Thursday, August 11, 2005

Good Morning, Chiklits

Had myself wound pretty tight the last couple of days.

Getting into the new house routine has been a little stressful, and getting used to my much smaller room has been a lesson in patience.

There's a trick to getting around the room without banging into bookshelves and overturning the fan that involves a lot of opening and closing the room door and the closet door in a certain order. The same attention to movement has to be applied to getting in and out of my desk chair, as well, which has about four inches of play room between itself and my queen-sized bed. In the morning, before coffee, this can be really annoying, and I've found myself, on occasion, stuck in my chair or half-fallen over onto the floor.

I'm also adjusting to new house rules. Jenn and I didn't plan this particularly well, so we've got a space that fit two people now housing three, and she and I didn't do well throwing out all of our old junk in order to make room for her SO.

Luckily, the SO is good with spaces (and drinks beer - yea! There's beer in the house!), so getting everything to fit looks nice. House rules, however, are different. The SO doesn't like doing dishes, and doesn't like looking at labels, so the labels on stuff in the kitchen (like dish soap and Lysol wipes) had to be taken off (and my "Survivor, Africa!" cup has been deemed rather cheesy, and would have been thrown out if it was Jenn's! I have compromised, and it now lives back in the cupboard instead of by the coffee maker).

There are just lots of little things to get used to, and I think that combining house-stress with gym-stress/body stress and work stress (work stress of the "I hate this job" variety as opposed to the "I actually have stuff to do at work" variety, cause I never have much to do at work. That's why I started a blog), and I was feeling pretty tired.

I've also been having some trouble with my contacts apparently drying out during the day - I don't know if it's the weather or what, but they're bugging me more than usual, and not being able to see properly is enough to put anybody in a shitty mood.

I'd like to just wear glasses, but I prefer contacts for the gym, and lugging *more* gear to the gym, even just some saline solution and a contacts case, just makes me tired. The strap on my gym bag broke, too, from carrying around too much shit, so the more spartan I can be, the better.

Work on God's War, the next book, continues. I'm still really behind, but it's moving. I'm actually really, really, loving this book. I'm in love with it. Yes. It's just a shitload of fun, and the style it's written in, the pacing, the actual story structure, are unlike anything I've done before (the subject matter, well, I've been writing women, blood and sand stories for nearly six years). Right now I'm going back and doing some editing so the rest of the book rolls a little more smoothly and I've got a better plot-setup. I'm notoriously bad at plot, and I'd like to actually *have* one this time around.

I continue to get a lot of reading done, which also helps with stress. B will be in town this weekend, which means lots of bedroom... uh, reading time, so that's good. Very relaxing.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm really looking forward to fall weather. This summer's just been a bitch as far as the heat goes, and I'm done with it.

How the hell did I survive in Durban for a year and a half?

Who knows?

In any case, I wouldn't mind an Alaskan vacation right about now.

Looking forward to fall.... ahhhhh.....

3 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Anonymous said...

I, too, am a survivor of Africa.
NOLS Kenya, 1982 

Posted by David

Anonymous said...

"doesn't like labels" ?

That's an, um, unusual phobia. 

Posted by David Parsons

Anonymous said...

I know nothing of SO's phobia, but am conscious of wearing labels. One blatent advertising I am proud of is the National Outdoor Leadership School coffee mug, see nols.edu. 

Posted by David