Monday
Yesterday’s The Screed was more or less as isolating as I expected. That’s not a complaint about anyone here, just about the general situation. About how it sucks to have to let people get used to some disgusting fact just for relevant context of the thing you actually want to share, or in response to their direct inquiry. There’s a thing I want to communicate but first I have to wait a few days alone because when I share the context no one can talk to me for a while. I find it particularly hard when it’s my own life because for me nothing has changed — I already had this life including the terrible parts — and I’m worried that people will never treat me the same way again. And it’s easy to imagine during that silence that I’m demanding too much. That my life would have been better if I hadn’t started to share in the first place.
But I try to believe that’s not true. And to be patient. The context was hard for me the first time around, even if it was common, and it’s not unreasonable for people to need a minute to catch up. It just sucks that it’s an external barrier between me and the ability to share something important. I’ve spent a lot of my life waiting for other people to be in the right state to help me, deferring my own care in favor of theirs. It’s not always a terrible plan but I really hate it when I don’t get a choice. When endurance is the only option.
I went to the dentist today and realized for the first time that they are willing to respond to my discomfort. Endurance was my previous plan — just zone out, suppress my facial and body movement, and let them have at my face for 45 minutes. Today I allowed myself to display a reaction* when the hygienist caused some pain and they stopped and repositioned. I know this is not news to normal people, but it’s difficult for me to imagine that anyone would be willing to interrupt their work merely because I was uncomfortable. That they ought to stop for anything that isn’t seriously enough to kill me before the end of the procedure. Or even that anyone would pay enough attention to notice when I flinch.
Robots went well today, the bit I was able to get to after the dentist. Got nothing I planned done but lots of useful work in terms of setting up the basic controls for this year’s machine. BC’s machine refuses to deploy to phones but I think he’ll work that out himself. Still had trouble getting T to engage whenever we did actual coding, or even meta-coding. I had hoped to see SJ for a moment to gauge their state on a number of topics, but I was in the atrium until after 6 and we never interacted. I’ve still got to figure out what I’m actually going to sell to old people at the meeting on Saturday, and I should try to get that done before the meeting on Friday so I can talk about it with the team and be sure everyone else is ready, and that I’ve covered everything they’re concerned about.
After robots S asked me what he personally should do to end homelessness. Which feels like a big topic to cover in 10 minutes of impromptu speech. I assume he was trying to show interest† after their freak out on Saturday, and I know he imagines that I can help him be a more engaged citizen, but he’s gotta start smaller. Like by imagining that people with insufficient access to money or housing or social support or transportation or medical care or food exist as part of their everyday life. Sometimes it feels like the worst thing he can imagine is petty household disagreements or having to speak up to get what you want. And of course my feels lump our recent interactions into the same “share disgusting context” pattern I’ve been feeling more broadly, which doesn’t make things easier.
I just watched the sex crime training videos for the school district and read their new field trip policies. I learned that normal human interactions are not allowed and if I see behavior that concerns me I should not do anything except tell my immediate supervisor and then forget about it. The training forbids young people access to both normal social care and mandatory legal protections, just like most school policies. One of the two policies I need to acknowledge about supervising a field trip is literally about when I’m allowed to use violence against young people. Every policy basically says “but be sure to punish students about The Rules”, and makes me fraking sick. I wrote to the school board about it last year but never bothered to get to a meeting to be disappointed at them live and in person.
I was bad at work this morning but pretty good after Shanda went to bed tonight. Done with 75% of SRs and likely done with the remaining 25% (pending review), no new ones in the queue as of 2 AM Tuesday, and I finished the release processes that are due this week. I’ve got a rapidly aging TMA to dispatch, an SSH bug I’ve hardly looked at, and KI review for next week’s releases, but I should have time to at least dent all those tomorrow. With a little luck I’ll be able to knock off by 2 so Shanda and I can hang out tomorrow afternoon. She’s still at stress level 27; still on knife’s edge between defensiveness and tears. But I think recovering, and maybe tomorrow we can put a dent in that too***.
ZiB
*Don’t train yourself to suppress your reflexive physical reactions — it might sound like a cool party trick** but it’s just a way to accidentally die without anyone even noticing your problem.
**It /is/ a cool party trick. But only at parties you’ll hate.
†I don’t feel like much of a housing reform advocate — most of what I’m doing about homelessness is convincing people like him that it affects real humans and can be improved. Which is not something we’re likely to share in the near future. But it might be one of the things in that class of labels I should learn to accept. It’s got a lot of overlap with youth advocate, which is a label I don’t mind.
***And maybe break out these [fig 1] new toys.
