The screen is up, hanging and hinged and ready for viewing. I managed to reverse the whole thing when adding the projection surface, which required re-drilling the pins to mount it again. If I were going to build another PVC screen I’d use a different tensioning procedure. But I’m totally satisfied with this phase. The surface is smoothly tensioned and the hinge works well and it’s light and easy to move. Step next is to add ropes and pulleys so it can be stored overhead. And then some thinking about what the next phase looks like — a prototype for the gas springs? Some sort of simulation of the final…

What if my fundamental attachment fear isn’t abandonment, what if it’s that no one will ever reliably attempt to understand me? What if I can’t quite believe that anyone could be trusted to change something – to change themselves – when they can’t accommodate my needs? I think there’s a a developmental skill related to the non-verbal, collaborative process of an infant and their caregivers working together to establish communication and safety. My old therapist talked about that in terms like “[parents] just know” 1This eventually devolved into my therapist making a claim about parenting that I disproved with my own experience, and them defensively telling me that my experience…

I’ve got the screen glued and pinned 1This isn’t screen news, but in home art news [fig 4] is one of the reasons the light bars circuit boards I’m building will have UV channels.. It was too late to mount it tonight but tomorrow I will likely get it installed and maybe even get the screen installed on the frame. There was only medium household panic during this project, and we handled it mostly in real time. And now we have a screen frame. I had lots of trouble eating today. We did things to have a variety of good foods available and I even had weed, but it was…

I’m getting close to having a screen again [fig 1]. It’s not the final version, but it’s something that will give me a tensioned projection surface, can be non-destructively removed and reinstalled, and hopefully that can fold up overhead without being removed, so that it can be left installed even if we aren’t using it for a day or two. There will still be hassle in getting the projector out, I still won’t be able to project at full-size, it still won’t be quite easy enough for daily use. But it will be easy enough for weekly use, and even with some setup hassles it will be a lot better…

There’s a tension when I’m tired. After PIC has authorized responding to bring tired and checks out there’s someone else who wants to be up. This is often the person who eats for me. They’re responsible for some other aspects of my bodily care too. If I distract myself with a narrative audio or other distracting focus I can sometimes stay awake enough to see this. The thinking still feels like me but the pattern of feelings is not the same. This person knew Dog in a particular way – I can see that after eating with another dog. This person maybe doesn’t talk. They’re maybe the feral me who…

I told my therapist I was disappointed with them and they said 3 times over the course of our session that they weren’t sure they wanted to keep working with me. They didn’t stop scheduling, but they did tell me to stop emailing them 1I’m sort of unclear on the reason for this because they’ve literally never responded to any email I sent, and they wait until session to read them at all. But whatever. They’re afraid and text makes it worse somehow so I guess no written communication., and they’re taking next week off. Or maybe it was the part where I said I could tell they were afraid…

It occurs to me that emotionally-driven “simulations”, as I described in the last Screed, are very similar to the process I imagine lets me combine a sequence of emotions with a story and build a narrative memory. It’s also the process I use to build scams, but using it to check the plausibility of a story – to check the match between the real feelings and the story I’m making up about them – is sort of what I do in lieu of being able to actually remember things across identities. The thing that happens when I wake up, jaw clenched, in a bad simulation – the thing that ends…

Things I did today: Wandered around after midnight on the streets of Cleveland wearing a lighted Cookie Monster hat Made an unintentional sex pun while trying to be emphatic Yelled at my therapist for an hour Wiggled a dog 11,347 times Tried to make M believe that how they feel matters (at least to me even if not always to themselves) Bought 2 wrist braces and a razor and some cookies Tried to not be too hypocritical while asking someone to be deliberate about who they want to parent Things I did yesterday: Have a heavy conversation at 5 AM even though I needed to be up again by 10…

This week I got to talk to DerbyK, after forever away. You’ve been very busy – too busy for how well you’ve been. You should fix that if life gives you the opportunity 1you should maybe force life to find an opportunity for you. But we got to talk about disability and the morality of cleanliness and and the complexity of correctly imagining even our own futures, let alone planning for one we don’t know yet. And we strategized for about how to use the skills we do have to synthesize the parenting we did not ourselves receive. M also showed up, anxious to move forward on a project you…

Today I got my last paycheck for the year – in the last 16 days I brought in $846. Which is about $750 less than I paid for even my own housing during that same period, let alone anything else. In theory I will eventually get some more money from insurance, but we’re 7 weeks in to that process and they’re still just dicking me around. I’m not gonna starve to death before I get back to work, but it’s enough to trigger old poverty feels, which can be intense. It would be hard even if I wasn’t sensitive. This whole process is completely unnecessary – I have a medical…