Burn the White

Felt like shit this morning and stayed in bed until noon. But I actually told the day job about it, which is new for me. Usually I hide my infirmity like a prey animal and try to make up for it before anyone notices. Felt relatively better in the afternoon but I’m still not doing great.

Took Dog for cleaning today. He would be a super willing kidnapping victim – he’ll jump into any open car door and find a place to sit where he can put his head a people height. It’s adorable but a bit much when you’re standing in the street fighting with the computer on a rental. Shanda still hasn’t been able to talk to me about cleaning and grooming Dog at home – you did it with B, and you’ve tried a couple by yourself, but we haven’t been able to do it together. I’m sorry it’s so nervous for you. I could probably help if you’d pay attention to me and think about it at the same time. But between your fear of the procedures and your belief that any discomfort or disinterest from Dog is harmful, it’s pretty tough to get your attention. So at least for now, Dog gets cleaned over in MV, and gets to ride there and back in a car.

We did make progress on booking boarding for Dog. Unsteady, sometimes painful progress, but progress nonetheless. It’s easier now that you’re on board with the general idea that Dog won’t die without us (which seems indisputable since he lived in the forest for a week last fall), but the actual task is still full of feels for you, and still dangerous for me to bring up.

Lots of mixed feels in general today. And lots I was asked to be accountable for. You’re angry and you feel out of control, but I’m not making you angry, and I’m not hoarding your control. I’m sorry that you are overwhelmed with those things and I will try to help, if you let me, but they are not my fault and I can’t be asked to pay for them. It doesn’t work anyway, because it plays into your misunderstanding of anger. You’re allowed to be angry. To think about it and feel it. To have it affect your mood and your life. You are hurting neither yourself nor the people around you by being angry.

Anger is a normal human emotion and it’s something you should feel and be moved by. Something that, when repressed, makes your life worse. But you can’t attach it to me just because I reminded you that you have some. Just because I was around when you noticed the fear in your mixed feelings, or because I reminded you of some resentful bit of your childhood. We’re not fighting, you’re having a hard time. We both want you to feel your anger, and to feel in control. But I can’t help if you assign me to the opposing team.

M was mostly quiet today, but certainly still in the middle of things. You had some trouble advancing the plot on your own mixed feels plan, nervous about taking action even though you feel like you’ve made up your mind. I hope tomorrow you can find the words to make what you need happen, so you don’t have to be stuck in this fearful and resentful place any longer than strictly necessary. I know your survival brain tells you that holding still is the only safe answer, and that just waiting a bit more will be better, but I doubt delays will make anything easier. I’d offer to hold your hand while you did it, but you’d never let me, even if I could reach.

V is still out and about in the world. Mostly having a good time from what I can tell, but still carrying a lot of the things that have made life hard this past year. I see you feeling bad about inconsistent progress and accidental improvements, but that seems a lot like being a human to me. I think you’re doing great. I promise the bumps will feel less devastating as you continue to gain altitude.

Did some day job today. Lots of email and advising and sorting and fixing. Closed one SR and advanced another. Continued work related to the BZ project but didn’t get to poke it directly. Logged into the new time clock system – it requires IE and Flash and even once you get that going it can only be navigated by dragging and dropping frame elements and seeing what they transform into when maximized. It’s seriously like undergrad-level UI design and it requires two different deprecated technologies. I had to remote desktop to a system specially configured to support this monstrosity. And all to re-enter my PTO because HR couldn’t be bothered to migrate existing requests. I am intrigued to see what they do when IT bans Flash next year when it goes out of support.

Deposited $2.75 today to make US Bank agree to not charge me more fees for letting them hold my money. This process involved 4 sheets of paper, one of which was mailed, about 20 minutes of my time, and an in-person customer service interaction. Was the temporary use of that $2 worth it guys? I know you were hoping to be able to charge me fees until you drain the account but you could at least make the exception process cheaper for yourself, so you don’t lose money every time someone follows the instructions you send.

Therapy tomorrow. I’m not sure what’s on the plan yet. I just had some feels about the things my brain thinks I don’t know and can’t learn, like sewing or child care, which might be good to push at. They’re definitely attached to a slightly different flavor of repression than many other bits of my life. Or maybe there’s a feel about how I’m a creeper. I pulled out a piece of that in Sex Education but there’s probably something earlier, and that feel can sometimes be real hard, particularly when paired with societal pressures. I also need to poke them about compensating experience research again, since they never got back to me.

I’ve been listening to Jemisin’s 100KK series (after a non-trivial break while my life was busy) and I really like how the third one looks past all the shorter term stuff and decides we have to burn down The White (it’s not supposed to be subtle) because it’s rotten to the core. We can do it in pieces and try to save those who want saving, but it has to be dismantled and destroyed, not merely transformed. It also pays off the damaged god of childhood she’s been building for 3000 pages, and it’s real good. It doesn’t quite get us to 2nd person yelling, but the framing is close, and the personification gives it a sharp edge.

Tomorrow I’m gonna try to kill another SR, see what’s up with release process, call about my glasses, and plan for the (hopefully) final round of Medicaid billing. I’d love to poke the BZ project for a minute but no promises – I have a hard out at 1630. Dishes and laundry are officially back to nominal; one more day of regular processing will put us ahead. Later this week I still need to go to the regular bank to deal with taxes, and we should finalize Dog plans. But I think we’re on track for a weekend that’s calm enough to both avoid escapism and have a minute of down time after our projects.

I’ve been thinking about you K’Tuck. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard from you. What’s happening in your life?

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.