Laughter Through Tears

This afternoon, I was so tired, and I couldn't tell whether it was ( the heat. )

I don't really know why I only posted once in all of June. I'm not really sure what happened in June to make me stressed, but, well... You know, there's always something. Plus, my hand and wrist are still acting up, so if I have limited typing time, Dreamwidth is (alas) not my top priority. I guess I could try dictating posts more, but honestly, since I have a private journal now and I rarely interact with people on Dreamwidth, it's... still not a high priority.

My writing schedule has more or less recovered. I'm making progress, at least, although it doesn't always feel that way. I'm sleeping okay and trying not to let the heat get to me. It's a lot less hot than last summer -- so far! -- but because of reasons, I have to keep my windows and shades open for long stretches, which lets more heat into the apartment. My electric fan is also on its last leg. I will need to replace it some time this summer.

I'm timelining for Blood from Stone and it is driving me up the wall.

Wednesday: summer. Friday? winter. Next Sunday, summer again. Ah, spring.

Today I spent part of the morning going through my box of meds and comparing it to what's on my 3-month scripts, to see what I'm short of and what I have extra. Then I took my annotated list to the pharmacy, where the pharmacist was remarkably patient with these shenanigans. I told myself that I was going to be good, but I decided to reward myself with iced coffee all the same. Especially given how nice and sunny it was, and the fact that it was steadily inching closer to lunchtime.

I have some more tests and things lined up, but I'm also doing a little self-imposed "writing retreat" next week, so there's something to look forward to.

( Covid stuff )

We live in uncertain times.

The heat has been oppressive for the past week. Like, record-breaking. Can't-write, brain will eat me hot. Sleeping badly. Supposed to dip back down to "only" typical summer heat later this week, but no autumn in sight.

Lately, I've felt like I've plateaued in Pilates, but this morning (after a lousy night's sleep) I had a really good class, and I feel again as though I could break through and keep improving. On the one hand, I draw a significant benefit from accepting the plateau, but on the other hand, breaking through feels great, and honestly? My posture never doesn't need help.

Later in the week, when the pharmacy restocks it, I'll be starting a new med.

It seems like a weird moment in history in which to realize that I am basically happy, but it is what it is.

I spent most of this afternoon watching the entirety of Russian Doll instead of working on a story submission that's due at the end of the month.

And now I'm sitting here, staring at this story, and the little bastard tells me it's perfectly happy being 1,400 words and doesn't want to be expanded to 3K, the minimum for submissions to the antho I've got my eye on.

I gotta write something, but I'm so fucking tired. And there is nothing to eat in my apartment that doesn't require preparation, which is by far the worst part of Pesach for me. I keep saying "I'll make" and then not making anything.

I wanted to write tonight, to see if I could squeeze a few hundred more words into the last month of the year, to make the word counts look a little prettier. Not sure that's in the cards, though. I'm pretty worn out. Last night a back pain kept me up, and it took a while before I remembered that, uh, I can take something for that. It cost me some rest. And tomorrow I have to make up some time at work. I may get home too exhausted to write then, too.

I will definitely be too tired to celebrate, so I've preemptively given up on that, too.

And navigating the rain and cold is drawing off some of my excess energy, too. The rain is good for us, but it still makes my life just a bit more of a pain in the ass.

I will try to do an end of year post tomorrow, at the very least. I also have some Verity stories scattered that need to be pieced together. And then the next day is YT author reveals and I'll probably do a post about that. Even though I have not read much of the YT archive this year. Yet? Hopefully yet.

This which went wrong:

1. It rained today, I was slightly apprehensive about going out to pick up a heavy computer on my own in the rain. It turned out okay and didn't start storming until after I was safely ensconced at home.

2. I was carrying a computer so I needed a cab. The cab driver gave me the turn-around and I was too tired to argue with him, ended up paying a completely exorbitant price, plus he insisted on regarding the computer as "luggage". I didn't fight him on it.

3. My old screen had a cable that wasn't right for the opening in the back of the computer. Luckily I had a backup cable that does work.

4. I neglected to mention that I definitely want my OS in English and they installed my Windows 10 in Hebrew by default. These days this is much easier to fix, which I am in the process of doing.

5. Plugging in my router in the living room didn't work -- I switched the living room and bedroom earlier this year. I had to get an electrician to fix the socket in the new living room before I could connect the computer to the router. And I had to call the phone company first to figure out what was wrong.

6. Man, digging up the passwords to all my accounts is a pain and a half.

7. I might end up spending the rest of today installing and configuring shit.

8. Almost accidentally skipped lunch.

9. But at the end of this whole long process, I'm gonna have a gaming computer again.

We're having a deep summer heat wave in Israel this week. Not the first one of the year and not likely to be the worst one, either, but it's fraying in the way that weather extremes can be. For me, it means a bunch of different things. For once, my chilly half-buried apartment is not quite chilly enough. I tired easily.

And two things that I forgot about Deep Summer Heat: one is that it makes me angry, literally. The other is, for some reason, hot weather makes me susceptible to motion sickness.

I slept away the morning, spent the afternoon eating "breakfast" and catching up on TV, and now the early evening is dedicated to talking down my stress levels. There's a lot going on. I'm not very good at dealing with so many things in parallel.

Next week it's supposed to snow in Jerusalem. It's an inconvenient time for me because I need to get to Tel Aviv and back twice this week, and while I do have the option of staying in Tel Aviv that might be... complicated. Also, I have open university assignments due tonight and tomorrow, after having put them off far more than was reasonable -- because there was so much going on.

But hey, the premiere of The 100 was great.

The dust storm broke over the night. Particle count is back to normal (< 100 mcg/m^3) as opposed to the ranges between 300 and as high as 600 of last week. I opened the windows. All of them. The house is going to need a thorough cleaning -- much more thorough than I have the energy for.

And tonight is the new year. Happy new year?