Realized my last entry was about work and habits and vitamins and wow. I'm sorry. I really am that dull. Think a part of me also holds back the deepest, darkest, lurkiest thoughts here in case someone I know ever finds out I still blaaawg.

True to form, though, I'm just back with more of the same. They have me scheduled as resource tonight, but the unit is short. I don't know if that means I'll take patients. Either they'll find someone to fill in or they won't. I need to change the way I think to survive. Enter self-preservation mode. Ironically, spacing out--dissociating?--might make me a better worker. I tend to get way too frustrated whenever I hit a wall, which is often. And in most hospitals, it sounds like those walls are closing in more and more each day. Perhaps a better metaphor is the frog that doesn't notice it's slowly being boiled alive.

Mandu has been...wonderful. Cleaning the best he can. Buying me roses. Steaming frozen soup dumplings over lettuce in what's either a deep pan or a shallow pot because we don't have a real steamer. Putting air in my tires. Taking care of the street rat. All this on top of teaching, another job that's been oscillating erratically in the court of public opinion for the past year and a half. I could cry. I really don't deserve him.

After canceling our wedding twice (and every major trip since then), we are trying to go to Kauai in a couple of weeks. I kind of think it won't happen for us. Kauai is the strictest island. So says my coworker, a Hawaii enthusiast who visits every chance he gets. Not going won't break me, because I know how lucky I am. And I understand what cities have to do to deal with this virus that continues to mess up our sad little lives. But if we make it there, if we really pull off this perfectly ordinary vacation, I just might break down into tears over it.