Girl Unlocked

Day 40: Cool Unfuckings

We have a TARDIS house full of people!

That means awesome conversation and cooking and late nights. With my heroes and towering legends, because that’s how we roll.

That means little to no writing.

But I’ll tell you what I DID do, for it is a MAJOR THING.

I got amazing astonishing nigh godlike produce at the market LIKE AN ASPARABOSS and I could not fit it in the horrible fridge face putting it in with the three months old leftovers.

SO I UNFUCKED THE FRIDGE.

Now, I was so focused on AW YEAH JUST TACKLE THAT BITCH DON’T STOP DON’T LOOK JUST BRAWL that I forgot to take a before picture. You are just going to have to trust me that it was a

There were like four things of cottage cheese from 2011 and unnameable unimaginable horrors and possibly the Wicked Witch of the West melted in my crisper drawer. And because Beastly was raised behind the Iron Curtain he literally clasped an old-ass plastic wrapped chicken leg to his chest and insisted BUT THIS CHICKEN WILL MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. And I was all:

But now the fridge looks like TA DA:

   

Also that is my dog.

Possibly next week I can triage the deadlines and fix it up. Possibly I have entered the Gonna Be Late, Nothing To Be Done Zone. Either way, CAN I GET A FRIDGE AMEN?

Day 17: Mary Had a Little Unfucking

I made my bed this morning! And wiped down the bathroom counters and floor around the toilet while I was washing my face and brushing my teeth and all.

Beastly brought me coffee in bed because he is a rockstar executive husband.

Then I got the laundry into the dryer, made breakfast smoothies for both of us, and OMG SIT THE FUCK DOWN IT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL.

I PRACTICED MY ACCORDION.

(Shit, I think I actually have Joan’s EXACT SAME accordion! Mine is named Boethius, but hers is probably not named that.)

I started accordion lessons like a year and a half ago, but then I had a BAZILLION books come out and my teacher is only on the island during the summer and I didn’t practice and blah blah blah I’ve let my beautiful red instrument languish.

I AM NOT GOOD AT IT.

But I played Mary Had a Little Lamb and Goodnight Ladies this morning, which aren’t syncopated and thus aren’t very hard, but still. I’ve got the right and left hand for The Saints Go Marching In and am trying to put them together, and that IS syncopated, so basically…

But I’m COMMITTING LIKE A DUDE IN A ROM COM to practicing every day this week. Seems easier if I do it first thing in the morning. I LOVE YOU ACCORDION.

It is PREPOSTEROUS that I am an adult, classically educated person and I can’t play a musical instrument. GRANTED, I could have picked something NOT TECHNICALLY A ONE MAN BAND, but SHUT UP the accordion is AWESOME. I have a DVD of lessons, the songs are fairly lame but useful. If I do manage to practice every day for a week I am giving myself permission to buy this shirt. CARROT AND STICK BABY.

So for my next today-trick I will:

• Brainstorm ideas for my 3 projects what need ideas
• Make moar progress on the closet of doom (20/10)
• Open savings account (wibbleterror)
• Entertain friends who are coming for dinner

Day 3/4: The Unfuckable Lightness of Being

So, I really didn’t get anything at all done yesterday. THE UNIVERSE WAS AGAINST ME.

We spent the night in New Hampshire and drove back with my singer friend and my cellist friend who are giving a concert at my house this very night. But that pretty much ate the whole day, what with snowstorms and drive time and getting them settled and dinner.

I was feeling kind of crappy about not getting my blog post up at my guest gig til this morning—but my laptop battery died in the car. I missed my conference date with one of my MFA students. I forgot my brush at home so I had weird hair all day.

I feel more or less ok about it, given that guests throw everything into turmoil. Not so great about the missed post/conference, but it was really unavoidable so I am attempting not to tell myself I LOSE AT LOSING and AM A LOSER.

Did not put out my clothes last night either, with the effect that I’m still wearing my Atari PJs at 1 pm (after having gotten the post finished and up). Wow, that has way more of an effect on my likelihood of getting dressed/feeling like Capable Girl than I thought!

Did make my bed. Did feed myself. Put in a load of laundry. Fed the chickens. Mood is kind of flat. Do more coffee to it?

Today I have to make food for the house concert and host. Also make myself look nice for it. Don’t have time to write (I said I could take weekends off though, so I am telling myself I am not allowed to be all APOSTATE! YOU ARE A LAZY SLATTERN! towards myself. Unfuck my Internal Monologue, Yo.)

What can I unfuck today? Email. Ok, email. I can return three emails that I’ve been putting off. That is a thing. That is a thing I can do.

Day Actual 1 (Evening Edition)

ALL RIGHT, SELF. How did the second half of the day go?

Well. I wrote for an hour and a half, attempting the new Do Not Kill Self method.

Bought my plane ticket to New York! Which I am going to on Tuesday! But it stresses me out so much to arrange travel I put it off and get to pay the idiot tax!

I am a fucking peasant when it comes to money. All terrified and THIS ONE POTATO REPRESENTS MY SOUL WHAT DO YOU MEAN COMPOUND INTEREST?

Then…I started to slip into the Internet Pit. It was exciting, that people actually did want to hear about this crap! That my complete inability to run my damn life is moderately amusing! And then there was Reddit and Twitter and mah gossipblawgs. (Yes, shut up, I read celebrity gossip blogs, I could justify with 39 flavors of deconstructive societal classist WHATEVER but this shit right here is supposed to be REAL, SON, so yeah, I know more about Lohan than I should.)

So I started to slide into Stare At the Screen Until Soul Seeps Out Through My Eyeballs mode. And it really was just the prospect of: “if I do more things I can post more funny gifs” that got me out of that funk and down to my office. And people seeming to actually get something out of this mess of goofy gifs and swears. Hi everyone! But it is SO EASY to be like LOOKIT WHAT I DID AFORE NOON. I’M ON BREAK! And I was slumping into that time vortex of click…click…click…refresh.

Obviously, I have Relationship Issues with my Internet.

But then! I was all HULK LIKE THAT ONE SONG and if I did one more thing I could reference it on tumblr! Seriously, that was my motivation. That’s it.

So I made an invoice LIKE AN ACTUAL BOSS. I have never made one before! It was so pretty! I’m gonna get paid!

And I made dinner! I checked my clock, we sat down at 6:20, which is some kind of LAND SPEED RECORD around here. I was bored by the prospects of the only real meat we had, which was trout—delicious, but sort of sits there on the plate like a big lump of protein and it wasn’t inspiring me. SO I POACHED THAT MOFO in coconut cream and almonds, made a strawberry arugula salad and parmesan black pepper bread (not the bread, just the putting cheese and pepper on it) and put the same strawberries on some Irish soda bread for dessert. BAM.

    

Then I cleaned the kitchen THE SAME NIGHT. Like, I got it dirty, and THEN I CLEANED IT. I did not wait for the dishes to gain sentience and judge me! I also mopped the floor! I only did that because we have guests coming on Friday!

AND THEN. HOLY SHIT, GUYS.

WE UNFUCKED CHRISTMAS.

Yes, we still had our Christmas tree up! Outside lights, too! It is Ash Wednesday! SUCCESS.

Beastie and I stripped the tree, jammed it out of the door, boxed everything up, moved the bookcases back into the library and put away the wrapping paper that was STILL HANGING OUT from December.

Much of these are minor victories. It’s easy to do well on the first day of a new plan. The flip side of that CLEAN ALL THE THINGS comic we all love is that it works for a week and then you’re back crying into your gruel. But I’ve been saying “Tomorrow I’ll wake up early and work AND clean AND do things I’m scared of AND have dinner ready before eight AND blog…” basically since I moved to Maine and this is literally the first day I have done it.

CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM.