Mine

Wednesday dawns, the midpoint of the week has been achieved, and all is right with the world.

The LSU-Alabama game has been postponed, and most likely will end up being cancelled–and the LSU-Arkansas game the next week is in jeopardy as well. Obviously, even though it is highly likely they would have lost both games–and probably very badly–I hate to see it. 2020 has really been a season LSU and its fans would like to forget, and get a lovely do-over for 2021. The good news about this is it completely frees up my Saturday for cleaning and writing and doing things. This is not a bad thing, really; as Constant Reader is well aware, I am behind on everything and so….yeah. Having an extra day where I am not completely distracted by football is probably a very good thing for one Gregalicious.

I have also decided, thanks to the inspiration of a co-worker making the decision to not renew her lease and find a new, more affordable place to live, that it’s time to really really de-hoard the Lost Apartment. As I was looking around the apartment tonight while I waited for the water to boil for the noodles for the evening meal, I realized we’ve lived here for fifteen years (more or less), and as such, we’ve settled in as people tend to do and started acquiring, and hanging on to, things. What we need to do, I thought, glancing around at stack of books and bags of beads/throws and cat toys and magazines, is clean like we’re going to move–deciding what is worth packing and what is not worth moving, and get rid of the stuff we wouldn’t move.

It was a rather inspired thought, and I found myself looking at things that have accumulated with a much more critical eye–and also allowed my cynical inner queen to come out. You’re never going to reread this, I found myself thinking as my eyes moved over the spines of books, and if you haven’t read this by now you never will. The library will take everything you don’t want.

And so this weekend the purge will begin. I had already started going through drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and the laundry room and ditching things (you can buy outlet adapters again if you go back to Europe) ad well as finding things I’d long since forgotten I possessed.

Last night we started to watch a show on Hulu called A Teacher; it looks to be another one of those dramas about a young teacher seducing one of. her students. It’s okay–I’m curious to see how they are going to put a new spin on this story that isn’t Mary Kay Letourneau or To Die For, but each episode is also only about half an hour so we aren’t so heavily vested we can’t quit if it and when it becomes tedious. Kate Mara plays the title character, and Nick Robinson from that dreadful Love, Victor plays the student. We’ll give it another episode or so before making a final decision to quit or keep going. We’d started Killing Eve‘s third season on Hulu over the weekend, but it is riddled with commercials–so many commercials–that the narrative was too broken up to become terribly involving, and as such we decided to give up on it and see if it eventually comes to Netflix. I’m not really sure how they can really keep that series going, but the first two seasons were quite excellent.

It’s also Pay-the-Bills day, always a depressing if satisfying day; it pleases my sense of order to pay the bills and tick them off, yet depresses me as I watch my checking account dwindle. Ah, well, isn’t that the American Dream? Work really hard so you can pay the bills and possibly buy groceries, if you’re lucky?

I also wound up not going to the gym last night. I had my labs done yesterday and while it wasn’t a lot of blood, I really didn’t think it was the best idea for me to go to the gym while I was low on blood. I’ll go tonight, which actually makes more sense–I don’t have to get up at six tomorrow morning, after all–and so it only makes more sense to go Wednesdays and Fridays rather than Tuesdays and Thursdays. But we’ll see how it goes next week. I am taking Thanksgiving week off–which will be lovely–with the end goal of trying to get caught up on everything. I am going to try that this weekend (since there’s no game on Saturday) and I need to really start focusing. Time is slipping through my fingers…but over the last few days I realized what is missing from Bury Me in Shadows (which is helpful, so I can now go into it and fix it) and I finally solved the big problem with the Kansas book (#shedeservedit)–and wrote it down, detailed, in my journal and then flagged the page with a post-it note. So, despite being behind I am in pretty good shape with the manuscripts and the thinking the stories through part; I just need to really hunker down and focus on the task at hand and get everything finished.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

Paninaro

Apparently, this old dog can learn some new tricks.

Yesterday morning, after the relapses of the previous weekend, I decided that I was going to have to give up caffeine again, as well as call my doctor’s office to see if I could get in sooner rather than later. After all, this has been going on for far longer than I would like, and perhaps more drastic measures were called for then just drinking Gatorade and water while cutting caffeine out. A friend suggested that I drink some PediaLyte, so on my way into the office I stopped at CVS, bought some–and suddenly, I felt like Gregalicious again. I just had always assumed, I guess, that Gatorade had whatever you needed in it to get over dehydration, and was apparently wrong. I drank water the rest of my shift, and was feeling a little dry-mouthed when I got home so I had another Pedialyte. Electrolytes were what were called for, and I am going to continue to drink one of these a day (at least) until this dehydration issue is taken care of. It was never something I ever really had to concern myself with–even after dancing all night on Ecstasy–but now, alas, yet another sign that my body is decaying.

But at least I know what to do now, even if it took me two weeks to figure it out.

I do learn, even if it takes me awhile.

It was lovely, though, last night to just feel tired and now it was from not sleeping well, rather than that horrible physical exhaustion.

Of course, I’m also on night four of insomnia.

But I am getting by. I’m still way behind on everything, and keep hoping that today–maybe–I’ll start to dig out from under. One can dream at any rate, can’t one? I need to get the Sherlock story worked on this week–in my fever state the other day I realized something could be cut and something should be added–and of course, last night as I was thinking about it, I started thinking about how much more could be done with the story; how much more could be done around Sherlock in New Orleans in the 1910’s; and how rich and layered and textured such a period piece could be…so of course I started wondering if I should think about possibly doing a Sherlock pastiche in this time period.

Because of course.

I read some more of the Woolrich last night; the pacing has picked up dramatically, although I’m still not sure where it’s going or how it could possibly end; and after Paul got home we tried to find a new show to watch, without much luck. Love Victor lasted about fifteen minutes–I wasn’t a big fan of Love Simon–and we tried a few other things before finally landing on another Agatha Christie adaptation, Ordeal by Innocence, which isn’t quite as I remembered the book either, but it’s an intriguing story and very well filmed and acted–and there are only three one hour episodes, so it’s not much of a commitment.

And let’s face it, Elite is a very tough act to follow.

I am tired again this morning, but this is entirely due to the insomnia as opposed to anything else; I am trying a cup of coffee this morning (after which I am going to have some Pedialyte) and it’s not sitting well with me; it’s kind of stuffy and sticky in the Lost Apartment this morning, and that’s certainly not helping any. I have to run errands after I get off work this afternoon–I have packages waiting at the postal service, and I need to stop at the grocery store for a few things as well–and so I am hoping today will be a productive one. There’s a million emails to sort and answer–and I really need to find my to-do list from before I relapsed into whatever this was the last two weeks and make a new one.

Every day I’m juggling.

And now back to the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.