[227/365] sleepy is my gender

[cosmolinguist]

This morning at the bus stop I noticed that I've gone all the way back to "I don't want to go to work today" after managing to avoid that yesterday (for the first time all week). I hoped things were getting easier but I guess not.

According to my scientific "do men shove in front of me to get on the bus or do they insist I go in front of them" system, I was amused to learn I apparently looked like a man this morning.

I think I'm just so grumpy. That always seems to help give people that impression. (I said this on Mastodon and someone replied "happy and grumpy are two of the seven genders." Which I love. I said sleepy is my gender.)

At the bus stop after work, I was thinking about how fucking depressing it is that only a couple hours work a day is leaving me exhausted for the rest of the day lately. I'm napping (or trying and failing to, which is the only thing even more dispiriting) practically every day. So nothing's getting done. Which leaves me even more miserable.

But! I managed to find a way to avoid that afternoon nap today by being so angry. The bus didn't stop for me. Even when I chased after it and yelled at it, which often gets it to stop! (It's a bus stop on a quiet road and there is space to safely stop before it reaches the busy intersection!)

When I was already just barely holding my shit together, I had to go find somewhere to sit down and cry or I'd have just been lying down on the sidewalk having a tantrum. I'm so sick of bus drivers disabling me like this. Anyway it's reminded me I owe an email about the next stage of meetings and such with the bus guy and the RNIB person...

Which I didn't get done this afternoon. I had already been waiting half an hour for this bus becuase I'd just missed the previous one. Waiting another half an hour seemed beyond my capabilities. So I went to see mother_bones instead (I did some stompy walking on the way there but when I wanted a bus, they're frequent on that route and more importantly there are always other people waiting at the stop; I never have to worry when there are other people who want the buses I want because the drivers always stop for normal people), had tea and lunch, and went along for her walk with her smol canine niece who is visiting.

And then I came home and had pizza and some comfort viewing, but it's a good thing I did laundry before work today, and good I managed to drag myself to work, because since I finished work I've gotten nothing done I want to get done.

A friend is visiting, starting Monday (she's relatively nearby now, at WorldCon in Dublin), who I never see and I'm so excited to see, but gah my house is a disaster and I know she won't care but it's giving me a lot of feels. None of them good.

I don't have FOMO about WorldCon because I'm hardly afraid; I know perfectly well that I am in fact missing out! I just have SOMO, because I'm sad so many of my friends are there and I am not.

Even as I know full well that foreign travel and a huge convention have high costs in time, money, executive function, visual processing spoons, and energy that I just could not meet...but it can be sensible and obvious for me not to go and also for me to be wistful about it.

Comments

[steorra]

offers tea

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you. :)

[barakta]

Bus driver situation is very poo. I am glad you salvaged it somewhat by visiting a lovely person but I totally hear you on the exhaustion and so on.

[cosmolinguist]

This is increasingly the point I'm trying to make on twitter etc, in hopes of making it more strongly to the Stagecoach people: it's not just that I take longer to do things or miss out on stuff if the bus doesn't stop for me (though that happens more than enough!). It's that sometimes my day goes totally off the rails. This isn't the first time I've been brought to tears of frustration and exhaustion, or been rendered less functional for the rest of a day. The knock-on effects can be surprisingly huge.

[barakta]

Unsurprising to those of us who know, but yes, surprising to those who don't have this sort of fail happen AAAALLL the time!

[cosmolinguist]

Oh yeah, I knew the likes of you wouldn't be surprised at this. :)

[jesse_the_k]

<3

[cosmolinguist]

<3

[azurelunatic]

UGH.

I wonder how much impact a compilation of bus-whizz-by video clips would have.

[cosmolinguist]

I've taken a senior inspector with me to some bus stops so he can sneakily watch what happens, and it has been a very eye-opening experience for him to see buses whizzing by. He can also take notes about them and find out who particular drivers are. So I feel some of that kind of impact is being covered already.

[azurelunatic]

Excellent. Except still enraging when it happens!

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I have big ambitions -- I want to go to bus stops without having to worry about this; I want to just think about the uni exam I'm heading to or the gig I've been looking forward to or wherever I'm going on the bus without having to think well, if I can even get there... which is what's always in the back of my mind now (at least; sometimes the front of my mind).

And that's a really big goal so I know it isn't going to be solved in a couple of meetings like I've had so far. But it does somehow feel worse to have this still happening now: part of my brain is going "I've done my bit! Why is this still happening! Unfair!" Even though the rest of me knows it doesn't work that way.

[ewt]

I am also sad about not being at Worldcon while also knowing it wouldn't really be sensible for me to go.

On the bright side I have the house to myself for a couple of days.

[cosmolinguist]

Yay, I so rarely get the house to myself that I think it's quite a treat. Hope you have a nice weekend of your own. Luckily mine is really busy so I won't be sitting around thinking about what I'm missing out on.

[lilysea]

I'm sad about not being able to go to Wiscon, even though I have neither the physical energy to go, the mental energy to go, or the money to go.

[cosmolinguist]

<3

[rmc28]

I wish the world were such that you could be here in Dublin too.

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you.

[silveradept]

I am beginning to think that you need a partisan or some other sharp object that you can use to threaten the bus driver with shattering their windscreen should they pass you by, since it seems nothing short of damage will make them stop for you.

[cosmolinguist]

Heh, yeah I tell my friends I want caltrops (that'll stop the bus!) or something. Of course I don't want to harm or unnecessarily inconvenience the passengers, who've done nothing wrong. Maybe I need a tractor beam...

[silveradept]

Yes. It becomes significantly harder to get your desired result when you also take into account that you don't want to hurt innocents as well.

[cosmolinguist]

Even in my fantasies, I'm worried about the collateral damage. ;)