The Marci Rating System

AUDIOBOOKS AT THE DENTIST: A REVIEW

*Yesterday I was at the dentist office, having some work done. Not too long, thank goodness; only about 40 minutes. And instead of music, I had AN AUDIOBOOK.

*I happened to be listening to a VERY DRAMATIC part of the book at that moment, so while I have a vague recollection that the dentist did all the usual things, my brain was SUPER DISTRACTED by hearing about fighting vampires in a forest.

*The timing worked out well, and probably isn't something I could predict with any accuracy. Would have been LESS GREAT if the book happened to be at, say, a sex scene. AWKWARD.

*But overall a success! I didn't mention that it was an audiobook this time, so I escaped the 'oh, what book are you listening to?' questions. (It was Dianne Duvall's 'Night Reigns,' which I wasn't averse to sharing. It's just that the dentist already perceives my physical existence more than I'd really prefer, and it's comforting to still have some things be private.)

*Let's goooooo!!!!!!

*Uh, not sure I have anything more specifically motivating than that.

*Next Saturday, November will be over, no matter how many words are written, so we might as well have fun while we're in it.

*lol having said that, time to do some early Black Friday shopping!

*The cat is still kinda loopy from the pain meds she got at the vet, but she's doing much better. Breakfast consumed and litter box used, both very good signs!

*Some words I wrote today: “Okay, this definitely wasn’t on my bingo card for today.”

*That's 10 words! Only 1657 left to go!

*panic and freak out

*wait, that's not helpful

*okay, voting, that's helpful, definitely on the list

*buy a car (?!?!?!?!?!?!)

*(so, the car search was great last week when it was distracting me from election stress, but now they have CONVERGED in a wildly unexpected way and this sure is gonna be a DAY)

*pat the cat; she is the best and a true role model (cat advice for the day: relax, stretch, nap)

*write some words

*(HOW IS IT ALSO NOVEL-WRITING MONTH, WHAT EVEN IS THIS)

*but once all that other stuff is done, if there's still time, definitely panic and freak out

I tried to come up with a fic rec for today, but it's been A WEEK and it just didn't happen. So I'm going to go pat the cat and do some work and hopefully figure out the rest of this day!

*it turned out that even though I was driving somewhere new, it was probably 80% the same route I go to the cat's vet, and also it was Sunday morning so there was not a lot of traffic, and also the speed limits were pretty low so there was time to figure out what I was doing as I went along

*the true stroke of luck was having an elementary school close by, with plenty of available parking (see: Sunday morning)

*I SAW A CAT IT WAS SO CUTE (this felt like a very good omen)

*yet another stroke of luck was that parking a (very) short distance away gave me an excuse to walk around a little, and I saw my coworker pulling up! did not have to go into the restaurant alone!

*there was a lot of waiting for the food, but luckily I was so nervous I was not hungry! also my coworker is super good at talking, so we filled the time easily, and the staff was all super nice

*food was good! (coffee was not? I was like 'this doesn't even taste like coffee???' but I was stressed and also I generally put a LOT of half and half in my coffee, so it was probably normal coffee and I didn't recognize it)

*socializing went... fine? I think? I am not a great judge of whether socializing was successful, but there was no shouting and I think we both felt that it was a positive experience

YAY SUCCESSFUL OUTING ACHIEVED! (hahahahahaha and now the work week...)

Three things I didn't particularly want to hear at the dentist (yet heard all of yesterday!):

1. "Oh, it looks like it's raining much harder now."
(Rain is great! But my car spends 99% of its time in our garage because the roof leaks, so I was really hoping I'd get lucky and not have heavy rain while I was spending an hour getting my teeth fixed.)

2. "The generator will kick on... any minute now."
(POWER OUTAGE AT THE DENTIST??? A brand new thing I didn't even think to worry about, but yes, it happened! The lights went out, they came back, they went out, they stayed out, the dentist and the assistant looked at each other... I'm pleased to say that the generator DID kick on, after a nerve-wracking wait that felt very long to me, but was probably not more than thirty seconds.)

3. "We're having some trouble getting into our billing program."
(As one might guess, having the power go out a couple times caused some computer issues. They had to use the Backup Computer to get the job done, but I was able to pay my bill and head out. And it wasn't even raining by then! It started up again almost immediately, but every small victory can be celebrated.)

My job has always had a weird amount of isolation to it for something that is pretty closely intertwined with at least five other departments, and I've generally attributed it to three categories of reasons:

*no one tells me anything because I'm not important enough to keep informed

*no one tells me anything because they assume I already know

*no one tells me anything because no one knows

I used to compensate for this by following a lot of peoples' calendars on google calendar, which at least kept me somewhat up to date, but now that they've switched us all to outlook I haven't figured out how to do it, so now I'm just whistling into the void all day, every day. You just never know what's going to whistle back, or when!

I put off doing laundry yesterday because we had a Big Adventure purchasing and installing a new window AC unit, and my brain can only handle a certain number of tasks at once. It's totally fine; I'm planning to do it today instead, but it's funny how it's thrown off my entire perception of what day of the week it is.

My brain: it's laundry day, so it's Wednesday!

Also my brain: but no.... yesterday was grocery day, so yesterday was Wednesday! it's Thursday for sure

My brain: but no... if Thursday, clothes would need to be folded and put away, and there are no clothes! not Thursday

Also my brain: but if clothes are already put away, maybe it's Friday already! Friday? yes?

My brain: ....... signs point to no, but the idea has merit

(Unfortunately, the clothes are not put away, they are still all piled in the laundry basket. I'm very lucky I don't need to look presentable in office wear today except in the 'wear a t-shirt that looks acceptable on zoom' way.)

At this point I think the heat has reduced my brain to just that overheating fan noise that computers make.

The good news: still have not had any collisions.

The less than ideal news: cycling seems like one of those activities that's pretty fun to do occasionally, sort of like the 'once a month' kayaking. But with 63 miles complete and ten days left in the month, I'm definitely running out of 'maybe I'll take today off' days.

I'm optimistically hoping this is one of those things where as time approaches zero, motivation approaches infinity.

It's sunny after several days of clouds and rain, which means it's time for an outdoor adventure! Okay, maybe a mini-adventure. (I still need to be back in time to fit in plenty of Sunday relaxing, aka reading fanfic.)

Today's mini-adventure plan: a bicycle ride. My workplace is doing this June cycling challenge, and starandrea is letting me borrow her bicycle, so why not give it a try? I did a test ride on Friday and it went okay, so sure, let's do this!