Hey There! It's 8:14 AM EDT, 78°F, Humidity 64%, Wind 15 mph SW, rain. AQI 197 (unhealthy).
Today should be a transition day for the smoke in the air. Hopefully the combination of rain and wind will clear the air out by tomorrow morning. Hopefully.
The events of yesterday are hard to describe. I went through my morning routine, and had a bowl of oat bran for breakfast. My objective for the entire day was to get as much rest as I could before the opening presentation of the project, so I did little else but sit on the couch and scroll the web. I am realizing how little I read these days, and I have to find my way back to that as a substitute.
Here are some of the things I pursued on the internet:
- I read a post from a guy I've been following for some time who slow-rides scooters and motorcycles in central Pennsylvania. He's a meditative writer, and I like his stuff. He started writing, then switched to creating videos for a while, and lately has gone back to writing.
- I tried to change my gravatar, but it appears I need a wordpress.com account to edit it, so not going there. I'll just let it sit.
- A couple of shipments came in, one with DW's CPAP gear, and one for me that included solar panel stands. I pulled those into the house.
- I checked on my rotisserie team. Nothing going on there.
- I did a little pre-investigation for the baseball trip we're planning for our daughter. Gonna be costly, as I think we're going to foot the majority of the bill.
- I read The Onion. Always hilarious.
- I watched a couple of videos. One was a "how I use this" video for a portable power station on a camping trip.
- Did a little bit of writing, and kept tabs on the air quality.
Around 2:30 PM I had dinner, which was leftover chicken with rice and some beans. Then I tried to take a tiny nap. By 3:30 I had to leave for the presentation site and the first public presentation.
I got there at 4 PM, and the FL and I went over a few crucial sections. But as I was sitting there, going over the presentation, I began to feel nerves like I've never felt before. A strange feeling of mental and emotional disassociation crept over me. I was there, but I knew deep down I didn't want to be there, and I think my body just began to freeze up. By the time the start time came about. I was almost incapacitated. But I went out there, and it wasn't pretty.
Right from the beginning, things I had always felt confident about began to crumble. I missed whole sections, had to backtrack to get critical information out, and at times I was sitting there, not even knowing what part of the presentation I was at. The FL was just as bad, but I cast no blame on her at all. I wasn't there, and I wasn't ready.
We did manage to stagger through the whole thing, and by the reaction of the audience I could tell they probably never knew the difference. But I could tell, and it completely unnerved me. If it wasn't abundantly clear before this moment - it was now. My technical skills have eroded to the point where I shouldn't be doing these kinds of public presentations anymore. Like a baseball player who finally realizes he can't catch up to the fastball anymore, it's time to hang up the metaphorical spikes. Last night made that abundantly clear. Time to turn in the keys.
I drove home and told DW what a disaster it was. She didn't push the matter, just listened. I sat back on the couch, frittered away the rest of the time, had a "dinner" of peach pie and a slice of Swiss cheese, and eventually went to bed at 11:00 PM.
There are still 4 more scheduled public presentations to go. I will probably be able to stagger through them, and I am fairly certain there won't ever be a complete breakdown. But the struggle will continue to be real, and I'll probably end up limping to the finish line. And once I cross that line, it'll be time to renew and reconsidering the future.
Notable deaths: Ron Hunt, second basement for the NY Mets in the 1960s, 85.
'Til We Meet Again!