Did medium work today. Got deadline junk done. Pushed back the inevitable. But only put in short spurts of time. Had a difficult therapy session, where I couldn’t expect to be understood because my therapist was overwhelmed. I often say things that are too much for people. This includes therapists. This is the state I have never recovered from. But today I tried a different thing – I stopped playing dumb – so maybe it will have a different outcome. Or at least I won’t continue to put up with it like I have before. Planned a call but had a late day and unexpected and good interaction about L…

It sucks when someone believes there’s a serious problem in your life and doesn’t respect you enough to acknowledge it. Or is too afraid of how hard it might be to offer even recognition, let alone help. It’s too much for them so you’re on your own. And if it keeps up they often start to judge you for it – you just deserve mistreatment if you keep getting it. They have to hate you, to justify how bad they’d feel if they didn’t. Oppression requires denial. I am feeling extra fed up with capitalism today. Well-meaning people so often celebrate the opportunity to participate in the worst parts of…

Exhausted today. Skipped most of the day job and slept late and was still too tired for robots. Went anyway though, since we’re competing this weekend. In many ways our robots looks good – it’s packed very small and cleanly – but it’s still a ways from working. Cleaned up the software framework a bit to get it ready for the usual last-moment coding. We’ll see what comes together on Friday. Had sort of a rough night with Dog. I couldn’t make him stop barking at me after I ate. We went walking and had food toys and offered attention but he wasn’t having any of it. I was going…

Slept in today, after Shanda left for her date. Dog was still feeling like he needed to be close so he came and laid next to me at the top of the bed after Shanda left. When he got restless we went to the yard fora while so he could browse the available grasses and chase a frizbee for exactly one throw 1Dog can’t be bothered to chase things very often. When he get worked up and is trapped inside he will chase a toy for maybe 6 rounds, but often even you throw to him and he catches what you tossed he doesn’t care and just drops it. Outside…

Went to a Halloween party at the science center. It wasn’t the best day out we’ve had recently. Prep was fine. Relaxed even, considering the circumstances. But there was panic after we got there and basically until supper was done. We settled out eventually though, and it was a nice enough time. The bartender was high AF – slow and loopy and too friendly – which was entertaining but took forever. He served 4 drinks, including 2 waters, over the course of about 6 minutes. Shanda wore a costume – the last time she had one was Codex from “Do You Want to Date My Avatar”, (i.e. years ago) and…

I know what it’s like to see a broken thing and love it and dream of the life where it is made whole. It’s a noble instinct and one you should frequently indulge. You’re great at healing and you should share when you can. But only if you remember that you can’t save anything. It’s easy to become entwined with a thing you know could be better, if only it had the chance and the right motivation. To imagine that if you do just the right thing – take charge of the right parts, lay out a path toward improvement, become responsible for the bits it can’t do alone, relieve…

Slept until almost 2 today. I had intended to get up and start my day with some power supply soldering, maybe hit my noon meeting, but that wasn’t to be. I’m glad to get some more sleep because the illness-related exhaustion is still high, and because the coughing was a significant disruption last night. But it would be nice to get back to normal human hours again. Woke up sad and anxious. Lots of small reasons for both. Missing Story came out of therapy yesterday, and is a big part of the sad. I’m trying to change my belief that being connected to young me is a bad idea. The…

Here’s a type of story I don’t know how to tell. Imagine you meet a 4-year-old that you expect to see regularly for the next 20 years and that you know has been and will continue to be badly hurt on many days between now and then. You can see that they are isolated and abused and unable to value their current self. And nothing you can do 1At least nothing sane or legal. The only reliable, legal change you could accomplish is a years-long dependency action that will definitely be traumatic and generate intentional punishment from the state, that might lead to punishment from others, and that only has…

The Internet was down yesterday, while they physical installed new cables on my block. So many lift trucks. They haven’t announced better service yet but I’m hoping when they get done with the installs there will be fibre. Just in time for me to move. Failed a disk enclosure today. Technically I’ve got the redundancy to stay online with 1/3 of my disks down, but I’m too afraid to let it run with no redundancy. It just needs a new power supply, which I hope to have tonight; 16 wires to solder but should only take 30 minutes once I get the hardware. If that doesn’t get done I’ll swap…

Worked today, but skipped all my meetings. Gonna hit the early meeting tomorrow and skip most of the work. If I’m up for travel tomorrow maybe there’s a haircut and a mailing in the afternoon, but right now that’s still stretch goals. Skipped robots too. I optimized my day to give it the best chance – I hate being gone for so long 1Particularly for the second year in a row. – but I’m still so fraking tired it’s just not a good idea. I’ll see if I can get some prework done for Friday. I could at least chase through the PIDMotor tree to finish the culling we started…