We made it to Friday, and boy, and I glad.
I had something incredibly clever teed up and ready to go for today. It was all mapped out in my head. I just needed to execute it. But now that I’m here and it’s 3:30 a.m., I find I don’t have the energy or the interest to actually write it.
It won’t surprise anyone here to know that I am a classic Type A personality. What does that mean? I’m achievement oriented, fast-paced, competitive and impatient – none of which is terribly helpful when it comes to pacing yourself or managing stress.
I was not aware until I started writing this post that there are other personality types. I mean, I must have KNOWN they existed, because I know other people who aren’t Type A. But I didn’t know what they were.
So for the record, Type Bs are less focused on competitiveness and more on enjoying the journey – they don’t stress as much about outcomes. Type Cs are more passive, putting other people’s needs before their own. Type D, which in this case stands for “distressed”, are the glass-half-empty folks who are usually on the gloomy side and keep themselves – and their emotions – away from others.
All of these, except maybe D, have their benefits and their drawbacks. Now that I’m reading about this, I might be A with a smidge of D thrown in for good measure. (I worry a lot and sometimes avoid social interaction if I’m feeling particularly blue, but maybe that’s also just a human thing?)
Anyway, the point of all this is that I think I’m teetering on the edge of burnout, which is characterized by feeling emotionally and physically meh – just sluggish, needing to push myself harder than usual to get things accomplished, and faster than usual to become angry or frustrated when I run into the inevitable challenges.
It turns out that two types of people are more at risk of burnout – women and those under 30. I fall into one of those categories. Apparently, though women have long reported higher experiences of burnout over the years than men, that percentage has been steadily rising, and has more than doubled since 2019, according to the Gallup Poll.
The pandemic had something to do with it, certainly. With schools closed and kids at home, women, who tend to take on a greater share of the child-caring responsibilities in a family, found themselves trying to handle remote work and school while also carving out time for themselves.
Some dropped out of the workforce entirely, which, as statistics show, is hard to come back from. Some aren’t even bothering to try. I could get into the whole pay gap thing here, and women not being appreciated or compensated to the levels they deserve, but I’ll leave that for another day.
I have dogs, but I don’t have kids. I have to say that I’m in awe of women who do – whether they work from home, go to work, or simply choose to do the work of raising kids and running a household. I don’t know where these women find the energy to get it all done.
Sometimes just getting the dogs fed and walked and to the vet on top of all the rest of it is almost more than I can handle. And they don’t have soccer practice, or homework, or friends to visit, or phones to manage.
I do not disconnect well. I don’t do down time well. I don’t sit on beaches and do nothing well. I really and truly enjoy being busy and I like what I do quite a bit. Some days, I’m even not bad at it.
But maybe not taking a vacation of longer than a few days for going on five years now, coupled with buying and selling two houses in a year, family dynamics, work, and the existential crisis that is being a human on an incredibly challenged planet is perhaps finally taking its toll.
A number of people have said to me that they don’t see the vacation I’m about to take as much of a vacation. Maybe hiking 110 miles seems like a typical Type A thing to do, and not terribly restful. I guess that’s right, but I am looking forward to just focusing on nothing other than putting one foot in front of another for a while.
We’re in for some possible thunderstorms this morning. They could be on the severe side. The chance of them occurring will reduce as the day goes by. Temperatures will be in the mid-70s.
In the headlines…
President Biden is using the presidential retreat at Camp David to help with a diplomatic mission – hosting the first-ever trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea, two countries that are putting aside a fraught history in the face of shared security challenges.
For the first time ever, the leaders of Japan and South Korea today will gather in a stand-alone summit with Biden, who’s hoping to serve as a bridge builder between the long-time foes.
Undergirding the talks is the three nations’ mutual concern over China, whose leader Xi Jinping Biden has sought to cultivate, despite a hardening view of the leader as an autocrat and adversary.
Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who has helped usher in some of Biden’s most important policies while defending him against Republican attacks, announced that he plans to step down.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) requested that the National Archives and Records Administration provide unredacted documents and communications from Biden’s time as VP as part of the probe into the president’s son Hunter Biden.
A watchdog group said it is suing to get CIA records that could shed light on the process used by the intelligence agency to “clear” a letter falsely claiming that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation.
Biden privately paid his respects to the mother of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, who died last week in Biden’s hometown of Scranton.
Former President Trump’s lawyers are proposing an April 2026 trial in the federal case over his efforts to block the transfer of power after the 2020 election.
Trump urged US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to reject the proposal for a January 2024 trial, saying it “seeks a trial calendar more rapid than most no-document misdemeanors, requesting just four months from the beginning of discovery to jury selection.”
The lawyers said the extraordinary delay was needed because of the historic nature of the case and the extraordinary volume of discovery evidence they will have to sort through – as much as 8.5 terabytes of materials, totaling over 11.5 million pages.
Trump reacted for the first time on camera to the Georgia indictment that accuses him of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 election, dismissing the criminal charges as a “witch hunt” and a “horrible thing for the country.”
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said that it was investigating online threats against the grand jurors who voted this week to indict Trump and 18 others, accusing them of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Trump canceled a press conference scheduled for next week at his Bedminster club where he had previously claimed he would finally unveil evidence of fraud in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election.
The devastation from the wildfire in Maui, the deadliest in the United States in more than a century, reveals the flaws in Hawaii’s efforts to adapt to climate change — and points to ways the state can better protect residents from future fires.
The head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) resigned amid growing criticism over the Hawaiian island’s response to the devastating wildfires that killed over 100 people.
Maui County said in a Facebook post that MEMA Administrator Herman Andaya had submitted his resignation, citing “health reasons.”
It could take months for officials to identify what caused the fire in Maui last week. But some plaintiffs’ lawyers and investors have already begun to blame Hawaiian Electric, the state’s largest utility, which faces at least four lawsuits.
Mortgage rates surged to a 21-year high this week, a jump that will make it even harder for buyers to afford homes in a market hampered by high prices and low inventory.
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage — the most popular home loan in the United States — was 7.09 percent, up from 6.96 percent last week, Freddie Mac said. A year earlier, the 30-year rate was 5.13 percent.
Mortgage rates have spiked during the Federal Reserve’s historic rate-hiking campaign sending home affordability to its lowest level in several decades.
Embattled Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin and his family are locked in a bizarre battle with Gov. Kathy Hochul over a booth at the Great New York State Fair.
Hochul will no longer be recusing herself from decisions and negotiations directly or indirectly connected to Buffalo-based hospitality and gaming giant Delaware North.
Andrew Cuomo issued a subpoena to former state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi earlier this week that seeks her testimony and communications in connection with a 2021 state attorney general’s investigation that led the former governor to resign from office.
Since New York State legalized marijuana two and a half years ago, its effort to set up the industry has been a slow and bumpy ride.
After a sluggish start to cannabis sales in New York, several upstate venues will be selling flower, pre-rolls and other products as part of the state’s “Cannabis Growers Showcase.”
The state inspector general’s office has seen a surge in complaints filed against New York’s Gaming Commission and the gambling entities it regulates since the office took over the handling of the commission’s internal investigations about two years ago.
The estimated value of the New York State pension fund was more than $254 billion at the end of the fiscal year’s first quarter, according to the state comptroller’s office.
Hochul’s role in responding to an influx of migrants to New York has put her in an uncomfortable and politically delicate position in recent weeks.
The state has deployed 108 members of the National Guard to Erie and Monroe counties with roughly 27 at each of the four hotels. The governor’s office says they began arriving at the three Erie County locations Wednesday and will be in Monroe County today.
The Adams’ administration is considering housing migrants in pre-fab units and shipping containers on city streets, using Fort Dix in New Jersey, the Citi Field parking lot and renting out several defunct hospitals and psychiatric facilities upstate and on Long Island.
Mayor Adams fired back after Hochul’s legal team wrote a scathing critique of the handling of the migrant crisis that is taking a financial bite out of the Big Apple.
New York City charter schools have enrolled a wave of children from asylum-seeking families that have recently arrived in the five boroughs in an effort to help address the ongoing migrant crisis.
Adams is packing his passport this weekend for his first trip to Israel since becoming mayor, his office said, making the visit as the country grapples with turmoil over a proposed judicial overhaul.
The Adams administration wants permission from the feds to house migrants in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, the infamous jail that closed down in 2021 following years of complaints over dangerous conditions.
Adams is looking at rezoning barely used manufacturing centers in the Garment District and Chelsea for residential use to help ease the Big Apple’s housing crisis.
Adams announced a new effort to turn empty offices into needed housing more quickly — while also detailing a timeline for plans to transform a swath of Midtown into a “24/7” community.
Big Apple Schools Chancellor David Banks and his longtime love First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright are rumored to be getting hitched this weekend on Martha’s Vineyard.
New York will become the first city in the United States to regulate the safety of e-bikes and e-scooters, but confusion around the new law has led some to ask if the city is banning them.
The New York City economy continued in the doldrums in July, losing 8,100 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis with signs of weakness in the vital entertainment industry as major unions halted work.
Roughly 50 activists rallied outside the Major R. Owens Health & Wellness Community Center to assure residents it was a safe space following a rare shooting earlier this week.
A man jumped 750 feet to his death from the roof of a five-star Manhattan hotel last night, according to police.
Tatyana Koltunyuk, an immigrant from Ukraine, has a “permanent disability” after being bitten by a shark at Rockaway Beach last week, her family said.
Koltunyuk — who lost a large piece of her left leg above the knee — had five surgeries in eight days and will likely need more, along with years of physical therapy, her daughter and son-in-law said.
Binge drinking among adults aged 35 to 50 occurred at record prevalence in 2022, according to research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Use of marijuana in this group also reached historical levels, with 28 percent reporting the behavior, up from 13 percent in 2012.
Nippertown, the arts and entertainment website founded by Times Union music writer Greg Haymes and maintained by a successor since his 2019 death, has been acquired by the Daily Gazette.
Sam Fresina was recently reelected to his fourth term as president of the Firefighters Association of the State of New York in a unanimous vote. Fresina, a former Albany firefighter, was first elected as the 18,000 member union’s president in 2016.
In what the shelter called a “tipping point”, Mohawk Hudson Humane Society said it has been turning away people who arrive with strays, reduced adoption fees and increased hours in hopes of finding homes for the more than 400 animals it currently boards.
