Thursday afternoon tired

This has been a long week, and it's not over yet.

- At least I got my tech-editing done, and the Big Boss editor seemed happy with it, so I can at least put a pin in THAT.

- And I evaluated the couple of new under-the-wire applicants, but now have to go back and RE-EVALUATE the top 10 (as decided by consensus of the committee). And yes, this is the kind of thing that drives me slightly bonkers about this kind of work. I know you have to do it this way and you need to (1) be absolutely fair so that you're not, for example, advantaging someone unfairly because of who they are (rather than what they can do) and (2) do the best job possible picking someone who will teach well and will hopefully be a good fit for the department. (I have dealt - not just departmentally but elsewhere - with people who looked good on paper but were not a good fit. The departmental one, the person had their contract nonrenewed, but as this is a tenure-track position now, and I don't know how much "this person is very much not-collegial" can even factor into a tenure decision...well, it's a little scary.

(The past several hires - the bird guy, the geneticist, the anatomist - two of those three I was on the committee and we were blessed to choose very well indeed. I'm hoping we are able to choose equally well this time)

- I can tell my feelings are kind of close to the surface yet. Allergies, maybe? (I hope. Because then when the trees get done with their little orgy things will be better). Even the BlackBoard "You have been logged out due to inactivity" message gets to me a little. Because I "hear" "Oh hey, why weren't you working?" when in reality I know it's because I WENT TO CLASS and forgot to log out. (But would it kill 'em to have a "Welcome back! Oh, hey, we logged you out" message instead? Sometimes I think building a little tiny bit of friendliness like that in might make people's lives incrementally happier and easier, and....well, you grasp at straws some times)

- I have an errand this afternoon (I should close this up and go, because it's AAUW tonight, and I have to complete the day's piano practice). The nearly-20-year-old floor lamp I use as a reading lamp next to my bed, something is going wrong with the switch. I ALMOST could not get it to turn on this morning, and several nights it's been hard to turn off. So, forget it: Am buying a new lamp. Yes, maybe I could fix this one. But it's an ugly cheap lamp (What my parents refer to as a "Menard's Lamp" because it's a style they used to sell, and my parents had several of those). And I've decided....maybe it's wasteful or dumb of me, but: I'm going to buy a NICER lamp. At least one that looks nicer and isn't a weak fake-brass base that starts leaning the first time you bump it a little. I feel like: I work hard, I almost never take vacations, I don't drive a fancy car, I don't buy $300 shoes....so maybe it's not so awful to spend an extra fifty or sixty dollars for a prettier lamp. (The one you sometimes see next to me in my webcam shots was a similar thought - I was at Lowe's, they had that one, they had the cheaper uglier ones and I was like "Meh, I have lived with cheap ugly lamps for too long, I want one with a proper shade on it and everything" and I have not ever regretted paying the extra for that lamp.

And yeah, it is also a tiny bit of self-care in a way. I am not always so good at self-care.

- I also was thinking about something today: One of the reasons I feel like such an attention-seeking gremlin online, is, I think, I don't get a lot of "positive" attention in my day to day life. Many workdays, it seems most of the input/attention I get falls into one of a small number of categories:

1. "I need you to do something for me"
2. "We have a meeting where we have to do XYZ" (and usually just that, no time for chit-chat, as we all have classes to run off to)
3. "Help me with this"
4. "My life is bad and unfair and I want to tell you about it to arouse your pity so you will give me an extension on  my paper (or whatever)"
5. "Why aren't you doing ABC faster?"
6. "Do you have MNOP done yet?"

And it just....it makes me feel very not-seen, and small, and like my only role is to serve other people...and like they ONLY see me as a servant. And because I am Exceptionally Alone (no significant other, no kids, no nearby family, most of my nearby friends are not people I see daily) I often start to feel....I don't know, sort of invisible.

I wish I got more positive, or even just neutral attention. (Neutral attention: hanging out in a group of people where nothing is expected of you). One of the reasons I need Bell Choir is it is neutral-to-positive attention, but it's also really close to Sundays, which tend to be the other day (at least in the morning) where I get good attention and....I don't know.

Maybe it is just the lot of an adult to only ever hear from other people when they are "needed" to do something or when someone is being demanding, and I just never realized it before. And it is hard not to look at other people's lawns and perceive them as greener than your own: that coupled people are happier because that partner will provide attention, or people with kids/grandkids get that attention from them. Oh, I know intellectually that's not true, always, but emotionally it's hard not to feel like "maybe some other path would have been better"

(And again, I think of that quotation from Louise Dickinson Rich, in "We Took to the Woods": ""It amounts to this. "Is it worth-while to live like this?" is a question I never ask myself under fair conditions. I ask it only when exasperation or discomfort or exhaustion pre-determine No as an answer...Happy people aren't given to soul-searching, I find. Revolt and reform, whether private or general, are always bred in misery and discontent..."")

- I also find myself questioning the advice, that I keep seeing online, that "if you are distressed or feel like things are not great, go help someone who is worse off than you" and while sometimes that's solid advice, pushing people who are putting in long work days and doing some volunteer work already to do even MORE seems....well, it almost seems a little cruel. "Oh, you're not serving people enough. Give up even more of your life-energy for others." (And again, I ask myself where the reciprocity is. It does often feel like people like me are always asked to do more and more, and when we could use a little help....crickets. Or the suggestion of "hire someone" which is fraught in its own way)

- I had a student today e-mail me asking for their grade on an exam they had taken a bare hour previously. I don't have the policy in my syllabus, but have threatened it: "If you ask if I have the exams graded yet less than 24 hours after you have taken them, it is five points off your grade." Because yeah. I mean, I get being anxious, but....yeah. I had even told the class, "Don't expect grades on these before Monday because I'm busy." That's probably more than anything what made me think about "All that I matter to people is what I do for them"

I did politely e-mail back that I didn't have them graded yet and grades would be posted on the CMS page as soon as I had them (there are potentially security concerns in e-mailing grades, we've been warned about that). I always politely e-mail back though sometimes I wonder if maybe I should be less polite.

(I also know this sort of thing is partly my fault. If I weren't so diligent about getting stuff graded and back fast, I probably wouldn't get these asks....or I'd only get them after a week had elapsed).

- Weird random thought: I've always kind of wished my hair was more auburn than it was, right? But never done anything because dying your hair is a pain (and I tend to be kind of cack-handed about those kind of DIY beauty tasks). And having it done is expensive and you have to set aside time.

But then I thought: but yeah, once a month or so you'd have a half-hour (or however long it takes, I don't know as I've never had my hair dyed) where no one could demand stuff of you, and where you'd have someone paying attention to you.

I remember a past minister talking about how he knew of some "old women" (widows, presumably) that still went to the hairdresser every week....because it was one of the few times when someone would talk nicely to them, and touch them. (I guess you'd say, in a platonic way, but these are widow-widows, so, yeah). And I remember thinking of how profoundly sad that was.......and now i realize maybe I'm not that far off from that group. And yeah, that's sad, but I don't know how to fix it easily. (Not dating. Dating is too much of a minefield these days and I don't have time.)

So I don't know. I might think on it more. I wonder how damaging some kind of a wash-in color (I wouldn't get my hair bleached first; I don't want to go True Ginger, I'd just like to add some auburn highlights and maybe cover the grey a little) would be to my hair? I do worry about my hair being fragile and also seeming to thin a little, though maybe switching to a "strengthening" shampoo recently (Hask's Argan Oil one, which also smells pleasantly like oranges) seems to be helping slow that down.

(And in fact: I broke my Lenten spending fast at Ulta - ordered a couple big bottles of the stuff because I like it and use it, and also I am getting a free pack of the deep-conditioners I use as a bonus).


But yeah. I am tired. AAUW is tonight and if I felt stronger and more filled-with-spoons I'd approach the woman I want to ask about being my driver/minder for the colonoscopy this summer* if she could do it, but I think my emotional spoon drawer is empty.

(*And yes, that is giving me low-level stress. Partly the logistics, partly the idea that I'm going to be knocked out and have something stuffed in  my intestine that theoretically could puncture it and kill me, and the possibility of them finding something very bad)


- Also thinking again (Intro lab gives me a lot of time to think as I'm walking around waiting for student questions): often in my prayers-at-the-table I mention something about us being "adopted by God" or "adopted into God's family" or similar and I think part of that is that one of my deepest longings (And I confess, I should feel, but do not always, not because of any fault of the people at church or work but my own dumb brain) is to feel like I am totally welcome somewhere. Like there is nothing I could say or do (not that I would want to) that would be too much or too extra or too loud or too needy.  But often a lot of the time I feel unwelcome in various spaces, or, maybe a better word is "awkward" - not so much that people are intentionally making me feel unwelcome but I feel like I don't fit in, and like I can never totally relax. That may actually be why I am such a homebody; when I am home (alone) it's one place where I feel like I can totally relax because no one is looking at me and I don't feel like I'm being judged or anything....And yeah. I don't know. I get that it's my stupid brain doing it to me but sometimes I do wish I could learn to relax in a way that normal people seem to be relaxed out in the world.