adrian_turtle

I spent all my time at home during the first months of Covid, culling my books in an extremely leisurely fashion. I would check that the roof was still not leaking anywhere near the desk nor any of the bookshelves. Plenty of time! Plenty of space! Still...I knew I would eventually need to move, and it's easier to find an apartment with space for 4 bookcases than space for 6. (I double-shelve paperbacks.) And it's much easier to get rid of books gradually, with time to consider the matter, than in a last-minute panic while the movers are on their way.

Sometimes I would pick up a book and read 4 pages and think "Why did I ever buy this? WHY?" Sometimes I'd read the whole book, hoping it would get better after the first few chapters. (Nope.) Or I'd realize the misogyny fairy had hit it too hard for me to want it on my shelves. (I'm keeping the Mary Renault, though.) It would have gone faster if I could just smile at a book I wanted to keep and leave it on the shelf, but sometimes I thought "Oh, I haven't read this in years!" and just had to pick it up and remind myself how wonderful it was before putting it back. A slow process.

There was a power break last night. I must have been deeply asleep, because I remember trying to turn the knob on the air conditioner at random, in the dark, when it was so hot and I couldn't make it turn on again. I couldn't even make the fan work, and I was so scared that it was really terribly broken and I would never be able to fix it now, and this apartment would become completely unlivable. (Winter nightmares go in different directions.) I woke up when my sweetie called, a little while after my alarm usually goes off...the clock was blinking midnight, and I figured it out in a few minutes. (*)

Or I thought I figured it out. Power breaks are common enough in the summer, with the grid overloaded. Or storms blow down electric wires. Accidents happen. According to a recent news flash, that's not what happened last night at 2am. That's now what's about to happen.

15 minutes ago, I heard my neighbor having a tantrum in the hallway. I was feeling awake enough to be neighborly, so I put more clothes on and went out to investigate, and then to comfort. She's upset because there's an electrical contractor downstairs, who told her he would be turning off the building power at midnight to work on it, just as he did at 2am last night. This is the sort of thing that really ought to be announced to tenants ahead of time, in non-emergency situations. She's furious, coming home late at night, wanting to cook dinner and have a hot shower before bed. I'm rather irritated myself, just wanting to go to bed and wake up to my reliable alarm clock.

(*) I've been very tired lately. It's part of what feels like the start of a depressive episode...everything is too much trouble and I don't care. This is not helping. Dunno that anything would.