May Things

I went to a sub friend's graduation this weekend (congrats!).  It occured to me that I was at another sub friend's graduation this time last year.  Is there a pattern forming?  I wonder what graduation I'll be at next year.

I got a bug to try and organize some things and get rid of some old unwanted and unneeded stuff.  Or, at the very least, make better space for it.  Storage is a problem in my house.  Contrary to what one might think upon entering my house, I really do like open, uncluttered spaces... as opposed to a house full of junk rooms.  There's just not that much space to put things out of the way.  I don't have much in the way of closets and so forth.  I do have a store room out back, but it's outside and gets kinda damp... just not the best place for perishables.  So, mostly what I do is just throw a little away while moving stuff from room to room. 

I decided the current tossing-and-moving project should be these old National Geographic magazines I inherited.  They take up about 25 feet of shelf space I could be using for other things.  There's problems involved.  The shelves are way up high, like ten to fourteen feet off the ground, and a little out of my reach.  I can get to the lower ones on a small wooden ladder I have, but the higher ones taunt me.  I'm going to have to use the old, aluminum, outsidesy ladder to get to them.  But it's covered with leaves and dirt and junk.  While I leaned it against the fence to hose it off, I got to thinking (as I envisioned weaving a heavy ladder through a room with breakables and computers) that maybe this isn't such a bright idea, and that someone ought to be talking me out of it.  Well, there's no one around to do so, so I guess I'll press ahead.

The second problem is what to do with all the darn magazines once I get them down.  Seems a waste to throw them away, as some are pretty old and must be worth something to someone.  There's already a glut of them on eBay, though, and they're only going for pennies each.  Maybe if there aren't any friends who want them, I can drop them off at the library for one of their sales or something.  I'm sure they'd reward my donation with sour looks.

I saw two baby bunnies the other day.  Isn't that special?

May the First (Has Encountered an Error)

Sigh.

Just had Microsoft Works crash on me again... five hours and several pages of writing down the tubes.  That is a most disheartening feeling.  Most disheartening, indeed.  Guess I should go ahead and spend the several hundred dollars for a real word processor.  Something with an auto save.

On the plus side, the early morning sky was a pastel haze of pink and purple and the air was full of the scent of honeysuckle and roses.

May is probably my second favorite month behind October.  May here is all full and green and flowery.  It's warm enough that the recent winter is nothing more than faded memory, but cool enough that it doesn't have the heat-blasted aura of summer.  It is most acceptable.

Sticky and Cells

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Soft Yellow

The world is soft and strange outside.  It's the pollen, you see.  Everything's been coated with a thick layer of yellow-green pollen.  It lends an eerie aspect to everything, especially in the evening.  It will soon all be washed away in the rain.  I'm glad I don't have allergies.

The other day I saw more caterpillars than I've ever seen in my life.  It was a caterpillar parade!  Thousands of them, all marching along the edge of a long, stone wall in twos and threes...  a virtual river of undulating fur.  I wish I'd had my camera with me.

I watched Edward Scissorhands last night.  I must have been about 15 when I first saw it, and I connected with it even then.  I've seen it many times since, and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.  In particular, it's the scene near the end where the girl tells him "Hold me."  He wants to more than anything, but fearing he'll hurt her, replies "I can't" and walks away.  Then she makes him hold her, anyway.  I sometimes feel very much like that.  Being the monster that I am, I'm sometimes afraid of holding the girl, knowing that I'll hurt her.  And, I suppose, I want the girl to make me hold her, anyway.

Spring is Sprung

Certainly feels springish out there, anyway.  Various trees are flowering, bulbs are bulbing, and the redbuds are going all purply.  Even the trees are growing new baby leaves.  And I got bit by a mosquito yesterday.  I'd say it's certainly springy.  Went on a walk this evening and stopped to help a slug cross the road.. cause even slugs need a hand, sometimes.

A sub friend read my latest story (Eudeamon) and liked it so much that she made a figurine of one of the characters.  I was rendered speechless, but was very touched.  Here it is... it's cute!

No one's ever made me a story-related gift before.

My head... my head!

What a miserable day.  A couple hours after I woke up I realized I was going blind... the sure signs of a migraine coming on.  I used to get them in high school, less frequently in college, and none at all in the past few years.  Once one's on its way, there's nothing you can do but cancel your appointments and slink into bed.  Ugh.  At least the worst seems to have passed now and I can see again.  Now I've got a lingering, throbbing headache, but at least I'm not nausious anymore.  And they still don't have a cure for these things.

On the up side this week, the new roof looks splendid.  Seems to have gotten put on without a hitch.  It has a lot more texture to it than the old, light gray shingles that have been up there since before I was born.  Next on the outdoor list is getting new siding or at least new paint.  If I had all my druthers in a row, I wish I could have natural stone siding.. always loved that look.. but that's just way too much money to spend on such a thing.  As for paint, I'd really like something in the mauve-ish area, but a little more subtle.  Or maybe a blue-ish or gray-ish lavender is the way to go.  Then again, I wouldn't want a color that'd lower property values of the whole block.  That's no way to win friends and influence people.

There's guys up on the roof.

You see, I've got a bad case of the squirrels.  For a while now, unbeknownst to me, they've been pulling up the old, brittle shingles and chewing their way into my attic.  What could they want in my attic?  It's slightly warmer in there, yeah, but surely it's not as cozy as a pile of squirrel bodies in a little squirrel nest somewhere.  I didn't even know they were up there until I heard them running around overhead.  So now I gotta get things fixed. 

The price I was quoted for a whole new roof seemed reasonable (actually about what I was expecting to pay for a patch job), so I'm going ahead and getting a whole fresh roof put on.  At the moment, there's shingles flying off the roof every which-a-way.  Hope it all works out well.  And hopefully, I probably won't have to do this again in my lifetime.  I wasn't expecting the workers to show up today, though.  I woke up from a sound sleep and a spooky yet amusing dream about a ghost into asphyxia play in some haunted hotel to the sound of thumpings and bangings.  I honestly thought there were fireworks going off somewhere nearby and went to my window... oooh, it's coming from the roof!

Okay, they're directly above my head now.  I better move in case someone falls through.