Today (the day I wrote this), I took a day off of work. I woke up feeling pretty crummy and in desperate need of more sleep, so I spent a little time debating myself about the merits of taking another day off versus going into the office and eventually agreed to let myself take a day off if I spent some time doing some chores I’d been putting off once I’d finished sleeping. It took a bit longer than normal to make up my mind because I felt kind of out of it, kind of mentally foggy, but the generally exhausted and ill feeling of my entire being that morning made it a pretty easy decision in the end. Unfortunately, sleeping didn’t really make me feel that much better. I felt a bit more clear-headed for a while, but the mental fog has returned by the evening (when I’m writing this) and though my stomach problems passed eventually, like they have every morning this week, I still felt crummy enough that I only did one of the chores I bargained with myself about. Given how I feel awful still, I’m pretty sure I’ll still have tomorrow to do the balance of them. I mean, I literally went back to sleep for another three hours and STILL felt exhausted and murky when I woke up. Almost like the sleep I got wasn’t terribly helpful, like back when my insomnia was at its worst and I’d be able to sleep a whole nine or ten hours and feel the same way as if I’d taken a very long nap. It’s not a great feeling to wake up tired, decide to take a day off so you can rest, get as much rest as you can, and then still feel tired and out of sorts.
Continue readingHousekeeping
The Reasons I Love Playing Host
I finally had the opportunity to host people at my new apartment. One of my friends had put together a one-shot game of Pathfinder Second Edition, in hopes of giving me a way to experience the game with people who are more fun to play with than the group I’d first started with (who now haven’t met in almost six weeks, thanks to two sequential skips in our every-other-week schedule). Since we first discussed this, I wound up joining an every-other-week game this friend runs, but everyone was excited for the one-shot, so we proceeded with it anyway. I wasn’t going to suggest we cancel, after all, since I was excited to finally have people over for an event. I was planning to go all out, after all, with frozen pizzas, plenty of snacks, and a pitcher of my special, super-sour lemonade (the point of it being that you need to let it sit in your glass and melt the ice a bit to dilute it, which also means it is a great lemonade to drink slowly). I may have been a little behind schedule the day of the session, but it was still really fun to have people over since it has been so long since I’ve gotten a chance to play host for something like this.
Continue readingSavoring Simple Domesticity
The part of my vacation I miss the most is the simple domesticity of living with people I care about. We took turns making meals, divvied up the chores a bit, and just generally took care of each other in a pattern of behavior my life has been missing for the last two years. Getting each other drinks, warning each other about bugs, comparing notes about discoveries on our walks, helping each other cook and clean, and the sometimes frustrating dance of having more people than bathrooms. Simple stuff, really. The daily whatnot of cohabitating. Not always peaceful, not always directly and purely positive, but involved in other peoples’ lives in a way I haven’t been in what feels like ages.
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