Adventures du jour!
TOMORROW IS HADESTOWN! It doesn’t feel real
Today is one of those days where I’m restlessly dissatisfied with everything. [Waves vaguely.] At least a squirrel just dropped his nut from the upstairs patio and had to go climbing down my patio window to retrieve it.
Yesterday was another day of weird not-a-migraine effects but better than the previous day. Today the body is trying to decide whether it’s going to keep doing this whole “female” thing and having cramps off and on with nothing to show for it. I should probably see a doctor and find out whether I need to prep any physical things for actual menopause. I’ve been having hot flashes and other symptoms since I’ve been 35 or so, but that’s par for the course for my mom’s side of the family: start early, drag it out forever. My joints hurt, everything’s puffy, and I feel like a brat. I have a million small tasks to accomplish and I don’t want to do any of them. In other words, today’s big wrestle is with ADD.
Yesterday was mostly writing, deleting, writing, deleting. I got through one scene and half of another. Slow going, but I finally convinced *myself* that it would work. Readers will be another matter, I’m sure.
Yoga: skipped most of it yesterday and today because of cramps. I get that it can help with cramps some times and in some positions, but I rarely have luck with it. Whereas walking almost always helps.
Walking: yesterday, I stopped at the little free library to see if the latest books had been picked up or if any had been brought back. All of yours truly’s books were not present. Now, if that was because they were tossed out like trash, I have no idea. But they were gone. I set out another book to take (Clockwork Alice), but forgot it. Maybe tomorrow.
Today I was feeling restless and wanted to get to somewhere I hadn’t been before. I’ve been walking this neighborhood daily, but there are still places I haven’t been yet. I headed in the direction of my Most Favored Tree, because I usually get derailed and turn around about then.
At the near edge of the park with the tree is a place where there’s a row of big posts that jogs over about a foot and a half; I always cross into the park at the place where the posts don’t line up. There’s a part of my brain that goes, “If you cross over anywhere else, the tree will just be a tree.” I’ve gone to see the tree from other directions, and it really isn’t the same. I think using the same route feels “magical” at this point, a combination of doing the same thing in the same state of mind repeatedly, triggered by what is usually a walk at or just after sunrise, with no other humans around, lots of quiet, and mist hanging in the air.
I visited the tree (and felt like I got gently teased about my mood) and kept going, ending up in the park behind the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI). Technically I was trespassing, but it’s public land sooooooo I’m not too worried about getting caught. I walked out to an informative sign describing sinkholes, took two steps past it, went, “OH THAT MEANS THERE’S PROBABLY SINKHOLES THIS DIRECTION DUH” and turned back. I’m almost certain that if I had kept going, the worst that would have happened was that I’d have lost a Croc and/or my phone and had to limp back home in the most ridiculous way possible. I’m lucky that way, most of the time.
Yesterday evening I spent time getting together a class assignment and chatting with a friend, one of those excellent, wide-ranging conversations that are really just saying, “You too?!?” and laughing.
My favorite beetle is a rainbow scarab.–Reminders of a book I wrote but haven’t yet published, House of Masks, keep coming up; I based one of the alien races on scarabs. I got overwhelmed with the book while I was at my old job and left it as soon as I was done drafting. It’s long and I couldn’t track everything, and I think I was freaked out because the book got reeeaaaaallly close to my boundaries about praying for the end of the world, and one of the characters has my sense of being loosely attached to my sense of body and self, and it felt overwhelming to try to go over that again.
I think I’m sort of lacking in object permanence about myself, which is probably due to ADD stuff. I don’t “remember” that I’m not just a free-floating mind sometimes, which might be why I have days when it’s hard to see myself–the days I struggle to take selfies, for example. “I have to remember that I have a body? Rude!”
Yoga helps, when I’m not having cramps. ADD meds help. Caffeine helps. Walking helps. And escaping into writing, where I don’t have to be myself (or, rather, I can be All the People and Even the Settings) also helps.
My knees hurt. I’ll do some gentle dancing later.