8/2/21

I feel like garbage. Mentally and physically.  I never call off last minute, but my brain and body just won’t work together.

I don’t know what I did to deserve the silent treatment with R.  I went outside and sat with my neighbor this morning and cried.  I never cry in front of him.  He asked if we needed to go somewhere sometime this week.  He’s a good guy.  He cancelled his weekend plans to take a mental health break.  We’re in a similar boat.  Absolutely exhausted.

Crying at 8 AM is always awful.  Waking up exhausted with a sore throat on top of it just adds to it.  My jaw hurts.  The swimmer’s ear isn’t getting any better, but that’s probably because I’ve been smoking to cope with stress again.  I know it isn’t good for me.  I don’t like doing it, but it calms me down for a little bit at least.

With 9000 miles back to you.  I still feel like home is in your arms.

The remix of that song has hit me on an emotional level.  Some people cry over lyrics.  I cry over sound. You know the composition of a track is beautiful when it can hit you straight in the heart and help you pour out everything inside.  I love it so much, but I hope this doesn’t turn into one of those situations where I can’t listen to it without crying.

Snaily Dan got out last night.  I found him on the floor with a cracked shell.  Put him back into the tank and within about 30 minutes, he was up and moving again.  He has never tried to escape, so I think the water conditioner may have shocked him a bit.  The crack is to the outside and doesn’t appear to have gone down to the snail itself.  I hope he’ll be okay.  He’s a good snail.

The fish have been swimming lower in the tank.  Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels are fine according to the test kit I got.  I can’t control the hardness of the water unfortunately.  New filter was properly rinsed.  I think they may just be a little freaked out because of all of the changes in the tank lately. The corydoras, pleco and shrimp are all doing fine though.  No signs of ich and I removed a plant that had died, along with some excess branches of plants that were beginning to collect a lot of food bits and such (I have a green thumb with aquarium plants and they grow really, really fast so I find myself having to trim them a lot).

I did catch the pleco bullying my other snail.  I had to chase him away.  He has plenty of food, so I’m unsure as to why he’s harassing the snail.  Plecos usually only do that if they don’t have food, but I put in algae wafers and plenty of flakes/worms.  Maybe I just got the dickhead pleco. The tank isn’t overstocked either. I feel like I’m troubleshooting like I do at work but with living beings.