John Burridge: pollen

Showing posts with label pollen. Show all posts

Friday, June 14, 2019

Listless Thursday

I heard through the grapevine that this year Eugene ranks as the highest pollen count in the nation. Mark is really wiped out this year. The pollen is making me tired, I think. Which in turn is making me tired. Which in turn is making me grumpy and listless. I wish I felt creative and energized instead of like The Void is gaping right next to me, which is tiresome.

Ah well, time do mash together songs like "I Need You," and ... well, nope -- just a straight up rendition will do.

At least we have foxgloves, poppies, catnip, nicotina, and other flowers blooming in our yard.

The last week has felt like a strange, in-between week. In part this is because it's the last week of classes, so everything has that penultimate, winding-down feel to it. We've also had record-breaking heat Tuesday and Wednesday.

Went to the gym Saturday last. Between his birthday celebrations and special school events, The Child's schedule is wonky, so I ended up not having the time (or inclination) to go to the gym Monday. Went to the gym (late) on Wednesday to beat the heat. Probably skipping Monday was a good thing, because the pulled muscles from last week didn't feel so evident.

Thursday, May 09, 2019

Week In Review

Lately I've been checking my e-mail to see if I've got an acceptance for a manuscript I sent last January. The editor said they'd get back to me in May, and here it is the first third of the month. I've got my fingers crossed, and I am trying my hardest not to get my hopes up.

Last Friday, after increasing symptoms and difficulties starting, the starter mortor in our car went out. We'd scheduled maintenance, but it wasn't until Monday. Luckily, I was at work, and I was able to get a tow to the garage, but it meant that I couldn't take The Child to see Avengers: Endgame. Waiting in the parking lot, with movie tickets to a show we wouldn't see, felt like it should have been part of "Traveling to the Airport" anxiety dream, but all I really felt was resigned. The Child was totally fixated, not on the car, nor the fact that he'd have to walk two miles home from school, but on when we'd see the movie.

Saturday was a new moon day, and I'm sure we did stuff, but I think we were really tired. Also, there was a fatal shooting in the parking lot where I normally park for work.

Saw Endgame Sunday morning. Despite all my efforts, I really had to use the bathroom about a half-hour before the movie ended. I liked Avengers: Infinity War more than Endgame, partially because Endgame was more focused on the end arc of Captain America and Ironman, and I would have liked more and better treatment of some of the other Avengers. And while the fatness as an outer sign of a character's emotional distress in the movie has been done before in the comics (New Mutants c 1985), it seemed like lazy shorthand that could have been addressed by good acting.

Drove out of the mall just in time to see the staging of an "Oregon Women for Trump Flag Waving Rally." And counter-protest. The Child and I paused our discussion of the History of the X-Men and New Mutants to have an exchange ending with me not pulling the steering wheel out of the dashboard and saying, "while I think they're the Pawns of Evil, I'm glad they're exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression." I was surprised at my visceral and tribal reacton them. And then we continued with the Marvel History of 1980's X-men Era (Muslim Travel Ban, er, I mean...) Mutant Registration Laws. Probably five minutes after we drove over the Harlow Road Bridge, the two groups closed it as they shouted at each other over a line of Springfield Police who were there to keep the two groups from rioting.

Monday. Between car rental, car maintenance, and a lot of driving, I somehow managed to get the car back from the garage in time to pick up The Child from school. Went to the gym and managed most of the workout -- I usually spend some time on the sideways elliptical, but I ran out of time.

Tuesday I did the final polishing on two short stories -- mostly it's just little tweaks to make character motivation, staging, and plot less confusing. I was working in the back lounge of a little bar downtown. In the past the lounge has been just me writing, with occasional other patrons. This week the lounge was Therapy Session Central. Loud Therapy. I was glad I had headphones. Phrases like, "abandonment issues," "betrayed by the community," and "what am I doing this for?" did seep in over the Stary Olsa I was writing to. Mark says I should have just transcribed the conversations to use for dialog.

Wednesday I did a final cleaning pass on the short story manuscripts and sent one out. Then I went to the gym and managed a full -- if out of the usual order while I waited for equipment -- workout.

The tree pollen is very thick this year. Usually, only my eyes are itchy, but this year I've had more than my fair share of sinus headaches and scratchy throats. The fatigue is the worst. April was very wet, but the last ten or so days have been sunny with highs in the 70's and 80's, which I suppose it contributing to the particulates. I'm hoping we get some rain soon, because the wet April plants are drying out and creating a fire hazard. Mark purchased an air filter for our room, which I think helps, but Wednesday night Mark was so congested that his snoring forced me to the couch.

Thursday morning I woke up early enough (5:30) to see a wan Venus in the eastern sky. I'd flirted with getting up at 5 (thanks, cats) and managed to see Mars, but it had dimmed a half hour later and I couldn't find it. As I was brewing tea for an outside writing session, I checked my e-mail, and saw that I had a 13-hour rejection for the drawing room short story I'd sent out the day before. The market is very fast and very hard to get into, so I guess I'm not too surprised, but I was sort of hoping they'd look at it for a few more days.

Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Gym Report and Stuff

Went to the gym Sunday. 30 minutes and 310 calories on the elliptical. 3x13x60lbs on the pec fly. 3x13x80lbs on the lat pull-down. 3x13 hanging curls on the Roman Chair. 3x12x35lbs barbell curls. 3x12x35lbs reverse barbell pull-ups. 3x12x30lbs triceps pull-downs.

Lots of projects hanging in the air this week. The Child's birthday is coming up, and I've designed a Nerf Gun target out of cardboard that sorts the bullets into trays depending on where on a target they hit. There's several writing deadlines looming, too. I'm also going to Reed for a day to participate in the 30 year celebration going on.

The most recent distraction is a game I purchased called 4-D Toys. It draws 4 dimensional objects like tesseracts onto a dimensional space and then you can manipulate them. It's possible to knock objects out of the dimensional space you're looking at, and then they disappear. It's also possible for one part of a tesseract that isn't in your 3D space to knock into another hidden tesseract and have that one slide into the 3D space. It's confusing. And fun.

It's pollen season. I don't mind so much, although I could do without the itchy eyes. Mark is being hit much more severely. The last few weeks have been cooler and damper, so I'm not sure if that's prolonging the pollen or making it more severe or what.

The last few mornings have been cloudy, but today (Tuesday) I managed to see Venus. It's a few days after Venus's greatest elongation, but Venus is still very high in the morning sky. The following days have been overcast, and Friday is supposed to be cold and rainy. Which I kind of like.

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Journal: Pollen

Pollen season has officially arrived. Mark will be extra-sneezy and stuff for the next six to eight weeks. I think it's making me extra sleeeepy or something -- at any rate, that's one reason why I think I was having difficulty writing the other day. It was one of those days when I would type and either stream-of-consciousness stuff would leak out or else I would type the same phrases over again.

The last irises were blooming, so I cut them and brought them into the house. Mark added some lilac and verbena. I think there will be about two more days of being able to smell their earthy perfume. I'll have to look them up in some of my books to see if the ancient sages would use them to gain visions or something, because -- as I've written before -- the smell reminds me of a sweeter version of myrrh.

Working Out: I went to the gym Sunday. I tried out one of the elliptical machines as a warm-up. My arm was doing okay until Saturday when I aggressively yanked my hiking boots while I was tying them: which my elbow did not like. I can tell when I don't go to the gym, because my beach-ball/bicycle-tire expands.

Writing: I did some line editing, critiquing, and attempted to write over the weekend. Monday I managed to get up at 5:30 and got a good hour's worth of new work done on the fairy tale story.

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

May Pollen

This morning as I was waking up, I somehow managed to splice "Let a Woman In Your Life" from My Fair Lady with another song from the musical and a third one from "Annie Get Your Gun." Something like, "I'm a very gentle man / I can drink my liquor faster than a flicker / with the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein." Only it was more back-and-forth.

Pollen season is here. The car has a light yellow dusting on it from the pine trees. It affects Mark more strongly than it does me. May and June are the months when Mark is "taken by the faeries" and I say things like, "oh, it's the pollen talking." The pollen season may be shorter this year--we're getting our summer weather earlier than usual. I'm hoping we get more rain soon, because the ground and some of the plants are already looking dry.

On the plus side, I unrolled the outdoor carpet for Café John. This makes pretending I'm in a French Tea Salon much easier as it covers up the growing cracks in the patio. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere....

Sunday, May 13, 2007

A Mother's Tears

We've survived another Mothers' Day Weekend.

The tea party event was less High Tea than I thought and more mawkish than I thought possible. Granted, it was a Mothers' Day event (and children's fashion show) and because I was there with my Mother (and Dad), as the MC tearfully read a poem about thanking God for moments taken with the matching of socks and how only a Mother can heal life's boo-boos, I reached over and placed my hand over Mark's instead of French-kissing him. I mean please, just because Mark's the Working Dad and I'm the Stay-At-Home Dad doesn't mean Arthur is any less (or more) blessed by [insert your favorite Cosmic Force] here. As the third (ahem) poem was being read I realized I was in a room that the Baby-Military-Industrial-Complex loves. It was frightening.

Arthur, as usual, was Very Cute; and I'm thinking now that when people said "What a well behaved, even tempered child," we should have answered, "Thank you; he's the product of two gay dads." Oh well. We'll have to keep that it mind next year.

Mark didn't wear a brooch; but I wore my Celtic triskelion brooch. Neither of us wore hats, and only two other folks at the event did -- one was a straw sun bonnet, and the other one was an interesting affair with large flower patterns descretely sewn around its rim. I guess people don't do hats anymore.

The food was nice and the fashion show was fun.

After tea, Mark, Arthur and I went to a park and played on an old train. It was kind of cold, so I had to distract myself by taking photographs. By the time we got home from the park, Arthur was asleep. This meant we had to eat a little later (which was fine because I know I was still burning off all the tea and scones) because we couldn't have home made pizza until Arthur woke up to help my Dad mix the dough in THE MIXER!

Sunday my Aunt Joanne, Uncle Ron, and Cousin Kevin visited my folks. Grandma was there, too; she was a little more disorented today than I've seen her be in the last few months. We think we might deviated too much from her routine, which tends to confuse her. We had a tasty late lunch, and the desert was Ted Allen's Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse (thanks, Ted).

The pollen count is very high, which makes Mark sad; I had to take out my contact lenses. Arthur continues to be a little off-schedule with things like naps -- but given how much chocolate he's had this weekend I can understand that.