Hoping Against Sickness

Boston vs. Tampa Bay. It's stressing me out. Maybe that's why Saturday night, during the ridiculously-long game, my chest started tightening up and I couldn't take a deep breath. I've been glued to my rarely-used asthma inhaler ever since, getting embarrassingly winded going up the stairs to my apartment or up to the office, and I'm just hoping it goes away soon. It makes me tired, slightly hoarse and cranky. I think it's the early stages of a cold and will go away soon, but who knows. As long as I'm not sickly going to San Francisco.

I spent a good amount of time over the weekend reading books, which is nice. It's good to sit on the couch for a few hours, with nothing to do, and work through a book. I picked them up for about a buck each at Thrift Town up off Jacksboro Highway, where I went to find things for a mystery dinner party I'm attending. (The sunglasses I bought make me feel like Elton John . . . and that's just effing cool.) The books were ones I hadn't read before, and it's a good feeling to have lots to read in the coming weeks. I also went to the Halfprice Books by my apartment and chose a copy of a classic that was printed back in 1978 or something, so the total price was 73 cents. That's one of the reasons I like reading classic books--they've been in print for eons, and so it's easy to find a used, ultra-cheap copy. Also, I feel like my high school literature classes were really lacking after 10th grade, once we moved to the sticks of New Mexico and Alabama. Since I was a journalism major and only took the required composition classes in college, I hardly read any books for class as an undergrad. Same thing in grad school. Good thing I love to read on my own, have to read on my own, can't stand the thought of not turning to the characters and symbolism and stories of the printed word.

Today looked like fall but didn't feel like it; it was kind of balmy, almost. My arms felt itchy after I went to the barn and carried flakes of hay out to the horses' paddock. I lunged Topper, since I wasn't feeling up to riding and potentially fighting with him, and he ran and rocked and bucked around like a madman. He seems to have very human moods, and I can empathize with them; sometimes he just doesn't want to deal with me, and stays at the back of his stall or paddock, always slipping out from under my hand. On those days I just let him have his time alone and leave early. Sometimes he frolics like he did today, reveling in the feeling of movement and seemingly happy to have someone to play with. Sometimes he's tired, or lazy, and I have to urge him to work but try to let him off early, and some days he's just anxious and frazzled, can't concentrate and can't be bothered to think about being good.

I need to buy warmer breeches before it gets cold this year. Last winter I suffered through with my summer breeches, which are a thin layer of fabric that doesn't do much to keep warm. I need some gloves, too. The problem is it's an expensive sport--the cheapest breeches are $40 for summer ones. At least the bare-bones gloves can be had for $5.

So many things on my list of things I want, so little time and money. It's a downer sometimes, but luckily I really like thrift stores.