On the ups and downs

In preparing this month's Scientiae on the theme of "bumps and humps", I wrote a whole long post about the ups and downs of research (you'll see it in a few more days).

But today I've been feeling out-of-sorts in other ways. Felt okay when I woke up. Suffered through exercise, hated every freaking minute of it, but felt better afterwards. On a graph that would probably look like flat - down - up.

Got some work-related email that made me happy and angry at the same time, a combination I never would have imagined I would experience so frequently that I'm starting to need a word for it. Kind of like "frienemy", what could I call it?

Hangry sounds like I need something to eat.

Happry sounds like my hubby came home and I'm no longer ronery.

Anppy sounds like bad hair.

I'm sure there's some better combination of synonyms that would work, like happy + furious? I'm accepting submissions for how to describe this emotion.

Anyway. I digress, but at least I find it amusing!

Did some relaxing things during the day, but I couldn't get as much work done as I wanted to, and then this evening I found myself getting increasingly furious about things over which I don't have much control.

I can't help wondering what I could do and whether I should try it. That's just the kind of person I am. I always want to get in there and break things, make a mess. It's what I do best.

But mostly I think I'm mad because this particular infuriating thing is a symptom of other, bigger problems (as most infuriating things usually are).

I'm mad because I know that if I can make it through another day, tomorrow will be better, and the day after that will be even more of an improvement.

But I'm impatient. And I'm so neurotic that I'm even impatient about trying to learn to be more patient! Aagh!

And I know that for every small step forward, there's every reason to expect all the same shit to happen again.

So then I go back to wondering how I can avoid having all the same shit happening over and over and over. What am I supposed to learn here? Am I being punished for something I did (probably)? Is this something I can fix, or am I just supposed to suffer through it?

Whenever things are looking up, I know that eventually I will trip and fall on my face.

And that, my blog-friends, is why I'm the kind of person who thinks that if the glass is half full, somebody is bound to spill it. And the glass will probably get stuck in my bare feet just because I'm nearby when it shatters.