WHINING

/ janpriddyoregon

Gary has gone to the store to get chocolate chips so that I will make cookies. Otherwise, I am sitting with knitting, staring at the ocean, and fussing. (I have completed two gifts and begun knitting a third.) I am going to whine in a way only a spoiled person would so you might not want to read further.

By mid-winter each year, we decide the hibiscus has flat out died, but we give it a few months before tossing it on the compost pile because maybe… Here it is back in flower!

I was so sick of the very long novel I was reading (going on 700 pages) that I nearly skimmed the ending. It is historical, but the author used “snuck” at least three times. Most people would be fine with that, but when I was in grade school, snuck was still abominable slang. In fact, the word was invented sometime in the late 1800s in America. I have my doubts about an aristocrat in Scotland saying “snuck” in 1873. There was also the ink bottle with the screw on cap. Sure, we have ink bottle caps on glass bottles now and did when I was a child, but nineteenth century ink bottles had corks. The alternative would be a metal cap, but no, ink bottles had corks in the 1800s. It is a small thing and not the reason I wanted to start skimming the novel. But I read to the last page. I did not give a stars rating on Goodreads and I want to give up on the other book I’ve been trying to read Best of SF/F because those stories are annoying me, and the book I ordered is supposed to be delivered today but tracking shows the USPS has not even received it yet and it’s coming from the other side of the country.

She’s been coming every day since the Lucifer began opening blooms. Hummers will be busy nearby for weeks thanks to crocosmia and the huge spiky plant next door, once it’s blooms open.

My general irritation or disappointment concerns being turned down for two volunteer jobs. No pay for either and I have experience, and in one case, I’ve done a lot for that particular nonprofit. Both told me that they were flooded with applicants. In at least one case, this isn’t even true, though a polite lie. So I feel under-appreciated.

And no one has responded positively to my novel. Early days, true, but I am not entirely rational about my submissions just now.

And we checked the balance on our Visa bill, and it’s a thousand dollars past where I’d like it to be thanks to dental bills and insurance on the house and car.

And my feet are sore, probably because two days ago I ran three and a half miles and also walked enough to make fives miles total. Yesterday we walked three miles north and then home for six. And even though I ran short today, and we found glass, my feet hurt after three or four miles. And none of this should be bothering me the way it does. There was beautiful fog this morning and now the sky is blue all over and it’s not hot the way it would be in Portland.

We should be in Portland now, but I just want to go back to bed and sulk. Gary wants cookies. We’ll both get what we want. And I like baking so I’ll probably be feeling ridiculous about posting this in a couple of hours.

Gary at our two and a half mile marker. He says he’ll let me cut his hair today—his idea of how to cheer me up. And it will.

14 thoughts on “WHINING”

  1. It’s either a haircut or a flea collar.
    What is it that you truly desire as hummed by Tom Ellis.
    Depression is all in your mind;
    I wish it would rain.
    Good thing to stay home
    and stuff ourselves with cookies
    maybe tomorrow…

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  2. Oh, we all have such days. These days make the others look fabulous. Life will be good again. The cookies will be baked, the bills paid, the hair cut, and you will rest your painful feet. Don’t fret the rejected offers to volunteer. Give thanks they didn’t choose you. You would have never been happy as it would be the wrong fit or timing. One day you will be happy to not have the position. Trust me on that.

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  3. I think whining is a healthy thing to do now and then. Just get it out and get it over with. Often after I whine I feel better (as you say) and wonder why I was whining (to feel better, of course). That’s perplexing about being turned down for volunteer positions. I can’t get my head around that. And, yes, it’s early days for your novel. Things will get better.

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  4. We all have days like this/that. No doubt by the time you cut Gary’s hair you will feel better.
    I call my hibiscus Rose of Sharon. Yours is a lovely blue!

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  6. Oh, I know days like this, all the way around. They are rough, such days, but they do pass, fortunately. With regard to volunteering, I’ve experienced something similar and finally decided it was their loss, not mine. The others here are right – you wouldn’t have been happy with them one day. I’ll keep my fingers crossed you hear about your novel soon!

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    • Thanks, Melanie!

      I have set up three stages for the novel: finding an agent by fall, or finding a small press by next spring, or self-publishing a handful of copies late next summer. Several people were helpful to me in this process and have read and said they enjoyed what they read; I will give them a copy. I genuinely feel this is the novel I was destined to write, the one I have been trying to write for a very long time: multiple narrators, a better world, and hopeful despite hardship. I know better than to be impatient… but there you are!

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