1.03.05: Kicking Off the New Year With Steel-Toed Boots

George Washington as a boy was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth—he could not even lie.
Mark Twain

Kicking Off the New Year With Steel-Toed Boots

January 3, 2005

Oh my god, it’s January 4th already. I always spend the first couple days of the new year frozen in time, hoping against hope that the universe will choose this time to cease expanding and start contracting, so time can go backwards and I can grow younger and cuter instead of older and more apt to frighten small children with my foul mouth and my incessant cynicism.

But time, alas, does not want to play nice with me, so I’ll just give up and play by the rules for another year. Here’s what I’ve been doing lately, in the forward-moving linear way that the universe so approves of:

1. Writing
I have a few awesome story ideas bouncing around in my skull, so I’ve spent the past few weeks putting down prose and madly purpling it. (It’s a rough draft, I’m still allowed to purple.) The works are coming along well, but I’ve developed a bad habit of letting myself get caught up in the rush of words and images, so that I find myself talking out loud to the characters, or even acting out scenes in my office.

2. iTuning
It’s a verb, really it is—I’ve been iTuning my entire music library, copying my CDs and downloading MP3s and then organizing the whole mess into categories and sub-categories and sub-sub-categories in my usual picky, neurotic way. Seriously, organizing and cross-referencing 897 songs is a big job. Over the many, many years (three) that I have kept music stored on the computer, I have developed an organizational system based on three things: genre, mood, and character. Genre separate the music into basic groups like Rock/Pop, Opera/Vocal (although most pop songs are vocal, so wouldn’t they all fall into this category? No! NO! MUST NOT QUESTION THE SYSTEM!), Celtic, Soundtrack, and so on. Mood cross-organizes the various pieces into playlists (carefully, oh so carefully arranged) centering around a specific mood—Sad, Happy, Angsty, Gloomy, Pre-Menstrual, etc. This is nice, because then I can sit down at the computer and go right to a custom-made playlist that perfectly fits my mood. Character is for my writings—as part of my initial character outlines, I usually organize a playlist containing songs that describe (in lyrics or in tune) a character’s history, personality, or general outlook on life. These are nice as well, because one of the most interesting things you can learn about a person is what kind of music s/he likes, and this really helps me get into my character’s heads.

On the downside, this kind of anal-retentive organization takes a lot of time, energy, and mental concentration (no, really).

3. Having Things Done To My Boob
“Boob” is a stupid word. It just sounds… comical. Upper-torsal protuberances can be comical, yes, but sometimes they must be taken seriously. “Tit” is too harsh, “breast” is too clinical, “bosom” is archaic, and “hooter” is just wrong. So what should I call it?

Guess I’m stuck with “boob.”

Anyway, this boob apparently wants to be taken seriously, because it’s gone all lumpy. Well, not all lumpy—just one little lump down in the lower part. I wrote a whole post in which I attempt to bury my nagging sense of worry under a heaping load of humor, but I haven’t finished the post yet because I still haven’t heard back from the doctor about my biopsy results. Note to doctor: I had a five-gauge needle stuck straight into my breast multiple times, I bled, it hurt, my breast turned freaky colors over the course of the next four days, and now my boob’s all bruised and bandaged and you still haven’t gotten back to me with the biopsy results. I AM OUT OF PATIENCE AND I HATE YOU. Call me back, or I will march right down to your dinky-ass clinic and burn the place to the ground. Thank you.

4. Icing Over And Subsequently Flooding
Seriously, everything in the immediate vicinity of Romy and her cohorts has been swallowed by the recent cold snap and the resulting solidified liquid. Ice on the outside and the inside of the windows—and then you turn up the heat because it’s ten degrees below freezing in the living room, and the ice melts and drips ALL OVER EVERYTHING, including (but not limited to) couches, bedding and mattresses, electronic accessories, delicate musical instruments, beloved books, and confused cats. (Now she’s afraid of ice. As if Piper needed another phobia.) Cue Romy running around with towels, tissues, important legal documents, anything to stem the flood—but all in vain, for everything is now wet and must be dried out. Winter, you are a bitch.

Wow. Only four freakin’ days into 2005, and I’m already starting to whine.