Oh, darling laptop…

You just can’t keep doing this to me. You were stone cold, cold as death, for nearly three days! The last thing I want to do is look for a replacement, but…::sob::…if things keep going this way…

weather

Turbulent mental weather; dreamy physical weather. Thick snow, huge flakes seeming almost to hang in the air, interspersed with a smooth, drifting fog that comes and goes. It’s something to hold onto, a strong contrast to the churning of my recent moods.

Also: I badly need to buy some ear plugs. (As soon as they invent mind plugs, too, I’m on it.)

Ski Vacation!

Ben gets one, so I get one. The plan: 5 consecutive days of skiing, a break day, then a two-day ski retreat.

Woohoo!

Also:

“Audrey, can you spell Ben?” –Me

“Umm, B?”

“Yes, that’s right! Now what comes after ‘b’?”

::Looks nervous, then gives a big grin:: “A heart?”

That’s it.

There is a conspiracy to keep my from writing about my paranormal experiences. I just wrote quite a long post that turned out to be Meghan’s Highlights of the Supernatural, and it got lost. That is the first time that has ever happened with this blog. This blog 1) keeps me signed in all the time, even when I think I’ve signed out, and 2) saves every eensy two-word beginning of a post, with the result that I’ve got about 12 “saved but not published” posts because I’m too lazy to delete them. But just as I was about to post my post, it 1) signed me out, and 2) failed to save the post. Also 3) when I hit the back button, it had cleared my post from the cache already, which never happens, even with my e-mails.

…I was going to give up, let the post go, but no! I will not give in to the conspiracy! So, the supernatural experiences:

1) For three mornings straight, my legs have been sore as though I were running for my life all night. No explanation whatsoever. I skiied on Friday, but usually my legs don’t get sore from skiing, and if they do, it’s the very next day. Saturday they were fine. On Saturday the only physical exertion I did was a little snow fort touchup, which was arm-intensive, not leg intensive, anyway, and my arms have not been sore. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday I woke to ridiculously sore legs, which continued througout each day. They are still sore, as it’s Tuesday. But I don’t exercise. And I have been doing nothing that could make them sore, let alone sore for three days.*

2) I put hot water on for tea, prepared a tea mug with some honey and a tea bag.** Maura was upstairs. The girls (who can’t reach the counter and never ever touch the stove, anyway), were on the porch watching T.V. I went to the bathroom. When I came out, the burner was off, the tea was steeping, and Maura was 100% sure that she hadn’t done it. Until she said that, I was certain that it wasn’t me. I mean, I had no memory of any of it–and you know how you can think back to things like hearing a tea pot whistle? I thought, did I hear the tea pot whistle this morning? I came up with, absolutely not! So either I am really, truly losing my mind (at least, bits of it long enough to pour tea), or something paranormal is going on.***

3) Writing about those before reminded me of my experience at Grand Central Station. I’d lost my cell phone. I was trying to meet Clyde. I didn’t have his number because it was on my cell phone. The first thing I did was try to call Jessie and Dad (who have his number) from a pay phone. The message I left for Jessie included the number of the pay phone next to me. At that time I was at my first bank of pay phones; that was inside a glass door near a security-ish station. Fast forward to forty-five minutes to an hour and a half later. (Not completely sure how long that interlude was, but at least 45 min.) I am at a different bank of pay phones. I am out of my mind, miserable, wildly overreacting, but genuinely…upset is a gross, gross understatement, but it’s all I’ve got. So I’m using a calling card I’ve just bought (the third that day, I think), I’ve given up on that one message I left Jessie, I’m trying to call Dad–I am actually in the middle of dialing him with the calling card, I’ve already gone through about half of the automated stuff, I’m putting in my pin number–when suddenly, Jessie’s on the phone. Completely without explanation. I am so frustrated and upset, and so relieved that I’ve finally gotten her, that I don’t even bother asking what the hell happened, I just get Clyde’s number and call it. Meet up with him about 2 hours late. Let me recap: I was so frustrated, angry, and miserable, that the world just connected me to my sister at a different bank of pay phones from the one I had given her the number of, and while I was in the middle of another call. …WHAT? Right?****

If only my overactive imagination weren’t so well balanced by my ruthless realism, I might actually start believing in supernatural forces meddling with my life. Maybe if this sore legs stuff goes on for another few days I’ll ask someone to watch me for sleepwalking? Or sleep-aerobics, or something?

*Twelve dancing princesses, anyone? Though my shoes are intact. And the princesses were complicit.

**Yes, I’ve resorted to tea bags. No, I don’t have any good tea with me. ~Murmur to the night, to hide her starry light, so none will find me crying, and sighing all alone…~

***No, I don’t believe in ghosts. Much as I’d like to. I am definitely in the minority here in New Hampshire: someone at work was talking about her ghost trouble at her house, and it turned out I was the only one out of four who didn’t believe in ghosts. I thought not believing in ghosts was the standard…? Frank, by the way, is very convinced of the existence of ghosts.

****By the way: I really wanted to, but I never did get around to asking her what on earth happened that day. By now I’m sure she’s forgotten the details. It’s one of those ridiculous mysteries, though. I have no possible explanation for it. This is not something that happens to me. And another thing that doesn’t happen: it kept slipping my mind to ask her about it. I don’t let go of mysteries like that! I keep at it until there’s an explanation (hence my lack of belief in the paranormal, perhaps), mostly because I’d really like to think that there’s supernatural stuff going on, but I can’t let myself believe it until I’ve explored every other possibility–and I always find another possibility.