Lockdown: Slices of life

Yay. I rolled out of bed in better spirits if not (again) on quite enough sleep. Work was slow but I guess it moved okay. Called one of the fundraisers to get info on one of our donors, a retired schoolteacher I’m writing a story about. Sent out some emails. Outlined another story. It was nice not to have to work so urgently on stuff. It’s kind of the work day I needed.

My 10:30 Zoom meeting became a 10:00 phone meeting. My weekly face-to-face with my supervisor. It went well. We both had bad days Tuesday and debriefed a little Wednesday morning. I may have lent her a little bit of help, and she definitely helped me.

Breakfast was overnight oats. And I sent out for pizza for lunch. No-contact delivery. I left a small folding table just outside the carport. Ordered and paid for the pizza online. Delivery guy left it on the table. I kind of nibbled at the pizza all day, so it was lunch and dinner.

In the midst of my bad day Tuesday, I put in one of my M*A*S*H DVDs. Season seven. I’ve seen all these episodes a million times, but as you know, it’s my favorite show of all time. Still brings me joy. Still moves me. Yet I’m so familiar with it that I can just have it on and still focus on work. The effect was therapeutic.

One episode, not one of the good ones in one of the show’s better seasons, has a killer payoff, one that always leaves me in tears. I’ll spare you the summary, but Charles Winchester receives an unexpected Christmas gift, something from home. The gift was Father Mulcahey’s idea. Charles rushes over to him, hands him a wad of cash to give to the orphanage, and says,

You saved me, father. You lowered a bucket into the well of my despair, and you raised me up to the light of day.

Nobody in the show waxes poetic better than Winchester. I think my favorite episodes are almost all the ones where something hits that button in him.

I did almost no connecting with friends today. It’s okay. There were a couple of late texts with Crush Girl; I reached out to her first, which hasn’t been the case these last few days. Just to let her know I was thinking of her. Sent a text to Penny to ask what she’s reading, but haven’t heard back. Traded a few IMs with Friday 5 girl.

I did go out for a walk after two nights of not doing it. Got off to a late start, so I only got to 8900 steps before midnight, but went to 7000 after midnight, so not bad. It didn’t feel great, and I went the long way coming back, mostly listening to podcasts. My feet are pretty dang sore.

The pizza was both good for my soul and bad for my soul, mostly because self-loathing is counter-productive. Still, it was nice to have pizza, which I haven’t had for kind of a long time. Tomorrow I need veggies and I need to use up some leftovers.

No time to write about the bees. It’s 3:45 a.m. and I need to get to bed before 4. Hoping to reel in my hours a little at a time to get better control of things.

We’ve got a long road ahead of us, I think, and if that’s getting to you and you don’t have someone to debrief about it with, I encourage you to reach out. We can lower buckets into the wells of each other’s despair and attempt to raise each other up to the light of day. Or we can just talk about the NFL draft. Whatever works.

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