Month: September 2020

tryna talk to m about house and pandemic things, like i’ve said before. dared say the house is hurt and angry and scared bc her direct, active decisions have introduced risks to their physical safety. risks that would’ve been easy to mitigate. and her response…. i don’t know why i’m surprised. her response is the same as it’s always been even just with her and me and like… the fucking dishes or w/e. deflection and pointing the finger at some random “traumatic” thing someone else did to her several months ago where like…. she never even tried to talk about it after the fact, and just decides that the price can come due now.

especially funny bc literally all i said was that it’s “understandable” that k wouldn’t be perfectly nice, and she can’t even let that slide. like, no, it’s somehow not understandable… not because any part of the context of his actions is missing or unconsidered, but because people clearly are never allowed to be less than flawlessly polite to you, regardless of how you’ve treated them, if they’ve ever had conflict with you in the past.

what you mean isn’t “it’s not understandable,” but “it’s not fair.” but one of those sounds like a better argument stance, doesn’t it

“too busy attacking you?“ he literally said one mildly critical sentence

if you really want to talk about mutually supporting each other… when we have these uhh tense talks and you bring up stuff you’ve contributed to the house/other ppl using them as a reason why ppl aren’t allowed to get mad at you or why you’re doing your part for the house… as awesome and fun as the various media server projects are, they’re not exactly essential to house functioning, and can’t replace what is essential. there’s certain non-negotiables, the most obvious of which is paying rent/utilities in a timely fashion, but then you also have things like picking up after yourself and communicating w housemates about time-sensitive shit.

the general way that group houses work is that we come together and establish rules and practices that we agree upon, even if it’s hard or if some folks have to compromise. and that can be a formal process, like with house meetings, or sometimes looks like ppl discussing stuff on the fly in text/discord/etc and coming to an agreement there.

house meetings have been weird since we haven’t all been in the same space, and extra weird bc this turned into such a fraught topic, but lbr. everyone else in the house has wanted to take certain precautions to avoid bringing this virus into the house. getting you to agree to some of those things has been a series of awful, friendship-wrecking fights, followed up with like… *some* eventual adherence to safety measures, but no direct amends for the hurt from the previous fights, just unrelated stuff like buying the house beer/food or doing cool media server shit that can be shared with peeps. which it seems are like, cool, and appreciated, and are nice short-term ways to interact with peeps to show them that there’s still care and thought there, but… seriously. people are hurt really bad by the things you’ve said and done, and that’s not going to go away without you directly addressing it. if you don’t, people will keep feeling hurt and angry.

kind of like how you still have feelings about the carpet cleaning times, for some reason? i have no idea what kelley said—i remember you being frustrated with tadhg that their offer of help was limited to the night before carpet cleaning, but never heard anything about kelley interactions. but anyway yeah… in both cases, unless people are able to discuss them directly (and also presumably take responsibility for their own actions and feelings) that shit tends to stick around.

this dynamic used to mostly happen just between you and me, talking about apartment cleaning stuff at the old place. i would bring up a current apartment maintenance-related thing, and generally your response would be to get upset and start bringing up things from months ago that were also upsetting for you, BUT crucially, these were often things you were bringing up like this for the first time. The last few times this happened, I started responding to those situations with a specific thing, which is the reason I’m bringing up that dynamic: if you feel shitty about an interaction? if you need someone to address something further? it’s largely on you to let them know. it’s on you to bring it up to the other person and try to collaboratively figure out how to make it better. shit’s not going to magically get better by itself. talking isn’t a guarantee of your perfect desired outcome, either, but it’s still a necessary step. and it’s a shitty thing to do to yourself and to the other person, to silently sit with something that someone else did that hurt you/made you feel angry, and not give them a chance to improve that behavior riiiiiight up until they’re trying to have a different conversation with you… THEN throw it in their face as loudly as you can.

that’s something i’ve told you before. it 100% applies here. kelley made an off-hand, kinda harsh remark about the house discord you keep sowing, and *now* you want to bring up a carpet cleaning interaction, and say that he has no right to talk to you about his thing until he’s addressed this random thing that you’ve never tried to get closure on until now? … your concerns can be valid, and it can still be a deflection. i’ve never known your queue to be 100% linear, and i think for relationships where you want to show up and do the work, those two conversations could totally happen simultaneously, or around each other. my best guess? you straight-up don’t want to address these things on others’ terms, and this is the best way you can think of to justify how angry you feel at the loss of control in being called out.

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she keeps coming back to the chat and adding more tone policing about carpet cleaning. i don’t fucking want to spend my day off on this, fuck.

this weekend didn’t start out nice, but ended up pretty great.

• i freaked out at r for leaving for walkies w j, after me (long ago) expressing enjoyment of and interest in going on walks w him and him ending up being like “actually walks are alone time”, although come to think of it there were other things that day… the basement flooded and he, j, and i were the ones to clean it up (i found it and dumbly asked “um… did people already know there’s water on the floor downstairs, or … ?” like wow way to be smart about home maintenance and how other ppl would respond) and neither of them said a word to me the entire time, they worked together and i was off in a corner doing my own thing trying to help and had to keep asking what i should do… so i felt like i was being left out of things already that day
• i stayed mad on and off until yesterday, when after work r was like “hey do you want to walk w me?” and idk, at first i wasn’t into it bc we were going on a very Functional Walk that he would’ve done anyway, but i could see that he was trying to figure out how to do something nice and relevant to make me feel better, and i appreciated that.
• while we were out i visited a new bubble tea place and it was… aight. i ordered online for pickup and ended up having to go into the store to prompt them to start my order, and then they still fucked it up. also, salted partly whipped whipping cream is a very weird topping.
• i took naps on… both friday and saturday? or both thursday and saturday? i think friday and saturday. what with r’s new job, it’s hard to do whatever i want if i have days off during the week. and then sometimes i just get sleepy.
• today i participated in a virtual race thing w/my fam. i haven’t been exercising mostly and it was tough, and i have a blister on my heel bigger than a quarter and 4x as thick at the bubbliest point.
• i miss exercising. i felt the good body drugs at the end, walking home, and was kind of floating. god, i used to do that every day.
• after working out, i took it extremely easy all afternoon with a little sdv and a lot of online shopping. i think i figured out some mechanical keyboard plans, which is nice. it’s a black hole and it gets prettier to me with every passing day.
• last night i finished my 2013 playlist and accompanying album art. really it only needed a few finishing touches…. or idk, maybe i could’ve done a lot more, but i feel like this is sufficient.
• r’s been really nice to me. i want to make him good noodles and be supportive of his work.
• i have been prescribed upper body pt exercises, so i gotta keep up on those, too.

thank goodness the monster i was drinking from like 3:30-7p is apparently not keeping me up

oh, also—pretty sure i forgot to take my meds today. :/ bitch please… please………..

time for <5 hrs of sleep!

hmm. sitting outside makes it easier to do stuff, but also that Feeling Of Being Watched.

r’s still on the clock for his new job and needs time/space to himself, so i’m out here. it’s not bad, kind of overcast rn.

i should…. look for volunteer opportunities and learning opportunities. i also told M that i’d help her look up some non-judgmental info + resources wrt covid, bc apparently she’s been avoiding learning about it due to fear of judgment and starting later than everyone… the usual m feels. i get it. or at least, i guessed it. so looking into that would be a good thing to do. i haven’t heard from her at all today, so she’s probably in hella avoidance mode. fuck. please get your health insurance together, dude…. i know talking is scary but being evicted is scarier. or not being evicted, but falling behind on payments. you have eric as a safety net, but b&t don’t have anything. also you and i are 2/3 of the renewed lease signatures/ppl on the hook if we don’t pay.

*messages*

that one newsletter my sib follows is a resource for things i could/should be doing.

maybe i should look into making more diy respirators, more masks.

home things: fold laundry, clean room, check what my chore is this week, use grbn before they can get grosser…. if r wants hot pot, i could make some kind of rich broth w/24 hr notice… i’m interested in more veg tho.

oh, and pt stuff. my back was tight all by itself today. back to having to intentionally engage better muscles.

home improvement…. at some point this week, r wants to get a different desk and change his work setup in his room. i figure whenever that happens, we’ll probably go to the type of store where i can take care of LED strips and uhhhhhh GOD what was the other thing I needed? jfc

i think i should pay rent and see about making some smaller donations. i sense upcoming utilities bs for this house and i don’t want to be unprepared.

also, …. just…. we’re in one of the worst timelines.

but but but. aside from that… ugh i know i keep being all over the place with this post, i’m having trouble knowing how to organize this… today has actually been pretty good to me. lots of draws, not too many issues. was sleepy so we all went on an sbux run, i got a dirty pumpkin spice chai latte which came out to almost $8. i wasn’t sure if they remembered the shots just based on how it tasted, but i started “coming up” right around the last draw and it’s still making my throat feel tight. also a reliable indicator? chai doesn’t make your pee smell Like That. lmao

i’ve been getting lunch from one place pretty reliably lately, they have an online ordering option but no tipping functionality, i finally messaged the company to be like “yo i want to give your workers more money, please let me tip them online, i have no cash” and their response was basically like… “oh don’t worry about our workers, we’re taking care of them with internal ‘rewards’ and ‘bonuses’ 🙂 anyway here’s a $25 gift card!” like. holy shit. free lunch money for asking if i can give you more money? what. so i guess i’m asking the store employees if i should just tip in cash when i go to pick up tomorrow.

last week, i started making a powerpoint for prospective therapists. it’s useful for gathering my thoughts, but i’m realizing as i make it that it’s probably too much for introductory purposes, and i should only cover a little tiny bit of it at first. maybe whoever i end up with, i can give it to them, but it needs to be even more abridged. i’m also like… worried that it’s the wrong time to start seeing a therapist. what if shit pops off a month and some change from now? what if m really needs financial help? i’ve had really bad luck with therapists so far.

had a fantastic weekend w/r. originally the whole house was supposed to go, but d/t smoke theirs got canceled. our reservation was non-refundable, so we figured what the hell, there’s ac. things cleared up basically the same night we left.

we basically slept, fucked, ate, drank and poked around town. ideal. altho i feel gross abt how much i’ve eaten. that’s the most sexual attention i’ve gotten in uhhhh a while. i’m sore. xD and yeah, i do feel less insecure for the moment. on saturday he had to call j bc she needed a particular login, and after we had a tiny exchange like:

him: “J is so friendly.”

me: “Yeah, she’s pretty great.”

him: “I like her a lot.”

me: “She really likes you, too.”

him: pauses for a sec. “It’s so weird and rare to have friends I *don’t* wanna fuck. Do you do that, too?”

which was a smooth indirect way of handling it even if direct would’ve made me feel better

–

we also saw such incredible stars. the sky was so clear, in contrast to this last week, and the moon wasn’t up at all. even from inside the car, i could see the milky way at a glance.

the drive back was beautiful. seriously, just…. so idyllic. we took backroads for a significant part and i was really glad we took the car w awd. saw parts of here that i’ve never seen. it was a very beautiful early fall day, sunny and warm with a little wind. the trees crowding the road turned the pavement into a shadow-dappled moving scene.

a really beautiful break from reality.

now we’re back here, with rbg’s death heavy… and m got laid off on friday. i hope she stays motivated and that her friends in the industry help her out. so now only 3/5 house ppl have jobs. i’m afraid that she’ll need help and i won’t be able to offer the same level of help that she offered me back in the day bc our house is so much larger.

–

after we got back tonight, i finally put my shoes through the washing machine. i really fucking hope it helps. i need to fold laundry and help clean up in here so that r has a good workspace for his new job tmrw. and then this week i need to do the paperwork for my initial pt visit.

i also managed to squeak in cleaning the downstairs bathroom before the changeover tmrw, so that felt good.

i’m not sure how i feel about having to reach back to 9th/10th grade…. well, ok, no. Maybe 2012 or so? … to look back and see growth from where i was before. i guess i am a slow bitch.

but like, my old friend (and ex before that) reached out to M out of the blue a few days ago. they sort of had a vibe back in 2012 or whenever it actually was, but nothing much happened, in part bc i was freaked and was like “yo m can you not do this, if this is a thing even, it’s not cool to me” and as far as i know she actually did that. he ended up dating someone else i went to high school with, and they fucked off to the north forever and fell out of contact pretty damn fast. lesbian codependency flavors, like i was telling m.

in the intervening 7ish years, those two got married, and idk i guess shit happened, and they’re now getting divorced. he hit up M less than a week ago, they made some flimsy pretexts of “stopping by on his way to plans he had w/other friends” and “helping move the mini-fridge” (no, really).

m communicates decently well up front. they were both gonna take reasonable precautions. it sounded like a medium-short visit. m and i joked about having sex w/masks on, and she brought up something blah blah “I made it CLEAR to him that NOTHING was gonna happen bc I would NEVER break your heart” like what the fuck are you on, what does that even mean bro? but anyway, as she intended, i informed her that i don’t feel that way anymore about our boundary issues (hers and mine) and that if they want to get freaky, have fun i guess. you know. within the bounds of a pandemic and immunocompromised housemates.

except they did get freaky, slash hung out for like 16 hours, and did so without the aforementioned bounds. they, in the phoenix room, with the penis, to the immunocompromised housemates. idk. nobody’s been murdered yet and b is probably totally safe, but dude. Dude. The principle of the thing. The house has talked to her multiple times about how to handle shit like this, individually and as a group, and she decides that just cause she wants to catch up w him, it has to be in a way that puts everyone else at risk?

at least it’s better than the fucking bus thing, fuck. did she ever even do that….? or did she just argue it On Principle like her parents’ daughter and then toss aside the hollow victory?

i thought things were maybe getting better with the house, but i see now that she primarily doesn’t want to admit she’s wrong and take responsibility for her own actions, and has actually just been trying to outwait housemates’ feewings. god, do you see yourself?

i think it would be best if the other housemates make a plan to replace her and me when the lease renews next march. this is how she does. takes what she needs, ricochets through relationships, discards them when ppl get in the way of what she wants. she deserves to deal with her shit alone, rather than being a drain on house resources and refusing to communicate or be community-minded. no one forced you to sign the lease, dude. is that short-sighted? it .. oh, right, bringing it back around.

what i told her was honest. i…. no longer feel trapped, overwhelmed, and threatened by the thought of her having any kind of relationship with my ex. besides, it figures, right? his best friend wanted to get with me, my best friend wants to get with him. good job on both of us for having healthier amounts of space and reduced codependency! like, damn. it’s not like this is a goal i had, but if I *had* thought about it, i wouldn’t have ever expected to feel like this, really.

in general i feel a little jelly bc i’ve been just…. so, so shit at keeping in touch with peeps from high school. partly bc of the whole m thing. and partly bc i struggle in general with making and keeping friends. l texted after my bday and i never responded. on the one hand, i am pretty sure they don’t care about talking to me or spending time with me very much. on the other hand, if i don’t try, it’s 100% on me. but i don’t always know how to try, in terms of the exact right words and tones and memories coming together to… whatever. maybe it’s stupid of me to think it’s about what i say. maybe people see me and realize no matter what i say, i’m empty and useless and boring.

i’ve been listening to old, old music from around 9th and 10th grade, since they started talking, and since m started talking to me about the talkening. it sorta brings up old feels, but….. they’re all mine, to me. it’s about me, not about being lost in someone else.

… bc i have a shiny new person to be lost in sgasdkhglkd it’s not like i’ve grown up THAT much but at least this relationship is so much fucking happier and healthier than either of those, good fucking god…

———

SDSALKDFGHKSASDLK they’re moving in together after literally a week of being back in contact, i’m xDDDDDDDDD did i call it with the codependency? god damn. it is funny watching b do the same kind of thing to m that i did, once, and her still being into it somehow. they’re gonna have fun though probably. and i get to watch m’s “oh i definitely still wanna marry E” evaporate like the blatant lie we knew it was.

Ah haaaaaa that’s very clicky outside. A sound that doesn’t belong.

ffffffffffffff it one hundred percent figures that AS SOON as I get my keeb working and connected to my iPad, and open.a new post in wordpress, r comes out to say hi and chat and say “I haven’t seen much of you today.” No fucking shit. Look how happy and chatty you were. I wasn’t missed. And of course you’re aware enough to poke at me as soon as I do anything outside of like…. sitting in your room on your bed or cleaning the kitchen. I’m such a fucking piece of shit.

I can’t really blame you for not wanting to stick around, for projecting your thing-doing anxieties onto me. I’m boring and useless.

And then you have the gall to come out here like “nah you did so much today and I definitely care about your new mechanical keyboard build”…. tbf I technically did things today, they were just all things I could do without leaving the bed surface. Well, mostly. Aside from cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen.

(That’s right, I’m no longer on permanent kitchen backup duty, I actually have a spot on the chore wheel. And my first week is upstairs bathroom, and I’ve been feeling sick… ahh I need nested parentheses now, don’t I ….. and today Jess was like “I wanna take a bath” and I knew if I didn’t do it before her that she’d do it, and she said as much when I announced my intentions/made sure I would be able to get in first to clean the scummy-ass tub before her so yeah I had to clean the tub literally asap after a late breakfast this morning, late bc I didn’t sleep well, didn’t sleep well bc smoke, thought I was sick bc of smoke, ok is that all for the backwards parenthetical explanation)

And there he fucking goes, on a walk. Your ideal, most self-actualized days don’t involve me at all. And your house is better at doing the dishes than mine, but they’re not any better at connecting with me than my house, which is to say not at all and I’m always aware of how empty and perfunctory my interactions w everyone are, how much of a fucking failure they are. Tl;dr I don’t belong anywhere. The knowledge I’ve managed to absorb, the shitty little experiences I’ve had…. none of it is right for connecting with anyone.

Even just today, my very first boyfriend, who was part of the friend group I introduced M to when she first moved up here, called M to talk for 6 hours about all his life changes (he got married and divorced! Damn bro)… I’m not in touch with anyone. No one cares enough to be in contact with me, I’m not interesting or worthwhile. I’m failing to try in ways that result in connection and communication and sharing.

And m told me about this, yeah, and then has like…. been in the discord a decent amount but hasn’t replied to any of my messages. Literally no one wants anything to do with me today. And I don’t know how to change that fact for tomorrow, or the next day, or week, or month, or year. I show up places and attract emotionally stunted people with underdeveloped senses of humor, and I look down on the handful of people who might actually want to connect with me.

Two days ago, when I thought that I might have COVID bc of a sore throat rather than just having lots of smoke in the air, I went and got a swab test after work. the swabbing was kind of painful, like, totally bearable, but I definitely squnched my face up and my eyes teared up. Pulling the swabs out was worse than going in for some reason. Definitely that … raw-ish feeling of flesh that isn’t used to being touched, where simple contact sets off untried pain nerves.

Oh, right. I was going somewhere else with that. After the swab test, I texted the house to give my intended plan and check if that worked for everyone, and give peeps a chance to reply. I drove to a park that I’d never been to, but had heard of multiple times, near the testing center. I couldn’t help but notice the easily accessible train tracks near there.

I can tell that my body doesn’t want to drink much more, doesn’t have much use for it and it might not feel great, but…. I don’t know what else to do. I’m lonely and I hate myself and it feels obvious that no one wants me around. the latter two items are the same, you know.

Fuck, dude. My writing sucks. It’s been so long since I bled. It feels good because it’s one of the few irrefutable, tangible things I can do reliably. I can clean the kitchen, but that’s some easily erased nebulous shit with no start or finish, and it’s Expected of me to boot. It’s seen as some bare minimum functional shit rather than something I chose to do purely bc I could.

Phone, iPad, Bluetooth speaker, and wireless keyboard. I have 4 whole-ass battery-powered items I’m running down right now.

I don’t know what to do with myself, so…… the thing that occurs to me to do is making a PowerPoint for potential therapists. That would be the constructive thing. but do I want to be constructive?

I don’t think I want to be doing this post anymore. There’s plenty I haven’t gotten around to sharing, but oh well. A failure to connect here, too; I can’t say I’m surprised.

trying to type while sinking into the middle of this old ass bed is…. ergonomic as fuck.

i rearranged r’s room yesterday… basically by myself. he helped move furniture around and then peaced to go drink bc apparently he, too, hates this kind of stuff. he and m really are similar sometimes. it was fucking frustrating and Too Much for me to do by myself and he was really snippy and short with me for no reason throughout. and then he wasn’t falling asleep easily last night so he ended up on the couch.

rrrrgghhh!! I feel so lonely and frustrated and trapped! I’m pretty sure that being here like this is still better than being at my place having to jump through five million hoops to breathe the same air as my bf, but right now… i could use some space to do things without feeling judged or performative or like i need to make myself smaller to accommodate other people’s feelings.

… so like, for some reason, I Feel You sounded like it was in a different key than i remembered, so I checked against the music video on youtube and sdgfjdlsk SO DORKY. Makes me feel like I’m in 11th grade again or some shit.

my bday was pretty cool. surprise luau (although secretly i overheard one of the housemates say something about a luau while walking past my window outside and i was like… hmmmmmmmm…) and r went to a LOT of effort to include my fam, my house, and a few friends around the city. kind of incredible. a lot of fun. kind of a lot for a work night.

i’m pretty proud of how i did for r’s bday. i made beef stock from marrow bones for the first time, and turned it into some kind of chili-heavy noodle soup…. it was rly good. i also made enough noodle dough for the house. and invited everyone to pull noodles the day of. and damn lemme tell you, making noodle dough is a good core workout. i also also made fake object cakes, like, the ones where it looks like a Thing, but then you cut into it and it’s cake on the inside! deception! hilarity! and yeah r was pretty baffled when we brought out 3 packs of spearmint gum with candles stuck down the sides to sing him happy birthday.

i did a lot and it was all very personal and special and also now i know how to make both bone broth AND some legit noodles. The secret? Time. If you can give the dough however much time it needs to relax, you can get where you want to dough, eventually.

during lockdown, i’ve been drinking less (surprisingly) but due to all the different celebrations of late, it’s been sort of swinging back around. and with it comes a certain amount of just feeling gross, and crafty-sneaky self-loathing. It blends in so well! Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I need a therapist.

and a physical therapist fffff

i’m just… physically not active much. and it shows. and i don’t like my body and i think i could be doing more to be active but i feel like i have a mental block towards like… all the self-improvement stuff that’s really simple and straightforward that i have to Just Do. it’s easier to throw money at things.