PlazaJen: Passion Knit

Man, what is it about the first day back at work? Everyone is glum, and it's not helped by the dismal weather outside. I swear, if it were snowing instead of raining, people would be more excited, even though the drive home would suck. I know I would be more excited. Snow has such a magical effect on me, still - and maybe even more so, now that I don't live in Minnesota/NE Iowa anymore, because I do still remember my first winter in Minneapolis, with wind chills at an arctic negative 96 below zero, and really, when you get below, say, negative 20 below zero? You can just stop counting, really. Because all you end up with is mother fucking ICEBERG COLD no matter what device you're using to measure it, and you instinctively do a hunch thing with your body to try to conserve heat, instead of standing upright. Back to what I was thinking, that snow makes me excited and happy because we don't get that much snow in KC and so it's not somethng that lasts and lasts and requires a tolerance and even hatred for it because it NEVER GOES AWAY. But it's not snowing, so it's a moot point. And I hate it when people write "mute point", as if it's simply silent and making its point with no sound. I am a Citizen Deputy in the Law & Order of Grammar. I seem to be Deputy Digress today.

So it's this gloomy, mucky, chilly wet day, which means if it keeps up, no furniture pickup tonight at the NE Furniture Mart, boo hoo, and then we won't get it tomorrow because I volunteer, and that puts us at Wednesday, which has quickly become THE television night, with Lost and Alias and CSI: NY and Law & Order (the original!) ALL airing this week. I'm actually going to shift some of my taping to the downstairs tv, in hopes it will motivate me to stride along on the treadmill while catching up on my reality-departing indulgences.

Back to the weather, and the overall atmosphere, we came back to have a TON more work piled up on our respective doorways and so there's an ensuing depressing image I get, of juggling flaming baseball bats while trying to walk through molasses. I am not alone with this vision, I sense. It all reminds me of the wonderful painting by Degas, "The Absinthe Drinker", and how I identified with it so many times when I was seriously depressed, and what it still signifies when I think it up in my head - despair mixed with the acceptance that nothing will ever change, the pain of which can only be dulled by a potentially dangerous poison. Lovely. I'm feeling so Up With People just writing about it. Soo........

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a duck goes into a bigger duck's office and gives them the middle webbed toe. Awesome. The rest of us ducks just paddle like hell underneath, trying to maintain a calm & placid demeanor on the surface ..... hoping we don't get shot.