For one thing: the streets don’t scare the shit out of me. For another thing: staying with my friend is really rad. This is the dude I went to Alaska with all those years ago. I went to Alaska with him in 2004. Now I get to spend time with his rad wife too. This is going well. Last night we walked for ice cream.
Today I think we will go to the Sagan Planet Walk and science museum. Tomorrow we will go look at gorges.
Cause Ithaca is gorges. Hahahaha. Ahem.
Also: like magic yesterday I started having normal poop. WHERE DID YOU COME FROM AND WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE SURE YOU STAY WITH ME LONGER?!
I’m having normal poop. Eldest child is constipated. To the point where she is complaining about it hurting. But she resists eating vegetables when they are available. Dude, you are creating your own problem. If you refuse to eat salad don’t bitch when it hurts to poop. Yes, it hurts. Duh. You don’t want to eat roughage.
Another thing that Ithaca has going for it: I can walk from my friend’s house to everything we want to do. Which sounds absolutely wonderful right now.
I think it helps that I have gotten 8 hours of sleep two nights in a row. I think my inconsistent sleep is part of what is making my mood suck so much. I spent the five hour drive yesterday trying not to cry and I’m not entirely sure why.
Pittsburgh was an anxiety fest from hell. I spent that section of the trip with my stomach on fire and trying to pretend I was calm so I didn’t flip out at every one. It was a bad day for me to go to a birthday party at the home of someone whose wife makes me nervous.
She’s one of those “good women”. I don’t usually get along with them. They usually think I’m kind of a dirtbag with no manners. (Accurately.)
Didn’t help that Eldest child had to be spoken to about her manners. Of course that means I’m a bad mother.
FEELINGS THE FUCKING SIZE OF ALASKA.
I feel incompetent, stupid, useless, and worthless. It’s been a bad few days.
I keep messing things up. Apparently the birthday party was on the same day that my buddy wanted me to be at his roller derby game in a different part of Pennsylvania but I didn’t track it very well. So I just missed the roller derby game because I thought it was the next day. Whoops.
Details like this are getting really hard to track. I feel like I am treating people disrespectfully because I’m just barely getting from place to place and I’m not doing a good job of tracking what other people wish were happening. I’m just barely making it.
Most of the people we’ve visited so far wish we were coming a few days earlier or a few days later. So I feel wrong basically all the time.
No, I can’t mesh my schedule around everyone. I just… can’t.
And I’m missing people because I just don’t have the spoons to chase everyone down. My ex-girlfriend never responded to my pings, that makes me sad. I really wanted to see her.
My inside voice is turned up high and doesn’t like me much right now. That is making everything challenging. Having to get up every day and get things done while my inside voice is ranting at the top of its lungs about how I’m stupid and pathetic and I can’t do anything right is hard.
It is really hard getting up every day. Right now I’d like to climb into a hole and not come out for a few weeks.
The kids and I are talking with great longing about how we don’t want to drive at all in December. I’m not sure I will even be up for Christmas decorating. Noah is talking about getting it started for us in November because otherwise I may just be a failure this year.
96 days to go.
I don’t think we will make it to Maine. Maybe a day trip. From here we go to a friend’s house in New Hampshire. (It’s kind of awesome to me that a very high percentage of my “friends” on this trip are folks I slept with many years ago. I’m grateful that didn’t make people leave my life.) New Hampshire to New Jersey to Washington DC. Supposed to see a friend in Virginia but she isn’t answering email. Then Dollywood, then Nashville, then a friend outside Atlanta. From there to Savannah to Orlando.
I’m looking forward to the Disney World stay. I’m glad I didn’t break it up into as many different resorts as I considered.