Snow Week 2022

 It's been a winter wonderland this week in the Dallas area.

No, wait, it's been a nasty, dreary, sleet-lashed week in the Dallas area.

Right on schedule, after a relatively mild season with just a few cold snaps and a handful of flurries, the hellscape that is Texas winter arrived just as January slid into February. For the last three days, we've had wave after wave of icy sleet and temperatures that refuse to climb out of the 20s. And not so much a break in the clouds to provide a glimpse of the sun.

This means that the roads around here have been nigh impassable. Schools have been closed, and the local police are all over social media begging us to stay off the roads if we don't have to drive so they can come to the aid of those who do.

Sidebar: As always, a huge thanks to the medical personnel, first responders, and sand-truck drivers who show up, no matter what.

I cannot express the degree to which you rock.

Fortunately, this has not been like Snowmageddon 2021, when Texas experienced a week of record cold, record snowfall, and record power outages that tragically cost the lives of more than 200 people. While there have been casualties and outages, which are unfortunately common in a state as chronically unprepared for winter as Texas, for the most part this week's icefall has been just...annoying. 

Every day this week it's sleeted, a lot. Sleet is very different from freezing rain. This is what the weather people tell me, but damned if I can figure out how. It's all frozen water falling from the sky and onto the surfaces I need to drive upon to get to work. Every day it's stopped briefly and teased us by beginning to melt, just enough to turn everything into slush, which then promptly hardens into a slippery sheet cake overnight.

Because it's frosted. Get it? Huh?

Anyway, it's the 21st century, so I can work from home at times like these. To be sure, there are parts of my job that require me to be in the office 90% of the time. But nobody has been there all week to ask me to do those things, so I've felt no guilt about not being glued to my desk, holding down the fort while everyone else does WFH. That part has been pretty cool.

Also very cool: My company, or at least my branch of it, doesn't have those bullshit rules that say you have to have your webcam on all day while you work. The dudes who run this company (and yeah, it's an engineering firm, it's def run by dudes) actually put some fairly strict rules in place when they instituted WFH during the pandemic, but a) they didn't stoop to voyeurism, and b) most people ignore them anyway.

Rules are how you end up with the potato filter, people.

So this week I've been rolling out of bed and logging in to work in my jammies. My "professional work space" has consisted of me laying on my side on the couch, with the Siamese Kitten snuggled between me and my laptop while I type away. It's possible that at least one breakfast consisted of finishing the drink I'd poured myself the night before. It's a blur, sir.

But I've been really productive, surprisingly. On the other hand, I've been kind of lonely, despite the presence of Cat 1 and Cat 2. I don't mind having to go into the office all the time because, my generally curmudgeonly personality notwithstanding, I like having people around. You know, in small, controlled groups whom I already know and over whom I have a degree of authority. But still. It's been just me and emails for three days, and I'm ready for my limited, awkward brand of camaraderie again.

Hey look, it's just started to sleet again. Or maybe it's frozen rain. Whichever. The temperature is supposed to creep above freezing at some point tomorrow. But there's an excellent chance that this will all be ice again when I wake up in the morning. So I may be in for one final day of working from home. I'm not going to risk my crappy nine-year-old hatchback on the possibility that the roads will be OK.

Wherever you're working from this week (or not), stay warm, stay safe, and stay away from the webcam.

Pre-Empty Nest Syndrome

Next Monday, Precocious Daughter will fly to New York to spend two weeks with her grandma, aunt, and cousin on her dad's side.

Two weeks.

Absolutely not ready for this empty nest
thing, thanks for asking.

Now, her aunt has very, very generously offered to drive PDaughter up and down the East Coast to visit any colleges she may be interested in. This is a fantastic opportunity, because there's no way I would be financially able to offer a similar tour around New England universities.

A tiny, petty part of me whispers that my ex-sister-in-law is well aware of that fact and happy to one-up me in this area.

But for PDaughter's sake, I happily and graciously accept this generous gift.

Anyway, PDaughter will tour seven fine universities in four states during her trip, and will also spend time in New York City (which she loves), time on the beach (ditto), and time with her dad's side of the family (ditto ditto).

It's all good.

I'll be without my kid for two weeks.

Nest, whatever.

You guys. I know damn well that in just over a year, my only offspring will begin college. And while there is a small chance that she'll choose a relatively local school, she is very very interested in attending an out of state university. Because she can turn the world on with a smile, and she damn well knows it.

She got the results of her latest AP tests a couple of days ago, and she's saved herself many dollars in tuition by testing out of English, History, Physics, and other classes.

That's awesome.

I hate like hell that in 25 years of marriage, her dad and I weren't able to save for a new washer/dryer, let alone our daughter's post-secondary education.

I hate that I allowed that to happen.

But what's done is done.

And what's coming is that my beautiful PDaughter is about to start her senior year of high school. And I want it to be magical for her, in a way that my senior year never was. And I want her to receive great news about paying for college, the way I never even sought because my parents said they would pay my way if I would simply attend.

I'm not in a position to tempt, bribe, or guilt my child.

I'm a single mom.

I chose that role, and sometimes I love it, and sometimes it sucks big old rocks.

Truth.

But my sole focus right now - more than my love life, more than my stupid fucking job - is making sure my PDaughter is able to attend the university of her choosing, without becoming bankrupt.

I know she assumes everything will work out.

I know because when I was her age, I felt the same way.

Except that my parents are very different from her parents.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed with her dad, just because it might have made some slight difference to PDaughter's prospects.

I don't know.

But a week from today, PDaughter leaves for two weeks in New York.

I hope that when she returns, I'll still matter.

In the Zone

I have this urge to laugh.

Not like a Joe Biden laugh. Not ready for that yet.
That's graduate-level happy-feels right there.

Still, I'm sitting here writing, and there's a little smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. That in itself is an odd thing; I don't think I've smiled in days. Yet there it is, just kind of playing around with my lips, seeing if we can make this happen.

And...I did it. I'm sitting in an empty room, and I'm smiling to myself. Maybe I've finally gone crazy.

Feels good, though.

Now for something completely different: I'd like to laugh a bit today. I don't know what kind of reaction that might elicit from my co-workers. Under normal circumstances I laugh quite a bit at work (when I'm not dropping f-bombs). But I've been subdued lately. Mostly they understand the things I'm going through right now, although I've done my best to conceal the fact that I've actually reached rock bottom emotionally.

Because I am a PROFESSIONAL.

There's no reason I should want to laugh. Nothing has really changed since the last time I burst into tears, aka yesterday. All that boring bad stuff I wrote about the other day? Still in play: still in limbo, still broke, still married, still lonely. Still paying rent on an apartment I don't actually live in. In which I don't actually live. Whatever.

Maybe I've reached that enlightened place where all problems are transcended. Where I'm able to let go of the darkness and reach for the light. Where my primal need for joy defeats my sadness.

Maybe I've reached...the Fuck It Zone.

You know the scene at the end of It's a Wonderful Life, when George Bailey realizes he wants to live despite all his troubles and goes running through town like a maniac? At one point he shouts, "I'm going to jail! Isn't it wonderful?"

George was in the Fuck It Zone.

And I'm right there with him.

Now, if everyone would please come to my house with hatfuls of money and sing "Auld Lang Syne," that would be really cool.

But even lacking that...fuck it, I want to laugh.

Even if I can't do it quite yet, just wanting to is a big step up.

What makes you guys laugh? I may need to prime the pump a bit.

I Don't Know How to Feel Right Now

I feel as if I should post something tonight.

I'm working on some fiction, but it's not ready to be read.

I'd like to post part of my memoir, but...ditto.

I don't feel like being funny, or topical, or poetic.

So I'll just post this.

I had a strange, difficult lunch today.

At this lunch, I listened to my companion. I empathized. I tried my best to be supportive.

A few times, I attempted to add my own recent experience and perspective to the conversation. And was roundly ignored.

Eventually, I retreated into "nod and smile" mode, because I could tell I wasn't there to be a part of a dialogue, but merely an audience.

And I thought, OK, because God knows I've monopolized conversations before.

Still, in my imperfect memory I couldn't recall a time when I didn't at least say "Sorry, enough about me...how are you?"

I could be wrong.

And I probably owe my companion at least one lunch where I am solely a passive recipient of content.

Possibly my discomfort with being roundly ignored was because I've been indulged in the past as I unloaded my selfish concerns.

Which means I should remain silent and passive in the face of others' releases.

So I did.

Except it made me realize that perhaps I've been wrong to seize the narrative in prior conversations. Selfish. Needy.

So now I feel guilty, both that I've similarly hijacked conversations and that I feel resentful for having been hijacked.

And I don't know what to do now.

I have anger to be resolved, and loneliness to be dealt with.

Maybe I should abandon this companion as someone whose needs I can't fulfill at this or any other lunch?

Maybe I'm the one who should get over herself and be more empathetic to friends in need.

I don't know.

Advice?