Wednesday, September 25, 2002

so much to vent, so

so much to vent, so little time

just to be perverse, i made a tally.  ‘things that didn’t go so well’ won.

things that went better than expected today:
* it’s kel’s birthday - that’s always nice
* i remembered the card for her birthday and wrote something appropriate
* i remembered to mail the bills
* we made all the lights going downtown on geary this morning - that’s like hitting a royal flush when you’re out in the avenues
* i seem to be regaining some finger function - not much but a good start
* we got water just in time from a friendly and convenient florist (see below)
* kel gave me bus fare which i usually don’t even need and was totally going to forget to get from her but she remembered and saved my ass
* i got my happy hour invite
*i brought lots of good music to work - listened to some chuck prophet, a sweet hot tuna bootleg, and some blazing live greyboy
* my handwriting with my left hand is improving - now it’s merely the scrawl of a head-trauma posterboy, yesterday it was flatly illegible, unintelligible even to me
* i had a tasty free lunch thanks to a gift certificate to my single outside source of nutrition that my colleagues thoughtfully provided to me in lieu of flowers which really is a better idea and there’s lots of credit on the account still
* i was able to eat the tasty free lunch without making any more of a mess than i probably would have anyway, one-handed with a little assistance from the invalid digits - and it was a falafel burrito, totally delicious but a trecherous handful, i wou;dn’t have it any other way
* i finally got out a letter that i really wanted off my desk - since july, although honestly a lot of the delay wasn’t my fault, in fact i forced things to come to a conclusion because i just couldn’t stand it
* gramma was home to let me into the foyer (she lives in an in-law in the garage below her daughter, my landlady; see below)
* i brought a really cool book to read, a total escapist delight
* kel decided to blow off the fancy french bistro for our local favorite thai place for her natalday dinner, which was both cheaper and more satisfying in every way
* i haven’t taken pain meds in over 24 hrs with the exception of standard fermented therapeutics and herbal remedies

things that didn’t go as well as they could have
* i have the sniffles and its as humiliating as it is infuriating
* i’m not sleeping well - asleep at 11, up at one all agitated and warm… awake till 5… alarm at 5:30…
* early is dark now
* i didn’t really get a chance to bathe very thoroughly - it’s something of an ordeal these days
* i broke a beloved hawaiian ugga-bugga fridge magnet with my clumsy protruberance - thats right my cast
* i totally worked through my lunch and didn’t get my dose of cyberculture
* that letter i’m so proud of getting off my desk neeeded 3 re-prints because i screwed it up so badly and couldn’t get it right
* there were like 4 other important things i totally didn’t even start to get to
* i left my wallet with the bus pass at home
* the car very nearly overheated while kel was driving me to work, we were probably close to blowing the radiator - but on the plus side she very rarely takes me to work, it’s lucky that this problem came up at a time that i was available to help deal with it - she didn’t seem to have a good idea what to do after she identified the problem, i’m glad i was there, she easily could have been on her own
* i didn’t bring any of the batteries we got so i couldn’t use a walkman or my phone headset - the walkman is a bigger issue because
* i also left my housekeys at home and didn’t realize it till after kel dropped me off at work so i couldn’t borrow her keys
* so i was stranded without music from 5 pm when i got home (but i got to work early too so this doesn’t represent any kind of short day) till kel got home, around 7:15
* the two friends whom we’ve entrusted with spare keys weren’t home so i still was stranded
* the landlady who lives downstairs and her kids also weren’t home so i was still stuck - even though gramma let me into the foyer, she speaks no english and i wasn’t able to communicate to her that i needed to borrow the key to my own front door - she’s an octogenarian fistful of chinese sourpuss, it takes a lot to deal with her even though i was glad she heard the doorbell and let me in, harranguing and lecturing me in shrill words that sounded angry but maybe weren’t; so anyway i was parked outside my front door for an hour and a half
* so i didn’t get my laundry to the dry cleaner
* and i didn’t get to a drug store to get some reasonably critical supplies
* finished my wonderful book at 5:40 and had no backup
* didn’t get a chance to stretch out after work, or to try to anyway, which i haven’t been able to do for weeks now and my muscles are starting to notice, because i was stuck on the stoop
* the landlady’s son had been home all the time; i heard him get a phone call at 6:40 and i got him to let me in shortly thereafter, he’d just not heard - or had ignored - the doobell when i rang earlier
* the cat has very poor litterbox aim, if you catch my drift

by my count, that’s 20 to 17, ‘not so great’ over ‘better than expected.’ tomorrow and friday i bargain all day and that should be relatively low impact after what i’ve been through.  friday night i drink and then my wonderful sisinlaw and spouse arrive from seattle for the weekend; they’ve got colds and she sprained her ankle so it’ll be a quiet relaxing time… and that’s what chuckles really needs about now…