This was a triumph. I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
Yesterday I learned that I don’t like grilling precisely because it’s outside — it feels a lot like survival cooking. I have forever had this idea that I was an indoor kid because I was fat* or because I was no good at sportsball or because I was smart or something. It’s a little bit that I was socially isolated like the common usage of “indoor kids”, but mostly it’s because I spent a lot of time outside trying not to fucking die. Making it technically harder to cook than is necessary, or doing it outside, both feel about as recreational to me as painting dormitory cinder block walls institutional while feels artistic.
I’m okay with not liking things because of my trauma. But it’s still useful to know why, so I can at least pull out the parts I don’t like from the broader topic, and so I can tell how much impact it’s having instead of just avoiding it.
Actual cooking-over-fire I have somewhat better associations with, because when I did that with Pete there was reliably food available — he would participate in logistical planning to feed himself and I got a full share of rations under that plan. I even sort of like doing it for myself, as a sort of proof that I can be okay even if things are really bad. But the suburbs version that involves buying 15 different bits of prepared materials and equipment to cook 20’ from where I own a perfectly good cooking appliance** feels like punishment.
Today was better than yesterday in terms of waiting. It’s still a thing that’s happening but I feel like it’s coming under control. I finally got all the trash out of the house and all the dishes washed. I got though all the customer service backlog that recent shipping failures have created. I got some prep work done for future weeks of more normal life here in Cleveland, and the house is starting to look like someplace I might live instead of a pile of cardboard and bags where I sometimes sleep. Got to talk to M about a bunch of things and you helped me feel safe and loved. The circumstances of my arrival weren’t great, and there are many hard things, but I am so happy to be here. It lets me do things I would never have been able to otherwise.
The appeal came back today, in our favor. It still demands invasive, discriminatory, unnecessary, punitive, paternalistic and patriarchal compliance, and doesn’t even come close to acknowledging or correcting the harm already done, but the broad outcome is what we hoped for. Or at least the best we thought we might actually get. I thought they might sit on it for weeks and then say no anyway, but they got back fairly quickly. There are still a number of details to resolve, and of course all the compliance bits they demand, but I think the general situation is settled which I hope will make future plans feel safer. You have more mixed feels about it than you expected, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I think there are lots of feels to be had and I expect it will take some work to integrate all of them. I’ve had mixed feels for days, and still do now. I think we can help each other with that though, given some time. I’m gonna try to make you talk to me about it next week even while I’m away. And try to keep you from losing yourself in the details now that deadlines exist in your life again.
Talked to DerbyK about holidays and name changes and the performance of self. Participated in — what I’m told is common but I’ve never experienced — a situation where I was awake to prepare food for and generally support someone before they left in the morning. Like literally every other household scenario I have relevant trauma that colors my expectations, but I really liked it a lot. I wish someone had done it for me, or at least like explained that it was a thing that could be good in other settings, even if I didn’t get it. One of the things I hate so much about my past is that it keeps me from even knowing what good things look like. One of the things I hate so much about society is that it doesn’t care enough to explain, except in the context of capitalism. I’m gonna try participating in Christmas to see if there’s a way to make that go that doesn’t just feel like being isolated for several days by a natural disaster while other people skip their jobs to do — I guess whatever Christmas is for groups where it isn’t yelling or crying or starving or doing economic transactions at each other. That was already my plan for next year as you’ve all heard, but I’m also gonna make it my plan for this year, on a smaller scale.
Wore my new yellow suspenders. No pic today but I was all in blue so you can just imagine a bald Veruka with Y-shaped racing stripes around one end. I like it better than the clean shave but I’m still not sure about the floating pants plan. It might help if I got pants that actually fit, but I’m not yet qualified to make decisions about that; I only recently discovered that wanting clothes to fit was a thing I could have.
I’m going to spend the next few days trying to get my life into some sort of routine. It won’t be long enough to get it done, and then I’m going to fly across the country, do completely random things for a week, and fly back. So I’m sure that routine will evaporate entirely, before it even starts to set. It’s still worth doing though because starting now will make starting then easier, and will make the next few days better.
I got a homework response almost right away. I didn’t provide any parameters for what the request should be, so I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t thing — I’m supposed to tell someone a joke. I’m presuming that quoting “Still Alive” as a title about the appeal outcome doesn’t count. My pun count today is non-zero, as are the equivalent of “that’s what she said” quips, but I’m gonna say a joke needs a setup and a punchline — the specific management of tension — to really count. And to be delivered aurally in person. I think in honor of BC, who I have been thinking of but not talking with lately, I’ll cook up a series of pun-based jokes that meet that those criteria and abuse them with the results on Monday.
ZiB
*I also have this idea that I was always fat, even though I definitely didn’t have access to enough food until I was old enough to make that happen myself. That I couldn’t have clothes that fit††† because I was fat, even that I couldn’t breath correctly† or had poor coordination†† because I was fat. I’m clearly just wrong, but it’s something I’ve believed at least since I was 5 and was frequently blamed for whatever bad thing was happening to me, presumably to deflect and dismiss actual problems — hers or mine.
**To be clear, I own several fire-based cooking appliances that can be used outside. Anything less would expose me to the possibility that I don’t have a cooking appliance when I need to eat, which is clearly an unacceptable risk. But they’re for use in emergencies, not for regular meals. The only non-emergency time you would cook with them is when you’re testing or drilling to ensure they and you work as expected. And they’re still probably better than a typical Weber.
†As opposed to my environmental respiratory issues because Mother’s basement was a mould factory.
††As opposed to being nearsighted, which I always was but didn’t self-diagnose until I was 14.
†††This was literally just Mother not bothering to buy me clothes that fit. When I first went to school they made her give me socks (which I had never had at all before), shoes that were big enough to close, and pants that could button. Mother got a 6-pack of brand-new tube socks at K-Mart (the only new piece of clothing I remember for years afterward) and used shoes and pants I hand into 4th grade — it technically addressed the school’s concerns without fixing the problem in any way. They probably assumed I was poor. The fact that we let children be poor enough to seem abused feels like a real problem. The fact that we let children be abused and call it poverty is willful negligence.
