paper cuts...and other thoughts

(Thursday, November 1st)

Tis the season...for paper cuts.

If you work with books, the air is drier these days and even a book cover can cut and start that bleedin'.

I didn't go for a walk this morning. Or mass. I could have, I should have... (coulda, shoulda, woulda). It's a beautiful fall day and I still hate this keyboard even with short nails.

The day won't be a total waste, I'm going downtown to the Library of Congress for lunch with my friend D. We go to a cute diner there. We are both huge diner fans.

Will I ever get used to this keyboard?

I don't want to write about the shooting in Pittsburgh, and how numb I feel.

I don't want to write about why I stay in bed most (ALL) mornings until the very last minute.

*****

(Wednesday, November 7th)

So, the midterms happened. 100+ women got elected, it was a high turnout election, and all the races were tight. Democracy at work!!!

I was up late last night watching TV because I could--I work today at 2. But wouldn't you know it, I woke up at 7!! I'm sitting here in my jammies, writing this. I think I'm a little hypo-manic. Lack of sleep will do that to you. I should definitely go for a walk. Which I think I will, soon. But first, just some writing.

In the back of my mind, I still want to get a PhD in Children's Lit. Or do an MFA in writing. I don't see either of them really happening, but stranger things have...it's not that I don't believe in myself, it's that what are the job opps after I do something like that? I still think about Mary Kay every time I see a Cadillac of any color.

After today, I will have news. I don't know if it is good news yet. I'll keep you posted.

Lunch with D was good, but not as laughter induced as usual. Monday, we meet with 2 other librarians for our "federal holidays pizza." (They work federal jobs so have the day off, I requested the day off.)

I don't know what else to write about, except that I have a few people rooting for me as a writer and so I guess I'll hit publish one more time. Stay tuned. If I have news, you'll hear about it, though maybe not here first.

untitled

My new sneakers may not be pink. 

As an aside, I hate this keyboard. It is not made for people with nails. (AKA it was invented by a man.) 

I need new shoes because running shoes are only designed for 300 miles. Which is about 6 months if you run 7 miles a day? I didn't do the math, I'm trying to remember it from an online article I read.

I feel like I need to cut my nails to continue writing this post.

But the movie keeps me downstairs. The clippers are upstairs.

What movie, you ask? Oh, just the most beautiful, most depressing, most redemptive..."Sex and the City." I got to miss the horrible wedding part because my mom called.

OH EXPLETIVES. 

My nails are now short. Like the man who created this keyboard. 

I'm back. The movie is over but now the first episode of SATC is playing on "E."

I should go to bed soon. 

But this is a classic episode. I swear, I never thought I'd still be writing this blog at 46, unmarried. 

I almost deleted that last line.

This post reads like a thread on Twitter. Have I forgotten how to write long form? 

THERE ARE SO MANY COMMERCIALS! 

A friend called one of my earlier posts a "moment in time." Well, this moment is over. Time to sit in front of the TV instead of watching this episode in the reflection of the framed map of the world.

Cardigan day, therapy, I need a drink, what to name this post?

So, in case you have been outside Pittsburgh too long, or you don't find yourself on the RIGHT social mediums (TWITTER, Insta), today is #CardiganDay. I don't know if it's hit Facebook. Maybe I'm just being elitist. But I'm not going to pull myself away from this riveting blogpost to check.

My mother just walked in with a new haircut so my time to write is limited, I imagine.

Which is why I'm not going to get up to get a drink of water.

Today I did not want to get out of bed. Once I did, I got ready for an online job interview, sat on hold to find out how to apply to a job at my job (the aforementioned kids lead quit or something), went to lunch with my mother, got through to someone at HR, cleaned up a cover letter and a resume, submitted an application, and went to therapy. Whew!

I never want to go to therapy and I'm always tired when I'm there and when I leave but my therapist does have insights and she is the smartest therapist I've had since I moved dahn South. (That's down South for you non-Pittsburgers.)

I may go to Pittsburgh for the 50th anniversary of one of my former employers. The librarian who invited me on FB was actually their first children's librarian and I think still works there at least one day a week.

I miss blogging, but the pressure to write something riveting every once in a while as opposed to something sort of great every day is real. I think that's a run on sentence. I don't care.

And that's all, folks. A moment in the life of Sarah Louise.

Flopping...

In about a half hour, I have to make sure the freezer door is on the porch. I'm having a "flopping" morning, which is Sally's word for just, well, doing very little. By now my Kindle may have downloaded Season 1 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I have watched three times but want to watch again because the new season drops soon.

My father has been in the hospital for pneumonia. Hopefully today he'll transition to a rehab center, I think that's what they are called. My phone is upstairs and on vibrate, so I haven't gotten the latest texts if there are any.

I still keep a "blog roll" on the side of this blog, and it's coded to let me know how recently folks have written. Kristin Cashore, a fiction writer, wrote this piece (On Writing Through Hard Times) 4 days ago and it gave me some hope as I am going through a difficult time myself.

29 minutes till I need to move the freezer door.

28  minutes.

Difficult times are hard to describe. I think the most difficult part of right now is that I haven't found a place to be yet. I'm in between. I go to work, and there, no one knows I'm a children's librarian, perhaps something I should have publicized a little more because they just hired a third "kid's lead" and it wasn't me because I didn't even know the job was available. It would be a step down from my current position as head cashier where I count money like the king in his counting house from that nursery rhyme. And I am currently interviewing every chance I get for children's librarian's positions and starting a sub position today at a local library, something I hope will be a chance for me to get my foot into the door.

I still have dreams at night about my Pittsburgh apartment, and my Twitter bio still says I live in a third floor walk up, geographically located in Pittsburgh. My heart says not yet to changing it.

21 minutes. All 8 episodes of MMM have downloaded.  

This post is turning out to be like the last one, which I wrote last February. Going nowhere, slowly. So I think I'll say goodbye, for now, and hit "Publish."