Head Above Water

Argh. Things are happening that I can't control, and while I'm not usually all about control, I feel so pushed and pulled around lately. More to come on vague and secretive things when I know more myself.

'Tis the season for crankiness, but I still feel a little more nuts than is warranted. We finally got real winter, after a merciful and mild December and most of January. We've got snow as fluffy and light as cotton batting, over a foot of it in two weeks, and I've got Puck and the Caddy pulled into the driveway while Monte gets me over the ice and through the drifts. Forecast says a week of clearer, warmer weather now, though, so maybe I'll get Puck out and zip down to the hot springs, which I've been putting off because it requires removing my leg hair, and I'm lazy. Monte had a hard time starting the morning it was -5 F but he's been a trooper ever since. For a couple of days I had him in 4L and was tooling around town at 20 mph in fourth gear. But I never, ever slid. Unless I wanted to. No calls yet on the Cadillac, and I want to put her around town with signs in the window.

I've been "in" a lot lately, M and Mom are busy or on the road or inaccessible due to weather, so I've had way too much me-time, which contributes to the nuttiness. I think too much, and I order things online (I come up with things I need, honest, like base layer long johns and the Sweeney Todd piano book) just so I'll get something in the mail. I don't exercise enough and I'm eating too much of the wrong things, but now that we have snow maybe I'll get skiing again and back on the spinach and carrots.

I've been artistic, however, and though I don't have much to show for it, I finally got brave and called one of my favorite artist's studios tonight to order his instructional DVD. Ken Auster is a modern impressionist, a surfer and graphic artist, and I adore his sloppy, gloppy genius. I know his voice from the clip I watched on his website from said instructional DVD, and when someone picked up it was unmistakably him. "You answer your own phone," I said. "Well, yeah. If I didn't, it would keep on ringing." I guess I figured he'd have a secretary or a wife or an assistant hanging around, but I don't know why I thought that, because I've seen his little seaside cottage of a studio and probably nobody else could find the phone amongst the catastrophic mess that's inside. The man doesn't even clean his brushes and I want to be just like him.

I am chronically tired. I'm impatient and unrealistic and often hopeless. But tonight begins my weekend, and this winter, like everything else, shall also pass. But in the meantime, argh.