You’ve Got Mail

Talked with @BPS about art as messaging, about mail art, about art as the public edifice of a private exchange. I’ve been doing a bit of mail art, but hadn’t ever really considered it as a thing. But of course it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_art @BPS also specifically called out “100 Boots” from Eleanor Antin ¹http://blogs.getty.edu/pacificstandardtime/explore-the-era/worksofart/100-boots/.

Heard from Dave today. Got a pic even. He said something about being ravaged by time and high energy electromagnetism. So I reiterated my longstanding position on chemical hats ²Next we’ll both not talk directly to the other for like 6 weeks before exchanging another two lines. I’ll be back from Canada by then so we can talk about itineraries or travel or something inane and I’ll write it up here like it’s a coded exchange about nuclear armament..

Missed E at the gym today, but still had a decent time. My right arm was pretty weak; I must somehow have injured it but I do not know how or when. It’s not sore in general use but it sure is when I’m pushing something. Sweating Man was back in the sauna, clearly struggling to stay there. I feel like I should leave a pamphlet about how sweating out toxins causes hair loss in the hopes of helping him out if this somewhat dangerous situation, but I don’t want to accidentally start some sort of Chad antivax movement. The bus home was late and slow and 1000 degrees, but I did eventually get there.

Talked to M about all the things. Some easy things, like plays and shopping, or flowers and postage. Mostly we talked about all the big changes this week. None of them are easy, but some of them good. I’m proud of you for choosing yourself over the endurance of harm that your history with survival safety demands. I know that’s hard to even consider, and that doing it will require lots of tough feels, but I think you’ll be better off for it. I think you’re already better off just by believing it’s an option, because I’m pretty sure past you would have just stuck it out until the expiration date, no matter the cost.

There were less good bits too, things that will likely hurt much more in the long term. That have already been hurting and have come to a head. I hope the space you get in the next few days brings some relief. When it stops feeling like relief I hope you can find some solice in other people. I know that’s not an easy thing for you to do, but I’d love to help you practice.

I suspect in the coming days it will be easy to feel like you ought to change it make other people happy. To settle their mixed feelings about loss or hardship, because they want both to mistreat you and to have your help. And I know your brain is ready to spit out a torrent of reasons why you’re not good enough, or why you should want something else. But I know you’re good enough. I know that you’ve thought about what you want, which is already a more solid footing than most. I know that you’ve considered their point of view when choosing your course. So don’t second-guess yourself. Your brain will tell you that a real human wouldn’t be in this situation and wouldn’t feel this way and so maybe if you just give up your needs or your desires or your life finally someone will respect you. Finally you’ll become a real human and break free of all the parts of yourself that keep people from loving you.

I already love you, no changes required. If you decide you want to be someone else I’ll love them too, but this version is real good as-is. This version is full of thinks and feels and decisions and experiences – some that are hard but all that are you – that I think make you worthy of my attention and care ³And worthy of your own attention and care, both of which are formidable in their own right.. I know I can’t shout your brain into submission, but I can at least preload some reassurance and hope it slowly leaks in.

Talked to DecBot about sparse clothes and insecurities and the existence of color. About the sort of bravery that denies the existence of fear and the sort of restriction that denies the existence of desire.

Talked at DerbyK, about the pain of not protecting people you love from ongoing harm you can see. From harm that you yourself need to be protected against. About the heartbreak of watching someone get hurt and only being able to offer them coping. Life requires this of all of us – the only other option is to not care about anyone – but it presses some of us much harder than others. Presses longer and with the support of state violence and societal expectation against people who are in no position to resist. Presses more often because of a past we did not control and cannot change. I talked about the pain of being good enough at prediction – often by terrible experience – to see that sort of pain coming. And I saw you talk about not being able to learn things.

I think I’m going to teach myself to sew. Which is both easier and harder than you might expect. It’s easier because I already do know how to sew. I’m not good or fast or anything, but l have been trained and undertaken not inconsiderable practice in the past. But it’s also a thing I’ve spent a quarter century denying I know how to do, just like I did with child rearing.

When I was young I imagined that being able to sew would finally mean that I could have clothes. There were a million excuses about why I couldn’t have clothes but money was a perennial favorite and 8-year-old me was sure that once I could sew I’d be able to make a few things – fabric wasn’t free but I knew I could find enough cash for a couple of yards. Mother sewed frequently when I was young. Nothing for me of course ⁴Reasons for this were as varied as the reasons I couldn’t have clothes but included (and bear in mind I was 8 and underweight): You don’t fit the patterns, you can’t take care of the clothes you have already, it takes too much fabric because you’re too big, or I only have girl fabric and boys can’t wear it. There were other even less … Continue reading, but things for Alex or for the church or anywhere else it might feed her ego.

Over the years I resolved all the complaints she lodged, finding a pattern and fabric and cutting and pinning and whatnot ⁵Young me tried to resolve a lot of things this way. Slowly building not only what I needed but a significant reserve to accommodate any plausible demand, confiscation, emergency, etc. I tried to apply my emergency management skills to the problem, and to believe the things she told me she needed. It didn’t often work, but it was worth trying for … Continue reading, so that all I needed was some stiching to have a pair of pants. She didn’t have time of course, not to do the stitching or to teach me how. And I certainly couldn’t be trusted to use the machine without training. No one but her could; even Pete got in trouble for it. Like the laundry machines and kitchen appliances it was a source of control. You might be able to bribe her to allow use of the can opener or microwave but not machines related to clothes.

So I taught myself as I could. I pretended to practice without touching the machine. I volunteered to make costumes for OotM and practiced with someone else’s machine. Eventually I was able to obtain training, both in school (which didn’t allow you to pick your project) and later at the community center (which did but I could not get there with my clothing supplies so I had to practice on scrap). I don’t know that I was ever any good, but I certainly could safely operate a machine. It was still not enough though. It couldn’t have been because nothing was. She never offered more excuses – the stated reason I couldn’t use the machine was still my technical incapacity, and nothing would change that.

So I just gave up. By this point I was well past the place where everyone knew that my clothes were terrible and ill-fitting. Past the point where it was sensible for me to care about them. Past the point where I even believed that I could have clothes that fit, or could take good enough care of clothes to keep them nice. I can see now that some of these things were impossible lies, but it didn’t keep my from believing it then. I can’t even really say that that I’ve stopped believing it now – I often still feel like I ruin clothes by wearing them, like I should have only a few, like I shouldn’t put any on unless it’s for someone else’s sake, and like fit doesn’t matter because it’s not a thing I can have.

And in giving up I believed the lie, that I couldn’t sew. In fact I extended the lie and believed that I couldn’t learn. That even if I had all the parts I needed and practiced I wouldn’t ever be able to do it well enough to be useful. There are a number of things my brain is real sure that I can’t learn ⁶There are lots of things my brain thinks I shouldn’t learn because I’m not a real human and would misuse this power if I had it. Or would be detected as inhuman if I tried to obtain or use it. Or just that I shouldn’t want because wanting things makes me a bad person. But those are just things I think I shouldn’t learn or do. It’s total … Continue reading, and I can see now they’re things that Mother held as her exclusive domain. So rational I know it’s a lie. I suspect that once I get into it many parts will come back to me. But right now my brain is real sure that this plan won’t work, that I’ll never be able to make anything worthwhile, that the best I can hope for is to stop before I hurt myself or someone else.

But I want more pants. I have a few pair of very colorful leggings from a company that no longer does retail sales, and I have gone into hoarding mode about them. I don’t want to wear them at home because that will wear them out and then I’ll have none. I don’t want to wear them out because they might be damaged and then I’ll have none. Of course other companies make pants that fit me ⁷Are big enough for me and can be altered to roughly fit, but not much that’s comfortable and literally nothing that colorful, let alone pretty. So I’m going to make some, and stop feeling so restricted. Just having access to normal prints would be great, and I’m still on the “I Want to Get Into Your Pants” plan where I have some custom prints made. There’s all sorts of costume stuff and other one-off nonsense I’d do too, if I felt more capable. So I’m going to become more capable. Or at least prove that I’m actually incapable, instead if just believing the lie Mother taught me.

Did none day job today. Hardly even did email. That was sort of my plan, though I had imagined I’d kill an SR or two. Tomorrow I’m headed in to the office in the morning, where I won’t get any work done, but I need credit for office hours because I haven’t been in for like 2 weeks. Also I need to update my FileVault password to match the AD password and that is hard to do remotely. Then there’s some dog hauling for his appointments; I am going to try to knock out a couple SRs while he’s out. I also need to run to the bank because the account I opened to avoid extra fees to have a vault box doesn’t have enough transactions to make them happy, and I have to prove I’m alive even though I was just there last week to use the box. I think a trip to the real bank to get a check cut for taxes, and some more calls about Medicaid are also on the daytime chore list, but not for tomorrow.

In today’s media news I was excited to hear Hannah Marks [fig 1] is directing the adaption of Turtles All the Way Down ⁸https://variety.com/2019/film/news/hannah-marks-turtles-all-the-way-down-movie-1203105786/. I think she’s a great choice for a John Green film, and I’m excited for her to get something with a wider release than her previous movies. I still want her back in another season of Dirk Gently but this is a good alternative if I can’t have both.

One of the things we fall behind on when life is busy are Screed readings. When things are flowing they almost always happen next day, but when we get backlogged so do they. They’re not only less frequent, but we also don’t get to do the PoV exercises, which can sometimes be very useful to me. Obviously they aren’t the most important thing in bust dayz, but I think they’re worth some priority ⁹Screed writing deserves some priority too, though it is affected more by my attempts to manage a sleep schedule than directly by being busy. Lots of days it’s easy to write at bedtime, but if I’m behind on sleep and actually sleepy Screed is clearly priority #2. I should try harder to set aside morning time for writing though, so that I … Continue reading. I think they might help us spend less time being so busy. We’re only one down now, but it took almost a week to get to the previous one. I used to just write these all blind but they’re easier when I get to hash out the last one before starting the next one.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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