CRUMMY
Even as total searing ratbag days with added value gremlins and 50% extra FREE go, this has been AN UNUSUALLY CRUMMY DAY.
Darkness has the Streaming Yellow Squirts.
Computer Men were here for three hours. I have now begun a new, fresh list of the things that don’t work and mysterious error messages.
And in a manoeuvre of highest shiniest possibly Guinness record klutzery, I threw salad dressing all over the kitchen. I’m thinking, why is it that when you’re already under stress, you’re more likely to do something to increase it?
Darkness is at the moment a lot less bothered by his intestinal situation than I am. I am greatly bothered, both because no no no no no I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it any more, I can’t stand it for the next fifteen years, and also because I’m going to London on Thursday.* I do not want to be wondering what’s going on at home.**
I didn’t have as much time to traumatise this morning as I might however because we had to get our hurtle in sharpish to be prepared for the Descent of the Computer Men.*** I had a fairly long list of basilisks to be slain† and we all settled down in my workroom††, me to finish [sic] writing this really short, teeny weeny, nearly microscopic barely there short story for the extra material for the reissue of WATER–perching at the edge of the table that has my old electric piano keyboard on it, she who began all this piano nonsense three years ago, because that was the only space left†††, and Computer Men to do . . . whatever the heck it is that Computer Men do do, aside from speaking to each other in tongues.
A few of you who were so injudicious as to saunter through the forum this morning caught me in the act of whizzing around backstage posting reckless comments and trying to make various computers crash. Mine all crash with gay abandon, of course: wheeeeeeeeeee, splat. And then Computer Man B‡ set me up with one of their computers . . . and I couldn’t get it to crash for love, money, nor hellhound participation.
Put me back on one of mine and hey presto: prang.
So. Software. Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. . . .
To make a long, gruesomely continuing story short, they’ve taken away my Oxford English Dictionary‡‡ and my thesaurus. I can’t bloody live without my thesaurus–never could, and with advancing middle-toward-disintegration age it’s getting worse fast–but the awful, horrible, unspeakable, Lovecraftian truth is that the Oxford iFinger set–compact dictionary, thesaurus, book of quotations and itty bitty encyclopedia–has always been cranky and unstable and prone to popping up where you don’t want it. I still use it about a million times a day. Computer Man A said comfortingly, maybe you just need an update . . . but the amazon customer reviews slam the latest update in terms that sound only too familiar to me juggling the old one. If anyone can recommend a software thesaurus (or better yet a package), please say so pleeeeease? I want something I can load and have and use, like on a train or an airplane.‡‡‡ I also don’t do wireless–I have a rant about wireless, but I’ll merely say here that wireless is one of the many things implicated in ME, and I’m not going there–so when I take my laptop to bed, I want to take my external vocabulary with me. Yes, of course I still have my ancient well-worn paper Roget. I still use it too, because it’s ultimately better than the Oxford (say I). But I put up with enough nonsense from my computers: I want the good stuff as well as the virtual blocked drains and the funny smells and the mice eating your flower bulbs and the delivery man not knocking loudly enough even though you’re there and putting one of those slips through your door that says ‘hi, we tried to deliver a package today, and you weren’t there, and if you want your package now you’re going to have to drive to Canada, bringing sixteen pieces of photo ID and a full set of mature hen’s teeth. By Tuesday, or we’ll send it back.’
Meanwhile I can’t decide if I want the answer to be the Oxford iFinger or not. A solution would be wonderful . . . but my thesaurus. . . . Without my thesaurus, you don’t want me on the forum. Remember that question every relatively median, unchallenged kid goes through a period of asking every relatively median, unchallenged person he or she knows: Which would you rather be, blind or deaf? NEITHER ONE.
And then the salad dressing. . . . Computer Men had finally left, smiling benignly,§ and I was finally going to have lunch. I’d fed hellhounds and Peter was having his coffee and playing patience. I was shaking the bottle of salad dressing. The thing is I’d checked that the cap was on tight, but it’s one of those horrible narrow necks with only about a quarter-turn of ridge for the cap brim to tuck itself under. And this particular salad dressing did not want to homogenise. And then the lid came off.
And I had salad dressing all over the kitchen. It came out with such violence that where there’s a small gap between the doors of my below-counter cupboard, it had sprayed through the crack and all over the contents of the cupboard. And no, despite the evils of menopause, this was not a low-fat dressing. This was the proper oil-based item.
And I stood there, dripping with salad dressing, and screamed I hate my life! I hate my life! I hate my life! And danced up and down on the spot once or twice for good measure§§, like a toddler having a tantrum.
Peter went on playing patience.
Hellhounds remained in their crate.
They know me well.
I now have a very, very, very, very, very, very clean kitchen. The Aga still smells faintly of hot salad dressing but it will have to do.
And now it’s time to try to post this and see if I can make anything untoward happen.§§§
And if Obama doesn’t win tomorrow, I’m moving to Pluto. No, Eris. No, Chiron. Why, as the saying goes, on earth, would you name something after Eris? If she were still Xena, I’d move there. It’s almost far enough away from Sarah Palin.¤ Not quite. Almost. Chiron isn’t really far enough at all, but I’d rather live with a centaur than a goddess of war with a seriously dysfunctional kid.
There’s a positive forest of lit candles going here. . . . No, no, I will blow them out very carefully before I go to bed. . . .
* * *
*Don’t forget: Murder One, 76-78 Charing Cross Road, easy walking distance from Waterloo station and around the corner from the Leicester Square tube stop, 6 pm Thursday the 6th of November. Be there or be square.
** You do not want me to be wondering what’s going on at home. Sunshine? What about it? It’s gone till March. Vampires? Vampires? Oh, don’t bother me. . . .
*** Look! What is that strange silvery object in the sky! What is that strange purple light–AAAAAAAAAAAUGH!
† That phrase originally read ‘dragons to be slain’ and I wrote it and looked at it and thought, dragons! We don’t slay dragons in this house! Now all I have to do is write a story about friendly basilisks^ and . . . we’re back to Cthulhu.
^ They wear blindfolds in case of accidents
†† Hellhounds were delighted. More people. More! Computer Man A has to be somewhat protected from canine enthusiasm^, but Computer Man B, who has a dog of his own, is fair game.
^ I think I’ve blogged before about Chaos’ interesting habit of rubbing his head fondly against the inside of your thigh . . . and then raising his head sharply like Grond against the gates of Gondor. I’m a girl, I don’t have dangly bits, I don’t much care.^ Computer Man A turned an interesting shade of puce. Computer Man B knows to dodge.
^ Yup. Fabulously irresponsible. Yup.
††† Which involved one foot in the hellhound bed. This delighted them possibly even more than the invasion of Computer Men.
‡ I am still resisting naming them because they shouldn’t be regulars in the blog dramatis personae and I feel as soon as I give them names they really are going to move in. It’s a small house, what if they snore? I used to worry about this when there was only one of them. I’m a light sleeper. Fortunately. Given hellhound digestion.
‡‡ Yes, the huge eleventy-seven volume one. The one that you go to look up a word and four hours later you notice it’s got dark out. Or possibly light.
‡‡‡ Okay, train. Since I’m not going anywhere farther than two hours from home for the next fifteen years.
§ Wait’ll they get the new list, tomorrow morning.
§§ See: 50% extra FREE
§§§ Computer Men are sufficiently clued in, having spent a lot of time on this blog and forum themselves in the last few weeks, to request humbly the Lighting of Candles.
¤ Blackbear sends us this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh9BmNuqeiQ
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