I am just so crabby this week. I don't know why.

I'm trying to clean up some free Webstrainer listings and finding sheer anarchy--different 'Nuts have done whatever they felt like doing, regardless of what's best for the brand overall--of a kind that's almost impossible to clean up. Every six months, some half-wit "discovers" that the free resource exists and they tell all the 'Nuts to run out and take advantage of it and a couple of dozen of them do--with the result that we now have locations with two, three, or four competing listings, the only one of which is any good (mine) isn't actually active.

This project, Webstrainer-related or not, is completely outside the scope of my actual job, of course.

They are getting some kind of teenager summer help here, calling the kid an "intern" (which, I guess, sounds better than, "the boss's daughter" and NewBoss Anais wanted to know what the kid could help me with. I responded, quite promptly, that the best thing anyone could do for me is not help.

Also, I had forgotten that it's stupid 'NutNews week. The files, promised to me, as always, by 8:00 am on Thursday, have not yet appeared on my desk. (I did put it on my calendar for the next couple of months, so it would stop being a surprise to me.) All it really means is that all the projects that have been getting pushed back all week are now having to be pushed back another four hours--front-loading next week's schedule to a depressing extent.

I checked online and I still have 100 hours of vacation/sick time banked. Obviously, at least half of it has to be reserved for those days when I need to take a day off to work on special freelance projects*, but maybe I can afford to take a "spring fever" day off some day soon? Or a sick day, because I'm sick and tired of being crabby, although I don't actually think a single extra day off is going to make life all joyful again.

There are Things I Must Do this weekend. I have boxes to take to the post office, boxes to take to storage, a pile of papers to sort and shred, cleaning to accomplish, laundry to wash, and some seeds to plant. Thinking of these things, I realize none of them make me feel more cheerful** but I've got one of those over-stressed, over-stimulated, over-stuffed modes going and need to take some curative action.***

What I'm not going to do is go shopping--not for anything. I feel like I've been cleaning unloved clothes out of my closet and unloved junk out of the rest of my life for the past ten years without actually creating any space and I'm crabby about that as well. I don't really enjoy shopping if I'm not buying**** and all I'm buying this weekend is one more of my bookcases. (It's not an indulgence, it's a necessity, since getting the books on shelves is a key component of my Master Tidying Up Plan).

It's a problem to think of other things to do on the weekends, though. I don't enjoy museums when they're so crowded I can't really spend time looking at the things that interest me (and not all traveling exhibits interest me anyhow).

While I do realize that a little more physical exercise would do me no harm, for various reasons, long outdoor walks aren’t really ideal for me. (Also? Walking just to be walking? Talk about a waste of a conscious brain….)

Still. Not a problem this weekend. I have a list and the usual few hours of freelance work.

Two hours later

Today's "quick 30 minutes" meeting went on for just over an hour and a half.

So. Very. Crabby.

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* I should email Bernie. I haven't heard anything about the Freethinker's project yet.
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** Rationally I know that getting those boxes out of the floor is one of those chores I might not be interested in doing but will be glad to have done. (So stupid. Both of those things together will take a maximum 30 minutes, including waiting in line at the post office. Why can I not just make myself do them?)
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*** The inevitable, I suppose, result of the relentless stream of meetings and calls and consultations and whatnot I've been having all month. I feel like people have been coming at me from every direction all month long.
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**** Shopping is boring unless I'm looking for something in particular or indulging myself in new books. Shopping malls drive me crazy with the stroller brigades and the screaming kids and the tottering geezers.