Monday morning, and the warm-up weekend for Carnival is over. King Arthur/Merlin was a blast yesterday, as always–check out my Facebook page for the ridiculous amounts of beads we caught–and we also got two grails; mine is BURREES NUMBER 9, a combination Saints/LSU grail tribute to Drew Brees and Joe Burreaux! Easily the coolest thing I caught this first weekend.
And now for this week, which is utter and complete madness. I have to get up ridiculously early every day this week so I can get enough hours in to make a forty hour week and get off work early enough to get home to find a place to park before they close the streets. I suspect both Wednesday and Thursday aren’t going to be the easiest days to find parking–Wednesday night is Nyx; Thursday is Muses–and so I am resigned to not only having to walk a few blocks to get home from the car but having to trudge back to wherever I was able to leave it the next morning. Friday I have condom duty all night in the Quarter, and then I don’t have to go back into the office again until Ash Wednesday–but Fat Tuesday is, of course, a complete loss; trapped inside the parade route and nothing is really open anywhere, anyway.
I did manage to get some things done over the course of the weekend–I came up with a few more short story ideas because of course, exactly what I needed is more short story ideas–and actually worked on the Secret Project for a little while. I also spent some time reading Ali Brandon’s marvelous Double Booked for Death (I got the title wrong the other day), and also started working on my entry about Mary Higgins Clark’s Where Are The Children? I collapsed, exhausted and completely drained, into my easy chair last night and watched three more episodes of Rise of Empires: Ottoman. The siege and eventual fall of Constantinople is one of those dramatic events that changed the course of history, and forever altered the face of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, also giving rise to centuries of Russian interest in the Black Sea and the Dardanelles, and desire for Constantinople and return it to the Orthodox Church. (The show is also giving me a final, deeper and better understanding of the geography of the city, which I’ve never been able to truly grasp before; I never really grasped where the Golden Horn was in relation to the city, nor that it was pretty much surrounded by water on a peninsula.) It’s very entertaining, and quite educational.
Whether I get anything done this week remains to be seen; I am still trying to figure out how and when to go to the gym on Wednesday, or how I am going to get the mail or make groceries, and when as well. #madness.
I also need to make a to-do list, but I think I’ll wait to do that for when I get to the office–I need to reschedule a doctor’s appointment, for one thing, and I also need to try to schedule Entergy to come replace our meter; I am going to try for Lundi Gras, which of course is ridiculous, but worth a try–I am going to have to spend that day getting the mail and making groceries, for one thing, and I making it to the gym because it’s closed on Samdi Gras (I just made that up; Fat Sunday) because there are parades literally all fucking day that day.
And on that note, I have to get ready to head into the spice mines. I slept deeply and well yesterday–combo of the gym and parades–and actually woke up on my own around four this morning, but naturally, went back to sleep for another two. One thing I’ve definitely noticed is an improvement in my sleep since I started back at the gym; and I need to keep going, if for no other reason than the improved sleep, you know? But I seem to be into it now, and I think I am going to be able to keep this momentum going.
One can hope, at any rate.
Queer and Loathing in America 