I made it. I didn't think I would but then I got sucked into Lookism on Netflix and it's really good and I had a big glass of orange juice to sip so I went to bed just as Amazon sent an email saying that they would try again tomorrow. That my packages aren't coming. That they ran out of time or something.
And we're doing it all again tonight.
My orange juice is two ice cubes, a quarter of a glass of actual juice and then water to the top. The undiluted version is so freaking overly sweet and I grew up in a household where my mother mixed orange juice from concentrate and always added a can of water 'extra' to make it go that much further so to me that's what orange juice tastes like only I'm too lazy to mix the cans. I also am criminally short on freezer space and live with several men who think it's a damn shame how I regiment myself.
Lochlan just wishes I was that sparing with my alcohol. I can drink the whole of a fermented lake. If they added sugar I would be less likely, you know?
All of this wages an ironic war with my love of candy but I clench my teeth at night and they hurt and sugar somehow makes it all worse right now so we are looking at retraining muscles, different pillows, a shit-ton of relaxing techniques and biofeedback and it's maybe ten percent better already.
Have I finished wrapping? No. Do I care? Of course not. Do I have any motivation? None to be seen for hundreds of miles in any direction, thank you. Just grey clouds, swirling wind and that unravelling striped scarf I keep meaning to fix after it got snagged on the picket fence one late afternoon in November.
I am not productive in any creative, meaningful way but I'm not procrastinating either. This morning I did the floors and the beds. The whole house minus the downstairs suite but the theatre too. I swept outside and walked the dog and played with the new kitten, a white Bengal that I weighed days on as she was somewhat feral and unfriendly. Only weeks later and she sleeps in Lochlan's lap as long as he's sitting down. Her name is Aurora. She loves the dog. He thinks she's very interesting.
(I was considering getting a Russian Topaz and then Aurora came along and was touted as unfriendly and not a good choice for adoption and so of course we love a challenge and we gambled and won. How often does that happen?)
My fingertips split from the chemicals and from the dry indoor winter air. I still have my job, though I won't be working many more dates this year. I'd like the next ten days to go by quickly so the days will grow even longer after that. I'd like to have more fun and fret less. Yes, I still fret but I don't care about it so does it even count? And I want to find more of this feuerzangenbowle incense because it smells like Christmas, smells like winter in the woods, a bonfire at the far end of the little bridge just over the brook, a place that felt like it was the middle of nowhere but the highway was only a hundred yards away if you kept walking. My tiny little mind and oversized imagination didn't know that and I was raised by the boys to believe if you walked into the woods they would never end and you would just keep walking until you were lost. Now I see that they said that to keep me from going in alone, but what a gamble. I was such a stubborn little girl that I would have done it just to see if they were right or wrong but Lochlan rarely took his eyes off me and never let go of my hand when we were in the woods, as it were.
I am going to go wrap some presents and listen to some Christmas music, I think. Then I won't feel so bad about the lack of drive or about who has to stay up late and wait for overworked and underpaid couriers.