Beth's Journal

I swear, I am so ready to be done with 2020.

• Rana may have caught COVID - we're not entirely sure, because whenever she's been tested recently, they can't get the swab up as far as they should due to swelling from her nose surgery last month. Still, the symptoms line up, and she hasn't been anywhere near as careful as she should be, so it's probably COVID. (I swear, I didn't need any more Rana-related health crises this year...) In addition to Rana catching COVID, so did one of my co-workers, and two close friends have been exposed to it. Stay the hell at home, people. (although I'm probably preaching to the choir here)
• My mental health has been up and down a bit lately - I'm still trying to walk/run regularly, and make sure I do something creative daily (even if it's just crocheting), and it's... sort of helping? Maybe I need to add regular journal-writing to my "try to keep yourself sane" list.
• Found out we're working from home through the end of the spring semester - which means it'll have been over a year since I'd worked in the office regularly by the time I get to go back. I don't know how I feel about this. Hell, there are still co-workers I haven't seen in person since March. (And due to the "work at home through spring" notice, I kind of get the feeling that I'll get to celebrate another birthday in isolation - fuck 2020 and all the bullshit that came out of it.)

I try to look on the bright side of things, but it's hard sometimes. Still, I do have my health, and a safe place with very few people around to go walking and running, and I live with people who actually give a crap about my mental health. My life is going pretty well, considering everything going on - and if my brain hadn't been so much of a dumpster fire this year, I think I'd actually be pretty well off, pretty happy.

Buuuut 2020 had to happen, and so here I am, angry at all the selfish folks who can't be bothered to wear masks and wash their hands and stay the fuck at home because they'd rather go eat out at Cracker Barrel and pretend life is normal - after all, they're the only people in the world who matter, didn't you know? Fuck everyone else, Karen's gotta have her brunch! /sarcasm

Yeah. I think I might be experiencing the stages of grief out of order here, because I've gone from denial to depression to acceptance to anger.

Not really awake yet. Hoping chai and Lady Gaga will fix that for me.

Went to the doctor yesterday to get a prescription for birth control, and found out that my disappearing libido is not the fault of the pills. May have to get blood tests - the disappearing libido could be a sign of something else. Guh.

Downloaded Lady Gaga's The Remix. It's good. Looking forward to working out to it, if I manage to get the exercise bike I saw at Walmart. I figure having some sort of exercise machine in my house will help me get more motivated about working out. I can literally wake up, drag myself to said exercise bike, and just go at it for a half hour or an hour or whatever.

I should go take a shower.

The weather is so weird outside this morning. It looked like it was going to storm this morning, with the sky a lovely shade of gray and the wind whipping trees around. It still doesn't look too pretty out - no wonder why Kit's still in bed, and I'm just curled up in mine with the laptop. (I should probably get out of bed soon, though, and make some coffee and breakfast)

Today's my first day of sitting in on Latin 2. I hope I can remember enough Latin to actually get through the course. Granted, I'm not taking it for a grade, but still, it'd be nice to actually understand what's going on. It's silly, but I'm a little conflicted as to where I should sit in class. Usually, when Bryan and I took Latin, we'd sit right up front so we could see what's going on. (Oh lord, it's going to be very strange taking Latin without Bryan.) But I'm just sitting in on the class, I've absorbed all the knowledge already... so should I sit in the back? I have no idea. I'll ask Magistra when I get to class.

Also, I'm going to see about getting a gym membership. If I can't afford it, I may just sneak into the fieldhouse and walk a few miles after Latin. I'll see how things go. I definitely need to budget things out so I can figure out what I can and can't afford on unemployment.

Well, there goes my Saturday. I spent an hour or so at the gym and got a good workout, then walked downtown to deposit the check my dad sent me and get something to eat. I went to The Bagelry, which is the only place in town you can get a decent bagel (rumor has it that they had water shipped up from Long Island to make their bagels with years ago, but they don't do it anymore). I waited in line for a half hour! It was a good bagel, though, and the two workers there were doing the best they could. (Apparently just about all their day staff quit for the summer, must have all been Clarkson students.) Then, I walked over to the library, feeling rather exhausted, and found out that they ARE open on Sundays, so I'll go over tomorrow and get those books for that assignment that I let slide until almost the end of the semester. Then I called my mom, and we talked while I walked home. She's not getting the little chihuahua she was thinking about - the little guy hurt himself while roughhousing with two other chis, and he dislocated something in his leg. Mom said she can't risk getting a dog that will probably hurt himself again, and end up in a lot of pain.

I mentioned to Mom while I was on the phone with her that I was in the market for a new computer. (I also mentioned the same thing to Bryan, who said "We've already got two! And three laptops!" However, one laptop is a netbook, which is really pokey. One is Snowball, and he's starting to show his age. His mouse button doesn't work quite like it used to - there may be crap under there, but I don't want to try popping the button off only to break it. Also, his hard drive can't hold everything I have for projects, music, graphics and everything. The third laptop is a dead Dell Inspiron 5100, same model that Ruthie has (which makes it about 7 years old). One desktop is 'mine' (Bryan uses it more than I do), and the other belongs to the TV (used to be Bry's main computer). I was looking at the Dell Studio Hybrid (I know, it's a Dell, but it's all I think Dad will buy me). It seems like a nice little computer, and it'll be $725 with a monitor (and $500something without one). He hasn't bought me a computer since I was 16 (and that was shared with Ruth), so maybe he'll do it... I'm not sure. I hope so.