O! To be a cat.

 Feeling better today. Tried to get the most out of sleep last night, and I think I succeeded (well, as much as I ever do anymore). My cat spends a lot of time sleeping throughout the day, then gets the zoomies at night. After a little zooming around she crawls into bed with me and stands guard all night. This might be a combination of becoming night blind and me being the warmest (read: only) warm thing in the house. But she more or less does the same thing when S and L are home too. Which: they're coming home this afternoon! So my motivation has finally kicked in a bit and I'm doing some of the tidying I've been putting off. I know why it works that way; doesn't make it any less annoying, though.

The capstone nonsense continues. Despite notifying both capstone mentors (one via email, one verbally) that my midterm performance review was due from them on Monday, neither of them had turned it in as of yesterday. Texted them both to remind again and was met with no response from either. Site 3 has finally made overtures to list the dates of the groups in one place (but not the times despite my emailing this to them as well over two weeks ago) and both in a Facebook group with the lil' flyer I made. That's not nothing, I guess!

It does feel a bit like my processing abilities have been shut down...or put into sleep mode, maybe. My system is sort of rejecting the notion of coming to any sort of resolution as regards the different stressors I have going on at the moment. The immediate ones, the impending ones. The ones that I've only recently become aware of. Maybe that's for a private post (not that that's ever stopped me in the past; well - mostly).

The things I should do that my executive dysfunction is screaming about:
- I have three options to explore for psychiatric treatment.
- Renewing my passport.
- Studying for the boards more.
- Continuing with the writing parts of my capstone.
- Updating my resume, I guess?
- Figuring out my shit re: volunteering (I need something like 7 more hours before the end of the semester).
- Making a plan for tomorrow (dinner and a show with friends; it does happen sometimes!).
- Getting a present for one of the friends because I spaced their birthday on the day of?
- Contacting a pediatrician for the new kid.
- Scheduling with a pediatrician for L.
- Figuring out L's birthday.
- Setting up a nursery - in the same room with L.
- Project managing what could be a Bed Fiasco if both boys come up this summer.
- (Are both boys coming up this summer?).
- Getting a passport for L
- Spiritual practice of some sort.
- Get outside.
- Drink more water.
- Do taxes.
- Do some financial stuff that I've been putting off which are two-part and unrelated.
- Set up my Costco rebate.
- Ask my mother-in-law what she wants to do for her birthday.
- Make time to hang out with friends one-on-one.
- Set up playdates for L.
- Set up a kinesthetically-based extracurricular for L.
- Address the floor-towel situation.
- Figure out if there is a free internet browser I can download of Roku. Is there?
- Die of embarrassment because I don't really know what to tell the one friend who offered to set me up with a meal train postpartum. Who should she ask? Bestie, I have no damn idea. Not even being cute. Don't know. Love the thought.
- Watching Honey, Don't. No particular reason, just thought I'd throw that in there.

Okay, now that I have a list I guess I'll...keep avoiding it and go fold laundry, clean the upstairs bathroom and see about taking a quick shower before it's time to go to the airport.

Brain Fog Thicker Than Pea Soup

Of all the cleaning things I aimed to do this weekend, what I actually did was transform my bedroom into an oasis (yay) and vacuum the hall. I guess I got a little too relaxed as a result, though, because now I am sick. I suspect COVID or a sinus infection. All my COVID tests are expired to an extent such that the solutions are all dried up so I will hie me to the store this morning to get a brand new one.

So I worked from home yesterday and am taking the only medication that I am for-sure allowed during pregnancy to manage my symptoms: Tylenol. Yes, it's brand-name.

I felt bad about calling out from "work" yesterday, but I suppose it doesn't matter to anyone there very much. I'm there? Great. I'm not? Also great.

It's a little over the halfway point of capstone, though, and I'm kind of over working from home. This is all very predictable. And I'm kind of over the predictable nature of it. Maybe that's just the COVID talking.

Anyway. Attempting sleep, pain management (like I said), working on slide decks, and watching Agents of Mystery (Korean reality challenge show that's giving X-Files - worth checking out),  My Favorite Murder (what it is; the podcast but filmed from the side) and Roz Hernandez: The Haunted Doll (Roz is a trans drag queen who hunts ghosts in haunted hotels, but doesn't sleep in them; the episode I saw was filmed in Jerome and damn it's -18 in my neighborhood right now so - yes I'm missing the high desert 15 years later) in-between. 

Brain fog is making coherence challenging, but sleep was easier last night (if stressful, what with being full of dreams about trying to get three kids to sleep in separate places during a sleepover), so I'm going to finish my coffee, listen to the news (cringe), and soldier on I guess.

File Under: Things That Work Until They Don't

Today is day two of Spring Break: The Grownup Version. S and L have flown to Disneyland and it's starting snowing in earnest (again) here. I am missing them, and also enjoying the little perks of being a temporary hermit. The quiet. The sleeping by myself. Monopolizing the television to watch Million Dollar Secret, do homework without distraction, and begin chipping away at un-fucking the house. The cat is happy to be left alone. At 31 weeks pregnant, I am happy not to be standing in line and doing way more socialization than my nervous system likes.

I am less thrilled that I will probably need to shovel at some point today, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Even less thrilled that we're at war again (still?), and that all the Christian nationalists are getting everything they ever dreamed of. Big motherfucking uh-oh right there. And that there were ~11 ICE agents at the airport in Anchorage, apparently, while my husband and daughter were going through security.

However far I get in un-fucking the house, I've been trying to think of ways to mitigate the fuckery once S and L get back. And I suppose I should go about it one thing at a time, because change tends to happen in small, measurable (actionable! Relevant! Time-bound!) steps. I don't exactly remember how many days it's supposed to take for a new habit to stick, but I think it's something between 30 and 90 days? So anyway, I'm making a list of things I want to address one-at-a-tedious time until forever, I guess. Or until I hit postpartum and am hanging on by my lil' fingernails. But I imagine the first one to emerge will be Leaving Towels Places.

Do you Leave Towels Places? Please, for the love of god - do not. A towel's natural habitat is hanging up on a towel bar, wadded up in the laundry basket or clean and folded in the linen closet. Not damp and strewn in your bed. Not damp and strewn on the floor. Not strewn anywhere, really. We have a truly astonishing number of towels when they're all laundered and folded and literally none the rest of the time. After 10 years of this I am definitely not cool girl about it anymore. I can't know how to hear any more about towels! Ahem. Might have bottled this up for too long. Maybe.

So anyway. Address that for ~30 days, reevaluate and jump on the next thing. Are there things that are more important? Probably. But I'd like some evident change, please.

Had a followup with my psychiatric NP and she floated the idea of increasing my bupropion from 150 mg to 300 mg. In a subsequent followup with my OB she was like, "So, you're just taking two instead of one now, right?" Oh. I guess I could do that. My brain is typically just like: no. Finish the current protocol and then start on the new one. But, no. Just do the change thing why not? It's fine. Silly brain.

Randomly ran into K at the gym by my house and it's was nice to see her. Not the same as it once was, but nice to catch up. Lots of "if you need anything reach out I'm here" and nodding. Yup, yup. I am for whatever combination of reasons not great at doing that and never have been, but okay. I did used to have a little chart (with stickers!) so I could rotate through reaching out to friends and spending time with them because I was so shit at it. Maybe I should institute that again, but incorporate all the playdate shenanigans L requires while I'm at it. Because: limited amount of that type of social engagement spoons. 

Okay, time to study for the NBCOT a bit, then go run a group that absolutely no-one will show up to (in a snowstorm!), work out and then go to the bookstore with V. Oh, and shovel perhaps? Because I'm cosplaying as a Real Person today.

Afk? Lol, never.

The dreams have been intense and immersive lately. Hm. Probably the moon. They don't portend anything particularly catastrophic. No, no. The news does that.

Have you watched Lost Women of Alaska on HBO Max? It's pretty good. It's very sad. True. And- I hope more people see it, because it's any important topic. But also maybe don't watch it if you're maxed out on Sad Shit That Happens to Women. Which some days - I am. 

It occurred to me recently that I might go into early labor. I have no reason to think this. The fetus has been behaving herself like any good stowaway and it doesn't really seem like it. Because it's not something I really can predict I did what I sometimes still do (and used to do a lot). Pull tarot cards! However it's hard to really trust the answer - and not even just for the regular reasons - but because every time I try to pull cards for the fetus The Hermit comes up. And then the 4 of Wands. Hermit, 4 of Wands, Hermit, 4 of Wands. It's kind of funny.
Me: <<specific question>>
Her: Hermit
Me: I know, but what about <<specific question>>?
Her: Oh! lol. 4 of Wands.
Me: Okay, but I said - 
Her: Hermit. Definitely Hermit.

And so on. 

I'm properly annoyed with Site 3 of my capstone now and, although the circumstances that make this so are probably unavoidable and impersonal, I still find myself with The Feels because my nervous system fucking hates ambiguity. What do I mean by that? Good question. I'm supposed to be running groups at this site, but this has been made difficult because: the site is in a secured building which I do not have access to without An Adult, there is only one Adult who works at the site and they do not work in a terribly predictive pattern which in turn is due to life circumstances that cannot be avoided. The site has not advertised the series at all with the exception of putting one flyer (flier?) up in the window of a neighboring nonprofit, and there seems to be some political shit happening between the municipal and state branches of this site which make me wonder if this was even a good idea in the first place? I am pivoting and recording videos for them to use which I may then just post online for the helluvit (without my face because the [presumed] 'tism is pretty visible on camera), so things are still happening, but I am still just.... I don't know. It's hard for me to hold 2+ eventualities in my head at a time, if that makes sense? Like, physically uncomfortable? Like the suspense of if someone might show up is worse than if I know nobody's going to or I know somebody is? There's also the remote possibility that this situation might be exacerbated by the Adult having been let go from the same burlesque company I am (still, somehow) in and maybe having some big feelings about that? I am neutral as fuck about the whole thing, but dang do I know how that feels. It's probably not that last, burlesqu-y factor. But if it is - wild.

We went swimming on Saturday and it was packed. Like: a public swimming pool in the 90s packed. But we soldier on, so we got in the warm pool and I start floating around like the manatee I (proudly) am. Then, L swims up to me, "I think there's poop in the pool." Oh shit. So I look and it's a soft maybe. It's not floating exactly, it's smaller than a bean larger than a grain of rice. We decide to tell the lifeguard. Nobody wants it to be poop. Not on a Saturday (the day of birthday parties). After a few more inspections, me attempting to dive for it but being unable to grasp it with a glove on the lifeguard gets a net and scoops it up. Guess what? Yes. It's poop. Clear the pool! We have both ruined Saturday and are poop heroes! It be like that sometime.

The paragraph about S: as of Monday he achieved being one year sober from alcohol 🎊. The day before that he sat down to tell me (as I was playing Stardew Valley - honestly not a bad time to choose) that he has actually been back on marijuana since October. This kind of tracks...but I truly didn't know. And I have some complex feelings about that that I'll be processing for a while. The second thing he told me (later in the day on Sunday) was that he's now okay with me having male friends, in part because he's realizing how much he's benefitted from having female friends over the past year. 

So that's quite a mixed bag of news. I'm extremely happy about the first and last parts of all that but, as always, concerned about the longterm veracity of it. Is this truly a permanent shift in perspective? If not, am I prepared to deal with the whiplash? Because I absolutely do not intend on waffling around on this like a damn...waffle. One of the reasons I was cited was that he's noticed I'm having a hard time right now (true; see all those journal entries), and I'm not leaning on my in-person friends/having a hard time being a friend to my in-person friends (also true, bit of a chronic problem, though, less circumstantial than it may seem - also pretty much entirely my fault) so perhaps it's not so bad to have a wider support system. So my question is: if one or both of those things were to change would this offer (?) be retracted? Am I being told about the marijuana on the eve of his alcohol sobriety anniversary because "She can't be mad at me about that, because I'm a year alcohol sober!"?

So, as always, things be complicated. But maybe...just maybe...things are looking up in March. At least, aside from current events. <<brief thousand-yard stare>> Ahem. But I do notice an immediate shift in how I feel about life having been told that "Hey - it's sanctioned for you to be yourself, have autonomy, volition, etc.". Not that permission is supposed to come from anyone outside myself, mind you. But circumstances being what they have been - it's an improvement.

Okay. TTYL (goddess willing)!

What do you MEAN Mavis Beacon isn't an actual person?

- I had coffee with E a few days ago and I noticed that I had a lot of complex feelings about that. L wanted to tag along even though it was made very clear that it would be grownups only (other than her) and she might have to bring activities to keep herself occupied. She agreed and it turned out to be a good thing she did because it came about that whipped cream shenanigans created a situation which allowed me to see (mini) crisis problem-solving in action and she insisted on playing Jenga which brought to light some other things. Ahem. Anyway. It sounds particularly cunty to say this, but these days E only asks me to lunch or coffee to ask me about K. We are friends, but I can't really say that we have anything much in common to talk about or do than that and there hasn't been movement on either side to expand the situation. E and K are estranged. On this occasion, E asked me to see pictures of her (estranged) grandchildren on Facebook. I didn't feel comfortable with this and have, besides, removed Facebook from my home screen because I am a doom-scroller yup that's what I am. But anyway, as always, I am concerned about E and this time the reasons are these:

• She offered to pay for my order despite a text conversation less than ten minutes earlier in which I'd asked if she wanted something and she'd responded that she did and indicated what coffee beverage that was. Possible confounding factor: a friend of hers happened to be there at the same time. Fronting because that's the social expectation and we can't deviate from the script? Maybe. But she did repeat the offer 1x despite my telling her, again, that no, I already paid for it. There's also the other confounding factor which is that I am very frequently misunderstood* by almost everyone so there's that 🙄.
• She appears to be unable to remember anything about my life that doesn't 1:1 correspond with her life (e.g., she cannot remember what I am studying or the degree I am getting despite this not having changed in ~5 consecutive years if we count the time I spent getting prerequisites despite our having a conversation about it consistently every ~6 months, cannot remember about my MIL's neurological diagnosis despite this 100% coming in conversation a few times before, but she can remember our single conversation about S and addiction and all that).
• Her difficulty with conversation that deviates from a previously-established type of script (e.g., saying the same things she's always said to/about me; unable to respond to verbal prompts of escalating specificity to assist in identifying another friend she has; difficulty answering questions specific to exact towns she's going to on an upcoming trip - and don't get me wrong I, too, have difficulty with these things due to depression and CPTSD and so-forth. I think they're a red flag for me too, honestly. I'm just kind of on the lookout for dementia/late-onset Alzheimers because it runs so rampant in my family).
• Hand tremors. This is new. And there are approximately a million reasons why someone might be experiencing hand tremors (including "We don't know!" and Parkinson's - but the volume of her voice isn't reduced and I don't see a shuffling gait so that's good), but onset appears to have been fairly recent (since August) and she doesn't seem to be concerned about it. It did profoundly affect her ability to play Jenga, however, and she wasn't really picking up what I was putting down as far as maybe using a pencil as an adaptive tool since she says that she has no trouble holding a paintbrush.

*sigh* Anyway. I drove her home (since she'd walked to the coffee shop) and she spent a little time talking about barriers to her peace of mind at home and that was kind of that. I think she does want to spend more time with The Youth, but I also think she's kind of more looking for surrogate daughters/grandchildren than anything and I don't know that I think that would necessarily be best for L. She's got two pairs of grandparents here anyway and it's hard enough for me to coordinate splitting time between them fairly. Plus I don't want to feed into any type of people-pleasing bullshit for L that I can easily recognize. And I just kind of feel like...I've got enough of that going on with my own biological mom to manage. And I can't really be showing her pictures of her grandchildren when it goes against what K has established as an expectation - even if I wouldn't say K and I are at all close anymore.

*Speaking of being misunderstood, have you seen the Emo Realtor from Portland on Instagram? Worth a quick search, maybe. Hits the spot sometimes.

- Chipping away at Love is Blind: Ohio here and there; it's less that I like it and more that it demands nothing of me. And I want to be able to have thoughts and participate in conversations if/when they come up. Every once in a while I'll see something and realize: Oh no. That's me. I have said that and done that. And cringe heavily and self-reflect for a bit. I also recently had to do a presentation on an assessment called the Life Balance Inventory (LBI) so I am a little crossed up re: LIB and LBI. I could have made a lil' joke about it during the presentation, but I am le tired these days even though I am much more lax about the caffeine thing this pregnancy. 100-150 mg/day @ 29 weeks. Woo? Woo.

- Remember the stock market crash of 1929? Yeah. I am concerned about 2029. Based on nothing in particular - except for everything. You know? Everything.

- I am tired of formatting slide decks, but I need to clock at least 37 hours a week, and it helps me get there. So I am trying to channel my inner middle-schooler who was super into graphic design in the 90s. Other things she was super into: Wheel of Time and elaborate fan casting of the same, filk, etiquette books from like the 70s, Cadfael and Agatha Christie murder mysteries, P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Star Trek novels, Star Wars novels, writing bad fiction about a family that lived on another planet or in space or something called the Syr Daryas, writing bad fan-fiction about Jonny Quest the 90s version and JAG of all things, the Golden Age of Hollywood, The Pretender with Andrea Parker and that one guy, The Avengers with John Steed and Emma Peel and, of course, bridal magazines. The Mac shareware game sampler CDs were pretty lit also! I was never smart enough for Myst, though. Maybe these days. ...maybe not 👀👀

Year of the Horse (neigh)

• Vague emo/BPD thoughts that should be therapized: I just don’t want to keep losing ground like this. One step forward, a thousand steps back. If every truth I have sounds like a criticism, not really sure what the point is? Keep my mouth shut and my vulnerabilities to myself. I’ll get it someday. 
• I still have my library card number memorized.
• There was a point at which I was worried that I wouldn't be hired for a shelving job at the library here because I'm so terrible at returning books on time. I thought they'd look at my account and be like: nope. Doesn't have her shit together. No shelving job for her! Reader, they hired me anyway. I decided not to take the job because it didn't come with health insurance and I felt responsible maintaining it for S. I wonder how different my life would have been if I had. I'd probably be a librarian by now. And that wouldn't be so bad. Or would it? Unclear. T-minus 3 months away from my clinical doctorate.
• I do strongly believe that libraries/librarians are going to save us all. As a matter of fact maybe I should have tried to do the publicly-available free OT series I've been trying to do with site 2 at the library instead. Because they just haven't had the bandwidth to publicize the ish I'm doing/trying to do (to my knowledge) at all. Which is understandable for a variety of factors, but frustrating. One of my mentors has said that as long as I'm doing my part that's all that matters (for the grade). But it's still annoying.
• <<rant>> Fresh on my mind due to convos with one of L's friend's parents yesterday: the school district is on the rocks here, and that's fairly predictable. They haven't increased the base student allotment (I think that's the term) since about ten years ago, and have been shutting down/threatening to shut down schools for the past three years. At L's former school they're eliminating three teaching positions and that doesn't work for the structure of the school at all. It's all combined grades with one teacher per classroom anyway and highly dependent on parent involvement. Oh, they're also talking about going with a "regional model" (?) for school nurses which...doesn't work. Like at all. From a safety standpoint. At L's current school in Fall of last year alone they had three incidences in which it was needed to call for a damn ambulance and how are you going to have a K-12 with no school nurses. Put all the med management and shit on the teachers? The only reason that kind of worked at the child development center I worked at was through a bunch of monitoring, having two teachers per classroom at any given time, and specific training including maintaining CPR certification and a med administration course. Oh, and it was at a hospital so there was that extra layer of security. Is the district going to cough up for any of that? No? At L's current school they're also going to be adding four children per classroom and eliminating the security position should nothing change budget-wise. And like, I'm sure it's hard/bad everywhere except for New England and the PNW (maybe), but damn, Alaska. Why do you hate kids so much? <</rant>>
• Other things that are lowkey stressing me out in that looming kind of way: 
• my school changing my graduation date after I've bought tickets to Omaha; by one day, but that one day was...impactful. I sorted it out, but still!
• not having summer camps sorted out - or even really knowing if I can afford to send L to summer camp this year? Assuming S is going to say sending her to summer camp is stupid?
• having to push back my c-section date by three days because: weekends. Is she even going to stay in that long on her own? She feels...big. Although that would put her on Star Wars Day so that's kind of cool. I would feel much more joyous about that at a different time in my life. Hopefully Past Clara can appreciate it.
• Epstein/Trump everything
• ICE everything
• Boards - which I am taking in late June. Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh.
• Job hunting; this should be a huge issue, but I am torn between betting on PSLF being a thing and prioritizing applying at those places, and the potential for free daycare. Save ~$24,000 over the course of 5 years and be locked in at one place (assuming everything else stays stable - which I actually don't) and then start the 10-year PSLF process meaning 15 years of paying on student loans or eat the cost and potentially be closer to PSLF if that's even still a thing at that point if I'm even still in the US at that point.

Two Paragraphs At a Time

L sometimes surprises me with her oddly realistic take on things, although maybe it's not so odd really. She exclaims about her classmates saying they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. What if those jobs aren't available when they grow up, she wonders? What if too many people have that job already? What if you don't make enough money doing that job? ...and then other times she does not seem to comprehend that goods and services cost money and mom does not make shit tons of that. Especially at the moment.

Recently my parents made a pilgrimage down to Soldotna for my godmother's funeral...memorial? Remembrance of life. It was sort of also for my godfather who had died a few years earlier. Which, my first thought is: even in death she can't have a whole damn memorial service to herself? Jesus. Characteristically, I only found out about both the death and the service as they were leaving. I think it's okay. Oddly, although I've been living a scant four hours away from Soldotna for past 14 years I only visited them once. Differences in philosophy? Opinion? Religion? They were part of my formative years (in Texas) and kind of one of the reasons I moved to Alaska in the first place (in the sense that they planted the seed of possibility), but that's as far as it extended. My parents said that of their two children only their son was involved in the funeral because he and his sister had had a falling out about my godmother's end-of-life care. Well. Okay, then. That's what mental rigidity yields, I suppose.