Black Doggerel

Just lugged a metric fuckton of crap down to the bins. I feel more than a little guilty about this because most of it was recyclable and/or reusable crap - margarine tubs that could have been washed for dogtreat storage, glass bottles and jars that should have been washed for jam making or the recycle bin.

The trouble is, this ever-increasing pile of Things I Fully Intended To Get Around To Washing has been sitting there - and increasing - for years now. It's in my mental queue of shit that needs done, sure, but there's always something ahead of it (like washing up the things I need right now to eat off or cook with) and the bigger the pile gets, the less likely it is to ever be done, and... you know how it goes, right? Please say it's not just me.

Well, sometimes being a slob with a limited spoon supply (literally and figuratively) means having to make hard decisions. Today is the first day since Tuesday I've had enough energy to do anything more than take the dogs out to pee and walk myself to the bathroom and back as few times as I can get away with. So I got a big black binbag and filled it with every single sticky, mould-lined jam jar and greasy rancid plastic container I could find - and I do mean filled. And I dropped the entire lot into the wheelie bin with a resounding crash and a huge sense of liberation.

It's nearly nothing, on the scale of the crawling chaos that is my kitchen and my life, and this small symbolic act may have used up the whole of my day's energy ration. My list of things I wanted to get done today is still exponentially larger than the things I can actually manage. But I still feel a lot better for it, and I have no regrets.

aargh fuck oww. My twisted knee was nearly BETTER. I could nearly walk again. Then last night I bent over to slide Spike's cushion from his spot by the Uncomfy Chair over to be by the bed, and my knee unexpectedly made this sharp crack-pop sound.

I have a friend with a chronically bad knee and I've heard her use the phrase "my knee exploded" before. I hadn't realised how literally she meant it. EXPLOSION OF PAIN. I couldn't sleep last night despite the icepack and painkillers, there was no position I could rest it in that didn't throb with pain and I couldn't stop fretting about how the fuck I was going to walk dogs like this. Getting from the Uncomfy Chair to the bathroom or kitchen is just about possible but unprecedentedly difficult. Down the stairs didn't seem likely.

In the end I scooted downstairs on my arse with the dogs offleash and let them out to piss in the communal back garden. This is strictly not allowed in the tenancy agreement and it worries fuck out of me to resort to it, even though downstairs neighbour does it every day with his greyhound. But it was either that or have them both piss on the floor in here, what can you do? Spike didn't drink for a day and a half after he had that accident on the floor last week and I'm not risking that again.

happier news: Spike had his stitches out yesterday, barring a few inside his mouth that he'd broken. The vet put those back in with dissolving sutures so we won't need to go back. The lab results are back on his poor departed nose, and all the indications are that we got a good clear margin and Mouth Thing is no more. YAYYYY WOOO HOOO YAYY!

they also both really enjoyed the back garden. I was too paranoid to leave them out very long but they ran and bounced and were happy.

my cat boxes need emptying and my kitchen is an unholy shithole. I was looking forward to ...not doing those, but having gotten them done. Now I can't even fucking stand up without a piece of furniture to lean on and fuck fuck fuck OW. Did I say ow? OW.

So if you come to see me, I'm sure you'll be impressed
By how well I'm behaving and how well I'm dressed
If you come to see me, hope you're coming soon

OMG OMG OMFG slave2tehtink is coming to see me! In May! She has tickets and everything! WOO FUCKING HOOO!!!

I'm going to need to clean.

( Making plans )

Does anyone know of a software-based thing that I can use in my usually-vain attempt to sort my life out? Something like a daily reminder of Things I Need To Do. I don't mean for appointments and so forth, although I fail at those too - but one-off things I can deal with by writing them down or getting my Mum to remind me. I want something where I can - for example - put in "Cat boxes" or "Clean Kitchen Floor" or "Isn't it time your sheets got washed" and make it pop up a reminder at predetermined intervals.

Yes, I know how lame that is. I know I'm meant to be a fucking adult and be able to do this shit without help. But I've always pretty much failed at being adult and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of living in a place I'm ashamed to have people visit and a life I'm ashamed to expose details of, and I need help fixing it.

I have a friend who deals with it by asking other people to tell him to do things. That wouldn't work for me though. Being told by people brings out my inner two-year-old, and my two-year-old self sticks her tongue out and says "You can't make me." I'd just end up avoiding and resenting my friends and that's not fair on anyone. I need something to make it easier for me to tell myself, because I'm the only one I ever listen to - my issue is forgetting to tell myself, or not noticing (or caring enough) how much time's passed since I last did necessary tedious chores.

I would say it was a downside of living on my own, but honestly, I wasn't noticeably better when I didn't. People I've lived with just ended up perennially annoyed with my boundless capacity to ignore squalor, and depending on who it was, they'd either do it themselves and bitch at me afterwards or we'd just fight about it continually.

I'm so fucking sick of myself. This is the root of the reason no one's seeing much of me anywhere these days; I don't LIKE myself enough to inflict me on the rest of you. Something has to give and I need it to be this. Can anyone offer practical suggestions please? I don't promise to take any of them up but I do promise to listen and be grateful.

This is better than being offline, but not by very much. I've spent most of the summer lurking invisible on AIM and not talking to people much, but you don't necessarily need to talk to people to feel less lonely - because they're right there, a mouseclick away, any time. Now I feel cut off and miserable.

So I got off my fat white arse and cleaned.

One thing I ought to watch, living alone, frequently depressed and bone idle by inclination, is the state of unspeakable squalor I let my flat get into. I swore I wouldn't, when I moved in here, but I lied. The trouble is that I very easily just let myself not see it, or not care.

The dog and cat hair on the floor had actually felted in places - at least, in the corner where the dogs' water bowl is. It's clean now though.

The flat is still filthy and cluttered with junk and crap, but it is a bit less filthy and I feel better. I am amused by how much my cleaning upset the dogs. Spike velcroed himself to my legs and followed me round in determined "I'm a working dog and I'm helping whether you like it or not" mode. He tripped me repeatedly, scattered the sweepings pile several times and barked at the broom. Squish whined and hid. They're very relieved that I've stopped. Pity I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

( Who shot the meme? )

In other news, I am sufficiently tired of the ever-increasing squalor of my flat that I am considering advertising for someone to clean it in exchange for sex.

In other other news, it's now been over a week since Spike last yelled death threats at a strange dog while out on a walk. He isn't dopily over-relaxed as he was the first time I gave him melatonin; he's acting Spike-normal apart from the reduced aggression. It has to be the tablets, though, because I've been trying to discourage that habit for years - I know nothing I did in the training line would make it disappear overnight.

I am having to give him a tablet pretty much every evening, because my craggy-browed neighbours are so excited about being able to make fire that they're still doing it every night, quite often not even waiting for dark. The quietest nights are Friday and Saturday. I was puzzled by that at first, then I realised that the ones who don't stop making the noise must be the ones who are out drinking those nights.

I give Spike the tablets hidden in a piece of sausage, and now he's taken to waiting by the fridge the minute he hears the first bang.

No, not that kind of dirt. Sorry darlings. But I've just plugged my keyboard back in after taking it apart - keys pried off and everything - and removing the incredible crapglomeration of coffee-soaked cigarette ash, dog hair and tobacco shreds wedged between keys and board. I had to; there was a particularly solid wedge stopping me from using J, K and L, and I think it was on the verge of developing sentience.

It feels like a completely different keyboard now. Wow.

Good things about today: My kitchen, while still deeply disgusting, is less squalid than it was. I've cleared the sinkful of rotting dishes, scrubbed the dustbin and the cupboard and all the mysterious drips, dribbles and stains off the fronts of the cupboards and drawers. There's still a lot needs doing - the huge pile of stuff in the middle of the floor, the filthy chopping board, the life form evolving in the microwave, the congealed pool of greasy detritus under the sandwich toaster and the floor itself, but I feel like I've made a dent in it.

ulva made me this amazing LJ background: see! I haven't actually loaded it into my LJ yet. I have to make sure I save the settings for the old background somewhere and I'm feeling too bleggy to start messing with LJ settings right now. But I wanted to show everyone, and show that it's appreciated and loved.

Squish is becoming reconciled to the long line/harness. This didn't happen because of anything I did - it happened because I put him on the long line as soon as we reached the park today, and an orange cat streaked across the far corner of the park. He immediately forgot all his troubles and chased after it, was brought up short by the long line, found it didn't kill him or even hurt, and decided maybe it would be OK after all. And then he came running back the moment I called him, so I feel like we're winning. Yayy!

We also met Daisy the Cocker Spaniel in the park and had a long chat with her and her owner. Daisy's thirteen now and her eyesight is going, but she's as sweet as ever. Love her!

please forgive non-postiness. I'm in such a slump. Leg continues to give trouble, and there is new trouble from the girl parts with unscheduled bloodshed.

My mother is doing unbelievably well with both grandmotherhood and sobriety. When my niece was born, my sister was terrified and disappointed that Mum wouldn't be strong enough or together enough to help with the baby - she was too weak to even lift her at that point. But she's rallied and recovered like you wouldn't believe, and been a huge help.

I'm proud of her, I really am. I was convinced we were going to lose her, and not only did that not happen, but the fragile drunken trainwreck's been replaced by the confident, competent, funny, sparkling woman who raised me. I am so very grateful.

I need to keep reminding myself of that. The day before yesterday she arrived on my doorstep with about 500 carrier bags full of stuff that I have absolutely nowhere to put. She's been celebrating health and sobriety by having a massive spring-clean, redecorating and de-junking of Grimmauld Place and she packed up every single thing that belonged to me (and quite a few things that didn't) and dumped it all on me in one go. It's in a huge pile on my kitchen floor. I don't have anywhere else I can put it. My own flat needs cleaning, dejunking and organising so badly, and I just don't have the will or the energy to even think about starting. Right now I can just about keep up with feeding everyone, walking dogs and changing litter trays often enough to not have the flat stink of cat piss, and when the extra pile of stuff showed up it was all I could do not to have screaming hysterics.

just keep breathing.

am also grateful for my dogs. we had so much fun in the park today. our friends the three Shih Tzus were there, and also the most adorable Whippet puppy - impossibly tiny and fragile-looking, like a Disneyfied mouse on stilts, and so bouncy and happy. She found Spike a bit overbearing (who doesn't!) but she was very taken with Squish and there was much play-bowing and rompage. I could have watched her all day.

The Hoover idea helped, but my hoover cuts out if it overheats (and then won't start again for several hours), so an hour after the first pyrotechnics, with the bangs still going out there like a fucking war movie, I've had to switch the bastard thing off so it can cool down and just turn my speakers up to eleven.

it helps a little. of course between the hoover, the aggressive rock music (I'm on to Iggy Pop now) and the fireworks the cats are all hiding so Spike has no distractions. He's a small trembling heap over by the door. He's two-thirds of his normal size, all except his eyes which have doubled. He's off his face on Rescue Remedy which is stopping him barking himself hoarse.

I wish to fuck Guy Fawkes had succeeded. Not because I give a shit about far-reaching political implications (or even have an idea what they might be) but because then it might have been considered in bad taste to set off fucking explosions all fucking autumn.

am going to hug my collie now. bastards.

Edit: Bonus! I found out where those maggots were coming from. Fucking Cassie and her obsession with covering food dishes. She'd dragged a pair of my trousers out of the wardrobe, covered a half-empty food dish with it and bundled the whole thing behind the door, where I completely failed to find it till now. Am not attempting to salvage either trousers or food dish.