Brook and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

"I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

This is the first page of one of my favorite children' books, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. And it happens to be a really accurate assessment of my day.

I didn't sleep last night and so at 8AM I decided to get on with it and go run my errand - dropping off a payment to the electric company. People had told me this building was notoriosly hard to find, so I called ahead and got directions from a customer service rep. I took two busses and then got off where this place was supposed to be and it wasn't there.

I wandered around for about a half an hour looking, walking up these very steep streets for blocks and blocks, around in circles. I stopped a man on the street and asked for directions. His directions were not helpful. I was uphill, sucking wind (because this was really more physical exertion than I've had in maybe years) and finally called the place again to see if they could describe the building, tell me what color it was, anything. I finally got there, got it done, and then wandered around some more until I found a bus stop. Pain scale - maybe a 7.

So I wasn't mad or even that frustrated. I actually felt like a kicked dog, "this is my life, only bad things happen." I sat at the bus stop and cried until the bus came. Then I wiped my tears and tried to act tough.


When I got home I opened the door to a disaster area. The place looked ransacked - even my bedroom. The blinds in the livingroom were pulled off. The dogs were in a frenzy and there was a spot where someone had peed. I knew what had happened.

There is this crazy woman who follows Steven around and in the name of trying to be friends basically stalks and harrasses him; she harrassed me one day as well. She keeps coming over, banging on the door, and then if we don't answer she peeps in all of our windows, even our bedrooms. She's admitted before that she's done this. One day she accidentally got the wrong apartment and that person called the police and the police came and had a talk with her. Later today she was pacing with her dogs behind our apartment. When I get this all substantiated I'm calling the police and getting a restraining order.

By this time I had a migraine from not sleeping for about 24 hours. I took some drugs and tried to go to sleep. Then the landscapers came and mowed the lawn right outside my window, used their weed-wackers, etc. No sleep for me.

My brother came home from work and since he is tall, he worked on re-attaching the blinds, and he fixed them. We picked up the mess in the livingroom.

Then my day turned around! I got a call from a man about a writing job. I had replied to his ad on craigslist. He needed a writer to write articles for his website. I had sent him a writing sample that I pulled together from a microbiology lab, and crossed my fingers. He liked my work! He gave me the job! I have an assignment to work on after I get done with finals. I'm am getting paid next to nothing (and it's just going to be him paying me, so no worries about messing up my social security claim) but I don't even care about that. My writing is getting out there! So freaking cool!

So here is the link if you want to check it out. It's kind of different, but I'm cool with it.

www.antioxidants-health-benefits.com

What's really great about this is that I don't feel so much like a kicked dog now. As my brother said, I got a win!