MMAP Challenge Update May 4: Pause for Breath

Today, I've been working about an hour (and cleaned my kitchen this morning too -- whoo-hoo!). I've been working on a section up near the beginning: add a topic sentence, fix a problem here or there, check the accuracy of the quote by Scholar K (it was scholar D, actually, which took quite a bit more fixing). I am getting a little slack-brained, like it is tired of being clenched in all sorts of academic circus moves and I have lactic acid buildup in my mind. Then I turned over the page and reached a page with almost an entire paragraph in bold ---- a patch that is still in (WHAT DO I DO HERE/FIX THIS/MAKE THIS A SENTENCE) mode, and I am tired, so I am taking a rest.

This may or may not involve a nap (although I have meetings at 4 which are kinda messing up my whole day's flow, really), and will definitely involve a little snack. I will look through my project to see if there is an area that I could fix without too much thinking involved, as I'd hate to get a mental charley horse after all that heavy lifting this morning. I think I've done the new works cited, so that is not an option. That nap is sounding better and better regardless of my schedule.

This weekend I did not do any writing, or much of anything else, unfortunately. All my friends are leaving town, except the one who just got dumped by her boyfriend. I am sad. I had two nights of happy/sad send-off celebrations ---- "Goodbye, goodbye! We're sad and will miss you, but good luck on your cool new adventure you are embarking on!" ---- and then, on my "recovery" night (you can't see your friends off out of Cali without lots of good local food and many bottles of wine), I got a call from someone who had just been broken up with and felt really shitty and needed to have a good cry and drink a lot and then go out to hit on random males to prove that she was not worthless after being dumped.

This was more tiring than the other nights, really, but just as sad. And really, if your friends need you, you gotta be there for them ---- even if you're already tired and spent the whole day sitting around going "ugh!" and drinking fluids and not getting any of your work done. And going out for a night like that leaves you sad for your friend and sad about her patterns and a little sorry for yourself, as well. Even while I see the thinking of "I can't go home alone ever or I am a failure" as such a dangerous, fucked-up assumption to have, still, the oft-repeated statement that getting a PhD meant nothing if she was going to die alone and unloved, that stung. Especially when I've just said goodbye to my closest (almost sole remaining) local friends.

Now I can't help wondering: who's going to be here for me, when I need someone to lean on? And if there's nothing here for me, where on earth am I going to go?