Sometimes the cope gets thin

[hrj]

Every once in a while, all sorts of things that are quite manageable on their own pile up in a heap and I get tired of being the sort of person who "deals well" with whatever comes along. I get tired of being cheerful and competent. Just once in my life I'd like to play the prima donna, throw a screaming shit-fit, and confidently expect everyone around me to clean up the pieces and make everything all right. Alas, the long-term consequences aren't worth it.

No, nothing particularly bad has happened. The effective bill for some make-up property taxes is coming due. And my relatively-new microwave made an odd popping noise with a flash when I used it this evening. And I'm committing myself to a teaching event some time this summer which will be a lot of fun and even pay me something but involves putting together two new 2-hour classes. And in theory I'm supposed to be posting my contribution to the Research Open House "writing assignment to evaluate" to the mailing list tonight and haven't really started on it yet, and I'm not likely to get to it until next week because tomorrow evening it'll all be about shopping and packing for the ski trip this weekend. Yay ski trip! And I got a packet in the mail from the parents with inventories of stuff I'm supposed to mark potential interest in -- which is a perfectly rational and useful thing to do, but I find it inevitably depressing. And I really need to find a day to do my taxes. And clearly I'm just feeling down because of "temporal claustrophobia" as usual.

Comments

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

I too have those days when I get thoroughly and completely tired of being strong and in charge, when all I want to do is curl up and have somebody take care of me.

Nobody does, of course. But I do a little something self indulgent and then feel better.

Enjoy your ski weekend!

[etfb.livejournal.com]

You're a temperamental alto who wishes she could go soprano occasionally. Fair enough. I have the occasional tenor moment myself.

I can offer a clue on the microwave. There's a cover on the back or side inside, behind which sites the hyperwave microphaser pulse cannon that does the actual cookery-pokery business. This can get crusted with gunk, esp. if you don't always cover your food, and the gunk conducts the magic megawaves and causes short circuits that flash and pop alarmingly.

Depending on how bad it's gotten, you either need to wipe the cover and the rest of the oven thoroughly, or else remove the cover and clean it well, or maybe even replace the cover completely if it's the right sort. Do it now and you'll keep having a microwave; otherwise, you can expect to be without it this time next month at the very latest.

Anyhow, hope the lifestyle comes together, earthwoman...

[anghara.livejournal.com]

It's called "I wanna be a kid again and let some ADULT take all the responsibility for a change" moment. I have them occasionally, when everything piles up and for a moment becomes too damned heavy to hold - the bills on the desk that need to be paid, the multitude of jobs one has taken on and said yes to and accepted responsibility for, the deadlines landing on top of one another with an audible thud, and nobody's fed the birds because *I* haven't done it and the cats bowl has no water in it because *I* haven't checked it and my husband gets frustrated and cranky because he should have more mobility back nearly five years after his stroke dammit, and I have to keep track of all teh appointments, and I have to make ALL the travel arrangements all the time and I worry when the next contract is coming and when the next check is coming and the world comes down around me in a heap - and now and then I respond by a collapso and a crying jag... and then I pick myself up dust myself off and start all over again.

But we should all make a pact that there ought to be at least one day in the year that we're allowed to be five again and the most important decision we have to make that day is what flavour ice cream we want to have for after dinner...

Sympathies, anyway. I've BEEN there. I know how it feels.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

The trick to being a proper prima donna is to throw your fit next to another cheerful and competent person. Find a partner, and arrange to take turns being a prima donna. Or maybe it's that being cheerful and competent means you're a diva, not a prima donna. That's much cooler.

[wulfsdottir.livejournal.com]

Somewhere around here, I have a map of that territory that I've drawn over my many trips there. In fact, I woke up there again this morning, more's the pity. Days like this, it's easy to understand why toddlers throw tantrums in the grocery store after being cooped up and bored in a shopping cart for an hour or more. And envy them because they can get away without the long-term consequences.

{{hugs}}