Pippin woke me up this morning in his utterly passive-aggressive way: purring. In his defense, it was nearly 9am — long past the time for The Feeding Of Cats. So he placed himself attentively near my face, front paws neatly lined up against each other, tale curled precisely around his body, and purred. Loudly. All things considered, this is a much better way of waking me up than almost any other way I can think of, so I’m not complaining. All things considered, I even kind of like it. And I’d already slept for most of the past 12 hours, so it was ok.

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Maybe it’s the fact that my new doctor seems to be taking me seriously, but suddenly my family members are bursting with ideas of things to ask him about. The latest include kidney function and lyme disease. Apparently it’s less likely but not impossible to get tick bites in January, and apparently enough of lyme’s vague symptoms are like enough of my vague symptoms that the fact that my lyme test last year was negative may not mean much. Apparently lyme tests are often falsely negative. Apparently going to Mayo is really the best way to figure out if this is what’s wrong with me. That makes three votes for a trip to Mayo in the last two months. I’d really rather not go, but not for any good reason. It just seems like if I go to Mayo that’s making this into a Big Deal because only Big Deal diseases go to Mayo. That’s a mental shift I can’t seem to make. What if they look at me gravely and say, “We’ve figured out what’s wrong with you. As it turns out, you are lazy. The recommended treatment is prescription strength Get Off Your Butt.”

Either that or they’ll find out that it actually is a Big Deal, and then I’ll be crushed. Basically, I’m impossible to please, so it’s easier just to spend the day lying on the couch or sitting at a coffee shop, contemplating lethargy, watching Friendfeed scroll past, and wishing I had enough brain power to participate rather than just watch. Or rather, that I had anything more interesting to say than “I’m tired and feel kinda crummy,” all the permutations of which would inevitably be translated as “please pity me” by all and sundry when really it’s just a statement of fact.

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It took me until 4 to do anything constructive with my day. Well, no, that’s not true. I backed up my computer this morning in case it dies semi-unexpectedly. I’ve been getting blue screens lately, so I’m less and less confident that this thing will live very long. At one point the computer told me it estimated over 6 hours until the backup would be done. 10 minutes later, it said 23 minutes remained. Time flies when you’re having fun?

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I’ve finally figured out how to use this travel watercolor brush. The idea is to squeeze water out onto the pallet and then paint as usual, dipping the brush into that water. Otherwise there’s no way to control the amount of water on the brush. But used this way it works quite well.

And I finished the fourth postcard just now, so I now have one for each person who requested one. I know good matches for two of the postcards, but the other two are kind of up for grabs. Who needs a lily? Who needs a bridge? I’m just not sure. And ultimately it doesn’t really matter, so I should just write addresses on them.

Now that I’ve finished that project, I guess the next one is to get over my fear of figure drawing and just practice. I’ll never get better at it if I don’t start.

On the other hand, I could paint a few more postcards…

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Leaving the coffee shop, I realized it was a beautiful evening. Pitch dark since 4:30, of course, but beautiful nevertheless. So I walked the few blocks to the co-op and back to get a few groceries rather than going straight home. I’d never seen the cashier before, but she was quiet a flake. A very cheerful flake, but a flake all the same. I’d brought my own bag, so she gave me the little piece of a paper bag that can be redeemed for 5 or 10 cents or donated to the charity of the month. As usual, I refused it, since the co-op is my charity of choice. But when she questioned my “Thanks but you can keep it” with protestations that I could donate the money, and I said, “Thanks, but I’d prefer you kept the money,” she looked at me confused and said, “But I can’t get at the money.” And a beat later, “Oh, you mean the store!”

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And now I think I’ll curl up with an episode of the Midsomer Murders before bed.