I’ve been having a run of good bad luck lately. Not luck that is at first bad, but then allows for something awesome to come in,* but good in terms of a good dose of it. Don’t get me wrong, it could be much, much worse, but it is annoying as all get out.
I’ve barely spent any money lately, but my last two online orders involved a bottle of shampoo ending up all over a book, and an item of clothing needed in a timely manner arriving with a giant slash – and I did not cause it myself by opening the box with an evil box cutter or anything so keen.
I’ve been trying to set up a new doctor here and ended up with a $558.00 bill for a physical that should have been free. For the last month, I have been calmly and persistently contacting the doctor/billing office/lab/main office/insurance company to resolve it. All say they can’t but the other guy can. One kind soul read back to me the transcript of the call log at the doctor’s office – I sound like a f*cking obnoxious demanding crazy bitch. In this instance though, I am not – I have been perfectly professional with them, and only cry with rage and shake a little about the potential of having to part with the money that I don’t actually owe when I’m off the phone.
But with bad, sometimes good shows up a tiny bit.
I dropped one of my current favorite sewing needles into a big box of scraps. Bad, but not too bad, but then I sometimes use my scraps to stuff things and what if someone bought something made with them and then gave it to a toddler (though I specifically say my things aren’t meant for kids) and then the toddler sucks it down his slobbery germ-hole and requires a dramatic surgery and then my precious needle ends up accessioned with the other surgically removed swallowed things at the Mutter Museum. Bad (although I like that museum). But after shaking and scrounging and hoping to find it when it penetrated my own digits, I finally located it without bloodshed. Good.
I stitched up a little piece with my own white hairs. Bad? Well, I’ll give you kinda gross, but it is what it is. The bad part was the haircut I got a few weeks ago that was supposed to be an inch and ended up three and more in various hideous feathery layers. And the annoying routine I go through with every hair cutter when she/he tries to convince me to color my hair. I rarely get a haircut, you think I can keep up with roots? And hello, money? And hello again, chemicals? And ciao bitch, I’m aging, that’s what happens! But the biggest bad is that my greys are coming in at an alarming rate and falling out at the same pace. I figure they’re my newest strands so they should be sticking around longer… Needless to say I had more than enough to finish the piece and now I don’t know what to do with the leftovers – I don’t think I want to use hair-thread again though. (And not to worry, I’m not saving boogers, ear wax, and toenail clippings… well, maybe a few fingernails, but they’re for art purposes too.) Sounds scarier than it is.
And the last is a bad me for not finishing the epic summer-long quilt yet. I’m terrified to do the quilting part (and my machines are getting tensiony), so I’m considering my options of finishing the top off and calling it a coverlet. I don’t intend to use it anyway.
And the good?
* And speaking of rotary cutters and needles, if one more person/media outlet/memoir tells me that loosing their job was the best thing that ever happened to them, well I just might get slicey and pokey.
ASTITCHMATISM 