Daily? No. Let's strive for weekly.

Every year, NaBloPoMo seems like such a great goal. Such a great, completely inaccessible goal. There's no way I'm even going to try. I will attempt to at least kick some of the dust around, though. I really miss blogging, and having something to say.

I've been falling into bed around nine o'clock these days, leaving the hall light on and rolling around fitfully. It's like I'm trying not to let my body gets its hopes up about the possibility of a solid block of sleep. If I snuggle in, get warm, get comfy, let the room get dark and quiet, then the inevitable crackle of Protesting Boy over the baby monitor will come as that much more of a jarring heartbreak. Keeping one toe in the waters of wakefulness helps me stay sane, somehow. When I'm already expecting it, the midnight trip to the rocking chair is a little bit easier.

Oh,I'm tired of sounding like a broken record at work. It's got to be a pain in the ass to hear me yawn and stretch, yawn and stretch, then chatter like a freak for about twenty minutes after my two cups of coffee, and then yawn and stretch and rubrubrub my eyes and lather rinse repeat. Sometimes I get way grouchy, too, and throw out bitch responses to, like, technophobic old ladies whose reluctance to make their own photocopies is mildly annoying, yes, but otherwise benign. Or, when a patron asks me if the library has a copy of "Predators" she could check out, and I say "Predators, as in the film?" and she says "No, the movie," instead of swallowing my intellectual superiority complex with a Shut Up Chaser, I sigh heavily, look up at her, and say "SO THE FILM, THEN."

I feel extra guilty every time my fatigue gets in the way at work, given that my workplace is facing a budget shortfall of an amount that looks, ohhhh, pretty much exactly the same as my annual salary. So there's that. I'm hyper-aware of needing to look like a Valuable Asset, constantly nervous about every dime I spend on programs and books for my department. Today I went out and bought paint and primer and other supplies for a project I'm working on, turning an underused display case into a gallery for student art. I snuck in the back door with my purchases so that no one would see me toting shopping bags, and then I smuggled my packages through the stacks and into the staff workroom like a thief. It's ridiculous, I know, but I'm terrified that everyone's thinking it, sitting around in the breakroom, saying "Doesn't she know there's no money?" and "She should be grateful to even be here!"

And I am. Grateful. But it's hard to walk around with your grateful face on for eight hours a day, five days a week. I'm at least trying to tone down the yawns and stretches, to be professional. To lead the old ladies to the photocopier, show them where to put their change, explain to the gentleman that a driver's license can't go through the fax machine, smile, think about how great this will all be when -- OH MY LORD -- I am rested again.