September 25, 2009

4:43 p.m.

Friday Morning

It�s the kind of morning where I wake up and (after an appropriate period of muddled fuzziness) realize, �Hey! I�m in my house!� My. House. I can�t believe I live here! How did this come true?

The morning birds are starting to sing a little; I can hear the occasional drip into the bucket from downstairs, the water line coming into the house. I wonder when the plumbing will ever get done. It was the next thing in line, and now it�s behind so many other things I can�t even see it.

But today might move things forward. We hope Auction Guy will be ready to take the rest of the stuff here; several pieces of furniture and lots of small stuff. Gack, I haven�t catalogued it. I was going to bring it all down to a staging area last night so we can get it into the truck fast after work, but I had to do the newsletter which means being at Rose�s for a while, and then I got invited to dinner anyway, so there went the evening. I have been adhering to a decent bedtime, however. It�s hard to tell whether I�m less tired. But I�ve said that.

And Chimney Guy hasn�t called me to schedule. He did call, to acknowledge my call, and to thank me for awarding him the contract. His family had come up from Florida as a surprise, so I think he was a little distracted at the moment. He said he�d call that night when he was with his calendar. He�d better call today or I�m scheduling Roof Guy first and they can duke it out.

Anyway tonight I go to the bank again and withdraw a large amount of cold, hard cash. I hope they have something larger than 20s this time. I might have called ahead but only found out last night that Marc had a nearby errand and I might as well get it today.

It�s interesting that, since band rehearsals became imminent, the eczema on my hands has gone berzerk. Crap.

James called day before yesterday. It was great to talk with him though eventually I had to go because we were taking the porch sides apart. He told me some things about himself he�d felt uncomfortable talking about when we were dating, things he�s been going to therapy for and feeling much better about. How funny it was when he said he felt bad about instigating our �breakup.� I�m pretty much taking responsibility for doing that on this end. We came to the same conclusion � that it was logistically impossible � around the same time. I think the difference was, my heart wasn�t in it any more either. I didn�t want a lover; he wanted one closer by. We didn�t get into that part on the phone. It was just a good conversation where we acknowledged a nostalgia for those months and a great respect for one another, though it was clearly not meant to be a long term thing.

It�s great when a dating relationship doesn�t last long enough for anything to go terribly wrong.

Friday Night

Chimneys & power washing scheduled for next week. Auction stuff going over Sunday. He didn�t want the big tv and stand that was here; said it wouldn�t sell if it wasn�t flat screen. So we took it to the street and put a big �Free, Works� sign on them. In two hours they had disappeared. I love giving surprise gifts.

I managed to practice a little tonight but, I�ll tell you, I am beat. Here it is 9:15 and I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. How will I manage to start gigging again? I have got to do or eat or drink or think or breathe SOMETHING that will give me more energy. I�ve actually been like this for a long time, not just now. I�ve been chalking it up to midlife. But, come on, there has to be something. I can�t function like this all the time.

Tomorrow I get to have my car emissions-tested in the morning. So that will be off the list. Then groceries, more practicing, I don�t know what. I could do any number of things. Oh! We took the pellet stove off the truck and put it in the back room downstairs, awaiting the finishing of the dining room floor. We took the box off. It�s so pretty! Not that big either, so it won�t be imposing, sticking out of the fireplace. It was really heavy to get off the truck. Fortunately we�d taken most of the sides off the ugly porch, so Marc backed up the truck to the porch and there was only a couple of feet or so drop. It was on a hand truck already so we just muscled it off and into the house. Now he can use the hand truck at his own house, to switch the two stoves they have. One drafts better than the other so he�s trying putting the less-drafting one in the fireplace position and the better drafting one venting straight out the wall. Last year he was fixing the one in that location ALL the time. They burn corn, and that�s notorious for peskiness. Corn can burn into melted sugar, basically, and the stoves get these hard black nuggets called klinkers. When they melt together and clog up the auger, they�re called death biscuits. He really wanted me to burn corn because it�s cheaper than pellets, but I said I in no way was going to be tinkering with my stove all winter because of death biscuits, and that I would happily burn pellets, thank you.

When I got home from work I took out my opera glasses, which I found yesterday, and sat on the front stoop and watched the bird feeder. I had three of what I think were tufted titmice, and a chickadee. They had indeed demolished the two suets I put out at first, so I refilled both baskets. I can�t tell you how much delight I feel at feeding the birds here. I�ve never had a place to put out a feeder before. It�s kind of an icon of home-ownership, I guess, the bird feeder. Also the hose. It suddenly occurred to me today that I could wash my car, in my own driveway. I can�t remember the last time I had the car washed.

Work was nice and busy � I think that�s why my brain is tired. I was in the warehouse area all day, picking little tiny surface-mount parts for a board order. They all go into little plastic bags with labels so the assembler can do them in a certain order. Some are misfiled, and some are just oddly filed (my coworker�s sometimes strange logic). It�s good for me to pick the kit, though, as it gets me familiar with parts and their locations. Last week Marc was saying they might have to cut everyone to four days a week because of cash flow, but today he said he had a feeling we were going to get a huge rush of orders, like all these pending things would come through and we�d be swamped for weeks and weeks. That would make me happy.

I guess I�ll go to bed. I�m sitting here yawning and fixating on my fingers, which are flaring rather painfully right now. Time to give up the ghost.