random evening stuff

* Tomorrow morning is meetings round 2. We've been "trigger warned" about the active-shooter training, which makes me slightly apprehensive. It SOUNDS like it is the same as last year's and I was okay (if slightly discombobulated) after it, so maybe the "trigger warning" is recognizing the fact that there are potentially some in the audience who had violent events in their past.

But still, it bugs me a lot that I have to give part of my brainspace to this.

* We had a motivational speaker today and without going into too much detail, I find I really get cynical about those kinds of things and I couldn't enter into the spirit of it. (I also kept scrunching back in my seat in hopes of not being called on. I wasn't).

* Also, maybe that's one of the specific ways in which I am not-fun: I can't deal with the kind of casual banter that happens in those kinds of situations; I interpret it as teasing and as false intimacy (with a person you don't know). I guess I really am like either Washington or Franklin (I've seen the saying attributed to either) about being civil to all but familiar with few. I don't like that kind of "you're my new best friend!" attitude from someone you haven't even really met. I don't know why. Like I said, probably one of the specific ways in which I'm a bit of a wet blanket.

* I just don't deal well with the standard Be More Better Now talks that seem to be a feature of the start of the semester. I recognize it's kind of a game, but what I (as someone with perfectionistic tendencies) hears is either:

a. You are not putting forth enough effort, and that's terrible. You have slacked off in the past, you need to work even harder now. (And I am working at close to the limit of my capabilities. I feel almost as if I'm being told that I'm hoarding back some of my strength or ability, and that's not the case)

b. Your best just isn't quite good enough, you don't measure up. And I don't even know what to do with that.

Again, it's the whole stupid Everyone Needs To Be A Superstar! mentality, and I know I'm not a superstar, or if I have ANY superstar tendencies, they are not in the things that are emphasized.

* And it does make me think too hard about my life and who I am and what I am trying to do. Sorry, Socrates, but sometimes the unexamined life actually leads to greater happiness, I suspect.

* I didn't even know what to have for dinner when I got home. Part of it was a fit of pique over the idea of sitting through an hour and a half pep talk, part of it was being told, "Hey, we might get out a little early" and then having the session run OVER, part of it was just exhaustion over sitting for three hours trying to look like I was paying attention and trying to figure out what of the information I'd need to remember and what I could forget.

* Part of it, though - I had a Very Nearly Asthma Attack in the meetings - the room was unbearably humid (but well chilled, so it was actually *clammy*) and I could feel my chest getting tight and my lungs starting to hurt....and I also kind of hurt all over (that's a common feature with both too-high humidity and borderline asthma). Fortunately at the break I was able to get up and walk out and drink some water and do some discreet stretches (I couldn't go down into full Standing Wide-Angle Forward Bend, which has helped in the past, but it's a little...unladylike....to do in public).

Fortunately, my chest opened back up and I made it through the rest of the meetings.

So right now I feel really exhausted and maybe a little cranky and achy. I'm hoping it's the near-asthma attack (there could have been mold in that building; I think one of the faculty who has his office in there mentioned leaks).

But yeah, it was hard to figure out dinner. It was after 5 when I got home, I was cranky and hurty, I didn't have a lot of "easy" food in the house (ate up the last leftovers last night) and I HAD been thinking of getting carry out barbecue. But then, with the achiness, my stomach wasn't happy and I hadn't much of an appetite, so I didn't know.

I contemplated driving to the local-run barbecue place (I was looking at the Rib Crib outlet's menu online and nothing looked that good and I couldn't find two sides I wanted and I was throwing a tantrum about "I'm not going to spend my week's sodium budget on cruddy chain restaurant food") but in the end I opened up a can of "Salt your Own" lobster chowder I bought from Vermont Country Store with my recent order.

It was....okay. Not much better. Lots of potatoes but little lobster, I suppose I should have expected that. Not nearly as good as  I could have made if I had had fresh seafood, probably not even as good as the creamed salmon I could make from a can. (But part of it was the not-having-to-work-very-hard aspect of it).

I dunno. We're supposed to be done early in the afternoon tomorrow. Either I make a run to Mart of Wal (there's not time and inclination to go to Sherman) or I figure out something I can cook at home from stuff on the shelf.

But yeah: once again I wish I had a Jeeves because a proper Jeeves would have known what would have appealed to me and made it without fuss and I would have been able to eat without effort.