walkingshadow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
walkingshadow) wrote2005-06-18 02:19 am
walkingshadow) wrote2005-06-18 02:19 am
Entry tags:
is this fog or is the building really burning
I'm calling today a wash. I pronounced it dead c. 10:30 this evening and it's shown no signs of reanimation.
The day started well enough—okay, the day started with mixed feelings and continued unevenly until crashing and burning. I had to get up early for a 10 a.m. optometrist appointment, but the appointment itself was good-time fun: I got a new prescription (the last time I had a check-up was almost three years ago: in the interim, my eyes have gotten better—it must be all the beta carotene?) and he dilated my eyes. Having your eyes dilated is so cool!! Your pupils swell up so big you look alien or animal, and you can't focus your gaze within two feet of your eyes. He gave me these roll-on temporary sunglasses to wear on the way out.
My mom's been attending a workshop at her school in re: technology in the classroom, etc. and on the way home I stopped by to drop off a pair of shoes (she'd broken hers that morning and called for reinforcements) and show off my temporary roll-on sunglasses. My eyes are dilated, I told them, can't you tell? Either that or I've been off getting high. The doctor told me everyone was different, but my eyes would probably take three hours to get back to normal. Sunlight was appropriately excruciating.
Dilated eyes stopped being fun around the time I got home and tried to sift through blueberries, picking out the moldy, mushy ones and dropping the good ones in my yogurt. The blueberries were on the counter and out of focus and I had to rely mainly on touch. I got through an article on the Wimbledon draw in the Sentinel (Wimbledon starts next week! Whether you care or not!) but had to give up on reading after that. Television, then. Four episodes of Dead Like Me, the entire third disc. In between there was an aborted trip to the Division of Family and Services and a severe thunderstorm. By "severe thunderstorm" I mean that it was sunny, then it was cloudy, then it was pouring, and then lighting was cracking constantly and the trees were bent over backward. It was all so loud and violent and sudden I went looking for a weather advisory: Channel 10 showed satellite pictures of three storm cells, one of which was basically over my house, moving northeast across Dade and Broward Counties; people were advised to stay inside, as winds were up to 60 mph and there could be three-quarter-inch hail. The wind speed sounded about right and I did hear hail tapping at the roof and windows. It poured, noisily: the water level in the koi pond rose rapidly right to the top. Lightning flashed and flashed and thunder boomed. Half an hour later the sun was shining. Welcome to South Florida, home of extremely local weather.
My eyes didn't start returning to normal until after three hours from dilation. Even four hours later the pupils were smaller but definitely not responding naturally to light. Between that and the storm I didn't get to the gym today. Yesterday the car was in the shop and I didn't get to yoga. I have been to the gym exactly once this week. I am so tired of myself.
The cap to the whole day was dinner at my aunt's house, which I usually enjoy for the most part, but I was just bored out of my MIND tonight. It was my family, my aunt and uncle, and another couple, long-time family friends: they're not very interesting people. She watches an awful lot of television and they go on cruises all the time, all over the world, and they didn't talk about much else. I just don't have a lot to contribute to a conversation about houses (buying houses, finding houses, re-decorating houses, etc., etc.) or grandchildren or luxury cruises. All I could say about luxury cruises I learned from David Foster Wallace, and I didn't think death-transcendence and having every need met choicelessly from someplace outside me would really spark any dialogue. My parents raised a well-bred child: when I exploded in the car on the way home with OMG THAT WAS SO BORING they were surprised and said I'd looked interested. I'd tried to send my mother looks of silent desperation, but obviously they didn't take. She says we need a code word. I offered to tug on my ear, but she vetoed that.
We got home just in time for Numb3rs, but I found it uneven1—and halfway through my dad came into the kitchen where I was watching and let my sister play with the running water in the sink, and I just couldn't take the noise anymore. He got annoyed that I was annoyed, because was it really that loud?2 but it was, and I couldn't even watch in the family room because my nerves were just shot, too many people and too much noise in the house; I was just prickly and wanted to climb out of my skin, leave it here, and take myself off somewhere dark and quiet. My mother followed me to my room a minute after I'd stalked off, to see if there wasn't anything she could do, and I told her I was fine, just prickly. We looked into ordering tea online for a while, but nothing came of it; and in the end I was working at not snapping at her too, glad when she kissed me goodnight and closed the door behind her.
I retreated to my cave of a room, signed online, and turned on music, starting with Leonard Cohen's Suzanne, music to drop your blood pressure. I'm tired, and it's PMS, though happily without any unprovoked urges to burst into tears, so things could always be worse. I will go to sleep and I will wake up; in the morning I will go to the gym, and in the afternoon cousin M. and I will go see Howl's Moving Castle. I'll pick up a Father's Day present too.
1. But the scene that made me sit up and take notice: Charlie and Don's father brings lunch to Don's office and warns him that "Charlie would do anything for you." Boys! There was that one-night binge on Numb3rs fic a while back, and then nothing. Dare I venture off the rec-path and seek my fortune in the archives?
2. I've been kinda pissed at my father for a while now, and we've been pissy back and forth. I'm always resentful on my mother's behalf for how little he helps out around the house and how much he begrudges what he does do. The other day I was sniping at him to take his stuff off the kitchen table where he was reading the paper, so I could set the table for the dinner my mother had made; he handed me the ripped-up mail that had been sitting next to him so I could throw it away, and I was like, Jesus, why can't you throw it away, and he said, "wow, look how lazy you are." I said, incredulously, "I'm lazy?!" and in classic Dad fashion he smirked and said, "I'm glad you admit it," and I snarled as I walked by and told him he's lucky I'm not the violent type because that kind of thing just makes me LOSE MY SHIT. Or words to that effect. My dad calling me lazy (which is not untrue—I'm the first to admit it) is like me poking somebody in the chest and shouting "where's your direction? Where's your sense of purpose?! Slacker." This is a man who routinely leaves a tablespoon of soymilk in the refrigerator so he doesn't have to throw away the carton, and then pretends he has no idea what I'm talking about when I get apoplectic about it. No one can make me apoplectic like my father can. It's like his super power.
The day started well enough—okay, the day started with mixed feelings and continued unevenly until crashing and burning. I had to get up early for a 10 a.m. optometrist appointment, but the appointment itself was good-time fun: I got a new prescription (the last time I had a check-up was almost three years ago: in the interim, my eyes have gotten better—it must be all the beta carotene?) and he dilated my eyes. Having your eyes dilated is so cool!! Your pupils swell up so big you look alien or animal, and you can't focus your gaze within two feet of your eyes. He gave me these roll-on temporary sunglasses to wear on the way out.
My mom's been attending a workshop at her school in re: technology in the classroom, etc. and on the way home I stopped by to drop off a pair of shoes (she'd broken hers that morning and called for reinforcements) and show off my temporary roll-on sunglasses. My eyes are dilated, I told them, can't you tell? Either that or I've been off getting high. The doctor told me everyone was different, but my eyes would probably take three hours to get back to normal. Sunlight was appropriately excruciating.
Dilated eyes stopped being fun around the time I got home and tried to sift through blueberries, picking out the moldy, mushy ones and dropping the good ones in my yogurt. The blueberries were on the counter and out of focus and I had to rely mainly on touch. I got through an article on the Wimbledon draw in the Sentinel (Wimbledon starts next week! Whether you care or not!) but had to give up on reading after that. Television, then. Four episodes of Dead Like Me, the entire third disc. In between there was an aborted trip to the Division of Family and Services and a severe thunderstorm. By "severe thunderstorm" I mean that it was sunny, then it was cloudy, then it was pouring, and then lighting was cracking constantly and the trees were bent over backward. It was all so loud and violent and sudden I went looking for a weather advisory: Channel 10 showed satellite pictures of three storm cells, one of which was basically over my house, moving northeast across Dade and Broward Counties; people were advised to stay inside, as winds were up to 60 mph and there could be three-quarter-inch hail. The wind speed sounded about right and I did hear hail tapping at the roof and windows. It poured, noisily: the water level in the koi pond rose rapidly right to the top. Lightning flashed and flashed and thunder boomed. Half an hour later the sun was shining. Welcome to South Florida, home of extremely local weather.
My eyes didn't start returning to normal until after three hours from dilation. Even four hours later the pupils were smaller but definitely not responding naturally to light. Between that and the storm I didn't get to the gym today. Yesterday the car was in the shop and I didn't get to yoga. I have been to the gym exactly once this week. I am so tired of myself.
The cap to the whole day was dinner at my aunt's house, which I usually enjoy for the most part, but I was just bored out of my MIND tonight. It was my family, my aunt and uncle, and another couple, long-time family friends: they're not very interesting people. She watches an awful lot of television and they go on cruises all the time, all over the world, and they didn't talk about much else. I just don't have a lot to contribute to a conversation about houses (buying houses, finding houses, re-decorating houses, etc., etc.) or grandchildren or luxury cruises. All I could say about luxury cruises I learned from David Foster Wallace, and I didn't think death-transcendence and having every need met choicelessly from someplace outside me would really spark any dialogue. My parents raised a well-bred child: when I exploded in the car on the way home with OMG THAT WAS SO BORING they were surprised and said I'd looked interested. I'd tried to send my mother looks of silent desperation, but obviously they didn't take. She says we need a code word. I offered to tug on my ear, but she vetoed that.
We got home just in time for Numb3rs, but I found it uneven1—and halfway through my dad came into the kitchen where I was watching and let my sister play with the running water in the sink, and I just couldn't take the noise anymore. He got annoyed that I was annoyed, because was it really that loud?2 but it was, and I couldn't even watch in the family room because my nerves were just shot, too many people and too much noise in the house; I was just prickly and wanted to climb out of my skin, leave it here, and take myself off somewhere dark and quiet. My mother followed me to my room a minute after I'd stalked off, to see if there wasn't anything she could do, and I told her I was fine, just prickly. We looked into ordering tea online for a while, but nothing came of it; and in the end I was working at not snapping at her too, glad when she kissed me goodnight and closed the door behind her.
I retreated to my cave of a room, signed online, and turned on music, starting with Leonard Cohen's Suzanne, music to drop your blood pressure. I'm tired, and it's PMS, though happily without any unprovoked urges to burst into tears, so things could always be worse. I will go to sleep and I will wake up; in the morning I will go to the gym, and in the afternoon cousin M. and I will go see Howl's Moving Castle. I'll pick up a Father's Day present too.
1. But the scene that made me sit up and take notice: Charlie and Don's father brings lunch to Don's office and warns him that "Charlie would do anything for you." Boys! There was that one-night binge on Numb3rs fic a while back, and then nothing. Dare I venture off the rec-path and seek my fortune in the archives?
2. I've been kinda pissed at my father for a while now, and we've been pissy back and forth. I'm always resentful on my mother's behalf for how little he helps out around the house and how much he begrudges what he does do. The other day I was sniping at him to take his stuff off the kitchen table where he was reading the paper, so I could set the table for the dinner my mother had made; he handed me the ripped-up mail that had been sitting next to him so I could throw it away, and I was like, Jesus, why can't you throw it away, and he said, "wow, look how lazy you are." I said, incredulously, "I'm lazy?!" and in classic Dad fashion he smirked and said, "I'm glad you admit it," and I snarled as I walked by and told him he's lucky I'm not the violent type because that kind of thing just makes me LOSE MY SHIT. Or words to that effect. My dad calling me lazy (which is not untrue—I'm the first to admit it) is like me poking somebody in the chest and shouting "where's your direction? Where's your sense of purpose?! Slacker." This is a man who routinely leaves a tablespoon of soymilk in the refrigerator so he doesn't have to throw away the carton, and then pretends he has no idea what I'm talking about when I get apoplectic about it. No one can make me apoplectic like my father can. It's like his super power.