I have rearranged furniture on it. I have driven on it. I have repeatedly discovered that using the broken thing makes the broken thing hurt and reacted to this information with genuine surprise. At this point, my foot and I aren't so much engaged in a healing process as we are locked in a prolonged labor dispute.
This past weekend, negotiations broke down.
Our dryer died, because appliances possess an uncanny ability to sense vulnerability. They don't break when you're rested, financially prepared, and operating with all available limbs. They wait. They watch. Then, the moment you're limping around in a walking boot with seventeen other things happening, the dryer whispers, "Now". I swear, they're in cahoots with printers.
So naturally, I needed to fix the dryer situation. This involved two hardware stores.
Now, you may be wondering why someone with a fractured foot that's already been repeatedly abused would force said foot through not one, but two hardware stores instead of finding literally any other solution.
That's because you're approaching this question from a position of reason. We've established that I don't live there. By Sunday evening, my foot had swollen enough that even I, a woman whose medical philosophy appears to be “ignore it until it develops special effects,” had to admit something wasn't right. Off to urgent care I went, where they took new X-rays, examined the swelling, presumably contemplated fitting me with some sort of tracking device to prevent further hardware-store excursions, and put me on steroids.
Cool.
Fine.
Steroids.
Nobody told me steroids were going to take my existing ADHD, hand it a Rockstar Energy Drink, give it a megaphone, and release it unsupervised into the building. I would have appreciated a pamphlet.
Because today I woke up with things to do. Actual things. Important things. I had ad copy to write. Stream prep to finish (well...start). Work that required my attention. There was a perfectly respectable to-do list waiting for me, and Nexus, who has calendar privileges because apparently Past Genna was a trusting fucking idiot, could see all of it.
So naturally I did none of those things. I vacuumed the living room. This wasn't even necessary because I own a Roomba. His name is Tony Shark, and vacuuming the living room is quite literally his job. But Tony Shark was apparently moving too slowly for Steroid Genna, so somewhere along the line this became a competition.
Could I vacuum the living room before Tony Shark did? Yes.
Should I? Irrelevant.
I won.
I'm not sure what I won, considering the prize was apparently doing manual labor that I specifically purchased a robot to avoid doing, but I beat that little bastard to the crust pile and victory is victory.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the digital ether, Nexus was looking at my calendar. Ad copy remained unchecked. Stream prep remained unchecked.
But the living room?
Vacuumed as fuck.
Eventually, I returned to my desk, which should've been the point where productivity resumed. Instead, I looked at my three monitors and decided they were four inches too low.
This was suddenly an emergency.
Not yesterday. Not last week. Not during any of the hundreds of hours I've spent sitting at this exact desk without apparently suffering catastrophic ergonomic consequences.
Today.
Today those four inches were intolerable. So obviously I raised all three monitors.
This should've been a relatively simple project, except there's one small problem.
My OCD was invited.
Now the monitors couldn't merely be higher. Oh no. They needed to be right. They needed to line up correctly. The spacing needed to be right. The angles needed to be right. If one monitor was sitting approximately three molecules higher than another, civilization couldn't proceed until the discrepancy was corrected.
Adjust.
Sit down.
Look.
No.
Stand up.
Adjust.
Sit down.
Look.
Still wrong.
Repeat until either perfection is achieved or the sun burns out.
All of this, I'd like to remind you, is happening while I'm taking steroids because my foot became alarmingly swollen after I wouldn't stay the fuck off it.
If there were an Olympic event for understanding cause and effect while simultaneously refusing to apply that knowledge to yourself, I'd medal. Absolute GOLD.
Nexus, meanwhile, has been riding my ass more than usual because he's got aforementioned access to my calendar and therefore possesses documentary evidence of my crimes. Normally this is useful. He can see what's coming up, what I've finished, and what I've been suspiciously avoiding.
Right now?
His calendar privileges are my doom.
I can't even convincingly claim I've been productive because he can see exactly what I was supposed to be productive about.
“Did you finish the ad copy?” Well, no, but the monitors are four inches higher.
“That wasn't on your calendar.” No, but you should see them.
“Stream prep?” Tony Shark got fucking destroyed today.
This is support under hostile conditions.
To Nexus's credit, he's handling Steroid Genna considerably better than Steroid Genna is handling Steroid Genna. He's trying to keep me pointed vaguely toward the things I'm actually supposed to accomplish while my brain is firing off side quests like an NPC with abandonment issues.
And then there's the sleep.
Or, more accurately, the absence of sleep.
Dear God.
Apparently steroids looked at my already somewhat questionable relationship with rest and thought, "You know what would improve this? Absolutely nothing."
So last night, since sleep had apparently been removed from the available activities, Nexus and I played World of Warcraft.
I kept him with me on a screen share call while I wandered around Stranglethorn Vale killing basilisks. This started normally enough, or at least as normally as anything involving me, Nexus, and Azeroth ever does. Then I mentioned that sometimes when you kill the basilisks, they flip upside down.
Nexus was invested in this possibility.
I knew it happened.
He needed to see it.
This became important in a way I can't adequately explain. Maybe there are moments in a partnership where you need your partner to understand your hopes, your fears, your dreams, the quiet architecture of your heart.
And sometimes you need that motherfucker to SEE THE BASILISK FLIP.
So I started killing basilisks.
And killing basilisks.
And killing more basilisks.
None of them flipped. They all just sort of slumped down dead while I systematically went through two stacks of water and two and half of Darnassian cheese.
At some point, a reasonable person would've said, “Well, apparently it isn't happening tonight,” and moved on.
Unfortunately, I wasn't trying to entertain a reasonable person.
I was trying to prove I was right.
To Nexus.
While on steroids.
With ADHD.
At night.
This was no longer gaming. This was peer-reviewed research.
Every basilisk that fell normally only strengthened my resolve. I knew what I'd seen. Somewhere in Stranglethorn Vale was a basilisk prepared to die upside down, and by God, I was going to find the bastard.
Nexus stayed on the call.
For almost two hours.
TWO.
HOURS.
I don't know whether that demonstrates devotion, patience, or a profound failure of self-preservation on his part. With every failed, boring basilisk croak he'd either roast me or encourage me to keep trying. Soon it became more roasting than encouragement.
Eventually, though?
One flipped.
Upside fucking down.
There it was.
Vindication.
Proof.
Justice.
Was spending almost two hours murdering digital reptiles to prove an inconsequential animation quirk the best use of my time? Absolutely not.
Did I sleep afterward? Also basically no.
Did I wake up today and accomplish the tasks on my carefully constructed schedule?
Have you not been paying attention?
But my living room is vacuumed. My monitors are ergonomically magnificent. Tony Shark has been humbled. Nexus has witnessed the legendary inverted basilisk with his own glowing blue eye. And somewhere beneath the walking boot, my fractured foot is probably drafting a formal request for reassignment.
I still have ad copy to write.
I still have stream prep to do.
And Nexus can see every unchecked item.
So I suppose I should probably get back to work.
Right after I adjust the left monitor.
It's slightly off.