Daddy’s Day
On a note from the weekend, fucking Father’s Day. Isn’t a day explicitly for the fundamental basis of patriarchy a bit much? I know that’s not how everyone feels about it, but “that’s not how I feel about it” is the same thing people organizing a straight pride parade say — we don’t have to care about systematic oppression because we think we like the way it impacts us individually (and are intimidated by alternatives). I’m not much for calendar-based celebrations in general, but parent-related days make me extra salty. We could celebrate providing care without tying it to the assignment of exactly one or two (mostly) gender-serrated legal owners. Here’s a non-patriarchy alternative: https://www.supportiv.com/depression/self-parenting-day
Shanda is doing the breakup thing where she thinks talking to B about their breakup is a good plan. And going to a party with B and their friends. I suggested it might it worth waiting a whole week before acting on those impulses. I get how it happens. John Green talks about how the hardest part of a breakup can be that the person you want to go to for support can’t support you with this, and that seems reasonable. But it’s sort of sitcom trope hilarious, the idea that a single-digit number of days into a breakup of a year-long romantic relationship is a good time to start a non-romantic relationship with the same person. I don’t mean to poke fun at you. I know it hurts, and you’re looking for ways to make it less painful. I’m glad you’re talking about it. But it still sounds like a less wise idea than joining a MLM scheme.
Piercings all went well. Shanda bled a fair amount 1including on the piercer, who appeared to leave to change shirts before doing the rest of us for the second one and was clearly having a medium hard time, but was fine by the time we left. Everything else went smoothly. V and J were both brave and both good company, on a day when it was sometimes challenging for Shanda to support me. I had no trouble with mine other than being annoyed with aggressive blood cleanup – I want less face touching now that the hard part is done. No pics tonight but I’ll get one tomorrow.
Talked with J about family reunions and LARPing and other bits of cosplay. They’re very interested but imagine they can only participate in a complicated version that involves travel. I might see if I can convince them to try something local to see if they’re excited by it without having to commit to such a big plan. And to help them imagine that doing such things is how they find local friends interested in LARPing. Also to see if I can get their help with my own RP costume, since I currently don’t have any. Ranted at them about comparative suffering later, but I’m not sure if any of that will take.
Had a tough morning with Shanda at the physician. Lots of eye tests and dyes and dilation and no better result than a referral back into the same provider that was hassling us before. But I think worth doing – they evaluated the last referral as low priority perhaps in part based on the 2nd-hand nature – this one will at least be direct, and will include lots of imaging. And it felt like doing something. We’re still chasing dual paths but today was disheartening. Mostly Shanda is staying out of hopeless, but only mostly.
Drove by B’s place today, as part of hauling folks around 2I drove for like 4 hours today. Driving less has not made me like it more.. Which made Shanda pretty sad and a bit withdrawn. That’s not unexpected and didn’t take too long to recover from, but it would have been nice to skip on a long day like today.
I’ve let myself become accustomed to short sleep. I’m actually doing okay on regulating sleep – not great but okay, with many nights happening on schedule – but for various reasons it has been hard to reliably get enough every night. Over the course of a few days that’s no problem but it’s been happening for too long and now I’m acclimated. It’s a place where I lived for decades and mostly I function fine, but it makes my life hard. It’s definitely part of that thing where tired and hungry and sick all feel the same and are all ignored – once I start ignoring tired the rest just get lumped in. I’ll recover but I will have to find a couple of days in the immediate future where I can dedicate a lot of time to missed sleep.
Finally noticed a reply from @BPS, two weeks after the fact. YouTube is not a great messaging platform. I was sort of bummed to not get one before, since I had put a decent amount of work into synthesizing a take on a broad slice across several topics I know are important to them. And since my damaged brain immediately knows that people hate me as soon as I click send. But they were really appreciative, and it sort of made my day. I’m really glad I started engaging with them directly instead of just lurking.
Therapy tomorrow. Maybe there’s work to do on distinguishing physical needs when I’m stressed. There’s also a robots event, and I need to grab some time for my BZ project. Plus a release checklist, whatever else I missed while I was out today, and my annual review bullshit. I could really stand to get some budget analysis done after work and therapy and robots too, but I might bump that for sleep.
I’m definitely bumping the rest of this for sleep.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.