the 2 Week Wilderness

On the Appalachian trail, there is a section in Maine called the 100 mile wilderness. It's the most remote stretch of the trail. Like its nickname suggests, it consists of a section of trail without any access to civilization. I was always looking forward to Maine, when I hiked the AT. Unfortunately, an injury stopped me early in my thru hike. It was one of my life's big disappointments.

What will come at the end of the 2 Week Wilderness? Blissful joy or one of my life's big disappointments? It seems all so black and white at this moment. 

Ok, women, is this suppose to feel like anything? I'm not feeling anything yet. Except, maybe a bit grouchy.

I miss my daily workouts. I went for a gentle walk this morning. No sweating. No attendance at the gym. Just a little walk around the neighborhood. I find it very tough not to go to the gym. It's my surefire way to cope with stress. It works 98.97 times out of 100.

I wish I knew what was going on in there. It is very hard not to know, not to feel like it's one way or another. What to think? My rational mind is trying SO BLOODY HARD to think its way around this question. What a waste. I should be reading articles. But I'm still completely distracted and now I'm also grouchy.

Maybe the grouchiness is a good sign. When Sattva was pregnant with Anne, she thought she was depressed for the first 10 weeks or so. She felt awful about life and her career prospects and everything. She tells this very funny story of telling her husband that she must be depressed. Maybe her eggs give off the grouchy, depressed kind of hcg.

I'm back at work, chickadees. My heart's not in it this week. I've just mostly been writing reports and feeling behind the 8-ball because I missed most of last week and I'm not going to be there most of next week. I am not letting myself stay until my usual 7pm, but instead coming home early to work on my, ahum, defense (or blogging).

I received the feedback from the external examiner for my dissertation. It was a pretty good report, as as externals' reports go I hear. Only very minor "fine tuning" changes are what she suggested. She used words like "excellent" and "may well lead to publication in a scientific journal". I can't believe how much relief I derived from her evaluation. I had obviously been catastrophizing catastrophically.

A little update on Mr. A. Sadly, he is still ill. His parents came over to take him to his chest x-ray on Monday and then decided to take him to their house. So he packed up Chicken and her scratching post, and off they went. The chest x-ray was inconclusive for pneumonia, but his white blood cell count was very high. He is taking the week off and resting some more, much to his dismay. Mr A is a keep busy kinda of a guy, and sitting around doing nothing is pretty much agony in a jar.

Thinking of you, women. I'm loving the good news lately. It's helping me keep positive.