Super excited for new classes to start tomorrow (teaching, not taking). This explains why I stayed up until 3am last night (or more properly this morning) and then got up at 6. And why I spent hours and hours uploading old photographs (see image at left and on yesterday's post). I will likely be using these images for some time although they are my mom's. Guest photographs. The night before I started my first teaching job as an orchestra teacher I stayed up super late-- not prepping for class since that was already done-- making a quilt. Actually three quilts so I had one for each school on my schedule. Yup. too nervous to do anything sensible, I designed and made a wall hanging with a stylized violin. Because that is what everyone does before they start a new job. I'm pretty sure. Breaking my rule about posting after 9, but we have entered one of two times during the year when I watch television (instead of streaming online stuff). Time one: summer episodes of So You Think You Can Dance. Time two: Downton Abbey and Sherlock. So for the recent future I will be posting late on Sundays or Monday morning. But my money's on the late Sundays. Monday is my busy day now, which is kind of nice. Get it out of the way. Then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I just have one class each. Sweet. Grateful Crap: whispered conversation with 3yo at 4am: 3yo: Why shouldn't you touch knives? me: hmmmng? 3yo: Why shouldn't you touch sharp things? me: Because you might get hurt. 3yo: Why? me: Because they are sharp/ 3yo: (very slowly, and very very quietly) I already said that. I am on a deadline here. Had fun tonight with friends (playing Gloom and drinking tea.) Now I am scanning photos when I should be asleep. Anyway, took meds today. Did not do much else. Will try to get on treadmill tomorrow. Oh, the friends thing totally counts. And the laughing. And the snuggling with daughter. And playing Flip Out with son. Posting now. Whew! I am fine. Contemplating the possibility of teaching (even more) at the college level when I grow up. took meds. volunteered. saw friend drank chai updated resume (just in case) Gonna keep this short but only because it is late. Wrist feels fine. I fell pretty good too both mentally and physically. (Dang this wasn't as short as I meant it to be... oh well.) And I feel very pious in my devotions in the Kicking of Depression's Ass:
Also I have discovered a good motivation and method for walking even on days that I don't go to the Y... Eldest son and I go to the basement after dinner and he does violin for 20 minutes while I walk. Spouse is doing a couch-5K regimen. I thought I was interested in it, but I think maybe not yet. I just want to work on the regular exercise thing first. Becuase if I am doing a couch-5K thing it necessarily means that I have found a particular race that I am training for. The spouse and I think very differently about these things. Intrinsic motivation seems more ingrained in him than it is in me. Which is cool, but perplexing. I think my rabid goal-orientedness is what makes me hesitant to jump in to the 5K+race plan. I want to like the process of walking/running instead of making it into a project with an endpoint. Grateful Crap: A really funny thing that my son said. The punchline was "because you're vegetarian." If you see me in person you can ask about it. Daily Convexions: see above I visited a friend today, made three batches of soup, two kinds of cookies and fixed a squeaky treadmill. But really I only made one kind of soup and used three different vegetables in each one, so it kind of doesn't count. And the daughter really made one of the batches of cookies, so I suppose that doesn't count either. Had a very enjoyable time with a friend over progressive tea. It's like a progressive dinner, where you have one course at one house and then go to another house for the next course. Only for a progressive tea you have one cup of tea at one house, then go do a bunch of other things, then have another cup at the other house. Went to the doctor for what turned out to be nothing. And I probably wouldn't have gone if the nurse care line had been willing to ask me any questions instead of just referring me to the scheduling desk. There are some things that they just err on the side of caution. I get that. Chest pain? Could be heart attack. Shortness of breath? Asthma. Knock on the head? Brain bleed. Mysterious bump? Cancer. Sheesh! Talk about looking at the world with crap-colored glasses. I think it may be an occupational hazard for nurses on the care line to suffer Hypochondia by Proxy. My real showing off bit, though, is that I fixed the squeak on the giant treadmill in the basement AND did 20 minutes on the thing while having a nice conversation with my son. On another tangent: I have been saying entirely not the right word all day today. "What Wednesday is it?" (Because I didn't know what day of the week it was today. Two days out of school messes with my circadian rhythms.) "I have a doctor's apartment today." and just now I thought, though did not say, "...having a nice conversation with my thumb." Ha. Gotta go prep for class now. Grateful Crap: epidermoid cysts Daily Convexions: took meds in the morning tea with a friend... twice! 20 I am struggling with compartmentalizing the reorganization tasks in manageable chunks and trying to develop some overarching web of systems that will make things work in this house. What does all this clutter crap have to do with Kicking Depression's Ass anyhow? Somehow it is more than just banishing a symptom of the Depression. Having a house that is somewhat neat and not disgusting contributes to my ongoing mental wellness. I think I have some sort of infection again. And aparently there is some complicated connection between Depression and the immune system. There are studies showing Depression being caused by major infection, Depression making people more susceptible to infection, Depression causing the immune system to overreact, and Depression causing the immune response to be sluggish. A mess. I am not saying that recurring sinus infections and the horrible lengthy acute bronchitis of March caused last-spring's deepening of my Depression. I am just curious what the relationship might be between the brain and Depression and the immune system. One of the interesting things I came across was the idea that Depression is so common that it must have some adaptive purpose in the species (besides decreasing the surplus population, one assumes). Since it sometimes causes a very robust immune response and is associated with increased inflamation whether or not the body is fighting anything, perhaps it was sort of a precursor to modern antibiotics. If so, does treating Depression make you more susceptible to infection? Tendonitis? Bursitis? Sinus infections? If so, I don't care. I would rather be physically ill than mentally ill. (That will come back to haunt me, no doubt.) Doesn't it make a nice story to think that infection causes Depression which then helps the body fight off the infection? I have a hard time believing that it is that simple. And I have not looked into any of the studies to see if they were in any way valid. This was just an afternoon's curiosity. Grateful Crap: ability to type a bit more (and hoping for the wherewithal not to overdo it) Daily Convexions: took meds (but not until afternoon. Which I just realized. Back in a sec...) i don't know. stayed up too late last night. All kids and me home today because it was ridiculous below zero today. Also off tomorrow. It is convenient that the school I work for and the school my children go to are both off. However, I was looking forward to seeing my students. I need to remember to call them and make sure they got the message that school is closed. I need to do a bunch of prep which requires typing which does not feel good. Keeping this brief. Depression is causing me less trouble than tendons at the moment. So it's kind of a good news/bad news situation. Grateful Crap: being inside Daily Convexions took meds in the morning didn't go nuts with the whole cleaning thing today I worked at my "fun" job today for the first time in months. It was awesome. Then I decided to print out a bunch of photographs to frame. And then stayed up until oh god o'clock to get just the right photographs in just the right frame. Oops. I had avoided working there when I thought the place was going to close. It made me sad. I didn't want to check my email or my phone messages in case there was sad news about this little family-owned fabric shop. So I kind of fell off the schedule and wasn't in the loop to hear that news of the closure was quite premature. Grateful Crap: our awesome customers and being around creative people. It was energizing. Which probably contributed to my being wired a bit when I got home and fed into the overindulging in lateness. Daily Convexions meds in the morning worked with friends spent time in a place I love Predictably I am tired today. No. TIRED. I slept poorly last night. Probably because of an excess of dust and cat that I stirred up in the basement. And because I entered that zone of manic (though not clinically so) activity. I spent much of the day wanting to sleep. Then I spent most of the afternoon actually sleeping. Projects for today: having the bags of donate-y stuff hauled away. Umm... washing massive amounts of laundry. It is true that I have left laundry for so long at the bottom of the hamper that my children have outgrown it by the time it gets washed. I have done strategic loads of clothing-- only what people are going to wear in the next few days. I should say that "we" have done these loads of laundry because quite frankly I am usually not the perpetrator of ordinary everyday washing. Now that the laundry is not as scary I am much more willing to enter it and may even someday have a rhythm going on the whole laundry cycle so that I don't have eight loads of laundry to do. I think I might have met my 40 bags goal (although it was not in 40 days; I had to take a break. Which is not a horrible disaster.) Grateful Crap: The blessed treadmill that my children have been running on for the last two days. Many fewer bouts of the yelliness. Daily Convexions: took meds in the morning rested (kind of) phoned a friend agreed to work some hours at a job I love but have neglected to get myself on the schedule for a LONG time. An embarassingly long time. So long that it would be easier to just pretend that I had on purpose decided not to work there anymore instead of just fallen off the email wagon and failed to put in any schedule requests. I had a car once that randomly switched gears. It was an automatic transmission so there wasn't much I could do about it. Sometimes it was in the right gear, other times the engine raced at slow speeds or cut out when I was driving at highway speeds. Over 55mph it shook like a magic fingers massaging bed. This is what I felt like today. Like my own internal engine was out of my control. All of my highfalootin' plans to take things easy and do manageable chunks of work went out the window. I had been humming along just fine. And then today I unexpectedly ratcheted up to ridiculous and set after the Basement Garbage Monster alone. I posted earlier today and then scrapped the post. Here is part of it: I managed to fill one box of stuff from the basement yesterday and then walk away. Not hours and hours. Not getting everything done. Just setting a manageable, tiny, insignificant goal and sticking to it. Take THAT all-or-nothing thinking. If I can make myself do this regularly things will be manageable in no time. Spouse has a very different view on the cleanliness project. It would be his preference to clean and organize our living space BEFORE venturing into the land of the Basement Garbage Monster. Here is the thing: our living space may never be clean and organized. At least not to my satisfaction. And so if I wait for some mythical Martha Stewart future to overtake my living space, the Basement Garbage Monster will just sit their on its treasure heap growing fatter and fatter. Smug bastard. Today I will fill one* box from the eldest son's future room in the basement and clear space to move his treadmill in so he can use it. And he will help with this. And then I will just do normal and relaxy things. After I had passed the point of reasonable in the decluttering project (* actually filled ten boxes, created four new bags of garbage and three new bags of donation items), my oldest child told me I should take a break. "But I'm having fun!" "Okay..." he said, but he was going to take a break and he thought I should too. There was a tone of disappointment in his voice. Like he was allowing me to make the wrong decision while hoping that I would make the right one. Nope. Decluttered with a vengeance. Created more quantities of garbage bags to live in the basement until we are able to cart them off... which will not be in the 60 below windchills we have on the way. Then I crashed. Unfortunately I was the only one who crashed. The children were all plenty energetic. I hid in my room with the covers over my head and wished I could fall asleep. On the positive side, I am now vertical. So I didn't push things as much as I have in the past. Also, I possess greater stores of energy at this point in time. Still... Tangent: I promised a friend that I would research the origin of the words in the derogatory epithet "Commie Pinko Fag." The etymology (not very carefully fact-checked) follows:
commie: short for comunist. First known use was in 1940 pinko: a communist sympathizer (not quite "red"). First used in 1925 fag: short for faggot. Used to describe a gay man. Prior to that it referred to a bundle of sticks, but was also used as a derogatory term for an old woman-- short for "faggot gatherer." First used in its homosexual derogatory term in 1914 "commie pinko fag" was a catcall used to describe peacenick long-haired liberal hippie types in the 60s. So it is a phrase forty-some years in the making. Grateful Crap: central heat. It will be 25 below Farenheit on Monday (that's -32 for those on the sensible system of measurement). The governor has closed all K-12 schools. Sheesh. Daily Convexions took meds in the morning set limits (and will stick to them sometimes) spoke with a friend (on the phone, but it still counts) I don't know what else |
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |