Posted on No Comments on Observations.

Observations.

Yesterday, the cat had beef and beef-liver stew, in bouillon, with “a medley” of vegetables, parsley, and oregano.  Seriously, looking at the ingredient list on that can, I would have sworn it was human food.

Yesterday I had hot dogs.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think I had the better deal (if nothing else, dinner was made, which was a really nice feeling right about last night).  I’m just amused by the fact that I think my pets eat more healthily than I do.  It comes from not having thumbs or wallets, I think.

In possibly thematically related news, I have figured out why I hate going to the gym when the gym employees are around.  It’s like clothes shopping.  Except the clerks really are looking at you and thinking about what needs to get fixed about your body, and you knew that going in, and you (quite likely) paid money to go there and… agh.  Body image issues, how unsurprising to see you.

(Going when staff is not around is much easier.  I do not think it is ultimately as productive, though.)

Not much more to say, really.  I’m making a concerted effort to work through my reading list.  (That goodreads widget down there?  That is not a complete list of what I have on the go.)

Posted on No Comments on Pleasant moments.

Pleasant moments.

So, the night before last, I couldn’t sleep, and was going through my Hallowe’en anthology. (It’s a couple of screens back, in that nifty little WordPress gadget on the bottom right of the page.  Because I keep a few books on the go at once.)  I picked an F. Paul Wilson story as likely to suit my mood, and then, because it was a response to Bradbury’s “The October Game” and because I was feeling awake and unfocussed and faintly worried I might miss a reference, I reread “The October Game” before going to “The November Game”.

I’m so very glad I did.

(Incidentally, if you haven’t read “The October Game,” I highly recommend it.  I suspect a Google could turn something up, if you don’t have it in hardcopy. And it’s quite short, which is good, because I am about to get into things that, while they might not be spoilers, certainly run the risk of minimizing the impact. Read more Pleasant moments.

Posted on No Comments on Lost weekend.

Lost weekend.

Well, not entirely lost.  But definitely feeling that a lot of it went to things that I’m not sure were worth the time.

I find I’ve been doing that a lot, lately, and I’m not actually sure what to do about it.  It makes me unhappy, but the problem isn’t just “I’m not focussing on anything”, it’s “I don’t want to focus on anything”.  Almost the antithesis of time management; usually I think of that as making sure you have time to do things, and this is wanting to make sure I had things to do during time.

I don’t like this feeling, in case it wasn’t clear.  It’s been on my mind rather since Thursday, when the light of my life and I went by the gym, and their printer/fax wasn’t working, and him being him I proceeded to sit there and talk to one of the trainers while he poked the wireless network and the phone jacks and similar.  And I remember her asking either “what inspires you?” or “what motivates you?” and I didn’t have an answer.  She was asking specifically in the context of working out, mind, but I can’t find an answer at all.

At work, sometimes, I remind myself that I am being a responsible person who is helping to support her household.  That’s about it.  I can’t think of anything else.

I’m going to sleep on this (again; as I said, been on my mind since Thursday), and hopefully I will realize there is a reason to be feeling a little less disquiet than I am.

Posted on No Comments on Getting there, day at a time.

Getting there, day at a time.

I was saying to myself “tomorrow is Wednesday – nearly halfway through the week” and realized that no, in fact, there are five days left and I am not even a third of the way through.

It’s interesting, how much I divorce the weekend from the week.

It’s been a rather stressful couple of days at work; I’m replacing two people instead of one. Hopefully things will slow down tomorrow, when one of them comes back. Meanwhile, I am trying very hard to leave the stress at the office.

Posted on No Comments on I’m telling you stories.

I’m telling you stories.

By then serials were dying anyway, and of what use was a green suit with a long cape and wings on the sides of its cowl? In the real world, there was no room for Green Falcons.

Got to work this morning and I couldn’t get “Night Calls the Green Falcon” out of my head. It’s from Robert R. McCammon’s Blue World collection, or at least that’s where I first read it.

A shriek like the demons of hell singing Beastie Boys tunes came from the speakers.

So I went looking, and bless the man, he has the whole thing up on his website. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s written as a serial, it really suits being posted online.

“No, I haven’t seen him for a while, but I know what his name was.” He grinned, gapped-tooth. “John Smith. That’s what all their names were.” He glanced at the Green Falcon. “Can you breath inside that thing?”

It’s about a man who used to play a hero in the old movie serials–you know the kind, right? Ten chapters to a story, dramatic cliffhangers, come back next week for the next thrilling episode in this dynamic mystery, “The Star and Question Mark”!

“Hey, amigo,” the man said, and flame shot from the barrel of the small pistol he’d just drawn.

I mean… okay, it is not entirely surprising that I am a sap for stories about people trying to live up to the stories; ones about the power of stories to change the world. Galaxy Quest. Shakespeare in Love–not the romantic plot or subplot or whatever it was, but the sheer weight of the theatre, the “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” Hogfather, and the difference between the sun coming up and a giant ball of flaming gas illuminating the world.

He kept going to the stairs, burdened with age.

“‘Dear Davy,’” the voice rang out. “‘I am sorry I can’t come to Center City this summer, but I’m working on a new mystery…’”

The Green Falcon stopped.

I’m not saying it’s great art. It’s a four-colour story, bright and simple and clear. It has a grim and bloody moment or two, but then of course it does; they always did.

Who was he? somebody asked. The Green Falcon? Did he used to be somebody? Yeah, a long time ago. I think I saw him on a rerun. He lives in Beverly Hills now, went into real estate and made about ten million bucks, but he still plays the Green Falcon on the side.

Oh, yeah, somebody else said. I heard that too.

I heard that too.

Posted on No Comments on Life lessons

Life lessons

Yesterday, I fell asleep in the late afternoon, and woke up around ten p.m.  I was feeling a bit muzzy, and it seemed too late to cook, so dinner happened by virtue of the fact that a 24-hour restaurant (at least over the weekend) has recently opened up.  So after getting out of the house (which can take a while, when there is no great hurrying deadline) and having dinner, I got home around one a.m., meandered slowly in the general direction of bed, and fell asleep two hours later.

I woke up around ten this morning, and I was feeling fine.  Got up and helped make chowder for the crockpot, made coffee, and sat down in the living room.  There was a little TV, a lot of poking at the computer that didn’t really accomplish much, and a sort of quietly increasing anxiety.  I managed to make dinner anyway, and was just sitting down to it when I looked at my plate and a sudden realization struck me.

This was breakfast.

Food and a lot of water helped the stress and tension, some.  I’m currently tidying up the kitchen (alright, I am taking a break from tidying up the kitchen because everything is handled except waiting for the dishwasher to finish at which point I can cycle the next load through), and being mildly annoyed at myself.  A whole day, drat it.

Things I have learnt: Don’t do this.

Posted on No Comments on Matter of time.

Matter of time.

I can’t find my copy of The Feminine Mystique.  This has been on my mind–not overwhelmingly so, but definitely noticeable–every day this week.

See, there’s this one part that mentions a study on the time spent housekeeping; what I remember, loosely, is that when the work was given to another household member, it got finished in half the time.  Sometimes less.  And combined with how quickly I was getting through physical filing when I had to concentrate on it (due to the lack of a computer), and how quickly work seemed to go when I started the job…

I want to reread it.  Right now I have the impression that (1) the household chores are feeling alot more overwhelming than they actually are, and (2) maybe I can get over this if I can change it up somehow.  Maybe the time it’s taking isn’t really the time it takes.

(Maybe I just want to read about someone cleaning an entire house and making lunch and doing groceries and still being done by mid-afternoon.)

Long weekend coming up.  I’ve gotten a lot of work done, and some of it’s stuff that isn’t even necessary, it’s in the “I said I would” category.  But it sems there’s been very little time for what I want to do, or that when I’ve done it I haven’t gotten any lasting enjoyment out of it.

Know this kind of thing comes and goes.  Just really don’t care to sit back and wait for it to go if there’s something I can change to make it go, preferably sooner rather than later.

Helps a little to articulate this, at least.