My Mom got me a pair of orange earrings that she brought with her to the Graduation Weekend Fiesta. It was a nice acknowledgement that I've done a lot of work in this whole Greg-get-his-degree project (moving, taking a larger share of the household tasks, grad student poverty etc). I'd gladly do it again, but there are always times when I wake up in the middle of the night thinking "What the hell have I been doing? What about me?"

The good news is, I mostly have a ready answer. I've been working at my job where I'm appreciated and respected. I've been travelling to meet other librarians who have been for the most part receptive and intelligent and enlightening. I've been exercising and am in better physical shape than I've been in in the last few years. I've been helping people in town and elsewhere get a grip on new technologies and how they can put them to work in their lives.

Just yesterday I helped my 95 year old student type out an email to the editor of the local paper expressing her displeasure over the firing of one of the managers of the pool that I swim at. Useful! It's a nice long list of accomplishments, but when one of my nuttier older students started going after me about the fact that I don't wear makeup or, as she puts it "take care of myself" I realized I don't have much left in the way of emotional reserves. I get so involved in being a handholder and a person on the sidelines saying "You can do it" that I don't always have a fallback plan if I need someone in my corner. There's a certain amount of instability involved with working with the elderly, the unbalanced, and the small coterie of people who are both. I've always felt that it was partly my job to help these people because, with few exceptions, other people don't. However, my ability to help diminishes dramatically when I've got my plate full of other stuff. I'm hoping to get a little better at balance in the second half of 2006.

The countdown to the Jessamyn Vacation is at T minus eight and counting.