— Oh my goodness, Martha, look! That Kelley Eskridge is back!
— Why so she is, George! She looks a little worn around the edges.
— She looks like she’s been rode hard and put away wet, is how she looks.
— Now George, be nice.
Oh gosh, George, don’t bother, I know how I look. Fucking tired, is how I look.
Here are some stories of my November.
Our car has been leaking oil for a little while. Gosh, I thought, I’ll be responsible about this. Our car is a brilliant little 1992 Toyota which has always taken good care of us, you know? So I took it into the shop. Several hours and a truly vomit-inducing amount of money later, we had a new valve cover gasket, new distributor cap and wires, new rotor, new spark plugs, new front brakes, and a Stern Lecture from the mechanic about the state of the rear brakes and the tires.
I spent the time in the car shop lobby editing client manuscripts and listening to the radio. It was an alt-country station and the song I remember best had the chorus god is great, beer is good, and people are crazy. I heard it at least twice. I was there for a while.
A couple days later, we lost a hubcap. That’s okay, we have a whole set of KMart plastic-but-looks-like-chrome-if-the-car-is-going-fast-enough hubcaps in the attic. One morning I climbed up there, got a hubcap and a retainer ring out of the box, carefully and in an organized fashion put the box away (can you spot my first mistake?), climbed down, went out to the car and commenced to hubcaperate.
The plastic-not-chrome hubcap, being not exactly flexible, cracked.
Back to the attic. Time passes. Cut to: Kelley with new hubcap, hunkered down in the driveway pounding that sucker with a rubber mallet trying to get it to stay on — and the skies opened up. In 10 seconds we went from zero to pounding rain with just enough hail to make it more interesting. I was so wet that I thought, oh well, and just stayed out there until I got the damned thing on.
Two days later I pulled out of our driveway before 7 AM and headed for the gym, thinking What’s that funny noise?
Flat tire.
The one with the new hubcap.
At least it wasn’t raining. Yet. But it looked rainlike, and I’d just learned that particular lesson. So I went home and changed the tire ASAP. Nicola was still sleeping. I changed it very quietly, regarding the donut spare tire with deep suspicion because I always forget how little they are.
I went back to the car shop. Hey, you were just here! they said, and gave me a Stern Lecture about new tires. But they graciously repaired the flat and put it back on. I think they saw the white rings around my eyes at the idea of spending more money.
Two days ago… we lost another hubcap. Now seriously, isn’t this starting to sound like one of those movies where you want to yell at the characters not to do something stupid? Don’t answer the phone! Don’t go into the basement! DON’T TOUCH THAT TIRE!!!
This month, I have also spent at least 24 hours that I can never get back trying to undo the damage caused by Comcast Cable’s “customer service upgrade” to all-digital channels. I have been online with TiVo and on the phone with Comcast (and I know some of you out there share my pain right now). I have installed a digital adapter and re-wired the entire system and hacked TiVo. The net result of all this is that now our TiVo doesn’t work as well (because Comcast isn’t heavily invested in being TiVo-friendly) but at least we can get the fucking SciFi channel again to watch Stargate Universe. I love Robert Carlyle’s work, so right now it’s still marginally a win, but let me just take a moment to give an existential howl: Why does this shit have to change all the time?
This month, someone stole our mail at least once. Although we are in the city, our mailbox is practically in a different zip code (okay, it’s a block and a half away) because there are no sidewalks in our neighborhood and so all the mailboxes in the area huddle together in little clumps here and there, seemingly at random. But since it seems that there is Crime going on in the ‘hood (a number of burglaries recently as well — these things go in spates, and we’re in one right now), all of us in our little mailbox group got together and bought locking mailboxes, and our fabulous neighbors Ron and Kandi installed them for everyone. There was very little hassle for me, thanks to their hard work, but yeesh, what kind of asshole steals the mail?
November is the month when I go to the pharmacy and the prescriptions aren’t ready; when I forget one thing on the grocery list and have to go back; when Nicola’s monitor explodes or one of my programs crashes. When I have to take the screens off the windows and the sun umbrella off the deck, and admit that it’s winter. Bleh. It’s 4:15 and practically dark out, and I will be Very Glad Indeed in four weeks when at least I can tell myself that the days are getting longer again. I pulled a muscle working out and now I can’t go to the gym for a while, and I’m at a delicate black-box stage in my current screenplay story-development, and I am restless.
The interesting thing is that I’ve been oddly cheerful (or at least non-axe-wielding) about most of this. Lots of nice evenings with my sweetie and family and friends. I read the new Stephen King book! (Huge treat for me.) And I’ve been editing my socks off for Sterling Editing. Really enjoying it and, I believe, doing some good. I’m delighted with the response and the work that’s coming in. But you know, it’s a new job and a new business. So right now I’m pretty tired.
Anyway, that’s my month. I was There, but I’m Here now. December is nigh. How are you?
