Whinging Wayward Walrus

Today was more work than I had hoped. More stress than was useful to me. It got better eventually, but I was pretty unhappy in the middle. And I only got like half of what I wanted done.

My research SR blew up over the weekend. The submitter announced a talk at Blackhat about the issue. Except not really, since what they described to us is significantly different than what is described in the talk summary. The talk isn’t until August so it might be a while before I know what they actually found, if anything. I’m not too attached to the actual vulnerability but I got roped into the stinking response and support is freaking out. Mostly I think they’ve got unsafe scripts published and want me to tell them there is a magic code fix that makes their bad scripts better. The actual answer is like 24 times more boring – use proper substitution bracing in your scripts.

I spent a huge amount of time on it today. Worked the whole time I was in the office. Let myself stay late to try to get it done. I sort of did, though it will require poking tomorrow and probably every day for the next week. I do better in weeks where I don’t have daily deadlines. There’s also a major release on Friday, which is more work than maintenance releases but somehow on a shorter schedule. I got through the notes review but I still have a bunch of BZ work to do, along with the normal checklist and the test data. And I’m still on the queue – external cases have been slow enough but I’ve found a bunch of internal ones. Plus my boss sent up one and my coworker did too – it’s a lot. It would be a lot even without this research SR. I’m going to have to punt something.

I was going to the gym today, even though E and Shanda both canceled. Thought maybe I’d do something mindless for 20 minutes and then sauna. But it was like 1840 by the time I was ready to leave the office, and I had to be home by 1930 for C, so there just wasn’t time. Maybe I’ll be able to go later this week, but so far my life is looking sort of busy.

I also didn’t eat today until after work. Not even a sugar bite to trick my liver for second. I had intended to get something at the office but I actually don’t know where any food is, and wasn’t super interested in searching. I should figure it out but today was not the day. I’m downtown so there are actually lots of food options nearby, but I just wanted 40 calories to make me feel better until I could get home for a meal.

I had to take the low bus (i.e. climb up the hill to get to my house) or wait 34 minutes for the next high bus. And it was a grocery day and trash day. And Shanda can’t walk Dog. And C was coming over to do homework. And I’m pissy about my developmental trauma and uncertain in my relationships and 40 other things my brain is very worried about on a high stress day. Many of which are real and important but some on of which are just bleed over stress from the day job and my schedule and my hunger.

C didn’t show up today though. Which was a relief by the time it happened. It will eat some of my Friday instead but hopefully my life will be more sane by then. And we’ll get to start earlier because there’s no robots. Probably no more this semester, other than maybe a cleanup day. Which is sad. I’ll be grateful for some blocked schedule time back, but I’ll miss seeing people. And some of them I will never see again. That didn’t used to bother me – I am always prepared to ghost my whole life – but I think it might this year. I sort of want it to, to help prove that I’m human. To imagine that I can have useful pain in my life and not just the intolerable kind.

I haven’t been feeling very human. Today in particular but also always. I got a wig and realized I haven’t owned any hair tools since the 1900s, because I decided I’d rather not have hair than have it used to objectify and punish me and cut it all off. I tried to talk to DerbyK about how to not hate Mother’s Day but couldn’t connect in the fundamental issue – like most similar conversations I couldn’t keep up because I have no frame of reference. I didn’t eat. I was up too late. I was paid for my willingness to tell people things they don’t want to hear and to hold worry to make a corporation have marginally better speculative share prices. I was annoyed to take care of Shanda, the little bit that I did.

I am so sick of feeling like I am 4 years old and don’t know how normal human things work. The emotional impact of my past is hard enough, and I’ve developed skills to deal with it (for better or worse, but dealing with it) most of the time. The part where I lack common human experiences and knowledge is intolerable sometimes. It’s hard in practical ways because I’m missing important information, and it’s hard to get help with because we don’t build systems to teach people about “universal experiences”. It pushes right up against my ego’s firm belief that I am not a real human, that I am a dangerous and inauthentic facsimile. It makes me profoundly disabled in some ways, though my brain won’t let me claim such a thing. Not the identity and not the support that might come with it. I know that feeling subhuman is a symptom of CPTSD, and I’ve seen other people describe it, but I can neither convince myself that I’m really human nor that other people in this situation are subhuman like me. So for now I’m just going to be angry about it. Which I think is good, because before I was merely sad and this is better.

I had really good talks with M in recent days. A venting rant. Sharing about joyful bits of life (which I try to do here but I’m not sure how often it works). Discussion of normal life concerns (where I offer too much advise because I can’t stop talking, particularly against silence). A little bit of dreaming (which is always my favorite). I even tried a thing to make the recent holiday less terrible, which I think was a partial success. I’m still a unclear on the status of a couple of big tacos, which makes it easy for my already fearful brain to imagine that I am moments from exhausting your tolerance. But that’s nothing new – I can sit on it for a few days – and I shouldn’t let my stress overshadow my felicity.

Connected with J too, not in real time but interactively. Had an interesting discussion about identity, with (to me at least) surprising openness, though perhaps some impedance mismatch on what exactly identity means and how it is built. But I’m okay with that — that mismatch is sort of what I’m doing. I pontificated about the idea of ideal, the durability of duality, and the terror of transmogrification. And tried to fill the space between their thoughtful and engaged replies and some of the less obvious underlying facts. I got my own reassurance about the continuity of connection and the production of parcels. Their style is so different than I expect, but against a feeling that’s very familiar – my predictions are close enough to work but only actually right on the 2nd try. Or at least we don’t agree on what they mean on the 1st. I still don’t have any predictions about pacing, but I’m satisfied that it’s going.

@BPS has gone bearded queen: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxYONd6B8hg/ which is (perhaps expectedly) familiar. They’re feeling a little unsure about it, which slots right into the identity discussions I’ve had with V and J. And with the wig I just got. Made me realize I haven’t painted my beard even though I now own a couple of appropriate pigment tools. I’ll have to fix that.

I’m not sure what I’m bringing for LI this week ¹Something about the regulation of patience I think, but I’m not sure what the feeling is. I am often in a space where I feel obligated to enormous patience but also defeated by it. I know I can endure for a very long time on oh so little, but it can be a difficult place to live. And I am not sure I’m really in control of it. I’m certainly … Continue reading. That’s not a huge problem, but I’m trying to imagine stability this week so it’s nice to know things in advance. Mostly it’s a reminder that my brain is twitchy right now, and so thinking about focus and concentration on something other than day job sounds great but also feels like it might be impossible. And I’m distracted by all the bits of life I haven’t gotten done over the past few days, like the bedroom project that’s stalled out in a mess, or even dishes. It’s certainly hard to keep my focus here, and it’s been hard to do day job in anything other than full-blast or none.

So I won’t. We’ll do a another one of these later and see what’s still kicking around. When I can’t pull the bits all together it’s easy to imagine that I’m missing all the important stuff. But the important things will still be here tomorrow. Or they’ll be gone because I couldn’t capture them and I’ll find new ones. Either way it’s not a thing I’ll make better by delaying or pushing at it.

ZiB

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