In which I vent after a less than satisfying day...

I try to not use this space to moan too much about my personal stuff. I know no one wants to hear (read) it when I'm having a bad day. And most of what I have to complain about are decidedly first world problems, and much less serious than what other people are going through.

I understand that.

But, every once in awhile, I just have to vent. This is one of those times*

Start with the firecrackers that have been going off every night for the past three in my neighborhood, since they are the most immediate issue. Apparently, some of my neighbors either don't have a calendar or don't know how to read the one they have. The Fourth isn't until next week, people. I don't have anything against fireworks (except for their unfortunate tendency to start fires and blow peoples fingers and faces off sometimes), but I don't want to hear them every single night. A couple of nights ago, it sounded like they had a cannon out there.

Second of all, I haven't been able to concentrate at all today to get any writing done. It's been going really well since the end of last week. I've started the second draft of the novel I'm working on, and I've written nearly 11,000 words since last Friday night. Now? Nothing. I sat here and stared at the computer monitor for ages tonight, and...crickets.

Now, I know myself and my writing habits well enough to know that these things go in cycles, and that in a day or two I'll be on track again. At times like this, however, knowing that doesn't help.

So, after I gave up working on the novel, I figured I could get a newsletter I'm responsible for publishing up and going. I have a Saturday night deadline on that, and much of it is already written. But, I need to get everything into one document and formatted. Except, I couldn't get the reformatting to work, no matter what I did. I finally gave up on that, too. I try not to be a quitter, but it was either that or throw my laptop across the room, and that wouldn't have made anybody happy.

And then there's the job search. Nothing going on there, either. On the rare occasion I find a job posting that I have qualifications for, a talent for, and half a chance of getting, it turns out to be too far away for it to be practical for me to apply, considering that I cannot afford to relocate. As Roseanne Roseannadanna (the Sainted Gilda Radner) used to say on the old (good) Saturday Night Live, "It's always something."

I could just give up and go to bed. I've gotten the things I really needed to do, done today. Had a meeting at CVP, which went well, and where I volunteered to help with my committee's presentation during Seminar Week in a couple of weeks. I watered the plants (and discovered that I've got lots of cherry tomatoes on the vine and ripening). I washed dishes. I did the grocery shopping that I needed to do.

The hang-up with going to bed now, though, is that it isn't even 10 p.m. If I go to bed now, I'll wake up at three in the morning and not be able to go back to sleep. Since I don't have to get up early in the morning, that idea is a nonstarter. I might be able to find a book to start reading, but in the mood I'm in that's probably a long-shot.

Ah, well. I've probably vented enough for now, and it's served it's purpose; I feel slightly calmer now than I did when I started writing about half an hour ago or so.


So, if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. I promise this isn't going to turn into an "oh-poor-me" blog. It's just been one of those days.


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*Five extra points to whoever can identify the movie this line comes from.