Westward

Good days, the last couple. Even if I still haven’t figure out how to sleep or write regularly. Today I’m traveling back to Seattle, and M and Eggsy are off on their own adventure. So our home is empty of humans, though it now contains a number of other living things – things that others will care for while we’re gone. I hope both the presence of and care for those things helps you at least feel useful to your friends, even if it’s still hard for you to feel loved.

I got a bunch of small home improvement projects done (after buying a set of tools to be able to do them). Nothing complicated – towel bars and minor repairs and curtain rods and wire organization – but it helps me feel useful and accomplished even though it’s hard for me to feel recognized or loved. And it makes me feel like I’ll finally be able to get started on the basement when I’m back.

Went to the gym by myself last night. M had planned to go with me but you ended up with a pretty busy day and opted to skip. But it turned out fine – I got to be proud of myself for going alone, spent some time on the bike, made a circuit of the weight machines to get an estimate of my strength in various configurations, and then got to sit in the sauna for an unwise amount of time. I really love being able to get past sticky to just sopping overheated and then back to normal with cold water. It not only makes me feel in control of my body temperature in a way I often don’t* but it reminds me of some of the better parts of WI (or really, Scadawhovian) culture.

Had a great time the other day laying on the floor for some feels talks. It really helps me feel like things are going okay, both in my own life and with you. It’s one of my favorite activities in general; it’s the thing in miss most about being home with Shanda. I was even able to talk a little about when I’m moving out without instantaneously feeling like I was hurting you by still being there. I don’t know exactly what being settled looks like yet, but I’m not worried about it. I’m having a great time in Cleveland, and I’m going to be more sad than relieved when it’s time for me to leave.

I fired up my OKCupid profile on Monday night, after scraping together some pictures. I’m not super interested specificaly in dating while I’m in Cleveland but it wouldn’t hurt to practice, romantic intent or otherwise. It also wouldn’t hurt to independently meet some people so that I can stop mooching off M’s social network. And to talk to some people who remember the 1900s.

I read this today, with respect to someone who was illegally terminated after trying to end her sexual harassment. “What does [Eliza] expect, she was in Maxim.” I understand that’s supposed to be an excuse of some sort – presumably in the vein of “she tempted me” – but I’m hard pressed to draw a line from those words to anyplace else that doesn’t go through an admission of guilt. It’s not that I don’t expect the harassment or the excuses, but I cannot understand why corporations let their employees say things like that. Can’t we at least use capitalism to fight harassment on the basis that it’s fiscally irresponsible? Shouldn’t a hedge fund be suing CBS for their inadequate protection of shareholders?

I’ve schedule a therapy session for Thursday, one of my first individual sessions in a long time. I’m actually already annoyed with the therapist, and last week I sort of talked myself out of this one and into waiting for the next. They have been super bad at scheduling and as far as I can tell either doesn’t read or doesn’t understand my emails even about logistics. But I talked myself back into it when they offered a definite time slot, on the basis of two factors: 1) I want to get started for the sake of being started, because continuing is easier than starting and 2) firing a therapist would actually be great for me. Historically one of my problems with getting help has been a willingness to accept things that aren’t working – even things that are actively bad – on the basis that it’s the best that I can hope for, or that it’s my fault this it isn’t working. So I go and try to participate and talk to the therapist through the filter of their misconceptions about me and try to reverse engineer what I should do based on our discussion of a fake person the therapist imagines I am. This of course is not terribly effective, and doesn’t provide any direct emotional support. So firing a therapist would give me an opportunity to break that habit, and might, albeit counterintuitively, make me feel more like real help is available. Or at least like I don’t have to put up with paying for non-help.

I’m excited to go back to robots again. I miss my friends there, and the scheduled activity. They still sound fairly discouraged on Discord but I think things will be fine. I’m eager to work on some of the things we never have time for, and to not have 40 interruptions to my attention while I’m there. I also want to see what they’ve cooked up for M, because more than one of them had promised me they’re bulding things.

And I can hardly wait to see Dog. He’ll be so excited to see me. I sometimes feel disappointed that I can’t match his level enthusiasm and activity when he’s excited but then I remember he gets almost as excited every day just to snuffle along on walk, which helps put it in perspective. Or at least I hope he’s excited to see me. I’m still slightly worried he’ll have gained the ability to be passive aggressive and resentful at me. Though I guess once that was over that I’d be super impressed with his careful emotional expression and advanced social reasoning.

ZiB

*And it lets me exercise my endurance in a way that’s not self destructive; it’s powerful to feel like you can endure but I need to be more careful about when I choose to, and the sauna is a place that’s safe to practice. Also it’s a place to ponder the weird linear relationship between age and nakedness that occurs in men’s locker rooms. Some of it is probably just that old men don’t imagine being harassed, but privilege alone doesn’t explain the pattern. There’s probably a better acceptance of certain aspects of body with age though I have trouble relating to that so I don’t know how much explanatory power it has. Personally I’m not worried about people seeing my fiddly bits unless I imagine it’s going to cause a significant social problem for me.

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Sent from a phone.