"You Pass Butter"
May. 18th, 2021 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taz_39The endless cycle of work -- eat -- sleep -- repeat continues.
Friday, we were profoundly shorthanded with only four supervisors total to cover seven wings of captionists (to give an idea, my wing usually has five supervisors in it alone) and my boss also called out. Luckily it was a relatively slow day, but unfortunately it really was just too much for only four people to handle, so some pitiful souls had to be called in from Work From Home. My heart cringes for them.
I am fortunate because my WFH day is typically Tuesday, which is usually a slow call day plus there are five other people working from home that day, meaning I have much less chance of being called in. I also make it a point, every Monday, to send a nice email or message reminding my bosses that I would appreciate lots of notice if I'm to be called in, because I live an hour away and we are both going to lose an hour of productivity if I have to drive in halfway through my workday. If there are five other people to call (all of whom are guaranteed to live much closer than I), my odds are usually good for being allowed to keep my WFH day.
But, if I do get called in, I'll mope a little and just do it. It's sad, but we were all warned that it was contingent on coverage needs onsite.
After work it took me longer than usual to get home because someone's car broke down(?) in the middle of the three-lane highway and they just LEFT it there, apparently. Traffic was backed up for miles, no cops in sight. Florida!
But I did get home, we ate Chick-fil-a salads and I felt very jealous of Jameson because he'd gotten to go to the gym today. I want to go, too! But when I'm going to start squeezing that in, I have no idea. Definitely on at least one of my days off, ideally both. And then one workday too, probably Saturday or Sunday. That will be rough because I'll either have to get up earlier (4:30am?) or go right at dinnertime after not eating for four hours or so. Maybe on those days I can eat in the car on the way there. Idk.
Jameson had rehearsal, and I wanted to make us some tuna salad for the week and also had to do breakfast prep I'd been too lazy to do over the weekend. And then I got all distracted looking up details on how to make rye bread, because I am suddenly charmed by the idea of making my own rye bread for reubens. Rye is complicated, however, so I may need to wait.
All of this meant starting steno very late, but I still managed to get my homework done by 10pm. Which means I had an hour or so to try and sleep before Jameson returned and kept me up for another hour or two. Not that I mind, I like to hear how rehearsal went and all that. But in general, I wonder if I'll ever have a lifestyle again that allows me to get eight hours of sleep.
Maybe that's why I'm feeling very down lately.
Saturday was just...hard. I've rarely felt less motivated at work. I just kind of stared at what I was supposed to be doing, not thinking anything in particular, other than I wished, very badly, to be able to have a few days to sleep. To read. To go for a walk in the woods. To do anything other than what I've been doing, day after day, for almost two years now.
But there is no sleep. There is no vacation. There's a visit with family in June, and that's all I'll get. And we all know family visits are more about accommodating each other and airing dirty laundry than relaxing.
Another part of it is, in every aspect of life right now, I feel like I'm failing.
Especially steno. Every single day, no matter how hard I try, I can get a max of two hours, and that's if I do FOUR hours of work. I simply do not have that time. I am losing a day this week to a rehearsal for a charity concert I'm performing in, in which I'm expected to do a great job because I was a professional musician. But I haven't played in a year and a half, and I already know this is going to be a very embarrassing experience. I don't know why I said I'd do it. And then my steno teacher will want to know why once again I fell short, and how do I explain to her that I volunteered to do a charity concert this week without it sounding like an excuse, because charity concert or no I STILL never meet the criteria set by the school.
And now I want to go to the gym. I want to get some damned physical activity, for once, omg I just want to take care of myself for a half hour to an hour, three days a week. And I just do not know how I'm going to manage it.
And there seems to be no way out. I HAVE to be in school for SOMETHING, because I have NO SKILLS at the age of 37. I have to go to the gym, we've been paying for the membership all this time, I have no other chance at physical activity except our random walks. I have to do the concert, and try to ignore that the people sitting next to me will be cringing with embarrassment because their loved ones are in the audience and I'm ruining it for others.
And then I'll make bread, or garden, or spend an hour watching stupid youtube videos so I can keep some sanity, and feel guilty about all of it because I SHOULD be doing steno and why aren't I PRACTICING for the concert and couldn't this time be better spent at the gym?
I feel so trapped, this week. So overwhelmed.
Things will get better I'm sure, I'm just ranting here because I can't do it anywhere else.
I just wish I could STOP, for just a few days. I was so grateful for the covid vaccine, because for once, I had a good reason to just STOP and get an actual eight hours of sleep and have ONE DAY of not doing anything at all. I felt awful, but I got to do nothing.
Anyway, Saturday. I stopped at Whole Foods and got rye flour and bread flour, still really jonesing to make that rye loaf. I got us some wings and threw them in the air fryer when I got home, we ordered pizza and watched TV. Well, Jameson watched TV and I cleaned up after dinner, packed my lunch, marked my trombone music, gathered my stuff to take to work and rehearsal, prepped my work clothes and my breakfast, watered my plants in the garden and pollinator garden, and then "just chilled" for about 20 minutes before it was already 8:30 and I needed to start steno or I'd not get any done at all. When I've said, "We ate dinner and relaxed for a bit", THIS is what I'm actually doing when you read my posts and they mention dinner + relaxing afterward. This is my "relaxed for a bit".
When do I ACTUALLY get to relax?
Sunday morning at 6am I emailed my teacher my practice for the week, once again only about half of what the school requires.
To recap:
- Wake up 5:30 or 5:45am
- Eat breakfast and leave for work around 6:45
- Arrive at work 7:20-7:30, brush teeth in the company bathroom
- Work 7:45-4:15
- Commute an hour home, arrive between 5:15-5:45 depending on traffic and whether or not I'm picking up our dinner
- Eat dinner, unpack and repack lunch, prepare work clothes, check garden if needed, shower, spend a max of 30 minutes trying to sit still and have actual time with my boyfriend
- Between 7 and 8pm, start steno practice
- 9:30 stop steno so that I can check email, pay bills, make appointments, etc before bed (remember I cannot have my phone on at work because of confidentiality so I can't do much of this throughout the day)
- 10pm-10:30 try to enjoy 30 minutes to myself if possible
- 10:30 or 11 to midnight, in bed trying to fall asleep while Jameson watches tv.
Do you guys see a point where I can add more steno? Because I don't.
Yes, I DO do more on the weekends, about twice as much. But I will lose my mind if I don't get at least seven hours of sleep once in a while. Or if I can't even eat one meal that's not fast food. Or go for a walk/exercise for just 30 freaking minutes.
What is the solution? I don't have one right now. The only thing I can think of is finding a job closer, so I'm not losing 40 hours per month to the commute (that is NOT an exaggeration, I really do waste 40 hours per week commuting. That's two hours per day I could have back.)
I wish that having QUALITY practice were worth more than the actual hours.
Whatever, I emailed my teacher and that's all I could do.
After work I drove out to some random church and had rehearsal for this concert.
It didn't go as poorly as I expected, but it wasn't great either. I did my best, the concert is Sunday, and supposedly there's "communion" beforehand, winkwink. Small mercies.
Monday, I must have looked like crap because the cashier at WaWa gave me my coffee for free. That was something nice to get me through the day. There were more people to help out at work, so I tried to buckle down and get things done.
I ate dinner in the car on the way home so I could do dishes and water the plants immediately when I got home, rather than "wasting time" eating dinner like a human being at a table with a chair and a person I love. Then went directly into steno class for two hours, then swept and mopped the floors while Jameson had a production meeting. Boy, what an eventful week, I tell ya. What IS it all for.
Tuesday was a blessed Work From Home (WFH) day.
I *could* use my extra hour from 5:30am-6:30am on WFH day to practice steno, instead of enjoying a sixth hour of sleep. That may need to start happening. But for now, I'm sorry, I need the sleep. Work was work, I was "bad" again and completed some steno practice during lulls in calls.
After work I went to fetch tacos for us, but ended up waiting nearly 30 minutes for them for unknown reasons. So much for fast food!
I got back and we ate quickly because Jameson had rehearsal and I had...well, I wanted to go to the gym. But not to exercise just yet. First I wanted to get a Fit3D body scan!
I last got a body scan in December 2019, just a few months before covid.
Naturally I was very curious to see what differences might be apparent after 18 months of no gym, minimal exercise, and a sedentary job. But also keeping in mind that I am very strict about my diet, I don't sit still very often, and I've got genetics on my side (read: Japanese).
All of that said, here are some of my results.
My body looks exactly the friggin same. No surprises there. All of my clothes still fit.
Here's something interesting, though. In this chart we see four columns: the category of thing being measured; my "Baseline", which is the data from the 2019 scan; "Current", which is the data from today's scan; and the change, or difference, between the two in the final column.
As you can see, I've lost six pounds! But that's no reason to celebrate. Almost all of that weight loss was due to losing muscle mass.
Now granted, at least my fat mass didn't go UP to make up for that loss. I am extremely grateful for that. Other measurements were also provided (arms, legs, torso, etc) but the changes can be measured in millimeters and fractions of inches so I didn't consider it worth sharing.
In my case, sticking to a dietary routine plus clinging to my genetics has kept my body relatively unchanged for a whole year and a half of inactivity. I am very aware that not everyone is so fortunate, and want to say that me sharing this is NOT AT ALL meant to shame ANYONE for anything their body may have done during quarantine. I simply was curious to check this out, and found my personal results interesting.
After that I came home and ate the rest of my tacos. Because apparently I can.
Next comes the weekend.
Wednesday I will NOT bake bread for once due to a) wanting to go to the gym, and b) a dentist appointment at 2pm, and c) class at 5:30. After class, though, I'll start the rye "bread sponge", which will then become an overnight dough that I'll tackle Thursday morning. No real plans Thursday other than possibly another gym trip, loads of steno, making reubens for dinner, and watering the plants. But I SHOULD do five hours of steno instead of just two, right?? Sigh.
Friday, we were profoundly shorthanded with only four supervisors total to cover seven wings of captionists (to give an idea, my wing usually has five supervisors in it alone) and my boss also called out. Luckily it was a relatively slow day, but unfortunately it really was just too much for only four people to handle, so some pitiful souls had to be called in from Work From Home. My heart cringes for them.
I am fortunate because my WFH day is typically Tuesday, which is usually a slow call day plus there are five other people working from home that day, meaning I have much less chance of being called in. I also make it a point, every Monday, to send a nice email or message reminding my bosses that I would appreciate lots of notice if I'm to be called in, because I live an hour away and we are both going to lose an hour of productivity if I have to drive in halfway through my workday. If there are five other people to call (all of whom are guaranteed to live much closer than I), my odds are usually good for being allowed to keep my WFH day.
But, if I do get called in, I'll mope a little and just do it. It's sad, but we were all warned that it was contingent on coverage needs onsite.
After work it took me longer than usual to get home because someone's car broke down(?) in the middle of the three-lane highway and they just LEFT it there, apparently. Traffic was backed up for miles, no cops in sight. Florida!
But I did get home, we ate Chick-fil-a salads and I felt very jealous of Jameson because he'd gotten to go to the gym today. I want to go, too! But when I'm going to start squeezing that in, I have no idea. Definitely on at least one of my days off, ideally both. And then one workday too, probably Saturday or Sunday. That will be rough because I'll either have to get up earlier (4:30am?) or go right at dinnertime after not eating for four hours or so. Maybe on those days I can eat in the car on the way there. Idk.
Jameson had rehearsal, and I wanted to make us some tuna salad for the week and also had to do breakfast prep I'd been too lazy to do over the weekend. And then I got all distracted looking up details on how to make rye bread, because I am suddenly charmed by the idea of making my own rye bread for reubens. Rye is complicated, however, so I may need to wait.
All of this meant starting steno very late, but I still managed to get my homework done by 10pm. Which means I had an hour or so to try and sleep before Jameson returned and kept me up for another hour or two. Not that I mind, I like to hear how rehearsal went and all that. But in general, I wonder if I'll ever have a lifestyle again that allows me to get eight hours of sleep.
Maybe that's why I'm feeling very down lately.
Saturday was just...hard. I've rarely felt less motivated at work. I just kind of stared at what I was supposed to be doing, not thinking anything in particular, other than I wished, very badly, to be able to have a few days to sleep. To read. To go for a walk in the woods. To do anything other than what I've been doing, day after day, for almost two years now.
But there is no sleep. There is no vacation. There's a visit with family in June, and that's all I'll get. And we all know family visits are more about accommodating each other and airing dirty laundry than relaxing.
Another part of it is, in every aspect of life right now, I feel like I'm failing.
Especially steno. Every single day, no matter how hard I try, I can get a max of two hours, and that's if I do FOUR hours of work. I simply do not have that time. I am losing a day this week to a rehearsal for a charity concert I'm performing in, in which I'm expected to do a great job because I was a professional musician. But I haven't played in a year and a half, and I already know this is going to be a very embarrassing experience. I don't know why I said I'd do it. And then my steno teacher will want to know why once again I fell short, and how do I explain to her that I volunteered to do a charity concert this week without it sounding like an excuse, because charity concert or no I STILL never meet the criteria set by the school.
And now I want to go to the gym. I want to get some damned physical activity, for once, omg I just want to take care of myself for a half hour to an hour, three days a week. And I just do not know how I'm going to manage it.
And there seems to be no way out. I HAVE to be in school for SOMETHING, because I have NO SKILLS at the age of 37. I have to go to the gym, we've been paying for the membership all this time, I have no other chance at physical activity except our random walks. I have to do the concert, and try to ignore that the people sitting next to me will be cringing with embarrassment because their loved ones are in the audience and I'm ruining it for others.
And then I'll make bread, or garden, or spend an hour watching stupid youtube videos so I can keep some sanity, and feel guilty about all of it because I SHOULD be doing steno and why aren't I PRACTICING for the concert and couldn't this time be better spent at the gym?
I feel so trapped, this week. So overwhelmed.
Things will get better I'm sure, I'm just ranting here because I can't do it anywhere else.
I just wish I could STOP, for just a few days. I was so grateful for the covid vaccine, because for once, I had a good reason to just STOP and get an actual eight hours of sleep and have ONE DAY of not doing anything at all. I felt awful, but I got to do nothing.
Anyway, Saturday. I stopped at Whole Foods and got rye flour and bread flour, still really jonesing to make that rye loaf. I got us some wings and threw them in the air fryer when I got home, we ordered pizza and watched TV. Well, Jameson watched TV and I cleaned up after dinner, packed my lunch, marked my trombone music, gathered my stuff to take to work and rehearsal, prepped my work clothes and my breakfast, watered my plants in the garden and pollinator garden, and then "just chilled" for about 20 minutes before it was already 8:30 and I needed to start steno or I'd not get any done at all. When I've said, "We ate dinner and relaxed for a bit", THIS is what I'm actually doing when you read my posts and they mention dinner + relaxing afterward. This is my "relaxed for a bit".
When do I ACTUALLY get to relax?
Sunday morning at 6am I emailed my teacher my practice for the week, once again only about half of what the school requires.
To recap:
- Wake up 5:30 or 5:45am
- Eat breakfast and leave for work around 6:45
- Arrive at work 7:20-7:30, brush teeth in the company bathroom
- Work 7:45-4:15
- Commute an hour home, arrive between 5:15-5:45 depending on traffic and whether or not I'm picking up our dinner
- Eat dinner, unpack and repack lunch, prepare work clothes, check garden if needed, shower, spend a max of 30 minutes trying to sit still and have actual time with my boyfriend
- Between 7 and 8pm, start steno practice
- 9:30 stop steno so that I can check email, pay bills, make appointments, etc before bed (remember I cannot have my phone on at work because of confidentiality so I can't do much of this throughout the day)
- 10pm-10:30 try to enjoy 30 minutes to myself if possible
- 10:30 or 11 to midnight, in bed trying to fall asleep while Jameson watches tv.
Do you guys see a point where I can add more steno? Because I don't.
Yes, I DO do more on the weekends, about twice as much. But I will lose my mind if I don't get at least seven hours of sleep once in a while. Or if I can't even eat one meal that's not fast food. Or go for a walk/exercise for just 30 freaking minutes.
What is the solution? I don't have one right now. The only thing I can think of is finding a job closer, so I'm not losing 40 hours per month to the commute (that is NOT an exaggeration, I really do waste 40 hours per week commuting. That's two hours per day I could have back.)
I wish that having QUALITY practice were worth more than the actual hours.
Whatever, I emailed my teacher and that's all I could do.
After work I drove out to some random church and had rehearsal for this concert.
It didn't go as poorly as I expected, but it wasn't great either. I did my best, the concert is Sunday, and supposedly there's "communion" beforehand, winkwink. Small mercies.
Monday, I must have looked like crap because the cashier at WaWa gave me my coffee for free. That was something nice to get me through the day. There were more people to help out at work, so I tried to buckle down and get things done.
I ate dinner in the car on the way home so I could do dishes and water the plants immediately when I got home, rather than "wasting time" eating dinner like a human being at a table with a chair and a person I love. Then went directly into steno class for two hours, then swept and mopped the floors while Jameson had a production meeting. Boy, what an eventful week, I tell ya. What IS it all for.
Tuesday was a blessed Work From Home (WFH) day.
I *could* use my extra hour from 5:30am-6:30am on WFH day to practice steno, instead of enjoying a sixth hour of sleep. That may need to start happening. But for now, I'm sorry, I need the sleep. Work was work, I was "bad" again and completed some steno practice during lulls in calls.
After work I went to fetch tacos for us, but ended up waiting nearly 30 minutes for them for unknown reasons. So much for fast food!
I got back and we ate quickly because Jameson had rehearsal and I had...well, I wanted to go to the gym. But not to exercise just yet. First I wanted to get a Fit3D body scan!
I last got a body scan in December 2019, just a few months before covid.
Naturally I was very curious to see what differences might be apparent after 18 months of no gym, minimal exercise, and a sedentary job. But also keeping in mind that I am very strict about my diet, I don't sit still very often, and I've got genetics on my side (read: Japanese).
All of that said, here are some of my results.
My body looks exactly the friggin same. No surprises there. All of my clothes still fit.
Here's something interesting, though. In this chart we see four columns: the category of thing being measured; my "Baseline", which is the data from the 2019 scan; "Current", which is the data from today's scan; and the change, or difference, between the two in the final column.
As you can see, I've lost six pounds! But that's no reason to celebrate. Almost all of that weight loss was due to losing muscle mass.
Now granted, at least my fat mass didn't go UP to make up for that loss. I am extremely grateful for that. Other measurements were also provided (arms, legs, torso, etc) but the changes can be measured in millimeters and fractions of inches so I didn't consider it worth sharing.
In my case, sticking to a dietary routine plus clinging to my genetics has kept my body relatively unchanged for a whole year and a half of inactivity. I am very aware that not everyone is so fortunate, and want to say that me sharing this is NOT AT ALL meant to shame ANYONE for anything their body may have done during quarantine. I simply was curious to check this out, and found my personal results interesting.
After that I came home and ate the rest of my tacos. Because apparently I can.
Next comes the weekend.
Wednesday I will NOT bake bread for once due to a) wanting to go to the gym, and b) a dentist appointment at 2pm, and c) class at 5:30. After class, though, I'll start the rye "bread sponge", which will then become an overnight dough that I'll tackle Thursday morning. No real plans Thursday other than possibly another gym trip, loads of steno, making reubens for dinner, and watering the plants. But I SHOULD do five hours of steno instead of just two, right?? Sigh.
