Realigning part-time priorities

 Another UTA weekend has come to an end and much like last UTA weekend, I'm too spent/drained to take care of my usual pre-work week activities.

Laundry? Not likely.

House work? Not gonna happen.

Some reading? I'm not even gonna pull a book out.

Meal prepping? Not a chance.

It's frustrating. UTA weekends have always been annoying, but it's only been recently they've begun to feel almost soul-crushing. I don't know if it's the increased responsibility of promotion, my age, news coming from the most incompetent administration in US history, or having to miss out on nice summer days we've had this year. Maybe some combination of all the above.

Regardless, I'm realizing I may have to start approaching these weekends differently. In the past, I often viewed these weekends just as busy weekends in which I'd go to work, but I'd still also get other stuff done. It may be time to forget that other stuff. Than when I'm not at work, I'm resting and just focusing on trying to recharge. Even if that means spending money on my lunches for the week and having to play catch up on laundry next weekend.

On the plus side, I did manage to muster the energy to take Hamlet on a walk after work today. Got like eight mosquito bites during it, but he needed the time outside with being stuck by himself most the weekend.  

Song of the Day 

Today sucked

Through no fault of my own (which is rare), today was just a shit day. Nothing crazy bad happened, it was just dumb little thing after dumb little thing. And I couldn't do much about any of them. Or at least I couldn't do anything to alleviate things from sucking; I'm sure I could've done something to make them even worse. 

There's no real point of going into detail, so I won't. Most of it was work related (and boring) anyways. Instead, I'm going to focus on the silver lining of the day. And that's the Cubs beating the Yankees. Not that I really care much about baseball, but I had a bet riding on the game and now someone I know owes me some Mexican food. And as much as I love good Mexican food, I love it even more when someone else is paying for it. 

Song of the Day 

Possibly probably the #1 lie I tell myself

I normally work swing shift (3 pm - 11 pm) and that works pretty well with my natural sleep cycle. Unfortunately, every now and then I have to work day shift, which is 7 am - 3 pm. And I feel like it damn near kills me every time. 

Most notably because it gives me this habit, that I had even back in the days I worked day shift as my regular shift, of getting home and telling myself I'm just going to lay down for a few minutes while I try to figure out how I want to go about what I want to do with my evening. Sometimes, albeit rarely, that works. I catnap for about 15 minutes and then I'm up and doing things. Most the time though, it backfires and creates a seemingly endless cycle of bad sleep patterns and low productivity.

If I'm lucky, like today, I'll wake up around 6 pm and still have time to get something done (though rarely what I'd originally been hoping to do for the evening).  Sometimes I don't wake up til 8 or 9 pm. Those evenings I try to immediately fall back asleep, but it rarely happens. Usually, regardless of waking at 6 pm or 9 pm, I'm up until nearly 1 am or later, hoping that the few hours of sleep I get on that side of the evening will be enough to carry me through the next work day and leave me with the energy to lie to not myself about resting "just for a few minutes" after work the next day.

At this point, I'm just hoping to make it through this UTA weekend relatively unharmed. Then on Monday I'll be back to my normal work schedule and I can focus on whining about other things besides (lack of) sleep. 

Song of the Day 

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right

Last night, if I had to guesstimate, I got about five minutes of sleep.

The only reason I know I got any sleep at all is because I had a very vivid dream in which we went in World War III and the current government's plan for us to win was to use AI controlled robots that constantly patrolled US city streets making sure everyone they came across was a US citizen. All suspected non-citizens were immediately beaten and arrested. And the government assured is this was the way to win the war as bombs were being dropped on US soil and most people just went along with it. Thankfully, that was just a dream and something like that would never happen with this government, right? (RIGHT!?)

Anyways, got home from work today and immediately passed out for like four hours. Then woke up and thought about the days I sometimes did that as a drinker and I'd be bummed at myself for missing out on so much possible drinking time. Sometimes I'd pound a few as quick as I could to make up for it and sometimes I'd choose just to stay sober for the night so I could prove to myself I wasn't an alcoholic. (Which ironically is one of the signs a person might be an alcoholic).

Sad news I saw online while struggling to sleep last night - Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle crash. He wasn't necessarily a super influential musician for me, but The Frames and some of his solo work hold a special place in my heart that's associated with my time living in England. I also always thought he was the perfect style act for concerts at Bear Tooth. 

Today's song of the day is one of the first The Frames' songs I remember listening to quite a bit while driving around the English countryside by myself and contemplating what was to come of life.

Song of the Day 

I dream of being able to dream more

 I don't know how people are able to lay there head down at night and just fall asleep. Like no matter how tired I am, the moment my head hits the pillow, I'm gonna need about 30 minutes (minimum) of thinking about pointless stuff while trying to get comfortable before I can fall asleep. I'm seriously jealous of people that are able to lay down and just be asleep, often no matter the circumstance. 

Like people that can just sleep on planes. It's seriously mind boggling to me. They always look like they're sleeping in a position that can't be good for their neck, but it doesn't matter to them. They're snoring away, often with their mouth wide open, and I'm usually struggling to even keep my eyes shut - despite often not sleeping the night before I fly! 

I say all this because while I normally work evenings (which is much better for my natural circadian rhythm), then next four days I'll be working day shift. And I know that even though I'm tired, when I lay down in a little bit, it's going to take me a while to fall asleep. Like I'll be lucky if I get more than two hours of sleep tonight. And I don't doubt that somewhere out there is someone in a similar position to me. Except they're asleep already as though switching around their sleep schedule while the world continues to get worse with each passing news cycle is all no big deal. 

Song of the Day 

Summer isn't over, but it's closer to its end than its beginning

 It's that time of year where, if you're from here, you notice the decrease in daylight. The trees are mostly still green, but you know it's only a matter of days before you start seeing yellow leaves. And not long after that, the trees will be mostly yellow and even the sunny days will have a little chill to them. 

I really don't like this time of year. Which is kind of funny as I love fall. I even love pre-fall, that time I mentioned when the leaves are just starting to turn yellow. But for the couple weeks when the only noticeable difference is less sunlight, I just feel dread. There's this realization that no matter how much I may have done over the summer, the season will be over soon enough and I'll feel like I didn't do enough. 

For instance, I've done more hiking this summer than the last few summers combined. But there's still a bunch of hikes I didn't get to doing and now that the end of summer is right around the corner, I know I'm not likely to get to them all. And I know that's not really the worst thing, but it still makes me feel like I went wrong somewhere and let too many days go to waste. 

There's also the realization of another summer single. Which, in the grand scheme of things (whatever that scheme and those things may be) isn't really that horrible a thing. But a little while ago, I met someone and I was pretty damn positive there was more than just a friendly connection there. A connection reinforced by her not being my normal type (though I'm still not sure what my normal type is) and my therapist at the time telling me I needed to branch out from my normal type. Regardless, I was wrong about there being any sort of connection beyond her being friendly and me being foolish. It happens. I'm just a bit bummed to see the end of summer around the corner and I'm no closer to dating again than before summer started.

The other existential dread with this time of year is knowing that Halloween candy is about to show up on store shelves. I'm not going to lie to myself this year that I can resist it and just wait for the sales after Halloween. The challenge will be not buying too much of it. Mostly for the sake of my bank account, but also to try and keep my waistline from getting any bigger, especially once we've lost lots of daylight and I go back to my natural sedentary ways. 

Song of the Day 

Sunday evening? Again? So soon?

 I feel like I just got done with a whole lot of meal prepping and pre work anxiety, yet here I am again. Thought I'd get a lot more done today too, but instead I struggled to get out of bed this morning as my body reminded me I did an 8.5 mile hike yesterday. But these days I consider hiking my most important weekend priority, so if that's all I do for the weekend, that's OK. It was so nice out today I almost considered doing another short hike despite how my legs felt. But I knew I'd regret that tomorrow when I had no lunch and suddenly I was spending $20 a day for the week to eat. 

I did kinda work on the home office today. Barely. I took down some shelves that were in there that my exgf had left behind. Kinda bittersweet when I do things like that. 

Originally, I'd kept the shelves (cubbies really) because there was no reason not to. They worked and I didn't have any sentimental attachment to them. But somehow taking them apart put an awkward attachment to them. Like this weird reminder of how different our respective decorating styles are. Granted, I wouldn't say I have a decorating style other than I either don't like something or it works for what I need and doesn't hurt my eyes so I'll get it.

Anyways, there's a little more room in the room that will be the office now. In fact, there should be enough room for me to put my bookshelves in there now. Of course, that means I'll have to get them downstairs, which will be the tricky part.  I might have to invite a friend over to help, but then if I'm suddenly willing to start inviting people over, what was the point of getting rid of the game room? Life is quite the juxtapositional conundrum.

Song of the Day 

Went to the base of O'Malley again

 

My original plans today had been to hike somewhere else, but due to miscommunication with those I was planning on doing that hike with, those place fell through. So I decided to head to O'Malley instead. I know I did it not that long ago, but the weather was crap then and today seemed like a good day for that. Also, it's probably my favorite hike in the Anchorage Bowl. Also, since I'd brought Hamlet the last time I did this hike, I knew he'd be able to do it again. Lastly, there seems to have been more bear attacks than normal this year (thankfully none fatal) and bears tend to attack people hiking alone more than groups. However, I never hear of bear sightings on the O'Malley trail, so it seemed like a safer option.

Just like last time, I knew I'd only be going to the base of O'Malley. Going to the peak itself, or so I've read, requires some scree scrambling and Hamlet wouldn't be able to make that. So we made it to the base without much issue and after a little snack, I decided we should head to the opposing ridgeline just to see the view from there. Unfortunately we were barely a few hundred feet into heading to that ridgeline when Hamlet began noticeably limping. 

On the way back, we found someone's phone and I was able to find them later on the trail while they were looking for it, so it was a bit fortuitous for them Hamlet started limping when he did and altered our course in such a way that I cam across their phone. They may have had a very long day of backtracking to try and find it otherwise. 

We took it a little slower getting back and Hamlet did fine, all considered. Sadly, I think this means in the future he'll be limited to much shorter hikes. I'm doubtful he'll really notice, he's always happy just to be out in the mountains. But I'm gonna notice him not being there when I do the longer ones. 

 

Song of the Day