Take two. Internet fucked up and ate my last attempt at this entry.
I am having a lot of feels today. Or no feels. Or I don't know what the fuck I'm feeling. Idk.
Smeagol is ready to be picked up at the crematory. It's a day ahead, which is nice because I just want to bring her home. We also had a well-priced piece of gear we consigned sell so that will help put a dent in paying back emergency end-of-life and creamtions services bills.
But I can't deal with any of that until my car gets back from an oil change. I am very grateful that they pick up and deliver the car back in these wretched covid times. I just want it back now so that I can take care of other stuff. Being distracted by waiting is the worst kind of distraction because it lulls me into utter inaction. Like I can't focus on anything else until I get done the things I can't get done because I am stuck waiting.
Friday spouse's mom goes in for a three day hospital stay while they remove "an aggressive tumor" and really this year can just calm the fuck down already.
Please:
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I never know whether to lead with the worst news or bury it. I think I'll save it for the end.
I don't like when people who present themselves as Very Smart talk aobut how some bit of media is "Very Complicated." Because usually it is not. Wait, scratch usually. It never is. It's like when I was in a poetry class in undergrad and this girl, who sneered at anyone who said they watched television, said she didnt' get "The Matrix." BB, it ain't that deep. Anyway, cue like 25 years later or whatever and this is everyone talking about "Dark" on Netflix. Now, to be fair I only watched the first season, waaaaaaaaaay back when there was only one season. And it was trite. And predictable. And fine I guess, but the ending of season 1 put me squarely into "eh that was enough" territory. It's FINE. It's not great. It's not terrible. It's a good "put it in the background and clean your house" show. It does not, contrary to what everyone around me and online keeps saying, something that demands every second of your attention. Obviously YMMV. I just don't like when people get up their own ass about how the piece of media their into has a steep learning curve. It makes you sound like an arrogant ass.
Okay, so the bad news.
My sweet sweet old lady baby kitten katten of 19 years died last night.
This year can eat farts.
Please:
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
Today spouse's mom finally goes in for her first oncology appointment. 2020 is the worst.
I've broadened my job search to the PNW. Until covid is over getting employment outside the US is a non-starter. And I just learned some horrible things about my familial country of origin, Spain.
I'm tired. I have been having to feed my old cat by syringe for the past couple days and I am emotionally exhausted.
Good things: I am now 5/12 done recording vocals for our album. The woman who has done mot of my tattoos is designing our album cover and I'm so excited about it!
I've got nothing else. I'm so tired. I'll try to be a real person tomorrow.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
Well today has been another day where I fell down a rabbit hole and got nothing done. I think Wednesdays are just bad for productivity. I'll blame hat insteand of my own vices getting the better of me. Ha! Now I'm a real american.
Just learned more terrible stuff about return to work and I'm in an anxiety rage. I don't know why I do anything. I've applied to a ton more jobs I won't get because I value myself too highly for what anyone is willing to pay.
I should have taken that fucking job in Spain for pennies. Centavos. FML
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
Today has been half good half bust. I have gotten 2 songs done for our album in the past two days. I'm waiting for spouse to get home to listen to the second one to see if it's okay. If so, I am 1/3 of the way done with vocals.
I also got our hallway area cleaned. That's 2/3 rooms done. Tomorrow I tackle our workspace. That'll be fine.
I called the vet AGAIN because our old lady baby cat hasn't eaten since yesterday. She had her teeth out about a week ago and I guess I'm just kind of a Karen about her. She's my baby. I've had her for 20 years. So yeah. Anyway today I'm picking up some liquid food and a hunger stimulant.
I got sidelined from my thesis because I thought we had a committee meeting for work tday but it's only every other Tuesday. Which is dumb but whatever.
Fuck, I just remembered I have a bunch of laundry in the dryer. Let me go get that stuff put away before I run ot hte vet to pick up Smeagol's newest meds and food.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I spent Friday and Saturday playing Destiny 2 and doing nothing productive. I regret nothing. But now today has to be a work day. Womp.
We started watching Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj and I really like it. It's kind of jarring because he looks exactly like my brother. Haha.
Anyway, in the research arena: I have a type of qualitative study chosen and I think I have my framework. So that's good! I'm considering just typing the entire thing directly onto the template my university provides so that I don't have to fuss with the hell of reformatting EVERYTHING. Don't get me wrong, I love formatting stuff, but putting things into a template that aren't formatted the correct way is a god damned nightmare.
I'm so distracted today. Stupid phone. Stupid phone games. I'm gonna go switch loads of laundry and try to get my head on right so that I can get some shit done today.
OH! But first.
My union FINALLY put out a statement asking for remote learning this autummn. BUt that's not the half of it. A neighboring city's teachers' union put out that call to action 3 days earlier.
On Friday my stupid governor said that he won't mandate masks and said if any cities try to do that would be in trouble. One hour later the CAPITOL CITY'S mayor declared masks as mandatory. My county's HHS is looking into doing the same thing. The governor is now pursuing a lawsuit against the mayor of the capitol.
This fucking year. I can't even.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I remembered libgen existed after spending 3 days fruitlessly trying to get a couple of journal articles. Then the articles showed up via interlibrary loan in my email. But like, I couldn't be sure that they were going to show up at all cos Covid, so I don't feel like the libgen work around was a bad one.
Today has been pretty blah. Haven't gotten a lot done, but I also don't really care. I'm so stressed cos work is coming up so soon and it's such a terrible idea but NO ONE CARES.
I'm watching cases go on the uptick locally and just furious cos I know that, on top of everything else, our governor will be dead last in mandating public mask wearing, if he mandates it at all. He already refued to do an actual lockdown so I'm not holding my breath. (No pun intended.)
Still on the job hunt. Just wildly applying for absolutely anything even remotely related to my work. I wonder how long my ethics will hold out. I've seen a lot of *m*z*n listings but they're so evil but also this country is circling the drain so like........
I think I'm going to go take a break. I also need to like stop reading the news. But it's the only way I feel like I have any control.
Yuck.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
Today is a lot?
I had a lot of steam yesterday and I got a lot done. Today I'm just like bleh. I have gotten more research done so that's good. And I reached out to my advisor and that's good.
I also sent an email to the president of my union asking for some real response regarding work and I emailed the head of IMS about the lack of access to appropriate technology even as it sits languishing in a storage closet.
I guess maybe it's just that I've done a lot of stuff and it's only 11 am and I'm exhausted.
I need to go to PetSmart to pick up some food. It'll be good to get out of the house, if even just to have the order tossed into the back seat. I'm not necessarily stir crazy, but I do kind of have itchy feet.
I think I'm gonna check in on my island, pick up that cat stuff, and then get back to work.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
My dear old lady baby kitten katten went in for surgery to have all of her teeth extracted. The biggest concern was would she come through surgery. Gladly, she did. So now I just have to wait a couple more hours until I can pick her up and bring her home. My sweet little gummy baby.
I am trying to learn to be more creative with singing for our songs. I am not a musical thinker. Like my spouse can imagine songs and guitar riffs and drums and I don't know what that's like. So it's hard for me to create vocal melodies. I usually just try to sing to keyboard stuff I create to songs he writes, but sometimes those keyboard parts are so good that I need to be singing a different melody and IT'S REALLY HARD. But I'm trying cos I'm not a quitter and I like doing this music and it means a lot to my spouse and I'm not going to let him down just because I lack a skillset. When I don't have a skillset I acquire said skillset.
I sent my first draft of my new research question to my thesis advisor yesterday. I've got 12 solid articles that I'm going to use to formulate my proposal. I'll be happy when I have 50 solid sources but I think I'm off to a pretty good start right now!
Whoops left the house in the middle of this update. Smeagol made it through her surgery and is chilling in my papa-san (who am I kidding it's hers) right now. I am so happy she made it through and that she's relaxing.
Today has actually been a really good day. I'm going to work a little bit on my proposal before I knock off for the night.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I think my brain is broken. Research is hard? I forgot that I compiled my original thesis's research over the course of 2 years. Now I am sad. I am having such a hard time focusing.
It doesn't help that every news story is about how people in my profession don't matter and how we're definitely all going to die of Covid starting in August.
It's a lot.
Our old lady baby cat has to have a bunch of teeth removed and the vet promised to only barely sedate her so that she doesn't, you know, DIE cos she's old so that's also a lot.
Anyway, I'm gonna just leave this update here. I am gonna give myself the gift of Xanax sleep tonight and hopefully come back renewed. (I am still working on my research today, I just don't know how productive any of it is going to be.)
Oh, and spouse's mom has cancer.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I had to scrap my entire doctoral thesis and start over.
Honestly I'm fine with it. I was growing increasingly frustrated with my old topic and thanks to the pandemic it was going to be impossible to do anyway. So I've begun the arduous task of collecting research so I can rewrite my 40 page literature review and also my meethods and also my intro so I can hopefully defend my proopsal in October.
I don't have a lot to say. I'm trying to balance this with getting our album recorded before the start of the school year and that's fast approaching. I don't mean to be light on here, but this is always going to be the thing that falls by the wayside.
I've applied for so many jobs that I get rejection letters for things I don't even remember applying for. I applied for one that I REALLY REALLY want in The Hague. Also 2 local ones that I would be okay with. Anything to get me away from the very real likelihood that I'm going to get covid once we are no longer remote on August 11th.
Oh, and spouse's mom has cancer.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I forget sometimes that my best-work friend is super wealthy and also comes from super wealthy people. It's fine. She puts up with my complaints about capitalism and I try to not be outwardly horrified whenever she talks about things like how her kids got a bunch of stock money from their grandpa so they can "see what the stock market is like."
I only have a retirement account because I work in the public sector and have a union negotiated state pension fund. I didn't even know IRAs existed until all of that hoopla in the late 90s/early 00s when the tech bubble was in full swing. My parents couldn't afford to do ANYTHING for me because they don't have any money. And they still don't. It makes me so angry. Not at them. At this shit ass system.
But I'm also eternally irked by other people's partner-financial practices. I don't know why. It doesn't affect me. But so many people who are in partnerships don't share? And I think that's gross. If I have to hear one more person say they need to "pay their partner back" for something I may burst into flames. Like, aren't you both working toward a good life? Why do you owe that person money? Don't they care about you? Why do you have to be broke while they buy extravagant toys just because they lucked into a higher paying job?
Y'all. I am just not cut out for capitalism. The way it infects and toxifies relationships is fucking gross. Money is gross.
Spouse and I have operated out of a shared money pool for...2 decades now. I run the money cos it is stressful for him and I enjoy the minutiae of micromanagment. Never once have we had an argument about money. Like we've argued about things, but money has not ever been one. I make sure our bills are paid, and then we consider things we might want. One month it might be a guitar for spouse. One month it might be a subscription to Memrise for me. Sometimes we both want things and we decide which is a more pressing need. Sometimes I break my stupid arm and everything we both want is put on hold. Sometimes neither of us wants anything and that money goes into our safety net account.
I just don't understand why financing with a partner has to be difficult. I feel like people make the choice to make it difficult. That they are okay with letting their partner suffer because of some weird notion of individual responsibility. Or that they are okay with suffering while their partner flourishes because of those same notions of individual responsibility.
It's sick and I hate it.
Y'all need to do better about taking care of your partners. Y'all need to do better with demanding care from your partners.
I'm gonna go dither around on my spreadsheets some more, to make sure WE are both cared for.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.
I Whoops it's been a week. At this point I'm pretty sure that time is fake.
I applied for a job at my work that would get me away from the flood of humans I would normally be tasked with being around. I won't get it. I just needed to apply for SOMETHING that would make me feel like I'm getting out of the shit situation I'm in.
I had a bad stretch of days where I could not give my cat her subcu fluids without it being a disaster, but I think I've gotten back into the groove of it. 3 days without an incident.
I guess I've just not been updating because I don't really have a lot to say. This work project is almost wrapped up. I need to talk to my advisor about whether my topic is salvageable. I am terrified I'll have to be In A Buillding with A Lot of People on August 4th as opposed to working remotely. I still have to make myself 6 cloth masks and 2 more for my spouse.
But it's tedious to say these same things over and over and over. This is the worst hamster wheel.
Be kind to yourself.
Fuck the police.
Please be safe.
Keep social distancing.
Wash your hands.
Wear a mask.
Stay safe.