Loosely Fit Pieces

Today I did finals with CS. I worked on pictures of circuits and spreadsheets about circuits and a surprising amount of reading about the coding language address model in PCLs. Plus some guessing about what a selfish old community college instructor means, because what they actually say is nonsense.

Today I did post-finals recovery with M. I suspect there’s still plenty of tension but it seems like there’s now space for human need, and that’s always good. We lamented survival thinking about keeping things and letting them go, and about the trauma that can take away those choices ¹I think there’s a story about Person of Interest and choosing the things you take when you’re forced to flee and the way that scarcity breeds both ruthlessness and kindness, but I can’t get my brain around it tonight.. And we laid the ground work for new schemes with the people we love.

Today I did laundry and dishes and trash and presents. I got to vacuum seal a bunch of things – it’s like wrapping but you get to use a robot to help. I still need to package them for transit but I think tomorrow I get to mail the first batch out. I’m trying to imagine that accomplishing household tasks without feeling resentful or burnt out is my goal, after several decades of not caring when I felt overwhelmed.

Today I did poorly at eating. We didn’t make supper and CS came over before I had lunch; I didn’t eat until 10 PM. So that wasn’t great. But I’ve mostly been doing good with eating before evening. I’ve been trying different ways of eating, none of which have moved me closer to how I want to eat, but they do provide some perspective on the ways food is so terrifying to me.

Today I got paid 45.1% less than my last check, a fact the payroll system wanted to call to my attention when I checked it, like it’s a fact I can change. I should get some of that difference back from insurance eventually, but it’s not yet clear how much or when – we haven’t even gotten to an accurate claim yet so who knows. In the mean time landlords and lenders get first dibs on actual cash and everyone else gets fake money. I’m glad I’m rich enough to have that option – or to have disability insurance at all – but even with those things captialism is still trying hard to kill me. How dare I not work 40 hours/week for 1/160th of my employable lifetime.

Tomorrow is therapy. I’m not sure what to do about it. It feels like the two speeds I have been able to get in recent weeks are “this person is afraid of me” and “this person is dismissing me” – both are bad for therapy. I don’t really expect anyone to understand me, but I would love to imagine a world where people aren’t quite so close to fearing me. They’ve also been stuck for a long time on a misunderstanding of my relationship with control. I don’t think we even agree on what control is but it’s a commonly shouted answer in our sessions. Maybe I’ll work out a new through line for therapy. I usually do.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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