November 20, 2008

9:10 p.m.

Postprandial Stupor

I am stuffed full of apple-stuffed Cornish Game Hen, slow cooked in white wine and marmalade, along with acorn squash and boiler onions. I can't move for a while lest the sloshing create a gastric tidal wave, so I'm typing. This recipe is GOOD. Then, as I hadn't had any grain since breakfast, I had the leftover cornmeal oat pancakes for dessert.

In case I burst, someone please come over tomorrow and collect the red boa and feather mask and send it to Violet.

It was a cooking and errand day. I got a little basket to put hand-wash laundry in. Those clothes can't go in my main hamper, so I normally just throw the bras and dainties on the floor in the bathroom until I get around to washing them in the sink. No more; they have their own designated basket now. I also scored some great fabric on sale to hang on the wall in my bedroom. It replaces the olive-green tie-dye sort of thing I had up there, which I love but which now clashes with the decor. Everything is getting quite oceanic in there.

There was a modest sized cedar chest in the fabric store, made by Amish people in Ohio, that I thought might be big enough to house my rolled-up handmade papers and the extra reams, but I wasn't sure. I opened the lid and stuck my head in and took a deep breath. The aroma of fresh cedar just about knocked me out. It's $80, and I balked at the price, although any chest or cabinet I get is probably going to cost as much (and if I find something at Christmas Tree Shop, I'll have to assemble it myself anyway).

Dar said I should get it; I might, after paying some bills tomorrow and seeing what's left. There isn't a lot of currently discernable money coming in for the next month, so I have to be careful. I had this great idea for Dar and me to split tickets for a performer I want to take everyone to see in February -- this would be a Christmas present for my family -- and I have to send out a check for that right away too. My share will be $75, on top of some other Christmas gifts I'm getting them. I guess I spend too much on Christmas, given my nontraditional income. But I want to give, give, give. I have no idea what to do about my neice and her family this year. A nice card?

And Carol's birthday is next week. I've no idea what to give her.

I'm getting a little antsy about finishing this reorganization, but the paper issue is part of it, so I really wanted to solve that before I went moving everything. Tomorrow, I promise, things will be moved. It means I have to clean up the bookmaking table and environs. I think this is what I have feared the most, and why I've put it off. At least, filing... there are places to put bills and stuff, there are folders in drawers. Bookmaking, it's like jewelry making, things get everywhere and no matter how many stackable drawer thingies you get, there are always more items than there are places for them.

But it must be done. It's already into the 30s every day and a little too cold to air out the room while painting. I've put down a few of the storm windows. These poor, leaky windows. They need all the help they can get.

I think I ate too much. My cells are bursting. I had to loosen my shoes. I've got a little headache, but that might have been from crying over Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in "An Affair to Remember." It was pretty corny but then I kept crying at all the sweet scenes. Better to cry over someone else's romance than over the one I'm not having.

Speaking of that, I figured out why I talk to myself all the time. It allays loneliness, and I don't mean that in a poor-me kind of way. It really keeps me company. It's the same reason I read aloud to myself. I like the conversation.

And this romance thing... sometimes I think I wouldn't mind some, as long as it didn't interfere with my life as I know it. Other times I wish someone would just come along and clutter everything up. Give me something else to do besides obsess about my itchy skin and worry about money. I haven't forgotten what a bother it is, romance. But there must be something to it, on some level, that I miss.

Or not.

I hear a train whistle in the distance, mournful and long. I'm not even sure where the tracks are. But somebody is going somewhere.