In therapy this week I talked about food. There are lots bits obviously but I started with a memory about rotten food and food denial and secret eatting. When I was like 4 or maybe 5 – before the porch I lived in existed because this took place on the stoop it replaced – Mother tried making yogurt. She bought some sort of heated petri dish or whatever cheapo kitchen appliance was supposed to facilitate this process. She loaded it up with dairy, but didn’t actually follow the instructions – as with many other foods she was happy to just skip anything we didn’t have, and to do things to…

I have a lot of trouble imagining that anyone can pay attention to me without being hurt, or at least annoyed. I can imagine people tolerating me when they need something and think my attention is necessary to get it. I can be unobtrusive enough to make tolerating me fairly undemanding, at least if you aren’t stuck with me 24/7. I can imagine people feeling guilty about my sad life and deciding to look at me even though it builds some resentment for them. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually wholeheartedly wanting to see me. It doesn’t help that many times you imagine me being in the room…

Started season 3 of GLOW (Netflix). I really love the excuse that wrestling gives that show for stupid makeup and costumes. It’s just my speed. So is its 80s nostalgia – The Americans and Stranger Things 1The Winona Ryder part of the 80s works for me, but the part where it asks me to remember being a child is uncomfortable and doesn’t really match my experience at the time anyway. I had terrible shorts and whatnot but because neglect not because 80s. don’t work for me, but GLOW does. It guess maybe I was already a washed-up old writer back in the day. I realized that I have used money…

One of my parenting feels is shame that I failed so badly last time. Shame that Mother was right, and that I could never do it well enough to avoid hurting people. I never figured out how to get them out of it, or even how to give them each other. Of course I didn’t, because I was 11 and poor and subject to my own abuse and unable to remove them from theirs and because I hadn’t even figured out how to parent myself let alone anyone else. Of course it was doomed. But it still happened. I still failed badly enough that Ben is trying to die alone…

Long time no scree. I know I’ve used that pune before but a good pune is like a good wine – the same as an okay one but way more costly. I intentionally scaled these down while I was on vacation. I did intend to go again last week though. But my brain is puffy and doing these seemed hard even though I was doing okay with other life tasks 1I did take lots of pictures this past week so I’ve included a bunch of those (with no context) to help fill the gap. I’m gonna try to take pictures while I work on believing a different thing about what…

Wednesday was a slow recovery day, which went well. Shanda had several appointments but all things you were happy to do, and without any rush. I had therapy, and we were both done by like 6 PM. We did another round of paint pours [fig 1,2] and I cleaned up the house from our adventures on Tuesday. I cooked like 3 pounds of chicken legs; we had some with risotto and asparagus last night and I think more with cream sauce and pasta tonight. Got a life jacket for Dog and some tips for my soldering iron and an automatic soap dispenser for the kitchen and a big purple hat.…

Shanda and I had a drug day today. It was a lot. There’s so much sweating, when your brain thinks it’s dying. I had some pretty intense survival shame about food. We panicked about dog itineraries. We decided to move. We voted in local elections. But mostly it was real good. We had several good social interactions in spite of the brain melting. I had the best feels with M and Shanda together. When my wits and my thumbs are both less twitchy I’ll try to tell you about it. ZiB

Took Dog to the beach on Sunday, after we got him back. He was a big fan. He’s not usually up for much stick chasing but he wanted to fetch things from the water all day, and then slowly tromp back out. He would even chase rocks and whatnot, and make a legit search for them when he got to the spot. So it was good fun, and a nice way to wear out Dog on a travel day when we weren’t up for much activities. Shanda was worried about Dog in the water but he wasn’t. And you were worried about cleaning him up afterwards. Worried enough that you…

I’ve been listening to some r/EntitledParents. It’s similar in theme to r/IDontWorkHereLady in that it’s about Karens being dicks and claiming it’s allowed or even required because of their societal role. Except this one is about entitlement based on motherhood instead of money. As you can imagine this involves some trauma porn, but it’s been helping me have oppression feels. These stories are full of people who see abuse happening and choose to do nothing. It’s sad, to hear about young people I know are being hurt. It’s infuriating to see how sometimes they are held responsible for their supposed caregivers. But it’s useful to see the way that people…

Watched Shakespeare in Love today at Bard. It was what we go there for. Jennifer Lines was amazing as the Queen, despite the tiny role. The first time we see her she walks out on to stage in a skirt about 4 feet wide and stands in the middle of a giant turntable 1The practical purpose of the turntable was to cut from backstage to house sides of the curtain while we put on the play in the play, but using it for the queen was amazing. with her arms out for applause. It’s fraking WWF. The last time we see her she interrupts the play from the top of…