i hope that when future me looks back at these entries, i don't just see a bunch of moaning about all the things that are hard. And don't get me wrong, there are so many things that are hard, but there are many not hard things too... just somehow i don't open up this window as much when i'm in the latter place.

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BT and i had a nice trip through NYC and along the East Coast. It was a scorcher heat wave but we managed to hide out in the AC in my apartment on the worst day. It was a pretty low key week off because we planned almost nothing. This was stressful because i felt a lot of "where will we stay? what should we do?" pressing down on me and spent too much time on my phone googling campsites and hotels and restaurants and parks. And then i felt like if we didn't have a good time it would be a sign to BT that see, we shouldn't have gone anywhere, let's just be home always and never ever leave. But in the end it was quite nice. We drove out to the Coast near DC for crabs one afternoon and I was so happy to be sipping an ice cold beer and banging away at those things with a mallet; crab juices and old bay dripping down my arms. Another day, BT surfed in Jersey Shore, and it was surprisingly lovely. I walked the beach and read my book and watched a gorgeous sunset. On the last day we drove up to Mtl via Vermont so we could stop for lunch with my PhD advisor who was shockingly thin. Six years of dealing with Stage 4 cancer and this was the worst i'd seen him since the initial crisis. His wife whispered, "good timing" as she gave me a long hug.

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Now home. my sister is here too with the baby. Her husband arrives tomorrow. My brother is getting married tomorrow but things feel relatively calm today as they have a monster bridal party that seems to be managing all of it, plus a true diva of a wedding planner ("i've been doing this for 22 years..."). I could never work with him, and I can't imagine why they wanted to, but okay. My brother is so confident about all of it - so sure this is the right thing. How does he do that?

Dad is in the basement watching TV and drinking scotch, but hopefully he'll stop soon and we can have a reasonable dinner with my mom's brothers. I'm tired. I was okay, but the drinking and all the tension around that immediately sapped my energy and i just wanted to crawl into bed with a romance novel and that Happily Ever After but instead I'm making chicken and salads and waiting to see how it all plays out. Best case my dad is quiet and a little incoherent and very tired. Worst case he is loud and very incoherent. The worst part is that all of this makes me want a drink too, but then I don't but then i'm mad because really a drink sounds great right about now.

9:32 a.m. - 2018-07-12