Darkoshi

I am soon going on a week's trip to California to visit my dad and stepmom. I haven't seen them in over 4 years. The last time I was in California was 2008. The last time I flew in a plane was 2015.

I'll need to be at the airport around 5:30am in the morning, which is around when I usually go to bed. I doubt I'll get much if any sleep that day. But hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep while flying. I bought a special travel pillow for that purpose. As rarely as I fly, I'd rather be looking out the window. But sleep is a necessity, so.

I've been quite stressed planning for the trip along with doing all my regular work. I have no plans for what I'll do once there, other than to probably be relieved to have made it. (I hope nothing goes wrong. Och. I shouldn't even be posting about it; it's like tempting fate)

I hit myself on the head again yesterday at work. While washing my hair this morning, I noticed it was tender and bruised feeling in that spot. But at least it isn't swollen. If anyone else hit me that hard, I'd have grounds to charge them with assault. I really need to stop doing that.

In those moments of rage or intense frustration, it feels like the universe is taunting me; like a personal affront to me by the inexplicable dynamics of existence, instead of just being a badly coded website which is hogging my CPU and making my computer and browser slow to respond, or instead of it being a medicine bottle so well designed to make it hard for youngsters to open, that it's damn hard for me to get open too.

I think I end up hitting myself at work instead of venting my rage in other physical ways, because hitting myself doesn't make much noise. Hitting something else would make noise and be noticeable. Hitting something else might hurt my knuckles. My seat cushion would be the best thing to hit, if I absolutely had to hit something. But that would still make some noise, plus I'd have to stand up and crouch down in an awkward position in order to do it.

I am back home. At work, after a week off, I had accumulated 231 unread emails. By the end of today, I had it down to about 165 unread. But by the end of the day, I was already feeling frustrated enough again to want to do something violent. I resorted to biting down on one of my stress balls. That made my teeth ache and didn't make me feel any better. I need to find a better way of dealing with stress and frustration than being violent. Otherwise I might really end up hurting myself one of these days.

Feeling down makes me care less about other beings. I care less about whether I kill a mosquito or not.

The 9 hour transatlantic flights were much more endurable this time than on my last such trip a few years ago, due to each seat now having its own little display screen. One could choose to view any of many many movies or TV shows, play various games, or listen to music including many CDs of various music styles.
On the return flight, I watched the movie Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. I felt it was a very good movie. It even brought tears to my eyes in a couple of places.

I had gotten some noise-cancelling headphones; the noise-cancelling part was good for reducing some of the airplane noise, but they also doubled as very good ear-warmers in the plane.

Living on my own, I now have to cook for myself all the time instead of only once in a while. Except for the days we go out to eat; but that is offset by the food I cook not lasting as long, because someone else is eating it too.

Having my own place, I am spending a significant amount of time doing things which I did not used to have to do, such as mowing grass, maintaining the yard, cleaning out gutters, shopping for useful items such as washing machines and toilet brushes, and getting house repairs and improvements done.

Having a friend who now spends several nights a week with me, those are several days per week where I do not get very much else done, as it seems rude to me to spend time doing other things when ze is here.

So I have more to do, and less time to do it in.

It wouldn't be surprising if I were somewhat stressed from it.