Mum - a poltergeist flipped my bike!

I've just spent the last half hour wandering around the house looking for a drink i poured.
I swear there are gremlins in my house. Can't find it anywhere and I'M REALLY THIRSTY AND IT WAS THE LAST drop of that yummy stuff Freya brought over the other day.

And who put the celery in the *pantry* last night, so that when i went to look for it to make my risotto, all hell broke loose.

All of this = me going slowly crazy.
or there are gremlins. One or the other.

I've been doing Dream Incubation (whereby you think on a problem before you go to sleep and your dream self provides the answers). It normally works a treat, and I'm getting more and more into it, so you can imagine my surprise when I asked my dream self 'what is going on with all my clumsiness lately' and the dream answer i get?
Poltergeists.
Wow. Thanks a bunch dream self. Really insightful.

So in the tradition of what I'm now going to call The Elephant Files in honour of that most auspicious time I fell off an elephant in Thailand - we have today's story, which was actually yesterday's story - but my hands hurt so bad that I could barely type after the incident.

Here goes:
The Elephant Files 2

Or

How I flipped off my bike onto my head.

So here was the thought process. "Hmmm, I have a day off work. I need coffee, I have a mountain of drycleaning, and yet I have an ass the size of Tasmania. What should i do? I know! I'll bike ride down to Cosina for my coffee, dropping off my drycleaning on the way."
Tick
Tick
Tick.

So after the usual fifteen minutes of faffing to find my helmet get my gear on, off i went - putting the motherload of drycleaning into my basket on the front.

Okay - you can stop laughing now, yes i really do have a basket. No, it does not have flowers. No, I do not have streamers from my handlebars although yes, if i find some I WILL buy them.

(in an aside, just found my drink. I left it in the laundry) (????)

Now the bike ride was going fairly well. Thighs were working, I actually seemed to have the whole gear change thing going on for once and I was feeling pretty confident. The backroad I was on sloped wonderfully downhill, and I prepared to coast all the way to Buckley Street. Which I'm sure would've worked a treat if it weren't for two things:

1. Speed hump
2. Basket

I hit the speed hump just fine, but the shock combined with the sheer TON of drycleaning was too much for a girly girl basket. It came loose from the top, but still miraculously attached to the bike down at the wheel. So it's creating sparks off the road while I'm screaming something that sounded like 'duck' but was in actuality 'f*ck' in rapid succession.

Finally the bike runs over the metal basket flipping me into the air like a freaking pancake to land firmly on my
a) hands
b) head
c) butt

My drycleaning drags on the ground (which is something I've longed to do to my pin-stripped suit forever). I bounce off the road ending up in a glorious fetal position where I stay like a limp kitten until three, count them, three separate young men pull over saying 'you right, luv?'

Who said chivalry is dead?
That person obviously didn't have a mangled bike basket and cracked helmet to get things moving.

Anyway, long story short, Stefan helped me up, inspected my gravel rash hands, unscrewed the remainder of the basket with a set of keys (!!), put the chain back on and sent me on my shaky way. I called him Macgyver, which he probably didn't realise was the highest compliment I could humanly pay him.

So I sat by the side of the road for twenty minutes wondering if after a bit of an accident, I was the kind of person who would forge on to finish my task (coffee/drycleaning/writing) or would i be the kind of person who ran back to the nest licking her wounds.

Then the little voice inside me, that **might** sometimes sound like Melanie Scott, said 'you have gravel rash, go clean your gravel rash IDIOT'.

insightful soulful moment over.

Worst part? Uphill all the way home with bleeding hands that couldn't grip the handlebars properly.

Poltergeists. Sniff.

Hey Murphy - want your law back??

Today, woke up feeling good, the sad grumpy mood from the night before dissipated UNTIL...

I looked in the mirror and LOW AND BEHOLD there was a GIANT DOUBLE DECKER cold sore under my lip. Double decker meaning THREE cold sores that miraculously hatched and then merged under the cover of night into one mammoth glob that threatens to cover a square inch of very obvious facial property.

Where did it come from? Normally, I might get a cold sore about three weeks after a bad virus. Or if I’ve been super run down and stressed. Not just a little stressed, but super stressed. In fact last time I had one was two years ago after that whole Mum and Dad dying within six weeks of each other schemozzle.

My life at the moment, with the coffee, banana bread and lazy weekends, does not warrant a cold sore.

Press Undo! I want my face back!

Fran here at work suggested a boost of zinc and a healthy slather of zovirax. Done!

Cold sore - STILL THERE.

Of course, it would be the day I have a job interview. How hilarious is that. Only a temp role – but one that should take me through the hard-to-find-work Christmas period – so go me.

Luckily they overlooked my massive face impediment and offered me the role. So it’s bye-bye lovely little lawyers library with funky green lights and HELLO dancing girls at the new workplace.

Dropping off the radar

Hey look! I'm still alive!

But by god, I have been working my ass off (oh, if only that were true and my ass really WERE smaller, but alas, I'll just have to settle with the working thing).
I have, drum roll please, finally trained this little capooty to get up an hour earlier and go sit in a coffee shop and write write write before work.
and eat banana toasted banana bread (see aforementioned ass)
and drink coffee
oh, and can i please have another coffee, because that one seems to have disappeared.
Decaff? no, no thank you. I like the way the second coffee gives me heart palpitations and makes my hands shake.

and then, write at lunchtime, trying to find somewhere suitable that doesn't sting me $5 for a coffee. At the moment the front runners are:
1. Starbucks. This one has the bonus of sometimes running into Freya who writes at lunchtime too. It has the down side of having to have THREE shots of espresso before it starts to taste like real coffee - but hey, there's always the chai for a sugar hit.
2. The basement library in the place I'm working at the mo. Seriously, how cool is it that this place has a library? Okay, it's a legal library and therefore boring as batshit, but nevertheless, there are desks, and cubicles and little green lights that are totally conducive to forgetting to go back to the office when the allotted half hour is over. I love lawyers. They are smart and funny and have libraries in their buildings where alphasmart typing is not frowned upon.
3. The little park with tables and a nice view of the old law courts i found last week. But this one is totally weather dependent. During that evil northerly that blew my skirt up around my ears last Friday (I kid you not, and yes there were witnesses, and yes they were a group of teenage boys playing downball against the building wall and yes I did run), I couldn't even make it there.

and then, write after work on the train on the way home, not giving a TOSS who's reading over my shoulder (because they always do).

and then come home and watch tv all night (ah, remnants of my old life coming to the fore).

And to wit - there's a third of a book done. And let me tell you, i totally earned that third of a book. And the dishes in my sink will attest to the fact I've done ZERO housework since this whole gangbusters effort. Ha! It feels great. I may never do housework again.

Really the whole thing is just a big warm up for Nanowrimo. The aim of the November writing fest is to reach 50,000, but that's not going to do me much good since I'm aiming for 90,000, so I decided to give myself a head start. I think this might preclude me from actually signing up for Nanowrimo? Not sure. Maybe if I still write 50,000 in November?
In any case, no one can stop me buying the t-shirt which actually looks kind of cute this year. And really, it's getting a bit old that I'm still wearing my 2003 nano t.

Seriously girl, cough up some dosh and buy yourself a new one! Stop being a cheapskate.

Well that was a mess. If you're still with me by this last line you must truly be my friend
Either that or you enjoy watching train wrecks.