And to All a Good Night

I just sat here typing versions of Weakened, Week-end, Weekend, Week End, then had to google how you actually spell weekend, almost decided not to title the post at all, so here we are. I'm in one of those "but why on earth WOULD I blog right now?" periods, which is where not having much of a structure or schedule or.... here's where I talk myself right out of ever blogging again, along with spending half an hour trying AGAIN to figure out how to type accents on a Chromebook keyboard - raison d'̂etre - did I do it? I feel like the accent merged with the apostrophe. Resumé́? Is that right, or is it a speck on my screen? If it was, all it took was finally hovering the cursor over everything in my toolbar, which is a little embarrassing for me.

Eve is on her way home for study break with my sister's family. They got a bit of a late start so they're due to arrive at my mom and dad's at ten p.m. or later. Usually this wouldn't be an issue for me, the inveterate night owl, but at this time of year I like to go to bed at nine and read for four hours, so Matt is asleep on the couch downstairs and I am watching The Good Fight and doing some last-minute puttering for the week-end.

We've (okay, more properly, I've) been calling this Christmas 2.0 because the goddamned weather kept my sister's family from getting here at Christmastime. A few days ago I started baking and immediately felt panicky and exhausted. I think I might have triggered, rather ridiculously, some kind of fake Christmas stress. My friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) told me something incredibly helpful to tell myself at times like this: "I am excited, not anxious, but my body doesn't always know the difference". So I made myself take sitting breaks because my back gets sore when I stand for a long time, which adds to the panicky run-down feeling, and did some deep breathing.

I left a few Christmas decorations out and kept the Santa hats out for Eve and the cousins to wear, and it snowed again last night, and I have a tiny Christmas tree to put the presents around. I go back and forth between thinking this is whimsically hilarious and dumb and tacky. 

I interviewed for another library day at another school last week. I got it through my usual tactic - applying for weird little jobs nobody else wants and then not showing up naked at the interview. School board interviews are horrifically awkward - they give you some questions, give you fifteen minutes to jot down your thoughts, and then they have you answer the questions while they look down writing or typing rather than looking at you. This interview was the same, but the subtext was "please answer these questions but also just have a pulse". I know I'm not supposed to run myself down, and I'm not, really. I'm good at my job. Maybe not as good as I would have been if I'd done library technology right after my degree and started when I was younger - or maybe the depression and anxiety would have sucked all the joy out of it, I wouldn't have had the equanimity I've gained in the intervening years and I would have burned out on it early. 

So now I work on three different schools on three different days at three different starting times and I might have to have sticky notes on the door for a few months to avoid some embarrassing mishaps. I used to hang my key lanyard on the hooks by the front door because I liked how they looked hanging there, and grabbing them to pull over my head before leaving for work. You know what that results in? The keys looking great hanging on the hook while I'm at work in January in a snowstorm trying to badge the door open with no badge. This is okay at the school where I go to the front door because it just means the secretaries make fun of me. At my Monday school I can go in a side entrance, because the front entrance is a lot further from where I park, which only matters in the winter. I started keeping the lanyards in my work bag instead and that's had much better results.

I have successfully passed enough time that I should go brush my hair, put on a bra and head over to my parents' house where I will shortly be able to squish my daughter. A good Friday (not Merry Christmas, no one needs that pain in the ass) to all.