One of those (*%^& days

[gwyn]

One of the things I didn't put in my list of 100 things about me was that I'm a good go-to gal in a crisis, but the little shit will send me into a hysterical tizzy. Lose a limb or appendage, or receive a critical head injury? I can help! Have a massive heart attack, or wreck your car? I'll be there, calmly telling you what to do or administering CPR. Being attacked by a lunatic on the street? I'll jump out of my car and come to your rescue. Sometimes people think I'm actually not doing anything, because when a big emergency hits, I stop for a second and think about what's the best course of action to take. But right away I'll figure it out, and I don't panic, strangely, when it's really, really bad. Chopped off fingers, burning cars, you name it, I'm ready, I'm calm, I'm capable.

But tell me I missed the shuttle to the airport and will probably miss my flight? Unglued. My car suddenly has a tire going low and part of it is shaved off? Completely freaked out. And so on. I don't know why it is so, but it is. I think it has to do with the control-freak thing: I'm so obsessed with having control over things that the big stuff is just so big and so monumental, I cede control to the fates and just try to stanch the hemmorhage. Little stuff, technically, I should be able to control, so when it goes wrong, I sweat it. I mock derisively anyone who tells me not to sweat the small stuff. It's not even much past lunchtime, and today I have already freaked out about ten times over little things. At this point, I'd rather someone nearby have an aneurysm, because then I would know what to do.

I don't know if people heard about our flooding rains yesterday, but when I finally left the safety of my soggy house this morning, I slipped on the rhododenderon branch that the telephone guy who'd come yesterday to put in a phone jack had left, unceremoniously dismembered. It was sitting there, my poor little rhodie, on top of a pile of soggy leaves, and zzzip! I nearly conked my head on the brick railing thing. Then I get on the bus, and zzzip! again -- and I'm wearing lug-soled boots, so this is kinda embarassing. I nearly passed out on the bus, because along with biblical rains, we got warm weather as well, and they had the heat cranked up to dry out the soggy bus. Bus driver missed my stop. Then I get to work after having had a day off, and they've moved all the kitchen things, and I can't find anything except the boxes of half and half for my tea, which are on top of high cabinets, and there's nothing to stand on to reach them in their illogical new hiding place. Getting a cup of tea now takes me about fifteen minutes and a couple of acrobatic tricks.

I go out for lunch to get cash and mail a dvd, and the cash machine spits out a withdrawal receipt but no money. I freak and try again. Receipt stating withdrawal, no money. Someone else tries. Same thing. We both start panicking -- I'm up to $100 so far in withdrawal statements. The next person tries and it works for her. How do you prove you did not get money? I mean, come on. Then I go get the Irish soda bread from the only good thing about working in Pioneer Square, Grand Central Bakery, and I get back and find out it's a scone. With sugar all over it (blech) and strange things inside that I don't actually like. I debated taking it back, but it seemed easier to just eat it, the way this day is going. I'm pretty sure one of the resident seagulls in the park will shit on me if I go out again (god knows I've watched them do it to countless others).

Then I get the plan for how my office is going to be redone (my veal fattening pen, actually) and it's going to be terrible and even more depressing than now. I want to cry. Talk about no control. And I know, and am dreading, that if I make it home tonight without any kind of minor but debilitating injury or being urinated on by the homeless creeps on my way to the bus, that the water has backed up from the downspout and is in the crawlspace. I mean, I know it has, but I just didn't want to deal with it; tonight, I will have to.

And there isn't even anything good on TV to mitigate it all, no new Queer Eye or --sniff!-- Buffy (and I won't get to see MI-5 till tomorrow), and yesterday I was prevented from meeting up with shellmidwife in Portland, which I'd so wanted to do, and and and... I hate these kinds of little crap days. These always feel so claustrophic and frustrating. I want to sit in a corner and invent imaginary friends who will soothe me, and maybe do something like pry loose an eyeball so I can save them.

Comments

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Oh, Gwyn, don't despair-- nasty, nasty day indeed. We all have them more or less often, but of course, that doesn't make them any easier to live through. Sometimes, the mishaps just keep piling up to the point where you to either cry like a baby or laugh like a hyena at the incredible absurdity of the universe fucking you over (which really forces you to decide whether to preserve your sanity or your reputation...).
& :-?

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Christ, that's me in a nutshell.

I'm the one you want in your lifeboat, baby. But don't run out of tape in the middle of wrapping Xmas presents.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh, bless your heart. You're having one of those days where it feels like you've got a big target on your back.

I'm also the "go-to" gal in my family and working life. I get weirdly calm in major crises and tend to act sometimes before I think of the danger. Once, on a date, my date and I had just arrived at a bar. A guy beating up a woman in the parking lot. My date very sensibly went inside to call the police and I strode up to the guy to inquire just what the hell he thought he was doing. They both stopped and stared at me. I'm only five feet tall so I think the guy was just flat amazed that I was confronting him. Then they both got in the car and drove away together. It didn't occur to me until later that I could have been killed.

I hope you make it home safe and sound. I wish I could buy you a drink! As for TV, there's always Law and Order reruns. I find them comforting.

[minim_calibre]

Oh, dear. You seem to be having my yesterday. (Excepting the water in the basement/crawl space, which I didn't have. Of course, that just made me exceedingly angry, for exceedingly irrational reasons relating to my love/hate destructive/abusive relationship with my house.)

May your tomorrow be all the much better than your today.

[glassslipper.livejournal.com]

Oh, how lousy. And you're right about the tv thing, Tuesdays just aren't worth anything anymore. Do you have old Buffy episodes on disc? You could put on a few early, pun-filled ones, sit down with a cup of hot tea and (popcorn? truffles? delivery pizza? whatever makes you happy) and enjoy the Buffy goodness.

[zoerayne]

I wish I could do more for you than send virtual hugs your way. Maybe tomorrow someone will have an aneurism and things will get better. [g]

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Bah ha ha ha!! LOL. Yeah, that's pretty much a summary of it, isn't it?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Let's just hope that we both have that whole "god watches over drunks and little children" thing -- that he's also watching out for those of us dumb enough to interfere!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

You know it occurs to me that I never thanked you for the kind of offer of help during my furnace crisis! But I really appreciate it -- we should get together sometime and commiserate about house stuff and the Jossverse. I hope you weren't adversely affected by the storm yesterday -- that was really something, wasn't it? I always bitch about movie rain -- how it pours down in an ungodly way that reality does not. Yesterday felt like movie rain.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Pudding. Pudding helps, I find. ;-) Though I totally forgot that Gilmore Girls was on and new, so that also eases the ache.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

And, d'oh, I also meant to say that the crawlspace wasn't too bad! The walls were very damp and the whole foundation is quite wet, as the ground around the house slopes in the way that they tell you the ground shouldn't slope towards the foundation (love those HUD builders!). But overall, it was mostly just very damp and humid, not flooded, which was like, whew!

[minim_calibre]

Other than it taking me over half an hour to get from Albro to I-90, there was no real problem. I wound up cranky for the duration of the day, but the house was fine. We're on the top of a hill, and it would appear that whatever else is wrong with the place, it is at the very least water-tight.

Yesterday's rain was somewhat like the rain I encountered driving through the tail-end of a tropical storm when I was in Hawaii. Also like a D.C. thunderstorm.

I'd forgotten that rain could do that. I grew up around here, so when I think of rain, I think of our normal Seattle rain.

We should get together some time. Seattle, for me at least, seems to bring out the worst of the hermiting tendency. It's a habit I'm attempting to break.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I wish that I too could send more than virtual hugs from SF. Here's hoping that some of our much too warm weather comes your way. Also, less problems with the house, more money to deal with life and less stress. I am also somebody who deals very well with other people's problems but not so well with my own. I think it's because I know that when the police, fire department, ambulance, etc. arrive on the scene, that my part in the crisis is finished. But if it's MY Problem, then I have to find the money, the time, the repair person, not get ripped off, etc.

take care!
namaste SF Nancy

[umbo.livejournal.com]

*big, big hugs*

Does it make you feel better or worse to know that your entry made me laugh? I mean, you kinda have to, what with the branch and the tea and the nothing on tv and all...

I am really sorry we didn't get a chance to meet, but I am confident we'll have another chance, like when I fly through Seattle to go up for a site visit in Sitka.

*more hugs*