we now return you to your regularly scheduled pepper report

Pepper time!







As you can see, some of the sprouts are getting tall enough that I tied them to makeshift popsicle stick stakes.





Others are smaller,





or smaller yet,





or still utterly tiny (with no visible change from last week, in the case of the poor last, slowest sprout, alas!).





And it looks like the lopsided sprout, which had balanced itself out at long last, may be fixing to grow a third leaf rather than a third-and-fourth pair, and thus unbalance itself once again. I follow its progress with great bemusement.





Oh yeah, and the onion is doing all right too, though I keep having to go scoop dirt back into the pot every two or three days. I am getting really annoyed with the local wildlife (or domestic life, as the case may be). *frowns with equal disapproval at squirrels and cats*

my habitual response to stress is to curl into a ball and sleep forever; this is counterproductive

I have been really, really tired these past several weeks. And it's not like I've been doing anything physically draining. It's entirely mental/emotional exhaustion, which then translates into physical exhaustion.

Yes, this is related to the smoke shop closing, and specifically to having to explain the details over and over and freaking over, and to having to endure people's rants about "evil capitalism" and all the other completely random monologues for which I have somehow become the designated receptacle.

I have hit the point where if I am not actually interested, I just pull out something to read and go "Uh-huh, mmm, uh-huh" into any pauses I happen to notice and don't bother with any further response, nor do I look anywhere even vaguely near the person who is talking at me. I am aware that this is incredibly rude. I have ceased to care. It's a defense mechanism to keep me from exploding and yelling at people who want to talk about the impending closure, and particularly the people who insist on telling me their memories immediately after refusing to write them down in our memory book. I just cannot cope with having to smile through the same reminder of my shitty situation multiple times an hour for the fourth week in a row.

...

Anyway, I haven't gotten anywhere on job searching because by the time I get home, I have no spoons left for anything that requires concentration and emotional fortitude. (This is also why I have been even slower than usual about responding to comments. Conversations, however virtual and time-delayed, eat spoons in a way that writing posts doesn't. I think it's the social interaction aspect. So I'm sorry about my temporary communication problems. I will answer you, I promise! Just... not right now.)

I did finally manage to cook something tonight. I have no idea how it will turn out, but basically I dumped one chopped onion, a handful or so of craisins, and four pork chops (cut in half) into my crockpot, and covered that with a "sauce" made of three cheap applesauce cups, 1.5-ish tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, some dried rosemary (3/4 tsp-ish?), and a dash each of cinnamon and ginger. It's cooking on low, and I expect it should be done around 5am.

So that's something.

I also have a dental checkup Tuesday morning, and I've made it to the first two session of my adult RE class that meets on Wednesday evenings, so I have not totally lost my grip on my life, but yeah. I am very, very tired, and I just want everything to STOP for a while.