Voices Carry

It's 5:00 p.m. I've been awake for approximately 4 hours since midnight. Frankly the only reason I have gotten out of bed is to eat and pee, and sorta washed my face. The laundry remains piled in the living room, unwashed. Oops, no, I've got one washed from at least 10 days ago that has been sitting next to the recliner unfolded. The sheets and towels are desperately in need of changing, too. Today is a full-scale wallow day, after a highly-charged chaotic day yesterday* that involved me driving up to Sparky's to hold her hand while she  had a full-scale wallow about her 'miserable' life. Tried to get her back from the edge, called a friend to talk to her about job-hunting (he had a job suggestion on the phone  he was checking on today , which is a better lead than Sparky has discovered in 5 months!), took her to dinner (OMG, Kopp 's flavor-of-the-day and a grilled cheese ftw for me!), sat outside in the sunshine to eat, and then drove back home. I'm bea...

I have now officially worked 40 hours this week (plus the lunch hours I rarely use for lunch).  I work tomorrow as well, but only 4 hours of that day are open-to-the-public hours. But I work with the director as the other reference person--I'll be in the children's room the whole time. If it goes like today did, I might fall asleep in there! Spring has sprung and kids are outside! The other fun news is that I'm one of a sacred few who is allowed to fuss over the egg incubator this year. We have approximately 3 dozen chicken eggs on display and they will probably hatch in a couple of weeks. Unless the incubator kills them; it's being real dumb this year for some reason. It's always delightful to have the chickies once they're hatched. I really love this tradition despite the total hassle it is for staff. Anyway, the rest of my day will be doing some original cataloging and cleaning up of crappy OCLC records for items we're trying to add to our collection. I...

I have the weirdest, most eclectic pile of people I count as good friends. I just got off the phone with one of them. He's a guy I think I have only met once ( may be twice?) in person, but got to know better via Twitter (back 15 years ago when it was still fun to be on Twitter) and then Facebook. We talk no more than 2-3 times a year at most. Otherwise, it's mostly just random jamming on Facebook and the occasional PM.  There is no way I ever would have spoken to this guy IRL prior to knowing him via social media. He's smart, goofy, spacy, and the most snarled-up of many of my most messed-up friends. And he's hilarious. [before y'all go getting weird: he's married, it's complicated; he lives as far away from his wife as he lives from me; we're literally buddies/pals/friends; he has a roomie recently acquired who seems to also be his caregiver, but they are also just friends-ish--no benefits] I worry about him. He's not in good health. And he is occ...

 I have two lists, and a page of notes, plus pages of thank you notes to write... Here's the current lists, one of which is deceptively short. To Call/Email: Fidelity bank County Treasurer about house deed [lawyer] [life insurance agent] with death certificate [repair guy] General things that have occurred to me that need doing: cancel puzzles [Beast got a puzzle a month; I have four here that are unopened, plus another Christmas-y one that was too many pieces for him to use] Lawn Guru [need to set up my mowing for the summer] [alma mater] with obituary put away laundry reschedule cleaning ladies look for check replace lenses in glasses appointment for new tires store for pop, etc. check monthly Amazon order Factor Frankly, the first list can be dealt with by making one call, to the lawyer to make an appointment, and sending one email (death cert). The second list I can mostly do today without much effort; I just have to, yknow, DO THE THINGS. Sparky just said she doesn't want...

Got up this morning and sorted pills, opened all the bags of new pills and combined the last batch with the new batch. And took the ones I need to do this morning. Then sat and watch Facebook Reels, laughed very hard a few times, posted my daily quote. Sparky had set an 'alarm' for half an hour after I settled in so we can get something done today. She is now out in the kitchen working on clearing off the long part of the counter that has turned into Nightmare City. Most of the mess is long-term, but the past month has destroyed any vague sense of order and it's cluttered from wall to sink--about 12 feet. I mentioned that it would be nice to have ONE PLACE in the house that's not a fucking nightmare since literally every other room is chaos, so she's starting to sort shit. (I'm also in search of a $200 check I put away 'safe').  I need to go out and be the Decider, however I'm enjoying having someone else in the house nattering about for a change tha...

I really skived off HARD today. Hard to start working on anything when I won't be back in the building till next Tuesday, having been away for a week. I caught up the pile of paper on my work-table, and plowed through a few really old list-serve messages. Sent several DMs to friends/family. Ate lasagna and pizza at the Thank-You luncheon the city hosted.  Spent an hour at the children's desk with the new librarian, LetGo. And one patron. Following that massive brain-drain, met with Book Clubber for a quick catchup on what shenanigans have been happening. She is massively stressed, massively ready to not be working there anymore, and she tripped and fell in her office right before I was there so feeling stupid and very pained. Directly from that info dump, I collared Soup and asked if we could talk because someone had mentioned a blowout meeting with NPC (the boss) on Tuesday and I wanted to hear her version having just heard NPC's take via Book Clubber. Hoo-boy. She did goo...

I have had a lot of weird dreams over the past ... well, mostly forever. The last few years have involved me being in a large liminal space (library, mall, bar-inside-an-airplane, hotel, etc.) and a lot of dreams about packing to go somewhere, usually overseas, but always on an airplane.   I have been on an airplane precisely TWICE in the past 8 years, to and from a getaway last February (2024). It wasn't a great experience, though the people-watching was great. I've turned into my mother in this respect--she loved to eyeball all the people in the airport.   Last night I was packing up to go home for the summer from college. Except I wasn't in a dorm; I was in the bedroom of our previous (nearby) house. And we drove (we meaning Sparky and me). Or rather we were driving. A lot. We had to go over one mountain to get to the town we were staying in (in Colorado), visiting distant (not-real) relatives? My sister and her husband were there; my brother called. [These "relat...