in a thing

I'm going through a thing right now. I have these phasey things, and sometimes I'm just not really good for anything. I've been reading, see. Not books! I try so hard to stay out of them and I haven't lapsed. But the Internet. I do this thing sometimes when I find a new thing, a new source of interest-- a webcomic, a serial posted online, a journal by a really fascinating person-- and I get into this mode, this sort of frantic must-read-all-of-it mode, and it really sucks out whatever small ability I have to interface with the real world. It's kind of like a fugue or something.
I have been becoming increasingly absorbed in the archives of ozarque's journal. She is a linguist, she is in her seventies, she is a SF author and a nonfiction author, and she is a poet. Normally I don't like poems. But listen: Sonnets about medical language. OMG. Also this poem, called Skullhold.
Discussions of what it means to be an elder. On making the wrong choice in choosing safety for her children over social change. On the total myth of Standard American English, and native speakers' own "flawless internal grammar"s.
Uhhh.
I would say I want my brain back, but that's not true, I don't. It's not good for anything right now. I lay awake last night for hours pondering linguistics, what I am ever to do with my life, gardening, and the awful noises the cat was making for hours on end. (Eventually [since it was Remi] she came in to see what wonderful effect all her racket was having, whereupon I seized her and held her tightly for an hour until she finally escaped, but having been held still so long she forgot about her campaign to keep us all awake until her mother came home [Fi being out with a friend for the evening], and settled down to sleep on Z's feet.)
I won't be good for anything until I read everything ozarque has ever written online, and then not for a little while after that.
It's sort of a good day to be worthless, I guess: we've got two inches of snow and it's too grim for words. 25 degrees and still snowing.
Cottonpick, as ozarque would say.

Unfortunately i have a lot to do and don't want to do any of it and have to, so we'll see how that goes. Sometimes I wonder whether being very disciplined to myself might head off these weird states I get in, or just not clicking too many links to things that seem interesting. I wonder? I've successfully cut out books so I don't do that anymore, almost entirely, but the Internet?
But I've been acting weirdly for a couple weeks, already-- attention span short, necessary tasks being unnecessarily procrastinated, and similar-- so I think I am due for one of these things. I just don't know what to call them. Moods? Phases?
It's something to do with creativity and I have not written anything significant in the better part of a month now, I think; I am not observant enough to recall whether these phase things wind up in a creative phase or whether I get more and more blocked. I don't know. I feel at the moment that I will never be able to interact with the real world again, which is causing me no small distress as I consider, yet more frantically, what sort of job I must get. And of course I wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

I dunno. I'm going to go read more, since I am getting itchier and itchier and itchier the longer I don't read things.

amusing note

The playing fields of a large Catholic boys' high school are directly across from my house. Fi and I are in the living room, and through the picture window we usually have a good view of what's going on. This past week there have been two lacrosse games and we've felt awful for the poor boys-- both games, the rain came pouring down in frigid buckets, and there they were running around in shorts getting soaked.

Today the boys playing lacrosse are much smaller-- it must be the JV team.

They are using their lacrosse sticks to throw snow at one another whenever their coach is not making them do something else. (So far they've mostly been running laps and stretching, warming up.)

They just keep doing it. The novelty has not yet worn off.
It makes us laugh more and more each time they do it again, because really-- really? We're all so sick of snow and surely they would tire of this game.

But there-- another one just did it.

Well, at least someone's amused by the weather.

WTF Spaghetti Squash?

So I bought a spaghetti squash like a month ago.
It seemed like a good idea. A not-so-vegetabley side dish, right? I could serve it to double as starch and vegetable in my mother's tried-and-tested What Makes A Meal formula. (Meat, starch, two veggies, voila!)
I have not found the interest or time to make it. I decided tonight that really, heck with it, I was going to just do it.
This may not have been a good idea; Remi kept me up for hours last night, and I have been sleepy and zoned-out all day. I have no patience or ability to handle anything. But I thought it couldn't be all that hard. I've baked squashes before. I mean, whatever, right? I read the sticker on the thing. It said cut in half, bake at 350 for 45 minutes-- standard, though I usually bake squash for more like an hour. Whatever.
So I did. Cut it in half, chucked it cut-side-down in the oven. Left it for nearly an hour. Made the rest of dinner.
That turned out to be Fail from the get-go-- I had some tilapia fillets. I wanted to roast them, while I had the oven on. I found this recipe.
Just read it for a second.
Roast on high heat for three minutes on each side.
...
ROASTING FAIL. I'm not an expert chef but I know what the hell "roast" means, and that's not it.
I figured whatever, I'll make it anyway. It's not what I had planned on, but I'll try it. Google wasn't coming up with a lot and I was too tired to keep looking.
...
I wound up with a bunch of little seared largely-tasteless tilapia chunks. Also when it says to throw the onion pieces in and roast them for 1-2 minutes it really needs more like 3-5. Onions are OK crunchy but not raw.

Meanwhile I dragged out the squash.
It was fucking raw.
It's supposed to come apart into little strings, right? Right? That's what the pictures look like.
No. Crunchy chunks.
I cut it into big pieces and threw it into a casserole and microwaved it for 7 minutes. (It said to EITHER bake it for an hour OR microwave it for 5-7 minutes.)

After 7 minutes, everyone else had cleaned their plates and my disarticulated fish bits were cold. I said Fuck you, squash, hacked it up with a spoon and a fork (burning myself in the process), and served it.

Crunchy, tasteless, not remotely spaghetti-like, sort of disconcerting texture.

YOU ARE MADE OF FAIL, SPAGHETTI SQUASH. FUCK YOU.

For the record... I've never actually failed at making dinner before. But last night I nearly burned the oven fries I'd cut by hand, and they wound up way too hard. And tonight was just a big bag of pants.
Obviously I am not really in a mental place conducive to cookery.
I really would prefer to be competent, but the spaghetti squash isn't helping.

I never do this, but fully half of the fuckin' thing is going straight into the compost right out of the microwave. Fuuuuuck thaaaat shiiiit.