Les Novembre Bleues

I shouldn't be writing this now. No, really, I mean it.

I'm at work. I have around 14k+ words left to go for NaNoWriMo.

And I have a letter to reply to.

I really shouldn't be writing this now, but I already am. What can I do about it?

This month is passing by quickly. My sister has kindly lent her spare room for mother and I to stay in while the apartment toilets are undergoing some government-funded renovation project to upgrade after nearly thirty years. It is a kind gesture from her.

But I feel trapped, like a bird in a gilded cage.

I'm used to crashing out on folk's couches, or in many cases, floors with my trusty sleeping back from 1998. But on those occasions, I'm not on a schedule --- it's mostly for fun stuff, like vacations or visiting conferences.

This time, I need to keep to my work schedule. Waking up early to get to work, work, then going to my surrogate home to rest.

Harrowing.

I do get my sleep for sure --- I am too used to sleeping in a thin sleeping back on a hard-ish ground. But I'm missing lots of other amenities in life, mostly ways to vent and relax.

Elysie-II is not available because it is not nice to lug her all the way to the apartment to be set up. I left my dizis in the CC because it's much more convenient. I do have my concert flute and piccolo, but I dare not play them for fear of annoying my temporary neighbours and incurring bad karma for not me.

And NaNoWriMo demands every word I have for it each day as a sacrifice to appease its greedy nature.

To be had, it isn't all as bad as I make it sound, but I do miss the things I get to do back at home. Particularly the access to better laundry facilities. I was raring to return to Aikido training after having to miss two months of it thanks to the haze/smog.

Now I have to miss another month more because there is no way to wash my gi and have it dried in time. I'm not going to go to an out-of-the-way laundromat and spend an hour sitting there watching my gi wash and dry just so I can train.

And now I've made myself sad.