This week has kinda sucked
...but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
Work has been crazy, people hate each other more with every passing moment over political shit or cultural shit (here’s looking at yooouuuu Game of Thrones), and the weather switched from cold and wet early spring-ish to hello! Summer overnight.
THREE bridges into St. Louis were closed yesterday due to construction and an accident. It took over an hour to go nine miles.
I was almost in an accident. It shook me up, bad.
Covering for someone at work has been a okay-at-first-but-holy-cats-now-all-hell-has-broken-loose kind of thing.
I was crazy stressed this afternoon and then got on the bus and did NOT relax because I read precisely the wrong Tumblr post at precisely the wrong time, and sort of lost my shit for about half an hour.
Last night at my writer’s group a wise friend said (regarding the breakdown of our national political discourse), “It’s hard to judge someone when they’re sitting across from you at the table.” I immediately wanted to frame that sentiment and apply it to my social media behavior.
Yeahhhh... I already screwed that up. 😑
It’s easy for me to be angry. It’s easy to read something and take it the wrong way, rather than trying to put the best construction on someone else’s words.
I fail at that. I fail a lot, and I fail hard.
Did I mention that Crazypants Family is legitimately suing Mister’s school?
Yeah, that’s happening too.
So this week hasn’t been great.
But there are bright spots.
This evening we drank after work and went to dinner at a local bar (one of the inspirations for the bar called Pedro’s in my Chelsie fic Managing Love). I watched a little Cardinals baseball, and felt better. ⚾️
My bestie high school friend and I texted back and forth. She laughed at me when I said I was drunk. (I was then, I’m not now.)
And then we got home and my dear friend K called. She, her husband J and their daughters will visit us on Memorial Day weekend. Mister and I are having another couple we know come over for a game day that Saturday, so more! People! To! Play! 😄
It’s been a looooooong time since we’ve seen them. I’ve missed them more than I realized. They’ve been way better friends than I deserved.
Other bright spots this week:
I ran into an old friend from the law firm where I used to work (the inspiration behind ML). She and I talked in front of Walgreens for twenty minutes on Tuesday.
L told me that the office manager at the firm had been fired the previous month.
It. was. about. fucking. time. !!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎉🍾🎉
The woman always had perrrrrrrfect hair, like she spent hours on it, and she’d regularly come into the office late. Like, ten o’clock. Or later. And unlike most other office managers, she didn’t have another significant job. She wasn’t a secretary or paralegal, etc. We used to wonder what in the hell she actually did. Meanwhile the rest of the staff worked like dogs. The firm should’ve gotten rid of her years ago.
(Obviously in ML, I wrote Elsie Hughes as the kind of office manager anyone would want to have, not the snooty-too-good-for-you one I dealt with for a decade.)
Other than gossip, it was good to see L. She’s one of those tell it like it is folks, and hasn’t changed much in fifteen years.
Writing. Oh goodness, writing. First, actually posting a new update felt SO GOOD - even if it tore everyone to shreds, including me. It always gives me a lift to continue the story and to actually see what people think of it.
I did go to my real life writer’s group meeting on Wednesday. The thing I’ve been bringing there continues to get enthusiasm, and I’m always blown away by the talent other people have, too. It makes me step up my game.
And last but not least, solid travel plans were made to see family later this year. Mister is such a blessing to me - I was well on my way to getting drunk at six o’clock this evening, and told him that I was grateful he understood why I had to go see family - “some of whom are blood, and others who aren’t.”
He replied in his usual way, “You gotta go see your people, I know.”
Maybe this week didn’t suck so much after all.
