Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

I had a dream that I missed my train to London today and it was fine.

Almost disappointed to wake up with my alarm, in plenty of time.

I was briefly tempted to just stay in bed...

Now, on my train back to Manchester 12 hours later, with two hours left to go before I get home, I can say with certainty that I could've stayed home and it would have been fine.

Busy day today.

Actually worked hard all day at work, which hasn't so far happened this week. My 10,000-or-so word report is now full of edits from the proofreader. I hadn't had this happen before but I'd been warned about it, from how many there would be to the fact that they might re-write policy recommendations (which is the whole point of us writing these reports). Which is good because both of those happened to me. It meant I was better able to spend my shock and outrage on him materially changing the content of quotes and of also making some truly bizarre and incorrect changes. He has changed all of my em dashes to hyphens! Of all the things!

Right after work I started trying to put together the new raised bed for our garden. I've done like two of these every spring for, this will be the third year now. There's only one this year but it's a chonky boy, as big as the two smaller ones put together. But of the same style: corrugated metal in curved parts that form a semi-circle for each end, and then straight parts for a long section in the middle. It all just has to be bolted together.

I did half and then "ran out of" screws/bolts (I actually found one bag but missed the other in the packaging). Which was an okay stopping place anyway as it was time to cook dinner. With no one else around I took it upon myself to make (veggie) bangers and (sweet potato) mash, with broccoli.

As we were finishing that up, V who had been very patient about all the rubble and dust that had fallen down into the fireplace while builders were busy capping off the chimney yesterday started work on the cleanup I'd promised to help with. Their OCD is bad at the moment because they're having a flare, and this had been there since yesterday, and they were really struggling with it not having been cleaned yet especially as it's time for our regular fortnightly visit from our cleaners tomorrow. We'd taped cardboard over the opening of the fireplace but heard dirt and rocks fall down it all the while the work was going on yesterday, so were wary of what we'd find when the cardboard was removed.

But I got the little cheapie Shopvac out of the shed and used it for the first time, which was an experience. It's so loud! And our masks continue to come in handy. It wasn't eaay cleaning up soot-covered rocks and dirt from a black hearth but I did my best, with damp cloths for the bits too small for the vac to pick up at the end. V was pleased with the results, and did a good job of leaving the bits they noticed as soon as we'd put the room back together -- because of course spots you missed are immediately going to stand out -- for the cleaners. It's at a level now that can be dealt with by normal cleaning tools, which was my measure of success. I emptied the vac and took the filter off to clean in the sink, making some progress but of course covering my hands and arms and torso in soot and filth in the process. I love cleaning really dirty things though. And my Bruce Springsteen tour knockoff t-shirt, with the sleeves newly cut off, seemed like a great one to anoint with the grime of Honest Work.

Just before I'd started in on this, tough, a local friend had messaged D and I to ask if we wanted to go for a drink on this beautiful evening (high of 81°F today! I also got the big pillar fan out of the shed when I got the shopvac out). Having just resigned myself to immersion in dirt and sweat (at one point I had to stop holding the filter under the faucet because I had so much sweat in my eyes it was stinging me enough to make it impossible to go on without cleansing my hands enough to wipe my face!), looking forward to a shower and an early bed, I was suddenly incredibly motivated to get through this so I could go meet our friend. My extrovert batteries that didn't get the recharge they expected last night perked right up at this, ha.

So after I did what I could and tried to keep V from doing too much more than they could, I ran upstairs, changed into a clean t-shirt (a Minnesota Gophers one thus time; wow I really am hashtag dad vibes these days), convinced D to come out with me despite his sleepiness, and I had a great time.

I got home, finally did have that shower, and now I'm in bed.

Today has been non-stop, but so nice. And I can't remember how long it's been since both those things were true at the same time.

I had an intimidating amount of stressful work to do, that had to be done today.

And I did it.

And I also tried to explain to one of the white ladies who works in EDI that language like "female-identifying" is only used by well-meaning but out-of-date cis people and TERFs, and so it's really important for the former group to distinguish themselves from the latter. Among other things.

And then I went to circuits even though I was too tired to even want to change in to my gym clothes. I kept stopping whatever I was supposed to be doing because I was yawning too hard for, like, my muscles to be able to do anything else at the same time. But I got through it! It felt so good, after last week was such a slog.

I narrowly averted myself from typing the word "Google" into Bing just now because I wanted to search for something, so that's how capable I am feeling this Friday afternoon of the deep thinking work I need to do right now with "flow state" levels of focus and concentration.

I'm also being micromanaged to bell and back this week -- three times now, my boss has asked me if I've written an email or called someone and then sent me another message about it while I was writing up whatever the result of the call/email was. And I have a meeting with him last thing this afternoon, where I have to tell him what I did today.

Which mostly continues to be "have no idea how to use Excel to do the stuff that needs to be done," because data analysis is not my job!

I was charmed to hear this morning that one of my teammates, in editing a very important document, apparently had my voice in her head telling her things I've previously said about how to make the paragraph structure better.

(The specific advice was nothing special -- I didn't even remember saying it until she told us what it was.)

You never know what about you might stick in people's heads and help them when you're not even around.

By a quarter to three this afternoon, I had to add the eighth meeting to my calendar for today.

(But the real terror has been in my emails. It's not impostor syndrome any more if you've actually been found surprisingly inadequate at the thing you were worried you weren't good enough to do!)

The inaccessible train ticket app we have to use for work has logged me out on my phone. Making two wrong attempts to log back in has gotten me locked out for "too many failed attempts." Two is not very many failed attempts! I need to be logged in before I leave the house at like 6:30am tomorrow when I'm going to Newcastle, because that app on that phone is the only way I can access my ticket!

I got as far as typing in the password correctly, being sent a code, not being able to copy and paste the code (which would be bad enough itself but any time I forget this isn't allowed on my phone and try, it doesn't just not work, it actually pastes the sentence "Your organization's data cannot be copied," which makes me angry at being scolded and then I still have to delete the scold! Which just adds to the inaccessibility)... And even though I put the code in immediately, the app said my session had timed out.

(I have since been able to log in. Phew. But I'm so sick of "security" like this.)

I am trying to write a presentation for an important thing I have been invited to speak at next week.

I am finding it very difficult.

I am having problems ranging from "does anyone know where I can find our PowerPoint template" to "my mom is convinced I won't be at work next Thursday because I will be at/on my way to my grandma's funeral by then."

At the end of our chat today, a workmate's support worker wished me a good holiday since they weren't expecting to talk to me before I'm off -- tomorrow until Tuesday -- and since said workmate is getting married on Saturday I wished her well too.

She only just told us last week that she's getting married -- well actually she told us that she'll be off during our Workpocalypse next week because she'll be on honeymoon, and the rest of the team had to go "wait a minute! honeymoon? that's the kind of thing people do after a wedding!" She's normally fairly outgoing and silly but this has for whatever reason left her mortified. When she fessed up it was just her, me and two others on the call, and those two were squeeing about how lovely and exciting this was, but I couldn't help holding back because I was getting such a different vibe from her: she clearly is happy with her partner and with being married to him, but the process of getting married has made her uncomfortable and I could totally appreciate that (in a way I didn't want to say out loud because no one at work seems to think of me as ever having been a young woman and it would've derailed things into an entirely different but even more awkward cul-de-sac if I'd tried to commiserate at this point).

Like, she said people kept asking her what her ideal wedding would be like, and she said "Me, in a stationery cupboard, by myself!"

So we've done the traditional whip-round for a gift and signed a virtual card. I wrote in the card that I hope she gets her wish of being able to get married all by herself and not to worry about work. I was only the second person to do so and the first had just squeed.

I happened to mention the card, which she'll get tomorrow -- I wouldn't normally but I didn't want her to be too embarrassed about it or pressured to react in any particular way to the rest of the team. I said that I wrote I hope she gets her wish of getting married without being perceived by anyone.

She replied "Oh! That is the nicest thing anyone has told me," but in the most warm and genuine way.

I hope she isn't feeling too much pressure to perform Excited Young Lady. Glad I could give her a little reminder that it's okay to not want to be the center of all this intensity and energy and expectations.

Last thing before I finished work last night and first thing this morning, emails that make me want to cry. I'm so stressed.

I was so stressed, I found myself thinking I'm so stressed, why can't I pet a dog about it. I miss being able (or, as he thought of it, required) to pet a dog every day. I haven't gone this long without it in a decade.

My work day was intensely busy and miserable up until 4:30, but ended a lot better than it started. I am feeling mildly accomplished, and very exhausted.

I was in meetings for almost 7 hours yesterday and I started this morning with another one that was only two hours but still felt like a lot.

It was lots of work: thinking deeply about a complicated problem that doesn't have an answer yet, and trying to present my organization's (unsatisfyingly inconclusive) position on this accurately is extra important because the issue can be, in our small circles, a contentious one.

Also because my counterpart from the most similar organization we work with was there and she knows a lot more than me.

Also my manager was there unexpectedly, which made me nervous. He's great but I just feel self-conscious being Perceived while I try to do my job.

It worked out really well though: part way through the meeting he sent me a private message saying "You are really killing it in this workshop!" It made me grin. I said I was glad to hear that because of the thing about how I always feel inadequate in the company of this other person. He said "You and she work really well together. Your additions are so calm and clear." Clear thinking is among the highest praise from him so that was really nice to hear.

What with the verge-of-burnout much of this year, the sword-of-Damocles "transformation" (i.e. redundancies) hanging over us since July and not getting resolved until March, internal struggles made worse by how stressed everyone is but leading to me not really having meaningful work to do all year, and my manager having to support a team full of people in more or less similar positions to mine...there hasn't been a lot of positivity and affirmation for me at work lately.

So it was really nice to get that this morning.