Pass the benadryl

I may need to resort to something stronger to fight allergies. (If I do take Benadryl...well, it will have to be at night, and it will have to be the children's sized dose, because it really affects me strongly. Just like caffeine does. And any decongestant...and lots of other things. I rely mostly on non-medicine-based home remedies for stuff because I seem to have such a twitchy liver.)

Last night was not a good night. I got to thinking about, "Okay, you say you can't ask people for help, when have you asked people recently" and then thought of the broom on my roof. Yeah, the broom that I lost up there last summer. A couple months back I asked a couple people for help in getting it down. In both cases I got a "Yeah, sure, I'll call you and come out and help you" and got the same response when I asked the person again.

And they never came.

So, whatever. I decided the broom will stay up there until it falls down, I figure out who I can HIRE to get it down (some workmen won't go up on roofs - liability issues), or until I can borrow a taller ladder than I own (and get it to my house somehow, my car being too short for most ladders) and get it down myself.

Actually, on a few occasions when I've asked for house-assistance in re: something I shouldn't have to hire someone for, I've gotten similar responses: "Yeah, sure, I'll call you" and then nothing.

So I give up.

Intellectually, I tell myself that people are busy and they forget. But emotionally - and this was what killed me so last night, lying in bed, trying to sleep - it bugs me that I apparently am not important enough to merit 25 minutes of someone's time some afternoon. And I'm not good enough at being pushy or being whiny (well, whiny at specific people) to annoy them into helping me - and I don't want to do that, anyway.

So the lesson I get: either hire someone or do it yourself, 'cos you're in this all alone, kid.

Not a very happy lesson, that.

(And seriously: WHY AGREE TO DO SOMETHING YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO DO? I mean, is it really that hard to say, "Gee, I'm awfully busy right now" or "I hurt my back a few weeks ago and really shouldn't be doing that" or "Afternoons are a really bad time for me." As hard as it is for me to say "no" to people asking me to do stuff, if I have a legitimate reason - even if I'm just super busy - I can say "no." And I'd rather say "no" than say "yes" and have to call the person up and explain that I can't do it after all.

But this is one of the things that makes me crazy about people. Or maybe people that surround me, I don't know - I've had so many cases of people agreeing to do stuff and then just never doing it. Or people setting meetings with me and never showing up when I made an effort to be there.

I know people don't realize that that behavior is gradually "breaking" me for wanting to work with people, but it is. I have a really hard time trusting that anyone will do anything they agree to, which is why I tend to worry so much.)

So I don't know. But not getting help when help is offered is just something else that makes me not want to bother asking.

***

Last night, I picked up the front of the Ropes and Picots cardigan and started working on it. And I looked over at the sleeve of Potter and thought, "You know, you really should finish that sweater before continuing on this one." And then I thought: "You're certainly not very regimented about how you do your projects; you start stuff willy-nilly and sometimes take years to finish something someone else might knock out in a couple weeks."

And then I realized: forget about being 'regimented' about the timeline of my knitting (and quilting, and embroidery, and crochet) projects: I'm so regimented in the rest of my life that this is one area where I can actually relax and not worry about being "responsible" all the time.

In a lot of ways, I measure out my life with Alfred Prufrock's coffee spoons: most days, it's get up between 4:30 and 5 am, put in an hour's time on the cross-country ski exerciser. Wash, dress, make my lunch (for some reason, I find few quotidian things as depressing as packing a lunch every day), eat breakfast, practice piano for 20 minutes if I have time.

Go over to work, check my e-mail, prep for morning classes. Teach, prep the stuff I need to have ready for the next day. Go home, sometimes stopping at the grocery or pharmacy on the way. Do the rest of piano practice. Fix dinner. Do any slop-over work I couldn't get done during the day. Maybe do a load of laundry. Go to bed and read for a while, but go to bed early enough that that 4:30 wake-up won't be so painful.


And sometimes: go to meetings, even though there's just about any other place that I'd rather be. Make and go to dentist appointments. (That's how I knew I was a really-real grown up: when I started making my own dentist appointments). Doing volunteer work. And on, and on.

And it does get to be a lot, sometimes. It does get to the point where I'm overwhelmed.

And so I need something where I can be a little undisciplined and do what I want and not worry about what others think (That's also why I will never enter a quilt in a contest, or enter my knitting at the fair. I think having it judged - even in the friendly "here's how to improve" sense would destroy the enjoyment for me. I'm good enough at seeing the flaws in my work that I don't want someone else pointing them out to me.)

But I admit, there are times when I just want to kick over the traces. Skip a meeting I said I'd go to and be totally unapologetic and not try to come up with a good explanation why. Or sleep in for a week and not drag my tail out of bed when any reasonable person is still asleep in order to exercise. Or go and stay in a nice, fancy hotel somewhere and order room-service for dinner every night and not worry about how much money I was burning through. (Though I've never done any of those things, and probably never would, sometimes I really want to).