I’ve come to realize that I really, really, don’t like dead, furry rodents. Living furry rodents don’t bug me much - just the dead ones.
Still, buggy rodents - dead or alive - just give me the heebie-jeebies.
Lately, I have been a grumpy, mood-swinging, insanely-frustrating person to live with. And that’s just how I feel - who knows how Seth is dealing with me.
To be fair, there’s a lot of new stress that I don’t know how to deal with - that’s the problem with new stress. Old stress - sure, it sucks, but at least you sort of know how to deal. But this new stress (newly married, too much stuff in our tiny little apartment, bought a new house, majority of last three weeks spent out of town for work) is still sort of a mystery for me. I haven’t figured out yet how to deal with the fact that there’s no food in the house because in the three weeks I was (mostly) gone, nobody ever made a trip to the grocery store to pick up things like milk, or butter, or anything else (seriously - yesterday Seth told me he was going to make mac & cheese. When I get home, though, he says "It might taste sort of funny. I forgot we were out of milk. And butter. I substituted ricotta for the milk (this has been done before, and actually works pretty well), and I threw in some vegetable oil for the butter. Yeah…vegetable oil. I grabbed some fast food before I went back to work).
Also, too, I think my new birth control is making everything worse. Really - I can tell that I am more bipolarific than usual. It doesn’t make sense, as the new stuff is just the generic version of the old, but there’s something going on that just isn’t right. At least I’m aware of it, though, so maybe I can try to avoid the mood swings, although I’m not sure how successful I’m going to be. Just this morning, I had a minor tantrum, because I couldn’t find the shoe I needed. That could be a result of the fact that our room is a wasteland of dirty laundry (and probably some clean laundry mixed in, too). It’s hard to keep both of our wardrobes in order, since there isn’t enough closet space for my wardrobe, let alone both of ours. I asked Seth to try to gather up the laundry so we can start putting a dent in in tonight. I think he’ll actually do it, too, since he says he saw a roach in the bathroom this morning. He’s okay with lots of things, but roaches piss him off and gross him out. So who knows? Maybe I’ll come home to an apartment that shines like the top of the Chrysler Building!
No matter what, though, I’m hoping to begin the actual moving process this weekend. We did some painting last Sunday, and we’re working on it some more tonight and Friday night, and I’m planning to be there all day Saturday with a friend or two while he’s at work, and I really think (hope) that all the painting will be finished, and we can start bringing over the essentials: our bed, our clothes, our food, and our toiletries. Everything else can wait.
I was driving back to work after lunch today, and began thinking back to when I was 16 and had just learned to drive. Do you remember when you first started to drive? I remember that I would nag my parents about how they shouldn’t be turning into the far lane, that’s illegal and they could get arrested, they should be turning into the near lane. I seem to have internalized that nag, though, as I almost never turn into a far lane. When I do, I always feel a little guilty and wonder if there’s a bored cop anywhere near that might have seen me. I’m also positively anal about not switching lanes at an intersection, since that too is illegal. Even if I’m stuck behind some slow bozo and there’s no one in the other lane, I wait until I’ve cleared the intersection before zooming into the other lane and going on about my business.
It’s funny, since in most other situations I’m a sort of inattentive driver. I don’t know how many times I’ve scared Seth with my driving (I’m sort of assuming that half the time he’s able to hide his fear, and I’m none the wiser) - it’s amazing, really, that he ever willingly sits in the passenger seat.
And so, a new moring begins. A new morning, fresh with opportunity, there and waiting for you to make the best of the coming day.
You should have seen just what I did with that opportunity yesterday.
I took delivery of a 15.9 pound box (late, I might add, since the hotel staff is, well, large, and therefore sort of unorganized).
I dropped said box from the middle of an escalator all the way to the floor (an escalator in a convention center - so it was a wee bit taller than usual, okay?).
I turned around and ran down the up elevator, twisting my ankle a little as I jumped down the the floor.
I threw my backpack down so I could retrieve the box from the tiny space between the escalator and the floor (did I mention that I carry a laptop in my backpack? In the backpack I just threw down on the floor? Oops.).
Then I finally get the box back and take it into the exhibit hall, and (suprise!), some of my models have fallen apart. Sheesh. What a way to start the day.
Anyway. The day went pretty well, and actually went by pretty quickly considering it really wasn’t a short day (although today is an hour longer - my poor feet!).
We had dinner at an italian place right around the corner from the convention center, and I had gnocchi for the first time ever (in a tomato vodka sauce), and it was sooooo good. I sort of always figured I’d like it I ever got a chance to try it. The only thing I could complain about is not being able to finish a half-order! I could barely even finish half my plate. Oh well - better into the trash than onto my belly!
So.
Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love. No brother has given me any love so far. I guess that’s actually probably a pretty good thing.
We had an uneventful flight, although there was a little worry for me at the beginning when the dude in the seat next to me tried to start up some small talk. Um, mister? See how I have this big thick book I’m reading? See how I’m avoiding making eye contact and giving curt, one-word (or one-grunt-ish) answers? See how you are wearing purple glasses (Seriously. Purple glasses. Purple! Who is he trying to be?)? Geez. Figure it out already - I don’t really want to talk to you (hmm…maybe that was some brotherly love and a I just defenestrated it! [Go ahead - see what it means. Isn’t that a great word?]).
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So we go to set up our booths, and I’m missing one box. It’s a pretty important box, actually - it’s the box with all my product models. The box with all the stuff that makes my booth so very cool. Gah! After tracking down the guy who is in charge of box delivery and getting nowhere, I called the company that shipped the box from the show last week, and guess what? I got nowhere with them. So we called back to the office, and (get this - you’ll never believe it) the box had been shipped there! Amazing, really, considering that it had the address here in Philadelphia on, oh, 4 of the 6 sides of the box. Two-thirds of the box was clearly labeled with where it was supposed to go. So, instead of paying 2-day shipping (or maybe in addition to, who knows?), the company is paying to overnight the dang thing here, and it’s supposed to arrive by early morning. Who knows what that is, though? The show starts at 10:00am, so I hope it’s before then. And I hope the box isn’t too heavy, since I’ll have to carry it 6 or so blocks from the hotel to the convention center. Sheesh - what a mess.
I guess that’s what they pay me for, though.
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(Hi Esther! We’re practically neighbors - at least until I leave on Saturday!)