I know that I can, with research and practice, induce a wide range of feelings into people who will hear me. I am confident in my proficiency, and expect that with time I can work at the words and deeds to find the ones you need. It’s why I write to you specifically, and not just to the void. Because I think I can sometimes hijack your brain and induce specific feels. Sometimes this feels like a resounding relief to you. You feel seen and connected and in control. Sometimes you feel loved when I name a feeling you don’t have the words for. Sometimes this feels like an attack…

Chatted with @Yana about sadness and adoption and the perception of time. Maybe too much for day 2, but it’s the day I was having. Chatted with J about movies and names and capstones and hospitals and wrangling parents. And about a slightly different take on time. I was thinking about time yesterday, in a number of contexts, and I guess it showed. Got a message from M about sleep and the reason you’ll need it. Missed my usual call – maybe Wednesday – but it was good to get midnight chats from unexpected places, and better still to hear about movies. I’m going to have to watch a few…

Worked with Shanda today on the value of endings. It’s a raw topic but worth the pain. It can be easy to imagine that what you want is for nothing to change, to complete, to be lost. But you want change, because anything else is hopeless. And so you want things to be done, and to be lost. Not because you no longer care but because you want to see it become something different and maybe better. Talked with @Yana about the scale of art and Canada and children and college. They said they think of us as pen pals. When I was young none of my pen pals ever…

Got lots of chores done today. Laundry and dishes and trash and floors and kitchen power and encoder images and cutting metal and hanging wood. Advanced the plot on a day job project in a way that will save me a lot of release hassle in the future. Didn’t get to the disk enclosure today but I think it counts for art time tomorrow. @Yana responded to my art heist, and I think might do it. They had eyelash feels almost out loud, and told me about how they avoid thinking about makeup. So I’m trying to heist another way into the topic, to get past that brain block. They…

Had trouble sleeping last night – work up real early and had trouble getting back to sleep. Eventually ended up in bed until after 3 PM. I’m gonna make sleep schedule a priority this weekend, so next week is easier to manage. I’m feeling okay now, though I didn’t get any time to work on release processes before robots. Talked to C this morning, about the game and calendars. Talked at DerbyK about not sleeping and narc heists. I can never tell if my social heists are a good plan or terrifying at 6 AM, but I’ve taken to sharing them anyway. I shared one with @Vi yesterday that makes…

Thought more about joy today, and how I imagine it as something I can’t share. About how almost all people are sad in response to me sharing things that I liked and feel good about, because the context of much of my experience is boundless sorrow. You being sad at my joy is hard enough, but not infrequently you’re overwhelmed as well, and thereby lose the ability to smell my feelings at all. This makes it difficult for me to believe that I can share joy with humans, because in practice I often cannot. It happens regardless of how I feel or communicate. I know, I’ve checked a lot of…

It’s very hard for me to believe that I can have joy because people are very often sad when I tell happy stories. Not without cause. The parts of my past I remember most fondly are often just moderate relief from something that was worse. That can be very hard for people to hear. Whatever the cause it’s pretty isolating to know that other people can’t share joy with me, because knowing about my existence makes them sad. My current story is less sad than my past, so if I stick to it people do better. This is one of the reasons fleeing seems so attractive. People like me more…

Made my early meeting today and got through all my SRs, though there’s one more coming up from KI review. A couple of release checklists not due until next week but I’m gonna try to get them done before my time off to make next week easier. Skipped my noon meeting but got through all the KI and other email including team stuff that will make my boss calm. Went to the gym this afternoon, but found the sauna broken, which is pretty disappointing, since that’s the specialized equipment I actually go for – I can push heavy things against gravity from here. I do it every time I stand…

Fleeing is the only tool I know to actually fight oppression. I don’t just mean running away from oppression and pretending I won’t have to deal with it elsewhere, I mean actually fighting it and making it be different. Fleeing empowers me in a way that almost nothing else can, making me invulnerable to many form of power and letting me burn too brightly because I don’t need anything for the return trip. Fleeing is like jumping out of a plane – it commits you to an interaction with reality in the near future, but it also allows you a few minutes if great freedom. Some people plan to jump…

Watched Winter Passing (2006) yesterday because Shanda wanted a movie that was “bittersweet” and that was about feelings like Nassun had – about fleeing and hoarding and parents and not being a child. About oppression and sadness and not getting what you need. It was a good match on all counts. I’m often able to give you a movie for a feeling, if you can take a moment to tell me a story about your feelings. @Zooey is the saddest panda with no attachments, and it’s time to flee again. She has to give up everything – this movie is not subtle so she actually drowns a kitten – to…