You Gotta Do It. You Gotta.∆

Watched some more Future Man. The makeup on that show is great¹Coupe does come off as a bit orange particularly in green screen two-shots. Her makeup is a bit orange to go with the hair but the color timing could be better in some places. on everyone. The eyelashes on time-twin Tiger are such a good play (particularly when revealed to be a play in-world) and I love the bit where they get plastered to her face after a failed bathtub assassination attempt. The show also has survival motivations all around, a strong contempt for power structures of all kinds, genuine feels organized around an unrelenting set of dick jokes, and in season 2 a song and swing dance number that advances the plot (thereby technically making it a musical). As I’ve mentioned before the careful balance of actually doing BttF (or 2001 or T2 or many others) beats versus referencing them is real good. I’d have to go back to S1 to know if that was as deliberate there but in S2 I think they blow away most concerns about not really considering the media they’re referencing. The series is only 13 x 22 minutes, so it’s not a big job to watch. Do it. Doit²On a basically unrelated note, also Rick & Morty. Presumably most of you have been there by now but if you haven’t make it happen. It’s not just a funny show, it’s also about the way we choose and assign meaning and identity, and the way that mediocre reactions to endless fresh bullshit is sort of the best you can hope for when life is … Continue reading.

Shanda took Dog to the vet today and got some drugs to help him. He’s supposed to be better more or less tomorrow, though he’s got drugs for longer [fig 1]. He mostly seems fine today — willing to eat, reasonably energetic, laying in silly poses in random spots [fig 2]. I’m feeling a bit sick today though, and did go out with him. I’m okay laying around but being upright is a pain, and I’m pretty light sensitive. So laying around for me, which would be great if it weren’t like day 6 of being stuck inside. Even with some melt though it’s still pretty bright out, so I’m gonna stay here behind my motorized shades and chair curtains until the daystar stops trying to kill me.

Got a medium amount of work done. Still nothing on my bug or the SR from yesterday but closed 2 new SRs, dispatched another one off-team, and got comments into 2 more. I’ve got one easy bug to write and one that needs code research, both of which I should be able to close this week. I also sent an email about the one from yesterday and did today’s round of corrections on the G release notes. Plus the usual email stuff. So I guess not a bad day for being sick. It’s still hard to feel like I’m doing enough though, anytime I spend less than 14 hours working. The avoidance thing where I just don’t worry about it an only respond to the most urgent thing has some advantages, even if it does leave me in an always reactive mode.

Got the first part of Eggsy’s care package in today. I asked for suggestions and got “snacks”, which in my direct experience with Eggsy is a good suggestion even if it’s sort of the base layer of a care package. But I’m going all in, and I suspect they’ll be pretty happy about it when it shows up. I did caution Shanda to not eat any of them until we’ve got the package worked out though. I mean, we’re definitely going to eat a bunch of them but we should at least pick out the ones we’re sending first.

Therapy today. Soon even. We’re supposed to start in earnest with some the Lifetime Integration thing with the intent of helping with my touch issues, after last week’s prep. I’ve ready about it but I’m still not super sure what to expect. I’m feeling pretty good about being able to manage my own therapy, at least in relative terms, but it’s still a nervous thing sometimes. It’s easy for me to feel like my therapist will discover that I’m secretly evil and I’ll have to live again in isolation³I also worry that your therapist will discover the way that I’m hurting you, just like you might if I write the wrong sentence, and that interaction will trigger your departure. when it truth is revealed. Or like I all the things I think I have under control in my life are lies and I am really just Melissa with a marginally better façade, narcissistic and unmotivated and delusional about my ability to direct my life. Which is guess is not much different than the first fear.

I think we’re gonna send this right now in case there’s no more typing after therapy. The idea that there’s a right time of day is one of the reasons these sometimes bake too long. Just send as soon as they’re vaguely coherent and pick up the rest next time. Like all the rest of life.

—

I sent some context to E after the last The Screed about dog touches, and I thought it might be more generally useful, so I’ve included a mostly faithful version here:

Dog does sit next to me on the couch most days. Or even in the same chair as me if I use the big chair. Those are also hard to take sometimes, but less likely to make me feel trapped than bedtime touching. Sometimes I can even lay my arm on him when he’s sitting by me, at least for a few minutes.

I know he likes me but the fact that I’m the best option by default is sort of what I’m afraid of. I fear that given slightly less forced isolation on my part he would have other, better options available. I literally keep him tied up anytime we go outside to be sure he doesn’t get other options. I tell myself that it’s to keep him safe, but that’s the same line kidnappers use. I keep Dog in almost complete isolation which ensures he has no choice but to love me⁴I worry that I do the same thing to people who love me, albeit with slightly less physical restraint. That somehow I’m constraining their choice and thereby forcing their hand..

I realize this is my anxious brain telling me I’m a bad person. It’s not new. But it’s also not something I currently know how to stop, at least not most days. It’s not related to Dog at all. In fact Dog has been helping me see how it’s not really even about other people – that probably I’m not as physically intolerable as my brain says I am. That certainly I’m good enough to sit next to a social animal⁵I do better with livestock. Cows and I are old friends from cold nights. But they literally live in their own poop and/or outside and would never be allowed in a house.. I know it’s actually about the way I was rejected over and over again by Mother since the day I was born, and in particular since my sister was born or I was old enough and stopped being a direct extension of Mother.

But right or wrong my brain was trained to know that I make people feel bad whenever they’re close enough to notice me, and in particular if we’re at a socially-relevant distance or otherwise directly perceiving me. I sort of associate that fact with the feeling of being fat or smelly or ugly or something else the world says makes you undesirable, but I don’t really feel like being any of those things causes it⁶Mother definitely spent a lot of time telling me I was those things. I have always imagined that I was fat my whole life but for the first decade I was clearly malnourished and that only improved as I gained control of my own food. She also spent a lot of time complaining about my smell when I was young, which might actually have been accurate … Continue reading, more like those are the ways I should be to properly warn people about it, so they know to stay far enough away to be safe. Because being too close will hurt them even though I don’t want it to, and so I should put barriers keep them away, lest my true self leak out and contaminate them.

There’s also the bit where Mother demanded touch – either that I give it or receive it – as a way for her to regulate her own emotions. I would be required to hold still or move in the ways she liked, responding to her, and emote the right thing at her for a long time while she used me like a drug. So touch quickly makes me feel trapped whether I’m giving or receiving. Particularly if the other person finds it relieving. It makes me worry that I’ll be in charge of providing moment-to-moment emotional regulation to someone who hates me, and that I’ll have to do it forever and never be allowed have my own feelings or needs or even have bodily autonomy.

And so maybe if I’m fat and smelly and never get close enough to be identified as a human I will not only keep other people safe from me, but possibly keep myself safe from Mother.

Hence dog touches are complicated. In many ways he’s helping me learn to take better care of myself, and some things he’s good at directly like helping me eat or move. But some things he can only provide perspective on, like that I’m probably not worse than a sick dog in terms of physical company.

ZiB

∆https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BurOF6X4EXc Glove & Boots is also pretty good, but I wouldn’t rank it as essential viewing. Particularly not 10 hours of this.

• 

•