This was turning out very crappy today. And no, I don’t mean it’s because I’m single and it’s that damned Valentine’s Day. Hell, I almost forgot about it til I saw kids coming off the bus with heart-shaped chocolate boxes this afternoon.

That’s more like it. I’d love an anatomically correct heart for V-day. I had a theory years ago that the “heart” shape we know came about because if you flip it upside down, it looks like huge butt cheeks. Have fun trying to un-see that now.

No, this is one of those bits of despondency that happen when you know there’s a ton you’ve got to do, but somehow it’s just not getting done. Or you’re too busy living inside your head and driving yourself crazy.

Or both, which is what happened with me.

Sure, the thought of “forever single” popped into my head a few times (probably 99% my own damned fault, so dwelling on it doesn’t help when I have no current interest in changing said scenario when in the middle of COVID-ville). Can’t help those thoughts on a day revolving around “romance” and “relationships”.

At least YouTube was my cynical ally and just kept suggesting video game walkthrough vids and game soundtracks to listen to as I tried to get my headache under control and do something productive beyond typing up recipes to print out and file away.

I miss Rare. They had the best N64 game development and composers who made serious magic. Few things better than “Stickerbush Symphony” from Donkey Kong Country 2 (whoever thought to make that hour-long looped vid is my hero).

In the middle of the worst of my wallowing, I started journaling again. It’s been two months since I last put pen to journal, and I’m kicking myself. Getting the crap out of your head and onto paper–depressing as some of it may be–is necessary, and I’d forgotten that.

I was probably 3 pages in when I got to thinking about things I hadn’t had the chance to do, like working out properly, because my shed’s ductless A/C unit was out of commission. It started dripping all over the floor and I figured it was a clogged drain line, so I shut it down weeks ago. And with no climate control in there, the humidity (and rapid temperature changes thanks to winter not making up it’s mind to stay cold or not) made me concerned for the electronics. Didn’t help that I had to shift half my stuff over to get it out of the way of the wet floor, so using my weights and machines wasn’t really workable unless I wanted to risk tripping or breaking something.

That pissed me off in addition to all the change of schedule thanks to helping my neighbor and others lately just compounded itself.

But it gave me an idea: find my A/C’s manual and see if I could fix it.

I had to go out there three times and nearly gave up, remembering my need to budget tightly before calling the A/C guys to come out and take care of it. The manual was useless (except for pointing out which was the drain line vs. intake in the diagram), but a half-hour of searching a few more YouTube vids proved far more helpful.

I’m glad I avoided that call: it would’ve been over $100 to do something I could do myself in 5 minutes if I just knew how to get to the line opening. I even got a CO2 compressor to blow crap out if I needed to a few weeks ago (had to go online, box stores didn’t have the kit), and got a new small, portable shop vac to suck it out if needed (went with the vac, especially after seeing how thick the dirt was on the components inside once I got the cover off).

But after watching 3 or 4 YouTube vids and checking my model type, I got a good idea what to do. I’m always afraid I’m going to bust something or break it and then I REALLY gotta pay out the nose. But I learned that I can bang on the plastic casing to knock the tabs loose enough to get to the rest of the A/C and not hurt anything.

If I’d been less cautious, I probably could’ve fixed it weeks ago.

That sums up my feelings quite nicely…

After about an hour, I got it taken apart, vacuumed out, put some bleach in the drain pan (and left the bottle nearby to remind me to do that every few weeks… now that I know where the drain pan is), and put it all back together again. It started up without a problem, and because it’s getting chilly, I knocked the temp up a bit. I mainly use that A/C for climate control anyway, far more than to chill the room.

Well, it’s been about 20 minutes and I’m gonna go out there and make sure it’s not dripping all over the floor in the next half hour or so (don’t wanna wait til morning just in case, though the vac did show I’d gotten some nasty stuff out of that line…just don’t know if it was all of it or not). I feel oddly triumphant that FINALLY something went right today, and it took some wallowing first (okay, LOTS of wallowing) to bring it about. Strange, and sure wish I could’ve missed that step in my day’s journey, but oh well.

What I find funny (now) is that most of what I was depressed about was not getting my schedule back on track (especially exercise) and feeling like I was generally useless and inept.

And it took an hour’s work to erase that feeling for the night. I might just have to celebrate with the rest of that red raspberry wine in my fridge… after some more coffee.

I suddenly feel the need to fix that cabinet shelf in the kitchen and get cleaning while I’ve got the energy and time.

It’s like the dominoes are falling the RIGHT way for once… if there is such a thing.