Still. Sick.

I have managed to (mostly) get over the flu.
I am still exhausted.  The right side of my face is swollen and painful - and my teeth hurt when I cough.  I think it's just a holdover from the virus...An errant swollen gland that is there to remind me to not be too cocky about my health.
C offered to watch my last two hours so I can go home, but I honestly don't even have the energy to do that.  It seems less taxing to just sit in my classrooms and watch my students work. 
Surely there is more to work than this.  I am incredibly unmotivated, and incredibly behind with the office-y stuff (grand surprise, that).  I feel like if I could just get caught up and get enough rest I would be a fabulously inspiring teacher.  Of course, that keeps me from having to actually do anything, because I'll never be motivated to get completely caught up.  This was supposed to be a soft place to land and figure out what my next move should be.  This place has not been soft.  Softer than the Evil Empire, of course, but not soft enough.
It seems like something should stick.  Some job/career should just call to me, or I should be drawn to it.  Something that will be exciting and interesting... something that will use my skills and inspire me to greatness.
Or something.
Some girls dream of big houses and sweet men.  I dream of a fulfilling job.  And sweet men.  I mean, seriously, who doesn't dream about someone sweet to love??
I've fallen off the dating cliff... I'm becoming too complacent.  Being single is just too easy.  Too safe.  I like my napping, and my unfettered weekends.  I like my cats and my books. 
But I am finding that the longer I'm single the more impossible my choice in men becomes.  This is how I end up dating married bosses and man children... It's like I'm TOO single to date appropriately.  Is that a thing??  Maybe it's just me.   The available, appropriate men are hidden (in plain sight, I assume) and all I can see are the men who are destined to not live up to my expectations and break my heart.
There is a current man child - and he is impossible.  I don't think anything will come of this - too many boundaries, too much denial.  And even if we were to somehow magically navigate all of that, he is a man child, and I would have to boss him around.  I'm no good at that.  I'd like to say I'm too easy going, but the reality is that I'm just plain too fucking tired to manage anyone but myself.  I'm too fucking tired to even manage myself, really.  Maybe I could boss him into bossing me around?  Within reason, you know. 
Sigh.
Sometimes I think I really am the "single friend," and that's just how it is going to be.  I am the anecdote that my married and otherwise coupled friends bring up to talk about how hard dating is.  I am the slightly scandalous singleton with the good "bad date" stories. 
Maybe it's just that the holidays have me down.  All of my paired-up friends... it's so easy to feel so very alone.
And the flu... that has me down. 
And my job.
And my messy, falling apart little house.

Baby steps to right where I started. 
Fuck.

Happy New Year?

     I'm getting over the flu.  I spent the weekend in bed with fever dreams (ask pretty much anyone I talked to about the "fever rabbits" that kept coming back).  So I don't feel refreshed or renewed or like this is a "new" anything.  Maybe that will come in time.  I don't really do resolutions as such, because there is only one of those I've manager to keep more than 6 hours past midnight.  Almost twenty years ago I resolved to never say anything mean about someone else - unless it was funny.  That one I've kept.  It didn't make me nicer, but it certainly made me funnier.

     I do have areas in which I would like to see some improvement and I am focusing on those.  They're the same ones I keep coming back to: be more organized, eat better, write more, smoke less, exercise.  Yawn, right?  I know.  But real life is boring.  And baby steps are not dramatic at all.

      Getting over the flu?  Also boring and sloooooooow.  I did celebrate New Year's Eve with some friends - J made a turkey (seriously good) and brought it over to K's house.  Our little party was K and her husband (who is also getting over the flu) and J and I and the kids... Bean included.  We ate and drank a lot (alcohol kills germs, yo) and played Trivial Pursuit.  Not the flashiest of New Years, but it was really nice.  I even got a kiss at midnight that did NOT come from a friend's nice husband taking pity on the sad singleton.  It was not a date, but if you squinted and looked at it sideways it almost looked like one.  And that's all I have to say about that.

         It snowed New Year's Day, so that was pretty.  Bean and I lounged around in the morning and then had a nice lunch with Em and her parents.  I took Bean to her boyfriend's house and I did laundry and watched a dumb movie and then we went home.  I was wiped out - even though nothing in my day was strenuous - so I went to bed.

     I made it halfway through my day today and then took a knee.  My first and second hours are basically babysitting, and I have planning period third hour, so I got someone to babysit for me and I went home at 2:30 and slept for four hours.  I'm still exhausted, but I only have another hour to go and I feel like I might actually make it without lying down on the floor and asking my class to leave me alone to weep.  The only thing saving me right now is that tomorrow is Thursday, and except for some pesky grading that is super late and also super unfinished I can go home and sleep Friday away.  I'm covering classes for J tomorrow, so I won't be able to take an extended lunch again.  With any luck I will feel as much improvement tomorrow as I did today. 

     And yes, wanting to lie down and weep is an improvement.  This flu?  Really bad.