I have a few moments of relative quiet (the dishwasher is running and the felines locked in my bedroom are crying to get out) so here goes...
Our bathroom was gutted on Thursday, August 30 by 930am. It's still not completely reassembled... and now they've started in on my kitchen. And while I realize the guy really didn't want to go into the kitchen just yet and he had no choice in the matter because of a leaking pipe under the sink that was draining into the bathroom, the plans (by management) to COMPLETELY redo my kitchen (except the appliances, because who wants new appliances when they have all new cabinets, counters, and walls?) could be made a priority now that the gutting has started rather than leaving me with a partially gutted kitchen to cook in until whenever they feel like getting to the project.
The guy that's been working on and off in the bathroom left the apartment just a few minutes shy of 8pm last night. He still wasn't done.
The floor guys were back again today, only this time they were here at 7am. (We were told they'd be here yesterday between 9 and 10am; they showed up at 8:02am.) They were asked to come back in an hour because 2/3 of the family were not anywhere close to being dressed for the day. (The child was still in bed.)
Three and a half hours later and they're still not back.
My last nerve is straining hard to stay together but it's being pushed beyond the breaking point. I don't know how much more I can take.
I've been trying to get the books I listed a few entries back read and been trying to get some sort of an outline for Ophelia's book pieced together, but it's so very hard to concentrate when there are loud, rude, dirty, smelly strangers romping around my apartment, tromping all over my life with their mud, paint, and crap smeared boots... and not accomplishing anything but pushing me closer to the edge.
In the last two weeks I've lost touch with so many of the characters that were in my head. It feels like being abandoned by your best friends while you're out. You look away for a minute and when you look back, they're all gone, leaving you stranded in a strange place with no means of escape.
I can't really say that I blame the characters for scattering, though. If I had the option, I'd vanish too. Unfortunately, I don't have that option. Without them, however, there are no ideas to work on in the all too infrequent quiet moments such as this one.
I'm not sure which is worse: not being able to write because of intrusions and interruptions or not being able to write because my brain has shut down and my characters have abandoned me.
I can only pray that this ordeal ends soon so I can get back to my version of "normal".
