commitment phobic?

i have been abandoning books lately, which is generally not my style. the first two books i started this year i gave up on (those being seven types of ambiguity and one day in the life of ivan denisovich). and here i am on the verge of running away from the shipping news. why is this? i want to give it more of a chance, but - really - let's be honest. there are a million other books out there to read so i might as well get right to the ones that really captivate me. or at least draw me in occassionally. right?

cutting vegetables, cutting a rug.

having a good day at work feels incredible. really. there was a moment when i thought my good mood might be dashed by a spell of fatigue and the appearance of gloomy weather. however, i got my second wind and the rain held off so that we could have the extra long outside time that i had planned on. i spend the last twenty or so minutes of my day dancing with bella to french children's songs. it was amazing.
last night while waiting for my dinner to finish cooking, i realized how much i appreciate the delayed gratification of cooking a decent meal for myself. this is something i never used to do. once i stopped eating meat, my mother declared that she couldn't cook for me because she was a "carnivore" and didn't know what to make for me. so, being the lazy lass i am wont to be, i subsisted for many a year on pastas and microwave meals. stouffer's macaroni and cheese was one of my favorites. (hmm...now that i think about it, i often used to eat this with steak-ums, so i guess i was into this routine prior to the whole vegetarian thing.) things didn't get much better when i started living on my own. i just assumed i didn't know how to cook because i never really did. plus i often waited until i was starving to start thinking about food. must eat now!
but over the past couple of years i've been exploring the culinary world more and more. a really helpful part of this has been the realization that i shouldn't expect to know certain things, no matter how basic, if i've never learned them. this is true in so many areas, yet i've often felt too silly to ask about things that i for some reason assumed should be inherent knowledge. plus, i can make my grandmother's day by calling to ask her how to make something.
the process has become more pleasurable. i've learned to appreciate it, and i love this new element of daily life. i am certainly caught up in the desire for instant gratification, ever exacerbated by technological advances. webpages can download in half a second instead of two seconds?? sign me up! i get antsy when my digital camera is switching over from its capture mode to its view mode. as if all these precious little milliseconds could be amassed for future use. but while i want things right now! in so many areas, i am comfortable and, in fact, pleased, to go in the opposite direction when it comes time to eat. this is a lovely development.

endless prospects.

there are people in the hallway talking about the days when the fear of hidden razor blades and stick pins caused the decline in apple giving on halloween. ah....the good old days. pondering the various conversations i overhear at work and the general goings-on of this place i think, "i should be writing a novel about that." oh if i only had 1600 words for every time i said that. seriously, since when did i have 80thousand ideas for stories? i seem to have a new one every few seconds and then i start to wonder which one i should commit to. this is ridiculous. for real. it's going to be interesting to see what the accumulated result is at the end of this month. but that, of course, will require my keeping up. it is day three and i'm already a day behind. beautiful. really.

unfortunately....

...so i gave in and enabled this "word verification" thingie. how friggin obnoxious. how ruinous of the robojerks in this world. they have no respect for their intellectual elders.

sunshine supergirl.

can it be? the rain has actually stopped? is that...sunshine i see outside?
yes, it's true. my bucket of rainwater is actually filled to over-flowing, and i had already bottled some up in the middle of the week. where will i put it all? i have to get going on this herb garden i keep thinking and scheming about. and garlic. home-grown garlic.
i'm getting harassed in comments on my own blog. sheesh. i was thinking about it this morning, before i read those comments about me writing and such, and it seems that writing has just taken a back seat to other crafts at the moment. over the last week or so i've been kind of caught up in my textile-related crafts. my brain is just working much better on that level. it's busting with ideas for fabrics, while shying away from anything to do with words.
i've written two paragraphs, however, in the past week or so. but, the fact is, i'm not totally into it. and it's just so dry and alienating. here's what i'm figuring...if i do nanowrimo, i mean, really force myself to do it, then at least i will plow through some awful writing. because that's where i'm at right now. really, truly terrible writing. emotionless. far from elegant. so, i do that, and come out the other end able to produce something that is worth asking people to take time to read and think about and discuss.
my extremities feel like ice cubes. i believe the apartment is colder than the outside world. i should ride my bike and go pretend to appreciate art. hmmm.

when you're alone and life is making you lonely.

while i was not pleased waking up to such a cool temperature (and it's sunday so when i say waking up we all know i'm not talking about actual morning here), it was the overcastness of the day that got me going and moving about. there was no choice, really. it looked like it might possibly rain and my bicycle was still locked up on crown st. (i hoped) from friday night. so, despite my desire to crawl back in bed or curl up on the couch with crappy movies, i showered and set out to rescue the schwinn suburban. i knew it would be nice to walk and of course it was. it's good to check in on the details every once in awhile. as i got to the last half-block, though, i started getting nervous. what if my bike wasn't there? it was stupid to leave it for one night, and then i left it for two, so what did i expect? ah, but have faith. it was there, waiting patiently. so loving and reliable.
so then it was time to ride around a little. i really don't go downtown that often anymore. or if i do, it's usually for a purpose and then there's not real wandering about. so it seemed like a good day to do a little of this. okay, so this ended up being mainly a perusal of news haven. i fear that if i had a lot of money i would buy for too many magazines. they can be so enchanting. so aesthetically pleasing. or intellectually stimulating. oh so many options. but just taking the time to mill around and flip through a ton of them was rather enjoyable (of course i bought some, too. that would be rude not to. and disappointing to leave empty-handed).
next i had the usual half-second consideration of taking the scientology stress test. they had a little table set up right at the edge of the green - open, public space, so i would be safe, right? even funnier was that this table was about 20 ft from the food not bombs tent. that gave me a little laugh.
the rest of the bike ride home brought numerous vaguely philosophical thoughts, as i'm prone to when in this particularly off-kilter mood. not truly philosophical, though they truly feel it. also vague because i some new idea keeps popping up before i can delve into the previous one. it's entertaining and overwhelming all at once.

is jacob marley walking down my street?

seriously, this is the secong time this week i've wondered that. the other day i said it out loud to SLS because it seemed funny, but i still wouldn't go to the window to find out what it was. now i'm home alone and i heard some crazy clanging again. sure it's bright and sunny out, but i still don't want to know what it really is.
some things of note that people have said to me in the past week:
i'm outside of a bar with the long-lost MQ when this random dude comes up to us - "excuse me for interrupting, but i just have to tell you that i am standing next to the most artistic person i've ever met." i look at MQ, look around, then ask "me?" oh yes, he meant me. he asks me if i do art, i so no not really, sometimes i try. "don't try so hard." "do you believe in energy? i just felt this powerful artistic energy and i had to come over and tell you." and so on. then we all introduce ourselves and to me he says, "oh, a nice hebrew name." "it means princess," i declare. "receiver of riches," he adds. i offer up an incredulous snort. then he starts in, "what would happen if you believed that? just think about it. what if you believed that you would receive riches, if you lived your life as if you were rich. what would happen?" i interrupt to blurt out, "do you have your own infomercial??" he doesn't really respond and continues his spiel, at some point mentioning god. MQ then makes up an awaiting friend as an escape mechanism.
this works, but only for so long. the man comes over to us, again apologizing for interrupting, this time to tell me that i have genius potential (this as i type "genious"...). i still have no idea what his motivation was.
then there is my grandmother... my mom showed her pictures of me in my fancy dress with my fancy hair from my cousin's wedding and my grandmother calls me to tell me how beautiful she thinks i looked. oh how i love her and how i know that she is good intentioned... "i said to you mother, 'do you think when she sees how she looks in these pictures she'll start wearing dresses and make-up?'" oh gramma....

hopefully i won't have to experience any christmases past this evening. that would be too much to handle. maybe marley is just going down my street to keep me from letting that strange man's words go to my head.