In which I pick up a Stray...

There are some days that seem like they were made for not getting up. Today is one of them. The temperature is warmer today; it's supposed to reach almost 50 degrees. For Ohio in December, that's rare. It's also welcome because it means the ice will melt, the ground will clear, renewed and ready for the next snowfall. Today, however, it's raining. It's the gloomy kind of rain that is set in for the day. The sky is a charcoal gry, the clouds angry and heavy, the drops falling sporadically but heavily and the ground is soaking wet.

Naturally, I love it. I love the sound of the beating rain against the window. I got to hear that last night. Despite my intentions to go to bed early and get a good night's sleep in hope of kicking this dark Pootle cloud that I've been under since Sunday, I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned and tried to sleep but it wouldn't come. I hate nights like that. On nights like that, it's hard to clear your head whether it's a 'to-do' list, a writing idea, a bad experience you keep replaying over again or just a dejection at the way life is going. It's hard to sleep with that much on your mind.

When my alarm went off this morning, I was already awake. Though burrowing further under my covers would have been most appealing, I finally got up. I keep the heat low at night because I like the room to be cool while I'm cosy in bed. It was chilly though I knew it was warmer outside. I followed my normal routine but somehow managed to leave work a little earlier. The vague thought of Starbucks danced in my head but I wasn't that early. As I was going out to my car, I was stopped by a man I've seen around my building. He was stranded; he was a student at the university for which I work, his car died and his ride hadn't showed.

Though I don't actually work on campus, I drive right by. I felt sorry for him. I hate being stranded. So I gave him a ride. It turns out he recently moved from San Diego, California, had been in the Navy and now was a part-time student. He was friendly and he was nice. I dropped him off.

That was it, really but, in a way, it was much more than that. It was a break from my routine. It not only took me on a different route to work but it actually gave me a chance to interact with a human before I got to the office where, depending on how you see my coworkers, some of them never seem quite human anyway. Sometimes a little human interaction is all you need to give you a little boost. I love living alone but sometimes I get trapped inside my own head and those shadows of doubt that I blogged about last week seem a little deeper. Playing on Facebook doesn't always help, either. I have a lot of friends on Facebook, most of the time I love that. Yet every now and again, I'll receive a suggestion for a friend that takes me by surprise, it's a face I haven't thought about much in years. It's not always a face that comes with fond memories. Most of those faces are on photos that include children, wives and families. And every now and again, I see a former acquaintance and I can't help but think "HE/SHE has kids?" and then the inevitable "What's wrong with me?" starts.

So, I know, sometimes I need to get outside of my own head. But sometimes I have to go there, particularly when I'm writing. It helps to shut out the world and let my story/characters in. Lately, the writing isn't so easy. I can't get a grip on it. I can't settle down and let it flow. My character's voices aren't so clear as usual. That's a strange feeling for me.

I know that it's times like this that make the sunny days and snowfall seem that much brighter and uplifting. After all, you can't have the shadows without the sun which means eventually when the clouds part, the sun will shine brightly and the darkness will fade. Sometimes, all it takes is a good, fluffy, wet snowfall. Sometimes, for me, all it takes is a trip to the post office, a slice of toast and a mug of tea and a little change from routine.

I've already had my change from routine for the day. Tonight, I get to go to the post office. For most people that's not fun; for me, it always makes me feel like I've accomplished something. I love the order of the post office, the stamps, the flat-rate envelopes. Yes, I know I'm weird but we've established that. I'll save my full adoration for the post office for another blog. In the meantime, tonight I'll pick up my package, go home, make some toast, drink some tea and relax, hopefully to the sound of pelting rain against my patio doors. And, if not, it means the clouds are going away and tomorrow the sun might shine.

If that doesn't work, maybe I'll find another way to break the routine, to try something new, to climb out of my shadows on my own. Sometimes, all we can do is ignore the darkness and find our own light. I still have the glow of my two-hundred Christmas lights. I've added more since then. I figure if I keep adding them, maybe I'll drown out the darkness completely. Either way, I'll try to be cheerier in my blog tomorrow. Maybe I'll pick up another stray. I'll keep you posted on that.

Happy Tuesday.

By the Power of Giftcards! (And yes, say it just like He-Man did.)

Triumph of triumphs today: I have succeeded in being the first one in the office and thus got to make the first pot of coffee. I'm hoping this means it won't be vile. Though I'm growing accustomed to vile coffee. I know I bought a coffeemaker so I could make coffee in the mornings but making a pot of coffee for ones lone self seems a little extravagent. I suppose I could measure it out so that there's just enough for me but so far, I haven't quite done that. I drive by a Starbucks every morning. I have a Starbucks gift card that will buy me at least 3 cups of coffee depending on if I decided to go premium or whether I stick to the plain old coffee that they put in those pumpy things at the front of the store when they hand you an empty cup.

Speaking of Starbucks, here's a question for you. I get that using their fancy words for sizes, they set themselves up as a 'fancy' coffee chain. There's short, tall, grande and venti. But doesn't it sound like grande is the biggest? Every time I go in there and I'm craving mass amounts of caffeine and coffee, I plan on ordering the largest. So, without thinking, I generally order a grande. And then I realize, "Oh, wait, it's the venti size I wanted." Grande sounds like a big one. Venti doesn't. Venti actually sounds like a coffee cup with holes in it (if you're me). Like it's trying to air out the coffee or something.

However, since I'm not a frequent Starbucks goer because fancy coffee is a luxury and I don't like to spend almost $5 on a fancy cup of coffee so driving by the coffee shop daily isn't too much of a temptation. Usually.

Except at this time of year. They're tempting me with their pumpkin spice lattes, starting to make me rethink that Christmas doesn't begin until after Thanksgiving because I really love their peppermint mocha, their eggnog lattes and sometimes, even, their gingerbread latte though that one is very sickly and rich and should only be consumed in a tall size. Which again, sounds a bit odd because tall sounds...well....tall and if you just want a small cup of coffee, do you really want it to be tall?

I'm overthinking that. I know.

So far, I haven't succumbed to the call of my Starbucks gift card. I'm notoriously stingy when it comes to spending gift cards in general though. To me, a gift card is a form of power. Whenever you go into the store, browse the website or even smell the coffee of the place for which you have a giftcard, it means you have the power to buy whatever you like. You aren't held back by pesky finances. You don't have to say, "Well, I could buy this new Neil Gaiman collection of short stories but it's $14.99 and I really should save that money for Christmas gifts." You can say "Ha! I have a $25 gift card and a coupon. I can own you, Neil Gaiman...well, at least your short stories...." (then again, I wouldn't mind owning my own Neil Gaiman. He's really funny and charismatic (especially for a writer) and he's got a lovely reading-stories voice. But that would be weird because I'd have nowhere to keep him at the moment and, well, now that I think about it, having a pet Neil Gaiman probably isn't the done thing within society, is it? It'd probably be considered a bit Misery-esque. Ok. Forget I said that.)

The thing is, I don't usually end up buying the Neil Gaiman book or whatever else I had in mind to buy. It's not easy to give up that power that you have in the gift card. I may finally succumb but it takes a few store visits before I decide what I want.

I know, you're probably saying "but you could just as easily buy people gifts with your gift card-isn't that the same concept as spending cash?". My answer is "NO!!!!!". In the immortal words of Mr. Bean "These are MINE!".

Uh, yeah. Generally, I like to think I'm quite generous. But if someone gives me a gift card as, you know, a gift, it's mine. I will spend every cent in my checking account on gifts but that $25 Border's gift card? That. Is. Mine.

There are some exceptions to the "Gift card is power and should not be spent easily" motto I live by. When I was moving from L.A. to Ohio, I received some Shell gas station gift cards from some good friends. Those were very, very useful particularly when you have to fill up your little gas tank every 463 miles or so. I also had a Target gift card from another good friend which is how I bought my coffee maker and blender.

(Speaking of the blender: It scares me. It likes to take walks. It's ok when it's on low but if I press that 'high' button and then try to blend....it just starts to move really fast from one side of the counter to the other. If I hold onto it, pressing down, I tend to move with it rather than stop it from walking. There's nothing more alarming than seeing your curried parsnip soup flying across the counter and having to make a dive to hit the 'off' button before it hits the floor.)

But aside from making a big move into a new place, I hoard my giftcards until it's time to spend them. Sometimes that time comes when you just need to shop. Sometimes a book comes out that you really, really want to own in hardcover even though you just read it from the library. With the Power of the Giftcard, the guilt is gone. That book can be yours for the low price of whatever Borders is charging, minus the nifty 30% off coupon you-printed-from-your-email-because-they-stopped-sending-the-even-niftier-text-messages-with-the-coupon-code-attached.

As far as my Starbucks giftcard goes, I'm ok with sharing that one. I mean, if you say "I'll buy you a cup of coffee" and you have a giftcard, that's very cool. Generosity AND smart spending. Nothing wrong with that one. But the Borders one I still have is mine. That's my power. That's my ticket to wandering around the bookstacks of Borders, smelling the new paper and the cellophane of the DVD and CD wrappers and feeling completely and utterly at home. It's my ticket to knowing that I can buy whatever I want (as long as it's not over $25).

So, that's my random musing for the day. And, by the way, the office coffee isn't vile today. It's still Maxwell House which is FAR inferior to Folgers but it's better. I used a lot of coffee though. Strong coffee is good coffee. It may not be good coffee here but, today, at least, it's not vile. Triumph is mine!

Happy Wednesday.