I had planned to write about the LI I did in therapy on Wednesday. I framed it in terms of oppression which in my mind is somehow about keeping middle-aged men in the wilderness alive against their will. I’ll tell a story where that makes sense, to the extent that the weird lives of 1%ers can ever make sense. But life is complicated and instead of writing Shanda and I fought about the way I care about mixed feels and how it’s hard to have safe boundaries when thinking about them feels like a violation and everything is tied up in old survival feels. I had good times today about…

My anxiety is up to medium today, and pretty detached. I’m not worried about anything in particular in my present life, but my brain spends a lot of time sort of reverse-engineering things to be worried about to rationalize my emotion. Often this is a sign that I’m anxious about something I am repressing, or that I did repress in the past. I’m doing okay but it’s hard to be focused on anything, and since there’s no obvious way to address the anxiety distraction feels like the most important thing I could be doing. This is all tolerable, so long as it doesn’t lead me into avoidance, but I’ll have…

Got to two meetings today, and through all my email. Still adding meetings to the week though, which could be better. Ate two real meals and walked with Dog. Did all my chores at home and planned and scheduled for the rest of the week. Painted one of my nails with the new polish; it came out great and I learned my fingers are not rated for 72W of top coat curing. Dog had a hard day and was reluctant to eat. While we were out he scarfed down about 2 pints of grass which he later laid out in a neat, aligned pile on my basement carpet. Then he…

I’d agree with Martin, that work aspires to share or mourn beauty. But I’m not sure the two are distinct. Grief and joy have a much more complicated relationship than the reciprocal nautre of positive and negative. Maybe I have to believe that because so much of my life and my work is grieving, or because when I was without grief I was also without beauty. But I suspect it’s not a unique experience. For a very long time I knew the beauty was not for me. My brain still knows this, and still recoils for a moment when beauty enters my perception, even if I have learned to often…

I’ve watched some Tucca & Bertie recently. I like it quite a bit. The world and drawing style are absurdist. The dialog is often explicit subtext and the animation dials up the surreal sometimes to pull that same style into the visual realm, which I think works great. It also tries hard to know what it’s saying about several different types of anxiety. Shanda watches Bertie and feels seen, with the fear of change and the dread of other people’s emotions. I’m more of an Arizona Trash Person than a Tucca, but I like the way people can’t see that she needs attention and reassurance, and that she’s seen as…

Had thinks about oppression. The way it demands that you deny it. The way it require you to not feel your own pain. Thought about the oppression of young people and of invisible parents. Practiced being okay after being hurt. Got a schmancy hot glue gun. Framed one of the paintings to keep. Talked about the way it can seem impossible to feel better until some future change in situation, and the way its so frustrating when that moment is delayed for any reason. Talked at C about culture and where it comes from. Ordered fancy food for the weekend. Watched an episode of 1999 Archer. And the last episode…

Did D&D. Made supper. Watched and thought about Tucca and Bertie. Poked at Shanda’s parenting feels. And free lunch feels. Spelling bees and breakfasts. Planned heists and used an awl and made the noon meeting. Many thinks but no writes. ZiB

Yesterday I had a whole series of repression triggers. It’s tough this thing where getting better requires that you go through the middle of all the parts that were too much for your brain before. You think I’m too much on the outside – imagine the bits that were too much for me. I got at some repression about parenting. Sort of the culmination of the smaller bits I’ve been prodding at for weeks. The way I refuse to remember doing it. Remembering hurts because I wasn’t great at it last time. In lots of ways I failed. It hurts because while I was trying lots of people told me…

I had a real mixed day today. A year’s worth of feelings popped out early in the day and made me sob 1Piercing fact: Crying makes my eyebrow piercing sore. Too much brow contraction. And probably too much face rubbing. for a while. I feel a little trapped in one particular aspect of my life, where something important to me still feels stuck more or less in its starting position after a long time of working at it and trying things to make it be different. Makes me feel like my options are to break my heart giving up something I love to protect myself, or to let myself be…

I often struggle to imagine my life in corporeal terms at all, let alone allow them to define an experience. My reaction to touch ranges from startled recoil to endured discomfort. I prefer dark, quiet places and respond poorly to bright lights and loud noises. I struggle to experience flavor and I imagine scent primarily as a tool to keep me from ingesting rotten food, or perhaps as a method to locate organic materials. I do have a very keen sense of balance. I can detect very slight inclines of surfaces where I stand or sit, and I often find it difficult to relax or sleep if I lie with…