Friday morning thoughts

* One of the things about being the only person in your life you can depend on (i.e., being uncoupled, not having adult children, not having siblings near by, not even having super-close friends nearby) is that when you reach the point where you rest your head in your hands and say "I can't any more," you have to, you have to find the "can," because ain't nobody going to rescue you.

I am trying hard to find my  "can" this morning. Oh, I will. I just wish I didn't have to.

* Had another dream involving my dad last night. It was just sort of a random "family when I was younger" dream, where everyone was more or less around and doing what they normally did. I assume these are that my subconscious desperately wants to believe he's "somewhere" and is OK, but I wish it would stop doing that to me. I wish we could just shut our dreams off for a night or two when we just need to sleep without getting emotions involved.

Fudge, I wish I could just shut emotions off for a few hours now and then, to get a little peace.

* One thing I've also realized about grief, and I've done this to people myself, and now I regret it: people not in grief expect other people to get over it faster than they probably will. So, after about a week or two of expressed condolences, either people start avoiding you (which is the worst and is what some of my colleagues seem to be doing) or expect you to be 100% up for everything like you used to be. And the second of those is preferable to the first, even if it can be exhausting to try to reclaim the pace of living you once had. I can keep up a brave face for a while.

Hunting through old stuff on metafilter, I read a comment by someone who said that "basically in two weeks you should pretty much back to normal" and that makes me wonder if I'm broken or if they are? Two weeks is no time. Two weeks (if it's a BIG loss, like a parent you were close to) is when you are just barely beginning to recognize they're gone.

* I can only imagine the avoidance is either  "don't know what to say" or maybe even some deep superstitious "Must avoid grieving person lest something similar happen to me soon." And it sucks. I do feel a little cut from the pack, and though that should be a familiar feeling to me, it still hurts a little.

*So okay, maybe I have learned ONE thing from this load of manure I've had to deal with and that is don't assume because people are functioning that they're "over" whatever it is.

* I have too much grading coming up. I should not have taken yesterday afternoon/evening off; I should have graded those policy and law papers. It just never stops. It's like trying to outrun an avalanche. How did I manage this before? I feel like I've lost half my power to work concentratedly on stuff.

* I did find a better book to read on last night; Rory Stewart's "The Marches," about a long walk he took with his father (at least part of the way) in the borderlands between Scotland and England. Stewart doesn't seem to have quite the "look how great my life is" crowing that annoys me right now, though I also have a strong suspicion that at some point in the book I will be Sad, seeing as he dedicated it to his mother and not his mother AND father, and once or twice in as far as I've read he refers to his father in past tense....but at least there isn't the same horror of looming death or potential for violence (I kinda had to put "Trojan Gold" down for a bit after the scene where Schmidt got shot at; I have come to like Schmidt a great deal and I don't want something bad to happen to him. I don't know if other people do that with book characters but I do.)

* I also have the first sock (of the hopefully four pair I will knit my mom for Christmas) almost done; I watched a bunch of the season 2 episodes (including the hunting lodge one, which is, for some reason, one of my favorites) of Parks and Recreation. I don't know, it's become kind of a comforting show to me* because of the ensemble cast aspect to it and the fact that dumb things happen but often those dumb things are resolved in 22 minutes or so and would that real life had that kind of easy solution to stuff where people laugh and/or hug at the end. (One of the episodes I watched was the Christmas fair one, where Leslie basically got suspended for a time because of allegations drummed up by a sleazy politician and everyone else had to do her jobs...and when she finally came back, they had saved the most-fun "job" and the one she would really love and hate to miss - lighting the Christmas tree in the park - for her. And there was just something weirdly heartwarming about it. I mean, yeah, Tom is a skeeze, and April tries to do the bare minimum, and Ron is grumpy, and everyone dumps on Jerry - but there's also this sense that the characters like each other on some level, and there's support there, and again: that's something I sort of long for, that sort of weird created-family of people)


(*and yes, talk all you will about Asiz Ansari's "problematicness,"  I am tired and I am tired of "cancelling" every one who doesn't conform 100% to the current vision of what is right. Okay, I admit, I can't happily watch re-runs of the Cosby show any more, but what was involved there were literally criminal acts; some guy saying stuff that is dumb and sexist/harrassing deserves censure in the moment and probably deserves the woman he's saying it to to just give him the stink eye, get up, walk away, and then tell all her friends about how the guy is a jerk....and it ends there.)

* There was an ad I overheard last evening that started off with 'everyone has a crew' and I thought "yeah, right." Because I don't have one, at least not locally, and I do feel the lack of that. I mean, yes, I have friends - but they are all people who have more stuff going on in their lives and have relationships far more important than the one they have with me, and if your kids need to go to practice or your 90 year old mom needs to go to multiple doctor's appointments, OF COURSE hanging with friends close to you in age is going to go out the window. I'm not even sure I'd have time to be a good friend right now seeing as it feels like all I ever do is work and eke out a little life-maintenance here and there...but yeah, I'm a lot less likely to listen to what an ad is about if they start off like that.

* Ugh. I need some fun, but I think this weekend needs to be a working weekend. The three "fun" things I can think of are:

a. Meeting up with a friend (my best friend is currently out of commission with a broken foot though) and just....doing something. Even getting lunch. But, like I said, the person I would consider my "bestie" (if I believed in such a concept) is laid up, and the people locally who are low-key friends of mine are all busy.

b. Dumbly: going to a petting zoo or something. Just getting to look at cute animals and maybe pet them and feed them. It's silly but yeah. Someone posted a video this morning on twitter of baby crocodiles ("they sound like they are shooting lasers" and they do) crawling up a guy's arm, and they are weirdly cute.

c. Going to a big craft store and just getting to wander around and look at supplies and think about new projects. Or do some kind of simple and time-limited craft like making a small tree ornament or something in a class. No, I don't think I will - doing that would take the better part of a day to drive where there IS a craft store and back, and I don't know of any classes going on. And I have enough supplies already.

Probably what I will do? Do the work I need to get done and then go home and knit and maybe watch more Parks and Recreation. Hopefully that will be enough.