On being a deflated balloon, and how that's actually a GOOD thing
The Cinco de Mayo proofreading project is FINISHED! The last two days, the final push, have been crazy-making, and I've been extremely stressed, not sleeping well, fretting about what needed to be done and how much time I had to do it, and now, with the project finished and deposited back with the publisher, I feel a lot like a deflated balloon, like I had this internal pressure building up and building up and getting me close to explosion ... and then suddenly -- in an instant -- the pressure is gone. I fall, wilt, collapse -- relaxed, irrationally shocked by the change -- and kinda don't want to get back up again for a week.
So, after returning from dropping off the pages at UC Press, I took a 90-minute nap before heading out with Shannon to bike to the grocery store. It's dark around 5 p.m. nowadays, so it was dark on our way out and on our way back, and we saw loads of Christmas lights in our neighborhood. I guess people were just waiting for the day after Thanksgiving to put them up. I was admiring all the lights, and Shannon asked if I'd like to put up lights this year (we haven't done so in several years), and I said, "Yeah, that would be nice. But I'm not real interested in doing it in the next few days, because I'm planning to stay in deflated-balloon-mode for a little bit."
Part of what made this project so stressful (well, aside from the week of being physically ill, followed by a few days of paralysis stemming from anxiety) was that my left wrist was becoming more and more painful every day, every hour. It's quite bad now -- waking me up frequently at night, making me curse and swear and yell when I do such extreme actions as applying my frickin' deodorant -- so I'm planning to erase all hand/arm stuff from my schedule for at least a week. Well, except physical therapy, duh.
And, in parting, I will just comment that I've been really enjoying "The Walking Dead" on tv this season. I'm not much of a zombie fan, but the characterization is much more interesting than in most American dramas.
So, after returning from dropping off the pages at UC Press, I took a 90-minute nap before heading out with Shannon to bike to the grocery store. It's dark around 5 p.m. nowadays, so it was dark on our way out and on our way back, and we saw loads of Christmas lights in our neighborhood. I guess people were just waiting for the day after Thanksgiving to put them up. I was admiring all the lights, and Shannon asked if I'd like to put up lights this year (we haven't done so in several years), and I said, "Yeah, that would be nice. But I'm not real interested in doing it in the next few days, because I'm planning to stay in deflated-balloon-mode for a little bit."
Part of what made this project so stressful (well, aside from the week of being physically ill, followed by a few days of paralysis stemming from anxiety) was that my left wrist was becoming more and more painful every day, every hour. It's quite bad now -- waking me up frequently at night, making me curse and swear and yell when I do such extreme actions as applying my frickin' deodorant -- so I'm planning to erase all hand/arm stuff from my schedule for at least a week. Well, except physical therapy, duh.
And, in parting, I will just comment that I've been really enjoying "The Walking Dead" on tv this season. I'm not much of a zombie fan, but the characterization is much more interesting than in most American dramas.