It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve posted—okay, it has been a long time since I’ve posted—so I figured I’d give a status update.

The rain is really beginning to wear on me. I was supposed to fertilize a month ago but still haven’t because it rains so much every week that the pasture is flooded or at least too squishy to get the tractor into. I’m supposed to put out grass seed next weekend, but given I haven’t fertilized, yet, that will be delayed, too. I was going to visit my parents this weekend for Mothers’ Day, but the storms had my mom worried about me traveling. So, curse you, rain, you have thwarted my plans yet again!

I was talking to one of my commissioners earlier today, who mentioned the trials of rural life. He brings up a good point: you are much more dependent on the weather out here. When I lived in the city, if it rained, it was a nuisance because traffic would be crawling, or it would mean I’d have to drive slower to avoid losing control, but beyond that, even if I got rained on while walking to or from my car, it still wasn’t that big a deal. Now that I’m out here, my weekend’s plans literally depend on the weather! Whether I fertilize or plant, whether I put up fencing or not, whether I even do the laundry or not (carrying my clothes in from the truck with it pouring down rain would be kinda counterproductive), it all depends on the weather. In the wintertime, whether I go places over the weekend or not depends on whether it’s freezing or not. Yes, the weather has much greater impact out here than it does in the city. Still, as annoying as it is, I thought about moving back to the city a few weeks ago and found myself firmly of the opinion the the country is better. What can I say, I’ve gone and spoiled myself on living out here: very little traffic, clear skies, no tall buildings, stars at night, lots of greenery…it’s just hard to beat and hard to give up.

Work is all kinds of frustrating: on one hand, work has been scarce, so figuring out how to occupy my new minimum-45-hour week has been very challenging. On the other hand, the work that we have had has been very tedious, so I need to push on and get the full 45 in rather than just throwing up my hands and saying, “Eh, there’s not enough to do; I’m gonna take some time off.” That would be really nice, though: I could really go for some time off.  On the other hand, I talked with my sister yesterday, and she says her husband worked 84 hours last week. 84 freaking hours! I can’t imagine how he does it. He’s a welder, so maybe it’s just…more satisfying than what I’m doing. I know I can really make the hours go by when I’m doing something I can really sink my teeth into, so maybe he’s just found something rewarding, or maybe he’s just better at working long hours in the face of boredom than I am. I wish I knew a way to put in more hours: I could definitely use the money.

Speaking of money, I’ve halted my commissions completely, including my ongoing commissioners. I started to write a few weeks ago and just found the very idea of doing it overwhelming. Like it or not, I think I’ve hit some kind of writer’s block or mental exhaustion or something, so I’m lying low for the time being. It’s frustrating because it’s not like I’m doing that much more than I was before at work: it’s only a 12.5% increase in hours, so why am I feeling so much more drained than I was before? I dunno. I wish I could snap my fingers and fix it.

Speaking of fixing things, I may or may not have mentioned my frustration with sex: it takes a long time to get off, my libido is low, all that fun stuff, and it has always been this way, ever since I can remember. I remember my dad telling me when I was in middle school, “it doesn’t take that long to get off.” I’ve always wondered what was going on. Well, a friend of mine and I started researching, and apparently there is a documented condition for it called PSSD: Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction. I was on antidepressants as a kid for OCD, and the one in particular was so bad that a few years later, the FDA came out and said it should never be given to children…oops. Too little, too late, but it is what it is. Now that I finally have a name for what’s going on after all these years, I started looking into cures. Unfortunately, it’s not a very well-studied area, but my friend did stumble on an article in one of the medical journals describing a treatment that anecdotally worked. There’s a drug composed of several herbs (I know, I know…homeopathic medicine is bull-crap, but when traditional medicine fails, you start looking anywhere you can find a solution, bull-crap or not, because doing something seems like a better idea than doing nothing) that’s marketed in Italy and nowhere else. Interestingly, the article listed the ingredients in the drug, including their quantities. So, although we can’t buy the drug here in the US, we can recreate it using readily available herbs. And that’s what I did: I bought all the herbs they listed, measured them all out, made a 120-day supply (the article said the person was on the drug for 4 months), and am now taking them. So, here’s hoping that it works. It would be amazing to finally be rid of this curse of 20 years, to experience sexuality the way it’s meant to be experienced. Time will tell, but in the meantime, that stuff is nasty!

It’s not all bad news, though; the herd is now four strong. My farrier needed to downsize and asked whether I would take one of his horses. After waiting for the rain to quit long enough that we could actually evaluate the new horse in with the herd (country life, you know…), the new mare finally came out, and she and the rest of the herd are slowly acclimating to each other. I had to play disciplinarian a couple of times—she was really mean to the donkeys—but I think they’re finally adjusting and even getting along. Much to my delight, I’ve seen her and my horse start scratching each other. It’s always happened when I started scratching one or both of them first, but I’m hopeful that they’ll eventually get to where they’ll spontaneously start grooming each other the way the donkeys do. That would totally make my day!

I think that’s about all for now. Time to go…do something…or nap… A nap sounds good.