When work might be demanded at any time, what is a weekend?

I sent a picture here earlier this week. One where I was the intentional subject and you could see my face and I forced that face to not adopt the expression that happens automatically in pictures wherein I try to be submissive and disengaging. That’s new for me. It still feels a lot like subjecting people to my physical presence§§, but I’m trying to believe that JPEGs don’t actually hurt people who receive them, at least not in the way I imagine*.

Saturday went better than expected, but it was sometimes very taxing. There was talking but it was hard, and there wasn’t much leeway between talking and crying. But the party went fine**, we dealt with Melissa drugs for another month, and we even considered what a holiday social plan might look like if it were based on something other than avoidance and obligation. Not for this year of course – you can’t just stop all at once or the collective hangover might kill you – but maybe next year. Maybe I could acknowledge the existence of calendar-based celebrations and Shanda could be with me while one happened. Instead of the usual Christmas with me alone, brooding about the shutdown of public services and the harms of tradition, and Shanda traveling across the country alone and trying hard to isolate herself from any human connection (including me) to avoid such harms, even as she dangles her arm into the shark tank, all just to avoid making a new decision.

I’ve been considering sexual assault stories, but the only one I feel like it helps (others) to share is the one I’ve noted before where I was asked to organize and execute a group attack by a sports coach against another member of the team. Since I declined to participate the trauma is minimal, and I think it’s a good example of how “locker room talk” hurts men too, and what sexual assault might look like if we don’t imagine sexual desire as the only possible motivation. I’ve got other examples, but none where anyone successfully slipped an uninvited dick into me like people expect from the topic, and I’m not super interested in spending time piecing the bits of my past traumas together into an easily sharable narrative. I’m not trying to avoid it per se, but I’m also not interested in sorting bad parts of my life by sexual content, or prioritizing them just because they align with the current zeitgeist.

Got my MBOs submitted today, with about 2x the usual number of SRs listed. I have trouble finding the balance between not caring (and therefore not doing) and obsessive paralysis with MBOs. There are no standards and nothing matters but I’ve been told I’m doing them wrong in a dozen small ways over the years. It’s The Rules§ but for work nonsense, and it’s a little hard for me to handle. In any case they’re submitted now and I can ignore work until I go back on Wednesday.

S is in 4-paragraph panic about the parents meeting. He asked for my itinerary in the first paragraph and told me his in the third. But he doesn’t actually have any responsibilities; it’s literally a meeting where people volunteer to help with items on his wishlist. I know that he feels incapable of managing people in this way, but I don’t understand why.

Brian was finally back this week. Apparently he was kicked from one of his other games, which has been hard for him and is presumably one of the reasons he hasn’t been up for games recently. But other than being 2 hours late he seemed to be doing okay today. And he’s very excited about his “sister’s” new cat.

I’m glad to not be working tomorrow. I can use the break. And maybe I can get to robots on time.

ZiB

*Presumably my actual physical presence isn’t harmful in the way I imagine either, but one step at a time.

**Other than the part where there was really disgusting discussion about young people, and the part about how microwaving water “explodes the molecules” and therefore microwaves cause bad health if you consume anything heated in them. But I was mostly able to keep my mouth shut.

§The Rules are the set of semi-predictable interactions of observable emotions and environment that described how Mother would react to a piece of information and therefore whether or not it was something you wanted to risk letting her to know. The Rules were stated by Mother as canonical rules because she thought that gave them strength, but they were never consistent and therefore terrible even by the standards of rules. The Rules governed everything you could be allowed or forbidden, from access to food and water to the utterance of your favorite color. What time of day you could cook toast without special permission (i.e. offering a social sacrifice) and whether or not you could use the bathroom (at least until you get to school tomorrow morning, where you still need explicit permission for some reason). The Rules were terrible but understanding them systematically also gave me control in a way Mother could not exert, and that my life desperately needed. And they taught me that all rules are inherently unjust, which not only gives me a certain kind of chaotic power, but helps me be a better person. I’d rather be normal, but I do like having superpowers.

§§Not to mention my fear that it might be possible for others to document my existence. Having any history is contrary to my goal of always needing less, having less impact, and always being ready to disappear.

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Sent from a phone.