So I'm sitting here, trying to get work done (the paid kind), and can't seem to get the train to leave the station.  I could blame it on the awesome OS writers and characters (which are admittedly a welcome distraction), but I'm a highly skilled time-waster and procrastinator of many things, so it's not as if I wouldn't have found something else to distract me.  And it wouldn't be right to blame something/someone for which I am solely responsible, that being my time-management and attention span - I'm at way too low a pay grade for that kind of privilege.

My next option, besides spinning my wheels endlessly, is to write about it.  Sometimes clearing out the mental detritus provides a clean workspace, so to speak.  Or so I hope. 

So bear with me, or don't - honestly, I couldn't blame anyone for finding something else to read.

Also, although some of this sounds weeny and whiney (even to me), please understand - it's just a state of mind for me once in awhile - it passes.  Overall, I have precious little to complain about, and on the grand scale, my "troubles" are pretty damn light.

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1.  One of these days, I must stop proviso-ing myself to death.  Seriously, Owl, just say what you mean to say!

2.  Why is everything so god-damn expensive?  The Giant needs $300 to do Driver's Ed.  The Raven's vehicle (an ancient Suzuki Sidekick named Jupiter - yes, we name our vehicles) is laid up with "I don't want to start" disease.  Again.  At least this time it's local, not 500 miles away, but still, who/how can we pay to have it looked at/towed?  I know how Jupiter feels, though.

3.  The Raven needs a job.  This would help with #2 (although unemployment helps some), but the main reason she needs a job is that I hate what "unemployment" does to her - the whole self-doubt thing.  It's part of how we all validate our lives in this fucked-up society, right?  It's how we say "I'm a responsible adult." "Here's what I do for a living" is part of the score card - wrongly (oh so very wrongly) in my opinion - but Jesus Christ.

It just sucks. 

When she quit her last job (about 2 months ago), it was with cause - they fucked her over, and she was right to leave.  Sometime, I'll do a post on it, but frankly, I'm still fighting the urge to go fire-bomb the motherfuckers, so I need to reach a more Zen state about it before putting anything in writing. 

The Raven is handling it much more gracefully than I, and I'm trying to be supportive of her gracefulness, since I think she's probably right about the bigger picture of grace and such.  She is usually right about the bigger picture, so I try to maintain a helpful, and hopeful, rationale; internally, I hope they all rot in hell.  Not really, but kind of.

4.  I should probably stop saying "fuck" all the time.  I should probably also decide on a consistent usage of god/dess, and eliminate all other cussing from my writing.  Grandma M. would say that it shows a lack of creativity.  I think she's sitting over my shoulder right now, whispering that very thing as she reads this from heaven (I guess the bi-focals are unnecessary at that distance).  She's probably right, but sometimes, "fuck" is just exactly the word that suits me.

5.  My back is killing me.  I have been nice to it, mostly, for years, but it insists on getting all cranky on me once in awhile, often for no reason other than to make me cranky right along with it.  I suspect that it's part of the "mobile tendonitis" which I've had since high school - I'll wake up with a random joint or two (finger, elbow, shoulder, ankle, knee) sprainfully sore.  After a couple of days - with or without treatment - it disappears (the pain, not the joint). 

On Saturday night, the Giant playfully picked me up as though giving me the Heimlech maneuver, and shook me around as gently as he could while showing off his manly strength.  It didn't hurt at the time, but I woke up Sunday morning with my middle back stiff and complaining at every move.  By Sunday afternoon, the pain had settled half-way between middle and lower back.  Monday and Tuesday showed improvement, then yesterday I nearly screamed when I rolled myself out of bed so that I could crawl to the trunk and pull myself into a standing position.

Today is better, dulling from "ice pick in the nerve center" to "tired ache which is tired of aching" and settled in my lower back. It still takes me at least 20-30 steps after I stand to evolve from ape-like posture to human.  This could account for some of my overall crankiness, now that I think about it. 

As a preventative measure against future injury, I am letting the Giant think that this whole thing is related to the Saturday night shake, but I can't honestly be sure there's a connection.

I am trying to make the world a better place, though.  Every time my back twinges, I say a prayer for those who suffer this type of pain and worse, chronically and without an end in sight.  It's my version of pain "brain freshing." (Nod to Zumalicious for that awesome term.)

6.  I am thoroughly sick of rain.  Last year, we had some serious flooding.  I grew up in an area where flash floods rarely occurred.  This is a whole different ball game.  If the rain doesn't slow down a little, I can see the same flood happening this year.  I am not amused.

We call our back yard "a river runs through it" because when it rains, a river forms - up to thigh deep last summer.   Also, our home is built on clay - sticky, muddy, sucky clay.  All approaches to any door require passing through it.  The grass only helps a little.  God help you if you must pass by the dog in the rain, or on any day in which it has rained.  It is on our to-do list to build gravel walkways this summer in order to provide safer passage.  See #2, however, and #5, which will hopefully not be in effect for much longer.

7.  The Giant has bent-to-oblivion 2 lawnmower blades already.  He claims it's because there are furrows in the lawn that you can't see because the grass is so high (because you can't mow it wet, see #6), and that the blade chunks to its doom into the sodden clay earth .  I know the first part is right, having stepped into the chuck-holes which are part of our yard; I fill them in whenever I can, but they're tricky buggers.  I'm not sure about the blade-into-the-clay-earth thing, though.  I don't care if the grass is high (I'm sure the town and landlord would beg to differ), but the aggravation caused in relation to #2 is obvious.

8.  The Giant asked me on Saturday what I really believe.  I said I missed the absolute certainty of belief.  He said that if absolute certainty was required for belief, then I could believe nothing.  So basically, I came up with the big zilch, which I know can't be accurate, but it was kind of a sinking feeling.  Parents are supposed to believe in things, I think.

I asked what he believes - he said he believes in "possibility."  Figures.  That's a much better answer, so I told him I was stealing it. 

I believe in possibility.

You know what? 

That is better.