The Dumping of the Brain

It's sort of like the running of the bulls, only less dangerous.  Probably.

Why are office-type miniskirts now pencil skirts?  What happened to actual pencil skirts?  Glamorous librarians everywhere want to know.

My typing skills are all jacked up, because only about half the keys on my laptop keyboard are functional.  All the letters work, which is progress, but the shift key doesn't, which means that a) I reach for caps lock instead, which is annoying on a functional keyboard, and b) I have an impressive collection of punctuation marks, etc, on a desktop sticky note so I can copy/paste.  It makes things like im'ing a lot slower, and I refuse to use it to do any serious writing at all.

My friend for whom I occasionally edit skyped me last night, asking if I still gave "unflattering criticism of others' content."  Why yes, yes I do.

Yesterday in my art therapy class we presented timeline projects, which means that I spent almost a month making myself crazy about the execution of a particular (really good) idea, only to change the entire concept at almost literally the last minute.  No, really, it was the night before.  I'm working on breaking that habit, but really, how can I, when all my most brilliant ideas come three seconds before a deadline?  The project wasn't completed, but it also wasn't late.  This is progress.  I got several compliments, which, in the big picture, is probably not helpful.

In related news, my living room floor is now strewn with sewing and craft supplies.  Also, there are no acrylic craft paints to be had in the Montpelier area.  This may or may not have had something to do with the last-minute change.

I killed five or six flies on my window just two days ago.  Ok, maybe three.  Now there are three more, the little bastards.  Oh, and two more hiding behind the curtain.  The plus side is, they've gotten so slow over the winter, I've started killing them with my bare hands when I don't have a fly swatter handy.  Go me.  Maybe I'll start using chopsticks.

My little guy spent the week in Maine with his uncle.  He's coming home today.  I woke up this morning contemplating what I would do if he died in a car crash on the way home.  I honestly can't decide if this was or was not a healthy thought process.  Natural, certainly, given the events that have made up my life over the past few years (and possibly given the amount of Buffy-watching I've been doing this week - you know your life is effed when you watch Buffy therapeutically).  I am not an anxious parent.  These are not usually things I worry about, and even now it feels more like a really twisted thought exercise, running over the practical details of who I would call to go with me and what I would do after that.  I should have been a Boy Scout.

I ate breakfast on the back porch today, with a cup of tea and a book.  The book was Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, which I was enjoying until he started talking about the Amazonian Indians innate inability for levity, which I found to be totally condescending and irritating.  I'm not going to tell you what I ate for breakfast, except to say that my eating habits have gone all to hell in this week that I've been alone, and it may or may not have involved Nutella.  And fluff.  I know, disgusting.

I have to do a load of laundry today, but I'm sitting here not wanting to, and coming up with really good reasons for the lack of wanting.  It's Sunday.  There won't be any washers.  I'll have to put shoes on.  Ok, I just ran out of excuses.

   

File this one under "Awkward"

I had a thing that I wanted to write about, but now I can't remember.  It didn't have anything to do with my oatmeal being watery, or the fact that I'm out of raisins, or all the baking that I need to do today for the school raffle ... Wait a minute!  Got it!
So this state is pretty small, both in area and population, and my facebook account is quickly becoming a web of mutual acquaintances that makes me relieved I'm not big on internet trash-talking, at least about specific people.  Evidently, the same can now be said for the dating sites I frequent.  This one guy, in particular, ends up on my suggestions page all the time, and while he lives in a town about ten minutes away, a minor miracle given how remote I am from basically everything, including eligible dudes, I am uninterested in someone whose screenname is sexallthetime* - his match rating would have to be at least ten points higher to even consider it.  Nonetheless, as I said, I see his face quite frequently.  Frequently enough, in fact, to recognize him when I see him in real life.  At my son's school.  A school, by the way, with fewer than fifty students.  No chance of getting lost in the crowd over there.
So far, so good.  He's not one of the parents I see every day, he doesn't stick around, and he seems happy to pretend he has no idea who I am, and I'm happy doing the same.  After all, he's got more to lose by outing either of us than I do.  My single status is no secret, if the subject of online dating comes up in conversation (not a frequent occurrence at an elementary school) I have nothing to hide, and hello! my screenname says nothing about how often I need it, although saying that might get me more than I'm currently getting (hint: none).  Not the kind of attention I'm looking for, sadly.
I'm not sure if there's a moral to this story, but maybe it could be: if you live in TinyAssCommunity in TinyAssState, you should practice discretion when choosing a screenname that actually connects you to your actual face, especially if your child goes to a school that is so small, they publish a school list with your name and address right there for anybody to see.  Or maybe you shouldn't care.  It's up to you.

*Not actually his screenname, but it captures the spirit of the thing.