trying to grow back some girl

[mrissa]

So I knew I was exhausted when I was trying to write some SF and come up with a planet name. "New!" I said to myself. "Planets can be New something! New something musical! Something euphonious!" And my brain promptly supplied, "New Chlamydia!" And not as an attempt to be funny. Just because it sounded nice. Yeah, so I don't think we'll be working on that story yet today. Or on anything else that requires judgment calls.

But the thing is, that's the sort of thing you can opt out of for the day. You can say, okay, tired now, beyond tired now, someone else flip the quesadillas, someone else name the planets, not me, because I am not safe without a minder.

But then there are the bits where the tired makes for more work in ways that in retrospect you should predict but you don't. Like having dry tired eyes while wearing contact lenses. Suddenly there is a period of time taken up by playing hunt-the-lens in new and exciting ways, where by exciting we mean tedious as hell. And when you are this tired you know you are clumsy, and when you are this tired and everyone else in the house is either this tired also or occupied elsewhere or is in fact a dog, you know you have to do it carefully or you will have to add "call for new contacts" to the list, which is more of a big deal when you don't wear disposables, as I do not. When you had on the list "library" and "bank" and "dry cleaners," and these simple tasks are all within five minutes of the house by car, and you still could not do them. So yah, really important to find the lens. I did. But oof. Tired like this complicates everything.

All leads up to saying that we are within the one month birthday ban, and guess who is not having a birthday party this year? No, this is not the "we're having a small birthday party but not a big one" kind. Nor the "we are having one in a park so I don't have to clean" kind. I am just not endowed with enough monkey energy to do the other things I am doing and also have a birthday party, so birthday party I will be having none. I will be poking my mom to see if she will make me rotini and chocolate cake and serve it to a few other family members. And if I find extra Mris lying around in Montreal, then I can have a random party later in the summer or early fall. But Fourth Street has completely kicked my butt, so there will not be the mountains of fruit and cheese and the birthdaying this year in Minneapolis*. There will be doing the things I am meant to be doing normally but not quite managing, I hope.

I quite like birthday parties. But I also like not falling over and staying fallen over. So we do what we do and do the best we can with it. And try not to think about having children's cartoons set on planets named by people who are just as tired as new parents.

*Edited so that lydy doesn't yell at me now that I'm not quite so tired: nor even in Eagan. Although I have in fact had birthday parties in each and even in St. Paul.

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Well, you were a most excellent Mriss at Fourth Street, and I very much appreciated all you did and said there. And I would write stories set on New Chlamydia. But that's just, er, me.

[moiread]

That seems entirely reasonable to me. ♥

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had enough Mris to be the Best Mris At Fourth Street. I didn't see enough of you, but then I never do even when we're both at the top of our games. But this year there's Farthing Party! Maybe even ice cream at Farthing Party!

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

In vaguely related news, an ancient edition of The Book Of Lists I read when I was a child claimed that gonorrhea was the most intrinsically beautiful word in the English language.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

If I were more clever (and less tired myself), I would think up a cool way to throw you an Internet Birthday Party -- where you don't have to do anything but read the fun things people post (and if you don't have the energy to read All The Things right away, that's fine, because they will still be there when you come back later). But it would have to be a) cool and b) set up in such a way that you would not be left feeling some kind of non-physical obligation on your end that you might not want to deal with.

I will ponder this when I am less tired (and possibly more clever).

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

New Chlamydia is rather a pretty name.

I am sorry about the lack of birthday party. I hope you get some Mris back soon.

[redbird]

Not falling over is good. And it would be nice to have chocolate cake, but your birthday is not an obligation to entertain other people.

[blue-hat-guru.livejournal.com]

*hugs*