I watched The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix). It’s pretty good. Netflix describes it as “cerebral”, which is generally code for “involves smart people doing things they don’t explain”. That’s true here too, but honestly I think it means something more like “sexual tension communicated via stylized posing”. Which is fine – the costumes and photography are both excellent and there are plenty of pretty people to pose. I’m not sure the director knows what this series is about (even less sure after watching the BTS interviews) but it comes out well anyway. It’s a little heavy-handed on the addiction story, a little fuzzy on whether or not it’s about being femme,…

It’s the end of leave; I’m back to the day job tomorrow. Thus far I’m only planning two 30 minute meetings as the entirety of my labor tomorrow, but it’s not so much the daily schedule that weighs on me as next quarter century between now and my death when I’ll have to repeat it frequently. But Shanda no longer collapses when I talk about not having a boss, so maybe I’ll get out of it before I die. To be honest the part that scares me is that I still don’t know what I’m going to do instead of being Person with Job. I more or less gave up…

It’s been a rough day. Among other things I’ve been triggered about not having any place to be. It’s a complicated feeling about needing someplace where I can sit quietly until I feel capable of pretending to be human again. An escape for when I don’t have social support available – or when my usual support is one of the things I’m coping with – so that I can left all of my mental illness leak out without bothering anyone. So I can disengage the cognitive filter that lives between me and my expression and silently cry until I’m prepared to not be bothered by having now hope. I used…

The screen is up, hanging and hinged and ready for viewing. I managed to reverse the whole thing when adding the projection surface, which required re-drilling the pins to mount it again. If I were going to build another PVC screen I’d use a different tensioning procedure. But I’m totally satisfied with this phase. The surface is smoothly tensioned and the hinge works well and it’s light and easy to move. Step next is to add ropes and pulleys so it can be stored overhead. And then some thinking about what the next phase looks like — a prototype for the gas springs? Some sort of simulation of the final…

What if my fundamental attachment fear isn’t abandonment, what if it’s that no one will ever reliably attempt to understand me? What if I can’t quite believe that anyone could be trusted to change something – to change themselves – when they can’t accommodate my needs? I think there’s a a developmental skill related to the non-verbal, collaborative process of an infant and their caregivers working together to establish communication and safety. My old therapist talked about that in terms like “[parents] just know” 1This eventually devolved into my therapist making a claim about parenting that I disproved with my own experience, and them defensively telling me that my experience…

I’ve got the screen glued and pinned 1This isn’t screen news, but in home art news [fig 4] is one of the reasons the light bars circuit boards I’m building will have UV channels.. It was too late to mount it tonight but tomorrow I will likely get it installed and maybe even get the screen installed on the frame. There was only medium household panic during this project, and we handled it mostly in real time. And now we have a screen frame. I had lots of trouble eating today. We did things to have a variety of good foods available and I even had weed, but it was…

I’m getting close to having a screen again [fig 1]. It’s not the final version, but it’s something that will give me a tensioned projection surface, can be non-destructively removed and reinstalled, and hopefully that can fold up overhead without being removed, so that it can be left installed even if we aren’t using it for a day or two. There will still be hassle in getting the projector out, I still won’t be able to project at full-size, it still won’t be quite easy enough for daily use. But it will be easy enough for weekly use, and even with some setup hassles it will be a lot better…

There’s a tension when I’m tired. After PIC has authorized responding to bring tired and checks out there’s someone else who wants to be up. This is often the person who eats for me. They’re responsible for some other aspects of my bodily care too. If I distract myself with a narrative audio or other distracting focus I can sometimes stay awake enough to see this. The thinking still feels like me but the pattern of feelings is not the same. This person knew Dog in a particular way – I can see that after eating with another dog. This person maybe doesn’t talk. They’re maybe the feral me who…