Exhausted and crabby

On March 21, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn life1 Comment

Something they don’t tell you about the CPAP: it’s gonna lead to occasional times where you don’t feel like you’re getting enough oxygen just for the hell of it. I’m having one right now. Objectively, I’m fine; I’ve actually taken pulse ox measurements during these times and they’re fine. According to my watch right now I’m at 93%, which is a little low, admittedly, but the Apple Watch is not exactly a precision medical instrument, right?

I was going to blame panic attacks, but who the hell knows; maybe I’m dying. At any rate I’ve reached the point where if the thing didn’t tether me to my bed (it’s not exactly portable) I’d wear it all the time just for the hell of it. There’s something weirdly comforting about having oxygen shoved into your lungs whether you want it there or not.

At any rate, according to the device I’ve been sleeping just fine lately, but hell if I wasn’t tired and irritated all day today, at one point breaking up what was heading toward a fight in the hallway without breaking my stride, swatting a phone out of one kid’s hand and simply bullying the other one along in my path until they gave up and walked away on their own. You wanna get expelled, go ahead, but they’re gonna learn not to do it around me. Go upstairs if you wanna fight. Being home has improved my mood somewhat but not the tired; it’s 7:15 right now and I’m seriously considering just going the hell to bed as soon as I finish this.

I was not, for the record, expecting That Man to be arrested today, and in fact as soon as he announced that it was imminent I decided that it was going to happen any day but today. The more in the know than the former president seem to be suggesting that tomorrow is the earliest possible day an indictment could be handed down, and while the fact that they’re literally erecting metal barricades around the courthouse in New York indicates that this time this should probably be taken with a degree of seriousness I’m still not– forgive me for this, given the first two paragraphs– holding my breath. An indictment is definitely progress but at this point I won’t be satisfied until the fucker dies in jail. It can’t happen soon enough.

This isn’t normal

On February 26, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

Depending on how you count, since we were actually married on February 29, my wife and I will celebrate fifteen years of marriage … sometime this week. Or at least we should. We have no ideas, and no presents have been purchased. I tried to float the idea of going to Chicago and having dinner at Alinea and she was having none of it. That’s as good as I got. Right now I have Friday off, but I’m planning on playing Wo Long: Hidden Dynasty all freakin’ day. And the way I know I picked the right lady is she doesn’t mind.

That said, if y’all have any great ideas about what we could do with ourselves on either Tuesday or Wednesday night, feel free to air ’em out. Neither of us have any better ideas, after all.

Just shove me underneath my desk

On February 23, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

I discovered last night that there are some major drawbacks to my CPAP machine; namely, now that I’ve gotten used to the fucking thing I can’t live without it. The power went out last night around 9:00 PM, interrupting a blog post and half a dozen other things because I was not ready for bed at nine. I read for a little while (not a problem, actually, as I generally wear a reading light around my neck and charges last forever) and then tried to go to sleep, only to be met with a dream about not being able to swallow, which … is not the key to a restful night.

And then at about 1:00 in the morning, wham! Every fucking light in the house goes on at once when the power comes back on, including the ones that were off and we accidentally turned on while turning “off” the lights, and including the ones that we didn’t realize were on when the power went out, including every single fucking light in our bedroom for some reason. So I got about four hours out of my CPAP after maybe three hours of massively un-restful sleep and I was a fucking zombie all day as a result.

Every single class today started with me telling my kids that I was half dead and in a tremendously bad mood and that that part was not their fault but how they reacted to it would be, and I got gentler behavior than usual from all but one class. I am still, hours later, a mess, and only a vast amount of work that needed doing has kept me from going to bed early tonight.

Oh, and apparently one of my subs yesterday just, like, passed out in front of the kids. He was back at work today, so I guess he’s okay, but man, everybody wanted to tell me about it. Maybe my room’s cursed? I dunno.

Not making that mistake again

On February 20, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn life4 Comments

Lots to do today: some recording, some putting-together of furniture, moving around other furniture, some minor bits of shopping, every item of clothing I own has been washed in the last couple of days and needs to be put away, four days of lesson planning (lucky for me, I got caught up on my grading before leaving work on Friday,) a loose plan for the weeks between now and ILEARN because I feel like as soon as I actually internalize when ILEARN is it’s going to start causing panic attacks and I need my numbers to look good so I probably ought to start getting ready, and whatever the hell else it occurs to me to do to procrastinate about starting all of that. Also eating, showering, and the various other tasks necessary to keep my shambling mass vertical and non-odoriferous.

Also I think I’ve decided it might be time to redo the look of the site. I like this one a lot but I’ve been using it for a couple of years at least and it’s time to freshen things up a bit.

What are you doing with your Presidents’ Day? (Probably nothing, I realize this. It’s a dumb holiday.)

Fundraising for Turkey

On February 7, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

One of my oldest and dearest friends, a Real Live Archaeologist, has been spending her summers for the last many years at a dig site at Zincirli Höyük, located in southern Turkey not far from the Syrian border. The site, as well as the village of Zincirli itself and the nearby town of Fevzipasa, is located about eight miles from the epicenter of one of the earthquakes that struck the area yesterday. The dig has operated there since 2006, and over the years she has gotten to know nearly everyone in Zincirli Village and half of Fevzipasa, which is where she stayed during her visits. The building where they lived collapsed in the earthquake, and she was in contact with friends over there as recently as Sunday night. Her daughter, now almost a teenager, took her first steps in Fevzipasa. There is, understandably, no clear word on just how hard the area was hit as of yet, but they have already heard about casualties among people affiliated with the dig.

The co-director of the dig has started a GoFundMe which has, as of this writing, raised over $20,000 in the short time since the quake hit. The funds raised are to be directed straight to residents of Zincirli Village and Fevzipasa. I donated just now, and if any of you happen to have any spare funds and were looking for a way to make an impact, this will be direct relief to people impacted by this tragedy. There are more details on the GoFundMe site, and I would encourage everyone reading this to take a look and consider donating. Thank you.

Get me the manager

On February 5, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

I remain not in the mood for any of this, where “any of this” can be understood to mean “anything other than sleep,” although apparently I have a job or something that will require me to do some work tonight of some sort or another. I managed to get scammed at a car wash earlier today, discovering that what had been described as a month of car washes for a buck extra than what I was going to spend anyway was actually a monthly subscription to what appears to be their highest tier of car washes. If I hadn’t looked at my receipt I’d have had no damn idea that I’d been signed up for something monthly. I may go back tomorrow and firebomb the place; as it is, my receipt is displayed prominently on my desk so that I remember to cancel this bullshit as soon as it hits their computers. I tried already but they’re claiming the membership doesn’t exist, which I’m choosing to believe is legitimate since it’s literally only a couple of hours old at the moment.

I went the whole weekend without any real social media presence; I didn’t upload anything to the YouTube channel and I didn’t really post here. It floated through my head earlier to just turn everything off, which is a sign of where my head has been at lately. There’s no real worry at the moment about me doing that, but one thing I underestimated about switching jobs is just how much rewriting of absolutely everything I was going to have to do now that I’m at a new district that uses an LMS (Learning Management System) that I’m unfamiliar with. I’m spending more time planning right now than I have had to in years, and it’s meaning hours at the computer after work every day. I shouldn’t have to put this time in next year, or at least not nearly as much of it, but right now it’s hitting me harder than I really thought it was going to. I need to get more efficient about using my prep period at work, which can cut back on some of this, but half the time I’m covering classes during that time so I’d have to do the extra work at home anyway.

This job has added years to my teaching career, I really don’t doubt that, and I’m still enormously better off than I was at the other school, but … God, I’m tired.

Proof of life, again

On January 23, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn life2 Comments

I spent the whole day yesterday with my head swimming, and as far as I could tell no other symptoms– just massive, nasty dizziness that I couldn’t find any solution for. I got up around 5:00 this morning to see if it had gone away, and it hadn’t, and given the length of my commute the thought of the drive to work while fighting being tired and dizzy spells seemed … unwise. So I took the day off, slept until about 2:30, and since then I’ve just been, well, staring, mostly.

How has your Monday gone?