Out there I feel sad not to see her no more

My parents showed me a picture of their new garden gnomes. They found one playing the drums first and got it, and then my mom found these others to make the rest of the gnome band.

My dad pointed to each one and told me, "Bucky the drummer, and the singer is his brother Benny, and then there's their friend Dwight." He's so funny, such a quiet guy but he comes up with these goofy things sometimes. Mom was mocking him for this. He just went along, telling me the names of "all my gnomes in the backyard, Paul and Tessa together. And I can't remember what the other two names are..."

I didn't know they had any gnomes, and it turns out they have a whole crowd now! With names!

I see so much of myself in this person's life! I knew they were my age before they said, just from their description of junior high.

And of course so much is different too. I wish I could write anything as good as this.

Exeter was great. I saw an old friend C who I'd forgotten had moved there years ago! Lovely to see his new life: his partner and how cozily entangled their lives are, carving out queer space in a city that otherwise doesn't have much; his drag queen persona (I love trans men as drag queens so much); his new and very different career.

The meeting this morning that I was actually in Exeter for seemed to go as well as it could have.

I made good friends with my Guide Dogs counterpart for the day. He covers the southwest and we don't currently have a person to cover the southwest which is why I was there. But he lives so far from Exeter he had also traveled up last night -- we got Told that our meeting was at 10am, even that clearly wasn't ideal for either of us! -- staying in the same Premier Inn as me (it's perfect, you come out of the train station and it's right there ahead of you with a giant sign, most accessible hotel ever). We ran in to each other waiting to board the same bus to the Bad Bus Stops we were here to look at: him with his guide dog and me with my cane, both wondering if the other one was who we thought it was.

We made a good double act, backing each other up on our less well-received points. I'm sad he's so far away! But he's in the part of the southwest I'm more often visiting and I'm super tempted to invite him for a drink if I get the chance!

I had a long journey back, not as crowded or overheated as yesterday's until Birmingham, but with delays it was still two hours after that before I got home.

I stumbled in, drank a lot of ice water, had a shower, ate some dinner (lovely angelofthenorth had made mushroom risotto!), drank some more water, and now I'm lying in front of a fan.

I'm glad to be back home, where there are fans and ice. I bought an iced coffee this morning and there was no ice in it. It wasn't even cold! It was, like, I forgot about this cup of coffee cold, not iced-coffee cold. Ugh. I drank it anyway, but I pined for ice all day. It was 84°F in Exeter, and the first half of our meeting did involve walking up and down a road to look at its terrible bus stops (they really were terrible too -- really did have to be seen to be believed).

I've agreed to go camping this weekend, so I'm enjoying the ice and fans while I can!

At least for camping I won't have to wear my work clothes! I wore a proper shirt for the meeting this morning but immediately afterward took it off of course. I considered jettisoning the binder as well, but the t-shirt I had grabbed to change in to is a tank top and I didn't like that. The binder, my new white one, was extremely visible under the black tank top as it has a higher neckline and wider straps, but I decided that I did not care at all. It was much more comfy and it just looked like I'd layered two different tank tops. The train staff who provided my assistance and checked my tickets didn't misgender me or act weird about it or anything.

I had to present on my work for my team and some other people this morning, and it felt impossible to pitch it at a level that would reach both the people who know next to nothing about the work I lead on and the people who have been most intimately involved in doing it with me.

I missed a section, even with notes, which I think could've made it make a lot more sense. But also my line manager sent me a message immediately to say I spoke very well? I don't get it but I hope she's right!

D came along to lift club this morning! It's so much more fun when he's there.

This afternoon we had a snuggly nap.

When I woke up this evening, angelofthenorth was making amazing delicious food. It smelled so good. What a treat.

This evening, D and I had a couple beers and watched the Twins actually win a game! And explained things to angelofthenorth as they came up.

I could barely do the morning chores I usually feel neutral-to-positive about this morning -- I open the curtains, unload the dishwasher, make a pot of tea, get breakfast for myself... Things that are always the same and always different. It can be very grounding.

Today I wasn't especially tired and I wasn't in pain or anything, I just didn't want to. I couldn't imagine doing the first tiniest step.

This is a sign of burnout. I need a break. I was telling my counselor this evening that a break for me has to be somewhere away from my house, because my house is full of reminders of chores I need to do, things that get on my nerves, etc. I am not good at relaxing, but when I can do it it doesn't tend to happen at home.

I did an okay amount of work today but near the end of the day I was in this focus group about "inclusion" in our workplace. These things can be kinda therapeutic but by the end I was thinking that we keep having surveys and stuff like this, where we tell some nice external person all our woes and we're assured that the feedback is anonymized into themes that cannot identify us, but all that means is our specific nuanced articulations all get flattened in to "we all have good colleagues who care about their work but the executive team keep letting us down," and we're going to get the same kind of response from said executive team about how impressed they are at everyone's honesty and how committed they are to addressing these themes, and then we'll do this all over again in a year or two.

I felt really tired by the end of it, which wasn't great because it was almost time for my first counseling session in almost a month. A real "let me explain, no there is too much let me sum up" kind of situation.

My counseling happens on the phone and usually in my bedroom; I normally come right back downstairs in search of dinner, but this time I just lay on my bed for something ridiculous like an hour. I kept trying to get up and go back downstairs but again: so many steps. And it was relatively peaceful just lying there.

Since I had to come downstairs and try to eat dinner I'm feeling more depersonalization, so maybe all of this has been more stressful or triggery than I realized. I hate feeling like this; is probably the most uncomfortable symptom of my anxiety/depression.