y’know, one of those days where everything just seems to go wrong… Which I am inspired to write about because I hope there is some humor to be had in here, not because I’m looking for sympathy…

It actually started last night. After dinner and attending Bill’s recital with Priscilla, we went to The Union for a swing dance. I was in a weird mood, and quite spacy… as we were about to leave I said “I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I’m going through my lists in my head, and I think I have everything.” I’m going to take away a lesson from this, that next time I have this feel/think conflict, I’m not going to let the “think” side have its way quite so easily.

Somehow, long after we left, I remembered “oh, I took of my undershirts before I started dancing, didn’t I?” Yes, shirts. I’ve taken to wearing a cotton undershirt underneath a ThermaSilk undershirt underneath my normal visible clothing (it’s quite cold here these days). “Oh, and the long underwear, too”. But it wasn’t until this morning that I realized “SH**T! I left my new, wonderful, high-tech North Face GoreTex waterproof shoes that were a Xmas gift from Sue, Michael, Steven AND Kellie!” Now it was panic. Replacing the underwear, not that big a deal. Those shoes would be expensive to replace, and there was sentimental value attached to them.

So, I schemed to meet the Swing Dance club as they were setting up for their workshop today (the Friday dance was the beginning of The Big Red Swing Weekend). That part worked. I was really quite surprised (and panicked anew) when they said that they hadn’t picked up anything like I was describing (by this time I realized that I’d also left a fleece jacket… I mean, someone could have literally (and I do not use the word “literally” casually) left the Union wearing literally nothing but the things that I had left there, and in addition to passing all US decency laws, could have been almost comfortably dressed for a jog in the single-digit weather we’ve been having… in fact, except for the lack of socks, I don’t think this hypothetical person would have even turned any heads.

Well, no sense dragging out the drama, I’m trying to be brief. Turns out the clothes were still in the room where the dance had been, right under the chair where I left them. Thankfully, some group of IU students were setting up for some function in the same room. I thought I’d have to explain that I had been there the night before and left some things there, but instead, they didn’t even seem to notice me. *shrug*

So, this is not such a bad day, is it? No, I was (and still am) REALLY happy that I recovered all of my things. So, I felt (and feel) lucky. I came home, ate lunch, and sat down to do some things on the computer. I’d recently heard some advice to start with the thing that you want to do the least, so rather than play with the things I was excited about, I decided to do something that could count as work except that I don’t get paid for it. Uh, yeah, I’m not up for the description of what I was doing. But suffice to say that the thing I’d hoped to get done in an hour took…

…well, the rest of the day. I got very frustrated with the software I was using. I must also admit, though, that I made a terrible mistake and deleted 500 separate configurations. I was able to restore from a backup, but I undid much of what I had done today. Bother…

But, the real “bad day” feeling came from other things. Smallish things. My washing machine overflowed. Why? I don’t know. The spin cycle has been inching it off its perch and it’s not quite level. Maybe that’s it? Maybe it’s because I had my winter coat in there, and that blocked a drain in there? Or, heaven forbid, a frozen drain pipe? All I know is that I went to go to the bathroom (having to dodge the ironing board that fell from behind a door) and the floor around the washing machine was all wet. So, I set up a fan.

Eventually I ate dinner and gave myself permission to do whatever I felt like. I had to admit, though, I felt motivated to tame this computer problem. So I kept at it. Eventually it got done, but the day was gone. I had pictured myself calling some friends to see if anything fun was happening tonight, but it was after 8pm before I made any calls, and not surprisingly, no one was around. I folded my laundry and while hanging up a towel, I knocked over a glass candleholder in my bathroom and shattered it.

You get the picture. I was even starting to laugh about it at this point. “One of those days”.

Well, I made the best of it. Got away from the computer for a good long while and did some low-risk house cleaning while listening to some music. It’s funny, I don’t listen to music at home all that much, but sometimes it’s really powerful in influencing my mood. Tonight’s selection (Blossom Dearie followed by Queen) definitely lifted my spirits as I did some disgusting drudgery cleaning. I paused and thought about music being like a mood-altering drug, and wondered if most people who listen to so much more recorded music than I do are always getting that kind of reaction from it. I doubt it. But is that because they’re essentially addicts with high tolerances?

I don’t really believe that, but musing about this kind of thing was a good antidote to the trials of the afternoon… say what you want about scrubbing a refrigerator, but you can’t say it feels much like struggling with poorly written computer software. If you scrub, it gets cleaner, you don’t get intellectually “stuck” very often with this kind of work.

So, as I get ready for bed, I’m feeling pretty happy really. I’m lucky to be able to feel that way after one of my bad days. I’ll count my blessings…

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