I think I'm just stuck with being a bundle of easily-hurt or easily-angered feelings for a while. Oh, I can stuff it down and function in public, but the hurt is still there. I think about Mr. Data on Star Trek and I marvel that he wanted to be a "real boy" with emotions and feelings and everything, because emotions suck a lot of the time. (I want to rewatch that series again - I haven't seen it in ages - but right now it's a little too raw, as it was one of my dad's favorites.)
I got into a low-level argument with someone online, and I also got my feelings hurt by someone snarking on something I hold dear. I am not as good at shaking that kind of stuff off as I once was (I never was all that good, but I feel even more sensitive now.)
***
I poked allllll the potatoes and wrapped them in foil and got them down and arranged in the ovens at church, the secretary is going to turn them on so they will be ready to feed the college kids, and all I'll have to do is cut up the chives and cook the bacon for them. I guess this is an important thing to do, I don't know. So much any more it feels like the small things I do are basically pointless, though today's Daily Devotional suggests that maybe feeling like nothing we do really changes things is....weirdly....kind of part of the point. I don't know. I do wish I didn't feel so discouraged by what I can do on a regular basis.
Though it also seems kind of....cruel? To push us to do good works, but have those works ultimately count for naught. That's not a comfortable thought to sit with. I don't know. I'm not a very good theologian about this sort of thing.
And I got my 'faculty development plan' done - this was due Monday but at least I got it done and in this week. I couldn't find my teaching evaluations to digest down for it and I told my chair that either I would do those later, or, I could do them for the spring, because I have to do the full post-tenure review this spring. I feel a little bad about it but not as bad as I might.
I dunno. I suspect I'm not going to come off too well in post-tenure review this year but whatever. It takes two bad ones for a person to even risk being fired, and I suspect they'd find me difficult enough to replace that "ehhhhh, she doesn't publish much and doesn't even really got to conferences any more" might not be bad enough for them to even threaten me. I guess I don't care as much as I once did. (And if I do get fired? I move back home with my mom in case she needs a caretaker in future years; once I hit 60 I think I could at least get part of my pension from here).
***
I got two of the soil samples (there are 14) inspected today, two is about all I can do in a day and not upset my allergies too much. And I set up lab for tomorrow. I don't know always how much to keep pushing myself, and how much to rest....I tell myself if I push a lot on one given day I can rest more the next, but lately it seems that it just means more tasks appear.
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I keep working and keep striving and keep doing and tell myself eventually I'll come out the other side of this, but some days it's just.....I would very much like to just stay home and either stay in bed, or lie on the sofa and watch old movies, but I also know if I took a "sick day" I would feel guilty about it, so.....
And I feel pretty normal as long as I'm in class; it's the other times when stuff creeps up on me. And just the life maintenance stuff. Laundry sometimes feels like a lot. Cooking sometimes feels like a lot. No, I can't easily outsource either one. Laundry, okay, maybe, but that costs money and I have to save money now. (I am still waiting for the CPA to call me back about the IRS thing; if I haven't heard by Thursday I am calling him)
***
I really need, this evening, to settle in and finish my piano practice RIGHT AWAY as soon as I get home from feeding the kids, and then wash my hair, and then just sit and knit; that's another thing that makes me feel at least marginally normal.
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