maybe I should

Maybe I should put that photo of my family up on Old Baldy away for a while.

I looked at it this afternoon and it just made me sad, because one of the people in it is gone forever, and the kids in it are all grown up, and we'll never be back there and yeah, I know you can't go home again, but sometimes I wish you could.

Just lots of little things are poking me in the sore places right now.

I let someone in my class even though this is someone who took it last time, failed for non-attendance and not-doing a majority of the work. They promised me they'd be better this time.

Guess who failed to show for class today? And if it's like last year, where they fed me line after line and sob story after sob story - I have no stomach for that any more and while I am a kind person, I also get so weary, and I am so weary right now.

And I need to figure out when to run out and get my August samples but I've not scored the July ones yet (I started yesterday but two a day is the most I can do, and I won't work Sundays and I can't work Wednesdays because I am in class for five hours and I'm just fried when I walk out of lab) and it's also eternally hot and I don't even know. Maybe I take an early September sample and if the reviewer who ultimately reviews the manuscript kicks, I insert some little comment about extreme heat preventing the sampling. Or something. I know other researchers have life stuff intervene but it seems other people are less of a mess than I am in the middle of grief. (Really, the thought of having to spend a day - probably a Saturday at this point - out in the blazing heat carrying heavy soil - makes me want to weep)

And someone was rude to me online. Yes, I know, and bears poop in the woods. But it happens rarely enough - and this was fairly directed rudeness - that it upset me more than it should have. (Basically, it was an implication that I was ugly, either in looks or personality, and yeah, that's something that opens VERY old wounds back up. I pretty much believed I was un-look-at-able ugly from the age of perhaps 12 to....well, I'm not even gonna say how late because it is an embarrassing number).

I did message someone with a position of authority (I think) about it, and the comment's gone, so either they heard my plea (again: it pays to be polite and kind to people) or someone in charge saw the comment on their own and was like "Newp. We don't allow personal attacks" and deleted it. So I feel a *little* better but still....gah. And I know, I know, there's that rule: if you meet one a-hole in a day, you met an a-hole; if everyone you meet is an a-hole, well, you're probably actually the a-hole and nearly everyone else I encountered today was FINE, but....just like the old t-shirt about "one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day," it's also true about one incident of bullying, especially if you're in a slightly vulnerable place.

I dunno. The heat is part of this. It's warm in my office area - close to 85 yesterday, and just below that today. (The classrooms are cooler, and frankly the reason the faculty aren't pitching a fit about the temperature is that we've learned we can have cooler classrooms or cooler offices, but not both, and it's easier to actively teach - and easier on the students - in a cooler room). But I want to be able to cook warm food and feel like I'm not going to roast, and wrap up in a blanket, and sleep soundly through the night (I wake up, too hot, about 2 am)

I also HURT. I don't know why but I woke up with my arthritic elbow (the one I broke 25 or more years ago - it was a "good set," and a nondisplaced simple fracture, and it healed well, but still it hurts some times. It did this morning. I made it through the dvd workout but there were places I could definitely feel that extending my arm all the way was a bad idea.

And I hurt more because I hadn't really done the dvd workout since....mid July....and my quads don't like it. And I hurt between my shoulders. I'd like to take a hot bath but it's way too hot for that. And I"m not up for the logistics that scheduling a massage somewhere would take, and also being touched by someone I don't know.

I'm already dreading the grief counseling a bit on Friday. People I know who go to a therapist warn me that it's very exhausting at times and emotional and getting all the stuff out sometimes just wipes you out for the rest of the day. So I'm kind of prepared that if that happens I just go home and go to bed after.


And then, finally, my brother called me. Or, rather, my mom called me and put him on the phone. He wanted me to walk him through setting up one of the brokerage accounts online (which I did myself, because it was nighttime and no one was at the place and I just needed it done). Why? Because he didn't want to talk to an unfamiliar person on the phone.

And yeah, okay, I get that. I don't like it either but when I've walked out of five hours of teaching, and it's super hot, and I'm tired, I'm not going to do that kind of secretarial work. I told him he could figure it out from the prompts himself and forwarded the brokerage person's e-mail with the link to him. (And he has a wife who is better than him at talking on the phone. I do that stuff because I have no one to help me with it, but he doesn't)


On an upside? As I said I downloaded Neko Atsume and it's lowkey just nice. I am not a big gamer - I tried Candy Crush but found it too frantic and too much pressure - but with Neko Atsume it's more like....well, like having a birdfeeder you can look at periodically. It's just nice to see what virtual cats show up. I don't even mind Tubbs so much because often he leaves behind a lot of "fish" (the in-game currency, and no, my goal is to play this without actually BUYING anything, though I guess you can buy fish in it). I really want to get the "expansion pack" where you get a living room as well as the yard, but that takes a lot of gold fish, and it takes a while to save those up. But patience. Patience will pay off, eventually I'll be able to buy more stuff AND have an indoor spot to put the fancy food so Tubbs can't hoover it down (people tell me Tubbs doesn't come indoors) and so I can put the "free" food outside and the "good" food inside...

(On a related note: how does one delete an app on iPhone 7? I'm sure there's a way but I can't figure out out from Settings. I'd like to get rid of Candy Crush because I suspect it eats some memory space...)

Other than that, I should go home, where it's cooler, and finish my piano practice, and maybe relax a little. Today was a long day.