I’m very down right now. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I woke up this morning to an alarm I didn’t think was mine. It was. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from though, and it took a good five minutes for me to finally realize what it was. Morning came too early.
Archive for October, 2007
I’ve been doing it for five years; this year will be my sixth.
Every year I do the same thing. I procrastinate until the very last minute. Instead of thinking up an idea, I sit on my ass, watch movies, and believe that some miracle will happen and I’ll have an idea by the time November comes.
Well, it’s the same story this year. It’s almost November. National Novel Writing Month is in four days.
And I have very few ideas that inspire me. Yikes.
This weekend is turning out very well so far. I will write more comprehensively when it is through… but I’m very happy at the moment.
And yes, it is in part because now 13 guppy fry now exist in a small tub next to my main tank. Although I haven’t decided whether I can afford to keep all of them (or where they’ll end up), I am enjoying watching them for now. I could not bear to watch the other guppies suck down the young fry, and so I caught as many as I could. I know though, that there is at least one more in the tank. I can see him as we speak… and in all likelihood he will not last the night, with five predatory guppies and a skulking puffer.
Well, now to live the rest of the weekend. I’m excited.
I saw “Into the Wild” last night.
Perplexing. Not to mention that I was horribly disturbed by this movie once I realized it would not have the Hollywood ending I was hoping for. Knowing nothing about the book or the kid’s story who inspired the book, how WAS I to know?
I went and saw “Into the Wild” tonight.
Damn, I’m unnerved.
I’m going to go to sleep now to forget. Maybe tomorrow I’ll review it. Ack. Goodnight.
After 18 hours of waiting, I saw little tiny things flitting about inside the cup whose label is “SHRIMPERY.” I guess it worked after all then. So I dumped the water into the puffer’s bowl, and watched as he first froze, and then uncurled himself. Then he noticed that there were small things twitching, moving. He darted forward and snapped one up, realized it was completely edible, and snapped up some more.
For the next half an hour I watched him as he circled his way around the tub chomping up as many brine shrimp as possible. Not a nutritious meal by any chance, but at least it was a meal. He would stare intently at a spot, focus both eyes on it (for puffers can move their eyes individually, like chameleons), and then dart forward, like a cat.
So he is still alive, as of right now. Good news fo rhim and me. Tomorrow… is another day. Will he starve? I’m running out of snails, so I honestly can’t say.
Today at work I spilled tea all over my desk. I’d taken off the plastic wrapper from the cap and given it a good shake. It made a weird noise; I shook it harder to listen again, and pop! The top came off and splashed peach-mango tea everywhere. On my pants, shirt, chair, keyboard, mouse, and desk. Whoops.
I scrambled to clean it up, convinced that if I didn’t, Bruce would come out and make fun of me.
A few minutes later, Adrienne walked by. “It smells like oranges!” she said, and I burst out laughing. I had been using lemon-scented towels and tissues to clean up my mess. I guess the peach and lemon was just citrusey enough to smell of oranges. Busted!
The following keep me sane while living here away from my family:
1. While driving to work this morning, the skyline. Today the buildings stood out, stark against the morning sky which darkened to a moody cobalt to the southeast. Most mornings the sunrise is so bright over the city that it’s hard to tell the difference between the sun and the light glinting off of the glass skyscrapers.
2.Puffer. Every morning so far when I have awoken, he is sitting close to the bottom. I would assume he’s still asleep except for the thrashing about that his tankmates start just after I switch on a light. The poor puffer is skinny, although not so emaciated as yesterday, but with a shrunken belly. He swims listlessly around the small container I now have him in; I wouldn’t have to keep him there except that he won’t eat in the larger tank (thanks to the big stupid fish that gobble all of the food before he can get to it. I have taken to crushing snails for him, snails which he eats with gusto (after circling them like a predatory feline and then striking), but I am also incubating some brine shrimp eggs. While most sites I visited calmly informed me that brine shrimp should only be a treat, not a staple, what else am I supposed to do? Let the puffer starve while I magically produce more snails?
3. Step sculpt. I thought to myself, upon entering class, this will be easy! I’ve done step before; how hard could it be? One girl behind me began to tell another newbie about the difficulty level (intermediate), but this didn’t phase me. It began to phase me, however, ten minutes into the class when I glanced desperately at the clock, willing it to move faster. Only another 50 minutes! I told myself despondently, wiping away rivers of sweat that had gathered on my forehead already. “What’s wrong with you?” the teacher screamed over the throbbing techno. And then, “Don’t worry if you’re new and get lost, stay at the basic step-touch! It’ll take you about six to eight weeks for the steps to make sense!” Six to eight weeks? Holy crap. And for the record, my legs burn with every inhalation of breath today.
4. The Boy taking so great an interest in the state of our bedding that we got into a fight over it last night and today. How he now knows more about Egyptian Cotton than I do, and exactly what kind of comforter we will be getting: a 600-thread count down comforter with baffling and at least 500 fill power, with a 300+ thread count Egyptian Cotton duvet. I can envision this next trip costing around $400, although I wish it didn’t have to. But sleeping in luxury has its price, I suppose.
5. A trip for people to come see me, starting December 26th. This is the only thing getting me through the knowledge that Boy is leaving for two weeks (from the 18th to at least the 31st of December), and that for the first time in my life I will be away from my family and friends for most of the holidays. I can’t wait for those who said they would to come visit; I only hope that things will turn out well.
6. An old friend from home coming to visit her sister this weekend, here in Atlanta. While it is not a trip to expressly visit me, we will be getting together at least once since I owe both of them a thank-you dinner for helping me get this job. Cafe Alsace and the World of Coke, anyone?
I’ve found a food that the puffer will eat. Snails.
Unfortunately, I can’t grow snails at the rate at which he will need to eat them. I wish I’d had several weeks longer to cultivate them; I could have set up a snail farm or something.
My, this is going to be some hard work keeping him alive. Figures I got the picky dwarf puffer and not the amiable dwarf puffer…
I’m going write anyway. I don’t feel like writing. In fact, I feel like doing everything except writing and expressing myself. I think I’ve been running away from it for at least a week; last week was so wretched, it made me want to crawl under a rock and give up.
I can’t possibly live like that though, right?
There are a few things I am going to do..
- reaffirm my promise to do NaNoWriMo again this year. It will be my sixth year writing, fifth year ‘winning.’
- take on a new project, NaBloPoMo, a spin-off of NaNo, in which participants simply post a blog entry for thirty days straight. Not necessarily in the month of November, but for a month straight starting any day. Perhaps today will be the first. We’ll see if I can keep up. I’m comfortable with posting every few days, but I know it would be good discipline to write every day. Starting today, I think.
- keep going to the gym. I’ve gone to one class so far but I’m hoping to expand my horizons and go to step class tomorrow (Monday). A little cardio could do me some good.
- write more reflective entries. Not here, but maybe in my paper journal. Too often I’ve just started chronicling the events that happening in my life, without the reflection. Makes me feel somehow shallow, degraded.
Well, the day’s almost over. South Africa won the rugby World Cup (we just watched the game). My new puffer fish isn’t doing so well. Won’t eat. I think I can solve that problem soon though, unless my other greedy fish starve him out first.
Tomorrow’s a new work week, and then only a few more months until a possible visit with some friends. Seems like forever.
I’ve been struggling with whether or not I should write. I don’t really have the energy right now to analyze for you here exactly while, although I know. This is another one of those personal battles. Do I give into my temptations to withdraw or do I tough it out and be raw, open?
Instead, I’ll write about some things that have happened recently.
The bad:
- sprained my ankle today falling off a curb. Boo. I should have listened to that little voice in my head that was whispering for me to take off my heels after work and walk to the mailbox in flip flops.
- hayfever finally caught up with me this past weekend. I’d thought it missed me, since I’m normally pretty bad off the second or third week in September, not October. But…fall comes a little later six hundred miles south of where I’m used to living.
- got more medical bills. That’s all I want to say about it; they make me too frustrated and upset to cope.
The good:
- beautiful weekend
- experienced “A Taste of Atlanta.” Hand-holding. Sampling food from excellent restaurants from Atlantic Station and around the city. 1-ticket smoothies (two of them!). A day tha tfelt as though it stretched out forever.
- a new Target opened in Atlantic Station!!
- finished reading my book, She’s Come Undone.
- pay day
- finished a chapter today, from “The High Life.”
There’s more, but I’m forgetting it at the moment.
Another thing that makes me happy is watching my three goldfish. From a fish hobbyist’s point of view… goldfish aren’t exactly the most exciting or difficult fish to have and care for. For all intents and purposes, they’re the pigeons of the pet-fish world. They’re dirty, not all that pretty, or smart, and they’re abundantly available. Easy to care for, but boring. All kids, I’m sure, at some point have had a goldfish for a pet. Or a hermit crab.
But although I’m starting to expand my horizons and look for different species of fish to have, I still go back to the goldfish. I have three now, all three Comets, but the one I’ve had longest is also the biggest. I don’t know whether it’s male or female, but I always defer to it as ‘he.’
I just have to say it makes me happy watching them swim around and interact with their environment. And there’s a strange warmth that makes me smile whenever I approach the tank, or sit at my computer. I can look over and see the big fish with his big, black eyes in the corner, looking. Maybe he’s looking for me. Maybe not. But I like to think so, even if he’s only really swishing back and forth excitedly because food might be coming. It’s nice to feel wanted once in a while.