Good god, where to begin?
I seem to have entered a new era of middle age, one where I can feel fatigue down into the marrow of my bones. Some of this is self-inflicted: I am perennially under-hydrated, I am not outside doing healthful calisthenics in the manner of a cheerful (though obviously, deeply problematic) German nurse in an old film clip, I am not securing my bag in terms of self-care or even progress toward the most basic of goals.
What I might be doing instead: chuckling at a weird thing on the internet, flipping through Milk Street looking for that one recipe I saw that one time, watching The West Wing and knowing I would have been able to fix Josh Lyman. (I’m not like other girls!!)
Here is the weird thing on the internet:
Everything is fine. Or mostly fine, but I am still in a constant state of “ew can we not” about almost anything I have to do. I have put off calling the eye doctor, the dentist, various and sundry other authorities. I need to give our tax accountant literally five or so documents and it is really proving to be beyond my capabilities rn.
The crocuses and hyacinths are starting to come up in the yard. Normal February! In October, I paid the plow company a handsome sum; they’ve come twice this winter. It’s like going to Vegas and putting $500 on red 35, you win big or you lose big. But I don’t really mind the mild weather, it’s the way it adds to the feeling of time rushing by that I don’t like.
The only time that seems to crawl is when I wake up at 2:30 am thinking it’s 7 and can’t fall back asleep. During these nights, I resist looking at my phone. There is nothing on that thing that will help anyone go to sleep, unless you’re speaking specifically of the Cillian Murphy sleep story on the Calm app. (I know the last two newsletters have been heavy on the Cillian Murphy content, but I’m not made of stone.)
Last night, I had a dream that the company I worked for captured a pink shark and put it on display. I kept going to look at the shark and couldn’t understand why people called it a shark, it was clearly a whale. The whale seemed unhappy so we let it go back to the sea. Then, I had a meeting where a guy I work with told me he was resigning to go work for a company that sold plastic totes. In the meeting, we were sat in a room stacked high with the totes; this is surely symbolic of something but I can’t think what.
It will be March soon and then May and then the Death Heat™ will stalk me. Our patio, new in December, will be “new” once more and we can grill everything and not use the oven until it’s Christmas again. Strange as it is to say, it will be here sooner than you think.