Potatoes

Mixed days, the past couple. A ton of great things happened on Tuesday, but also lots of waiting and reacting, and not enough sleep after Monday’s travel. Wednesday was less busy but still not far down the establishing routine path either. And still note enough sleep.

Went with M to an appointment, which is a thing I still can’t quite believe is common — I know it’s just my lack of experience with professional medical care, but the idea that you can have someone with you feels very foreign to me. It does help me feel useful, at least once I can get past the idea that I’m unjustly imposing myself. I’m trying to imagine having better direct social support in my life but this is a bit where I can still hardly imagine how it works, let alone that I could have any. But if I take a second to grieve for my own historic lack of support it’s not so hard to see how it works.

Wrapped a bunch of presents with M. Which I sort of like, and it gave us a chance to chat which I like a bunch. Hopefully it also helped you feel less busy. I still need to wrap my own present — this month Shanda gets a care package instead of M — but I think there will be time for that Thursday. I want to include some of Thursday’s holiday foods anyway.

Spent another afternoon waiting for furniture repair. It’s the second time they didn’t make a scheduled appointment, and like the seventh time I’ve called about it. I was supposed to get a call back about it Wednesday, but like the other three call backs they promised that never happened either. They’re on my call list again but it’s hard to make a priority when they can’t be bothered to take me seriously.

Bused and walked around a bit, to do household errands. Found out that the closest USPS location is actually just a dude who sells stamps and can’t mail anything over a pound, and so had to hoof it over to a real post office (or wait 20 minutes for the next bus). There was luckily a pharmacy right next door — not the one I’d prefer but after giving up on my original travel plans it felt win. Dropped off the prescription, mailed my packages at the most DMV-like post office I’ve ever been to, did the rest of the mandatory 55 minutes of waiting for someone to hand me a box of drugs. Then pointed my granny cart* at the nearest place that Google said sold produce. Turns out that was barely a building, let alone a grocery store. It has been at some point but these days it was mostly empty shelves and tobacco products. I knew there was an appropriate store between me and home but by now I was well off the bus routes that would take me there, so more walking. Did about 2 hours of walking all told, and only about 6 minutes on the bus. But I did eventually get what I needed and back home, and I’ve got a couple of moving-related mistakes out of the way.

In the evening went out for piercings. I didn’t get any — I was along to look at jewelry** — but I did start thinking about an eyebrow piercing. A vertical bar at the ear end of my brow could be fun, now that I’m not afraid of a middle-aged women ripping out my piercings. I’ve always thought metal bits in humans were hot and I’m glad I can finally participate directly.

I also bought ice cream, cooked supper, did some of my day job, wrangled appointments, tried again to dismiss Pete without generating more hassle, did a bit of laundry, tried to repair the broken drier, collapsed and folded about 200 cardboard boxes, and eventually sat up with Eggsy for a bit trying to like the modeling and voice acting in RDR2 in spite of the gameplay.

So it was a busy day, and the foibles on my first outing took their toll. I also didn’t get the things I had planned done — like doing the dishes or completing a TMA at work or getting the furniture squared away — so it was easy to feel unaccomplished even though I did 40 things. Made it hard to appreciate all the good bits that happened in the same frame of mind as the hard bits, and left me feeling pretty anxious overall. I got the thing reframed after talking with Shanda for a while, but it didn’t come easily, or until late in the day.

V wrote to me unprompted, which was a big boost at the end of the day. I had been planning to write the above The Screed but you were having a hard time so I wrote to you instead. And I’m glad I did. I think I helped, at least a smidge, which always helps me feel like my life is working. And V is now a subscriber, which is also very exciting. I even got the impression that you might try a little screeding yourself, which I think is a great idea, and not merely for narcissistic reasons.

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Today was less busy, and I got more of my list done, but high stress in some other ways. M had a lot of things on your list and hit some barriers in achieving them as planned. I saw it happening and wanted to help but had a lot of trouble communicating about it in a way that was useful. I had hoped to go to the gym with you but ended up just stressing you out and making myself wait because I couldn’t talk about it in a way that worked. I think we did finally hit something at the end of the day that I know how to work with, and I’m hopeful I can do better in the future.

I did manage to close my TMA today, update all my SRs, and even make another run to the pharmacy. Made progress on the TV setup, scheduled appointments, reviewed EoB and bills, bought household goods, continued trash cleanup, and washed every plate, bowl, cup, spoon, fork, knife and most of the pans and some of the appliances we own. Even 32 dishes that we previously didn’t own. So I’m feeing fairly well positioned for tomorrow, and moderately accomplished, even though I was worried and frustrated for much of the day.

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I’ve got something to say about fear, motivation, and sharing, but it’s not baked yet. Maybe tomorrow.

ZiB

*The granny cart was a hit though, in spite of the otherwise stressful outing. I was sort of excited when I ordered it, about the basket-dolly conversion and the stair-climbing wheels, but wasn’t sure it would actually be cool when I got it. I loved it though; I hauled packages out that would have been difficult to carry (particularly after I had to redirect and walk a fair distance) and 20+ pounds of groceries back — and even other people liked it. I talked to a delivery driver about hand carts while I waited for the bus, and then an old man on the bus: they both liked the stair climbing feature enough to chat about it.

**I literally didn’t know piercing was part of the plan until moments before we left. M got a 3rd set of lobe piercings and your friend added a couple of holes to their already well-poked ears. There wasn’t any jewelry to be had though, or at least nothing interesting.

†You weren’t around for this, but as part of de-gendering my writing I decided to use the 2nd person when speaking to subscribers, whether addressing them individually or collectively, to avoid gender entirely and make the thing read more intimately.