Hello! It was a weird week here in Maine, what with a loose gunman roaming for a few days. Shut down a fairly large swath of the state, and was pretty disconcerting although I'm 50 miles away. I'm glad that all of my friends were safe and accounted for, but I know people who lost people and that's pretty disconcerting.

I failed in my "do four Things" goal, but I did get back to logging my food. Baby steps.

I also bought a new bike.... well, at least I committed to buying a new bike. The shop hasn't finished building it yet, so I got in early enough to say "don't bother wrapping the bars, since we're just going to cut them anyway"! So I'm pretty excited about that. Now to actually ride it!

How was last week for you, Dr. TC? I'm sure unsettling for you too, even with the fam not being local to Lew.

I hope this week is going well!

yeah last week was... awful. I did my absolute best to use healthy coping skills Thursday and managed until the evening. I have friends who live in Lewiston; it was hard to have my "this doesn't happen here" state have that, happen there... soooooo many feelings. And since I'm in OK right now, the grief and fear were playing out for me with everything being normal around me, which was different from the sort of collective grief and shared feelings you get when you're in state. On Monday morning I started crying because it occurred to me that we're hitting the holiday season and a whole bunch of families are going to be having a first Thanksgiving and Christmas without a loved one. And I'm scared that - like "suicide epidemics" - Maine will have another shooting.

That said

Yay for new bike! Type? Color? Good job on logging food.

I was either 5/7 or 6/7 last week on healthy coping skills. I journaled most if not every day.

goals this week are healthy coping skills and journal every day. I have had to fight my brain both yesterday and today but the healthy brain won both days even though it was HARD.

Work has been really stressful. I tried to speak up for myself today and say "I feel like things on this project are falling through the cracks already, so adding X, Y and Z like you're suggesting scares me and I'm not sure we have the capacity to do it." Fell on deaf ears, which was really frustrating. It feels gendered in some way - I'm the junior-est member of the group, the only female among 4 white males. I think the way I'm going to deal with this is when the rubber meets the road and there's stuff to do that I don't have the capacity to do, I'll delegate more. I was told today "this won't be more work for you." Well, I won't let it be, and when the More Work starts (because it will) they are going to have to handle it.

sorry if that makes very little sense, just very very very frustrated with this particular project and most of the people on it.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Honestly, I think the fact that you made it to Thursday with healthy coping skills is pretty dang amazing, given the circumstances. I totally understand what you mean about the oddness of being somewhere things are "normal" when things are going weird elsewhere; my parents were living in Punta Gorda, FL when the hurricane that flattened half of Fort Meyers came through and I was going out of my mind. They already arrested someone who said something like he was going for Lewiston 2.0, so at least people are taking it seriously up here.

Working for a living really sucks sometimes! It sounds like you have a good strategy for when the shit inevitably hits the fan - "I warned you about this" and "here, you do it" are solid positions to hold. We had our second RIF of the year in August and consequently my client load increased by 50%, and I inherited a bunch of stuff in absolutely terrible shape. I just have to keep reminding myself that there are literally only so many hours in the day, and I'm not willing to commit them all to work.

New bike is a Cervelo P-series with Ultegra di2 and disk brakes, in the colour "purple sunset" - it's an iridescent purple with a green/gold shift in the right light. I'm super excited about it, and I'm using it as part of the motivational plan for 2024 awesomeness. I got really lazy over COVID (as well as getting divorced and remarried, and changing job 3 times), and I've been feeling like I lost myself a bit along the way. So this is all "Christina 2.0" work that I hope will make me a more fulfilled person again.

I did a really, really good job for most of Thursday. I'm really proud of myself for that.



F** that person. Just found the news article. So glad the police arrested him.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD