Mercury has Astroglide

Yesterday I was anxious, cranky, brittle. I had an idea why, and I did my best to not let it affect me or the people around me, although I may have telegraphed that and might have come close to the line or crossed it one or two times, and I did apologize to them for that. But it was a knot in my chest, a scribbled black cloud in my brain. I couldn’t escape it. I could only acknowledge it and move on.

This morning, I woke up and… that chaos had shifted. I was still janky, I was still anxious. My nerves were dancing like beads of water on a hot skillet. But it was… laughing. The negative scratches in my head had flipped and become positive giggles. What had changed overnight? There’s no way to tell. A manic, must-take-action devil had perched itself on my shoulder, urging me to action.

I channeled that feeling into Doing Projects™.

Before dad moved in my Kona Smoke 2-9 lived downstairs, leaned against the wall in the pathway from living room to kitchen/back door. It was in plain sight but out of the way, unless I needed to put something in the closet it blocked, which was rare. I put nothing important in that closet because it was blocked. QED.

When dad moved in, though, because of his mobility issues, I moved the bike upstairs to my computer room, my office. There wasn’t a good spot for it, so it leaned against my second desk, making that desk essentially useless. I used that desk for drawing and other projects; my computer desk is smaller and only big enough for my computer and the monitors. As long as I can get to the compute desk, things are OK.

Today, the gremlin inside me seized on getting that desk clear and finding a good spot for the bike, one that would be out of the way but still visible, so I don’t forget about it and maybe am encouraged to ride it again. Probably when the summer heat goes away, aye? Also, clearing that desk means when I start working from home I’ll be able to put my work computer there instead of working downstairs on the dining room table, or perched awkwardly on my computer desk.

A hook. I needed a hook, from which to hang the bike. There were a few good locations, a couple in the computer room, one or two downstairs, that would be perfect. Except I needed to make sure any hook I put up would be going into a stud.

My dad has always been handy; men of his generation nearly always were. So I asked him for advice. He suggested that a stud-finder is the best way to do that. So I went to the hardware store with my dad on a Sunday, which is a whole thing. At the store, we bought: the hook, the stud-finder, a replacement three-way LED light bulb for the downstairs lamp, a magnetic knife rack so I can finally get my knives out of the silverware drawer, and a whetstone for the knives.

The project list was a short one but I did every one. The manic pixie dream devil on my shoulder was appeased. Still don’t know where the energy had come from. Mercury must have Astroglide or somethin’.