Two Steps Forward, Eight or Nine Steps Around the Mulberry Bush and a Couple Down the Rabbit Hole

There was a moment — and it was an awesome beautiful moment — when there were only four tabs open in my browser. And for that brief instant (okay, it was Wednesday, most of Wednesday) I thought I’d somehow gotten it together. That I was not in fact drowning, despite the whole ‘it’s December’ situation.

But then Thursday happened. Which was okay. Then Friday, which was less so. And then… disturbingly enough it was the weekend that threw me back on the train tracks. What’s with that?

And then there was Monday. We’re not going to talk about Monday.

I spent yesterday in a kind of mourning, resisting the urge to bang my head against the wall as I tried to rebuild Pan – two steps forward, eight or nine steps around the mulberry bush and a couple down the rabbit hole.

There are cables all over the living room, socks in a parade across the bedroom (which could be them developing sentience and making a break for freedom or the beginnings of an uncharacteristic clothing filing system of Rick’s…) and my hair is still pink. Which – What. I mean, my hair is not pink. It cannot possibly be pink. Except for the way it is. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but I do take it as a sign of the impending apocalypse.

And then Rick punned at me, which I thought was entirely uncalled for. so I went to Paul for comfort. Paul felt this was deeply wrong and so made up a series of terrible, awful Pan-related puns until I ran away. Rick seemed sympathetic and hugged me, but then observed, while doing so, “You know, your hair is really very pink today.”

It’s possible he was just getting back at me for telling him the truth earlier.

We were having a discussion about Pan’s early onset dementia and I said in passing that it wasn’t really that early, although I did think we had another year before we’d need to replace him. And all of a sudden Rick was staring at me in confusion and we were here:

Me: Let me break this to you gently, because I only figured it out a few days ago and it came as something of a shock: I submitted my thesis a little over two years ago. We’ve been living here for two years.
Rick: (startled pause) I missed a year.
Me: I know. Why do you think I’ve been whining about this whole ‘December’ thing? It’s functionally not possible.

Rick reacted a lot like I just told him there was no Santa. (P.S. Kids, that is a lie. Santa is totally real, he’s just old so he needs a lot of help to deal with the physics issues. Parents help out in a pinch.)

So I’m sitting at his computer with his extremely loud (and slightly disturbing) keyboard, with my feet tucked underneath me because they don’t reach the ground (stupid six foot boys) and trying not to think about the fact that both of my laptops in the other room are halfway between reinstalled and totally screwed. Wish me luck.