just a gratuitous picture of my dog basically

It's my day off, but I'm working, because I had one of those weeks when the week sort of ran out before the work did. Emma is helping me. Well, more napping than helping really.

I have been terrifically grumpy for the past week or so. So, I'm not going to update my blog because it'll probably just be a grumpy update. You know? What's the point of that?

days 3 + 4 (=7)

And inside my hat, is little Day 3! [And 4]. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I am feeling a bit pathetic, at this moment--I just actually DID NOT HAVE TIME to do anything better. But maybe it's the headache that has been gnawing on my brain for about 30 hours.

The sources of my satisfaction:

A sort of disturbingly enthusiastic exaltation of domesticity.

My first roasted chicken + gravy
>Stock from scratch
>>Soup, jambalaya, + a couple containers for the freezer
>>>Cheese biscuits

A good book (Farm City) finished
>And two more promising ones from the stacks

A really, really excellently large messenger bag, now adorned with girl scout patches

A big [work] website project finished
>And a clean desk
>>And a price of living raise
>>>And the amount of my student loan payments increased

A programmable thermostat
>And a heated dog bed purchased out of guilt at how our dog constantly searches for the warmest spot in the house

Heirloom vegetable seeds ordered
>And some herbs planted with seeds from the farmer's market, to grow in green pots in my kitchen

A doomed-seeming pug declined
>My first "dungeon deserter" debuff
>>Means I am not a pushover or a masochist.

Pug aside: skip at will.
[i had spent several hours the day before running the same dungeon--Halls of Reflection-- on the same difficulty setting-- Heroic; not to boast, but this is the hardest 5-person content in the game. And our really, really good group wiped over and over. So I was a bit reticent to commit to it again, let alone with a group of strangers. And in this random group our tank had made some pretty poor gear choices, which was strike 2. This was strike 3:]
Jocelyn: i was really hoping it wouldn't be this one :)
Group leader: suck it up
Group leader: let's go
Group leader: kill mages first
Jocelyn: wow, thanks... friendly
Group leader: u r welcome
Jocelyn: /quits group

I felt guilty for 10 seconds, then... exuberant.

Dear boyfriend, the Internet:

I feel so crappy! I wish you were real so you could send me some flowers, Internet. Along with a big, cold bottle of water and some tylenol. I caught a cold on my flight back from Seattle last Sunday and I've been in the throes of it since. It was one of those lightning viral attacks, where you know attempting to fend it off is useless, because you go from being 100% healthy to wanting to lie down and die on the floor in the space of 24 hours. Hmm! a tickle in my throat! you think on Sunday night. Ghhhhhhhhhhgh, I can't feel my feet, you think on Monday morning. So I missed a couple days of work but now I'm back at my desk because this is a long weekend coming up, and I wasn't relishing the idea of four more days' accumulated email and invoices and book orders and water-logged reference books greeting me next week. Plus a person can only run so many chain heroics, you know? Especially with a sinus headache. That just makes n00bs all the more intolerable.

Around 3 this morning (long story!) I finished John Irving's new book, Last Night in Twisted River. From the time I was in about grade 11 to, oh I don't know, about two years ago, John Irving was My Favourite, capital M capital F. A couple of his books (A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules) changed my life the way books only can when you're young; there are lines from those books that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. But his last one (Until I Find You? maybe? Something like that) left me pretty cold after a couple of chapters, and I didn't finish it; and Twisted River is compelling in that way John Irving books tend to be compelling, but still kind of empty, in the end. It reminds me of every other John Irving book I've read, sort of compiled together and with the addition of backwoods logging. Isn't that disappointing, when books you once thought you could count on loving become ambiguous in their appeal? It makes the world seem shaky. I was saving this one for my trip but instead reading it became kind of a chore, and I finished a couple other quickies (The Adoration of Jenna Fox and Endymion Spring and Alanna, the First Adventure-- Jenna Fox, especially, was excellent) while carrying it around guiltily.

Also, from the reliving the past category: I've had the Sarah McLachlan song Ice Cream running through my head for the past couple of days, so I downloaded it yesterday along with a couple other songs from that album. My tape (!) of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was probably the only thing that I listened to from approximately sixth to tenth grades. I'm surprised it's still listen-able, but it is. Well, I mean, the music is. The tape itself has disappeared into the void. (Actually, now that I think about it-- I can't believe I paid for it AGAIN! This more than makes up for all the MP3s I downloaded in my younger days. I'm half-kidding but if the CRIA is right about its ethics, then they owe me one album, those copyrighting jerks. Or they can just send me a cheque.)

I also baked some INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING COOKIES!

It has been a rough few days.

Blerg.

After two weeks of vacation, sorting through my work email took only 1 3/4 hours. Not nearly as bad as I expected!

My good old Razr seems to have really bitten the bullet. I can't tell if it's my charger or the battery that's messed up, but something is going desperately wrong in the phone-charging cycle. Every time I turn it on it buzzes promisingly, but then I get a black screen of death, sometimes combined with a very bleak UNABLE TO CHARGE! message.

So I decided this was a logical time to upgrade to an iPhone, since I've been hankering for one for months and my bus commute is not getting any shorter. HA! At the Rogers store they informed me that, having had my current phone for less than two years, I was not eligible for an upgrade and to call customer service. (Jocelyn: "My husband and I got our old phones at the same time and he upgraded to an iPhone several months ago with no problems." Store employee: "Yeah, they changed the rule two weeks ago.") On the phone they told me that I could get an upgrade, getting an iPhone for the low low price of only $199 (only $100 higher than the price they use to entice new customers to join! What a special offer for loyal existing customers!)-- but oh, it's out of stock and the woman wasn't sure if it could be backordered.

CSR: So you could go to a Rogers store and get one there...
Jocelyn: I already tried that and they were not helpful at all, and I am not anxious to try to convince them I'm eligible for this upgrade. How about if you just order the phone and mail it to me?
CSR: Well, I'm not sure if the system will let me order one. We have too many orders for them already.
Jocelyn: But I want the 3G, not the 3GS. It's the old one! Just backorder it.
CSR: OK, phone back in about 4 days and they will give you your tracking number.

Really? Really, capitalism? I want to pay you money for goods and this is what you come up with? How about if you just sell me this effing phone that has been available for MONTHS, and I'll give you the amount of money it costs? Is that too much to ask? The two things I hate most about Canada: 1, the death panels. (I keep getting sentenced to death and it's such a drag.) 2, the fact that every technological innovation that happens elsewhere in the civilized world arrives here in some kind of stupidified form. Rogers is the only wireless provider here with the network for the iPhone, so you would think they would sort of anticipate demand for it and say STOCK SOME EXTRA ONES, but nope.

Did I mention that in the meantime I don't have a phone? So in the meantime, just continue to ignore me.

Ghah, Internet! i cannot concentrate on ANYTHING today and i keep trying to do this incredibly mundane, repetitive task that I really need to finish for work and instead my brain is like IKEA! garden! SIMS! IKEA! chocolate-covered peanuts! Etsy! Emma! garden! nice weather outside! Harry Potter! like that, on and on and on and on. hey, jocelyn! forget about that spreadsheet! let's go ride bikes! says my brain, and i am powerless. so perhaps a blog will help me to get it out of my system. (side-lol: i love how old people call individual entries blogs, as in, I wrote a blog about that. or what have you. it's so adorably almost-correct.)

The great thing about working in a library is that all my co-workers are bright, passionate, interesting people who love books and ideas and tea and talking about books. never have i felt so consistently at ease among one group of people, as since i entered the library world. (That, and I get to order whatever strikes my fancy on interlibrary loan.) The bad thing about working in a library is that it is so quiet in here today, internet, that earlier i was spinning my chair in 360 degree circles just to feel the slight vibrations of noise in the air. i think we could all afford to listen to our radios at a reasonable volume, you know what i'm saying?

The other day i told james i was bored of being married, and he said, really? i think you're just bored of The Sims 3 and i had to admit that this type of incisive thinking is, indeed, why i am not bored of being married, at least not to him.

So far being married is almost exactly like being not-married, which is fine because i liked being not-married and got very good at in in 8 years. i do call James my "husband" now which i am trying to get more used to, although "man friend" has slipped out once or twice and I don't think anyone is judging me. And he gets an obscene amount of pleasure out of referring to me as his "wifey."

However, I am suddenly aware of the idea of a marriage, like a third entity that we've created and are responsible for. I never felt this way about relationship, not really, but marriage is much harsher. It stresses me out, a bit, having to care for something that seems so doomed to have words like "dysfunctional," "failed" or "unhappy" prefacing it. Somehow we obtained this marriage and now we have to keep it up. This has nothing to do with James, or I, as what exists between us feels as inalienable and comfortable and almost obnoxiously easy to care for as ever in application; it's this hypothetical marriage that seems so doomed, so fraught with pressure. We should just call it something else.

We could name it after a piece of IKEA furniture for example. We don't have a marriage, we have an ektorp. I feel more at ease already.

Getting married on Saturday

And it's making me grumpy. Albeit sort of comically grumpy. And with hair like a superhero.

Update on my mild cognitive impairment

It just took me approximately two minutes to remember the word "accommodate," and I was concentrating really hard. Not good.

BAD FOR MORALE

It seems the deal on the house we (sort of) bought might fall through due to the dreaded foundation cracks. I've realized that the past few weeks have actually had a fundamental effect on my outlook, in the sense that I don't really believe in nice things anymore. That sounds terrible, but I booked our third-choice wedding venue yesterday (after the first two canceled on us) and realized that I don't even actually expect to have my wedding there. I just assumed it wouldn't work out, even though she put my name in her computer system. The other people have put my name in their computer systems, or the paper equivalent of their computer systems, and it has made no apparent difference. And I bought more cardstock, to re-print the 65 invitations I already pritned (by hand, with a stamp) but without any sense that I would actually be making more invitations. And the house thing is the same. Reading the home inspector's report I felt the familiar sinking feeling in my stomach, but also a kind of apathy that must result from lowered expectations.

Although, to avoid thinking about my foundation (or lack thereof), I've been looking for rescue dogs on the Internet. Maybe instead of getting married and buying a house, I'll just get a dog, and the dog can come and live in my condo, and I can keep dating my man friend from across the river, and that would be fine. Because I'm tired of this thick, discouraged feeling that is radiating out from somewhere behind my sternum. I never sleep, I never swim, my head hurts all the time, and there is eventually going to come a point when I am just going to flip out at whatever realtor or structural engineer or facilities booker happens to be standing nearby.

Guilt; confusion; sensitive co-workers.

I have this reusable Whole Foods bag that a friend bought in Vegas, which somehow made its way home with me and has continued to make its way to and from work, and the grocery store, with me. On the side, it says, "I love my home... planet earth," but the way the words are arranged is artfully uneven, and every time I see it this is what goes through my mind: "I love my home planet... earth." Huh. That's weird because no one has a home planet other than earth. Every. Single. Time. My brain is not capable of remembering what it actually says on this bag, or even that my predictable wrong response is, well, wrong. I kind of want to get rid of the bag just because it's a reminder of how my mind is hard-wired for certain kinds of failure.

I think people know how tired and stressed I am, and everyone at my work is walking on eggshells around me. It's actually kind of nice. This is what I imagine it would be like to be an invalid. I'm like an invalid, but the kind that has a job. And I've actually had a really productive afternoon, having recycled a bunch of tiny notes with tiny reminders written on them after performing the tiny tasks they signified, and also emptying out my outlook inbox. I found a tiny error on the website and instead of notifying the person who should fix it, I just fixed it myself, because my desire to not have to communicate with others overwhelmed by desire to not have to do things myself.

I think I have petered out on Thing-A-Day. I'm sad about that because I love the idea, but when I committed to do it I absolutely did not anticipate that this was going to be one of the busiest and most stressful months of my life. I have been spending a little bit of time almost every day making something, but I haven't summoned the commitment necessary to actually document and post these things, which to me is kind of the point. So. Fail.

in fact i wish this blog had a little pocket for a flask

Thanks to my inside people at the university, I might have scored an old card catalogue (again). This time I'm going to keep calling the Supply Management guy (nicely!) until he agrees to sell it to me for some reasonable amount of money, say, $40. I'm too nice, and this is how I lost out on the last one. Anyone who claims they got an old card catalogue by being nice is lying. (Also, I don't know if I mentioned this but... I have a house now, so I'm going to need even more wacky furniture and even more posters and even more vintage kitchenware from Etsy to fill it up. Oh, and James's stuff too apparently.) (Also, is the plural of "kitchenware" still "kitchenware?" or "kitchenwares"? Hmm.)

Since I finished school and started working, I've managed to jettison my paper "daytimer," as the grown-up types say, and depend on my trusty brain and 30 Boxes. This hybrid brain/technology solution was working for me until recently, when I have suddenly needed to keep track of house details and wedding details in addition to all the other normal life details. (Also, this might seem pathetic, but while I was in grad school/freelancing I never had much health coverage. Now that I have a health plan, and have to get my hair cut on a regular basis also, I suddenly have a whole extra set of appointments to keep track of.) I've been freaking out a lot lately, often at 4:30 am, often as a result of remembering something I need to do and then realizing I'm sure to forget it again 3 minutes later, so today I developed a plan to build myself a new daytimer-type book for keeping notes, business cards, my chequebook (which I also require ALL THE TIME in my new life as a grown-up, even if I do still have Muppet cheques) and the pen I stole from the MGM Grand. Convenient side-effect: I can use the new vinyl foot for my sewing machine, which I got for Christmas. Who is the guy I'm supposed to call from the realtor's office who will meet the home inspector and let him in? The book will know! What is the name of my optometrist, who I need to call to arrange a crazy dilation test for my sub-par eyes? The book will know! Or at least that's the theory. And maybe I'll sleep through the night at least once before July. Whenever I enter this kind of hyper, detail-obsessed planning mode, the only thing that will make me feel better is to make the obsessing more efficient. Or maybe to drink. I should make a little pocket in my binder for a flask.

Observation I, from an expert Observer of roman numerals

I. It might have been overambitious to think I could buy a house, plan my own wedding, be a bridesmaid in the wedding of one of my best friends, wrap up a big contract project, and do Thing-A-Day in one month. (In addition to normal work and dishes, although I never do dishes.) Perhaps the stress and tiredness I am feeling now is a result of that.

[James and I found a really splendid house yesterday, and he was going back today with a list of practical things we didn't notice the first time like "How big are the closets? Is there a washing machine?" and a mental preparedness to make an offer on it as long as none of these practical things had absurd answers, such as "not only is there no washing machine but THERE IS NO RUNNING WATER," and then our realtor called to tell us it had been sold. Falling in love and then having the thing you've fallen in love with taken away from you is tiring.]

II. Or maybe it's just because I don't have any candy in my desk.

[After I wrote that, I had to reboot my computer because it was acting strangely, and as it was restarting I thought, hmm, I should double-check if i actually have any candy in my desk. And I DID. So. We are left with only option Roman Numeral I.]

it rhymes with delicious

I'm still sick. On the plus side, I have a sexy, growly voice now. On the minus side, I feel horrible, I keep freaking out about absolutely nothing, and I have no time to do my daily Thing. So. Another cop-out: a picture of a bottle of Aranciata on my desk, just moments before it got in my belly. I will buy almost anything that comes in a brightly coloured orange bottle. Also visible is my to-read pile, which shames me deeply (especially since it is actually only one of three in my apartment). I took a moment away from the monster spreadsheet I'm building to look for something beautiful, and took this photo, so I believe it is in the spirit of Thing-A-Day, even if it simultaneously betrays all the people who felted, sketched, or programmed today. And moments later my camera battery died, and I can't find my charger (scary thought: I haven't seen it since Vegas, before Christmas) and my favourite headphones broke today on the airport shuttle (don't ask) and... oh yeah. Everything.

Everything. Crap!

No daily Thing today. My first attempt at block-printing wedding invitations went very awry, so I'm discouraged--in addition to the exhausted and sick I was already. My immune system is really screwing with me this year. I would be filled with rage if I could more easily move my head.

I think someone has a case of the Mondays

Holy media hangover, Batman. I spent most of yesterday playing Warcraft and watching 30 Rock, and by 10:30 PM I felt like I had already died--probably several hours before--and had somehow been reanimated as a screen-watching zombie. It was a bad scene. So I went to bed, woke up this morning at the usual time for work, had a shower, realized I was going to purposefully allow myself to be hit by a car on the way to work because I felt that horrible, and went back to sleep. Then I got up again and stopped for coffee and came here and I feel like I am slowly waking up as I type this. So. That brings is up to now.

And the sad part is, I have 2 episodes of 30 Rock left to watch, so I didn't even reach my goal. When am I going to get to watch them, Internet? Probably not tonight, as I have work to do! Maybe NEVER!

I was at the dentist last week and he confirmed what I already knew, which is that I grind my teeth while I am asleep. In fact he had a novel way of demonstrating this to me, which was to hold my hands on the sides of my jaw and have me clench my teeth. I could feel the giant muscles bulging. And yet my stupid body can't be trained to do real exercise while I'm asleep. So anyway, I wake up with these headaches that seem to radiate from my jaw deep into my skull, and I have to get one of those expensive mouthguards. I'm going to look like such a nerd while I sleep, Internet. It's so embarrassing, I'll have to turn off my webcam at night. So anyway, in addition to the media hangover I also have a jaw-clenching headache.

Gurgle gurgle gurgle. I think that most aptly conveys how I am feeling at this moment.

PS.

I'm really sick, like REALLY sick. It started with allergies a couple weeks ago, but I develop new symptoms all the time. And the new symptoms don't replace the old ones, they supplement them. As of today, I have an earache! It would be hilarious if it didn't make me want to kill myself.

Oh, and I get to work from 8:30 this morning until 9 at night. Because that is just how I roll. I'm all like, "oh yeah, illness? Well I'm going to work for 12 1/2 hours anyway! Take that!"

Morale is the highest it has been all week.

Sometimes, when what you really want is a break, you have to settle for a few minutes alone in your cubicle with a bagel and coffee and some photocopies and a highlighter, looking busy so people will leave you alone. And sometimes, if you're at your second workplace of the day and you're tired and sick, that few minutes will actually feel like a break. Which is the sad part. Except it doesn't feel sad. It feels like a tremendous relief.

I am pretty sure there is a Gordon Lightfoot song about this.

I watched the greatest movie last night. It's called Desk Set. Have you seen it, Internet? Katharine Hepburn is in it, and she plays a librarian, and she is AWESOME. She's smart and sassy! She wears awesome clothes! She knows everything! In other words, she is Who I Want to Be When I Grow Up. At least I am on the right track. I mean, I already have a library degree, and at least a few items of awesome clothes. It's nice when you realize you are becoming the person you want to be.

The only other thing I have to say is: INDIANNNNNNA JONES!

Whoa, internet!

So I took some Benadryl to help with the coughing and sneezing, and those things went away. But! Instead I feel a series of symptoms that can only be described as "loopiness." My head is spinning, as if I've been dancing around! The back of my throat is itchy! My fingers keep hitting the wrong keys, or no keys at all! All of my thoughts have exclamation points at the end of them! My hands are shaky, as if I've had a lot lot lot of coffee. Or even coffffeeeeeee. Merciful heavens.

I'm off to a meeting at which I risk losing all my content management system access privileges. The form (not that there's a form) will say, "Jocelyn is clearly loopy, and cannot be allowed to edit government websites."

Celebrating excellence in redundancy

When I was a kid I was completely allergy-free. These days, I am the opposite of allergy-free, and I in fact seem to be allergic to everything located outside: trees, flowers, pollen, possibly even cars. The symptoms are disgusting, but live-with-able. My head hurts all the time, and my throat is tickly, and I sneeze CONSTANTLY--six times in a row, this morning, as if to make up for time lost while sleeping. The real problem is this nagging feeling that my body has betrayed me, suddenly becoming convinced that it cannot deal with things that were clearly fine before. Dear body: Bits of organic material in the air are not going to kill us. CHILL OUT. Kthxbai.

The nice thing is that it's a short week after a long weekend. I only have to work here for one day, and then at my new job for three days, and then it is the weekend again! Lucky thing. Four days is plenty of time for me to die of sadness and allergies.

(The title of this post is related to the fact that just a moment ago, I attempted to use the title, "Excellence in Teaching Awards celebrate excellence in teaching," before I decided that was too stupid and beaurocratic even for me.)

Trying to get back into the habit of blogging.

Things that are awesome today:

1. I started my balcony garden! I have tomatoes and zucchini and a single pepper plant which I don't hold out much hope for. Oh, and sugar snap peas. I've already begun my constant vigilant pigeon surveillance. Those birds better not get all up in my face, or whatever. (My inclination is to do that thing little kids do: to plant seeds and then check on them every few hours to see if they are growing.) Also, I improvised a watering can out of a milk jug. I poked holes in its lid with my stabby screwdriver! So thrifty and crafty. These plants are not all going to die like last year's did, oh no sir. I'm going to water them every day, now that I know from helpful library books that balcony gardens need to be watered every day.

2. There is a fancy new grocery store in my neighbourhood. I've been waiting for it to open literally since I moved in here, almost two years ago. It's not that great for actual, efficient, cost-savings grocery shopping, but it IS good for five kinds of olives, or little containers of alfredo sauce or bruschetta topping or glass jars of organic pear juice. I'm going to throw a succession of ridiculous parties, now that the hors d'oeurves are so convenient.

3. The first season of Heroes. I'm about six episodes in. And I need to get back to it.

4. The Jonathan Coulton song Skullcrusher Mountain.

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don't like it
What's with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don't like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Seriously. It's the most romantic song EVER.

5. There are things I like all the time, but that I like extra today, including my boyfriend, my apartment, and being a librarian. I'm just in a good mood. Don't worry, it won't last.