I spent part of today going on a labyrinth tour. For once I ended up with no plans on a weekend day in spring--which is to say the ones I had fell through--so I ended up doing some errands, running into ex-friends who sure as fuck didn't want to see me (oh joy), and doing the opposite of cleaning. We'll get to that one farther down.

Anyway, I got this book on labyrinths and decided to give walking some a try again. Yonks ago I went to one of the town labyrinths--we have three locations--but it'd been awhile and I hadn't even tried the other two because they're at churches. But I figured Saturday afternoon ought to be dead enough time that I wouldn't run into too many people at one, which was correct.

The first one I went to was at the United Methodist Church. It's pretty easy to find, about right there when you're walking up to the buildings. It's kind of a courtyard area. The second one I went to was at the Church of St. Martin. There was a lovely walking path from the front area to the back where the labyrinth was located, and it had some benches on the corners. It's the same pattern as the previous one, though, the "Chartres" model.
Next to it is what they call the columbarium, which is apparently their cute terminology for "where we put the cremains." I did not find that out until going home and checking the Internet. Mostly I kept looking at it wondering why the hell they had locked up a tree ("what did the tree do to you?"). After finishing the labyrinth I walked around the space and found an open gate, so I sat around and meditated there for a bit. It's exactly the same model of labyrinth at both places--the Chartres pattern.

The third/fourth labyrinth (some people count them as two, but I believe it's all one project) is really just one big one at the town cemetery, but situated across the street from each other halfway through. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense. It's not the Chartres pattern--it's a path cut into grass on the lawn by a building at the cemetery that goes along the back, then picks up across the street on an oddly shaped patch of grass that loops around, then you pick it up again on the original section to find the center, where there's a nice little bench.

I definitely preferred the cemetery one because it was GREEN and not just flat and brown space like the other two. I also kind of felt like some churchy person was going to come up to me and demand to know what I was doing, even though that didn't happen and hardly anyone was around at either of them anyway. The last time I did the cemetery walk one, I was having deep thoughts about the LA prediction...which of course turned out to be a giant line of bull I made up. So that was kind of a flashback experience to walk that one again.

I am sad to report that I didn't really have any Deep Thoughts or Insights at any of them as I intended there to be. I mostly thought things along the lines of "Man, this just keeps looping around and you can't quite tell where it's going unless you're up close to it and it feels like forever..." Which if you rewrite that to sound deep, boils down to "Life is a winding path where you can't really tell where it is going. Then when you finally get to the center, what's there to do?" Or "Ever feel like everything is a delayed squiggle?" and "It's very frustrating to not just go directly when you can theoretically see the path."

While walking the first two I pondered going on another giant hike through the greenbelts like I did on my vision quest back in the day--and then I thought, "all I'll end up doing is another nice walk and then I still won't do anything with my life."

And now for the other news of the day: Astrological crazy has finally hit, which is to say that something bad has happened. They want to spray for roaches in my apartment. I don't have any roaches (yeah, I know it sounds like I'm lying, but I've never had them! Mice and spiders occasionally, but that's it. I have zero idea why my place is not a roach coach because yes, I'm a slob, but I guess they aren't interested in my apartment), but they sent me a nasty message saying they would attack my credit if I didn't have them spray. They put up a notice months ago, at a horrible time. I misread the handwriting as taking place a lot later in the month then they actually meant so I had not prepared jack when they showed up, and then they just left a note saying they hadn't sprayed and I was all, "fine by me, don't freaking need it!" and was happy. Well, now I'm stuck. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK. Why must they do this shit when I am busy? They're doing it on Tuesday, so I'll be out at class at night (and I have a class Monday night) and sure as hell don't want to have to unearth my entire bedroom so I can sleep in it starting at 11 p.m. And given my usual spring schedule, the avalanches of crap are gonna stay for awhile, i.e. weeks, because I do not have time to put everything back any time until like Memorial Day--guess what I'm doing that weekend, cleaning.. Seriously, this is not okay with me. Hell, I'll probably have to use vacation time at work before they come in because I don't think I can get all of that cleaned out before work starts.

I basically have to empty out every single drawer and closet in the apartment and pile everything on top of everything and then they want me to cover it all with sheets. Hah, you think I know where the sheets are? No, I do not, because they are covered in avalanches of crap. Everything in here looks TERRIBLE and most of the apartment is now unusable and I fear an avalanche is gonna kill me. I did not empty out the back drawers because they are so covered in avalanche now and I truly don't have room to empty them out too....they are just gonna have to take that, as far as I'm concerned. (Plus, STILL DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE ROACHES, DID NOT FIND ANY TODAY, THANKS.) Hell, if I can't even find the dressers in there, how are they going to know? They're not. And if they pick a fight with me about it, that is not the hill they wanna die on, trust me.

I'm not going to do the entire bathroom and kitchen because I still need to fucking use those (ditto the bedroom closet), but it's been exhausting and really awful. I probably have about 80% of it done because I had to get everything done that wasn't going to be needed in the next few days. I was doing the cleaning out from about 4:30-9 tonight and there's STILL too much to do. I fear I'll poison myself because I just can't take all of the damn dishes out of the house (to where, my spare house?!) to not get gassed and I'll forget about it and eat something and OD on roach poison. I am not good at these things. I so suspect I'll end up eating roach poison somehow because I cannot live up to all of the instructions.

The only good news about this is that anything in the fridge is safe, so I've been able to relocate most of the food in there. The rest of it is probably going to have to live in my trunk for a few days, which is gonna make for interesting sound effects and let's hope I don't get pulled over for booze. But oh god, the dishes...and the cleaning supplies....and the closets just make me weep. I'm really, really angry about this and it took all my strength to not growl "I HATE YOUUUUUUUUUUU" at the manager today when I ran into her.

I just feel really invaded and uncomfortable....same as when I've had floods. Strangers wandering though bitching about how much crap I have, avalanches of moved stuff everywhere, people nitpicking about it...just shoot me now. I normally like apartment living, but not this. It creeps me out.

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