Crossing off things on tedious little to-do lists

Just looked at "the books" I was afraid to look at, and balanced the ugly numbers for the month.  I have an actual book with actual paper in it; I like writing things down.

Now I can look at the other books (really, the other divider sections of the same three-ring binder.)

I made appointments, I rescheduled appointments... I ate my daily allotment of candy already and may cheat by baking something delicious and calling it something other than candy (justifications of the sugar-dependent, that's what we're talking about here.)  I have hardly cleaned anything.

Well, one thing that really needs cleaning is my desk. The surface cannot be seen, and the papers are at landslide level.  Why is it such a difficult thing to do, cleaning the desk off?

I don't know, but I think I'll stop overthinking it and come back later today when I can brag that I cleaned my desk.  I think I'll take a before and after photo to motivate myself.

Before:

*edit two days later:  I'm surprised no one busted me on this.  I cleaned for what seemed like a long time, but it only appears messier now.  How is this possible?

Isn't it funny how things work out?

I complained like a whining baby recently that someone thought it clever to pass my name around for ha-has, and not only did no one laugh (that I saw), but numerous (OK, a nice handful of)  people have come forward to tell me that they actually admire me.  With even more suddenly becoming "followers" (that sounds self-aggrandizing but it really means subscribers to your tweets.)  Thus my initial word choice: "numerous."

*admire for being human and for some other attributes I'm not completely aware of, but the point is that I'm not reviled for having made a mistake.  Anyway...

That backfired, didn't it?

I'll take it, though!

I got a kick in the groin

What I mean is that I've been trying and doing well with my trading, and then after I got knocked down a few notches and admitted to it like a mature person, a person who had once been my "friend" passed it around with a "Uh."  Attempted to covertly pass it around, with the intention that others view and be amused by my failings and her "Uh."

Truth be told, I have no privacy anymore.  I put my name on my stuff, and my stuff on my blog, and this blog is linked to that blog, and the place where the traders talk is linked to the blog that links to this blog... so that the "Uh" person can come read this if she wants to.

I've been told not to pay it any mind, and I'm trying.  It's easier said than done, though.  When it all comes down to it, I don't care a lot what people think or I wouldn't trade; I would dress differently; I'd do many things differently.  I'm not the world's biggest conformist.  Nor am I one of those people still 19-ish in their psychology, declaring, "weird and proud of it!" with a bumper sticker.  There are no points or prizes for doing or NOT doing what people expect; we should all be making our own decisions while adhering to the most basic of societal norms (not driving naked, for example, or shouting at the movies) but otherwise unfettered by undue concern for what people who don't matter (people outside our immediate family, for example) think.

I want to keep my dignity and make it clear that of course, it does not matter what the hecklers (and the greater the exposure to the world at large, the larger the number of hecklers) say, but I'm going to be honest and say I don't appreciate being booed at from the audience.  Does anyone really love that?  Those who say they're fine with it might be lying.

Well, with that out of the way, I'm still up 81% for the year on the pile of money I started with in my venture to trade the dickens out of the pile and generate some green.  This means, I think, that I finally learned how to do it.  I've been practicing long enough, so it's about time.

I wish I could make this a story about how I instantly became rich, but we have so many crushing debts that this will be the story of how I finally got those beaten down, if the story unfolds as I want it to.  I'm having a bad day and feeling like I'm losing my nerve.  I'm tired of having such a steep hill to climb; I'm not sure I'm going to make it.  These moods don't last long.  Check back when my can-do attitude is back.  It's not a fake one, when I have it.  I'm honest if nothing else, and I'll say it when I'm feeling low, and when I say I'm back in the saddle, that's sincere as well.

Nuts and Toffee Dreamin'

The other night I dreamed (wait, that part comes later)... Let me start again. The other day I suddenly remembered that some time earlier in the day I had found a forgotten 1/2 bar (GIANT-sized) of Hershey's Symphony with Almonds and Toffee in the fridge. I had a flashback mental impression of the location (behind the olives and mustard) and the appearance - tattered paper and foil with half the candy missing and a glorious half left behind.

Elated for a second, then deflated... I tested my memory and within a second or two realized I was remembering a dream from the night before. No chocolate waiting for me; nothing behind the mustard on the third shelf of the fridge door; it had only been a cruel and strikingly simple wish-fulfillment dream. What a momentary hope-building and joy-dashing mirage that was. And like a thirsty man in the desert running with a tin cup toward the oasis that was not really there, my salivary glands and I had no chocolate; only some broken dreams.

The dream, however, came from a real experience several weeks prior. A "someone" had bought me one of those, hid it in the described place (not hidden from me, but from the kids to whom food is like dirt is to vacuum cleaners) and I didn't remember it until halfway through the next day. A whole, untouched Symphony bar, just waiting for me on a dull day?!?!

And the day after that, when once again it slipped my mind that I had left half the bar there for myself, and apparently it wasn't on my mind because I didn't think of it until the foil or something caught my eye.

Those two experiences were apparently enough to prompt, weeks later, the hope-building dream about the surprise discovery of the chocolate, which in turn prompted the memory of the dream and the nearly instantaneous identification of the salacious vision as just so much gustatory fiction, and like the sex you won't get because it was just in a dream and you woke up, the chocolate is now legend in my mind: "The found chocolate that was only a trick of the mind."