* ran the last few errands (bank, dropping a bill in a blue box to mail it without having to trust the mail guy would pick it up, retrieving my good steel water bottle from my office, so I can take water with me in case they don't have the little bottles on the train)
* Packed. I use a detailed list because I have no memory any more and I don't want to, for example, forget something small but important like the sleep mask I wear every night and have gotten so used to I probably couldn't sleep without it (I started when my neighbor had a roommate who left a light on in her attic room all night every night that shined down into my window, and it seemed that using a sleep mask was simpler than trying to negotiate "hey can you turn it out or put up curtains. it's shining through the gaps in my blinds"
* Planning to leave town always feels a little like planning an invasion as a result. All that remains now is the "morning stuff" - the makeup and medications and making sure I have some replacement "dinner like" thing since I can't eat the main dish of the "flex meals" (every single one of the recent ones I've tried have upset my stomach - probably celery or a lot of cumin in them - or they are carrot-heavy (Carrot-forward? I don't know what the foodie term is). I keep hoping eventually the car attendant will suggest either they can get a sandwich for me from the cafe car (I COULD do that myself, and pay, but it irks me that as a sleeping car passenger my meals should be comped, but I can't eat any of the four or five entrees they have) or that they have hamburgers off the kids' menu. I"m not quite brave enough to ask because sometimes the staff is super grumpy and a lot of times in my life I find it's easier for me to just put up, than to risk someone being rude to me.
* But at least I have a little break. I've been really tired these past couple days, to the point where if I sit down after lunch I almost feel like I'd like to go to sleep (but I don't). I think it was just a really long semester, coupled with a LOT of bad news in the world.
*I've got projects. And books. I finished "A Far Better Thing," it was good, of course I knew the ending and how it was going to turn out (and so: it was a little sad) but it is an interesting re-imagining of the Dickens novel and I'd recommend it if you like that kind of fantastical story.
I pulled out "Trojan Gold, " a slightly unrealistic thriller about an art historian and the missing Trojan pieces that Schliemann excavated (I had to just now check to be sure that was "for real life" and doing a websearch on "Trojan Gold" takes you to a very different place until you add "Schliemann"). I started it some years back and I can't remember why I didn't keep reading. It does feel a little less realistic than some mysteries I've read (I mean, in terms of the characters) but so far it's fun. I also have "Farmer Giles of Ham" (which I bought a while back when I saw it recommended somewhere,. maybe on Christ and Pop Culture) and a couple non fiction books, and then a Gideon Fell mystery (The Black Spectacles).
*I just need time away. I'm not taking any work with me. I DO have to finish my post-tenure review when I get back but I feel like taking some time off will help me work better on it. (And also: if the world ends I would in my last moments regret having slaved over something so ultimately useless. And yes, after the COVID pandemic and given geopolitics, I find myself feeling that more often about things - "if there might not be a future, why waste the time on this?")
* I do also plan to leave earlyish tomorrow and go to Yarn and You. It's about an hour and 20 minutes down there, and then maybe another hour and fifteen to the train station from there, so I figure if I give myself a bit more than two hours to make the drive from Farmersville to Mineola (in case I get a little lost), I'll be okay. And if I get to Mineola early I can always faff on my phone (being able to hang out on social media is nice if you're stuck somewhere) or I can pull out a book.
* I have a few embargoed posts lined up, depending on how early I'm totally ready tomorrow I might write one or two more (not much point in leaving here before 9:30 or so). And I may try to write a few on the road, though it's less fun to write on a phone that doesn't have a "real" keyboard.
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