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so bloody tired
March 5, 2015
I started the week with a bad night and feel like I've been playing catch-up ever since. The Tuesday morning snowstorm didn't help any (it was horrible--worse than last Thursday!), and having all the brass in the office this week was wearying as well.
I hate March. It's that time of year where you are sick of winter, but winter just won't quit, and your brain is starting to wake up and want to do things, but your energy level can't keep up with it.
Spouse is annoying me with vacation babble--first he insists on going to a travel agent, then he won't stop looking stuff up himself. And making me look stuff up. This always ends up being a thing between us--his pleasure is derived from the planning and anticipation, mine is derived from...well, I guess from actually being ON vacation.
What pleasure I DO derive from it, that is. Since he insists on controlling all my time off, it is kind of hard to get any fun at all. Even the trip I just took was engineered to limit my freedom--he decided I was to go, he decided I was to spend it with my relatives. Don't get me wrong--I loved it and I enjoyed the heck out of my relatives. But that was definitely a move on his part to make sure I didn't get any time on my own. (I wish I could understand what the heck he's so afraid of. That I'll escape?)
And...I really don't want to go to LV.
There.
I said it.
I have no interest whatever in going to Las Vegas, schlepping around in the heat and the smoke and the crowds and the noise, and listening to him b*tch about how "it isn't like it used to be", and "it's all one big shopping mall now". And watching him be a panicky tightwad the minute he gets there. I would very much prefer to go to Montreal or to New England--experience something we've never gotten to share with each other. Or back to San Diego--getting to experience all the sights and museums with Spouse. But those are too expensive, he says. Yeah, well. What kind of bargain is LV if you don't enjoy it?
As for celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary...yeah, whatever. Good idea--celebrating 30 dacades of marriage by pulling out every single one of the behaviors your wife hates about you and struggles to love you in spite of.
Four years ago, when I decided to quit smoking, I joined an online community dedicated to smoking cessation. They had a big, old-fashioned website, kind of clunky and quite out-of-date, but they had a wonderful community of supportive members who were a huge help in getting cigarettes out of my life.
For that entire four years, the site admins were insistent that site upgrades were just around the corner, and we were going to have a lovely, easy, modern site someday soon.
That day, it turns out, was Monday. And I am distinctly underwhelmed. Not to be a Negative Nan, but...is this all there is?
I was expecting an updated and improved site...not this. It’s a bare-bones, single thread deal. You have to follow people like it’s facebook in order to find your friends. They did manage to retain a few details of the old site, but not only are they the ones I usually avoided, they are now emphasizing and steering people to them (specifically, a daily ‘pledge’ process).
Being a natural cynic/skeptic, I have to wonder. Maybe it’s a marketing move. Maybe this un-navigable hot mess all you get for free now, and if you want actual features, you have to go premium? Maybe I’m expecting too much. They always say that if you are not paying for the product, you ARE the product. Maybe that is the case here—they sell their premium memberships and corporate programs on the basis of the robust community of support—and they maintain that robust community by allowing free memberships to people like me, who will post content and support the newbies and maintain a presence of successful quitters.
Since I'm not in immediate jeopardy, and this is the one thousand, five hundredth day of my quit, maybe it’s just a good time to step back and re-think the membership. To be honest, I haven’t been on much in the past year, anyway. Some of my favorite comrades quit the site, relapsed, or died. My quit got stronger, I didn’t need to be supported through cravings anymore, milestones are farther apart.
Long-term membership really brings to light the severe serial quitters, too, and that makes it hard to take. Once somebody (who has been a member for years longer than you have) signs in to announce their quit date--for the 50th time since you joined--you start to lose patience.
I don’t know. Maybe it is the universe’s way of telling me it’s time to move on.
Reading:
"The Family at Misrule" (1895), by Ethel Sybil Turner. Sequel to "Seven Little Australians"—which kind of sucked, but I still wanted to find out what happened next. I just hope she lays of killing any more of my favorite characters.
Listening:
George Ezra, U2, Stray Cats
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