Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Two mornings in a row I have woken from extremely complicated dreams whose details have faded even more quickly than dreams usually do once I noticed I was awake. I'm wondering what this night's installment will be like.

I just had an image pop into my head, of a double bass that could be swung open to reveal a handy compartment inside for stashing a mandolin.

Tonight I had (not for the first time) the experience of taking something apart to try to figure out what was wrong with it, completely failing to identify anything I could fix (or really identify as a source of the problem), yet having the device work better when I put it back together even though I "didn't do anything". Repair by intimidation?

Do habaneros not last as long in the fridge as other peppers, or is it just the fact that they're sold ripe but the others I usually buy are most often sold green, or did I get unusually short-lived habaneros by chance twice in a row?

A few days ago I found myself wondering what percentage of computer users these days know why we refer to starting up a computer as "booting" it. Programmer-types my age and older should know, of course, but how many younger and/or less-geekly folks do?

I forgot to mention, a week or so ago, having to call 911 to report a property-damage crime (someone ripped the exterior part of my mail slot most of the way off my front door) because a) the non-emergency phone number for Baltimore was broken (and had been for several days) and b) when I finally gave up after three days and called the nearest precinct directly I was told they couldn't take reports on that line and told me to call 911 (they were aware that 311, the citywide non-emergency number, wasn't working). Calls to 311 got as far as selecting which city agency to contact, then fell into an infinite hold/reconnect loop. (Betcha it's still busted.)

Okay, another attempt at this sleep thang ...

"This is the problem: nobody can concede anything for the other team. Everything has to be 'if the guy is on my team, I defend everything he does, if he's on the other team it's all crap.' It's so stupid. And the right wing does it too." -- Bill Maher, 2005-04-18, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Yup, make it three mornings in a row waking up from a very complicated dream whose details evaporated extremely quickly. In this one I was an actress working on a movie.

I also woke up feeling hung-over, which is terribly unjust considering that the last alcohol I drank was more than two weeks ago (and that a mere one bottle of porter). I blame the trees.

I've gotten way behind on communication again: reading LJ, answering LJ comments, email, snailmail, phone calls ... I'm so far behind I'm even behind on non-verbal communication: I've got at least a four day backlog of gesticulating wildly, and I must be about three weeks behind on hugs.

(So, ah, if I do somehow manage to come up with enough spoons to read back on my friends-page, as I've thought I might "any tomorrow now" for the past week and a half, by now I'm almost certainly far enough behind that I will still have missed some stuff more than "skip=300" away.)

I'm trying to a) figure out how the rest of my week lines up, b) get some phone calls made and some bills paid, c) convince myself I have the energy and attention span to develop some film[1] and buy some paper, d) go to the Post Orifice, and e) reserve enough spoons to make it to rehearsal tonight. At the moment, based on how I feel waiting for ibuprofen to get from stomach to blood, I'm thinking I should count it as a minor victory if I manage one of those and a major win if I do two. I guess a draw would be just not getting my car towed (it's street-cleaning day). If I accomplish three or more items on that list, it'll be cause for a celebration which will in turn have to be postponed because I won't have any energy left with which to celebrate.

For the moment, I'll watch the Live Special Report where the newscasters are trying to figure out whether to call the smoke white, black, or grey[2], wait for that ibuprofen to kick in, and try to find out whether Google Maps (painful over dialup, nifty over broadband) will show me a satellite photo of Pennsic.

[1] I've been waiting for the weather to be the right temperature. Last night the thermometer in the bathroom was at the 'B&W' mark, so this afternoon the bottles of chemicals should have come up to that temperature.

[2] In between the time I hit the return key to post this entry and the time LiveJournal responded, the bells started ringing. Gee, and I'd turned on the telly just expecting the usual noon news broadcast.

Okay, the problem with deciding to take advantage of the temperature being right for developing film instead of taking a nap when I feel like this? That horrified realization that I'd just poured from the wrong bottle, followed ten minutes later by the discovery that using the wrong concentration of stop bath produces results as interesting-and-not-in-a-good-way as I'd feared. Scratch a roll of Pennsic film, and a roll that had silmaril playing my piano, Perrine, and fire engines on it. (There are still some images there, but I'm not sure they're worth printing.) *sigh*

I don't think saying swearwords without an audience counts as catching up on my communications backlog.

Oddly, the 35mm film also went onto the reels crooked and I failed to detect that in the dark, but the roll of 120 that I wrestled with for about forty minutes when I loaded it wound up on its reel nice and straight. If I stay home from rehearsal tonight I'll try to conjure enough energy to load more film after dark, but I'm hoping I can manage to feel well enough to get to rehearsal instead.

If I'm not clearheaded enough to remember whether I put a frozen pizza in the oven or merely imagined doing so, then I am not clearheaded enough to pilot an automobile down the highway safely. I'm staying in. My apologies to the 3LF folks.

I really really really wanted to go buy film and paper today, but around 15:45 finally conceded that doing so would almost certainly result in my not being up to going to rehearsal tonight, so I punted that ... and it turns out I'm not up to rehearsal anyhow. (OTOH, if I'd gone to the camera store first, I'd be thinking that was the reason I didn't get out again tonight.)

I need to pick up a big mirror for the music room, for practicing the double bass (mostly for the bowing). Or maybe I should take the one from the wall of the blue bedroom.