the birding frock

it’s 6.17am - and i’ve found myself my own little corner of misery.

i’ve slept a total of about an hour and a half at best, and have been milling about the apartment for the last two hours, thinking that tea might be the very thing to save me. prior to that, i tossed and turned, left a sad little pile of crumpled up tissues on the floor and pleaded with my sinuses for some sweet relief. unobliging, as they are, they might as well have flipped me the bird and locked me in a cupboard.

i’d much rather be woken up by my alarm and getting ready to go to the office, then sitting here in dark, feeling sorry for myself. oh, i’m unwell.

there isn’t much to be said about waking up on the saturday of a long weekend feeling cloudy with sinus issues, coughing intermittently and clearing one’s throat approximately every 7 minutes on the clock. typical really, for me to feel a bit under the weather when i’m free to do as i please for a few days. i’m actually still quite surprised it didn’t happen once during our ‘post-matrimonial holiday’, i was expecting to wake up full of snot at any moment. but hark! it didn’t happen, kept it at bay - maybe, until now.

more than this, can someone out there explain the meaning of it being almost 25° (celsius) with a thoroughly unfunny level of humidity on october 6th - in toronto. ah, the havoc we have wrought. also? enjoy my hair. this weather does nothing for me. i’m about as attractive as a dish sponge at the moment.

where is my puppy?

equation:

6 -1 = 5 people incapable of picking up a phone.

and since i wear skirts and have boobs - i am, therefore, the only one able to pick up the phone and say “hullo, pixelhut, how can i help you?”

bah.

frappucinos are tasty, but should not be used as vitamin substitutes. they do not and will not make you feel less sleepy. b12 maybe, frappucino, doubtful. alas.

experiment concluded. outcome: tasty, yet nutritiously deficient.

the overwhelming need for today to be a friday will not be able to cope with the knowledge that it is only thursday.

i’m napping at my desk. my eyes are open and my fingers seem to be talking, but no one is really home. i’m set on autopilot. the light bulb has been dimmed. come back in 5 minutes.

i’ve complained for weeks now that i’m tired. but when does tired become a need for a visit to the doctor? i’m not exercised enough, i’m not eating well enough, i’m taking care well enough of myself to actually put some real worry behind all of this, but perhaps it’s time that i gave my legs and arms and heart and bit of a push. let my lungs breath a bit harder for more than a few minutes. make my cheeks flush. let the ice cream and fried goodness go, stop thinking about having a cigarette. have a bit of a clean up round the house.

the problem with this very good and healthful idea? it all just sounds like too much work and i’m just so tired. grumble.

wednesday, wednesday, why are you always the same, wednesday?

the office is quiet and cold - the boys have got their heads down and i’m up at the front doing backflips trying to avoid any semblance of work. i was busybee this morning, that should suffice.

one bright spot of this wednesday, wednesday - the postman brought me more presents today. which also solidifies my insanity. i buy tights online. i can’t make it easy on myself and just go to my friendly department store and get myself the roughly ten thousand pairs that i go through in the autumn/winter seasons. i have to order them, direct, from japan. “but,” i say, “you cannot find an opaque tight as opaque as these!” it is the opacity that makes them worth the time and effort and makes the waiting that much more tolerable. this is what makes me insane, and i know, that deep down i seriously have a problem. because if instant gratification isn’t the thing i’m aiming for, then is it the anticipation of something new that makes the whole enterprise that much more exciting?

the answer is clear. i am nuts. and my credit card should be put away, far from my easy reach. lest i find it necessary to buy, oh, i don’t know, handy wipes and hot dogs online.

the search for a house we never knew we wanted has turned a bit sour. what was at once thought to be an exciting endeavour, has turned quite quickly a bit pear-shaped and the process has left me feeling a bit dejected and profoundly confused.

dejected is simple: we found a house, we bid on said house, we quickly lost said house.

now every other house is measured up against this elusively lost home and none of them have quite grown tall enough to shadow the reminders of what we never really had, but very much wanted. i feel a bit like the goldilocks of real estate. too small, too big, too ugly, too slanty, too mould infested, too much dirty laundry lying around, smells much too much of cat pee. and a side note to maybe-sellers: please - put away the laundry, make the beds, flush the toilets, empty the cat litter, have the dogs & children out, try going out for dinner or don’t cook anything too potent, take out the trash, and as simple as it sounds, tidy up - even if just a little bit.

and what of this confusion i feel? this feeling as if we’re being evicted from where we currently live and are being forced out at a pace that will see us out of house and home with all our earthly goods stuffed into a sack. the fact is though, we’re not - we’re just racing against the real estate environment at the moment, which is both mean and ugly. and greedy. and unfortunately, i never learned to compete and i’m finding it hard to try. this house-hunting? decidedly unfun.

wouldn’t it seem obvious and quite redundant to have the model of your car as your personalized license plate? i mean, i see that you’re driving a cooper s. you don’t need to tell us again with your ‘coupa s’ license. this, this does not make sense to me.

my eyes, they feel as if they stick out two inches further out than what is considered normal and weigh about 10lbs each. i think i got roughly a minute of sleep last night. which makes this monday rather delightful…

it’s peculiar, the tradition of the bridal shower. i dreaded mine utterly and completely. no, i looked forward to the gifts and the envelopes filled with numbers, i not ashamed to admit that. however, the actual event filled me with a sense of foreboding and terror, of which i have not felt since i was young, and in, what i like to call, my vomiting phase. (i vomited, a lot. no, really - A LOT when i was younger).

it wasn’t the traditional affair, the type of which a poor daughter has no dowry to bestow upon her groom. for shame - no blenders and tea towels for the unfortunate chap. i had the all out, no stops, no boundaries outside the perimeter of mother russia, no saying no type of shower. my mum, she has no idea the heights of her over-the-topness. we’re still trying to measure it.

in any event, six weeks after the event, i realize that for me, the event itself, was not meant for me. it was meant for her, and to know that, is enough for me to say that i enjoyed myself - in that afternoon, i gave her the ability to do the traditional thing, the type of thing i usually wrinkled my nose at, the thing that all mothers, or at least a large contingent of mothers hope to be able to do for their daughters. not throw them a party, not supply them with countless serving trays and salad bowls. but to be able to round up her own friends and celebrate her child, and maybe just a little bit, herself. for that, the nervousness and the anxiety was worth it. in retrospect, i should have understood earlier, what it was for. better late than never, i suppose.

it doesn’t mean i like showers, i don’t. ask any bride who has gone through one, and invariably the answer will be the same - with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders will come a sighed “i’m glad it’s over.” but, for one afternoon, it was more than just a little party. it was an ending and a beginning of certain sorts…

i cannot believe how far a good hair day can take me, being able to wear my hair down, in relative humidity, two days in a row is akin to getting the day off and finding a $20 in your jacket. either i am truly a very simple girl, or i am as superficial as i think i am.

this gaping delta just wouldn’t quit this weekend. it is somewhat confusing that on one hand i am tired of the chub, but i can’t seem to get it together enough to actually stop, full stop. my will supersedes my actual desire. and it’s a total kink in my plan - it’s a total pain in the arse.

i’ve been locked out of house.

i’ve crawled in through the side window and nestled up in a corner with a bunched up pillow and my shirt balled up on the floor.

i just seem to be missing out on where to put all the other words that i don’t get to get out anywhere else. and really, everyone needs more words, because there aren’t enough ways for people to get in touch. i’m not sure if sarcasm translates. in any event, this is a trial run.