My Head is Full

Like so full.

So much stuff in there.

I have a touch of a headache.

This sometimes will happen when I have been trying to shove too much information into my brain and it just can’t take any more in.

Over the weekend I had to address a lot of homework and do a lot of research.

The research went well, the paper got written, eleven pages thank you very much, but I was still behind.

Not by a lot.

But by enough to make me a feel a touch chagrined with myself.

I had completely missed out a weeks discussion in one of my classes.

I figured out how today when I realized I had read all the chapters well in advance of the discussion and some part of my brain just thought I was totally ahead of the curve.

Plus.

I had met with the professor of the class last week and I just presumed to myself without checking into the actual syllabus that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

I think unconsciously I let myself do it.

I tend to post well thought out, referenced, worded well, well supported, thoughtful post.s

I am typically one of the first people in my classes to respond to a post prompting and I am pretty open and transparent with the work I do, how I am in the world and what is happening personally.

My cohort knows I went through a break up two months ago.

My cohort knows I had shingles.

My cohort knows I juggle a full-time PhD program with full time nannying and a roster of clients, I’m seeing ten this week.

I’m busy.

I dropped the ball in one of my classes.

I can also see that I had a stupendous busy week last week nannying.

The two older kids were on Spring Break and their grandmother has been visiting.

I did not have any time, none at all, to spend on my homework.

I really do rely on getting in at least a couple of hours of work done during the week, sometimes, like today, I can actually even get in two hours of homework a day.

Not always, but anything helps.

Not having a spare minute or moment to do classwork last week put me behind and I didn’t even realize it until I was sitting in a cafe on Divisadero before my Saturday commitment this past weekend.

I literally thought I was going to burst into tears.

I had totally missed the deadline and I didn’t have the book with me that I needed to reference to have posted a discussion.

I made damn sure that came with me today.

I also had to just let it go.

I had to do research for the paper I wrote yesterday and I had to also do a big post for my Creative Arts and Leadership class.

I had to acknowledge that I wasn’t actually going to be able to do the discussion until today.

On top of that.

I have another paper due on Wednesday of this week.

So.

I got lucky.

I got really lucky at work.

Not only were the kids back to school, they had after school activities, I was basically alone the whole day with the littlest guy.

He didn’t have the biggest nap, but he had a long enough one that I did a 1,300 word discussion post with six references to the book in it and I responded to a classmates work as well.

I started looking over the work that I needed to gather up to do the next paper, the one that is due Wednesday, and I could feel my head getting a bit spun.

So.

Lunch break.

Sat down.

Looked outside.

Watched the sky.

Ate a nice meal.

Made some tea.

Got back in it and then the little guy woke up with one of those cries that says I’m not quite awake and something woke me up and I want to sleep more but I will need cuddles to do so.

You don’t know that one?

I gathered him up, snuggled him into my arms and he slept in my lap for another half hour.

It was enough to let my brain simmer down a little bit, but the pot is still dangerously full of stuff.

I went to a cafe in between work and my commitment tonight and I tried to do some more work and I managed to eke out a bit, but really, fuck, my head just said no way, no more.

It is at times like these that I do question what the fuck I am doing.

I know it will pass and I already feel like I have committed myself to it to stop now, but stopping, whoa, it might feel really nice.

When I get stuck I do tell myself to just focus on what can be done today, just today, that’s all I have anyway.

Today.

I did well.

Really.

I did and I need to acknowledge that.

I got caught up and I did the work that needed to be done to prepare for the next paper.

I have my books and notebook packed already for tomorrow with high hopes that I will get another good few hours without interruption at nap time.

It’s a smaller paper, just six pages, but it’s on theoretical framing, so, um, yeah, hella dry.

If I get two hours tomorrow I should be sitting really well.

I also had a client cancel tomorrow night, so I just have one after work.

I’ll lean into it and I’ll get it done.

In the mean time.

Fuck me.

I am tired.

I am in need of tea and a good mindless few minutes of a video that has nothing at all academic about it.

Seriously.

File Under

Make your own damn dinner.

And.

Buy your own damn flowers.

And.

Always.

ALWAYS.

Have a back up plan.

Especially when you realize, hmm, it’s 4:30 p.m. and nary a text regarding the dinner date I was supposed to be on tonight.

Especially since said date didn’t text me this morning like he said in his last message.

I sort of chalked that up to whatever and went about my day.

I did yoga.

God damn I like my Saturday teacher.

I wish he was teaching more often at the studio, but he’s committed to another studio.

He is hands down my favorite instructor and though Saturday 9a.m. is going to be a busy day for a yoga class anywhere in San Francisco, I feel like his class is often super packed because he’s just a great teacher.

I definitely got my yoga on this morning.

I left the studio floating, a glow, a beacon of light in the fog.

Fuck you fog.

Over it.

Done.

Give me back that precious San Francisco Indian Summer you so rudely appropriated.

Cold and chilly and foggy all day long.

Hopefully tomorrow that will lift a little.

I have another date, different guy, obviously, tomorrow to go on a hike around Glen Canyon.

I have never hiked around Glen Canyon.

I realized when I was mapping it out that I had been thinking McClaren Park, not Glen Canyon, so a brand new experience to have in the city.

Stoked for it.

I also just texted tomorrow’s date and asked for confirmation.

This lady has things to do and places to be if there’s not a date happening.

Which was exactly what happened today.

I had back up plans in case this evening’s date fell through.

I used to think that was weak, to doubt the date, to make other plans, then I just realized, no, it’s fucking practical and it leaves me not feeling stood up and left out.

I have a busy life and if this dude can’t even make the effort to text and at least say, thanks but no thanks, then fuck, I got things I can attend to.

Which I did.

I got my nails done and my eyebrows.

I met with my person and I did the deal.

I had coffee and checked in.

I went grocery shopping.

And when I got home at 4 p.m. on the nose and saw that tonight’s date hadn’t texted yet I began to set into motion the other things I was going to do today.

Homework.

So thanks dude for not getting back to me.

I got a fuck load of reading done.

The other thing that was nice about today’s date or lack there of, was that its location was advantageous to me.

It was going to be dinner in my hood.

Like a block and a half away.

I could be here at the house reading my homework with no qualms and if dude was tied up and forgot to text or get a hold of me I was fine doing my thing.

If I had been elsewhere or the date was elsewhere I would have texted to confirm.

But.

I had this voice, quiet and assured.

Don’t fucking chase.

He revealed himself.

And.

I didn’t need to send some passive aggressive text wondering about what was happening.

When the clock hit 4:30 p.m. and I was done unpacking my groceries and balancing my check book and had redone my hair, I knew.

It was going to be a solo dinner for this lady.

I just opened up my syllabus for my Family Therapy class and got down to the reading.

And for tomorrow.

If I don’t get a text back from date number two.

Fuck no, will I be scooting over to Glen Canyon.

I feel better about tomorrow’s date though, it’s not really a blind date.

Yes.

We did match on Tinder.

But.

We’ve known each other for years.

So it was a sort of fun surprise.

And no.

I’m not back on Tinder.

This guy just happened to sneak through before I had deleted the app on my phone.

In fact.

Ha.

I just realized that the one person I am planning on for sure seeing, one of the ladies I work with, hasn’t confirmed with me tomorrow.

I may have more time than I thought.

I usually meet with two ladies on Sunday, one already cancelled, for a really legit reason, and the other has not confirmed.

So I may have a little free time tomorrow before the afternoon date at three p.m.

Note to self.

Cook food for the week.

I got my groceries, now they just need the cooking.

I did hold off on cooking dinner tonight in the off-chance that dude came through, but I did make myself a nice dinner before I went out to see some fellows over at Divisadero and Turk Street.

The other thing I had planned in case tonight’s date fell through.

And it was hella good.

So nice to see my people.

So nice to be seen.

I was invited out to Brenda’s for some fellowshipping, but having already made myself a really nice meal, I decided to come back here, do some writing, call it an early night, watch a video and get up early and do a yoga class in the morning.

I signed up for the 9a.m. class again.

It’s with a teacher I have never had before.

Which always makes me a little nervous, but having been to three classes this week after the long absence, I feel pretty good about being able to hold my own in whatever class I end up in.

Plus.

I’m grateful to have time to take yoga.

I am still on the studio’s monthly plan and when I can it just makes sense to go.

Thank God, again, that the studio is on the block I live on.

Funny that.

I was just thinking.

Tonight’s date lives a block and a half away from me and in the three years I have lived here we have never once met.

Looks like we were never intended to.

Oh well.

Grateful for the information.

Now moving on.

But not chasing.

Oh no.

Never that.

Letting myself be pursued maybe the hardest thing about this whole dating thing.

But man.

It feels so much better than chasing.

Be the ball, Martines.

Be the motherfucking ball.

I am so worth being pursued.

Seriously.

Information

Good information to have.

No judgements on myself or others, it’s all just information.

Like.

Second swing through date with guy from Tinder and no, there’s not chemistry, but, nice guy, and I’m glad the he was in town with friends, he’s an Oakland guy, and at a club near the surprise birthday party that I was at and he came by for a little while.

We cut a rug.

But I was pretty tuckered out.

And that was a clear sign to me.

When the allure of coming home was more than the allure of staying on the dance floor shaking it to a good dj with a guy who wants to dance with me.

Fact is.

My knees were sore and my feet were in agony.

I have fallen arches.

I were arch supports in my shoes.

It sucks.

It is what it is.

However.

The party I was at, the hosts asked that we all remove our shoes, which is great, hey, sure, no problem, except, that I realized I was standing and talking and dancing and walking around and exploring the house, it was awesome and cool and made me have hope of there still being bastions of interesting things in the Mission versus the white washing of condos that seems to be in heavy proliferation there.

So.

My feet hurt.

Like awful.

I go to the party at 9:15p.m.

I left at 1:30 a.m.

That’s four hours of being on my bare feet.

Of course there wasn’t chemistry.

I was in pain.

I’m in pain right now, but it’s not as bad.

That being said, no yoga tomorrow.

At least not the early morning classes.

I am going to let myself get a few hours of sleep, get up shower, meet my person at noon, do the podcast at one thirty, have coffee with a friend in the Castro then run over to Scooter Centre and have them show me how to inflate my scooter tires.

They are low and I noticed it last night.

My scooter seems real bouncy on the road.

I am sure that I could figure it out, but there’s a weird little bit of fear in me the first time I go to do something and I have never done it before, I just want to be shown how to do it and I figure I should also make an appointment for a tune up.

I haven’t done so since I go it in November and I have already put on 1,900 miles on it.

That’s what happens when you live 6.5 miles from work.

No wonder my knees are crappy.

Ten years of riding a bicycle in and around the city and the last five of it on a once speed that I had in fixed gear for three years before I flipped over my hub and went to free.

My knees are shot.

Let me not think about the years and years of being in the service industry and all that wear and tear and just the general bad way I took care of myself for so long.

It takes time to heal from some of that and some of that damage may be too far gone.

I’m ok with that.

I am an old lady.

Yeah, I know, I don’t act like that, although I am very old school about certain things, I am wearing bifocals, call them progressives all you want, I’m wearing bifocals and bitching about my fallen arches and sore knees.

Old.

My brain’s wide awake though and here I sit, decompressing from the day, the night, the drive by date.

I do think I’ll be canceling our coffee date on Sunday.

He’s nice, but I was just not feeling it and my time is precious.

I’ll sleep on it, but yeah, I think there’s not much there.

Friend though, I can tell that, definitely a nice guy and we discovered that we do in fact have a few friends in common.

And.

That leads to an interesting conversation I had with a gentleman tonight at the party, the who do you know game, the six degrees of separation from the birthday girl, and we ended up having quite the fun chat before the date showed up.

I even confided that indeed, a date was on the way.

We had fun chit chatting and flirting, there was definitely flirting and though I separated myself off to meet with the other guy who came by, I did happen to bump back into the gentleman who I had conversed with more.

He was in line waiting for the bathroom, which I had just used.

I told him I was going and he asked about finding me on facecrack.

I said, yes, absolutely find me on all things social media.

However.

There is an easier way.

“Do you have your phone on you?” I asked.

He pulled it out.

He handed it to me.

I put my phone number in it, called my phone, and then plugged my name into the contact field.

“Now you’ll know how to find me,” I said.

FYI.

I have never done that before.

And it was real easy.

Good information to know.

I think there was a quick hug, then I was gathering up all my things and scooting out the door.

To scoot on down the road.

To get home to my sweet, humble, cozy little abode.

I am so lucky to have such a full life.

Even if I miss yoga in the morning and don’t have quite the amount of sleep I’d prefer.

Oh!

And I may have procured a ride up to Burning Man.

Not back, which is what I figured would happen, one person up and another back, but hey, that’s half the battle, we’re going to talk next week and iron out details.

And my bike has a ride up.

Things are starting to fall into place.

They always do.

“Have you figured out Burning Man yet?” A friend asked me this evening on the sidewalk outside of Our Lady of SafeWay.

“Nope, but it’ll all fall together, it usually does,” I said and smiled, completely in faith that what I was saying was true, because, well it is.

“That’s what I like about you Carmen, you buy a ticket and you just go!” He smiled in wonder.

That’s called faith.

And I do have that.

I do.

And that is probably why I am the luckiest girl in the world.

I don’t need to figure it out.

I just need to have faith.

And I have it in spades.

Seriously.