Tortured Travel

I’ve been reading more N. K. Jemisin, from her Hundred Thousand Kingdoms series. This one doesn’t yell in the 2nd person (which I still really love) but does use blindness as – and the occasional bit of truesight – to demand attention to specific details. To reveal the thought process that brings us insight. It’s another series about oppression, like the Fifth Season was, but it takes a different tact. It explores hierarchy and the way it hurts even the powerful. It looks at colonialism in the same framework, as another part of the same hierarchy.

The Fifth Season told us about the institutions of oppression and the amount of disruption required to dislodge them. The first book here does that too, but also evolves into a discussion of the tools that create these institutions in the first place. Greed and ambition like we imagine but also the openly stated goals of oppression and violence that the world chooses to ignore. If you haven’t read any Jemisin I’d still recommend starting with the Fifth Season series. But if you’d like more, and in particular if you’d like a big world in which to explore the interactions of race and power, Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is very well done.

It was a hard time today with Shanda. More of what you read in yesterday’s episode (Pushing Back). I could see how it was hard for you ¹There was even a part where you came to argue with me again but ended up falling asleep because the whole thing is so exhausting and you’ve been so busy. It was a well-earned nap., and it was also pretty complicated for me. I know you don’t like to think about how past interactions with your parents went, and it feels impossible to imagine how you’d like future versions to be different. I know having the feels in that space is overwhelming and terrifying. But I don’t know any other way to do it. We smashed up against it with increasing force until you finally heard something ²You would probably tell me this was because I suggested you didn’t need a binary solution to this complicated problem. And I agree that’s the part you heard. From my perspective that suggestion was ineffective several times before it worked. I’m glad you caught it and like it this time, but I would love to understand what else changed to … Continue reading that made you pick a path out of the loop. Eventually we broke free but it was unpleasant and slow and this started pushing us apart days ago. Progress though, at least enough to put us back on the same side of this one. It feels like you’ll be able to protect yourself at least some on this trip, which I was afriad you’d only do via withdrawal. And it feels like you’ll be able to talk to me while you’re gone, which is a thing I wasn’t sure was possible while we were still in the loop.

Did a terrible job day jobbing on Tuesday. I made my morning meetings but got nothing else done. I have good excuses – I had to take Dog out and back in tow seperate trips, and I ran to get supper, and I spent a lot of time trying to help Shanda. But still, no SR progress. I couldn’t even get started after you went to bed – I distracted myself and then become distracted by J and V, who both appeared late. But I did do work after they (wisely) went to bed. Advanced the plot on all my SRs and resolved all but 2 of them. One still require me to do research and file a bug but I think the other is just waiting for dev input. Also got a couple release processes done – there’s another due on Thursday but I can’t complete it without talking to my boss, so it will have to wait for office hours. A good effort overall, if about 16 hours late. It should make tomorrow more pleasant though.

Talked to V about all sorts of things. About lost time and missing feelings and regret. About finding what you want and keeping what you have. About the always imbalanced forces for boredom and business, and all the things we do that don’t really manage it. About chemistry and the dichotomy of freedom and the feeling of hopeless and unending loneliness. About life without desire, about desire as fear, about desire as the manifestation of hopelessness. About building relationships and circadian synchronization. It was good time, though I got distracted at the end with J. But I tried to make up for it in post. And I’m glad to hear you might come on Saturday. It would be good to see you IRL.

Talked to J about school and free will and justice and the apparent security of decision. I took the wrong tact and presented something that looked like disagreement while I was trying to offer reassurance. I was talking with V about change at the same time and my brain wanted all the pieces to come together. But I should have been more careful to acknowledge the value of decision to combat anxiety and uncertainty and inaction. I should behave been more sensitive to topics I’m sure were a challenge to feel resolved about, particularly for someone not experienced with my unique conversational style. It was good otherwise though – I learned lots of new and exciting things and I hope I get to do more in the future. And it was nice to have a different version of talking before sleep, since the Shanda version currently a lot about managing trip stress, which can only be so much of my day.

I found out a few days ago that Pete’s mother is dying. Or at least that was the claim – to the best of my l knowledge it hasnt happened yet. As you might expect with my parents it’s sort of a clusterfuck. 64 year old Pete is panicked about his mommy dying – not sad or grieving or upset but surprised and panicked because he has never actually thought about it ³This is a person who told me that he was too old to be interested in having relationships. Full stop. I know my idea of relationships is not always great but it seems real tough to imagine not having any at all for the rest of your life. He’s sort of technically wrong about what constitutes a relationship but he definitely means that he … Continue reading, or at least hasn’t allowed himself to have feels about it. So he’s in Duluth, MN. Mother didn’t go with him, she went on a shopping trip to Rochester, MN to be alone and indulge in feeling bad because no one was paying enough attention to her on her birthday (which is still how she’d feel even if people were paying attention).

I found out about this from Ben, who was ordered to go to Duluth same-day and needed support to find a better plan since his life leaves him vulnerable to Mother. He (rightly) didn’t want to go for the not-dead-yet portion of activities. He was also afraid of being subject to days of mistreatment by our parents, which is hard for him to avoid when in their care, since he has no money or transportation (or boundaries) and so can to leave to protect himself like I can. It’s also hard for him to travel with his disability, and he has pretty bad travel anxiety. So if there’s going to MN I will take him, to keep him safe from parents and hopefully to help with his travel stress and logistics. But I’m not doing that until and unless she’s actually dead. And even then only if he feels compelled to go.
My main feels about all of this is frustration. I don’t want to know about it ⁴This part is actually going pretty well. No one tried to contact me directly, as far as I know. I have phone and email filters that technically prevent direct contact but they do get redirected as messages to Shanda and presumably you would have mentioned it. Unless you also unsubscribed, or decided I don’t care, which would also be fine., I don’t want to do anything about it, and I certainly don’t want to interact with my family about it. I do want to protect Ben but if one of the options is protecting him by letting him feel okay about not going that’s what I’m going to do. Spending a bunch of money to fly out and try to protect myself without abandoning Ben sounds terrible.

Talked to M a bunch in recent days. At least a bunch for you. About all sorts of good things. You’ve got a roommate, which I think will be great even if it’s a new and slightly scary experience. You invited me out to see you in August, which I couldn’t be more exited about. You took your own trip to a place not far from my own youthful summer excursions and tried a couple of people things I know are difficult for you but I hope went well. You’ve been trying (and succeeding) to relieve some of my fears, and you talked to me quite a bit about some of yours. You poked V, which gives me warm feels about both of you, and you apparently got an archaic heating tool for Eggsy, which I’m interested to see. Good job on all counts, because I know many parts are real work, and you’re not starting from a position of easy living.

I’m not sure what Wednesday’s therapy topic is. I still don’t have a plan to get Dog to the vet, or a ride for Saturday. I need to book things for the Vancouver trip, and the Cleveland trip, and I need to put in all my time-off accounting. I’m now double booked on Friday with regular robots and C robots and I’m not sure what I’m doing to resolve that. I also need to figure out how I’m going to eat like a human while Shanda is gone next week, since I often can’t manage to eat my first meal until 8 PM, or never if I’m having a tough day, when she’s not around to help. And all the dog care I need to do by myself. Lots of logistics, but some of them can wait until Monday.

Here’s a relationship fact I learned last week – I can like having Dog physically close to me while we’re out. Not just force him close when it’s necessary for safety, or allow him close when she chooses, but want him to be close because it helps me. I have a lot of trouble believing that I can want anything at all without becoming a monster. And even more trouble when what I want involves another person. But if I can do it for Dog maybe I can do it for you too. I do want your attention. I’ve said so before, though only over the objection of my brian. Here’s hoping I’m one step closer to not feeling ashamed for you to know I like you and sometimes want your attention and support.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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