The horror!

I'm getting a surgery in 11 days and in a month or so, I'll go to the mental hospital where I'll stay for a few weeks.

I wanted to be a serious person who plays fair and decided to sort out my shit, especially in the office and in the hotel room so that it's left clean and neat and understandable without a 4D origami map.
As anyone who ever did a large declutter knows, there's an early phase when the area looks as if it exploded. In my case, it's the second step, the first step involves picking all apparent trash from the floor and cleaning the visible bits of said floor, or, if possible, making a bit of space on which things can be placed. The amount of stuff on the floor waxes and wanes in the process and with a bit of luck, one ends up with clean floor, several bags for charity, recycling, non-specific trash and, from time to time, compost (1).

My situation is complicated due to commuting and staying in the hotel for prolonged periods of time so when I get home, to a town that has things like libraries, stationery shops, my friends and other hallmarks of civilization, I don't necessarily devote my time to cleaning. So, in one of the phases of high clutter, I took the memory card out of my computer to take a pic of something, or I took a pic and wanted to download it. One way or another, the card didn't reach its final destination and got stuck somewhere amidst of clothes, fabrics, books, papers and nondescript stuff.

At the time of finding out, it was the last straw. I had a lousy week of arguing with people, me who is not very fond of much interaction anyway, needed to cancel my therapy appointment, got yelled at by idiots, dealt with the wreckage caused by idiots... and that got topped by the diary frustration , yet another surgery in near future, then I forgot about the urine sample for the pre-surgery check-up and finally, my card went MIA.

I needed to find a super hyper important paper that was filed by the previous manager using the excellent method of Toss it on a pile and in irregular intervals, mix the papers randomly. My somewhat neatified office where my nicely labelled files are slowly taking over changed into a trash-sorting facility. Back to the beginning, then.
No, the super important urgently needed protocol wasn't found. What was found were several contracts - I meantime procured the copies, making a fool of myself because in any normal company, they have a file labelled Contracts where the contracts go, right?, various paperwork related to employees present and past, bills, notes, scribblings, things in triplicate that are probably a proof of someone's subconscious hate of trees, and all of these randomly inserted in folders or envelopes. This constituted half of the heap of shit in question, the other half were price lists, flyers, catalogs and the proofs of overt hate of trees in the advertising industry. The latter half of the godawful mess was already tossed, the rest will be filed or dealt with later. I already asked Teh Boss and Chief of Chiefs to get me a colony of termites to destroy the sensitive papers but I'm afraid I'll get an ordinary shredder at best.


I wanted to brag around with my new knits but as I can't take pics, there's a product of the habitat improvement:

A sweater from my knitterly beginning back at point zero. The yarn is pretty and not exactly cheap, if not exactly my colours either and now it's all back to stash, waiting for a better chance.

Also, a random kitty picture.


------------------------------------
(1) If you stumble upon a person who has a trash bin for compost and it's not in the kitchen or conservatory, in 99 % of cases I'd recommend to duck and run. I do have a compost bin, or rather a box, for herbary trash which is nicely dry, if not necessarily perfectly sterile... well, you know what I mean.

Mixed news

I had to get up before six to be at the clinic for the 0630 appointment and I had some medication to take which would keep me 'relaxed'. Apparently, relaxed means walking into walls. Well, general anesthesia, poking, prodding, now you can go home, Miss, take a lot of fluids, relax and ask your GP for 4 weeks sick leave. Dad sent me a taxi which should be by the building in ten minutes so I procured a takeaway coffee and slept for the whole day. Next day, mom asked why I'm not going to work. Them mothers. The pathology results were to be in last week. I managed to call the doc only yesterday.

"You should come on Monday, we'll talk about it in person," doc said. That's what they say so that they wouldn't need to say It's cancer, you're going to die, over the phone. In case the patient reacted wildly, they can... I don't know what they do but they can do it.
"Something bad, then?" I asked back.
"Erm, well, I have another patient in, come see me on Monday and we will discuss it."
"Okay, doc, simple question. Is it cancer?"
"Nooooope, lots of benign stuff that need discussion, tests and treatments and that may be related to your current medication."

I postponed working on my last will and went to open a bottle of wine. Not to celebrate. It was one of those days and I was totally drained. I just wanted to get drunk and sleep. Which I somehow managed only to wake into another disaster day.

Dear Ajasto: A5, wire-bound, one page per day

I'm a simple person. I hate to change shit that works.

To the category of shit that works, I used to count my Ajasto diaries. I got my first one umpteen years ago and it was perfect. Wire-bound so that I could flip the cover around and scribble while walking. One page per day, which provided me with enough space to scribble. A5 format which is good for scribbling and pressing smaller plants. And, the Ajasto stuff is cute.

I used to ask Juha and Kata to go and spend the 17-ish euros for my diary and I'd mail them some wine and stuff. So, I wanted to pick my diary, I checked the Ajasto website and... nothing. They just stopped making my good old reliable diary.

Call me annoying but this sort of diary works for me perfectly well. Why should I settle for Erm, this is not exactly offensive?

I checked the internetz. Nothing. I asked my friends in surrounding countries to check the local stationeries in case they bumped into the A5, wire-bound, one-page-per-day thingy but apparently, none exist in Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and probably in a few other countries as well, haven't heard back from some people yet.

For the time being, I'm using an excuse for a diary that was added to some fashion magazine and left behind by a guest, it's good enough for random notes but it's not a diary proper.

Dear Ajasto, I acquired my first diary of yours back in 2009 at Hedergrens in Stockholm because it was, apart from the A5 and one page per day, which was my usual standard, it was pretty. I didn't care about the wire-bound back, it was you who made me discover the advantages. That diary for 2010 had a pattern of irises on the binding and said Kunglig hovleverantör. I know I'm not King of Sweden, I'm just a potty-mouthed blogger from somewhere south, but I fell for your diaries and stuck to them until 2013. I would use your diaries forever but you don't have them any more and one week per two pages is not enough for me.

I have a friend who works in advertising. I guess I'll resort to last resort and buy a random hard-bound diary and I'll have it re-bound, she'll be able to make it work.

Call me crazy or stuck in past or useless for the modern world whose other name is Change. I don't care. I want a diary that serves as a notebook which I can flip out on the top of a hill to scribble that I saw an exciting plant and then press said plant in the diary.

I signed up for the psych ward

The other day, I decided I had enough.

I tried to explain in a civil, polite and constructive way that I'm mentally somewhat off and that I'd like to make some arrangements to make my life more agreeable but BossDad said the usual stuff people say: Take it easy, cheer up, you look just fine, don't stress over things, you're overdoing it, the world won't bow to your silly little emotions. I've been licking the edge of nervous breakdown for longer than I'd appreciate so I got angry, called my doc and told him to please arrange it.

I wanted to write an intelligent entry in which I would explain in a manner easy to understand what's going on. I'm too tired and my brain is failing me. Dear reader, rest assured that I'm somewhat stinky because... erm, I either work or I just lie in bed, I don't have a single pair of jeans that would need unbuttoning when putting them on because food tastes weird most of the time and finding, fixing and eating food is too difficult to perform too often. I'm not mentioning the dishes to be done, preferably three weeks ago. I sort of wish my apathy reached the level when I won't be arsed about getting up, it seems to me that I have a sleep deficit of 30 000 hours.

And now excuse me, I'll try and sleep.

And now for some self-hatred

My eating habits would make a dietician weep. My lifestyle would make any doctor weep, which is why I don't tell them. During the last few months, I lost both weight and girth, apparently mainly in muscle. I'm all flabby and weak, my skin got awful and since I'm getting a surgery in around two and half weeks and inflammation at the incisions is a big no-no, I'm taking clindamycin to kill the acne. At day 3, it's not working at all and for some reason, I'm all itchy and I grow spots or inflamed hair follicles or what the hell it is in odd places. Acne-like things just shouldn't happen on one's shins. Anyway, I was scratching and looking around the surface. That lost weight means a nasty flab of skin, I poked it around and discovered several ugly wide stretch marks. I had a bad time. Yesterday, a drunk kitchen help-hand yelled at me for being condescending; it was my wishing her a nice evening that nailed it, I guess. Today, my deputy told the receptionists to tidy up and one snarked back that she's going to tidy up when she decides to and that my office is terribly messy and she doesn't tell me to tidy up either. BossDad arrived later on, told me that it's all basically my fault and when I sighted, he yelled at me that I'm lazy and spoiled and expect everyone to bow to my hypochondriac feelings. And then I discover stretch marks. I started crying.

Fix all the things!

For some reason, I was productive today. Cue sneezing from all that dust raised by my feeble attempt to get rid of the mountain of things on my table. After six or how many hours, the mail is in a bag, ready to be taken to the post office tomorrow, along with an overdue book for the library. Which is a thing, it took me several months to buy padded envelopes as several events needed to combine: going downtown, remembering that I need something, recalling what it was and being in a mood for shopping. I glued the loose stone in my necklace and loose magnet in my bracelet - it hasn't been mentioned yet but I finally got enough bracelets to keep me happy. The pile of ball bands is sorted out - and to those little perverts out there, a ball band is a stripe of paper with various relevant information, and it goes around a ball of yarn. I keep all ball bands and tags since almost forever, and every project has an actual file which includes the ball bands along with more or less information, depending on my momentary level of anal retentiveness. I've been knitting intensively since 2005-ish and the files would have their own shelf if I had one; now they sit on the floor in the attic. And, there were many individual files to deal with. I never throw anything away unless thoroughtly thought out (1) so all I needed to do was to sort out a pile of various pieces of paper into neat little piles and put them where they belonged. Speaking of filing, I don't have a method in yarn storage. The boxes are vaguely sorted by colour and one type of yarn may be grouped but no-one should rely on that. I would need a lot of shelves where I could fit boxes. Or something. Now I have an issue of leftovers because I've bought several yarns by bags in a consistent manner, not just what fleabay spat out, and there are actual leftovers. Not two metres kept aside for repairs, not a heap of somehting into which a little dent was made, but one and half skein of something from a bag of 10. Since these are positively leftovers, I'm hesitant to throw them into the wild biotope my stash is and I'm not a knitter of cup cozies and other dust catchers. And then I started ripping an old sweater which looks good in pictures but is a PITA to wear, because of the yarn. Mohair and some eyelash thing together. In the knitters' hell, they're sitting at a table and ripping an endless lace shawl in long-haired mohair, that itchy bastard which is hell to wear for some people but hell to unravel for everyone. I'm slowly making dents in my stash (2) but I need to do something about the sweaters I don't wear for some reason (some reason = made with some major fault, like using fuzzy mohair). Throwing away cashmere and silk blends is out of the question so throwing it away or donating to charity is out of question. You'd need to pry my yarn from my cold, dead hands. Not only yarn, anyway. It doesn't really look that way yet but things got more orderly quite a bit. Off to do more. ---------------------------------------- (1) Do not ask. Really. You don't want to know about all my little collections. Your life and attitude to me might be pretty shattered if you knew that I have kept all train tickets from my trips since I've been 19-ish and there are worse. Do. Not. Ask. (2) Before you start laughing at the joke: I've been knitting up more than I've been acquiring in the last year.

An upside

I'm not very fond of Giftmas but I had a few days off and I brought my cat. Tähti totally needs a buddy, she's not that old so that she would need to sleep 26 hours a day. Between the sheets.

The guests are offered a bed with an extra serving of cat hair. (Yes, the bed linen is horrid. I didn't pick it.)