I'm slowly returning to my usual life, answering messages, reviewing decisions, and finishing the last tasks before my conferring in November. In keeping with Libra season, I will try to be more thoughtful with my responses, to not let the pull and tug of errands and chores distract me from the pleasures of social graces.

Stuff worrying me right now: whether or not to have a baby in a time of climate crisis; the fact I haven't rang my mother in months; the book proposal I haven't written yet; Daragh's dismay that I want to even write that book, given the stressful circumstances under which I wrote my PhD dissertation and the fact that it will not produce any money, aside from a possible tax-free 40K government grant to write it; Brexit impacting life in our small town; oh god, the weird stare I caught from some man walking on the other side of road, spurring me to think worryingly about the growing anti-immigrant rhetoric in Irish society.

I cope by small degrees: walk on, let Sam loose in his beloved park, read books about people struggling and surviving in the worst conditions; write back friends. Doing so, I might maintain, more than a veneer of normalcy, attention to necessary tasks and goals.

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