Monday morning things

* The adult-woman version of the anime-girl-running-out-the-door-with-toast-in-her-mouth is the woman, dressed except for her make-up, realizing that she can hear the garbage truck down the street and she doesn't have the can to the curb yet.

(Fortunately I remembered to put make up on after I came back in, but that sort of thing, it would be like me to forget).

* I hope I don't return home yet again to a tipped-over rollcart I have to try to hoist up. I get that it's hard with those arm-trucks to set them back down neatly, but it seems that every week I come home to a can lying on its side - sometimes in the middle of the drive, so I have to park in the street, get out, move the can, and then drive into the drive. (Sometimes I wonder: if I gave the trash collectors a Christmas tip, would they be more careful? I don't know. I pay enough as it is for trash-pick-up to the city to not want to feel like I have to give a bribe as well)

It's almost too hard for me to lift the rollcart and set it back on its wheels and I always wonder how a v. small person (I am fairly robust and am 5' 7") or someone who was elderly or disabled would manage it. I suppose they have friends or neighbors or grown children willing to help. (but it does seem like one of those things that just should not be; it feels like insult added to injury at the end of the day for me to have to wrench my shoulder hauling the darn rollcart up out of the gutter. And no, just leaving it there isn't an option.)

* Had a colleague dump some stuff on me that felt like emotional labor. I'm not going into details but when I called the person on it (Basically: "This is a problem I cannot fix so why are you burdening me") they essentially said "I'm NOT dumping on you" and I was like, "Gee, from here, it really feels like it."

(Though in the spirit of fairness: I later saw this person haranguing another colleague, and it refutes one of the suspicions I had at the time: that I get this crap because I'm a very feminine- presenting woman and the person my colleague was haranging later on is very much a "man's man." So at least there's that, though I didn't need that stuff dumped on me just then)

I was in the middle of typing an exam at the time, too.

"When people are stressed, they behave less graciously." There are still budget woes here (the problem that precipitated the whole thing was indirectly related to that) and there's also a lot of uncertainty about the future. The person in question is far closer to retirement than I am, and they have a spouse who works so they wouldn't die alone in a ditch of starvation if this job evaporated.

(No, I really wouldn't either, I have investments I could use until I found a new job, but some days it feels that way to me)

* And for some dumb reason after that, I went and looked up "Famous people born in 1969" (I knew Wes Anderson and I guess was still thinking of him after seeing "The Royal Tenenbaums" last night, and I also knew Jennifer Aniston) but I find myself looking at the names and going: do they have it easier than I do? Why have they done objectively "more" with their lives than I have?

I shouldn't have looked it up but you know how sometimes you do the "wiggle the loose tooth" thing on stuff that bugs you?

Also, something that struck me about "Royal Tenenbaums" - aren't a lot of Anderson's movies fundamentally a "the light that failed" story - in the sense of someone with early promise either burning out or failing to live up to it? Perhaps the reason his movies make me sad or uncomfortable is that I sometimes wonder - I was told how smart I was as a kid, and how I'd do "great things" and of course that set me up for disappointment as an adult, because, what is "great"? What would qualify in my mind as "great things"? I don't know. I suspect nothing short of finding a cure for cancer (which, I can tell you, I'm not gonna do at this point) would make me feel like I hadn't somehow failed.

(Or maybe those people were wrong. I was awfully good at taking tests and memorizing material but those kinds of skills have little value in the real world, but they're awfully good at fooling teachers. Especially coupled with someone who has a deferential attitude towards adults: I was a little swot and a teacher's pet, so the teachers liked me and perhaps they thought of me as smarter and better than I was)

* And yeah, it shouldn't matter, except this is the very specific way in which I experience something like a midlife crisis: feeling I haven't done enough or am not good enough.

Honestly, it would be more fun if I were the type to buy a sports car I can't afford or dye my hair fuchsia.

* Though perhaps a happier midlife-crisis thing, if I don't worry too much about what other people would think of me about it: I have pretty much managed to surround myself (in my house) with cute stuff. My living room and bedroom the most, but even my kitchen has cute tea mugs, and a bright-pink fake cuckoo clock. And my dining room has some colorful glassware and a cute tablecloth. And of course my living room has the Pony Kickline on top of the bookshelves, and some of the translucent blindbags lined up on the window ledges, and the fairy lights are still up, and I have stuffed toys on my sofa.

And I need all of these things. NEED them. (And more and more, I'm seeing stories - either fictional stories* or news stories - acknowledging that adults CAN find comfort in stuffed toys, and that, you know, there's really nothing wrong or sick about that. Now, granted, I would not carry my Applejack into class with me or strap Pfred into the passenger seat while driving (not even to try to use an HOV lane; he doesn't look human enough and anyway, that's cheating). But at home I can have them and they do make me feel better and you know, it's a simple thing, and it's better for me than drinking alcohol or smoking weed or eating more sweets than I normally do....)

(*The latest Louise Penny novel I read had a scene where Gabri won a stuffed lion at a carnival for Olivier and then one of Gamache's colleagues....why can I not remember his name now....winds up kind of adopting it (taking it and actually holding it on occasion))

And again: if I had to, I could probably live without these things - without all the blindbag ponies or the stuffed toys or the fun little vintage things - but I don't have to, and so I should not have to.

 * I stayed up too late last night looking at stupid stuff on Youtube - an uncompressed version of some video-game music from Doom that essentially sounded like potty noises, and then people turning their Roombas into fighting machines (the contest was to pop balloons). I laughed pretty hard at the time but I regret it now.

I'm so boring, my version of a "bender" is watching dumb stuff on YouTube and then being tired the next day.

* I think I'm done with local news. This morning they reported on a string of burglaries a couple counties south of me and spent about a minute on the story, and then lavished five minutes (roughly) on one of those "Florida Man" stories where someone gets themselves in trouble with the law in a highly stupid way and I was like, "I could use more detail about the LOCAL burglaries so I could know what to do to avoid becoming a victim" but of course, entertainment value and the freak-show that modern life has become seems to be more important and probably gets more eyeballs.

Once again, I think of my plan to offer a "Just News" channel that ran the important news stories - no celebrity fluff, no dumb-criminal stories, no oversweetened Human Interest stuff - and repeated it every 15 minutes or so. Or maybe devoted 15 minutes to Europe news, 15 minutes to The Americas, 15 minutes to Asia, and 15 minutes to Africa....and then loop it around. (And yeah: Australia would have to go in with Asia, I suppose).

(there is an equivalent of what I called Just Weather - "WeatherNation," which my parents get on DISH and which is better in some ways than The Weather Channel because they continue to show weather forecasts into the evening instead of switching over to reality shows unless there's some major weather thing affecting a populated area)

* I really hope my Doki Doki box (which is supposed to be on its way) is waiting for me when I get home today. This month's one is supposed to be especially good (Hina Matsuri: girl's day) and I will be v. sad if this is the one that winds up getting stolen out of my mail.

Because now I just expect a certain percentage of my mail to disappear. Which is sad. (I should probably make it known that if anyone sent me a card and I didn't thank you, it's because I didn't receive it.)

* And darnit, but the free "Pore-fessional" (ugh) pore-minimizing concealer that was the freebee with my birthday? Works REALLY well. But I kept looking at it and going "A tiny little tube they say is valued at $12? I probably can't afford more when I run out." But a quick check of the Ulta site shows that a full sized tube is only a couple bucks more than the Clinique product I currently use - and this one seems to do a better job of moisturizing and color-balancing, so....maybe I buy that kind from now on. (And anyway: I guess it rewards them for giving the free trial size; you find something you like, maybe, and keep buying it. And yeah, I tend to be a sucker for the "Hey, it's your birthday, here's free stuff!" promotions)