pulling back

I've been struggling a bit physically in the past few days, and am quite sad that it hasn't been mitigated by breakfast in bed on Sunday and a pot of begonias on the porch. (My husband... that guy... I can't even tell you how much I love him. I may never become a mother, but he still spoiled me rotten on Mother's Day, just because I am a woman, and I'm his.)
I suspect part of this dip in progress is due to me... getting out over my skis... about what I am and am not physically capable of. Walking is a yes, long hours on my feet is a no, and also no is anything hardcore aerobic. I did both of the latter at the end of last week, and then there was the heavy, heavy fatigue and then there was the ickiness. Oh, the ickiness. Oh, the gerbils building a nest in my skull.
OR, this is just the cyclic nature of my slow recovery from the virus, which is certainly not gone yet. OR, maybe I have a totally unrelated bug that is mimicking the effects of skull gerbils. OR, maybe I've had too much caffeine? OR, there is no reason.
Maybe I filled up my bag full of good days (I really was doing quite well), and now there's a lull while I hunt around for a new bag to start packing into.

Nothing I can do but pull back a gear and take more naps.

preach

I am in FULL ON LECTURE MODE today. Already I have sent three strongly but lovingly worded emails. If I bump into you today, be warned. I am up on a soapbox. I think this may have a little to do with the fact that the semester's over and none of our students are in the office during the week. I give such good lectures about nutrition, study habits, and sleep hygiene, people. I miss having that outlet. Also, I am all het up about love and marriage and why and why not and what happens when it's not right. (not mine. not mine at all). My poor cousin had the nerve to get engaged today and just got a full blast of WHAT COULD GO WRONNNNG. Oh mercy. I think I've had too much iced coffee.  

try everything once is on hold

Someday there won't be anything preventing me from jumping off a building (with a harness) (with a goal). 

slightly less well

Oh man. The day went haywire. Bad news -> mini meltdown -> pull self together in empty study room -> look at kitten cam again -> drive to off-site storage listening to melancholy piano music on pandora (yes, yes, yes) -> stopping on the way back to the library at the Sheetz that's giving out free fountain drinks while under construction -> diet coke high (I can't make this a habit) -> laughing at kittens -> gonna be ok (but it might take ten years).

I'm doing well

Today is hoping it won't rain and falling victim to these procrastikitties.

boom

I am kind of conflicted about the implications of my odd obsession with Top Shot.

so aching much

I cried on my way home from work today... three of our student assistants graduate this weekend and, I'm a sap. I just love them so aching much. It would have been impossible not to get attached to this batch.

The one is a free-spirited wild poet who got a big tattoo of a jellyfish on her arm last semester, 'because jellyfish are fucking cool!' She just always made me smile, because of how she looked and the things she said and her facebook status updates. I fully support her brand of crazy. I hope she writes novels and novels about her strange adventures. You can just tell by her laugh that she's got a whole life of them ahead.
Another is a sweet sylph of a girl, quiet and agreeable and the. most. fashionable. person. I. have. ever. met. It is so strangely lovely to have a timid girl who dresses like a fashion model working with you. In all her time in the office--and she came to work with us four years ago, as a freshman--she never NOT thanked me for giving her work to do. She always had it wrong. I should have been thanking her. Ah, I am hoping beyond hope that she's going to take flight.
And the third, damn. He's the one who actually started working in the office the same fall I did, and six years later is finally graduating. After he got over his freshman shyness, he has done nothing but harass me, nonstop, for all of these six years. I can't tell you how much I love him. He's a big bear of a boy, chock full of funny mannerisms and bad aim and horrrible horrrrible grammar, in the funniest way. There is no one he reminds me of. He is a perfect gentleman and a brown-noser and a troublemaker. He speaks in a southern drawl that is thick and sweet and sometimes he gets really, really sad and there's nothing I can do to help. He's gone through some horrible things in his lifetime, and even in the past six years. Sometimes he breaks my heart a little or a lot. I always want to hug him. He's made the office into a battleground for years and I am so grateful, because it gives me an excuse to fight back. He is a walking, talking inside joke, and a contradiction, and a punching bag, and I will miss him so, so, so much.

So I cried in the car, because I'm not ready to not have them nearby to look at and listen to and abuse. Sometimes in the past few months I wondered if maybe the virus from hell would steal intangible things from me, like my heart and my delight, and my sentimentality. It's not even a little true. 

a new gross!

Well, this has been a bummer of a day. I am sensing that one of the side effects of being sickly and generally sedentary for six months is a weakened immune system. I am just basing that on the fact that I'm in the throes of my second ever (ever!!) stomach bug. Puking is so gross, guys. Especially when it's not the only thing leaking out of your orifices. I mean, my GOD. No wonder people complain about these things. If this is one of those storied 24 hour bugs, well then I have nine hours to go. I'm braced. 

maybe it's physics

I am pretty amazed by the fact that my husband is the type of person who never accidentally pokes himself in the eye with his thumb. 

a long, long funnel

Recently I have been getting lost in old family photos, like really old. I am a sucker for these things. I don't even care who's in them sometimes, I just want to see them all. I'd look through a stranger's old family photo album with just as much enthusiasm. But in this case, for these photographs, they are mine. My ancestors.

I sometimes think I can see myself in the faces of my great grandparents.

I cannot BELIEVE the series of events that had to happen for me to exist, from out of this vast history of people crossing paths. They didn't have to meet! But they did meet, and so here I am. I'm at the bottom of a long, long funnel. In just the three or four generations before me--whose faces I can see in photographs--there are a whole host of humans working toward my existence. Three generations ago I am Steiner and Zuercher and Miller and and Brubaker and Newcomer and Nussbaum and Hersh and Falb. Somehow I have all of this distilled in me.

...What even is that, and how do I not take it for granted?