Of course, there comes a time when I lose my ability to think critically or creatively. I work myself stupid. I really do. And then I spend a day or so kind of wandering around, wanting to work but not being able to focus on anything and hating myself for being such a slacker.

It’s a harsh spiral to be stuck in, believe you me.

So, for the last couple of weeks I have been making a concentrated effort to create some semblance of a Work Day. With real Working Hours and a Work Stopping time. I’ve kept the chat clients (the ones for personal use anyway) off during the day and have been getting better at getting started on my work before the afternoon rolls around. What is tripping me up is the stop time. I get stuck in a “but I can write a few more words… and I can still write just a few more words… I can hash out another page” mindset and it is really hard to make myself put the work away and just…be.

It is especially difficult on days like today, when I did not actually accomplish much real work during the day. I had stuff to do out of the house this morning and then I met my friend Indy for a co-working session in which I planned out a bunch of work to complete tomorrow and Friday (did I mention I’m doing my best to take my weekends off from work too?) and I guess that counts, but it doesn’t feel as productive as actually whipping out a few pages of rough draft or fine tuning something before turning it in.

But I’m still telling myself “self, it is evening time. Put the work away and watch something fun. Read something fun. DO SOMETHING FUN.”

It’s weird. And difficult. And it makes me scared for my finances but I also know that letting my brain get rest endangers my finances as well.

It’s just… you know? I do not do relaxation well.

Thank you, thank you, that is the one and only time that I will serenade you. Until I forget about this post and do it again.

It’s always hard to get started on a work week after a relaxing and fun weekend.

On Saturday I went to see some Star Trek improv with what turned out to be a huge group of friends (this is what happens when you talk about your plans on the Internet) (which is why I talk about my plans on the Internet). It was held at the Funhouse Lounge (which has the scariest clown room ever) and we got there three hours early so that we would be able to find seats all together, hang out and play games. We played a rousing and long game of Cards Against Humanity (which I will be buying as soon as they make more of it) (and I have a few spare bucks)-one of the few games that is possible to play with fifteen people. Then… oh then. There was Star Trek improv.

Star. Trek. Improv.

It was so much fun.  They have a couple more episodes that they’re improving throughout this month and you can bet your sweet bum that I will be going back to see their “Borg” episode.

On Sunday I spent a relaxing and lovely day with the wonderful J, exploring the Alberta arts district (aka walking all along Alberta in search of food that didn’t involve a ninety minute wait) and hanging out. On the way home we decided to try out the new freezey drink things at McDonalds and you guys. Normally my approach to McDonalds is “eat it, try not to admit it and definitely don’t think too hard about what it is that you are putting into your body” but the frozen Strawberry Lemonade that I got? That was a spot hitter. And then some. YUM.

It’s really rare that I will take a full weekend to relax and just…enjoy my friends and some free time and this was the second weekend in a row that I was able to do this. I feel super appreciative of it in my warm, squishy and G-RATED areas (get yer minds out of the gutter. Jeez).

So for a long time people have been telling me that it is not only possible to substitute ground turkey for ground beef in some recipes but that it is virtually impossible to tell the difference between the two, taste-wise.

Pfffft. Whatever. Turkey and beef do not taste even remotely similar to each other, I thought.  These people are carazay.

Then I thought, “self, it’s so much better to actually try something before you pass judgment on it. How many times do you get irritated because people don’t believe you even though you are absolutely right about everything ever?” So I bought some ground turkey and made spaghetti sauce with it. I made it exactly the way I usually do, except that I used ground turkey instead of ground beef.

And I’ll be damned if it didn’t taste EXACTLY THE SAME.

Apparently I can be wrong sometimes. Who knew? (Shut up)

The problem, though, is that it does not look exactly the same. As I was cooking the turkey I was all “it’s weird. It’s weird. It’s turning white. I know that’s what turkey does when you cook it but… weird! WEIRD! This looks weird!” and it did. As someone who is used to darker spaghetti sauce, this stuff (though tasting the same) looked… weird. Not necessarily a bad weird, but a difficult to pass of as looking appetizing weird. While it was in the pan, though, I could approach it as “I’m cooking something new! ish! Look at me growing!” and feel intrigued by the weirdness of its appearance.

And then I poured it over some spaghetti noodles.

You. Guys.

It was not an….unfamiliar looking substance. In fact it looked really familiar.  Anybody who has ever walked up or down a dormitory hall staircase the day after finals are over would recognize it immediately. Or who might be walking next to the exit ramp of one of your more… stomach-lurching carnival rides. Or down any urban street with a bar on it early in the morning before the street and sidewalk cleaners have done their thing. The only thing I have ever seen look less appetizing on a plate was this thing they used to force on us in middle school called “Cheese Veggie Bake” which looked like something my cat horked up.

It is a good thing I tasted that sauce while it was still in the pan and only looked vaguely weird. If I had simply been presented with a plate of the finished product… there is NO WAY I would have gone anywhere near it. Not even to be polite.

But I ate it. Like a grownup. And it was really REALLY tasty.

Next up: learning to eat with a blindfold on. I can do it and so can you!

Instead I spent the evening holed up at home because? I’m pretty sure? the Universe is out to get me today.

I woke up from a gunky dream… I’m not entirely sure what all went on in it. I know it prominently featured my ex-husband and that I woke up feeling trapped and sludgey–and it took me a minute to realize that it is now and not this time last year.

Then I had to deal with a shady client payment snafu (they are par for the course when most of your business is conducted online, there are always a few gross characters that ruin it for all of the awesome people who are out there) that involved a call to PayPal and having to dig up some emails and stuff.

Then I got a massive nosebleed that took forever to stop.

All before ten AM.

Among other things, this morning and afternoon: I forgot my brush at home.  The ATM tried to eat my deposit without crediting my account. I accidentally dumped my bag of library books on the floor at lunch (thankfully I had already put my food down). My stupid nosebleed kept starting up again.

All that by 3 this afternoon. Which is when I gave up.

I adore Jen Lancaster. I really do. I’ve gone to three of her readings already. They are always a good time and I always leave feeling happy and inspired for my own projects (inspiration which, frankly, I am in dire need of right now) but I had the feeling that if I went back across town instead of staying at home and working I’d accidentally bring my cloud of doom with me and infect everybody there.

The last thing I want to do is put this kind of luck on Jen Lancaster with whom I wish I could be BFFs.

So I stayed home. And worked. And then made some spaghetti because hi, comfort food.

I feel bad about standing up one of my favorite writers but there will be other signings (hopefully) and you can bet your butt I’ll be at those.

That’s a good guy right there, that is.

Then, on Sunday, we went to see The Avengers.

I will write more about the movie later. I want to actually talk about it, but I know people are still seeing it. Plus, after taking a whole weekend off (the LUXURY of it all!), I’m having a little bit of trouble getting started back up again. My momentum, it is lagging.

Still, it was nice to have some me time… and a little weird. But mostly nice.

“huh.” I thought.

I opened and shut the door a few times, to see if I could figure out what the problem was. From what I could tell, when the door was starting to close, it was pushing up the little switch that turned off the light but then the switch simply wasn’t staying as…up…as it needed to go. I figured it was a problem with the switch and, since a light bulb not turning off is not the biggest deal in the universe and something that I could probably solve myself (I solved this problem by sticking a small pad of Post It’s in there so that the switch would stay up) I didn’t tell my landlord about it.

A couple of days later the bulb burned out (I was only using the Post Its during the day when I was home because leaving them there when I left the house just seemed like a bad idea…a worse idea than using the post-its in the first place) and I thought “well that’s that. All fixed!” And forgot about it.

Over the last week or so I’ve noticed that I had to be quite deliberate in the shutting of my refrigerator door or it wouldn’t stay shut. I couldn’t just give it a nudge and let physics do the work because it would just pop back open. This was annoying but, again, nothing super crazy or damaging or worrying (at least to me) so I didn’t run to my landlord about it. I thought maybe I needed to clean the…sealer rubber thingie or something but made a note to talk to my apartment complex’s maintenance guy about it the next time I saw him…which turned out to not be until today.

Because!

Last night, I went to retrieve a soda from inside my fridge and…well…the door just… swung right off. Like…OFF off.

“Huh.” I thought

“I guess people really WOULDN’T like me if I’m angry” was my second thought…and then I applauded myself for being able to reference comic books in spite of, you know, pulling my refrigerator door clean off it’s hinges. And then I realized what had happened and spent a few minutes calling out things like “Are you KIDDING ME?!?” to the Universe.

I managed to get the door sort of stuck back on (aka wedged into place) and first thing this morning went to find the maintenance guy and talk to the landlord (who gave me a stern talking to about waiting until the last minute to report things) (apparently the light switch not working was sign one that something was about to go awry with my refrigerator door.

The good news is that the maintenance guy (who I adore because he is super funny) managed to fix the door. And then he reinforced both it and the door to my freezer. And replaced the bulb inside my refrigerator (with one of the energy saving kind so now the inside of my refrigerator looks kind of like a red light district). And then thanked me for not actually calling the maintenance line last night when the door first came off. All is as it should be now… except I’m kind of afraid to touch my refrigerator.

Because really. You WOULDN’T like me when I’m angry.

So… I talk a lot about comments. I ask questions to try to get comments. I actively encourage people to comment. And then when I don’t get a lot of comments I complain that I don’t get a lot of comments. One of the things that I love about the internet is that it is supposed to be so easy to start a conversation here and yet… I don’t know. Maybe you just all agree with me.

Of course, I acknowledge that I am a flaming hypcorite here. Because for all of my “seriously you guys, comment!” begging, when I do actually get comments I almost never actually respond to them.

I know. I suck.

I read them. I do! And I love getting them! S, in particular, was quite helpful last month when I was wigging out over whether or not to move and did I respond? NoooooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo. Sorry S!

So! I’m putting my… pride where my mouth is.

For May, my challenge is to respond to every. Single. Comment. that is left on my blog and on my vlog.

Oh yeah. I know.

Actually I didn’t know–it was pointed out to me on YouTube that if the trolls were to come out of the woodwork, this could be a very dicey plan. But so far, knock on wood, toss some salt over my shoulder, please Murphy do not punch me in the face here, the people who read and watch me seem to be very nice people. So…. so far….. I’m not SUUUUUUUUUUUUPER worried about it.

To make things even spicier for myself, I am adding a 24 hour clause to this challenge. This way I don’t get to just wait until the end of the month and then respond to everything with “thanks for commenting” in one fell swoop. If I do not respond to a comment left here or on YouTube within 24 hours, y’all get to punish me.

Yep.

This is going to be interesting, isn’t it?

By the by, I am not proofreading this or spellchecking it before I hit publish tonight. So… if there are bunches o’ errors…there are just going to be bunches o’ errors. Sorry (not really)!

Today what should have been six hours of work took twelve. Which is not frustrating at all–you know, on opposite day.

But! Tecnically today is the last day of BEDA and so! Lookit! I am posting!

I publish posts like this because I care. And because I am stubborn. And said I’d do something so I’m darn well going to do it. So there.

This is where I would put an emoticon of me sticking my tongue out at  you. If I were the type to blog such things.

Wow. This post contains a whole lot of fragments, does’t it?

You’re welcome!

Yesterday was Play Dash, from which I blogged (or attempted to… I haven’t yet checked to make sure it actually posted). That started at nine in the morning and then went until… well, my team finished at about three or so. Which gave us all enough time to go home, charge our phones and then jump right back into vehicles and public transportation devices and go to The Doubleclick’s CD Release party!

I am so proud of my friends you guys. But I’ll write about that tomorrow.

From there I went to my friend J’s house, where I stayed the night because it was late and we had plans to go to the Stumptown Comics fest together anyway and, really, why go all the way from one side of town to the other if the plan was just to get up in a few hours and go right back across town to the convention center?

You guys, Stumptown was awesome. I’m not really a comic book person. I enjoy them from time to time, when I remember to read them and I appreciate the place they have in our culture but I’ve never really spent time immersed in the comic book world until today. I feel like now I understand my comic book fan friends a little more. I even made some new friends of my own and that’s always nice. It was fun to show J that, seriously, no matter where I go I seem to always make a friend or two… which is something that I am incredibly grateful for.

I’m also incredibly grateful that I got the chance to see my friend Indy today, even if it was just for thirty seconds. Indy is the brains and heart behind the Stumptown Comics Fest. It’s his baby and it turned out, I think (as a novice), pretty darn well. I was really impressed! I mean, I know he’s had his head buried in work and convention wrangling for a really long time now, but to see it all of that Right There In Person… I hope he feels as awesome about the way the show turned out as I do about being able to spend time there.

After that, because my weekend wasn’t packed enough, I convinced my friend J to take his inaugural visit to IKEA. Where we stayed for far too long. Because its IKEA.

And now? Now I must pass out for many many many hours. Until tomorrow when I get up and get to work on paying work to do that whole earning a living and paying the rent thing.

I can’t help them because my brain does not *do* numbers.

Yeah that.

Today is savagely busy and I am very tired but I am also having quite a lot of fun…particularly since I can use my smart phone to blog.

God bless you technology. God bless you all the way to the not failing BEDA bank!