Looks like a road?

When is a road not a road?

Up at 4:30 today, another one of those journeys into plotting revenge, or thinking about what I would say if I had the chance (which I do not), or remembering very recent experiences of connection and fondness with the ex and grappling again with the surreality of my present circumstances. I pushed all of this futility aside in favor of rattling anxiety about my PhD program, how eternally behind I am, how much there is to do and how little head space I feel I have in which to get it done. 

But then, as I often do these days, I decided to get up out of bed (REI camp bed that leaks a little bit, in spite of 7 or 8 patch jobs). Coffee. Morning prayers. Into tackling one thing at a time. Started to work on the presentation for the California Botanical Society Graduate Student Symposium on the challenges of species distribution modeling over small spatial scales for rare plants. 

The only records for my study species in GBIF

Also started working on the presentation for a seminar I am in. Looking at integrating pollinator and herbivore interactions with plants, and the ways that herbivory changes phenology. 

Also made a list of all the shit I have to do today on a practical level. Coinstar to get rid of change. Ha, good luck getting rid of change. But. A very silly thing that will make a huge difference: a new clip for the window crank in my car, so that it stays on the crankshaft. As it is, I am picking up the window crank, putting it on the crankshaft, operating the window, putting the crank back down. Ridiculous. 

Yesterday, I finally fixed the window regulator on the driver's side. The window has not been rolling up for months. I think it stopped working back in October of 2016. This is how depression works. Tolerating broken shit is seemingly easier than getting it taken care of. Sometimes something kicks in and I'm actually capable of tackling stupid shit. Entropy-- what a bitch. 

Window regulator

Learning is odd also- a while back, I didn't even know what the fuck a window regulator was. Now I know how to replace one. Why do these things happen? Scarcity, for one thing. The estimate I got to replace this thing was $375. The part cost me $40. If I had money to burn, I would have just had it done. But there's something great about doing it yourself and knowing you saved $300. These little triumphs are actually not little at all. 

Good stepwork last night with a small group of men that gets together every Monday night. We are starting on a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, using a workbook called Big Book Awakening, an incredibly thorough approach developed by a guy named Dan Sherman. Apparently, Sherman was also a UFO conspiracy theorist. Interesting. My own real world is strange enough.

On the way home, along Baseline Rd., I stopped at a Panda Express for dinner. I was in such a state of emotional shock that I waited in line for about 30 minutes for truly substandard food. The music on the sound system was utterly awful, cloying, grating, sonic torture. But it didn't matter. The cast iron mattock of grief had hit me square in the forehead. There are times when I just completely check out. 

Counseling check in, teaching a human anatomy lab, AA home group tonight. Usually about 70 to 100 men in all stages of recovery or not. With luck, it'll be Tuesday night again.