… a mug of chai tea with brown sugar on a crisp, cool, November afternoon.
… opening the mailbox to find a beautiful mossy green hand-knitted beret from a dear friend, and putting it on right there in the street, and grinning cuz it’s perfect.
… wearing your husband’s socks because he’s away, and his fluffy cotton socks make your feet feel warm and happy.
… fingers that are gluey from doing collage art and feeling like a seven-year-old for an hour.
Sunday:
23:00 – Blogging while watching a tivo’d episode of House
21:30 – Folded laundry while watching tivo’d Any Day Now
(Yes, I realize both are old old eps.)
19:45 – Sat down to dinner with troupemates, at third restaurant we attempted, but which was ironically the first mentioned. (Too busy, we said of the first, too toney, we said of the second. Just right, we agreed about the third.) Steak and broccoli were perfect. Beer was okay. Wish they had better imports.
17:30 – Arrived at workshop, eggnog latte in hand. WANTED to “bring it” but was feeling off. Have been feeling off-kilter and like I’m too stupid for improv all month. I HATE NOVEMBER.
16:45 – Bought eggnog latte in cheery red cup from neighborhood Starbucks. Lusted after cute red and silver Kitchen Aid coffeemaker.
15:30 – Bought an x-acto knife, glue, drawing paper and watercolor paper. Yes, you read that correctly. Also bought pens. Yay micro-fine rollerball pens.
13:50 – Arrived at Chinese buffet place for lunch, where I had sushi and pot stickers and hot tea, and no actual Chinese food. Fuzzy, true to form, had rice with sugar.
11:30 – Sent Fuzzy out for dog food and groceries while I stayed home and started laundry.
10:30 – Woke up after sleeping too long. Missed church, but was feeling like crap so didn’t care.
08:00 – Stared at clock for five minutes, let dogs out, visited restroom, let dogs back in, decided warm bed was more attractive than being awake.
07:00 – Vaguely recall telling Fuzzy I felt like crap.
01:39 – Wake slightly as Fuzzy finally came to bed. Tell him I am hot. He says something about turning up heat because I was cold. I whine. Lie in dark for twenty minutes. Get up, lower heat. Better.
12:31 – Fuzzy goes upstairs to do something geeky. Dogs and I go to bed. I am Freezing.
00:15 – Arrive home with scary food from Micky D’s. Eat while watching about fifteen minutes of “10 Things I Hate About You.” Cuddle dogs.
Saturday:
23:34 – Leave CSz arena, tired and wired.
22:30 – Help with post-show cleanup of CSz arena, post show. Smoke smell and stale beer smell seem to permeate room. I am Swiffer Girl.
20:45 – Show begins. Spend half of it in sound booth shadowing D2 and other half babysitting beer bottles. Show was funny. Crowd v. drunk.
19:15 – Already tired. Relay to those who didn’t hear conversation that show will not start until audience arrives at 8:30. Apparently, this is scheduled, though most don’t seem to be aware. Glad am not onstage as am way tired.
18:15 – Arrive at CSz arena, with Peppermint Mocha.
17:40 – Chat with folks in Starbucks while waiting for drink. I love Starbucks at the holidays.
17:25 – Arrive at home, run inside, change shirts.
16:15 – Fuzzy wakes me and reminds me we need to eat. We go to Panera for soup in bread bowls. I spill mine on my pink shirt. We go home, after, so I can change.
14:00 – Lie down for brief nap while Fuzzy is in shower. He wakes me 2.25 hours later. I was in deep REM.
11:00 – Shower. Spend next several hours reading in bed and puttering around house and just vegging.
10:00 – Wake again. Decide to stay in bed longer.
08:30 – Wake up. Tell Fuzzy to let dogs out.
12:00 – After lounging in bed for over an hour, finally decide to go to bed. Have spent most of week sleeping – see no reason to stop, as being awake brings the urge to claw off all my skin. This much sleep is rare for me.
I’ve been away from the blog for several days. I didn’t realize how long until I went to Starbucks yesterday and noticed that they had the cheery red holiday cups, and cheery green holiday brownies (imagine a fudge brownie with Andes mints on top. Mmmm. Delicious.) I treated myself to a peppermint mocha and one of those brownies, and went home to curl up in bed and read and write. Mostly read.
My skin itches. I thought it was poison oak rash caught from one of the dogs, but it’s not, however, a witty and engaging doctor has given me antibiotics, lovely cream, and tiny antihistamines that still knock me out, but seem to not be as harsh as OTC benadryl. Still, I’m crabby and befuddled, and not in the mood to talk to people. There’s more, but it’s not for public consumption. Except the assurance that I’m not contagious.
This year’s NaNo project isn’t going well. I know what I want the story to be, and it’s refusing to let me do that. Not sure if it’s too close to home or not close enough. Whatever. I’ll eventually finish. I always do.
Carry on.
If you’re in the DFW area, and like traditional Christmas music, you might be interested in coming to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Grand Prairie for the annual Lessons & Carols service on DECEMBER 17th.
Lessons & Carols is exactly what the name implies – an evening of the Christmas Story punctuated by familiar carols, Gregorian chant, and plainsong. (There is no Mass at this service).
Fuzzy and I are both in the choir, which is usually a combined choir from St. Andrew’s & St. Joseph’s, and it’s really lovely.
I’m posting it NOW because I know how busy we all get.
I haven’t been sleeping well lately. No, that’s not quite true. I’ve been sleeping, but not enough, and not when I WANT to. I can’t focus on anything – I have these writing projects coming out my ears, and I can’t make my brain focus.
It’s like… I have all these ideas, but the number of projects is overwhelming, and I committed to NaNo but what I really want to do is finish the short stories, except the NaNo project is one that’s been stewing for a while.
And this is bad.
Here’s what’s not bad:
– Took the dogs for walkies around the neighborhood this morning, when the air was crisp and the sun was just warm enough to put smiles on our faces.
– Have now learned more about SEO and web advertising than I ever needed to know. I’ve always been very attracted to marketing, and sort of wish that was the career I’d fallen into.
– I made beef stew last night, which Fuzzy thought was bland, but I quite liked. It was warm and Novembery, and sometimes that’s what food should be. Especially on a cold November night.
I had more to say, but … read that paragraph above re: lack of focus.
Halloween seemed over too fast this year, and though mine was quiet, it was enjoyable. I decorated the front of the house with pumpkin lights in the hedges along the walk, and candy-corn lights in the front hedges, little blinking pumpkin luminaris in the grass in front of the big window, and a garland of pumpkins and black dripping from the porch light. I had my ceramic ghost candle-holders on the mantle, and the cauldron candle tree ablaze in the dining room window, and 12 bags of candy to pass out.
Here’s my thing about candy, by the way: It’s important to give the good stuff, and not be stingy. At my house, chocolate is the rule of the day (those shaped assortment packs with the peppermint ‘batty’ and the reese’s pumpkin were a hit with neighborhood kids), and I give two pieces to each kid, three if I like their costume. Usually, I enforce a “no costume, no candy” rule, but will relent if they compliment my pumpkin. Flattery gets them everywhere. (This year’s pumpkin was an Aztec sun – pix later.) This is a little extravagant, I’ll admit, but my house has never been egged, and the kids are always polite. It’s worth a little bribery to achieve that.
I set up camp in my dining room (which I never use when we don’t have company, and that’s sad. It’s such a cozy room, and it’s the only room on the first floor with a street view), with my laptop, coffee, and the requisite orange-frosted cupcake. You know, the kind from the grocery store with frosting that feels like wax coating on your teeth? They’re disgusting, but they’re a tradition I keep partly because it makes me happy, and partly in honor of one of my best friends, Jen in Colorado, with whom I’ve stopped to buy them from an all-night Safeway on the way home from the Halloween gathering in the Castro. It’s the friends you can walk down Market Street eating cupcakes with at two in the morning, who really count.
At 5:30, when it was just starting to get dark, I worried there would be no kids. At 6:24 the first kid showed up, an adorable eight-ish-year-old in a homemade Hermione Granger costume. She got bonus points for having a scarf her grandmother knitted (I asked), for being personable, and for pausing as she left, to wave her wand at the blinky pumpkins, and yell “Lumos!” just as they blinked ON. By eight, I’d refilled the candy bowl a second time, for the teenagers. I think the drama group from the local high school came en masse – they got points for BEING their characters, and I had fun teasing them. “You all get three pieces each, for being creative,” I said. And one of the guys repeated it. “We get three pieces,” he told his friends, “Because this lady’s wonderful.”
At 9:00 one last straggler showed up – she’s probably the kid whose parents couldn’t get home from work, and I let her take a handful. I kept the light on til 9:30, then closed everything down. Except the pumpkin, which is still glowing happily on the side table in the living room (it’s sporting a cool pumpkin light, this year).
During the trick-or-treating, I chatted with friends, and did some research for a series of articles on online advertising – actually learned a couple things I didn’t know – and found myself wishing one of the adorable children was mine. “I’m 36,
I whined textually to a friend in Canada. “Aren’t I too old for this?” She assured me I wasn’t.
Fuzzy didn’t seem to mind that I accosted him as soon as he came home, either.