Kat, I have also been depressed and turtling, and were live 15 minutes from each other. I vote dinner and drinks soon.

YES. DEAR GOD YES. More than ever, people need to band together.

Hi Cindy! Noah and Grace are 11, so, you know, not great. Noah actually is 70% delightful and Grace is 100% a handful.

What makes me most despondent about the Kavanaugh situation is not the HIMness of it, but the banal commonness. Men are not a big part of my world and they haven't been since I've been out of college, so I forget sometimes what it's like to deal with the common version of men. In a classroom I have more authority so the male students treat me differently, but it exhausts me to consider what my daughter is going to experience.

I'm working from home and haven't actually gotten out of bed yet, so, outlook not great on avoiding settling into apathy

I hear you, Kat. The banal commonness, yes.

I've gone all the way through BURN IT ALL DOWN to plzgivemeayurtnowthx and am terrified of settling into apathy due to an excessive case of the can't evens.

I'm not usually a person that wants to go live off-grid, but I'm at the point where retreating into the woods and becoming a terrifying urban legend is sounding like the best plan ever. But I'm also trying really hard not to hit the can't evens apathy.

The White House authorized the FBI to expand the scope of the investigation. I wish I could stop feeling that slight flare of hope each time something non-horrific happens.

I wish I could stop feeling that slight flare of hope each time something non-horrific happens.

I depend on it. Without the moments of sane behavior I would not be able to go on line at all.

Hi Cindy! Noah and Grace are 11, so, you know, not great. Noah actually is 70% delightful and Grace is 100% a handful.

I look at the date and 11 makes sense, but it still doesn't compute. Mine are 18, 19, and 22 now, so I might envy your 11-year-olds, but I'm sorry things are hard. I'll start vibing at you now for what is to come.

The White House authorized the FBI to expand the scope of the investigation. I wish I could stop feeling that slight flare of hope each time something non-horrific happens.

I'm trying to stick it all in a box. I can't do much about it. My senators are Warren and Markey. Their votes are foregone conclusions and would have been, without the sexual assault allegations, perjury, etc. I'm trying to stay away from both hope and despair. It's not really working though, so I'm stress eating.

I'm not usually a person that wants to go live off-grid, but I'm at the point where retreating into the woods and becoming a terrifying urban legend is sounding like the best plan ever.

Oh, this does sound more tempting than I'd expect.

See, I almost always feel like retreating to the woods and becoming an urban legend (I don't know if even the legendary version of me can be terrifying, maybe Boo Radley scary) is a great plan.

Ok, I had one thing that absolutely had to get done today, and it is; two urgent things came up and I've done what I can on those, and my usual daily tasks are where they are supposed to be. That's enough, right?

Just tried to RSVP to a professional networking event on Wednesday which will involve free drinks and food, and probably lots of people bitching about 45's environmental policies. Here's hoping it's not too late.

I keep trying not to follow the news, but it's compulsive. Politics is my hate-watch fandom.

A little apathy now and then is good for the soul. You just can't live there. I think of it as...meditation. A period of no-mind where the conscious shuts down for repairs and the subconscious works on things--sort of like Wash under the dashboard, till all the little lights start blinking again.

For me, fighting too hard against apathy just sends me deeper, longer, when that dam inevitably breaks. At the moment I'm kind of skipping across it, like a stone. Maybe I'll sink at some point, maybe I'll make the other side of the pond. But with this much, all at the same time, and no real end in sight, I've had to soft-pedal action and caring to what I can manage. For now.