Turns out I hadn't been taking one of my medications this week. Which explains the sudden re-connection to the currents of existence. The melancholy, the cost of self-awareness. 

Constantly questioning the why of everything. 

There is much to learn. To do. It can be fun to be obsessed. 

"But please, remember me, my misery 

and how it cost me all I wanted

Those dogs that love the rain and chasing trains

The colored birds above their running"

-The Trapeze Singer by Iron and Wine.

It's one of my favorite songs. My whole life is in this song, I think. I gave the boys burned CD's of Iron and Wine and other music. They were little (perhaps I'll always think them so) and I would not give them the originals for fearing of them ruining the discs. I could also leave out songs that might be considered objectionable. 

I think of the phrase often. With Ender especially. If his expectation is not met, he has difficulty finding happiness in an alternative. Like he lives with the ghost of the thing. It will be rough going. Ghosts have weight, a tiny bit, and it adds up. What he must learn, as I am trying to learn, is that ghosts come in pairs. The ghost of unmet expectations, and the person you were at that moment. 

We're often mourning that hopeful part of ourselves. 

The rational part of us knows that nothing really matters, so everything matters. Pain and loss and joy are built in. We don't have perfect memories; the best tool we have are the amber of emotion that captures them, holds them, but freezes them too. When we look at them hereafter, it will be honey-yellow, and slightly warped. 

These have a weight too, I think.

Meager attempt to create a semblance of a ghost of a schedule has begun. Unexpected side effect of scheduling a life is the feeling that I'm running out of time. Time for what? For reading Moby Dick on Youtube, of course. For the people. Something to leave behind, for the people in that Venn diagram of miss the sound of my voice, and haven't read Moby Dick.

One of my co-workers, Jessica, is creating a musical about intermittent urological catheters. She asked me to write a section of lyrics. I did, and it was difficult. The music is from The Little Mermaid's Part of Your World.

I see now why they have people who just do lyrics. It's hard. Maintaining rhythm, internal rhyme structures, phrasing; it's tough. Like writing a poem on the back of a salmon leaping up a waterfall to spawn.

Fun though.

Small goals achieved this weekend. I mixed up some cement into buckets and stuck metal poles in them. Soon they will be dry and I can hang the shade sail from them. Then, shade sails for days. DAYS

It was rather difficult mixing the cement. Next time I'll get a cement mixer. Do like ten buckets and poles at once.

There's a note scrawled down here on a sticky at my work desk. It says "Idle distractions steal me." That's true, I think. How can I properly brood with all these dang shiny things around? I must hear my thoughts, not theirs.

The yard will be less dusty once the clover grows in. It's a hardy little plant, practically a weed. Thriving in the yellow dirt, more so than in the rich dark fertilized soil. The ladybugs are coming around.

A friend of mine lost someone very close to her, someone I didn't know well but was very fond of.  We haven't talked in years. To attempt to provide comfort would be selfish, I think. The past seeds doubt that choke all future virtue.  A last embrace will stay a last embrace.

Every tear becomes ordinary rain.

Dreams. Many of them. Dreamed I stole an ambulance and there was no traction. Like driving on a sheet of ice. Bounced around like a bumper car. Maybe it was a bumper car.

I also dreamed of a sushi food truck. It drove up and Donovan ordered a calamari wrap. They truck had a giant squid tentacle on ice on display. I ordered one too because it's octopus that I feel guilty about eating, not squid.

Some squids are real jerks.

The mission is to sleep the normal amount of hours it takes to be sane. I'm going with 10-6, for now.

Yesterday was a bleary-eyed nightmare. One of my more productive days, turns out, but it felt like hell. Today I feel much more rested.

What else am I forgetting? Dreams. I dreamed I was hanging out with Tana, Beckah, and Shelly. And Shelly's dog, Grub. I do love that pughuahua.


What else...oh, I fixed Ender's Samsung tablet. A few searches online gave me a handful of options, and I tried them all until something worked. And it did. He's quite pleased with it. I was annoyed by his constant pestering, and in the end that's what got me off my rump. I recorded a voice message telling him to use his stubbornness power for good.

Oh, my credit card info appears to have been stolen. Someone charged several days of stay at a Motel 6 by the Seattle airport. I didn't catch it myself; I was alerted by an app I had installed years ago that I never use anymore. It's called Mint, It tells me "Unusual spending on travel." Unusual indeed.

I've contacted the motel, and if they don't refund the money I'll have to file a claim with the company itself. Luckily I know my way around a claim form.

They also tried to buy something at Michael's craft store, but I got to that one in time.