I'm trying to remember the last time I spent 24 hours without lifting the lid of my laptop. Can't.
Don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Guess it depends on the criteria for judging. At any rate, I was able to follow through on my plan to make the best of the situation. I choose to set my panic on a back burner until Friday evening at least. I should know by then if the hiatus is going to be hours or weeks longer.
Meanwhile, I did get four loads of laundry done and put away Thursday. I lost track of how many TTers I visited. I started and finished The Bad Beginning, Volume 1 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Then started The Reptile Room and am more than 3/4 done with it as well. Both are re-reads, as I mentioned in my TT 29 below. But I am out to see how fast I can read the entire series. I had finished Volume 3 The Wide Window last September shortly before we got the WIFI. It was about then that my intense affair with the laptop and nearly unlimited web access really took off. By the time I came up for air towards the middle of October it was time to get serious about my NaNoWriMo project so I set aside the Lemony Snicket series, intending to reward myself with them after NaNoWriMo. I was really looking forward to spending most of December bingeing on fiction. My niece was excited about the prospect and was loading me down with books she wanted to share with me.
Then early in December I got the news about the upcoming library closure. Well the rest of that story can be followed via my posts since then. Any regular reader will know I was fairly obsessed about the looming library closure from that point til the day the doors were locked April 6th. The days since then have been about groping toward balance again, as I've posted several times. Not that I don't continue to pine for the library. But was starting to refocus. And now this, with the power cord giving up the ghost. It is hard not to see it as some kind of cosmic joke. Hey I'm not laughting.
Maybe someday I will.
I think I am rambling. Think it is time to go to bed. It is hard to let go of the computer knowing it will be 9pm before I can be back on it. But I have had little sleep in the last twenty-four hours and am going to have to give over the computer to my husband in about fifteen minutes anyway and if I don't get to sleep before six, I tend to get a second wind that will take me past noon even if I have been awake for over twenty-four hours. If I let that happen, I would essentially be giving up tomorrow night's session on the PC in my in-laws front room. It is all coming back to me. This was my life between January 2002 and September 2005.
(my apologies to TTers who left comments and who I have not visited yet or put your links on the front page. I will make that my first priority with tonight's session)
Friday, April 20, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #29
 |
2. It was down to less than an hour of battery power before I quit trying to get it to work again by trying useless things like unplugging and replugging the various connections and jiggling the cord at the various connection points. 3. I powered off then by holding the power button down for twelve seconds not wanting to use any more battery power for the five minute logging off procedure. 4. Sitting there in front of the black screen, I really started to panic. Pieces of every project that matters to me are trapped in there. I feel like I have been climbing a mountain for six years and every time I get near the top something kicks me back down. For awhile last night I let myself wallow in that feeling. I wanted to curl up and cry out to whatever to just keep on kicking me if that makes you happy. All the fundamentalist teaching from my childhood roared back in like a tornado with the voice of that avenging God telling me to sit down and shut up, if you were doing My Will your efforts would be blessed, how many times do I have to say NO before you return to the fold and bow your puny will to ME. 5. I decided that this mood was more the result of extreme fatigue coupled with the emotional roller-coaster I've been on this week while watching the media coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. And the Iraq war. And.... So I turned out the light and lay down to try to sleep. It took me over an hour to get back to sleep. I say back because I had taken a nap after dinner and had just woken up at ten-thirty. 6. I used that time laying in the dark to make contingency plans. And wallow in a bit of regret. Regrets included having spent so much time this past week researching sources of free ebooks online. That was going to be my TT. But the links are all trapped in my fav folders on the laptop. And if I am going to be without the laptop for very long, I won't be able to read ebooks on it will I? 7. Regrets also included having spent so much time over the last four months devoted to library materials as the day of our library closure approached. If I had know that my laptop was going to be available to me for only ten days longer than the library resources, I think I would have set different priorities. 8. Contingencies included buying a replacement power cord but I had no idea how much it would cost and thus no idea how likely it would be possible any time soon. (my husband researched it online this morning and it is going to cost about $60. We can't afford it. Yet we can't afford not to either. Definitely not before payday tomorrow and that really means Saturday. And it might take a few weeks to save for it. I tell you though that my very gaze could light my husband's cigarettes for him between now and acquiring a new power cord!!!) 9. Contingencies for a longer wait than a few days include using the last forty or fifty minutes of battery power to transfer all my relevant files, including URLs, emails, photos, graphics, text and HTML files, onto a CD-ROM so I can use them on my in-laws PC. Hundreds of files! And in some case I would need to download the applications involved onto the PC as well. Being confined to the PC again means being confined to the night-shift again. Or 9pm to 5am when I need to turn it over to my husband until he needs to leave for work. On the mornings he and his mom both work, I can get back on about 7 until noonish but shouldn't make too much of a habit of it. This was the schedule I was on between 2002 and late 2005. It was workable but very frustrating to be without access to my projects between whatever time I woke up and 9 or 10pm. 10. Contingencies also included using some of that time while denied access to the laptop to address some of those issues of serious neglect which I listed in a TT last month. You can find it by clicking on the label 'balance' if I don't manage to link to it here. I have started this morning by addressing the dire state of our laundry. Second of six loads has finished in the washer and awaits the dryer finishing with the first. That isn't counting the bedding which is another two or three loads but was recently done and can wait. Finding time to use the laundry facilities when it isn't going to interfere with my MIL use or some one's shower or my MIL sleep has been an issue. Being a night owl I still gravitate to the night shift for my computer and Internet projects so I tend to use the time my MIL is at work to sleep. Which is why I tend to get so behind with it. 11. I will also be tackling cleaning chores in our room in the next few days. I had already begun to address the clutter by tackling little projects that I could do while watching TV or in five to fifteen minutes. I was making progress in small increments. 12. I will also be picking up books again. I haven't picked up any fiction since I returned the last library book. I have been holding out as a reward for getting certain important tasks done. My priority since the library closure on April 6th had been to develop the habit of posting every day, research for resources to substitute for the library, sleep and self-care. This post will make thirteen consecutive days. I think that deserves a reward. I plan to pick up the Lemony Snicket novels my niece loaned me this afternoon. I read the first three last fall but I think I will start over. My husband read all thirteen inside of one week and I want to see if I can match or beat that. Yeah, silly little competition. 13. Other things I can do when neither the PC or laptop is available: Taking photos with my new digital camera, needlework, walks, listen to music, meditate, pray, daydream.
1. L^2 2.christina 3. Susan Helene Gottfried 4. FRIGGA 5. Di 6. Laughing Muse 7. The Rock Chick 8. amy 9. Mensch71 10. Jamie 11. Tink 12.Kathy (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) |
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #27
| |
1. sleep 2. watching what and when I eat 3. exercise 4. showers and shampoos (OK, no need to hold your nose. it wasn't never, just half as often maybe.) 5. clutter patrol in the room I share with my husband and (until two weeks ago) two cats on leashes and their crates, litter box and food dishes. 6. clutter patrol of my office which is one corner of said room and a different order of clutter altogether. 7. clutter patrol of my laptop files 8. clutter patrol of my mind and emotions and spirit 9. laundry 10. listening to music 11. prayer and meditation and daydreaming (hense #8) 12. communication and interaction with friends and family 13. writing, including journaling and bloging Starting Saturday my mission becomes regaining balance in my life and I'll be tackling more than one of these every day until I find an approximation of it. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Jamie 2. Candy Minx 3. Barbara 4. Elizabeth Bauterfly 5. Susan Helene Gottfried 6. L^2 7. Rhian / Crowwoman (leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!) Since I'm down to the wire here with about forty hours left, I won't be visting other TT until Friday evening or Saturday. I promise to return every visit made to me as soon as possible. |
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Hoarders R Us
That's the Royal Us--Me, myself and I--though I could make a case for it being a national dis-ease as well; but that's a whole other post. What I set out to muse about here is my issue with collecting and saving things. I saw myself in both of the women featured on today's Dr. Phil show. One of them had nearly 200 cats on her ten acre property. The other had stuffed a large house to the gills with stuff.
I have never accumulated nearly that much of anything but it is probably only because we have lived below the poverty line for most of the 28 years of our marriage and have twice lost the contents of our home--once for non-payment of rent on our apartment and thirteen years later for non-payment on a storage unit. Though there are many items that I still long for at times (my favorite baby doll that was my mother's before me, a crystal vase that was a heirloom from my husband's maternal grandmother, fine needlework projects, two personal libraries, manuscripts going back to my juvinilia, research notes, my wedding dress, family photos) I cringe to think of some of the stuff that some 'lucky' person got to sort through when they cleaned out that apartment and that storage unit. If there was one theme to what I collected (other than office supplies, craft supplies and books) it would be containers. Any type of container you can imagine, I probably had dozens to hundreds of them. I am speaking here of used containers from envelopes to shoe boxes; from prescription bottles to shampoo bottles; from yogurt cups to the little dose measuring cups that come with cold medicines; baby food jars to pickle jars; even the plastic or Styrofoam containers of take-out foods.
Then there are the things I saved to use for bookmarks: foil candy wrappers, business cards, junk mail, postcards, the logo tags off of new clothes. I needed a lot of bookmarks because I kept one in almost every book I possessed whether I owned it or borrowed it from a friend or a library. Many Non-fiction books would have multiple bookmarks. I continue this practice today. Bookmarks are one of the few things small enough to collect when you live in a ten by twelve foot room with a husband and two cats on leashes.
All of this is having such an impact on me today because it seems to resonate with the issue that has been stressing me out--out of my mind it sometimes feels--since December when I learned our county library system was closing its doors for lack of funding. I had already been feeling the stress of the way I managed my library usage in the years preceding this but that was almost a subliminal hum compared to the last three months. I have felt for years that I was too much a slave to library due dates. It seemed that I spent more time managing the inflow and outflow of the items than I did actually reading the books or watching the DVDs--from the hours spent searching the online catalog and managing my requests and renewals to the walks to the library to return and retrieve items; from making bibliography slips and inserting bookmarks as the books came home and then pulling the bookmarks and marking the page number on the bib slip as the books went back to managing the growing files of bib slips and notes.
After learning of the impending loss of access to these books and DVDs, the subliminal hum became a screaming jet-engine roar. Before, though there was always some angst about having to let an item go back before I was done with it, I was actually finding it a healthy exercise in letting go each week. But then I was always able to reassure myself that I could send for it again in a few weeks or months. Suddenly, I no longer had that assurance. Nobody knows how long the libraries will be closed. Barring some miracle, the doors shut April 6. The levy is on the ballot in May but most people I talk to have little hope it will pass. It would be November before another levy could be voted on.
Meanwhile, my life has been consumed by this since the first week of December. Other areas of my life are being neglected. From all forms of self-care to writing, including blogging and its attendant promotion. I even stopped taking notes while reading. So much for book reviews or citing information in my writing. And I've started speeding up the DVDs to the point that they become almost comical. Which is probably an insult to the directors and performers.
The worst of it is the risk I am taking of sabotaging two years of effort I've put into my online presence--what there is of it--by creating a reputation for lack of professionalism. I was confronted with that today as I went to check on three of my email accounts and found them flooded with weeks of unattended to correspondence and spam. Among them was a personal note from a high-school friend whom I haven't seen in twenty-some years. She sent it in early February! Which is an example of one of the potential joys of life that I miss out on because my attention is riveted on the library books and DVDs.
This past week there have been a number of times that I have been about this close to reaching for the books and DVDs willy-nilly and stuffing them in the book bags. It would probably take me three trips with three full bags each trip. There are around 105 items on my card and 25 of the 30 items on my husband's which I ordered. On March 1st they imposed the limit of 30 items for each card. I can't check out any more until I bring my card load down under thirty. I still have requests coming in. Some of which I have been in queue for for three to six months! I will lose them if I don't check them out within eleven days of their arriving. Those that arrived on March 1st and 2nd are going to time out on me next Monday and Tuesday.
Meanwhile there are more than a few items that I have right here that I waited weeks or months in queue for which are fighting for the fast dwindling share of time. There are only so many hours left.
There is yet another category of 'thing' that I could be accused of collecting in a bizarre fashion It is hard to give it a name though because it isn't physical. It was called to my attention when I set out to plan my Thursday Thirteen meme this week on the topic of my research projects that are going to be effected by this library closure. The list grew so long it could fill more than three TT. I am actually considering making it a three or four part TT, which would take some of the pressure off for that weekly task as I head into the home stretch of this race for a finish line that feels as if it is going to finish me when I reach it.
Dr. Phil said to the women featured on his show today that it was all about balance. I know I am out of balance. I knew it even before this library closure issue. Many of the books that I was checking out were of the self-help and spirituality genres. Like Dr. Phil's books. But my habit was to read voraciously giving assent to the ideas intellectually but seldom implementing them into my life. It just always seems like NOW is never the right time. Even though most of those books assert that NOW is the only time we ever have.
