The Thursday Dispatch - 4 June 2026

This week has not been friendly to my sleep schedule. I work five shifts this week. Four of them have been adjusted. I had a closing shift when I would usually have a day shift and a day shift when I would usually close. In a little over 12 hours, I work an overnight shift because my department is going through a major transition and I’m the only one that could cover. I don’t like any of it, but I do this in the name of being a team player.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. About the time I would usually be heading home last night, I started to feel a bit of anxiety. Mentally, I wanted to be home. I felt lethargic all day as it was, now here I am, still stuck at work for another five hours. I had a lot to clean up. I started having negative thoughts to the point of having to take some deep breaths and writing my thoughts into my pocket notebook to process things. It helped some. A coworker gave me a hug, which also helped. Cleaning shit up helped even more. By the end of the night, I felt better, but still annoyed that my brain betrayed me.

I looked back at my journal entries for the week and found I’ve been having a few off days as of late. This after about roughly two weeks of feeling pretty good. According to the survey I filled out ahead of going to therapy, I show signs of being on the bipolar spectrum. I dismissed this at first. Then I go through a low spike, then a high spike, then dropping again. Could there be something to this? Maybe. One thing I know that will always make my mood worse is throwing my sleep pattern off.

I’m sleeping the hours, usually about six or seven (don’t do it), but I never feel refreshed. I started trying some different rituals. Taking a walk after dinner. Meditation with a focus on gratitude in an attempt to turn off my stress receptors (I think I’m phrasing this right). A warm bath or shower in the evening. Drinking tea. Turning my screens off after a certain hour. All in an attempt to drop my cortisol levels to hopefully achieve deeper, more restorative sleep. I have no way of knowing how much any of this has helped because the minute I did, my work schedule has been flipped on its head, denying me the opportunity to do this day after day.

So, I’ve been kind of winging some kind of survival mode this week instead. I cope when I need to cope. So, I brain dump into a notebook when the situation calls for it, take some deep breaths, and keep pushing. In the meantime, I try to remember the good things this past week. I’ve seen people outside of work for a change, including a friend I hadn’t seen outside of work in a while. Always thankful for that. I’ve taken the time to sit on my balcony in the morning while I drink my coffee. Sometimes, Griffey will join me there for a few pets.

I don’t have another therapy appointment for a week. I’m eager to get to the bottom of whatever is causing these moods. But, maybe the best thing I can do is just sleep whenever my body says it needs to. A drink some water too.

Switching gears, I’ve been thinking about things I want to do on this page. You know, because I’m good at sticking to projects. But, I really do want this to be my calm “social media”. There are some things I think that live better on a space like this.

First is sharing links. I’ve tried a little of this before. You can check out the Links tag here for that. But I want to do this more, as I’ve seen things I want to share. And sometimes I don’t have other things to write about because I’m freaking tired, and this gives me an easy way to do this practice without having to structure anything. Also, why keep the cool shit to myself?

Another thing is beer reviews. I used to do this a lot on my old platform. I live across the street from a craft beer bar with 30-something taps (one of which is just nitro coffee). I gave them a visit last week because they were having an event involving a Mexican-chocolate inspired stout that was also barrel infused and it reminded me of why I loved the craft beer world. It truly is a culinary experience. So, I want to start writing beer reviews here, as well as importing some of my old ones into the site. I’ll have a dedicated page for it. I’ll probably tag the hell out of these posts between the different styles and locations these brews are from. Frankly, I’m surrounded by craft beer, with the bar across the street and a handful of independent brewers’ taprooms nearby. I’ve also been thinking a once-a-week happy hour for myself where I try one (maybe two) craft brews could be a nice break to my week. Maybe the Irish were onto something here.

One last thing I’ve been thinking about that’ll also probably get its own page: Chaos Theories. This is in part as a play on the current title of my site, but also as a play on the literal definition of what a chaos theory is, which basically is:

chaos theory (n.) The branch of mathematics and science concerned with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to small changes in initial conditions, making long-term prediction effectively impossible despite the system following deterministic rules. Often illustrated by the butterfly effect, the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could set off a chain of events leading to a tornado in Texas.

I want to talk about anything from the disintegration of the educational system in the US to just little nuggets of life I’ve picked up on over the years. I want to have a dedicated page for these, and they may play off each other from time to time to build off of previous ideas, as they’ll usually be fairly bite-sized posts. At no point do I see myself as an expert in anything I’m writing about with these, but much of it is me learning and recognizing things in real time and giving me something to reference later. Sometimes, I might be simply asking questions.

Weekly Photo

The atmosphere has been alive here. This was a cell that blew up about 50 miles east of me as I was leaving work the other day. Word is this can be an active few days around here, so probably going to be seeing more of this.

Songs in the Chaos

This is my weekly list of songs that either caught my attention or came to mind this past week. I post these throughout the week on a site called Crucial Tracks, where they’re also added to a playlist on Apple Music. Feel free to follow me on either space.