Daily-ish personal updates on my comings and goings, ups and downs, successes and failures.
The weather is still shit but the forecast only gets better from here.
It continues to be a long week but I’m trying to remember that time flying is no blessing. Dragging days means a long life. It means I’m not just alive but present. Time flies when your mind is somewhere else in some other time. Time flies when you aren’t living your life.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
We’re mourning yesterday’s loss and tragedy and the weather is certainly giving permission for us to do so. The clouds are thick and low, and a steady drizzle has been falling all morning. The cold has crept back into our bones and no one feels much like smiling, not outwardly, not in public.
Home is the safest place right now. I’m craving comfort food, big blankets, and an early bedtime. Tomorrow probably won’t be much better, but at least it won’t be today.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
This morning we woke up to the news that a teenager had died in a shooting near our work last night. Last I heard the shooter was still at large.
Later in the day all of our schools went on “secured perimeter” lockdown as a school shooting happened in the next district over with reports now of 8 injured and one death.
Two shootings in a day. Too much death for one day.
Working at a school district in this day and age when guns are glorified and these tragedies are sensationalized is heartbreaking, confusing, and terrifying. We fear for our lives and we worry over our ability to assist and to stomach carnage, we might encounter one day.
Some of us have already been impacted by gun violence in the past and some of us have lost loved ones in mass shootings already firmly in the public memory by now. For them, and for all of us who feel like we are only waiting our turn, the cycle, the horrific repetition of death, drama, outrage, prayers, forgetting, and then more death, can feel like a nightmare we cannot wake up from.
I just want us to wake up now.
Please, wake up.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
Today we made up for the lazy weekend and vowed to one another never to put off to weekday evenings what is best and most easily done on our days off. Lazy Saturdays are decadent and Sundays do encourage sloth but we have to stay strong and focused.
We have too much to do in just two short months before the wedding.
So, we had to rush around while exhausted from work doing things we could have had done already but it’s nice to have grown enough together not to blame or to lash out in frustration but to say instead “this is my fault too and this is what I will do to help us do better in the future”.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
This was one of my better Sundays, though it wasn’t the best it could have been. I woke up late, but I stayed away from the couch and I tried my best to write though I was easily distracted. I spent too much time on small blog things and not nearly enough time on big projects.
I had a lot to do around the house too. A lot of cleaning I’d been neglecting and small things that needed fixing. I marked some domestic to-dos off the list but the list is never ending so the satisfaction isn’t really there. Still, it feels good to focus my attention on new and novel problems for a change.
In the evening I got ready for the week and did it more efficiently than ever before. I’m going to bed weightless and without the usual dread and despair. I’m almost looking forward to Monday now that I’ve gotten ahead of it somewhat.
P.S. I have a new social media menu up here that includes a link to both my Ko-fi and Patreon pages. There isn’t much I have up on either and not much I can offer supporters yet but take a look, follow, and check back soon. I’ll be adding and updating often.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
I did nothing today. I wasn’t productive in any sense of the word. I laid on the couch, binge-watched dumb shows, and drank. I normally don’t regret such restful days, but this one was uncalled for. This one wasn’t for me. I didn’t rest because I needed it. I was lazy because I was weak willed. This can’t happen again.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
We have the sun again today and through the weekend they say, but next week nearly every day rainstorms and clouds are forecasted. Monday it will start to rain. Tuesday: thunderstorms. Wednesday: rain. Thursday: rain and possible snow. Friday: scattered showers, and that’s as far as I got.
I rattled off the report to my fiance this morning while she got ready for work. Her reply: “Tuesday: depression. Wednesday: I hate my life. Thursday: sleep all day. Friday: jump off a building.” She was joking, of course, but her meaning was clear, the weather is getting to us all. Us Coloradoans aren’t built for this.
I’d hoped to take the day for myself, to hide out in a corner and read or write, but we had the sun today. Many of the schools were closed and a lot of my coworkers opted to stay home which made it a good day for projects so I changed my mind.
Those of us who came in took advantage of the relaxed atmosphere. We fired up the grill and made burgers and hot dogs for lunch. We hung out in offices we are normally barred from by propriety. We moved furniture around and took our turns making executive decisions.
It was a good Friday. It was the most “Friday” Friday I’ve had in a long time. I’m glad I chose to spend it out in the fresh air with people rather than in dark corners indoors by myself.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
The sun came out today, finally. My mood is better but I still feel like being alone. I think I’ll need more time, and more warmth and fresh air, before I’m more like myself again.
Tomorrow many of our schools are out and that means many of my coworkers will be staying home. It’ll be quiet and since I’m already so close to overtime I shouldn’t have to do anything extra at all. Tomorrow is planned for me.
With so many people getting a 3-day weekend it feels like Friday around here. It feels happier, more hopeful, friendly. People are optimistic, more willing to to share and to say a kind word. We’re prone to laughter and excited to see one another again come Monday.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
Today went by way too fast. I feel I hardly had time to do today’s work and then to catch up on yesterday’s work before it was time to start on tomorrow’s work!
There wasn’t time for me to write or to read or to make progress on my courses. I cannot wait until after tomorrow when things will die down again…maybe. Now that I think about it, I think next week is supposed to be just as busy.
I’m doing better at night though. My new rule is I can watch one show, maybe two, but never three. I have to check my to-do list, write at least a journal post, work on my courses if there is time, and read for 30 minutes before bed. Making time in the evening to make up for time lost in the day is a relief. It means I go to bed with fewer regrets and a little less to worry about.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
I’m loving my new workspace more and more every day. I have more choice about who I interact with and how my time is used or wasted. I can do my work in quiet and when I want to socialize, I can walk back over to my old area and do my old thing. So far though, I haven’t felt the need.
My new work building is filled with too many snacks. I’ve made myself sick with rice crispy treats, donuts, and a full ream of Ritz crackers because I lack any kind of willpower. Now just thinking about food is making my gut wrench. I’ll try my best to keep down a bowl of coconut noodle soup and then I’ll put myself to bed before my body has a chance to (violently) reject today’s mistakes.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
The weather patterns are repeating favoring us with gorgeous weekends and exacting the price in gloomy Monday mornings. This is the second gray Monday in a row but I’m determined to be more productive than I was the last.
I spent most of the day finishing up post drafts here and printing a fresh new editorial calendar to fill out for Zen and Pi. I did a few work things, sent a few faxes, and filed a few packets, and at least one wedding thing was accomplished.
It was a good reading day. I finally made it past page 100 of Notes from Underground, The Double and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. And it was a good learning day too, though I’m already behind in International Women’s Health and Human Rights. I got around to outlining a short essay assignment and plan to finish writing the piece tomorrow morning, maybe, hopefully.
Not bad for gray clouds and gloom I think.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
I join others across social media platforms in mourning our pop culture losses between Avengers: Endgame and The Battle of Winterfell on Game of Thrones this weekend.
It’s amazing how we come to be so attached to these fictional characters. They can come to be our best friends, our younger siblings, we can even come to love them as we love ourselves. We wish we could know them, be them, help and comfort them. Even the ones we hate can command our respect and even their loses leave voids.
What’s stranger is that these stories will go on and that we will still watch, riveted and thrilled, filled with some small guilt we have no name for.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come more and more to enjoy being cooped up home. I like the quiet. I like the routine. I like being in a space that I control, that belongs to me, that is safe but some days—when I am forced to leave the house—I am reminded that being outside and among people can feel really good too.
A simple shopping trip, a drive downtown, even a walk around the block can be full of little happiness and surprises. The sun certainly feels good and even other people on some level provide a kind of comfort. I’m reminded of what society and community feel like. I’m reminded that I am part of something and the world, my world, goes on beyond me and my driveway.
The season is changed. Winter has become spring and though it doesn’t always feel like it, it’s time for me to change too. It’s time to move from isolation and introspection to exploration and extroversion.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
I woke up just as fatigued, anxious, and irritable as I have all week but it’s nearly afternoon now and things have since improved. Since then, the sun has come up, the air has warmed, there’s been reason to smile and time has passed getting me closer to the weekend, a dinner date, and Avengers: Endgame.
It’s Friday and no matter how bad they start, they almost always end up being good days.
These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren
Lisa Marie Blair 