaw in a few weeks. Not a full-on thaw, of course, but the mid-February oh-sorry-were-you-looking-at-those-ice-sculptures?-oops warmer weather is pretty reliable.

There's been a bit of a shake-up at work lately, but figure I will be okay. Hope people are seeming a bit less shell-shocked on Monday.

I keep kicking around the idea of knitting something inspired by "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the King in Yellow (not any particular story about it, just the general concept). Yellow colours and harmful sensation and creeping madness. Cheerful stuff, but I have no idea exactly where to begin. Suppose I'll file the idea and see if it's still around to come back to in a month or so.

Things to do this weekend: haircut, edit, laundry, deliberate (verb, not adjective) jacket, hit the pharmacy, return library books, finish gloves. And the weekend is half over. Somehow I am unoptimistic.

ETA: 1:35 Sunday morning Slightly more optimistic.

ETA2: 5:35 Sunday afternoon Distinctly more optimistic. Gloves will probably need more work after blocking, but will count it a win if I can get them blocking tonight.

Was feeling very tired this afternoon, and ended up going for a half-hour nap. And I woke up from it feeling a little better, but still pretty sessile.

Got up to turn off the alarm, and wanted nothing so much as to order in food, call in sick to knit night (metaphorically), and go to bed. But ordering food is expensive, and due to workplace issues my next pay deposit is on the 6th[1], and I poked myself with this fact until I ended up in front of the stove, putting pasta in boiling water and discovering (oh happy coincidence) the spaghetti sauce was at its best-before date and there was just enough left for the meal.

*pauses to go add "pasta sauce" to grocery list*

So that was productive, at least (also meant dinner cost a tenth as much as otherwise), and I was thinking I still felt like staying home when I remembered that the manager of the yarn store had spotted me $10 on Tuesday when I went out for coffee, forgot my wallet, and dropped in to browse to console myself. And I said I would pay her back today.

So I'm going in. I'm not entirely sure I want to, exactly, but I didn't want to cook dinner and still managed and am glad I did. Hopefully this will be like that; hopefully, at some point, I will begin to really internalize that even when I don't want to do anything, it's usually worth it to get started on something anyway.
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[1] Left in a hurry due to coworker behaving unprofessionally at the office, apparently left timesheet behind, it's currently not there, and there is no-one in this week to sign a new copy of it.

This time last week, I had less than sixty e-mails that I was keeping in my inbox for some reason.

Today I hit ninety.

Trying to catch up with a lot of things. Please be patient if I'm a bit slow to respond.

I am tidying up my office. (I can see the desktop! And all the yarn is neatly stacked in one 15" x 22" area[1]! And the phone is plugged in, although I really want to get the other power bar in behind the bookcase, and that will mean emptying it, plus the other bookcase has shown a disturbing willingness to sway forward so I guess there are shims in the near future...)

Anyway. I am tidying up my office, and sorting though my mail. And. Well. What charities do sometimes is send you their "Please donate" requests along with preprinted mailing labels.

I, ah, appear to have over a couple hundred of them. So I clearly need to send out more mail. Would anyone like either a Gorey postcard or seasonally-themed greetings?
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[1] I'm not checking to see how high.
[2] Or sad stories. Dear Ottawa Humane Society: I will send you money if you just please stop sending me pictures of sad cats!

Deck the halls with wads of tissues,
(fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!)
'Tis the season of health issues,
(fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!)
Down we now our medication,
(fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!)
Kill the virus infestation!
(fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!)

I hadn't actually heard those lines before, and share them on the misery-loves-company theory. Thinking it's time to go get stuff done so I can crash early.

This is the first time in twelve and a half hours I haven't had at least one-and-a-half eyes on doing something I need to get done, and oh god it feels nice.

Budget!flail later, maybe. As one does.

In the name of not being utterly out of it, or something...

* surgery on relative seems to have gone well, yay.
* work. So tired.
* Canada's Penitentiary Museum in Kingston got my name right. Three times. They are awesome. I have a little laminated card.
* a collection of stories about the Ivybridge family is coming out next year. For those of you who don't know them, may I recommend the Historical Lovecraft anthology?
* oh lord, I still need to turn over the laundry.

The day gets away from you. Still, for a 40 minute carving job, I am pleased.

I go to sleep, I wake up five hours later, and I have thirteen e-mails? The hell, world. Three is more normal.

Also, my scarf made it to its recipient. Dance, I say.

Contemplating going back to bed for a bit, but would hate to wake anyone up. (Bets on whether Angus or Piper has stolen my pillow?)

There are many things one might hear during an appointment for outpatient surgery.

I feel that "Hey, would you feel better knowing that the laser machine has 'cut' and 'blend' settings?" is one of the more disconcerting ones.

That is all.