Work I have to work over the holiday weekend. My coworker/supervisor was the one listed on our on-call schedule, but somehow I wound up taking all four days. Not sure how that happened. We have a patient who needs to have some blood processed each day that they are in the hospital. Bloods are drawn between 0430-0500, and have to be processed within 2 hours of collection, preferably within 30 minutes. After I am done, I leave. But that still amounts to being at the hospital from 0500 to 0800, every morning, over the whole long weekend. I get time and a half, and I should be grateful for the extra hours as I need the dough. Struggling with that though BECAUSE Holiday My parents are divorced, and I am already sick of this double-holiday stuff. Thursday is Thanksgiving #1 with my mom, some of her siblings and my grandfather. Immediately after we have dinner there, I have to stop by my dad's house to prepare the bird and some other stuff for Thanksgiving #2 on Friday, with just me, my brothers, my dad and whomever he chooses to invite. Immediately after THAT meal, I have to drive to the RPS's grandparents house to prep ANOTHER bird that is going to be deep fried on Saturday for Thanksgiving #3 with her grandparents and a few cousins. Her parents are away visiting some other relatives for the holiday, so that leaves the deep frying of the bird to me, because of geriatric feebleness and my desire to have her family see me as capable and a valuable addition to their tribe. I've never deep fried a bird before, but I watched Alton Brown's tutorial on how to do it without burning down a building and it seems manageable. Hopefully the leftovers will make up for all my curmudgeonliness. (Is that a word?) I had a conversation with the RPS yesterday about how I have absolutely no positive regard for the upcoming Yuletide season, and at the moment I am framing it entirely by my obligations. That's no way to live, and she agrees. Tonight we are going to make a short list of things we can do to enjoy it, make things meaningful for us. We are a family, that means we get to make our own traditions, make our own meaning. Body We've been good about doing regular yoga lately, even if it's not all long sessions. I've committed to doing at least one one hour session of yoga per week, with the goal of having 2 or 3 hour long sessions in a week as regular practice on top of daily stretches. Still disappointed in my biking. I was at a steady 10 miles a day for a long time, took a break, and now it's an achievement if I manage to get to 8 miles in an hour of biking. Not happy about that. Not sure how to fix except by stubbornness. Brain Mostly beat back the funk that had grip of me last week. Had to remind myself that I'm already dead anyway, and this is all bonus rounds that I should be grateful for. I'm not going to save the world, I'm not going to save anybody from anything. But I might be able to make the experience of being human a little nicer for somebody, for a few somebodies if I work hard. One day I'd like to be able to say that with a smile instead of through gritted teeth. I have these flashes where I'm the guy who wrote the screed against optimism again. Where I am seeing the world through those blood and offal stained lenses, and I begin to swiftly and thoroughly devalue and demean every bit of progress I've made towards a healthier mind, healthier body, healthier relationships, etc and it hurts deeply. I'm trying to be proud of me, and nobody is better at tearing me down than me at my worst. Started something called the 'Self Authoring Suite' by Jordan Peterson. Will report back if it's helpful. The first exercise is in identifying your virtues, to build up your sense of coherent, valuable self before you start critiquing and making changes. Because I struggle to think or speak positively about myself, it's been quite challenging because it feels more masturbatory than actual self-pleasure. tl;dr - Lots to do.