I need to finish grading these papers (and I probably will in a few moments) but wow, am I just tired and unmotivated. Yesterday felt longer than just one day.
* Am bracing myself for some potentially bad news Thursday. I am hoping the precipitating factor for it is NOT something someone did or said or some vague "I don't feel welcome any more" thing but I've seen enough cases of that happening in recent years that I'm girding my emotional loins for it. (I'm also hoping the news isn't that the person or their spouse has some horrific disease. I'm hoping it's more a time-conflict thing).
* I dunno. One of the things I think about and wonder about is if I'm too loyal. I tend to hang on to people who are friends even if they do some low-level jerk things. I have my own "dealbreakers" and if someone crosses that line, we're done. But my dealbreakers are pretty big. One of the things I always hated is how there were some people you had to be so *careful* around, like, if you didn't give them *exactly* the right amount of positive attention/good strokes, they would get angry and would act like no one loved them and threaten to leave and stuff and while I know that's a form of emotional blackmail, at the same time....I get desperate enough for every friendly acquaintance I have that I find myself playing the game, often to my own detriment. And I don't feel like I can make demands on people, because what if I demand too much and drive them away?
* My allergies are horrific this morning. My eyes, especially. I mean, I know I have to go get them checked again at some point because I can tell that my prescription has changed (distance vision has got worse; close vision, if anything, has got better, which seems unlikely but I don't know). Also my current glasses have a few scratches and it's just enough to be annoying to me so I guess it's time for a new pair. But I kept having to rub my right eye to get it to clear and it still feels sticky and I suppose I'll have a hive there.
* I'm still just kind of sad and tired. I think again part of it is that some days I just wind up doing a lot of putting-out-of-positivity-and-comfort to other people (our students are streeeeessssssd right now) and when I need some positivity and comfort, I'm fresh out. (And I don't really have anyone who is a nearby ready source of either, so)
* Supposed to storm all week so no more yardwork for now. And I forgot that Friday afternoon is piano lesson so I can't go anywhere on Friday. (dangit). If Saturday is good I might consider running to Twin Oaks for herb plants, I don't know. Right now the vision of a refreshed set of gardens is one of the things keeping me going.
I also want to either get or make a mason bee house before this fall. I suspect if anywhere local has them, it would be Twin Oaks.
* the local Wal-Mart is *finally* rolling out the "order online and pick up" service that most other Wal-marts have. I'm going to give it at least a week to shake down and get all the bugs out but then I think I probably will use it a lot of the time, for several reasons:
- the two types of food items I really prefer to *inspect* before purchasing (fresh produce and meat) are not things I buy there any more; I go to Pruett's for those. Wal-mart is mostly for certain staples or brands Pruett's doesn't have.
- I hate hate hate their tendency to move stuff around randomly, making it hard to find stuff. I am sure this is a corporate move because some focus group showed them that people "trapped" in the store looking for stuff find more stuff to buy, but I am annoyed by it. Using the pick-up will avoid that because then it'll be the picker's problem to find the stuff.
- it will cut down on my randomly buying stuff I don't need, as in "I'll go over and look at the toy aisle to see if there's anything that would be a 'treat' for me"
- I won't have to deal with the crush of people if I have to go at the end of the day or pretty much any time other than 7 am on a Saturday
- Self-protection: there was a shooting (!) at the wal-mart in Sulphur, a woman was killed. Granted, it was a very ugly domestic-dispute type of thing - custody fight and apparently her ex-father-in-law killed her. But still. I don't want to risk being in the crossfire and while everywhere these days is dangerous, at least being able to avoid walking around in the wal-mart is a start on self-preservation
- it will save me time at a chore I don't enjoy.
- shopping there will be more annoying if the system is like the Kroger's system where there are these immense carts the pickers have that they roll up and down the aisles. Wal-mart already has a problem with putting up "in aisle displays" that restrict traffic flow (again, I am sure it is the "if people are 'trapped' they will see more they want to buy" mentality)
And yes, I know: more poorly paid people doing service for ME but I have a hard time feeling too terrible about it because we don't have a lot of choice other than wal-mart for some things anyway. And who knows, maybe they will have to pay the picker-people more. Or at least hire more people. And at any rate: I don't have a housecleaner or a yard person, I don't use Uber, etc., so maybe this is the one place where I allow myself to make use of possibly-exploited labor? I don't know.
* Driving around town, seeing some empty storefronts. Thinking about what I *wish* we had here (we already have enough CBD/medical MJ places, thanks. Even a much-less-observant and much-less-inclined-to-be-salty-about-such-things colleague commented on the glut of them). I wish we had a Michael's. Or a JoAnn's, in town. I can drive to Sherman for a JoAnn's but that's a long way away and sometimes if I just need a little soothing it's nice to be able to go into a large anonymous craft store where I can walk around for more than 15 minutes and maybe not have to buy anything. Or I wish we had a real bookstore - the campus bookstore has a small shelf of "trade books" and there's a one-particular-flavor-of-Christian Christian bookstore, I guess, but there isn't an actual general bookstore. I've commented to other people that this town feels a lot smaller than a town of some 20,000 should, and while I get that that's a "western vs. eastern" difference....everywhere I lived East of the Mississippi that was this size or smaller, there was more right in town and less of a need to drive seemingly forever. (And when you work full time - going out in the evening to shop is not an option for me, not when "going out" means also "driving an hour's round trip")
I also wish we had a "real" yarn shop but seeing that A Balanced Skein in Sherman (larger, more prosperous town) didn't make it...what hope do we have?
Again I am having thoughts....do I want to stay here in retirement? If I felt like I could take the time over the summer (rather than spending the time feeding the "update your teaching/do more research/feed the post-tenure-review beast" thing), I'd take a few overnight trips to places that have artists-colony type things to scope out if they'd be affordable or possible. (Then again: the thought of buying a house again makes me unhappy, just like applying for a job again would make me unhappy)
I don't know. I keep hoping as the DFW metroplex expands northward we see some kind of tangible benefits (better shopping, mainly) but that seems unlikely; seems like what we will see is more traffic and possibly more crime.
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