I woke up about half an hour before my 2:15 a.m. Wednesday morning alarm, considered trying to wring the last 30 minutes of sleep out of the sleep gods, but figured I might as well get up and get going.
At the laundry, I worked on edits for Hawaii Stories, instead of my usual journaling. Had a late Tuesday dinner (Big Mac combo from McD’s). Read a little bit of football news.
I again wasn’t sure when I started out if the beach was in my morning plan, since I’d been Tuesday morning and haven’t done consecutive days since before the lockdown. My feeling was “Why not?” which was good enough a reason to go.
I’m so glad I did. I snagged a good parking space on the Kewalo end, goofed around on my phone a while, and jumped in shortly before sunrise. I also thought if I went in, I’d take it easy, but I swam pretty hard again. It was rewarding, mentally and physically. Probably emotionally and spiritually too. I didn’t want to get out of the water.
Next week I’ll try going three mornings in a row to see how my body handles it. I thought I might do a third morning Thursday (when I’m writing this) but I’ll get into that tomorrow.
Drove straight home, made breakfast, and got to work. Sorta.
I just couldn’t get that story the way I wanted. I had my weekly one-on-one with my supervisor to talk about it. She was supportive and understanding, but also made it clear that I’ve got deadlines. They may be soft deadlines, but every day I don’t move the work forward is a day our graphic designer can’t get started on the annual report my stories are going into.
I spent the workday not getting anywhere. Then I tried to keep at it into the evening. I figured I’d just pull an all-nighter, and once I gave myself permission to do that, of course I just goofed off until a short nap, from like midnight to three.
Brunch Wednesday was corned beef hash and eggs on hapa rice. It was delicious. Such a vice. Dinner was leftover mapo tofu on leftover hapa rice. It was fine, but I’ve decided this is a dish I can’t have as a main dish. I’m normally fine having a side dish as a main dish, but this isn’t going to be one of them, if I ever make it again.
Ali got back to me after a week of unanswered texts. I kind of just stopped sending her messages — I didn’t want to be like the guy who fills her voicemail box. But she was studying late and she reached out Wednesday evening. We had a nice conversation about school and work, and I caught her up on some former coworkers.
Vicky asked me if I wanted to take advantage of a must-order-by-the-end-of-September special she was offering, but I had to tell her I’m still considering a purchase. I’m just not ready to decide. Sharon and I traded a ton of texts about the same former coworkers. Crush Girl and I talked about this online game we’re both into, and a book she’s listening to now that I read a few years ago. Oh, and dinner. Of course we talked about dinner.
I listened to a lot of new music, but I’ll get into that later. Note to self.
Spoiler: the writer’s paralysis kind of worked itself out Thursday, but I’ll write about that Friday morning.
Leave a comment if you want someone to connect with in these lockdown daze. You don’t have to go through this alone, and hopefully you haven’t, lo these nearly seven months. Yikes.