And Everything in its Place

It’s hot here. It’s six-thirty in the morning and it’s blessed hot. Gonna be a scorcher today, that horrible easterly wind that we get up here. Down south on the Central Coast where I grew up, we call these the Santa Anas. Here they’re just called crappy weather. They make you feel sick and sneezy and grumpy and generally cause people to punch each other unexpectedly. They aren’t pleasant. It’ll make for a busy Saturday at work.

God, I’m so slow-witted today. I got up and did my morning pages, and while the point is to “keep the hand moving,” my hand kept resting on the page while my mind traispsed off without me. That’s not uncommon, and it’s happening now, too, but I like to at least keep it somewhere in the same room…..

One cool thing though: Yesterday I lost my calendar. Before the job I have now, I had never been a calendar person, but with this job and the amount of overtime and rep work we do, we all have to LIVE by our calendars. If I want to get something done on a workday (like this writing right now), it has to be scheduled in. My calendar holds my official overtime balance and the running balances of how much time I owe people and how much is owed me. And it wasn’t in my purse.

It’s ALWAYS in my purse. I’m anal. I never lose anything. That’s an exaggeration. I assume that I’ve lost something in the last ten years, but if I did, I can’t remember what it was. I’m one of those people that walks in the door and hangs my keys on the peg without thinking. Everything has a place. And I couldn’t find the goddamned calendar. I tried not to panic and looked in every bag I carry to work, around the places where the purse had been, under the balls of yarn next to the bookcase (because doesn’t EVERYTHING fall into the yarn basket?). Nothing. I tried to put it out of my mind, but I wrote myself a note before bed. “Where is my calendar?” Then I put a little “Thanks” after it.

I went to sleep comfortable in the knowledge that my mind would figure it out while I slept. I woke up, ready to remember. And the calendar is…. I waited. Nothing.

Terribly disappointed. My subconscious had let me down.

I did my morning pages, thinking about it (maybe that’s why I kept wandering away from them).

Then I sat down to write this, looked down at the carry bag that I had torn apart four times yesterday and thought, oh, yeah. There’s one more pocket I never checked and I know it’s in there. It was.

Don’t know if that’s a result of asking the question or just recovering from a brain fart but it just goes to prove that it’s okay to be anal. It’s okay for everything to have a place. I can’t take the stress. Lord, how do people live with other people? I understand a little more now why my mother got so upset when we would borrow her hammer and leave it in the backyard. Or the treehouse. Or at Jenny’s under the boat. “Use your father’s hammer!” Yeah, well, Dad couldn’t find any of his six hammers (because they were in the back yard, or under the car, or at Paul’s on the roof), and we knew hers was always in the kitchen cabinet, hanging to the left of her gloves, above the rags, next to the box of matches and her pliers.

I swear there will be knitting pictures in the next few days. I’ve just been doing too much else and haven’t made much progress on the sweater I started. The unnamed sweater. I’m using a minty green yarn that looks kinda irritating and cloying while in the ball but has surprising flecks of yellow and blue when knit up. I already know I’ll NEVER be able to catch the color on a digital camera, so I’ve been slow to document its progress.

Slow to move, period. Must have coffee. Enjoy your weekend!
PS – Bethany’s still in MN! And Alissa did her own virtual ramble along the Texas highways. How fun! Anyone else?