Friday morning thoughts

In addition to the sleeping and dreaming issues, I've just generally been off this week: not feeling entirely well, stuffy head, and difficulty concentrating. Turns out cedar pollen is back up, plus we've had some high winds, and that certainly explains a lot. 

(That difficulty concentrating may be partly because of what I've been trying to work on, which is studying for a certification that I meant to complete back in December. The course material is this weird combination of helpful insights and way overthinking some pretty basic things, and the online course has been... fraught. Chunks of text that aren't in the right place, videos that won't play in the course, obvious typos... and really no excuse for it. It's just sloppy.) 

The other part, I think, is just moral injury from watching some of the worst people in the world trying their damnedest to break the country and everyone in it. (I did not watch the State of the Union, just followed along with some people who were commenting on it.) CBP and ICE -- our homegrown American Gestapo -- are still busy terrorizing anyone they can, some heinous fuckery just went through in Kansas, and  House Republicans are pushing for a national book ban. I'm trying to limit my exposure because being simultaneously heartbroken and incandescently angry isn't good for my mental or physical health. And it helps to help out where I can, even if that's largely been limited to donations for mutual aid.

I still think the whole thing falls apart as soon as Trump has a major medical event, and given how he's looked lately I can't imagine that will take too much longer -- but dear ye immortal gods, the damage that's being done in the meantime...

I'm so tired.

System Purge

So after yet another round of Wait-How-Long-Have-I-Been-This-Burnt-Out? culminating in a serious case Overdoing-It-At-The-Worst-Possible-Moment, I'm back trying to get myself in order. I spent last week being a fountain of mucus with a low-level cough that got progressively worse, until I finally went went to see the doctor on Friday morning for what felt like it might be a case of swimmer's ear or a straight-up ear infection. 

This was sort-of mostly almost correct. Diagnosis: negative for plague (though it's possible that there was some sort of milder Head Crud that kicked this off), positive for a massive sinus infection that was generating all that mucus (and thus causing the cough) which was now trying to push its way in to take over my middle ear (ears, really, but the left side was very definitely worse). 

Dr. B prescribed some antibiotics and a pack of anti-inflammatories and told me to keep taking Mucinex. (I'd tried both Nyquil and Theraflu, but they both dried things out -- less mucus flowing out of me, sure, and they did help me sleep, but I think that was actually making the infection itself worse.) I'm writing this on Sunday morning, and the difference is absolutely night and day: I'm still a little stuffy, but the cough is mostly gone, I've been able to sleep without feeling like I was drowning or waking myself up to cough/swallow every few minutes, and most importantly I'm starting to have some energy again. 

...Which leaves me feeling like I should be waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I'm doing my best to ignore that. Pretty sure it's not a rational assessment, just my body being unprepared to feel well after feeling that crappy for that long. 

Anyway, Spring is in the air -- actually that's mostly oak pollen, but I'm doing my best to ignore that too -- and it's time to be extra-nice to my health. (At this point, I don't think my body is going to give me a whole lot of choice.) What I'd really like is some clean living and violent exercise, but I don't frankly think I'm up to violent exercise yet (despite the dreams I was having last night) so it'll be clean living and gentle exercise for the next little bit. Also slow exposure to daylight, so that when I do have spend a bunch of time in the sun my body isn't completely unprepared for it. 

And sleep. Body wants lots and lots of sleep, the really deep kind with the good rapid eye movements. Which, y'know, I can do that. I used to be pretty good at it. Clearly I should try doing it more often. 

Meanwhile, by the time this goes up we'll be heading into the eclipse. I feel like that ought to give me vast supernatural powers, or mark the end of the world, or both... but it probably won't. I'm trying not to set my expectations too high here. 

Right, well, one more cup of tea and then back to it. Onwards and upwards! Nothing but good times ahead.

Enough?

 Urgh. I really hoped to take today off, but I keep looking at my list and I have too many Things To Do. 

...Though if I can get the two big ones done, I might blow some comp time and take the afternoon  off. I'm just... not sick, exactly, just full of that weird feeling you get when you're run down and it would be very easy to become sick. I was reading The Myth of the Lost Cause because it seemed like a good thing to brush up right now, and then had to put it back down because it was just too on point. So I've switched back to comfort stuff: re-reading The Murderbot Diaries, re-playing the old inFamous games, and desperately hoping that I'll get it together enough to make some real progress on this new writing project. 

Physically and emotionally, I'd like to just... hibernate for a little while.

Either that, or have a really good cry.

Yeah, that's gonna be a no

So, obviously: no new fictiony anything for today. Apparently Monday and Tuesday I was busy and productive and then I just... crashed. Hard. I made it a point to go to bed early and slept really deeply and I really am feeling better this morning, but the forecast for today is Busy with a slight chance of Horrible. 

I really do need to be rested in order to do writing; rested and exercised is even better. And I did get a bit done earlier in the week, but I'm not sure it's quite what I want to use. On the other hand, even writing things that I eventually get rid of is better than not writing at all; I'll take it. I'd just like to feel together enough to stick with it. 

Meanwhile, I found this amusing and fun:

The Golf Course? Really?

I do not understand why we seem to think that keeping the firk ding blast golf course open should be any kind of priority right now.

Normally, sure. We have an award-winning golf course? Good look! Applause! Bragging rights!

We're determined to keep it open during a pandemic? Maybe... and I don't want to go too far out on a limb here... maybe not such a good look.

Some progress, at least

Credit where it's due: this week my workplace finally closed off our offices from the public and moved all public-facing interactions to a larger meeting room where we could set up sensibly-spaced stations that can handle citizen interactions (bill payments, permits, etc.) while still maintaining social distancing. It means that a lot of us still have to come into work, but it's one hell of a lot better than it was.

Conversations have gotten louder, as we're generally half-shouting at each other from six feet away, but what the hell; when I recommend a good book for reading during the pandemic, I don't care who else hears it. They should read it too, if they want to.

We have had at least one confirmed case among our workforce, and naturally that took away several of their co-workers as well. I haven't heard whether any of the co-workers were actually infected, but they're in self-quarantine -- and this is in a department which generally has a pretty high turnover rate anyway, so they're now notably short-staffed. This has led us to cut back on some services, because we don't really have a lot of choice.

(Citizen response to this has been a mix of "We appreciate what you do" and "if you're cutting service back to half, are you going to cut our bills in half to match?" with a strong emphasis on the latter. There's also been a small contingent of "So if I want to help out by taking care of this one thing myself, is there a facility open to deal with it?" Which, in fact, there is. People never fail to fascinate me.)

I'm beginning to think that the people who did the early hoarding were mostly premature (not to mention that they immediately created the same problem that they were trying to avoid for themselves and/or profit from). I think that as the pandemic progresses, we're going to see it placing more and more strain on systems that seem at first glance as though they should be unaffected. (Maybe not always a bad thing...?) If I had to guess, I'd say it's going to be another week and a half to three weeks before we start seeing genuine issues in our supply chains.

I hope I'm wrong about that -- we've got enough issues with the disease itself, the strain on our already-under-equipped healthcare system, lack of federal leadership, massive unemployment, and having the economy on hold in a way that's going to utterly destroy untold numbers of businesses. But I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't worried.

It seems like the only way forward is through, and the only way through is by pulling together (albeit at a safe distance). Take care of your own, and do what you can for others. That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.

Physical and Mental Health

I've reached a point in my life where I honestly can't distinguish between "not feeling well physically" and "not feeling well emotionally". They both seem to happen at once. Honestly, I suspect it's always been that way -- the gods know I can tell when my kids are getting sick because they get cranky and uncooperative and start behaving badly -- but over the last few years I've become a lot more aware of it.

Which brings me to this past week... or month. Or longer, honestly. I have several issues at work that really need to be resolved, but which have been dragging out because I can't seem to get the help I need with them. There are some issues going on with our department that are... troubling, but also far enough above my pay grade that I really don't see any way to address them. I've also been feeling run over physically -- not completely sick, but not really well either. Low energy, stuffy head, upper-respiratory cough, issues with digestion: nothing really acute, but I'm definitely not at my best.

That, of course, has put me behind on even more things, which is even more discouraging.

Added to that is the extra effort of getting the boys back into school (and back on a school schedule) last week, while Beautiful Wife is stressed out about setting up her semester (which starts this week).

I think what I need to do (for this twofold sort of problem) is a try to implement a twofold sort of solution. On the one side, prioritize sleep and drop everything non-essential at home -- basically, don't get hung up on finishing things that aren't essential (like writing) and just focus on the stuff I need to keep the house running (like feeding the boys) and to get better (like getting as much sleep as possible). The other side is basically just getting myself together for another push at my three most recalcitrant problems; if I can get any of them resolved, that will be a huge relief.

And somewhere in here I need to put in for some time off, but I need to talk to my boss about that. With everything that's been going on, I really haven't felt like I could do that, and that's... really not healthy, either. So, yeah: the goal for this week is to line up my work problems, figure out what needs to be done for each of them, and try to get some resolution there; and then do (or not do) what I can at home to keep myself as well-rested and stress-free as possible, and hopefully shake off the physical symptoms.

It's not much, but it's a plan.

Finishing the year in style

It is ten minutes to midnight here at the very end of 2019, and to close out the year Secondborn has just thrown up *all over* the floor of his room.

Seems a fitting close to the year, to be honest.

Better!

So, my cunning plan to Get All The Rest this weekend actually went pretty well (despite a couple of interrupted naps), and my immune system appears to be catching up with whatever I've been trying to shake off for the last three weeks. All of which is a fancy way of saying that I'm feeling a lot more energetic and a lot better focused than I have in a while. I might even get some writing done.

(It feels weird to say that, because actually I'm writing all the damned time on one thing or another. It's just the extended, novel-length projects that A. I never seem to make much progress on, and B. I somehow think of as my "real" writing.)

Meanwhile, I went ahead and ordered a pre-packaged Dungeons and Dragons campaign, because I'd really like to play with the boys but I don't have the prep time to design my own campaign. I'd kind of resisted doing that, because it means moving from 3.5 to Fifth Edition; but I've been looking over 5e and I've discovered that I quite like it. It seems both simpler and better organized than the older versions, plus there are a lot of character options that I find really appealing.

Also, y'all, the cat has horrible diarrhea. I mention that because he just dropped the absolute stinkiest poop ever to hit a litter box. We're talking "violates the Geneva convention" here. OMGWTFstink...

Right, buried that. Now to wait for the air to clear. Pardon the digression.

Anyway, there's a ton of stuff going on at work this week, but I'm just going to buckle down and work through it as best I can. A lot of it is new to me, so it's taking longer than it would if I were more... well... if I actually knew what I was doing, TBH. But here we are anyway. I went ahead and applied for a Project Manager position, because I feel like if my Ur-Boss is going to triple my workload I should get some kind of corresponding pay increase; we'll see where, if anywhere, that goes. If it doesn't go, well, there are some other options I can look at.

TL/DR: Work is busy-busy-busy, it's been too long since I've played/run D'n'D, Elderly Cat is nightmarishly stinky, but I'm finally starting to feel better.

How's your Monday looking?

Sick Again

So, whatever this is that I've been trying to shake off for the last two weeks finally caught up with me yesterday, and I left work at mid-morning and went back home and slept, then went to bed relatively early last night as well. (Ten o'clock is relatively early, right?) Woke up with my first alarm, decided there was no way I was getting out of bed yet, and went back to sleep until my second alarm. Which means the boys got to sleep in until 6:30, which is going to make it real hard to get them up for school on Monday, but apparently that's where we're at. I did at least get them down to bed on time last night, so if we can keep that up that'll be something.

Meanwhile I'm back at work, and while I don't feel like I'm about to collapse (that was yesterday), I'm still feeling... well... I hope somebody got the number of that truck, mainly. Tired, a little sore, still with the occasional bit of upper-respiratory cough and the low energy, plus the swollen lymph nodes in my throat. Energy is... okay. Like, I shouldn't move too fast, but if I can keep it slow and steady I should be able to get through the day. That could change, though; we'll see.

Meanwhile I finished re-playing the first two Infamous games, and I've started back into Bloodborne. (Because apparently I'm in the mood to die a lot? Yeah, looks like it.) Writing is basically at a standstill -- I had that lovely little epiphany back at the first of the month, but I haven't had the time or energy or focus (mostly energy and focus) to pursue it.

With any luck, I can take it very easy this weekend and recuperate enough to get my energy back. Next week we're back on schedule, but I think that'll actually make things easier as long as we're all reasonably healthy by then. Take care of yourselves, my friends.

...Okay, fine, I'm sick again

So I'm trying to get the boys (and the family in general) back on schedule before they start school again next week. Firstborn did fine; he got up and exercised, then wandered off to watch videos. Meanwhile I had to carry Secondborn out to the couch, and he has yet to open his eyes despite lights, prodding, and Pokemon going on the TV. He's just out. And frankly, I am too - I'm still suffering from a bit of sore throat/cough/low energy that I'm pretty sure came into town with the extended family. (It's not as bad as it was for them, but it looks and feels like a milder version of the same stuff, and I don't seem to be shaking it off.) So... sick day for me today, and early bedtimes for everybody until further notice. Ugh.

I'd make some snarky comment about how this is a grand way to enter 2019, but honestly I'm still just pleased that I didn't spend most of the 2018 holiday season this way.

How's your morning?

Co-worker: "How's your morning going?"

Me: "..."
Me: "...So, let's just get down to business, then."

Co-worker: "Ooookay, then."

I'm still just worn out, is the actual answer. Like, I'm not sick, but my sinuses are still weirded out from the airline travel, and I think my ears are trying to decide whether they develop infections or just let it pass. Then, of course, there was last week's conference -- where people from all over the country brought together their knowledge, expertise, and germs.

::sigh::

Plus, Secondborn's still recovering from the flu. So basically, getting everybody up and out the door and getting myself to work has worn me out. Hopefully I can take it easy for the rest of today, though -- and tonight's definitely going to be an early bedtime.

Well, that didn't work...

So I wrote a post designed to go up this morning. And it was all about how I was going to work, and...

Nope. Just nope.

Apparently that was wildly optimistic. I woke up (sort of? mostly?) and called in, and went back to bed and slept until eleven in the morning. This, despite having gone to be just after ten o'clock last night. I'm not sure what's wrong; I'm not particularly achy, or nauseated, or sore, or much of anything really. I'm just terribly, terribly drained. Still discouraged, too, but I think that's because of the lack of energy, rather than the other way around.

Anyway, I spent the day at home (aside from a brief outing for staple groceries), ran laundry, and otherwise didn't move. I think I feel a little better for it? I don't know.

It's a little bit after 9:00 in the evening, and I'm going to write one more e-mail and then go to bed again. I don't know what's going on with my system, but I'm ready for it to stop.

Tired...

I... made it through yesterday. I had some energy in the morning -- I mean, I was intensely tired, but I did have some energy. Then I ate a sensible lunch, and then... well... I ate a whole bunch of corn chips, and was worn out and useless for most of the afternoon. Dinner at home was an excellent pork and rice dish with sliced carrots on top, but I could cheerfully have come home and collapsed, too.

Now it's time for bed and I am tired and weirdly depressed, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe the corn chips have started doing something to my system. So the plan for today is basically, "No corn chips, and try to stay focused." And hopefully I'll snap out of it and feel better about, well, everything.

Hopefully.

I mean, I really do feel useless - sort of existentially, not just in terms of what I actually got done today. I feel like there's a bunch of stuff I need to do and I can't stay focused long enough to catch up on any of it. And I know it'll pass, and I'm pretty sure it's just the lingering tail end of having been really sick (along with everything else that made February such a beating this year). But I want my energy back, and I want to feel like I have something to contribute, and damn it I am just not feeling any of that. If today isn't any better, I may try to take tomorrow off. Probably as a vacation day, since I don't think I'm "sick" in any socially-recognized sense.

Ugh.

Starting to recover...

So, February started with both my wife and I sick with the Flu (and possibly Strep as well, though our tests always come back negative for that). A day later, Secondborn was diagnosed with Strep but came back negative for Flu. And Firstborn was feeling pretty jazzed about his immune system until the following week, when he came down with the Flu as well. (And yeah, we did all get our vaccinations this year - and I'm pretty sure it helped, even if it's not an absolute guarantee that you won't get sick.)

Still, after two weeks of Tamiflu and antibiotics, I was starting to feel somewhat better. And then we had that whole thing with my dad in the hospital last week, and by the time Friday rolled around I was back to being barely on my feet. So I spent the entire weekend basically trying to be at least slightly useful, while shaking off the last vestiges of flu and a resurgent sinus/inner-ear infection.

I am finally, finally starting to feel like I'm really recovering - with the emphasis firmly on "starting to". I got up yesterday morning feeling quite a bit better, made breakfast for the boys, cleaned up the kitchen, and went to work... and then, three hours later, I felt completely drained all over again. I started in on a few outstanding projects and actually got some things done, but I had be pretty slow and careful about everything I was doing. It was too easy to lose track or make mistakes. It could have been worse, but it could have been a lot better, too.

Apparently flu leaves behind in its wake some damage to muscle tissue (which is why people are frequently sore) and to the lungs. Both are mainly because of the immune response, rather than the virus itself, but that doesn't change the results. And it's yet another reason why it takes $%^&*# long to get over the Flu. Personally, I'm midway through Week 4 and still not back to 100%, so it's definitely what they call "a process".

Meanwhile, life continues apace. It's going to be a long week with a lot of early bedtimes.

Ugh. So much ugh.

So Beautiful Wife and I went to the doctor Tuesday, because we both felt horrible. And the doctor swabbed us for Strep Throat, looked us over, and told us that she was pretty sure we both had Flu B.

Tuesday night, Secondborn was complaining of a headache, but he went to bed easily enough. Wednesday morning, he complained of a sore throat and had a very slight fever - so we kept him home and took him to the pediatrician. The pediatrician swabbed him and promptly diagnosed him with Strep, but not flu.

Basically, we're a plague ward. Beautiful Wife and I are on Tamiflu and antibiotics both, while Secondborn is just on antibiotics. Firstborn says he doesn't feel bad at all, just a little bit tired - but Wednesday morning I almost couldn't get him to wake up. I don't know if that means he just stayed up too late, or if he's coming down with something too, but it doesn't bode well either way.

We'll see how today goes. I'm going to try to go in to work, because we're right at the culmination of a rather large project (and waiting to take the next step on a second large project), but I may make it a half day. (I've done a little work from home, but there's only so much I can do with the resources I have here.) And I'll sit in my little cubicle in the back of the locked-off server room and communicate exclusively by email and phone, and sterilize everything. Beautiful Wife and Secondborn will both be home today, and Firstborn... well, that depends on how he was doing when we woke up this morning, but he's probably at school. (I'm writing this in advance, hence the time-traveler syntax.)

TL/DR: Ugh.

Exhaustion and Self-Care

I'm having (I've been having, actually) one of those weeks where I'm just tired -- and I seem to stay tired, no matter what I do. I don't think I'm actually sick, though it's the sort of thing where I could easily get sick. I've been trying to be good: drink less, go to bed earlier, that sort of thing.

I've also been trying to eat healthy, though admittedly this past weekend I cooked up A Whole Bunch Of Bacon, and I've been snacking on it ever since. So, y'know, not exactly unmitigated success on the healthy food front. There's also a weird feedback loop - what we used to call a vicious cycle - where the more tired I am, the more likely I am to eat crap food, and the more crap food I eat, the less likely I am to have the sort of energy I need...

I don't think I'm sick; I think it's a combination of things. The end of Daylight Savings Time means that it's suddenly very dark out, very early. The weather is weird -- it's mid-November, but it's sixty-eight degrees outside, and I sent the boys off to school in shorts this morning -- and that tends to throw my sinuses off. (And yeah, I have been pretty stuffy - I think I'm allergic to my workplace, or at least parts of it.) Some of it may be work-related stress, too: our whole department is still very much in a state of chaotic transition, and I'm still stuck in a weird position of having two bosses. (Which is kind of my own fault, but this wasn't how I intended for that move to shake out. Hindsight, though...)

So, with all that, naturally it's a busy week for both the Beautiful Wife and myself. Monday was gymnastics; we missed two different events yesterday night (book fair at Secondborn's school, something my wife was supposed to attend - oh, yeah, and there was going to be a mid-week DnD game, but that got cancelled). Tonight my wife has another event that she was supposed to attend, but the boys have more gymnastics and her parents can't cover it for us. (Which happens -- my in-laws are really great, but they do have their own lives and schedules and social activities, as they should.) Tomorrow night, one of our old college friends is in town and I'm going to try to get together with him for dinner; Beautiful Wife has cancelled out of that one, because we're just too close to the end of the semester. Oh, and Thanksgiving is coming up, after which Christmas is scheduled to fall on us like a ton of bricks.

Honestly, the only thing I can see to do it keep working my plan: little or no drinking, watch what (and how much) I'm eating, make sure I'm getting at least eight hours of sleep per night, and don't try to Get Things Done unless they're really necessary.

TL/DR: I'm tired, there is way too much going on, and I'm just going to take care of myself and cut my activities down to the essentials.

But before I go back to that, I'm going to add a piece of music here, because I think it really captures the spirit of the season:

Annual Holiday Illness

Last year... last year wasn't so bad. But for several years previous to that, the holiday season - beginning now, just after Hallowe'en, and continuing until sometime after New Year's - has been an unbroken string of illnesses. It's almost a tradition, albeit one I'd be happy to be rid of.

And this year is off to an ominous start, since I've just spent the last two days being moderately sick, with a weird mix of nausea, headache, sore throat, low energy, and swollen lymph nodes in both my throat and my armpits. I'm back at work today because I kind of have to be, but ye gods I want this to go away.

I'm skipping NaNoWriMo again this year - I don't think I've ever seriously attempted it - but this means I'm also back at that wonderful time of the year when I go back to thinking about that End Of The World project. You know, the one that begins with all the plagues, and gets worse (and weirder) from there. I'm not going to try to work on it; that one's on hold. But boy howdy, it sure is on my mind.

On the plus side, I had a coronary calcium screening and a stress test recently (for a variety of reasons, mostly featuring family history and one weirdly unpleasant morning a couple of weeks ago) and the results were absolutely as good as I could have hoped: the scan showed essentially no calcium/blockage, and the stress test was (according to the doctor) "as close to perfect as I ever get to see". So whatever else may be afflicting me, my heart is still plenty healthy. So that, at least, was a relief.

2017 has been a beating, and we're coming into the holiday season (which is usually even more of a beating), so all of you please take care of yourselves and each other, and be sure you're getting enough food and water and keeping up with your medicines and exercise. You're important, you matter, and you deserve to be at your best.

Affordable Care Act Signup Begins Now

It’s on us to spread the word: You can #GetCovered starting November 1 at http://HealthCare.gov.

Ugh

So, I did that thing where I got some sleep, felt better, then stayed up writing. (Not real late, a little after midnight, but apparently I'm still not up to that.) So this morning I'm tired and shaky and ready to go right back to sleep for another ten or twelve hours. Emotionally, I feel a lot better because I actually did get some writing done; but physically, apparently I'm just not up to this. Not sure if that's just me getting old, or if I still haven't quite recovered from whatever's had me feeling bad for the last couple of weeks. Maybe both!

Anyway, hope everybody else is feeling far better than I am.