I’ve been thinking about my fear that actual me is too much if I let it all show. That I will necessarily overwhelm the people around me if not outright disgust or even harm them. And about my response of trying to be less and show less, to make sure that situation doesn’t occur. If I set aside the part I logically know is wrong1This is of course a part I still need to deal with, because knowing a thing doesn’t magically make my brain believe it. But any bit I can peel off of the isolation ball and throw into the pile of parts I can have help with…

Here’s a reassurance I gave to Shanda last night after she read The Screed, that she though might benefit others: You and I both separately want there to be fewer times when you feel overwhelmed. It’s not a harm we enact on each other, it’s our individual trauma haunting us both at the same time. But it’s a thing we both want to improve and can do together. It’s Dave’s birthday today. Merry birthday. I got you nothing. You could have a care package if I had any idea what color safety would help you. But I don’t. Tell me about the colors that aren’t working because I’ve tried a…

A thing I hear about myself, particularly in the context of me wanting more inbound sharing, is that I induce a feeling of being overwhelmed in others. This is obviously not ideal. Not for me and not for the people who find themselves overwhelmed. I know it is not a thing that people necessarily think I am doing wrong or that they feel directly hurts them (depending on how angry you are at the time; angry overwhelmed people are usually pretty clear on how I’m hurting them) but it is a barrier to communication and closeness. And it rubs on my fear of being too much for normal humans. And…

Watched some more Future Man. The makeup on that show is great1Coupe does come off as a bit orange particularly in green screen two-shots. Her makeup is a bit orange to go with the hair but the color timing could be better in some places. on everyone. The eyelashes on time-twin Tiger are such a good play (particularly when revealed to be a play in-world) and I love the bit where they get plastered to her face after a failed bathtub assassination attempt. The show also has survival motivations all around, a strong contempt for power structures of all kinds, genuine feels organized around an unrelenting set of dick jokes,…

On Monday I snuggled with Dog in bed. He frequently wants to lay with his spine pressed against me at night. That is a little hard for my touch issues but he’s a dog so the way I imagine that being within arm’s length of me is physically revolting feels less important. And there’s a blanket between us that offers him some protection from my body, which probably bumps the effective range to 2 or 3 feet, which some people can stand. It still sometimes is more than I can handle to have him so close but many nights it’s fine. But Monday morning he came to lay at the…

Got the door alignment sensor working on my front door lock. Would have been easy except I don’t own a 5/8″ drill bit. Which is the same reason I didn’t install one at M’s (though there the challenge increases by only having a 1/4″ hex driver). I got it working with some creative drilling and it’s cool that is knows when the door is open. Now it will lock automatically after a timeout, which is very nice. I should still get a 5/8″ drill bit. And figure out how to make the sensor piece happen for M too. Watched Wreck-It Ralph (2012). Well constructed like you’d expect from the production…

I’ve been having trouble writing but I shouldn’t sit on this anymore. So let’s settle for disjointed fragments and just send it. It’s been a hard week for Shanda. And hence for the household. She’s nervous to the point of distraction because of a hundred things — her sister is here and there’s CASA stuff coming up and her shoulder hurts and the snow and me being back home. I’m trying to help her manage until things calm back down but it’s hard because even noticing out loud that she’s stressed feels like an attack or an attempt to assert control. Sometimes we can come together on it but we…

I was thinking about the way interconnectedness can make challenges seem harder rather than easier. I should try to remember that it also means I don’t have to do all the parts. Because A and C both influence B, doing A and C makes B easier. So when I’m trying to improve my day job and my physical health and my eating habits and my motivation for projects and my clothes and 20 other things I can imagine that it’s reasonable to tackle the issues I am most able to address first. I don’t want to indefinitely delay any one thing while waiting for it to be “easy enough” but…

No trash service this week. They delayed a day yesterday and now they’re just canceling what was Monday’s run. Which I understand in a practical sense but it annoys me to have to pull old trash back in, particularly when the wind ate my (city supplied) trash can lid yesterday. Sometimes trash bins turn back up but I didn’t spot it as we wondered down the road with Dog last night. This snow was great on day one but Seattle is not prepared for the world where snow exists 3 days in a row. It’s only like the 2nd time it has happened since I moved out here though, so…

I had this interaction with Jessica Marzipan1“All right Milky White – let’s do this.” I’d link the video for context but it’s been pulled so it only exists in my archive. Maybe I’ll throw it up somewhere. https://twitter.com/JessicaMarzipan/status/1091421033645596672 I like that I am able to guess at nothing to name someone’s emotion and its cause, because sometimes that lets me help with a very important thing from a great distance. Even at Twitter folk I don’t really know, but more often with people I do. I wish I had any idea what the intermediate steps were after that first one, because repeating the same trick doesn’t bridge the gap. There’s a…