It's Friday. Whoo.

The Day in the Life exercise was very enlightening. I saw a snapshot of myself - a woman who gets up too early and is hounded all day by other people's problems, who comes home to a house she needs to clean and maintain, and collapses early after a dull evening. Yeah, that's me.

It was really driven home when I had to go back to the same lawyer's office in R's truck and sit through another meeting, and we were getting back to the office at 4:30 and still went back to the office instead of veering off for margaritas. We were on the off ramp to the office when he said, "Want to stop somewhere?" I said, "Of course I do. Should we?" and we both started coming up with reasons why we can't. That's my life in a nutshell: Too much work, too few patio bars.

Monday we have a meeting on the same deal with the entire cast of characters in the afternoon. It will be intensely tedious and detailed. I think it's a safe bet that there will be no margaritas afterward.

I could not do what R does, I could not do what our beloved lawyer does. I hate what I'm doing, and I'm not under as much pressure as they are. This business sucks. How did I forget this? Why did I come back? Oh yeah, that's right, because the place I was before sucked worse.

I am just burned out.

My father has a hospital bed now. My mother called and left me a voicemail while I was in a meeting. I picked up an egg crate pad to make it a bit softer, and mattress cover, because my mother can't get out to do anything because she can't leave him and doesn't trust anybody to come in. We can use the sheets she has for now, with artful tucking they'll work. So I'm going over there tomorrow, to run errands and help arrange things and try very very hard to talk her into accepting local help, because I can't do what I'm doing and do that too.

And this is the situation I saw coming, dreaded, and tried to avert. They wouldn't cooperate, and it's still my goddamn problem.

Exercise is becoming my sanity saver. I work with a bunch of very driven people who are equally driven about working out, and I so totally get it - it releases the tension, it frees the mind, it's a survival tool. Knitting works too, but doesn't work off the stress in the same way. I can do what I'm doing as long as I force myself to work out every day. Funny how the elements of life come together and make you do what you should be doing anyway.