Sept 22

Backstory 1: Thursday was a refresher lesson in “communications differences between ADHD time-blind me and my non-ADHD spouse.”

When I hear “leave at 2 PM, I think of that as—at best—walk out the door at 2 PM. Himself thinks of it as “be on the road by 2 PM.” So, there I was, not so quietly panicking about being late to an event 2+ hours away in a later time zone, because I wanted a lot more time cushion built into the schedule. And there he was, being annoyed that despite me saying we had to get ready much earlier than he planned, we only left the house 25 minutes before he originally expected. As it turned out, traffic was gobsawful bad to the tune of an extra hour on the road, so every minute did help.

We were not late, despite it all, but we were rushing to get checked into the room, quick-changed clothes and rushed down to the event. We did arrive 10 min after the projected start—but it was a dinner event, and seating always takes a while.

Anyway, I take a wee bit of credit for the 15 min cushion. And so it was a reminder for Spouseman that he needs to explicitly talk back from this concept of a rollout to the “when do I start getting ready” point that’s necessary for my non-panicking. My learning experience was that I need to speak up sooner and more emphatically when I think the travel time cushion is not adequate to meet my better-too-early-than-late anxiety needs.

Best of all, we weren’t late to dinner and had a great chat with some fabulous folks after supper was over.

Backstory 2: Friday and Saturday full of things interesting to me but not easy to explain without getting into MUCH more backstory than a blog is designed to convey.

The shortest version is that due to complicated in-law family reasons, over 15 years ago I ended up on an advisory council for the library at the university I attended back in the dark ages of the 80’s. I’m still on it. They meet at least twice a year. We get wined & dined, receive updates on What’s Going On At The ‘Brar, and What The University Is Doing. We hear student and faculty presentations on Timely Topics, and the meeting always ends with an afternoon or evening on the club level of the stadium during a football game. Where informal discussions of all kinds happen.

ANYWAY. This fall’s presentations were all very social justice related, and the formal officer talks were all about how the university is dealing with the political hellscape—financially, philosophically, and socially. I was shocked to learn how many of the powerful people on this council were shocked (SHOCKED!) to learn how many private prisons there are in this country. It was one of the student investigations. Another student was examining the causes and inequities of the immigrant culture in his home country of Singapore. The third—IIRC—was looking at congruences between the politics of North and South Korea and those of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland during the Troubles.

So anyway. It was all very interesting, and much to my surprise, our team also won the football game despite a couple of bad moments early on and a 90 minute lightning-and-rain game delay. It was a good time. I learned things, I had some great conversations, ate more meat than I normally eat in a month, and got to visit a fantastic place called Granor Farms.

But all the excitement did leave me utterly and wholly exhausted; my brain was feeling like used-up bubble gum by the end.

(I should mention that was partly due to this year being FOUR straight days of peopling from morning to night instead of the usual three, since the council meeting started off with a Chicago visit to the Newberry Library on Wednesday. Which was awesome, and I now have a reading room access card out of the deal, so BIG SCORE THERE. But. EXTRA Exhausting.)

The tiredness is at least partly physical. I got in sooooooooo many steps between the downtown trip (walk to train, walk to venue, walk to restaurant, walk to train, walk home…) Then all the flitting from campus event to event plus nostalgic wanderings.

I plonked my butt in the beanbag chair and did not move for HOURS after getting home on Sunday. And then basically did the same thing today.

That brings us to now. It’s end of Monday and I’m starting to feel like a functional human again. In a fortuitous turn of events, one of my co-workers asked if I could swap my usual Tuesday shift for her Thursday shift, so tomorrow I can continue to recover. Huzzah! Everybody wins.

The closest I’m getting to “plans” are to do an obligatory post-big-peopling-event Covid test Wednesday AM, and (assuming all’s well there) investigating the possibility of getting my annual flu and covid shots Thursday at the pharmacy.

Last night was chili and boxed cornbread thanks to my obsession with patty supplies and cooking in big batches for freezer storage. I suspect pizza is on the menu for tonight. It’ll be something simple, for sure. Then there will be some reading and another early night.

That’s it for now.