*Yes, it's an old Harlan Ellison line that I stole from him decades ago.

This has been the sort of week where you wonder if maybe you pissed off some god you didn't even know existed. Actually, it's been that sort of several weeks and I'm thinking I might take the next several days and just hide under the bed with the dust hippos until it passes, especially with Stu away from tonight until Monday night.

In the past like 3 weeks, I've been yelled at by two people I'm very close to, spent hours in physical therapy for something that seems to get better just to flare up again and NOT get better, and yesterday, the van service screwed me and I ended up without a ride home from the damn PT. And when that happens, well, there's little that can make me feel crappier and more frustrated. The van service is a paratransit deal with public transportation, with Metro, the bus system. It sucks having to use it but my other options are to take 2 buses to the PT office or to take a cab. I even have special "taxi scrip" that lowers my costs but it's a hike from the front door of the building to the PT office so see? The deal with the van service is that THEY have a half-hour "window" to come get you. YOU, on the other hand, have 5 minutes. In other words, they'll arrive say, between 12:15 and 12:45; you must be waiting and ready. If however, you take more than 5 minutes to be w & r, they can "no show" you and leave. Which they did. Except that I WAS waiting and ready. And never saw a van arrive. And while I'm "curb to curb" which SOME interpret a little differently, it was 37 degrees out yesterday, or 39; it was raining and at some time apparently yesterday afternoon, there was a hailstorm. I wasn't going to sit outside for 30 minutes. I sat inside. Where I could see every arriving vehicle. When I called I was told the van waited and left and they'd send another one in "45 to 60 minutes". I said "no". I went home by scooter. Twenty or so minutes in the close-to-freezing weather, no gloves, because I can't WAIT 45 to 60 minutes longer. I can't sit that long in bad weather. Especially if another van were to magically appear that I could not see; I sure in hell wasn't going to sit outside and wait and there was no way to know when the van would arrive.

I can't do a "count my blessings" because I hate that- it's artificial. Good doesn't balance bad. YES, some good things have been happening, or at least things that help. We have a working DVD player now, thanks to Anna's estate. I should have my first "sidebar" in Library Journal soon, and just filled out the fancy-shmancy invoice to get PAID for it. I've been hiding for a couple of days in a book - the collection of scripts for West Wing that I just bought; 8 of 'em from seasons 3 and 4 and there's stuff in there that makes me laugh out loud. A lot.

So to every one of you who's EVER said anything nice to me, thank you. There's a lot of you and it always always matters. It especially means a lot lately.