Going to try something new -- same idea of my 30 minute free write entries but shorter. 15 minutes free write for the days I'm too scattered to focus, or crazy busy and seemingly unable to grab 30 minutes of quiet alone time to write. I can steal 15 minutes easy even when people are home, I think. Today it's mainly because I don't want to dedicate 30 minutes to my goddamned back and how pissed off I am about pain and having to take it easy all the freaking time.

I was doing my physio exercises last night like a good girl. I did the upper-back stretch for 5 minutes, the new nerve stretch and then flipped over to do the first of my abdominal exercises. A little tender but nothing too bad. Then when I flipped onto my back I moved badly. I seem to remember moving both sideways and flipping at the same time. Searing fucking pain through my lower back, hip, ass and straight down my right leg. I'm assuming my shimmy flip managed to nicely pinch my already inflamed nerve.

Me being the wimp I am hollered and then started to cry. Not a chance that I'd be able to finish my exercises so I slowly peeled myself off the floor (with further curses and crying flying through the air) and hobbled over to the couch. I spent the rest of the evening on the couch trying to get my daughter to bed and ignore the pain. The burning sensation wouldn't go away in my calf; I swear it felt like someone had shoved a hot poker through the muscle from ankle to knee. Insane.

I jokingly said to Liz (my Physiotherapist) on Tuesday that it seems like a toss up, I can either walk and not sleep or I can sleep and not be able to walk. It's like my three areas of injury seem to trade off with each other. Upper back, lower back and whatever the real name of the major nerve that runs from my spinal cord to my foot is called. I have to stop bitching about it though; I can still remember when it all went bad together. When my back would spasm and then my hip would start throbbing and it was a concert of pain.

And that's 15 minutes.

I keep trying to write about our pending car loan pre-authorization and the pending Visa application but everything feels too personal or too vague to put online. We've been debt free (and credit free) for years now but it's always so fucking hard to get approved for credit. So we've been patient, taking our time, living life on cash in a credit driven society. It's a lot simpler and a lot complex at the same time. So many things require a credit card for identification, for purchasing, for ease and convenience. But on the other hand we know exactly what we have and what we can do each month.

It's not from a true desire to live credit-free and debt-free that we do without. For the most part it's because we can't get approved. I wish someone would explain to me how a couple that is debt free, has a rent that is less than 35% of total net income, and bring in a combined gross income of just under $50,000 can't get approved for a lousy $500 Visa. How the fuck does that work? I mean, seriously, how does that work? We go in, we apply, we get a call saying, "we're sorry but your application has been denied". I ask why and they don't know. I check our credit ratings and we're clean.

Then I look around at some of the people I know who can't be given credit cards fast enough. Their cards are maxed out, they can barely make the minimum payments, but here's another pre-approval! I remember my first credit card joint with my ex. We had no income to speak of, just OSAP and his part time job at a restaurant. But here's a $500 Visa, because you're a student! Some of the most fiscally irresponsible people I know have credit cards and we can't get approved. It's a nightmare.

Hopefully we'll get approved for the car loan. I'm so very tired of buses and waiting and hour long trips to get to the dentist and getting rides from relative strangers. I'm tired of planning monster grocery shopping trips so I can get more for the cab fare. I'm tired of feeling like some kind of freak failure as an adult because we don't have a car. I want the convenience and the ability to get in the car, our car and just go. I want to be able to do a market trip every Saturday morning before everyone else gets up for the day. I want to be able to go on adventures -- it's a favourite memory of mine and I want to put those memories there for my daughter as well.

I keep saying we should join the local car co-op because it's more fiscally and environmentally sound, but I really don't want to. I want my own car parked in our parking spot out back. I want to walk out the back door and go out when I want to without the contortions errand running takes on a bus. And a trunk! Oh god, a trunk! I could run errands without carrying everything I get on my back. Oh god, a trunk.

So there's a part of me just praying right now that we'll get approved. Just pleading with the gods to give us a fucking break, we've been so good. I want a Visa to make our lives easier but I want a car so much more. But I tamp down so hard on that part of me because if we get turned down, again, I have to manage and I can if I just don't think about it.

*sighs* And there's the 30 minutes buzzer. Time to go make some soap.

Mike pointed something out this morning while I was debating the cost of darkroom access. He said that my continual inability to focus solely on one thing at a time is probably the major reason I have a hard time with my life. Specifically we were talking about my interest in both Photography and Watercolour as art forms and a means to express myself creatively.

I want to improve in both areas. I want to learn technique and methodology in Watercolours and I want to get back into a darkroom with my Photography. I want to commit to both, but I just don't have the time or the money to do both at the same time. So instead of leaving one to focus on the other, I attempt to do both in a half-assed fashion. That diluted focus means I stay mediocre in both areas.

I think I do that all over in my life. Mike shared a comment from his father, that I was disgustingly talented. (With the underlying question being, if she's so talented, why isn't she doing something with it?) And I am. I make no bones and no false modesty about it. I am disgustingly talented. In everything. Which is the hard part about it. I'm talented to a point, and so many things come so very easy to me that when I hit the point (that everyone hits talented or not) that requires me to struggle I switch off to something else.

I don't think it's because of laziness really. I think it's more that I'm a jack-of-all-trades. I haven't found anything that fits me yet and because there are so many options I get overwhelmed and find it difficult to focus. It's always been this way -- as far back as I can remember.

I'd be good in English so I'd think about being a teacher but then my hands would itch. To stop the hand itch, I'd take Shop (machine, auto, woodworking, drafting, electrics) and dream about taking on a trade, and then my mind would die of boredom. The best fit ever was Tech Theatre. I could be an artist; I was challenged intellectually and physically. It was both social and solitary and I could scatter myself to whatever interest caught me for that show. I was carpenter, costuming, electrics. I was grunt work -- I was TD. There was so much there for me.

But even now when I think about trying again, digging up my old contacts and see if they remember me and if they do would they be willing to use my free pair of hands I realize it wouldn't fit anymore. I can't do the work. My back is fucked. I like to pretend to myself that I'm just a wimp and the pain isn't that bad and I'm just as capable of doing anything I used to be able to do. But I know the truth. I know that I'm a liability and it would be unprofessional of me to pretend otherwise to someone that would count on my abilities. And even though I haven't worn my blacks in 9 years, I am still a professional Theatre Technician.

So I sit here not knowing what to do with myself. I run my business as well as I can, in my normal half-assed manner. I both accept and deny my injuries and my abilities. Everything appeals to me and nothing does. I'm living on the goddamned fence and I have no idea where to go from here.

I think maybe I should choose between the littler things in my life. Watercolour or Photography? Where do I put my time and my money for now? Let my non-career life fall into place before I figure out where I fit best in the bigger spaces in my life. I keep on coming back to this point in my journals and my thoughts. Where do I go from here? How do I get there? How do I even start?

I've had good ideas but most of them haven't been followed through on. Some because I'm unwilling to put the work in, and some because they were out of order. So maybe I need to decide between Watercolours and Photography right now and see where that takes me next.

When was the last time you...

1. ...went to the doctor?

The last time I saw my awesome doctor was last august for my yearly physical.

2. ...went to the dentist?

Yesterday with my daughter. She had 2 cavities to be filled.

3. ...filled your gas tank?

Sometime in the summer of 1998. I haven't owned a car or a gas tank since then.

4. ...got enough sleep?

Last night. I actually slept in and woke up after Mike and Miss Sara.

5. ...backed up your computer?

This summer. That's not good.

There's a batch of Pearberry soap setting up in the oven right now. (I don't bake soap, but it's the best draft free, warm place in the house for soap) I left doing the journal for today until after I finished the batch since I find I end up thinking over things while I soap normally. Today wasn't one of those days. I just made soap and didn't think about anything much at all.

And it continues. I think I just spent 5 minutes staring off into the distance. Even my journal prompts are un-inspiring.

Then here's my story for today.

Earlier when I was rinsing out dishes to stack them I hear this yelling and hollering sound. It sounded fun and young -- like the sound of an elementary school playground. I peeked out the window by the kitchen thinking maybe it was a bunch of kids from Keatsway, but nothing was there. Then I checked out the front porch doors. There were 2 groups of kids with about 30 in each. The yelling and hollering was the second group, they were waving and doing the honk-your-horn arm pull at the passing vehicles.

I wondered at how these silly little things move through generations (I can remember standing on bridges doing the exact same arm movement trying to get trucks to blow their horns) as I watched them. I was enjoying the enthusiasm they had for it, and the joyous yelling they would erupt into if they achieved a wave or a horn. Then a girl noticed me watching them and that set up a wave of waving at me. I waved back, of course. Then I headed back to the kitchen with a smile.

Little moments are so much fun.

My cats are druggy freaks. I suspect Stella was the one to jump up on my desk and discover the bag of catnip I had forgotten there. All I know is I came out from the kitchen after starting a new loaf of bread to find the two of them rolling around on this now very holey bag. They look so disgustingly pleased with themselves. Heh.

I'm not terribly pleased with myself today. I'm having a flare-up with the nerves issue and my back. This is the one that makes it very difficult to walk. I've been sleeping a lot better over the past week, but it always seems to be a trade off. If my spine to leg nerve (I should really find out the name of the damn things) is fine, I can't sleep because of back spasms. If I can sleep, I find it hard to move during the day. I just can't win with my back, can I? Ahh well at least it's not everything at once anymore.

I'm not feeling quite as beaten down anymore as well. So the lack of sleep must have been a big part of my doldrums. I'm still tired and wanting my afternoon naps but it's now more a feeling of playing hooky rather than a need.

You know, during the summer I never felt really bad if I decided to take a Tuesday off to watch the new releases. I keep wondering why it's such a big deal to my nag in my head to take time off in the winter. It's not like I have summer vacation the same as Miss. Sara does. I'm not free from the need to work -- I just seem to be free of the guilt to work.

I'm going to try to get into the habit of making a batch of soap each week. Sometimes I can get into a mood and then I end up making soap like a crazed woman. Then I don't make anything for months afterwards. I made a lot of soap in October and haven't really wanted to make more since them. That's kind of sad when I think about it, I loved making soap all the time when I started. It's the reason I started the business. Too much soap for us to use. Now I don't even make the special soap for us to use up.

Anyway, I'm going to set Wednesday mornings as a time to make a single batch each week. Routine, probably sometimes boring, but it'll keep the supply steady. Not that there's a big worry about running out of stock at this point in time. Business is bad. I've had 2 orders in 2004. In some ways it makes me damn grateful I listened to my gut and stayed so small. If I had rent to pay on a storefront, a loan to repay, all those various things -- I'd drown. The business would fold.

But because I stayed small, just a little business run out of my PC and my kitchen I can just float through this dead spot. I finally finished posting all my receipts for 2003. I have the rough numbers, and the definite final sales totals. I'm showing a 40% loss over my first year in business. Forty percent. That's crazy. I talked to my Dad about it and he said he's showing a major loss in 2003 too.

Which was a relief to hear. I figured I had done something wrong, that I had screwed up in some major way to have such poor sales. Dad says it's not just me, not just him, that it's also hit the people he knows from the shows. These are people that make their living from selling the things they make. They take it a lot more serious than I ever have. If they've been dead in the water... yeah.

And that's 30 minutes.

Put 30 minutes on the timer and let's begin a new week.

It's funny, my weekends seem to fly by but I never seem to do much in them. I finally got out of the house this weekend just past. My Mom threw a shindig yesterday and I helped with some of the setup and most of the cleanup. She managed to fit 28 people into her house, which worked out fabulously. It was tight enough that people had to visit with each other and moved around enough that no little groups really formed. It was a good party.

I called the boys when I got home at 6pm to be a little silly and suggest that we get together sometime that weekend. I keep having these great intentions of making plans and going out with them and I never do. I've been thinking about maybe inviting them over for a little dinner party thing. I also need to return some dinner invitations with my own at some point. It's just hard to get myself thinking socially when I am so reclusive lately.

It's not a great loss, I don't think, my lack of sociability now that I am older. I did the social butterfly routine for a few years in my early 20s. Clubbing every Friday night, the parties, the get togethers, the meeting of hundreds of people from the various online communities I hung out in. I was busy, I was social, I was miserable. It shouldn't surprise me that the slower my life gets the more stable and contented I become.

I don't want to be the classic man-island though. ("No man is an island") I do need the experiences and viewpoints of other people outside of my little family and my quiet home. I've come to realize more and more how much I am losing of my ability to make small talk and light social banter. I've tried over the past year to reach out to the people from my past that still mean something to me. I've tried to re-establish contact with J & J with no success. The boys and I are still friends but we suffer from the "I can see them anytime! They live in the same city!" syndrome. (You can always see them, so you never do. Heh.) My sister is busy with her job and life, I rarely see her socially anymore.

Add into that the ending of other friendships this past year and I'm left with a very insular life. That sucks. Enh.

I hate how awkward I feel now. Maybe I've felt this way always, actually. Used to have to get drunk to feel really social. I've always been shy and awkward, but I seem to remember being charming once upon a time. But memory can lie and maybe it is to me now. Who knows, really? The people that might know aren't talking. I was never charming with the boys. I was a dork and they loved me anyways so I can't even ask them.

I guess in some part of me that I try not to pay attention to I'm hurt. I'm hurt that I tried to reach out to people that were once my best friends, that once told me they loved me and whom I still love and they're not here now. There's the smart part of me, the wise part that says things change, people change and I used them hard before I walked away. That wise part says I shouldn't do anything more and just let it go. Wisdom and experience says that people come back when they need to, and sometimes the thread that ties us together has simply come to an end. When that thread ends, there's nothing that can be done by me except for plain old acceptance.

I've been working on that one. I really have. I tried. Still hurts though. I wonder if it's worth trying to make friends now. It seems like so much work sometimes. I miss being young and making friends the way I did then.

And that's the end of my 30.

We're running out of room.

We're growing out of our little two-bedroom apartment, we really are. There's enough room if we remain anti-social and with differing schedules. I don't know what we're going to do when Sara's computer is finished being pieced together. I don't want it in her bedroom, but there is no room in the living room with ours. We need more bookcases for both books and our media stuff. But there's nowhere to put more bookcases, really.

I love our apartment, for the most part. I think the long useless hallway is well, useless, but it's great for spacing the noisy areas from the bedrooms. Our living room is a long rectangle and split between a living room, den and dining room. Our bedroom doubles as a library. Sara's room is hers and poorly laid out. But for the most part it's pretty good for us. It has fit us well over the past 3 years.

But now that we have Sara full time it's starting to fit like last year's jeans after a growth spurt. She got these wonderful toys for Christmas, but they require space to open them up and play. Space we just don't have. To do my Physio exercises on the floor I have to tuck myself between our computer desks and the kitchen table. I can't even imagine how sardine like it'll become once Sara starts bringing friends home with her.

Ideally I'd love for us to have a room the size of our living room dedicated to the computers and all the crap they need. Hell I'd even make it into a cubicle farm. I'd love to have a bedroom slash nothing else for everyone. The idea of a guest bedroom thrills me. I'd say that a library would be nice, but I know we'd never keep our books contained to a single room. A play/work room would be heavenly as well. A corner for Sara's big-ass toys and a corner for my various projects. (I think part of the reason I find it hard to work on my projects is they have to be unpacked and repacked every time I work on anything)

Eventually we'll buy a house and get some of those spaces I crave. Until then we're stuck in rental land. So I've been thinking a lot about getting into a 3-bedroom apartment or townhouse somewhere. Use the third bedroom as a computer den and free up the living room to be a living room. I've been looking across the street at the big red building and the 2 empty apartments and thinking it might be nice to live over there.

Then recently our next-door neighbours moved out. Their apartment has been mentioned to me before by Fritz. He's told me about the three bedrooms and the dishwasher. I've wanted to get in there to take a look for months. I never wanted to intrude while someone lived there but there's nobody there now, right? So I jumped at the chance to check it out quickly yesterday when I caught Fritz heading out after doing some painting in there.

It's more a two bedroom, two den, two bath apartment than a three bedroom. The bedrooms are on opposite sides of the apartment with a bathroom right beside each one. The kitchen is the same size and layout as ours, but with the fabled dishwasher right across from the (avocado green) fridge. The living room is the size of our current one, but there's an offset den area leading to the master bedroom. There's a separate room section leading from the living room to the master bedroom that would work as a computer den.

The biggest downfall for me is that the master bedroom is it's all french doors between it and the dens. If someone was playing on a computer or watching TV while someone else was trying to sleep, the poor sleeper would hear everything. The carpet is cheap, and of course and as usual with this landlady the place is dirty. Plus we'd lose the balcony.

But there's more space. We could start separating out the work areas from the social and play areas. Sara's room would be bigger. There are two bathrooms. But then again it's remaining under the "management" of this incompetent idiot. Not to mention paying her more money to do shit all. There's the hassle and adjustment of moving even when it's just 30 feet down the hall. We'd still be just outside of Sara's School's catchment area.

Debates. Debates. And that's 30 minutes according to the new super-silly cat timer.

Every once in a while I like to quickly scan through my stats for PtF and see where the links are coming from, how people are finding me, and so forth. I've been checking them a lot more lately because I joined a new forum and I'm curious if anyone's curious. Heh. So I check them last night and find a new link and off I go to check. It took me a few look-overs of her site before I realized that the picture she had used to illustrate that she was talking about monkey bars was my monkey bars picture.

Hotlinked. Without attribution. Without permission. The fuck.

This is the second time I've had one of my images hotlinked without permission and I'm pretty pissed off about it. It's not even really the theft of my bandwidth that gets to me. It's the bullshit arrogance that says my art is theirs to take, to use. That my copyright means nothing, that my little "If you want to use anything, don't steal, ask. Thanks." is just so many letters on a screen.

I put my photography online so that people can look at it. So that people can enjoy something beautiful the same as I have. It's a way to both show off what I do and keep it for myself. My photography doesn't lie forgotten in the bottom of a shoebox under my bed anymore. What I don't do is put my art out there for people to use elsewhere. I don't put it out there to illustrate that someone made out on the monkey bars last weekend.

They also don't ask. How fucking hard is it to open up an email client, put in my email address and say "Hey? Could I use this picture of monkey bars for an entry in my journal? Please." Hmmm? Before I started getting as sick of people that expect and demand stuff for nothing as I am now, I would have been thrilled to say yes. Now I'm more likely to say no. And that's really sad.

Maybe this is my lesson to learn this winter. To learn about the many faces of theft, the many ways people steal from each other and how I feel about it. I've stopped a friendship over the theft of my time and willingness to share this winter. I still have to come to terms with the theft by her of my $80 DVD set. That won't be solved until I get it back, most likely by re-purchasing another set. That one burns.

Then there's the theft of my work. The cigar band label tutorial. That sorry piece of my generosity has been passed around without attribution several times that I know of, and guaranteed many more that I don't. The thing that created so much in the way of demands (without offers of payment) and headaches. I still don't know what to say about it to the people that still ask where it is and can't they please just get a copy because they really need it.

And most current the theft of my bandwidth and my art. I pay for this domain. I pay for my hosting. I pay for the tools of my art, the cameras, the film, the batteries. I'm just talking about what costs cash money. I haven't even started on about my time, which I value more than money. And these lazy fucks steal that from me.

So last night I fixed it so that nobody can use any images on PtF except me. Nobody. I can't remember if that will break some legitimate uses, but at this point I don't care. I'm finished with playing nice with thieves.

I went out to Zehrs today to get some groceries and pick up our prints from Christmas. Three rolls of film from me and maybe, maybe 2 decent pictures in the entire lots of them. Nothing terribly fancy, just plain old snapshots. Blurry, grainy snapshots. I'm not terribly impressed, but I can't expect much more from sloppy photography.

I've been thinking about buying myself a tripod sometime soon. I want to get a bit more serious about my photography, and I really want to do some light painting and night shots. All of those need a tripod. So it's on my little mental list of things to buy when I get around to it. Right now I'm saving up for a sewing machine. I should be able to buy it by March.

I have the two cameras; the Yashica and the Olympus Digital. The Olympus is actually Mike's, but I seem to use it the most. It's handy to carry around and since most of my photography ends up online here it makes my life easier. My print images that I am willing to show to the world are a waiting the day I can get access to a scanner. So I end up using digital for anything casual or artsy and the 35mm for anything I want a permanent record of.

I've been a photographer (that feels so pretentious to type, but it's be most apt term for what I am and what I do) for as long as I can remember. I really got into it seriously when I hit high school. Our school had a darkroom, camera club, and a generous loan policy on the equipment. I'm not sure what year I took Photography as a course, but I have the feeling it was gr.10 or so. I have a box filled with old negatives in my artsy craftsy rubbermaid tub from those years. Black and White pictures of friends, family, and very few things.

Now I seem to only photograph things. It never seems to be people. I think in part it's because I think it's rude to do street photography of strangers -- legal or not. And I don't have that many people in my life the way I did when I was younger. I miss that sometimes -- having a group of friends to do things with. Like photo shoots in abandoned buses. (I was a model in that one.)

I like capturing life around me. Catching those brief moments and keeping them still forever. I think if I had my way, I'd buy myself a decent kit -- a digital SLR, a 35mm without fungus ruining the lens -- two of them so I could have both B&W and colour going at the same time, a tripod, a flash, filters and a cable release. I'd also have a darkroom all to myself. I'd really enjoy that, I think.

I'm disjointed today. I had some thoughts for an entry about photography, but they don't seem to want to flow today. So I'll leave this now and try again another day.

So the phone rings this morning while Mike and I are chattering away. I figure it's my sister, but check the call display anyway. Bell PayPhone. Er... ok. The conversation goes something like this:

Woman: Hi, Linda?
Me: Hi, that's me.
Woman: Hi! I'm *some name I forget*... I was looking at your website.
Me: *Which one? Damn.* Uh-huh.
Woman: I am really interested in Soapmaking and I want you to teach me. You could come to my place or I could come there for lessons.
Me: *The fuck?* I'm sorry but I don't teach anyone how to make soap as it is my business selling it. There are many resources online with very detailed instructions. There's the Soap Dish Forum -- many of the people there helped me learn how to make soap.
Woman: Oh... Ok....
Me: Best of luck, ok? Bye.
Woman: *surprised* Thanks! Bye.

First off, good on her for asking. It takes balls to ask for help and I admire that. I just wish people would think about whom they are asking.

It comes down to sales. If I teach someone how to make soap, especially someone local enough to "come over for lessons", I am creating competition. I'm creating competition that knows how I make my soap and hell, my recipes if I was dumb enough to not use something different from my standard.

Then there's the danger aspect. My lye water mix is stronger than the standard used in Labs. It's very easy to fuck up and have an accident. I know my timing to get under running water in the case of a spill, but add another person into the mix and my safety plan goes to shit. Plus this is my home; it's not a workshop.

I don't want anyone coming into my home as a part of my business. I run SW from here because it's cost-effective and I'm small enough to manage. It makes sense for me as a parent to be available in the way I am when I work from home. But this is my home. I have personal issues with safe spaces and strangers enough to have very few personal friends in my home, much less strangers inviting themselves over for lessons.

Finally, my most personal beef with it all -- I taught myself. I spent a month wandering all over KW looking for handmade soap without finding any. So I decided to make my own. I went online and read for 3 days straight, anything and everything about soapmaking. Then I walked all over on a hot August day to buy all the equipment I needed. That night I made my first batch of soap. It was lye heavy and made with Crisco (I have a contact allergy to Crisco). So I tried again. And again. Until I got it right. Then I kept making soap.

Nobody taught me how to make soap. Nobody. I got advice. I got recipes. I got instructions. But I learned how to do it by doing it. And there's a part of me that thinks if people aren't willing to do the work, make the mistakes, then they can look elsewhere 'cause they're not going to get it from me. That's just the personal part.

I used to be more flexible about this. Then came the bullshit about the label tutorial and the bullshit with a friend using me and my willingness to help and teach. Now it feels like most people are more willing to have things handed to them rather than dig it out for themselves. As someone that finds pride and a sense of self in my ability to independently learn, I'm annoyed when I'm asked to give over my hard won knowledge for anything. Not that people actually offer anything in exchange for the knowledge or my time.

*sighs* Plus it's just rude to ask someone running a business to teach the skill their business is based on if it's not clearly offered. And trust me, there's nothing on SW that says "I offer soapmaking lessons!"

Pfft.

I was actually woken up by my alarm this morning. That's impressive because it means I wasn't woken up in the middle of the night thanks to my back. It's been interesting watching myself getting so grateful for the ability to wake up in the morning without pain. It's happened 3 times (counting today) this past month. But no matter how grateful I am for the lack of pain, the majority of mornings I wake up at 4-5am unable to sleep.

So I get up, take a Vioxx and sit in my chair waiting for it to kick in. That takes about an hour if I'm lucky and the single pill works. Sometimes I have to take a second pill to make the pain go away enough to sleep again for an hour or so. Then my alarm wakes me up and I'm off to get Sara ready for and to school.

Sometimes I can't carry the Brita filter over to the coffee maker to make my morning coffee without the weight setting off spasms. Most of the time the simple, simple act of bending over to feed the cats is more than I can handle. Then there's not knowing if I should ice my back or heat it to make the pain ease. And most of this is on the dose of painkillers I had taken a couple hours before.

What's been happening because of this is how tired I've become. Life still moves around me and I still have responsibilities to it. I have to get up at 7am most school days. I have to move and live. But my business can stand a fairly large amount of neglect and it has been. I haven't been working at all, really.

I get Sara to school, come home, spend some time online and then I nap through the middle of the day. I've already napped for 2 hours today alone and this was a day I woke up pain free.

I guess in all my bitching and complaining there's just this -- I'm so very tired. It's no longer that light exhaustion that had me worried I was getting depressed from a couple weeks ago, now it's something eating my time and my energy. I'm sitting here seeming unable to wake up fully. This sucks. I need to figure out how to beat this.

And that's 30 minutes.

So I emailed the boys about perhaps going draining again. Just a little chatty, testing the waters email. I linked to one of the more appealing drains photographed as a teaser. Here's what I got back, which is absolutely hilarious.

Why do I always have to be the one to tell you? Linda, you are too old to sewer. We are both twice the age, twice the weight (almost), and half as fit. It would kill us both. Even if you don't care about yourself, think of Sara. A girl needs a mother. For goodness sake, even in the height of our adventurous years, we weren't crazy enough to sewer in the winter.

M

And then this morning I get the response from R. (Who has obviously been reading the UER forum and my posts there.)

So, what's this about you giving credence to terminology birthed by mere imitators of our heritage art form?!!! The term, proper and true, is "sewering", God Damn It!!

Hmmff.
Your former 'crew member',
R of the UnderGround

I'm going to take that as a yes. *laughs*

All morning I've had this memory floating around in the top of my mind. I remember sitting in class at ECI on a spring afternoon with my jeans absolutely filthy from the knees down. I didn't care. I had a secret that only my little group of friends knew. I had gone on an adventure with Ro over lunch and 3rd period through the nearby storm drain in bare feet and my poor jeans.

We called it Sewering and the 4 of us loved it. We'd find hidden entrances to this cool, dark and quiet world below and disappear for hours. I remember a few big drains and many short ones. My aching back, ruined shoes, soaked clothes -- the things that didn't matter because we were doing something different and unknown to the people around us. We'd be out driving or biking around and come across a likely spot and more often than not we'd poke and explore.

It wasn't just the sewers that we'd explore. We had these places like George's garage, so many barns, ruins, old factories that we would pick our way through. I still have a handful of smoke stained paper that I took from a burned out husk of a factory up north. We were on a camping trip and decided that we had to explore. I think that was the May 24 camping trip to Beaver River... 11 years ago.

I know Ro kept up with the exploring after she moved to Toronto. I wouldn't be surprised if she's doing it still today. I stopped once I got married and depressingly serious. I'm not sure when the boys stopped, if they have. I think they have because there's been no mention of it. I've been tempted over the years to take it up again but I never wanted to go alone. Part of the fun was the exploration with my friends.

I'm not sure what got me looking at Infiltration.org yesterday. Several years ago I read it all and offered to do some write-ups about the KW drains (which I never did, because I'm a damn procrastinator, heh) -- but I forgot about it. Anyway, something reminded me of that ancient promise of mine and my former love of "UE"ing. I started reading the forums, hopping links and now here I am. Wanting to explore again.

Which is damn funny. I've been working on my damn back for months now and I want to go shimmy through drains. I remember how bad my immortal teenage back felt after a trip through a too-short drain, so I don't even have the excuse of forgetfulness. I just don't care. I want to grab the boys and my cameras and just go. I want to have adventures again, I think. I want to go see what a decade has done to "our" drains.

I'm old. I'm broken. I don't give a shit. Hah. I think I need to see if the boys agree with me.