• We killed it today.
• I have gotten a lot of emails saying we killed it today and I am probably going to cry if I get another one.
• This photo? We were babies.
• Two-beer lunch
• My jaw is super-fucked up. I have a physical for the first time in several years on Monday morning. I doubt this has anything to do with my jaw.
• I’m taking a summer class?
• If anyone wants to drink this weekend, I have no plans and, like, summer classes don’t start until May 28.

• Did not study for final
• Took final, wrote some nonsensical ish about the questionable validity of historic preservation without citing any actual Supreme Court takings decisions
• Instructor graded the semester’s worth of papers I turned in this evening, which I had to take off work Friday to complete, while I took the final
• I got As on all the written assignments
• Probably got a C on the final
• Fucked up the registration for the summer class I planned to take
• Probably not taking a summer class
• Probably abandoning the sinking ship S.S. UMD MHP for GMU’S GIS certificate program

This month is just terrible because I had/have an entire semester’s worth of work due, a final, three major work events all about two weeks apart, lots of travel, crazy anxiety attacks, and the resulting fallout of all of that, which has mostly manifested itself in having to explain why all I can talk about is how much my job sucks and how much grad school sucks and why I am basically crying all the time.

I have decided that the best way to deal with my problems is to try to buy myself happiness. I am mostly interested in purchasing bikes, fancy dinners, therapy sessions, registrations for centuries, and this tank top.

• Attended an MDOT meeting, talked about heritage tourism by bike
• Blogged a shitload about bike advocacy
• Tweeted about how stupid grad school is
• Looked into GMU’s GIS certificate program, thought about for the millionth time how shitty UMD is at accommodating part-time professional students
• My laundry
• Emailed the eBay seller of a bike that I had bid on but didn’t win to ask if she had sold it because I couldn’t stop thinking about it; agreed to buy it when she said she still had it (sweet, sweet Serotta custom-built for someone else, you will be mine)
• Updated a bunch of pages on WABA’s website
• Had an hourlong Gchat about how Maryland could just absolutely own it in the bike-tourism industry but probably won’t
• Argued about bikeshare on Tumblr

I’ve said this before, but: The worst thing about trying to earn a degree in historic preservation from University of Maryland is that I am already doing shit that I would do if I held a degree in historic preservation from University of Maryland. 

jhermann:

how big does the rip in the inner thigh of your jeans have to be before you can’t wear them any more

Dunno, still wearing the disintegrating pair of Levi’s I installed a four-inch rip in last month

Kryptonite lock - got it
Bell - removed from old bike
Basket for handlebars - check
Recommended rear rack - ordered
Seat height adjusted - check

Rode yesterday
Fell
Broke my pinkie nail

I am, like, so incredibly proud.

• James and I crossed each other at Florida and Rhode Island last night. I didn’t recognize him, but I knew it was him, still. I didn’t cry because I had on my eyelashes more mascara than all the mascara I’ve worn in my life combined.
• At BikeFest (our big, annual fundraising party), one of my organization’s board members was like, “I was searching for a new road bike, and then I saw all these fixies for, like, $200, and I thought of you and I bought one, so now I have a fixie.” I was very flattered, though I ride a single-speed.
• Pickles, pierogis, and whitefish salad at DGS; Ezekiel cereal in bed; and poached egg puff pastries at Cashion’s.
• I went on a few runs in New York last weekend because I didn’t have any other way to work out and I’m still paying for them in shin splints. Box jumps on Wednesday night probably didn’t help.
• I am going to ride the fuck out of an ad-hoc century tomorrow with Fyxation velcro-strappy things on my pedals because I don’t ride clipless yet, on a bike that I assembled three weeks ago. I am going to be in great shape by the time I ride the New York City century in September.
• I am going to ride the fuck out of an ad-hoc century tomorrow and pretend I a) didn’t have to use fucking up my makeup as an excuse not to cry because I biked past my ex-boyfriend and b) don’t have an entire semester’s worth of homework due in the next week.

A couple of wonderfully well-intentioned, well-timed emails have really recovered shit for me today so, uh, word up to my friends who know when to send me great shit.

I do communications for a small (but v. important!!) bike advocacy organization. I started here in December. I don’t have a communications background, really; I worked at D.C.’s alt weekly for a few years and I have an American studies degree from University of Maryland, which is basically a legitimized programming of Tumblr’s social justice tag. I also have an English degree, but I don’t care about that.

It has taken five months and a lot of dollars in therapy hours for me to figure out what the hell I am supposed to be doing and how to do it correctly and/or well. This is a recent success and has coincided with Developing Routines; the latter has been necessary because May is Bike Month and shit is crazy. I only hit snooze on my alarm twice today and I am really proud of myself.

I don’t ever want to work for a nonprofit again after I’m done here, but my job is awesome and I’m feeling really good about what I’m doing right now (right now = this week; sunshine probably helping). I am writing this post so that when I am unable to get out of bed and am having panic attacks in the bathroom I have something to refer to that reminds me that I don’t suck/my job doesn’t suck.

• 7:03 a.m.: Hit snooze for the second and last time. The only personal lock-screen notification I have is a text my boyfriend sent me at 1 a.m. about his bike trip. After I seethe with jealousy over the thought of Chris touring in sunny and 75-degree weather while I sit at my desk communicating about bikes, I open the work Twitter account to check replies, open the work Instagram to check replies, and open Pages to check the work Facebook for notifications.
• 7:16 a.m.: Get up, turn on the radio, make coffee, take vitamins, run water to wash my face, get distracted and pick up the stuff I’ve thrown around my apartment (between New York and staying at Chris’, I haven’t been home in a few days), turn off the water, check my email, make my bed, turn on the water, actually wash my face
• 7:56 a.m.: Put on glasses, turn off radio, leave
• 8:07 a.m.: Arrive at office (after my two-and-a-half minute bike commute), eat a banana, make tea, check personal Internet (Tumblr, Reader), make sure work blog stuff is queued up, write and rewrite my list of shit to do during the day
• 9:15 a.m.: Say hi to coworkers that begin to trickle in, rewrite email  about this Friday’s big fundraiser event that my coworker saved in Salsa, tweet things, retweet things, push stuff on Instagram to Facebook, make tea, push stuff on Instagram to Twitter, post links to yesterday’s blog posts in places I didn’t already post them, repeatedly curse the people charged with making sure our website doesn’t get hacked for not actually doing their jobs and disabling my WordPress admin privileges so that I can’t set up auto-pushing, make more tea
• 12 p.m.: Noon yoga class. I would punt a small child to go to this class every day. I am either bleary-eyed from staring at my computer and/or iPhone all morning or sore from Crossfit and I need it. I go to it when we don’t have a noon meeting. Someone usually schedules a noon meeting.
• 1:30 p.m.: Eat an actual meal after eating a bunch of tiny snacks makes me realize I really am hungry. Today I had leftover butter chicken and rice because yesterday I acquiesced to my period and bought carryout, but usually it’s, like, nondairy yogurt and paleo granola and other random shit I decide looks good at the organic grocery store, like overpriced kale chips with miso. My coworkers like to eat together in the kitchen, and I like eating with them, but I am eating at my desk lately.
• 1:49: Check social media, work and personal
• 1:48: Check Salsa to see how many people have bought tickets to our fundraiser, get sad, rifle through desk drawer for snacks to make myself feel better
• 2:24 p.m.: Finish an email I’m drafting in Dreamweaver, get distracted because I’m in Dreamweaver and a bunch of pages on the website need to be updated, update one of them, return to the email, stick it in Salsa, check the links, send it, continually refresh the Salsa report to see how many people are unsubscribing from our emails, make tea, update the other page
• 3:50: Edit and return the hard-copy proof of our quarterly newsletter, which is totally mine to write and design and is probably read by about 20 people because who the fuck cares about a quarterly paper newsletter from a bike-advocacy nonprofit?
• 4:32 p.m.: Listen The-Dream’s “My Love” featuring Mariah Carey for probably the twentieth time, scroll through Tumblr, start this post, eat a cookie from the container on the counter that is presumably for the volunteers sealing envelopes in the back room
• 5:00 p.m.: Achieve my preferred status quo of Work Inbox 12 (personal inbox is allowed up to 25) by answering everything and sticking everything else in a Gmail folder
• 5:30, 6:30, or 7:30 p.m.: Crossfit, whenever I leave my office
• After that: I’m not drinking because I stopped after Week 3 of Being Mysteriously Sick in the hopes that it would quash my sickness. It didn’t, but I still go out to, like, bars to hang with people I like. If I don’t do that, I go home, take a shower (sometimes I take a bath and read all the magazines I subscribe to but don’t have time for), drink a ton of water, and hide my laptop from myself/unplug my dinosaur of a desktop so that I won’t do work or look at dumb shit on the Internet and end up staying up way later than I intend to. Sometimes I make dinner, because cooking is great and I do love it, but more often than not I eat carrots and guac or hard-boiled eggs and babaghanoush or something else sad and probably paleo.
• 10:02 p.m.: Start reading
• 10:40 p.m.: Stop reading, check work social media accounts, post relevant links to or information about early-morning outreach stuff
• 10:46: Start reading
• 11:15: Sleep, waking up in hour or two-hour intervals because I need more Ambien, try not to think about how I should be riding my bike more

I do a lot of non-social media and email stuff, too, but it’s a case-by-case basis; there’s no blanket outreach strategies in my toolbox for in-person outreach because I feel like it varies depending on where you are. Regardless, I spend a lot of time updating shit, and it gets weirdly exhausting, but my big accomplishment in the last week was linking the WABA Instagram and Facebook account so, like, I can’t really complain? I also design stuff when someone asks me to, which is hilarious because I can barely use Illustrator because it sucks.

So, yeah, this is how to advocacy, kinda. I don’t care if you didn’t read that, but I’m glad it’s out there, because next week I am probably going to be Over This and spending the hour I need with my therapist to work out other shit talking about my job, which I love, really, again.