Welcome to my first full, five-day work week in a month. I am un-eager. Also, absolutely nothing about this day has worked out so far, which bodes ill for the rest of the week. It's all stupid little stuff, like not being able to find my cell-phone charger, so my phone's dead. And our Internet mysteriously went out last night, so I couldn't turn in the freelance piece I'd just written, so I got up this morning already late with an assignment. I got too-many-projects vapor-lock over the weekend and accomplished close to nothing, and then I couldn't sleep more than 10 minutes in a row last night until poor Cass, who kept waking me up with his miserable hacking cough which I certainly hope I didn't give him, finally relented and went to sleep elsewhere at 2 a.m. I managed to do something unpleasant to my knee while trying to get the recycling out the door, and then I got outside and it was still 55 degrees, which meant I immediately started sweating like crazy in my knit hat and winter coat, even having already ditched the scarf and mittens. So there I am, tired and sweaty and with my post-hat hair going all over the place, staggering off to the el in full-on I-hate-Mondays mode, and I miss my train by 30 seconds.

I just hope I can get my shit together by tonight, when I am responsible for Feeding And Entertaining Everybody, which I've been looking forward to for many weeks, but which will be far more fun if I'm not all flaily and rushed and out of it.

In other news, when the hell did my hands become so fragile? In the last week, I've slashed open the balls of the first two fingers on my right hand just below the nail, apparently on some protruding edge on the grout I was cleaning. I cut open the side of my right thumb on my keys while reaching into my pocket to pull them out. And I bisected the top of my left thumb on the edge of a piece of cardboard while folding it up for recycling. None of these things — grout, keys, cardboard — should be cutting me up. But my hands are a disaster area, and it makes handling a knife — much less cutting up onions and jalapenos — much less fun.

Grump. Tonight will be good. Tonight will be better. Tonight will cheer me up. So there.

I'm-a feelin': cranky

So I’m on the el headed home, and two people standing next to me — a pretty Korean-looking girl and a grinning white guy, both in their 20s — are having this conversation:

Her: I hate dealing with her. You have to walk on eggshells all the time. You never know when she’s going to blow up and scream at you, or storm out of the room.

Him: She sounds really crazy.

Her: She is. She keeps saying I stole her solo.

Him: Did you steal her solo?

Her: I did not steal her solo. She didn’t show up the day we were rehearsing the parts.

Him: So… you stole her solo?

Her: So when it came to that part in the music and there was just silence, Kwon looked at me and said “Do you want it?”

Him: So you stole her solo.

Her: Because I hadn’t auditioned for any solos the day we auditioned, because I wasn’t feeling well that day. So I said “I’ll do it for you just for now, if you want.”

Him: So you stole her solo!

Her: And then Kwon gave it to me permanently. But I never asked for it.

Him: So you… stole her solo?

Her: I did not steal her solo. I just have a much stronger voice than she does.

Him: Why don’t you just fight it out? Break into fisticuffs?

Her: We don’t want to mess up our hair.

---

It was really, really hard not to laugh. Or high-five him. Or applaud when they were done, because it was so theatrical. Every time he said it, it was in a different tone, with a different emphasis, and she didn’t seem to notice at all, cause she was just telling her story. It sounded so much like a conversation Cass and I would have, and he so clearly was enjoying himself. I hope random strangers eavesdropping on me and Cass in public are as entertained as I was over this.

I'm-a feelin': amused