sometimes you get a case of the mondays on a wednesday

One of the truly great things about being an Esteemed Member of the Peonage is the ability to do one's work quietly and not deal with the Powers That Be. I prefer the invisibility of civil service to having to speak in front of others who are higher up than me and to feel put on the spot in not entirely a bad way but put on the spot nonetheless sucks fantastically.

So much of what I do depends on what the higher ups ask to be done and if they don't give me anything than that's just the way it is. People have way too much time on their hands to analyze minutiae and I sit there just wanting to melt away knowing that I am neither in trouble or at fault but I just want out of this room, I want to go home, I want to be far, far away.

flight

I had to print something off at the library and ended up in Lakewood surrounded by crazy regulars and sundry others that I really didn't want to deal with for reasons I prefer not to divulge here and snuck out without much recognition, feeling like a creep myself at a public Internet terminal, and not wanting to deal with general awkwardness of at least three different kinds. I can't remember the last time I was in the same room with at least four characters that I really have a strong aversion to. If anyone's dealt with me in the past twelve hours, I haven't totally been myself among those I know best.

One of my neighbors was as Marc's where I'd gone to find TSA-acceptable-sized mini bottles of shampoo because otherwise I might be trying to blow up a plane with nitroglycerine cleverly disguised in a bottle of seemingly innocuous Herbal Essences.
The terrorists have won, it seems because the regulations are crazy. I don't worry about planes blowing up but I'm not a fan of flying and usually sleep so I don't have to think about it.

We're both trying to do the garden thing and so we swapped extra seeds and now I'm up late feeling nervous from both caffeination and breaking from routine as the wind rattles the doors and the kitchen chairs. I'm so used to planning out my days with work and the show in mind, not digging out an old backpack and filling it with the necessities needed for four days in another city that I've never been to. There's the part of me that knows that it'll be fine and the other part that's always assuming the worst, which is never a good thing when what I really need is sweet sweet sleep.

people my age, they don't do the things I do...

I eschewed public transportation for a long walk over the bridge to Tower City, fortified by a cup of coffee and an enchilada, to meet up with Tangerine to watch the Indians play. I'm used to downtown being deserted, and it was until I entered Tower City and there was some kind of art fair thing full of swarovski crystal jewelry, general kitsch, generic skyline photos, and the kind of nonoffensive art that I tend to associate with dentists' offices or corporate lobbies, knowing that what I'm making is just as decent, just that I'm too much of a slacker and slightly afraid to out my creative output outside my small circle.

I forget that the rest of the world does different things on the weekends when I ended up at a birthday celebration at a bar where there was much in the way of bad Top 40, 80's cover bands, and general college bar-ness. My peers drink more in one night than I do in a whole year, and most people were with their significant others so I was able to pay my respects and make a quick exit after doing some general observation and people-watching.

I used to be freaked out by social situations involving all of the above, but one of the wonderful things about getting older is being comfortable in my skin, not feeling like I have to fit in or make conversation, or that there's something wrong with me because I can't wear high heels and don't know what's on TV. I drove home in the rain basking in the sounds of Faith No More, feeling strangely victorious that I'm no longer intimidated and that despite everything, I've come into my own my own way.

blood and coffee.

Having received a snow day call from the place of employment and the heat having been fixed, it was lovely to have a day at home to get things done and also do some superb slacking of the drink tea on the couch wrapped in blankets, listening to shoegaze, and reading.

I picked up 'The Tale of Genji' awhile back but didn't get through the first section, but this translation I got from the library last night is way better and I'm enjoying it so far, with its depth of detail, the inner life of the characters, and a culture and time period that I know little about make for good reading. It's over a thousand pages long so there's a lot to transpire.

Also started carving some wood blocks too, but I sliced my finger with the v-gouge and realized that I had no bandages in the house and that paper towels really don't do a good job. So after helping my downstairs neighbor shovel us out, I went up to the drugstore to get some.

I didn't realize I was still bleeding until I was standing line and all these tough guys behind me were like "Dang somebody got fucked up in here look at all that blood man" and then I look down and there's a trail of it around the store and big drops of it all around me. It's still pouring out and everyone is looking at me weird. "That's from YOU? You been playing with knives again or what?"

The lady there gave me another paper towel, and a customer card that I'm supposed to bring back but I am now That Girl with the Bleeding Finger All Over Rite Aid and I'll probably go to the Walgreens on Clark now instead. I bandaged it up in the car since one of the side benefits of being a former art student is that I'm damn good at DIY first aid after unfortunate incidents with etching acid and utility knives.

I've migrated to my favorite coffeeshop to do some writing before meeting up at the art center for creating and then dinner. The music is the Amelie soundtrack, the coffee is good (can I go a day without coffee? Yes, but not well), and I've done some revising and an extra page of writing so I'm not feeling too badly, and I'm snarking with the good Lady Pebbles Montoya (an old friend of the family from way back when and also a should-be-more-famous personage on the Internet) about what the Jane Austen Fight Club would involve.

I never thought I'd get snow days as a grown up but these are beautiful things.