Wildfire Management via Cross-Laminated Lumber

I submitted some WIP for my BZ report to my boss. They liked it but also misunderstands how it works. They asked for interface changes that are just not technically possible. I do still intend to pretty it up a bit – like I said maybe some javascript will give it the round corners or whatever people are hoping for – but it does internal analysis and I can’t just slap the existing BZ data set into tableau. Still, I’m glad they were mostly satisfied. And I think it actually does what they want, if they can get past their dreams of animated graphs. Honestly I liked it better as a CLI tool, but I don’t get a vote on these things. So the day job was okay, once the week settled out. I still need to deal with my annual review by the 19th. I think that’s a job for Monday.

Piercings seem to be officially on. Everyone has agreed to the time and J seem genuinely excited now, instead of worried like they were before. We’re book for 2 PM Tuesday and I’ve even made transportation plans. So hopefully in a few days I’ll be the proud owner of a supraorbital attachment point.

It was graduation day today at the high school, and technically robots for a short while, though I went to neither. I had planned to go to the meeting today but lots of life got in the way. I’m glad the school bits are officially over – there was a lot of stress around it. I was pretty worried about V last night but you went and it all seemed to work out okay. We’ve had trouble connecting in real time this week, despite quite a bit of contact. But it sounds like, while there’s still plenty of accumulated bullshit to work through, things are no longer rushing toward crisis. I hope that trend continues.

Went to a science center talk tonight, because it’s 1870 and I’m part of the bourgeoisie apparently ¹this is slightly more true than I’m really comfortable with. It was fairly interesting – there’s an art installation of logs from a WA fire around the Seattle Center ²https://www.thesmokeseason.com/ that opens tomorrow, and the artist was there along with some panelists for a talk about wildfires. There was too much lumber industry shill, err, state representative telling us city folk that we don’t care about the right things, but otherwise it was good. And I had a free drink with a giant ice ball in it, so that was exciting.

C and KB were supposed to join us for the talk but bailed this afternoon. We still met them at their home afterward and brought burritos from Blue Taco. There was a dramatic ride up to their place, with someone who got into the car while trying to dismiss their very drunk romantic partner and then talked as quickly as possible for the next 20 minutes. Played some sort of puzzle card game that was themed around Through the Looking Glass, which was fun for a while but went too long. Played with their dog for a while – it was nice to have a dog that wanted my attention and didn’t just bark at me all day. I wish I could make Dog happier but he spends a lot of time doing not great these days.

Today was more bad news about Shanda’s eye. After more than a week trying to schedule you finally got them to agree to see you – in August. That’s far too long for a thing that causes pain and blind spots and quite possibly permanent nerve damage – a thing your referring providers thought should have been seen before now – and it took a week of being jereked around to even get there. It was real hard on you when it happened but we started on two parallel backup plans that I think made it better. We probably should have done that a week ago but it’s still good to do it now. It will make Tuesday a little busy – physician in the morning and piercings in the afternoon – but Tuesday is a great day for me to not work anyway. I hope this round goes better than the last one. I guess it would be hard for it to go worse.

Did my face today [fig 1,2]. Colors for my face and nails, a night out in rainbow pants and with me foots encased in socks – it’s pretty high achievement by my recent standards. This week had lots of bits that diverted my attention from the usual plan but I did get lots of less usual things done. Things I would like to be the usual plan but that have been difficult to achieve recently. Tomorrow I’m making pizzas from primitive bits like I used to back in Ankey. I’ve probably done it since then but not very often. It’s also time for the care packages to be opened, which I expect to be good. And I’ve already got plans for a continuation of last weekend’s (non-drug) fun, and time to do it, so that should be good too.

I haven’t gotten much work done on M’s commercial project, but it’s on my list for tomorrow. And another attempt at real time comms on Sunday. I did work myself up to sharing some of my worries this week. I still panic every time I mention one but you’ve been very engaged and understanding, which helps me keep it together. And I feel like it’s been working out okay in spite of what my brain predicts. It’s tricky, this thing where I try to feel okay about things I want to do but my brain says are monstrous. And it’s so far outside my usual plan of just ignoring my fear and inhumanity and doing things anyway. But I want to live a life where it’s possible for me to feel safe, and the path between here and there requires me to pay attention to when I feel bad instead of just powering past it. It’s a useful skill sometimes, to never be stopped just because you are afraid or ashamed or exhausted or incapable, but it’s not a sensible way to be safe ³I watched a @BPS the other day where they heard nearby gunfire and were clearly somewhat traumatized by it. And I realized I couldn’t imagine myself being affected by the same thing. I can see why they were – why anyone would be – but I wouldn’t change what I was doing at all. I mean, I’d probably wait an hour to walk Dog, but definitely … Continue reading or happy – it’s a survival skill that I need to dial down for regular life.

DerbyK has been all over my writing prompts recently. In some ways I imagine the Screed is a writing prompt – and sometimes I include them explicitly – but I also like the individual ones. And I really like that you pay attention to them. It’s a different form of communication and I like how it lets me learn things about you and your thinks and feels. I like how it not only answers my questions but gives me something I know your engaged on to discuss. It has helped me feel connected this week and I hope it’s something you continue to enjoy.

ZiB

—
Sent from a phone.

• 

•