Confit
Did some woodworking today [fig 1]. Still needs some sanding but the cutting is all done. Maybe some color tomorrow after Shanda gets home, and a bunch of drilling whenever I feel diligent enough to keep things square. It’s not a big project but it’s good to feel like I’m getting something done. Should help me do the tea shelf and the coat hooks and whatnot too.
Played with my new toys before going out this afternoon [fig 2,3]. Found something that will actually sit on my water line instead of being eaten by my eye. And I love the color on the lashes – my eyes are too deep set to expose much lid but my lashes are great and I’m excited to be able to independently color them. I will also require some warm colors, though I bet I have to buy another set of browns to get any. Turns out I’m often not looking for well-integrated beauty technique that blends into my face so much as clown paint I can wear to the office. There’s definitely overlap between those two but I should imagine my goal is more theatrical (and possibly source supplies in this way).
Went to the SAM before supper. Didn’t get to stay long but did see some bits I haven’t before. My selections for today are The Ever Promised Erection (Athi-Patra Ruga) [fig 4,5] and Surah al-Fatiha (Isghaan Adams) [fig 6,7]. The former is described by the artist as “a cross between a great soap opera and Game of Thrones, at the intersection between high and low art” and that the title is about the “fallacy of impotence of the posturing nation state”. I’m always for pointing out the fallacy of nation state, but really I’m here for the colors; this is one of a series that have similar busts but different overlays and this purple and blue one is the best. I do like the whole concept though, of a bedazzled bronze. It takes a symbol of colonial power and its valuation of conformity to an imagined static past of great (i.e. white, rich, male) heroes, plastered over entirely with bright fabric flowers and plastic beads. And the way it gives shape to the sort of dreary smoothness of bronze busts. The weaving I like for the regular but non-repeating geometry and the gaussian beads it constrains against the uneven vertical gradient and the separate, variegated gradient of the weave itself.
Went out to supper at Loulay. Had some Duck Confit Sliders — tiny puff pastries with confit filling and a savory, slightly fishy sauce to go with them. And a chilled, oaked cocktail. I rarely drink anything other than wine or straight liquor but if you’re gonna pay $17 for a drink you might as well get something that comes with citrus toys and a fun name. Sat next to a booth with an intolerable rich dude who spent all night telling the rest of his party about the way he carefully arranges his life around golf and driving to golf courses and standing nearby to other rich people in hotels near golf courses. And about how his shiftless daughter was living in his ex-wife’s basement at 24 and thereby shaming him.
Talked with M for a minute about work and the ways I might make it better. I’m not sure any of the things I’m imagining will work but I feel better positioned to try than I have before. And better supported just knowing that you’re thinking about it. I was glad to hear that your followup was technically uneventful even if it was a giant hassle. And I’m sorry you’re still sick; it’s so exhausting to not be quite well and still push through with your normal life. I spent a non-trivial portion of my life dealing with chronic respiratory issues, not being able to breathe or control my coughing but still needing to work and school and whatnot. I hope you make it back closer to 100% before too long.
Talked at DerbyK for a minute about your guilt and my inability to understand it. I’d like to help you feel less guilty and ashamed on a wide variety of topics. You sometimes see your own poor, transient reactions as equivalent to ongoing hurtful choices by others. That not only gives to much credit to your abusers but not enough to yourself. I know it feels like something you can’t navigate – when to tolerate pain – or that is only safe if you stay on the right side of perfection. But I think you can find a path that lets you be human and still tell when others are inhumane to you. With support and practice of course.
Talked with Shanda about how she sometimes says she doesn’t want me to live with her. How hearing that when I’ve been away for months is particularly hard. I try to understand that she means “when you’re away I can have and imagine that I prefer avoidance on some topics” and not “you’re better when I don’t have to see you and can stop thinking about you anytime” but it’s hard not to feel rejected. Particularly weeks later when you say you’re feeling better but still frame the issue as something about me. Frame our life together as something you have mixed feelings about and might want to end at any moment if you have a hard day.
I try to tell myself that like other bits this is just something you’ve labeled with my name and isn’t really about me. That the thing you’re pushing away is your own thoughts, not my person. But it really rides on my fear that I’m better remotely than in person, better invisible than in the foreground, better when I leave. I hope someday you can help me feel more than a few hours from yet another point at which I must choose to run away to avoid hurting the people I love. That someday you’ll see me as reliably supportive enough to earn a presumption of goodwill. But today it still feels like I’m closer to Canada than to that sort of safety. Like I’ll never be good enough to really deserve the security of a home or a friend.
Merry birthday, BTW. Sorry to end it with this downer.
Shanda is gone all day tomorrow, off to a massage in the morning and then all day with B. I’m hoping to get my MMS->email gateway going and then poke at a chat server. The gateway should be easy enough but I’m less sure about chat. Lots of pieces I want that to do – integrate into my auth system, work reliably with iOS and Android clients without a proxy, support server-side history and inband files but also end-to-end or at least per-user encryption, allow injection of arbitrary messages and monitoring of classes of fake destinations. And then I have to write the integration software for it. Should all be doable but it’s gonna take a number of steps over more than one day.
Still need to figure out what I’m doing to gym. And to deal with the bullshit my last therapist and my insurance company have cooked up together – she billed me directly but when I submitted a claim the insurer decided she was in network, wrote down the amount, and then paid her a second time. I have no idea if she’s in network or not but somebody owes me almost $1k and I am already sick of arguing about it. Maybe should poke those tomorrow too.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.
