Supper

Jul. 6th, 2025 10:11 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

After a lunch I couldn't do more than pick at, and a difficult conversation that both did and didn't surprise me, regarding the particulars of the factually-inaccurate version of me that I already knew lived in someone else's head, and then having to talk to my parents (without being able to tell my mom "that is none of my business" all the time like I wanted to)... By the end of all that it was 8:30 and I was too exhausted to go seek out food even though I needed more food.

So when [personal profile] angelofthenorth offered to make me scrambled eggs on a couple of crumpets... "there's cream in the fridge...with tarragon...and cheese..." I wanted to say no (she's made so much of the food I've eaten lately!) but apparently my facial expression answered for me.

It was delicious and it helped so much.

My head still feels like a browser that has too many tabs open, but at least my body can crash now.

What a good day

Jul. 5th, 2025 11:37 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

D came along to lift club this morning! It's so much more fun when he's there.

This afternoon we had a snuggly nap.

When I woke up this evening, [personal profile] angelofthenorth was making amazing delicious food. It smelled so good. What a treat.

This evening, D and I had a couple beers and watched the Twins actually win a game! And explained things to [personal profile] angelofthenorth as they came up.

Tedious and tired

Jul. 3rd, 2025 01:38 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Yesterday was worse.

Making dinner was so hard I couldn't eat dinner. I just laid on my bed and couldn't talk or think properly at all.

It was scary because it meant that the problem wasn't contained in the immediate aftermath of counseling or whatever (not that I really expected it to be, given that I'd actually spent most of the session talking about how I was surprised not to be triggered by something that very reasonably could have been expected to leave me feeling really bad). And it was miserable.

I ended up sleeping for three or four hours and woke up because I needed to pee and D came to bed about that time. He thought I was asleep because I didn't move or talk. Until I had to get up for the bathroom and then after I came back to bed I was sobbing and we talked a little.

The conversation was good and useful. We came up with some plans. I know D has been struggling with poor sleep and I wouldn't have done this after midnight if I'd had much choice about it. But I did feel much better afterwards.

Today has started normally. But then so did yesterday (I was relieved when I could open the curtains and do chores while feeling okay), so who kmows.

[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I could barely do the morning chores I usually feel neutral-to-positive about this morning -- I open the curtains, unload the dishwasher, make a pot of tea, get breakfast for myself... Things that are always the same and always different. It can be very grounding.

Today I wasn't especially tired and I wasn't in pain or anything, I just didn't want to. I couldn't imagine doing the first tiniest step.

This is a sign of burnout. I need a break. I was telling my counselor this evening that a break for me has to be somewhere away from my house, because my house is full of reminders of chores I need to do, things that get on my nerves, etc. I am not good at relaxing, but when I can do it it doesn't tend to happen at home.

I did an okay amount of work today but near the end of the day I was in this focus group about "inclusion" in our workplace. These things can be kinda therapeutic but by the end I was thinking that we keep having surveys and stuff like this, where we tell some nice external person all our woes and we're assured that the feedback is anonymized into themes that cannot identify us, but all that means is our specific nuanced articulations all get flattened in to "we all have good colleagues who care about their work but the executive team keep letting us down," and we're going to get the same kind of response from said executive team about how impressed they are at everyone's honesty and how committed they are to addressing these themes, and then we'll do this all over again in a year or two.

I felt really tired by the end of it, which wasn't great because it was almost time for my first counseling session in almost a month. A real "let me explain, no there is too much let me sum up" kind of situation.

My counseling happens on the phone and usually in my bedroom; I normally come right back downstairs in search of dinner, but this time I just lay on my bed for something ridiculous like an hour. I kept trying to get up and go back downstairs but again: so many steps. And it was relatively peaceful just lying there.

Since I had to come downstairs and try to eat dinner I'm feeling more depersonalization, so maybe all of this has been more stressful or triggery than I realized. I hate feeling like this; is probably the most uncomfortable symptom of my anxiety/depression.

Rebuilding journal search again

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

Sparkly day

Jun. 29th, 2025 08:49 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

D and I spent the afternoon wandering around Sparkle, supporting local queer and trans creators by purchasing many stickers and suchlike for V and D's girlfriend who weren't able to make it, having ice cream, getting excited about the many good dogs we saw, and then going for cocktails and taking a photo of ourselves kissing.

Biceps for guys

Jun. 28th, 2025 06:40 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I didn't get as far as Sparkle on its first day today but I did go to the Village for a meal with a local disabled group (moat of whom are also queer/trans) which I'm adjacent to, with a friend who needed a PA.

(I was glad to learn that I can still queer this friend/PA binary; it used to make up my whole employment for like five years.)

I got to my friend's house before we went out. They had glitter on their face and offered me some. I love glitter but it was the kind of hot day where I started sweating as soon as I got out of the shower. After having to hustle over to their house, my face was so sweaty I told them not to bother putting it on my face because I'd just sweat it off. Of course I had a sleeveless t-shirt on (the one D bought me at last year's Sparkle!) so they offered to put it on my shoulders. Pretty soon both my upper arms were covered in pink, purple and blue glitter, it was great.

When I got home, D saw me and pointed this out of course (as well as my "painted for the first time in five years" fingernails (chrome with rainbow sparkles over them).

I said it'd be the perfect time to flex my biceps, now that they're extra gay.

"Guy-ceps!" he said. "Guy for guy-ceps."

[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I have to write a bio to advertise a keynote speech I've agreed to deliver later in the summer.

I'm finding that coming up with more than one sentence to describe myself/my job is probably a lot harder than the speech will be itself!

Here's some nonsense

Jun. 26th, 2025 08:50 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I refuse to talk about work again, and nothing else happens to me lately, but luckily here is a giant meme from [personal profile] used_songs:

80 questions! )

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