I am exhausted with this semester already. HR hasn't onboarded a bunch of students, so I have been cutting library hours, the students won't wear their masks in the library and two of my staff went for a COVID test today.

I am just tired to my core. I get up each day and I push through, but let me tell you, the mental exhaustion of worrying about getting my business and my staff paid and through this...just all of this past year and a half mentally burned me out. Then it's been followed by work not just picking up, but floodgates opening, which is good, but also has downsides. I feel like I finished running a marathon and then immediately got tasked with running wind sprints with no real finish line in sight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have work back. I'm very worried about the fact that it's based on live events in light of what's happening with delta, but at least I can keep paying my staff and my bills.

So yeah, I'm exhausted. Beyond exhausted.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. I just needed to get that out.

Timelies all!

Apparently there was a major thunderstorm last night that I slept through. Also a tornado watch this afternoon. Fun, fun, fun.

I was telling my therapist yesterday that I don't feel stressed at work particularly, but on my days off I just want to sleep all day or have no desire to really do anything...and then I asked if it was possible to be stressed and just not feel it at the time? I can't remember what he said. It just feels like I'm numb. Numb and then tired. I just had 3 days off in a row and I just wanted to sleep through those three days. I mean I wanted to do other things but I was also really sleepy.

I also talked to the meds dr about rejection sensitivity dysphoria and for now she wants me to double my cymbalta dose (I was taking the minimum) and see how that helps. And go back to taking trazadone every night to help with sleep.

Although today I did get a moment of "thank god I'm not a parent"- one of my cousin's had a bunch of deliveries from Amazon today, her daughter (I think the youngest, she didn't specify) got on Amazon and found a bunch of stuff she liked and just kept clicking Buy It Now...to the tune of $3000.

askye, yikes to your cousin, and hugs to you. I hope the med adjustment helps.

ND, vibing restorative-sleep vibes in your direction because I don't know what else to do. You've spent the last year and a half juggling flaming bowling balls not only without a break but with the occasional extra flaming ball tossed at you for no reason except that the universe is kind of an asshole, and somehow you haven't dropped any, and you deserve a medal and a solid month of hibernation.

So far, the place at Tahoe seems safe--amazingly, the firefighters and snow machines throwing snow at the flames and snowplows commandeered into throwing up dirthills have managed to push the Caldor Fire back from where it was this morning. It's now headed toward the site of the Tamarack Fire, which was itself awful but is finally dwindling and really has no fuel left at the end closest to the Caldor. And the wind's about to shift and the temperature's about to drop. I still don't feel any particular attachment to the Tahoe house in its current incarnation, but the town itself is a living place full of interesting oddballs and surrounded by interesting wildlife and I want them all to stay safe, and it's beginning to look like there's a chance that they will. There'll still be a lot of work to do to plan against the next fire, because there will be one, but at least now it looks slightly possible that there will still be a town and a national forest to do the work and the planning.

Whew. Dude came back, put in my window, took my cash and left. All good. And a friend who was stopping by came right as he did, so I even felt safer. I'm not sure the new window glass is perfect, but it'll do!! Thank goodness.

Everyone okay in NYC and environs?

Boston got lucky, towns to the north and south, not so much -- 9 inches in New Bedford. And just now we have blue skies between puffy clouds.

Timelies all!

Lovely weather here-high 70s/low 80s, sunny with a little breeze. Guess the storm blew out the heat.