Yesterday I learned that I don’t like grilling precisely because it’s outside — it feels a lot like survival cooking. I have forever had this idea that I was an indoor kid because I was fat* or because I was no good at sportsball or because I was smart or something. It’s a little bit that I was socially isolated like the common usage of “indoor kids”, but mostly it’s because I spent a lot of time outside trying not to fucking die. Making it technically harder to cook than is necessary, or doing it outside, both feel about as recreational to me as painting dormitory cinder block walls institutional…

I’m feeling very alone tonight, despite having had an reasonable amount of human interaction in more than one location with more than one person. I’m experiencing a fairly high level of distress and I don’t yet know why. I started writing to figure it out, but it’s not really going. Turns out it’s mostly about waiting. I’ve been doing a lot of waiting lately. Not the sort of slow-burn anxiety that I’ve spent years learning to cope with, where I’m holding on to a priority over days and months trying to push it into existence one inch at a time. That kind is hard, but can see it happening, and…

Let’s see if my life is sane enough for me to get back to daily The Screeds. Maybe even some where I do something other than desperately try to process my day via telegram or just list all the things I need you to know for future context and hoping you can extrapolate some feels. Got gas service restored today, so cooking and hot water and heat are all part of my life again. I’m trying not to let a day without reinforce my feeling that it’s never safe to be without fuel and spark*. There weren’t even any particularly bad outcomes, it was just inconvenient. But it sure makes…

It’s still hard times with school and starting treatment. Pressure from one side and disinterest from the other. Anxious waiting and much uncertainty. I wish I could do something to make it better but I can’t even guess what that might be. All I know to do is offer reassurance and attempt to keep my own anxiety from spreading. But other things are very good. Shanda tells me that the security I have tried to communicate through residential real estate is doing what I hoped. I had been so worried that I was forcing something unwanted but I’m now fairly confident that it is doing genuine good. It would be…

I talked to both Pete and Mother in the past two days, neither of which was great. Pete wants to tell a story about how “he’s finally at a place in his life”… where he can help, and how he wants the good feels of thinking he’s helping. But he can’t really spare more than $3k-$4k of his $10M because he doesn’t want to end up “getting bumped into the next tax bracket”*. Also he wants me to know that for this to work I’ll need to manage Mother’s feelings because he’s done all he can just to talk to her about this in the first place, and he doesn’t…

I can’t seem to get my feelings into a stable state today. One minute I’m fine and the next I’m desperately lonely. One minute I’m motivated to work and the next I can’t stay focused enough to watch TV. I suspect I’m one the edge of an old feeling about when I was kicked out of school, felt hopeless abandoned in Iowa, didn’t know how (if) I was going to claw my way back out, or even how I was going to keep paying the rent. And that I’m just getting enough brain space back from this week’s stresses to actually have feels I’ve been twitchily avoiding while I was…

Today was better. Looked at (mostly) better apartments — places I would actually be willing to live. A couple more to look at tomorrow, but I’d be satisfied with two of the places we saw today. And they’re both empty so we could move in right away. Well, as soon as we own beds at least. Got some time to talk to M and you reassured me that I’m not a terrible person for wanting to live with you for a while. I know you feel guilty about demanding too much from me. Someday we’ll figure out how to understand that we share this problem rather than feeling divided by…

It’s hard to write today. Sometimes that’s because I haven’t done things, but that’s not really true here – I looked at an apartment and walked all around the neighborhood and made logistical preparations for next week and talked to Shanda and called Mother and started work on S’s letter (which I also couldn’t write). I still have plans for some more later. But my brain does not seem to be arranged for sharing today. Household stress is still high – not that there’s any reason it would have changed – and I’m sure that’s part of my difficulty. But it’s not stress keeping me silent, at least not directly.…

I did actual work today, for like several hours at least. Which is good for keeping my job, and an okay distraction from the household, but not a particularly fulfilling day. Still it’s nice to be done for the week, and I’ve taken Monday off — to facilitate moving myself and getting everyone else out of the house — so I’ll be able to ignore it entirely for a few days, and that always feels nice. Hung out with nerdy college students tonight, as they were kind enough to not shame me into leaving. It was one of the better times at the house this week. Actual talking, reasonably high…

Progress today on many fronts. Looking for housing and talked with M about what you out of that. Started working on the appeal. Got rid of one of the people in the house. Got back to my day job. Told people I would be gone until December. Thought about how I’m going to pay for all of this. Made plans about ditching the house. Found a context to write to BC in. And got some really cute pictures of Dog. Still lots of managing other people’s emotions. And lots of self-imposed isolation to keep from having to do so. Some ridiculous interplay wherein someone wants to use my patriarcal role…