The Ramblings of a Mental Meanderthal

WARNING: Here be swearing. So I follow a blog/Twitter/Facebook page called "Unfuck Your Habitat." The creator of the blogs is pretty sweary, and I sometimes am, too. So I didn't let the profanity deter me from a method of keeping my home habitable that might actually work. I will abbreviate the name of the blog and method to UFYH from here on in. I think UFYH started on Tumblr with photos people submitted of their before and after spaces. The creator also outlined her method, basically saying that you do what you can when you can. If you're physically or mentally disabled, neuroatypical, mentally ill, or emotionally disabled, you can still get stuff done. And something is better than nothing at all. Bringing in help is good if the help understands you make the decisions. Being of help to someone else is good, so long as you bring in kindness and leave judgment at the door. What to do when the people you live with don't feel it's their place to take care of m...

Mom's out of town. Dad went to my cousin's to watch football. (He's back now.) I stayed home and did eight loads of laundry. No television, no conversation. In between trips to the laundry room, I sat in the living room and read or played sudoku. So quiet and pleasant to sit in the sunshine and read with a cat on my lap. It was idyllic.

No resolutions to 2020. Just trying to keep my head above water and find a job so my parents, cats, and I don't live in our cars. The temp job I mentioned almost a year ago is done. I'd got very good at it by the time my hours ran out -- eleven months will do that -- and I was sorry to leave. The boss tried to keep me, but they don't have the budget for it. I'd much rather be employed than not, and I would gladly take it if offered, but the position never felt like a place to settle, more like a step on the way to something else. Here's my Year in Books, as defined by Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2019/38060115 My favorite books I hadn't read before were Becoming , Into the Drowning Deep , Internment , Circe , The Urban Cycling Survival Guide , and An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth . I read at least that much fanfiction as well, if you count repeats. I keep fanfic on a basic Kindle and read that before bed. I've fa...

The time around the equinoxes is when the sun appears to make the most progress northward or southward every day, so I've been moving things around the garden every week. At the moment, I have: 1. a compost bin with worms doing their thing 2. a few empty pots or pots with dirt waiting to be used 3. a patch of dirt covered with wood chips and pretty rocks (the rest is concrete) 4. a pot of lavender 5. a pot of daisies 6. three pots of amaryllis 7. a pot of geraniums 8. a pot of grass for the cats to munch (and then puke up once they're inside on the carpet) 9. a cheap utility table with boxes of:   a. kale   b. spinach   c. two kinds of lettuce in three boxes The light is complicated because my patio is a 13 by 8 foot rectangle, the long ends north and south. Apartment 8 (directly upstairs from me) has a balcony that shades different parts of the patio as the sun moves each day. The building to the south is two storeys tall, with the added joy of two satelli...

I see weekend and morning bike riders on their ten-speeds with the bike shorts and helmets and looking all sleek and cool and zooming down Pacific Coast Highway. I want to be one of them. I haven't ridden a bike since 1994, though. I rode daily from when I was 6 to when I was about 16, though, so I hoped the adage "It's like riding a bike; you never forget" was true ... about riding bikes. I'm working as a temp at City Hall. The department I work in does several different things, including overseeing the city's bike share program. Once I settled in and learned most people's names, I asked one of the people who oversees bike sharing about it -- specifically, the weight limit for the bikes. Excess weight can pop a tire or cause damage to the frame, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to murder a bike by riding it. He gave a number that is more than 100 lbs more than my current weight, so I created an account with the website. And then I d...

We just had a concert weekend, and it came at the end of a gruelling week. Mom had chest pains on Monday morning, and she was in the ER and then in hospital from about 4 am Monday to 4 pm Wednesday. I missed a day and a half of work (still at the temp job with the city), I had two evening rehearsals, I was fetching and carrying for Mom a lot, and I wasn't eating or sleeping well. I don't think I've gone into a concert weekend so tired, and I'm sorry to say it showed. During the concert, we sang two songs in a mixed formation: sopranos next to altos, and no one was to stand next to anyone singing the same part. I normally stand between two sweet, handsome ladies of mature years. I don't feel out of place with either of them. But mixed, I was between two stunningly beautiful, young, petite women. I felt like a toad amongst roses. I even told some other chorus friends about that, and when I said I was standing between D. and F., they just nodded and made noises of ag...

My background check came through on Wednesday. The job recruiter called and asked whether I wanted to start work on Thursday or Monday. I didn't even think; I blurted out, "TOMORROW" rather emphatically! I got the link to the timecard system, who to report to, and what time and all that. Part of my motivation for starting work asap was to get a paycheck this coming Friday, even if it's rather small. The more I can chuck towards rent this weekend, the less I'll have to pay in late fees when I pay the remainder. And it was nice to start a job on a day when everyone was already in their groove and more relaxed, rather than having the stressful MONDAY energy people often have at high-pressure jobs. This is certainly higher pressure than I've dealt with in over a dozen years, but I welcome it. I learned enough about the phones on Thursday and Friday that I was able to handle a few calls on Friday without having to ask my supervisor what to do. I let her handle ...