my stupid brain

Another night, another "early night" nightmare (as in: I wake up from it, heart pounding, before midnight).

This was a dumb and weird one. I got called out to the house of one of my students. They were having problems with their dog; the dog got bit by a rattlesnake.

But instead of the standard "dog is sick and needs to be taken to a vet for antivenom," in this universe, a rattlesnake bite followed vampire logic: the bitten creature, while it didn't turn INTO a rattlesnake, it developed venom and fangs....and unlike real rattlesnakes, a desire to bite other creatures. So that one dog "converted" a couple of other dogs, which then came after us.

No, I don't get it either, but it was unpleasant.

I will welcome a night of either just plain sleep or not-uncomfortable dreams.

***

My goal for today: get three samples worked through (I did three yesterday). That leaves four, and if the tree guy tomorrow doesn't take terribly long, I could do the remaining four tomorrow afternoon.

Then I am done with the July sample. (And, God forgive me, I admit I am thinking of things that happened before July 27 - like these samples - as "before time" a little bit, and I think my mom is too, she was talking about some of the stuff she had taken out of the freezer to use up and the dates she had written on it. Maybe that's a normal part of grief?)

But if I get these done, then Monday, provided the weather isn't awful (or if I can go out early before it gets so very hot), I'll grab the next round of fourteen soil samples. Because one has to keep moving forward.

On the rejected paper - I've not looked at the reviews yet, I am not strong enough to, but the editor DID say there was a way it could be reframed as more of a strict study of a site based on the 2018 sampling alone, and yeah, I could see doing that. Maybe that's a task for later this fall. Onward and upward, I guess.

***
Another small goal for the weekend is to work on one of my many stalled craft projects, either get a bunch more done on the socks I am knitting for my mom for Christmas, or work more on the sweater, or maybe put the binding on the quilt I picked up from the quilt shop before....everything....happened.

IF enough people sign up, next Saturday there is a needle felting class at Quixotic Fibers I signed up for (if not enough people sign up, I get a refund, but I hope enough people do). I did it partly in a fit of "I need to go out and have fun some times" and also a little side order of "I need to try to find more at-least-semi-local friends with similar interests to me" (there is a quilting group here in town but I am always in class when they meet). I think one thing that will help my melancholic feelings is trying to make a new friend or two.

Maybe I'm not as much of an introvert as I once claimed. I still have a strong dislike of crowds, but I can be pretty gregarious in a small group or with one or two other people. Especially if I feel like the people are at least minimally interested in hearing what I have to say - I think that's a big reason why I'm a drag at big parties; I sometimes wonder if I'm the least-interesting person in the room.