This week has been an exercise in frustration. Monday I finally admitted that I had a cold, and that’s been dragging on, although today’s been the best day of it so far.

I didn’t want to start working on anything new this week because I was expecting to be hit with a freelance gig right off the bat. This is typical, because they’re usually swamped with assignments and pass them out hand over fist. But this time, a freelance assignment didn’t land in my FTP folder till last night, after three work days of waiting. In the meantime I read through a chunk of my short fiction from the last ten years, and discovered that while they are all definitely first drafts, they do not suck as much as I was afraid they would upon rereading it.

I woke up this morning to a seized lower back. I’d thought it was better after taking care of it over the weekend, but evidently not. It was back to spasming, shooting pain, and inability to move. I saw the boys off, checked email, took a muscle relaxant, and went back to bed with a heating pad. Work would have to wait. Soaked up heat for an hour, slept for another two, and woke up feeling groggy but at least I could sort of move. Came back after lunch and decided today would be the day I finally engaged with Bell customer service to try to figure out what the hell is up with my email. Since the switch to the Mac, I haven’t been able to receive or send from my Sympatico address, nor use the SMTP to send from any of my domain-associated addresses. Bashing at the problem on my own and trying increasingly arcane Internet fixes hadn’t solved anything. I detest Sympatico service people with a passion, as they are very obviously reading from a script and ignore the information I give them right off the bat. Part of the problem got fixed in a surprisingly competent chat session that lasted under ten minutes; somehow my password had been changed. Aha! I can now download email! But it didn’t fix the sending. A second chat with another agent proved pointless, because Bell doesn’t support Thunderbird (why not?) and since his scripts didn’t cover my program, the suggested course of action kind of went like this:

Customer service guy: I can’t fix your problem from my script. Can I take remote control of your desktop and try to solve the problem that way?
Me: NO.
*goes and checks the Terms and Conditions, wherein it states that the agent has the freedom to install or uninstall stuff and change settings as s/he sees fit and isn’t responsible for anything going wrong*
Me: HELL, NO.

Because I know they’d end up breaking things that are working perfectly well at the moment, and leaving me worse off than before. And the Terms say that if that happens, too bad! I gave up the right to hold Bell responsible! So no thanks. I’ll just keep using Gmail as my primary, like I’ve been doing for the past 9 mos. And now I’m going to use Gmail’s SMTP as my outgoing mail server for my non-Gmail accounts, too. You are yet another step closer to no longer being my ISP, Bell.

Then I got an response to yesterday’s e-mail query about the ETA for my wheel from my Local Yarn Store, telling me that the manufacturer’s North American warehouse is still out of stock, and that they were told it would arrive “sometime this month.” The rest of the order the shop placed that day is in, but my wheel didn’t arrive with it. I said some very nasty things and grumped for a while. I could have bought one of three used wheels I saw listed in the past six weeks (and I just saw a fourth listed in BC, the same model I ordered, only used), and even with shipping I’d have paid the same or less than I’ve committed to for the new wheel. I am particularly wistful about the used Julia model in Maine that was selling for the same price as the new S15 I ordered. It is tempting to query about the $250 used Ashford Traditional in Georgetown, in the meantime. Because I could always resell it, right? (I should have queried about the $175 Kiwi last night before someone else jumped on it.) Because I really, really want to be spinning. And if the S15 doesn’t arrive in time for the spinning and crafting weekend we’ve organized on the first weekend of October, I will be very, VERY cranky indeed.

It’s not my LYS’s fault; they’re not happy about it, either. The North American supplier needs to get a move on. But damn it, I decided in July I was going to do this, and it is now September, and I just want my wheel.

On the other hand, I was working on smooth bow changes yesterday, and by the end of the practice session I did not suck as much as I did at the beginning. Lessons begin again this Friday night. And the principals from each string section in orchestra met yesterday to work out bowings for the first set of music we’ll be playing this season, and I’m very excited to know what those pieces will be. I’m really looking forward to working with Stewart as our new conductor.

I have no idea what to make for dinner, either. My creativity has run out in that department.