Carpathia

I can hear my Internet connection. I thought that modem sound was "so '80s." When I scroll the mouse (or sometimes while typing, ie: providing new information), it stops. Would screen mechanisms (ie: hardware) make noises?

No, I'm not crazy. You know by now, don't you, that I don't like weird motorized and constant noises. It's one of the things I dislike about driving on the highway or flying in a plane. Trains are less monotonous-sounding. They are slow. Shouldn't our passenger train trips be faster than our automobile ones? No one is offering any incentive for train travel. I suppose it's relatively affordable, better than a bus, and reading and sleeping are possible (and there's a decent restroom).

I am wearing emerald forest green sweater sleeves on my calves.

They are from a sweater I bought that, being a man's, made me look too manly I thought. Those square shoulder seams are not flattering on me. Also, one of the joint seems (it is thin merino-ish wool and was not knitted in the round, I suppose; actually, for all I know all sweaters are made in flat pieces sewed or knitted together after the fact) split up from the cuff line for a few inches … and so years ago, I chopped it up and now I'm treating them as leg warmers. I wore a summer-length skirt today, so …

The thermostat asked for new batteries today. For some reason, I presumed they ran on an electric line. Surely, there are wires attached to it. I took it off the wall unnecessarily, and so I did see some wires in this hole in the plaster. I hate where the people installed the thing. It's in the living room, facing the front door. There is a corner three feet from it, in a kitchen foyer space, facing the basement door. People are quite stupid.

Today, in fact, I almost ripped the sink out of the wall. Have I ever described the four sinks in the house?

Let me summarize: the pedestal sink of the first floor bathroom (which is right off the dining room … that's some intelligent design, is it not?) is small and appropriate for the space, but it has a cracked basin. In the front, a crack of about 8 inches starts with an even deeper, multi-faceted chip.

The kitchen sink is fine … it is troublesome to keep clean (tomatoes stain, and white porcelain scratches easily as well as poses a danger to dishes and glasses) and was installed incorrectly somehow, so that it has smell issues from time to time (as does the dishwasher that has never been used. I am not sure it was used before we moved in, even.

On the second floor, we have another pedestal sink. It is wide at the top and consequently jammed into the corner space on one side and hovering very close to the toilet on the other. The top is slanted backward by the angle of the one of two brackets on the back that are supposed to anchor it. The wainscoting they put up is not really flush with the plaster wall beneath, and the left anchor apparently never reached anything sound. Hence, the sink collects water (hard to keep clean of muck) and also moves if you touch it. Better yet, the previous owner-installers had thin wedges of pine jammed along its back and sides, so as to keep it from touching the wall? Apparently not well enough, because, best of all, they slopped brown paint all over the undersides and back when they chose to coat every surface (doors, hinges, knobs) with the paint equivalent of chocolate sauce. Yes, it's a bit shiny. That helps to highlight the way the trim paint is only half-scraped along the old woodwork. But I digress. The sink also produces water that smells like an old dishcloth … so you have to let it run for a while if you intend to touch or drink it. Ditto for the kitchen, I had forgotten.

Up on the third floor, I think the sink might also be cracked. If not, there is plenty to love about the clawfoot tub, stained with ashy dirt and streaked with some chemical. It does not wash off, and no one bathes there. It is difficult to clean because the monstrosity was installed without it's two end feet, and the two-by-fours propped under it angle the water away from the drain. They left a fancier faucet set for us (and the other two feet out in the shed where they seem to have forgotten them, the dumbasses), but they installed the pipes, soldered them (nice copper) and did not install any shut off valves. How one is supposed to screw on feet without magically appearing through the floorboards below is beyond me. The whole third floor bathroom is overly large and stupid. I want to remove the tub and move the sink to its pipes, about 5 feet away, then put up a wall where the sink was to create a new and necessary closet. We took down their stupid white pasteboard shelves and poles in the center room there; really, who wants their clothes out in the open and by the air conditioner (also removed; it was huge, unanchored and damaging the window frame)? Awesomely, they must have had the floors redone after this installation, and so in two squares against the wall (about 6 square feet) are rough, glue-ridged areas that are hard to clean. This project seems the most feasible to do, but we had lost the sander for months …

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit crazy. Women are crazy, you know.

I was all hysterical (quietly, but in that state of tear-bursting freakiness — when any speech is poignant) last night while driving to school to drop off my term paper. You may recall that a week ago I was about to skip the last class and call it quits anyway. The paper is not good, and I spent considerable hours on it. I needed many more, but I was not interested in turning my attention in its direction all that often. I like that I did learn a number of things, one of which is that I am too steeped in journalism to know what phrases and patterns constitute academic writing anymore. If I stick around, I'm sure I'll remember, but I have not forgotten that I hate it. I much prefer the sort of thing that used to be in Harper's, for example, or shows up in Slate or Salon, to the sort of articles one can only access while enrolled at a school (academic journals).

I worked from noon Sunday to 4:30 Monday morning before sleeping fitfully for 4 hours. I spent from 10 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m., all of which caused me to forget how much time I spent on Saturday. I have no memory of Saturday, just that I wanted to be at either the version of the Nutcracker that was at Union Station or at a friend's wedding. Sunday, I missed a glorious costume party and a brunch-funny Christmas photo shoot.

Last night I might have been the most dangerous thing on Troost, except I took Gillham instead. It was bitterly cold, and the car was not even warmed up by the time I arrived. My eyes were in perma-wide mode, and I had to keep telling myself to actually look at the traffic lights and decide what they meant before I came up to them. I sliced my over-dry hand on a staple and took a triangle of skin out of a knuckle somehow.

It was cold and I didn't get a university parking ticket.

Today, I got overwhelmed by the necessary order of mundane domestic events that I crouched down and screamed (contralto, I think) for about 4 seconds. It helped.

Somehow, Milo is escaping my wrath. He threw up six feet from my head, in a window sill, probably around 8 a.m. after I had gotten up at 7:30 to feed him … and I didn't hear it. I'm really sick of his eating disorders.

There is a nice labrador up for grabs. Polite, companionable, knows tricks. It's tempting, but I remember what the one psychic I ever saw (I was 12; she was fake) told me, "Don't get the dog." I only remember one other part of that reading. It's funny. More long term commitments are not welcome. I can't keep up with anything as it is, as you know.

Christmas is next week, and that freaks me out. I haven't done anything. I never intend to, and then I panic.

I wanted to accomplish some things today, but I really didn't recover from the sleep disruption; it felt just like when I was at the IRS. That freaky night-shift feeling has changed from the sweet, youthful euphoria of college-time youth to a bleary, wan dehydration. Staying up all night holds no joy now.

It's funny, though, that I start to wake up at 4:30 a.m., even though the hours from 1 on are grueling. The trade-off to "having energy" is that my brain literally ceases to work.

Hallucinations and loss of motor skill. Don't worry, I played it safe; I didn't text while driving. I can't hear the "modem" anymore, just the hard drive. Sweet.