friday: FAIL

have you ever had one of those days where one thing after another goes awry, and you feel like you might burst into tears if the universe gives you the horns one more time? a day that makes everyone and everything annoying or frustrating or infuriating and you just kind of want to sit at the bottom of a pool like cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?

that was my friday.

i had two very simple, seemingly achievable items on my agenda for the day: 1. to go to my apartment and plaster the ulcer that’s been eroding the wall above my bathtub for three years, and 2. get some ice cream from ed’s, a local parlour where they make all sorts of wonderful flavours on the premises using fresh ingredients and imagination.

simple enough goals, and yet i accomplished neither.

i didn’t sleep last night – i had one nightmare after another and woke up repeatedly – so i was very tired this morning. i got up and was sore all over. my legs and arms were achy, my lower back hurt and i could feel the faint throbbing of a headache. body: FAIL.

i decided to forgo my morning walk along the lake because i figured i could get an earlier (and more energetic) start on the plastering that way. i turned on my powerbook to check my email and, six minutes later, it died. very abruptly and unexpectedly, the battery apparently lost all ability to hold a charge, which means i can no longer use my laptop unless it’s plugged into an outlet. i looked up the price of a replacement battery: about $150. battery: FAIL.

i took care of some pool tasks and then headed out. it’s about an hour commute from my housesitting gig to my apartment, and i made good time, walking through my door in just over 50 minutes. i was ready to get my wall fixed today so that i could prime the bathroom on sunday and put up the first coat of paint on monday or tuesday.

only... i discovered i had the wrong compound. the right product, but the wrong consistency. i thought i could just use what my mom had left over from a patching job she’d done recently, but i hadn’t read the product info carefully before borrowing it. so it wasn’t until i tried to apply it to the wall that i realized it wouldn’t work. at all. plastering: FAIL.

i was upset. not only had i spent almost an hour going to my place for nothing, i was still looking at another hour commute back. i’d wasted two subway tokens and two hours, and thrown off my reno schedule – the earliest i can plaster (with the correct product) will be sunday afternoon, which pushes everything else back after that. and, unfortunately for me, the heat and humidity return to toronto starting on monday, which means working in my un-air-conditioned apartment will not be fun and the drying time between patching and painting will be extended. scheduling: FAIL.

on my way back (after foolishly skipping lunch), i thought i’d stop at the beach library to check for DVDs, then pick up a few groceries and go get the ed’s ice cream because YB will be staying over with me tomorrow night. i’ll spare you extensive details of this hour-long endeavour and summarize thusly:

the library was completely picked over, so the only DVDs they had were the titles no one wants or everyone’s seen. library: FAIL.

when i stopped at the grocery store – ironically named “valu-mart” – i was aghast at their pricing. this is a fairly swanky neighbourhood and clearly price-gouging happens. they wanted THREE DOLLARS for one head of lettuce! not fancy lettuce, not organic, just a regular head of iceberg lettuce. other items had similarly inflated prices that i was not willing to pay, so i left empty-handed. groceries: FAIL.

if nothing else, i thought to myself, i will get some ice cream! it had been one of the things i’d looked forward to most about spending eleven days in this convenient-to-the-shop location, even though i knew it probably wouldn’t be cheap. i’d planned to buy two pints... until i got to the store and looked at the price.

$7.25.

PER PINT.

?!

their ice cream is good, but it’s not that good that i could justify paying almost eight dollars for one pint of it. i could buy a whole meal for that amount of money! ice cream: FAIL*.

(* though, as a treat, i may get myself a double scoop one day before i leave.)

by the time i got back to the house just before 3pm, i was hungry, sore, exhausted and annoyed. i had some snacks, chatted online with my brain twin, called my mom and slowly unwound. but i was feeling all teary and down. eventually, i decided maybe cameron frye really did have the right idea, so i put on my bathing suit and went outside for a swim... despite the fact that the weather was cool (but sunny) today, and the water was chilly. i didn’t wind up sitting on the bottom of the pool (too cold!), but i did swim laps for a while and felt better when i got out. i took a hot shower, made myself dinner and then sat down to watch TV.

i didn’t take any photos today, didn’t sit at the nook today, didn't do anything creative and didn’t write a thing save for this blog entry. but at least i ended the day with a small aquatic victory.

which i hope means a restful, nightmare-free sleep to come, and a great day tomorrow.

[edited to add: in a fitting end to the day, i just tried to look up a place called "the pie shack" -- which is nearby and which i thought might be something to check out next week or with YB. i googled it, clicked on the top link and discovered the site has been hacked and you're bypassed to a porn page. i realize dessert is *like* porn to me, but this was definitely not what i'd hoped to find.]