The woman who does my hair told me years ago I’m a classic Taurus. She said a hallmark of the Bull is being organized to the point of fanatic list-making. She actually guessed my zodiac sign before I even told her. It happened after a few appointments where she watched me cross her off my list when she finished my hair. Literally.
My Taurus juices got jammed up earlier this month when my laptop contracted that hideous Win32/Virut virus that is the tech disease of the year, the one that shut down courthouses and offices around the country and wormed its way into my Toshiba Satellite. One minute my desktop icons were Adobe and Acrobat, and the next they were Booty-cam and Spread-em and there wasn’t a single click that took me anywhere but hell. Watching a virus run rampant through your equipment is both scary and fascinating. You can feel it replicating and racing with each attempt you make to do something normal, like reach a familiar website. When it’s worn you out and filled you with dread, it gives you the final middle finger by not letting you shut down. I called a mobile tech company to come exorcize it, and after two consecutive visits they took my Satellite away on a field trip. It came back with a pristine hard drive, a $300 invoice, and the need to reset all the settings it took me five years to set.
But the biggest casualty was my list. I had schoolwork trapped inside that machine in various stages of completion, and deadlines looming, and no choice but to redo work already done but inaccessible. That meant over a week of not crossing anything off my list. The Bull needs to cross off. If not, the Bull is in danger of imploding. This is messy for the Bull and anyone nearby because the Bull also needs to keep things clean.
Normally, when I have to write a paper for school, I start by jotting down everything I know on the subject so I can gauge the amount of raw research required. For my math class History of Calculus paper the sum of my knowledge is “What?” This is not much to build on. For another class I need to watch two movies and do comparable journal research, and it’s all due soon, all of it together, along with a weekend residency workshop in between. The semester is over the end of April, which suddenly became shorter when the Census called to hire me, meaning I’ve lost the last week to government training.
On top of that, although I feel great physically, I’ve been diagnosed with that scourge of post-menopausal women, osteoporosis. This happens as a result of the hormonal changes that occur in a woman’s body as she ages. My doctor gave me two options: a regimen of pills or a regimen of weight-bearing exercise. Rather than do the pharmaceuticals, I opted for a personal trainer to build my core strength and make my bones solid. So twice a week I go see this great trainer – by happenstance also a Taurus – and she puts me through some intense weight and resistance training. It’s a tightly choreographed session that she designs the night before based on what she feels I’m ready for. As I complete each cycle of reps, she crosses them off her list. I’m so jealous I could scream.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos say Howdy! to Spring
castle bonnet at the easter parade
sunny stairwell
rooftop painting
proud to be new yorkers