Burnout

A cartoon of me, a green-eyed,
fair-skinned person, encased
in a burned-out candle stub.

No, it's not burnout from work; honestly, work is the least stressful thing in my life right now. 

September is not a lot better than August this year: the world is a mess (even more than usual), acquaintances are doing/saying the most ridiculous B.S. about things like Covid and masks and mandates and vaccines (not to mention packing high school football stadiums unmasked), I finally finished a project after asking for two extensions and feeling guilty and beating myself up about that, two of the three people I love most in the world are currently at loggerheads with me in the middle, the financial and other issues from last week's post are not yet resolved, yesterday was September 11th and my Facebook feed was full of never-forgets (which is fine as long as your never-forgets don't include abusing people who look different, but it's still stressful af), Liz is having a crisis of ADHD/ASD/adolescence/anger (complete with meltdown at school and at home the same day) and the school wants a behavior plan (we're looking into getting her treated finally (she was not willing before partly because her late father was against it; he was afraid they'd "medicate her into oblivion") but getting an appointment for that takes time... more below), Abby is starting college at the end of the month (assuming our 529 people and the college can work out the payment process... and their Accounts Receivable department is evidently still on summer break), Liz hurt herself yesterday (she's okay but needs these antibiotic eyedrops and ibuprofen), and my therapist is out of office.

So, yeah, a little stressed out, burned out, whatever.

Feeling like a failure as a parent, daughter, envelope-stuffer, citizen of the world, homeowner, social justice bard, gamer geek, writer, etc., ad nauseum (yeah, yeah, I know I'm not; but it feels that way).

So... Lizzy's injury: Between the crisis at school and the same-day issue with other people, we're looking into getting her treated ("as long as you make sure they don't turn me into an uncreative zombie, Mom") and if it works the way it's supposed to, medication will make it easier for her to self-regulate and make good choices. I made an appointment with her pediatrician for a well-teen check, to discuss medication, and for a flu shot if they're available by her appointment on October 7th. I also signed her up for a recurring D&D session for teens through Outschool (with a teacher Abby has had there before; they are particularly experienced with 'at-risk' teens). It starts in late November, and so in her Lizzy- way, she wants to be creative and give a nod to her late gamer-nerd father, and make a covered dice holder out of a wooden cup he owned. She has the tools and the safety gear, so cool, kid, have at it.

A pair of eyes, one swollen and bloodshot

Yeah, she's had a rough week (see above re: crises) already and so it did not occur to her to wear the safety goggles while blowing sawdust out of the drill hole. Sawdust goes everywhere, including her left eye, and we don't know for sure whether there are bits of old varnish mixed in there, and we can't get it out ourselves, so off we go to urgent care (I try to avoid the ER even pre-covid, and now a mere minor eye injury would likely take hours to get seen because of all the anti-vax covid patients). So we are at urgent care and we get all that done with minimal help from assorted items in my purse, thank the deity of your choice. Urgent care closes at five on weekends and we are locked in until we can find someone to unlock the door and let us out. Then I get Liz home and go to get her Rx eyedrops.

Pharmacy closes at six on weekends, it's 6:07, and I'm ready to cry (for the third or fourth time this week) and just drop spoons everywhere until the pharmacist (on his way out) hears me talking to the cashier and says, "Oh! Elizabeth Kirkland? That just came through; let me get it for you." 

Thank goodness for conscientious pharmacists!

During checkout, he notes that some of the ADHD meds come in liquid form and that they have these at their pharmacy, so that's a good data point for the doctor visit in October. And now Liz & Abby are off to get the medication aid that Liz needs to swallow pills (applesauce in a pouch) and possibly an eye patch so she stops rubbing it unconsciously.

So... was it all bad? No, of course not - we have some hope for behavioral strategies, medications, and other Things to Help. The financial and other resolutions are still in process, the injury is minimal and treatable (and she can do it herself), the safety gear lesson learned, and the project I fretted about so much is complete. And the therapist is out of the office, so I'm writing it out here.

But the burnout is real.

Even Good Stress Is Stress

A cartoon rendition of me, a white,
brunette-and-grey-haired woman,
smiling unconvincingly at the camera
with the caption "I'M SO TIRED"

Please excuse me while I write this stuff out so it doesn't keep weighing on me. If you don't want to listen to me whine, just skip on down to the next post. This is therapeutic for me, and the rest of you - sorry! - are secondary for this purpose.

So, Abby is finally enrolled in CORE (orientation) at Cascadia. This is set for next week, and after that, she is able to enroll in her first semester classes. I am happy to report that she is able to enroll on the strength of her high school transcript (her cumulative GPA is almost a full point above that required to enroll) and so no other hoops needed to be jumped through. This is as it should be, but when your kid graduates from high school during the Pandemic Year of Doom, this is no small feat. Go Abby.

Getting to this point was a trifle stressful, though, not least of which is because I hate August. Anyone who has read this blog ever knows why this is, but in case you need a reminder, go ahead and read any post tagged with a blue ribbon. I didn't really grok this, though, until my therapist wrapped up our session yesterday by saying, "Jenn, August is hard for you. That's okay." I guess knowing is half the battle, etc., because that really made me feel good, like oh, well, I can just cut myself extra slack every year for a month and we're good. I can do that. 

And I guess it was my week for simple statements that should be obvious making me feel so much better overall. Monday I went to the financial planning company recommended by my bank and said, "look, my finances suck; how can we fix this?" I mean, I've been to them before, as my finances have sucked from before Laston died but much worse since (medical debt in the USA is real, y'all), but this time it was a solid hour discussion with an action plan and recommendations and options and all that. More than just the usual platitudes of saving x percent, blah blah blah, you know? And the simple thing he said that really made me feel better (I knew it but I hadn't had it said to me in so many words by an expert before) was this: "First housing/utilities/groceries, then transportation, and anything else comes later."

Oh.

Oh, wow.

As I said, I knew this already. But having it said outright by an expert in the field? Game changer.

At least in my brain.

I'm also getting over bronchitis - I had it for the first time in about twenty months because masks do actually work - and I don't have covid; I've been checked. It was a nerve-wracking 24 hours between the test and the result though.

These positives almost (not quite, but almost) make up for the note from HP, which basically said, "Yeah, well, she must've dropped it, because Chromebook LCD screens don't just crack on their own." Which, okay, she says she didn't, her sister says she didn't, and I've been in the biz before, long enough to know that tech support makes their money saying consumers violated the warranty and getting them to pay. But I'm unwilling to pay more to repair the damn thing than it would cost to buy a new one, thanks, so HP and I are having a conversation via email. I'm a widowed mom of teens with a job in a sector that was out of work for most of the last year, my older child no longer gets social security money from her stepfather's death or from child support, and I haven't got the cash. I didn't get that detailed with HP, of course -some poor hapless repair tech is probably calling me a Karen as I type - but there it is. They'll have to wait.

In any case, it's now safely not-August, life has ups and downs, and I'll survive. I'll even enjoy myself most of the time. I just need to remember that a) it's okay for some times to just be hard, b) priorities are a thing, and c) writing it out almost always helps me.

Back to Me and Mine

A cartoon rendition of me, a chubby
brunette-with-grey woman in blue,
wearing a smiley-face mask and the caption
"WEAR YOUR MASK"
in light blue and pink.

Hello, folks! I am trying to separate my Angry Political and News Ranting (mostly on my Vocal account) from my About Me and the Kids Family And Mom Blog here on Blogger.

Naturally, there will be some overlap, as I am in fact part of the world I'm ranting about. But I'm going to try, at least.

And although this particular post is mostly about me and Liz and our outing today, it is colored by the fact that I was on tenterhooks most of the morning because of pending Covid-19 test results. Again, part of the world here; complete separation is neither healthy nor practical. Note: I am fully vaccinated (Moderna) as of April 16 (and that's including the two weeks). I was able to get it that early because I work in K12 education. For anyone new here, I work as a McKinney-Vento driver for the school district in which I live; there are details in the link.

Anyway, so Tuesday of this week I had what seemed to be a migraine. When health-checking (online) into work, I was reminded that a new headache is cause to check with a doctor. All righty, pretty sure it's a migraine, but I'll check for safety. I work with kids, after all, some of whom are not old enough to be vaccinated, and school starts this coming week, so best to be careful.

The consulting nurse said that if the migraine responds to the usual treatment (in my case, Tylenol, icepack, caffeine, and a nap), it's likely just a migraine, no worries. It did, and I stopped worrying.

Thursday I started feeling wheezier than usual, a little lightheaded, a bit of ear pain, nasal and chest congestion. You know, cold symptoms among the asthmatics of the world, the usual. But it's been about twenty months since I was sick last (I know, it's like masks and stuff work or something!), so again, let's play it safe. Even though I can smell the blessed, blessed petrichor so I'm pretty sure I'm okay.

I went in, double-masked, had a visit with the urgent care doc, told her my concerns, and she examined the salient bits. Good news - no fever (98ºF even), reasonable O2 level (97%). Not so good news - wheezing, nonproductive cough, general malaise, congestion, blah blah blah. Seems like a cold, but who knows? Then it went like this: "Okay, Jenn, given your history and current symptoms, this sounds like a classic allergic sinusitis and asthmatic bronchitis to me. I’ll prescribe you a Z-pac in case it complicates into an infection, and you can use that if you need it, here’s a better over-the-counter cold medicine (Coridicin) that won't affect your blood pressure, and we’d better do a Covid test just so if you do have residual symptoms next week you can show them a negative Covid test and people won’t freak out."

So that's what we did.

And all the way back on Monday, I had promised Liz a last outing of the summer before school starts next week. Great. But now we can't be sure I'm not contagious, so... Okay, here's the plan. I will double mask, and I will stay in the car. We hit the drive-through at the bank and at Value Village to donate old clothes Liz has outgrown. Then I sat in the car in the parking lot while Liz took separate jaunts into the dollar store, the store part of the Value Village (the drive-through donation area is in the back), and the bagel bakery to get lunch. While she's in the produce market, I get notified that my test is negative, hallelujah. I mean, I thought it probably was - like 98% sure, but there's that niggling little doubt, you know? 

So now we're home, 13yo Liz has done some shopping (toys and sweets at the dollar store, shoes and purses at Value Village, and assorted fruits at the produce stand), and I am wiped out. But I have that negative Covid test to show anyone who looks askance at my coughing/wheezing/sneezing, ad we got to have our outing, complete with Liz gaining some real-world shopping experience and a sense of accomplishment for Taking Care of Mom.

It was a nice day.

Ugh, Humans, (v2)

Cartoon of me, a chubby white
woman with brown and grey
hair, wearing blue and grey.
The caption reads "UGH,

Honestly, what IS the matter with people?

Mind you, I'm not watching the Olympics this year. There are many reasons for this, ranging from wanting to watch LeVar Burton guest-host Jeopardy all the way to absolute disgust at the International Olympic Committee

Which is too bad, as I enjoy many aspects of Japanese culture and I'd love to see more of Tokyo's interpretations of things. But I digress.

Let's just tot up the most recent asshattery, shall we? (I'm writing this on 29 July, mind you; these things usually take a day or two to get approved for publication. So if I miss something that happened on the 30th, well... sorry about that.

• At least four female athletes are not allowed to compete "because their testosterone levels are too high." I got news for you; at 52, my testosterone levels are "too high" as well... guess what. Females are not all the same. I know it's shocking. But it's real life, folks.
• One athlete in the US was not allowed to compete because of cannabis in her system. Of course, the fact that the cannabis was in her system due to coping with the death of a parent, in a state where medical and recreational marijuana use is perfectly legal... that's beside the point. Evidently, so is the fact that white male athletes are not held to the same standard.
• Simone Biles is being disparaged - not by her teammates or coaches or medical teams, you know, the people whose opinions might actually matter - for having the temerity to protect her mental and physical health over providing entertainment to the masses of entitled (and from what I have seen, mostly white, male) Americans and Brits. Who of course frame it as "letting her team down" even though the team in question disagrees.
• Naomi Osaka was treated so unfairly she went to a different country's team.
• White male commentators have been heard referring to the male competitors as men, and the female competitors as girls.
• A Greek commentator stated that he didn't see how the South Korean Ping-Pong players could see the ball, "because their eyes are so narrow." At least he was fired.
• The Ladies Beach Handball (Volleyball) team from Norway was fined because they didn't wear bikini bottoms. The men's teams wear shorts.

And that's just the Olympics.

That doesn't even include a handful of actual federal and local lawmakers (or hopefuls) in the US trying to claim that their free speech is violated by mask mandates. And lying about things like critical race theory (it really is just teaching the whole of history, not only the prettied up bits) or sex ed in the schools (no, teh gayz are not trying to teach your kindergartners about anal sex) or antifa (somehow they have managed to twist it into antifascists being the actual fascists), and denying climate change (to the point that they see nothing wrong in amateurs using commercial-grade explosives in the hottest, driest summer on record), and they're still claiming that Covid-19 is a hoax, (even as they're dying because they won't vax or mask).

And their asshattery in general.

I have a friend who feels that cognitive dissonance is addictive for some people, like they never moved past their adolescent rebellion stage. I guess that would explain a lot, and just because cognitive dissonance hurts me doesn't mean other people don't love it.

Ugh. Humans.

Humans are So... Human

Cartoon of me, a chubby white
woman with brown and grey
hair, wearing blue and grey.
The caption reads "UGH,"

And I do not grok them.

I mean, I can - and have done - rant all day long about the illogic and the ridiculous selfishness and so forth. These things have really been brought to the forefront in the past few years. And I can say all I want to that I don't understand why people are this way... why they won't wear a mask or get vaccinated, or won't believe that Biden actually won the 2020 presidential election, or believe that critical race theory is somehow fascist. Or believe that climate change is a hoax for... some unspecified nefarious purpose. Or think that gay people are trying to indoctrinate your kids via sex ed in the schools.

But whenever I have asked why to these sorts of views, I get a couple of very unsatisfactory answers. Usually, racism and the patriarchy are at the top of the list.

Okay, sure, but those are very simplistic and pat answers, regardless of their basic accuracy.

Occasionally I get an answer of fear or xenophobia, which is probably more fully accurate, as these answers describe the why a little better. People are afraid of what they don't understand; they don't understand epidemiology, or people who don't look like them, or women in positions of power, or climatology, or actual consent... and therefore they react poorly.

The fact that most of the loudest people I hear talking about their God-given right to do whatever they want - from refusing masks and vaccines to blowing things up during the hottest and driest summer on record - also claim to believe in the socialist and neighbor-loving lessons taught by a brown-skinned, middle-eastern, Jewish guy, well... back to humans being human, I guess. That's a level of hypocrisy I can't even wrap my head around.

Yeah, yeah, not all Christians, not all cishet white dudes, not all Republicans, etc. Whatever.

I wish they'd walk the walk they talk so much about.

Why do they think that pregnancy is more important than living, breathing children?

Why do they think that being required - or even asked - to wear a piece of cloth over their faces is somehow more oppressive than being enslaved or imprisoned?

Why do they think that learning actual, complete history is so threatening?

Why do they trust people who are trying to scare them rather than those trying to help them?

Why are they so quick to believe that everyone wants to kill them or convert them into some icky-squicky subculture? Are they that paranoid? Or that self-important? Probably the latter.

Why do they think the people they call fragile and wimpy and other denigrating terms are so dangerous that they need automatic weapons to protect themselves from us snowflakes?

For that matter, why do they think that wearing a mask into a grocery store is an indication of fear but wearing an arsenal into a grocery store isn't?

Yeah, fear, xenophobia, patriarchy, racism.

Whatever it is, it kind of sucks.

Pat Riots

Multicolored fireworks on a black background

Pretty, aren't they?

Yes, I like fireworks as much as the next person... except for the ones that are all noise and no lights, because what IS the point of that? Or of setting off a mortar round in a quiet neighborhood at 8:20 in the morning on the Fourth - simply because you can get away with it?

But there's a disconnect between rights and responsibilities that I think some of the people around me do not grok. I've been thinking about it for several days - months, really, because of masking rules and so forth - but it really crystallized for me as I was looking at the infographic about fireworks safety this year on my state governor's Facebook page.

There's a huge drought going on. We had more than a hundred heat-related deaths in the last week in our state alone, and that doesn't even take into consideration more than twice that many in the state to the south or the 500+ in the province to the north, including an entire small town that burned to the ground. That's just this last week. It's dry out there.

And yet, here we are, with people proclaiming their God-given right to... what? burn it all down in the name of patriotism just for the lulz? You know these folks are not sticking to the "safe and sane" pretties, either; they are the ones making their own or going to the reservation to buy them even though those are always illegal in non-reservation areas of the state.

Even in my own rural, unincorporated neighborhood, the safe and sane ones are illegal too... except between 9AM and 11:59PM on the Fourth itself. Not that the restrictions are stopping anyone.

Well, that's not true. The restrictions are stopping me - I don't plan to light anything this year; we're sticking to pop its. You know, those little bundles of paper and gunpowder you just throw at the ground? The restrictions stop a few of my neighbors, who won't light anything (and don't do the illegal stuff anyway) until the Fourth.

But a lot of them? Yeah, there are mortar rounds going off in the evenings, and those are never legal in my state, let alone before nine in the morning on the Fourth, but here we are.

I find it distressing that the people who proclaim their patriotism the loudest are usually the same people - or at least there is a lot of overlap in that Venn Diagram - who are breaking all the rules and traditions regarding the symbols and heroes of patriotism.

American flags as clothing or other decorative stuff? These violate the flag code. So do those Thin Blue Line flags I keep seeing popping up everywhere. Voting against veterans' benefits is a jerky thing to do; saying you support the troops while continuing to defund them is hypocritical. Decrying immigrants as somehow bad for "your" country is super unpatriotic; everyone here has an immigrant, refugee, or slave in their ancestry... unless their background is 100% indigenous peoples.

Most of us are not.

And then there are the lovely folks who natter on about the 2nd Amendment and their right to bear arms. We could argue about the definition of "well-regulated militia" all day (and have) so I'm not going there this time. But even if the second amendment covers fireworks (I have read that it technically does, since a Supreme Court decision in 2014), local jurisdictions have control. And regardless of how you feel about fireworks as firearms, the second amendment does not give you the right to burn down your state (or country or world) just because you want to blow stuff up for some knee-jerk patriotic "rockets' red glare" fun and games. And to the "patriot" on the aforementioned Facebook page who rambled on for a while about how we need this because we've all been cooped up against "the China virus plot." 🙄 Fireworks were invented in China.

These are seriously dangerous conditions. It doesn't make you more of a patriot to set your neighborhood alight.

I guess "patriot" and "patriarchy" have a common root for a reason. Buncha folks who think they have the right to do what they want regardless of how others are affected.

Note: this post was originally submitted to Vocal, but they have not gotten to it in the approval queue yet.