2/20/20
I don’t know that I’ve ever done a diary entry when I’m not traveling. Maybe, but the ones I remember I was traveling. Unsurprisingly, I am again. I’m in Southwest Texas this time. Today is a rather bleary day. Overcast, gray, drizzly. Apparently, it’s sunny at home, which is making me slightly jealous! I was supposed to be finding the sun down here! The first couple of days were warm and kinda sunny, but not really what I was hoping for. Oh well, that’s not why I’m here anyway.
This morning my alarm went off at 6:47 – I even put the damn thing across the room so that I would just get up when it went off, but instead I got up, went to get it, and went back to bed. I kinda suck at proper “sleep hygiene” (as my therapist calls it). I try, but pretty half-heartedly, even though I KNOW I function better with a solid routine. I didn’t actually sleep well last night. I had a lot of weird dreams that I only faintly remember this morning. Usually my dreams all are part of the same story line (as weird as the story line might be), but last night they were all over the place; there were a lot of animals in them though – bunnies, turtles, owls, wolves, mice … maybe I’m missing my fur babies. The fan was also making a little ticking sound which my sleep-brain interpreted as rats chewing things in my room, and that kept waking me up too. I finally did get up at 7:20.
I skip reading Pale Blue Dot this morning (even though I’m so close!!! I’m on the last chapter!) and went straight into meditation. This is a part of my morning routine that I’ve really started to need and enjoy. Generally, it’s pretty helpful, but today it doesn’t do much for me. I’m still feeling residual feelings of a lack of self-confidence and body-image issues. I don’t actually feel those things actively right now, but I know I have recently (like … last night), and that they are lurking just below the surface. It’s making it hard to concentrate and feel grounded, even with my favorite mediate (relax, ground, and clear).
I’m already pretty tired of living in a hotel, and its only day 4. I have 2.5 more months of this! Oy. I need to not sit in bed and do work from now on, even if I’m productive it makes me feel like a slug. When I’m in Mississippi I’m going to try to work at the library instead of my hotel room. The light in this place is super dark, that might be contributing to my general malaise. It also makes it hard to do my make up in the morning – I keep poking myself in the eye with my mascara. This trip is going to cause me permanent eye damage!! I’m still getting used to doing my hair now that it’s short too – I like it and I don’t like it. I guess the jury is still out. I needed a change though, so I’m glad I cut it. I think I like it.
I call the courthouse to see if RA is in yet. She’s not. Neither is CJ. They should be in around 9, so … breakfast time. Another thing I’m already sick of, hotel breakfast. Shit. This is going to be a long 2.5 months! Powdered eggs and turkey sausage smothered in hot sauce so that it tastes like something, at least! A banana, coffee, and way too sweet OJ. My new friend AR (the night auditor at the hotel) had last night off, so I eat breakfast by myself this morning and listen to OPB news on my headphones. The story is mostly about the mass shooting in Germany. Is it bad that I’m a little bit glad it’s not here again? I’m not happy it happened at all, but I don’t feel it as acutely when it’s half-way around the world. Well, that thought makes me feel like a shit.
Breakfast is short, so I still have time to finish packing before I call the courthouse back. The handle on my bag breaks, which really pisses me off because it’s a brand-new bag!! I don’t have time to deal with this right now, or to call their customer service people and get a new bag. Ugh. At least I can jerry-rig it to work for the time being. I check out of the hotel, put everything in the rental car and call the courthouse again. This time RA is there, and CJ just came in. She says to come on by. I’m back to leave when M sends me a text. Emojis: a cow, two poops, and an eye roll. Charlie had a productive walk. When did we become the kind of people who send texts about their dogs’ pooping habits?! It’s ridiculous, but it makes me happy. We’ve become so much more comfortable with each other over the last several years, which feels good. After being married for 16 years, I guess you’d expect it, but it really is a new thing for us. So, I’ll take it, pooping texts and all.
I’m glad I brought my rain jacket on this trip. It’s drizzling pretty heavily when I get to the courthouse. RA meets me in the main office and brings me to CJ. We talk for about an hour. He really just jumps right in, without me asking any questions, and I don’t have the time to do my whole spiel or ask if I can record the interview, so I take notes, which I hate doing. I should have interrupted and asked if I could record him, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who is often interrupted, and I don’t. When I leave the office the sheriff and one other person are in the waiting room waiting for him. The sheriff doesn’t look happy, maybe because he’s been kept waiting? I feel like he’s glaring at me, but that could just be imagined.
To the library. I need to get some work done online and the internet at the hotel was shit!! And I like the library here. I should have spent more time there while I was in town. I wander around a little bit when I get there and find a little book sale! Yes!! There are 2 books I want, 25-cents each. Score. I love book sales. And libraries. I wonder why I don’t ever go to the ones in Muncie …
IRB wants another revision to my application for the IAC project, which is irritating. NONE of this is high risk stuff. Whatevs. I’ll give them what they want. Pretty quickly they respond with an approval. FINALLY! I still think the final project report will have to be pushed out a month or so, but at least we’re able to get the survey live!
I went to the bathroom before I left the library, going by the book sale, and found another book to buy! Ha! It’s good I have plenty of room in my (faulty) suitcase! I head over to the Boys and Girls Club to interview LV. It was a good interview. I did get my spiel out this time and managed to record the interview! After the interview I head over to the Steak House for lunch. It’s totally packed! I’ve been trying to keep my food budget super small, mostly because Ball State apparently doesn’t understand how bloody expensive it is to eat when you’re traveling!! The state rate is almost ½ of the federal rate! I’m not going to eat fast food the whole time either, which is about all you can do if you stay within the budget. I don’t eat fast food in the best of times, I’m sure as hell not going to do it when I’m already stressed, not at home, and not able to cook good, healthy food (lol – as if I cook at all – but I don’t have M with me to cook good, healthy food!). Mostly I’ve been eating 1-2 times a day, and just not eating the other meals because I’m NOT going to lose money on this research. Skipping meals kicks in my disordered eating and body dismorphic tendencies, though. *sigh* it’s a no-win situation … anyway, the Steak House is pretty inexpensive, and it was wonderfully spicy salsa!! I may get dinner tonight; we’ll see what’s around the hotel in Laredo.
I called Mayor PT for my trip next week before I headed out. Left a message. That’s a pretty exciting piece of information, huh?!
Nothing exciting on the drive. It was raining a little bit – drizzling, really. That horrible, thick drizzle that necessitates fairly high wipers to see, but doesn’t actually produce enough water to keep the wipers from making weird noises on the windshield. Bleh. I hate that kind of rain. I talked to M on the phone for a while, and then listened to music. There were a TON of cops out!! That’s something I’ve noticed here in TX – lots of police. Also, people drive REALLY slowly. It’s interesting to me how different driving conventions are in different places. Here, going just the speed limit means you’re passing most people. I was regularly a couple miles under the speed limit and was flying past people. Also, when you’re on a 2-lane highway and you come up behind someone, they totally pull all the way over to the shoulder so you can pass even when there isn’t a passing lane. That’s nice!
The hotel I’m in now is a lot nicer than the last one. I wish I had been here all week!! It’s so bright in here! Oh my goodness. I can actually see when I try to read! I’m starting to wonder if it was the oppressive dark in the last hotel that was affecting my mood so much? I feel so much better here. I guess it could also have to do with the fact that I’M GOING HOME TOMORROW!!! I’m so excited!!
When I got here I made some decaf coffee, because I’m old and I can’t drink caffeine after 12 anymore, and read Pale Blue Dot for a while, and then Men in Place, a book that I’m the critic for in an Author Meets Critic session this spring. I’m slowly making my way through both. I chatted with B&A and the kiddos around 5:30. They had each of the kids take turn video chatting with me, which is a relief because it’s a bit of a shit show when all 5 of them to try to talk to me at once! Ha!! E didn’t say much (he doesn’t generally, as a 3-year-old), but cried when his turn was over, ha! Z gave me kisses and hugs and told me about his favorite animals. I told him my favorite animal is a platypus because they are mammals and birds and reptiles all at once. He’d never heard of them before and wanted to know what they look like. Then he was done. E was being very emotive, as she is. She decided that she wants us to do make overs and paint our nails when I go out there in March, which isn’t at all surprising, but adorable. S was being a little shy – he’s at the age, almost a teenager, where he’s still a kid, but is more self-conscious. He didn’t know what he should talk about. Apparently, though, he’s learning Russian! What?! So, we said a couple of things together, and then I told him he should talk to M in Russian, because he was taught it by his grandpa when he was a kid and can speak it better than me. A was sleeping, which is fine because I’m never sure what I’m supposed to say to babies on the phone. Ha! It was all really mundane things to talk about, but I loved every minute of it. The hardest thing about being so far away from family is missing the daily, mundane things, because that’s what makes up a life. Learning new things, liking new things, feeling new emotions, living life every day, and I miss it all being 2500 miles away. It’s not just the kiddos, of course, but I notice it more with them. Every time I see them, they’re different. Grown. More mature. It makes me sad. I don’t know how to be a good auntie from so far away. I don’t know how to be a good sister or daughter, either. So much of how I relate to people is through actions and through being there for people, and there’s only so much of that you can do when you’re separated by so much distance. I love the life I have, but I still yearn for something different, simpler, sometimes. I envy those people who never left home and live down the street from their family. I know that they sometimes envy my kind of life too – the grass is greener, I guess. I don’t know how to have both.
Last night I watched a little bit of New Moon (from the Twilight series). The movies are SO BAD, but I didn’t see it all when I started it last night, so I finished it tonight. Still bad, but in a good-bad kinda way, like a trashy novel. M called in the middle of the movie, so we video chatted for a while (it’s SO nice to have relatively good internet here!!!), and I got to see the boys, who were TOTALLY uninterested in seeing me on the computer screen, little buttheads. Tomorrow, though, I get to see them tomorrow!! Yay!!
And with that, I’ll sign off, get a couple hours of sleep and start my way home!!