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.

Happy Hearts Day

Written yesterday while sitting in the lobby of Alaska Women's Clinic and waiting for my glucose test blood draw. There's this viscous, sweet liquid that you have to/get to drink around 27 weeks in which they tell you if you have gestational diabetes or not. We'll see! I had all these plans to eat protein this morning and make damn sure I pass the test (although it probably does not work this way), but I had a Zoom meeting and have to look presentable for the rest of the day and make breakfast and pack lunch for L so it just didn't pan out. I ate what I normally ate: oatmeal with peanut butter and collagen with black coffee. Hopefully it's fine? We'll see.

My parents travel between Alaska and Texas at least once per year, and when they're in Texas they stay with one of my dad's old friends, K. I vaguely remember K from growing up. You know how it is: they stand around talking to your dad, you're friends with their kid, and that's about it. He didn't make a particular impact on me, I just know that I got in trouble (kind of) because I told his oldest daughter that Santa Claus didn't exist when I was five and she was three or so. Over the years, my parents would kind of talk trash about his wife at the dinner table (they were constantly talking trash about people and it stressed me out then and really impacted me), and eventually they got divorced. At one point, when I was in college, my parents mentioned in passing that the daughters had come out with allegations of sexual abuse against K, and wasn't that terrible? Not that the daughters were sexually abused, but that they were accusing their dad of such a thing - and wasn't it terrible that his ex-wife was turning them against him? God forbid they engage in reflection about the possibility that their friend might be ill in this way. No, automatic disbelief of the children. And they still stay with him. They've recently bought land from him. And the invited their other set of grandchildren to visit on his farm. He's estranged from all but one or two of his children. And truly? I don't really know what happened Of course I don't. But I don't automatically think children are lying about something like that.

I'm holding on too tight - to my 23 open browser tabs

The vibe, she shifts between straight-up forgetting important things, feeling oddly all right, and feeling the tiredest I’ve ever been.

I can typically only do three things per day. This includes things like going to the grocery store. Work only counts sometimes, though. Sometimes it's all right and I can do three things plus work. Other times work is one of the things. Lately, though, I can usually only do two things per day. This might look like: inpatient psych rotation and life administrative paperwork in the morning or going to the gym for a tight 30. Sunday was a little better than usual. I managed humanist church (and had three whole-ass conversations! With real people!), light housework, and taking my mom out for her birthday dinner.

It's kind of tough hanging out with my parents lately. Between non-conversations about safe topics, them subtly disparaging my parenting and eating habits, and my not really wanting to talk about fieldwork because they definitely think they Know Everything about mental illness* and mental health **...and my reluctance to hear it...it gets pretty quiet pretty fast.

*It's a result of not being aligned with God and His plan, dontchaknow.

**Trick question! Mental health isn't real. Also bodily health isn't real. You're powered strictly by the Spirit of God, silly!

I'm trying a new thing where the footnotes aren't way at the bottom of the page. Like it? Me either.

Other things: it's five days late, but happy birthday to T! I don't have much to add to that. Just: if you're reading this, I thought about you and tried to send all the good vibes your direction. <confetti emoji>

I am a little bit zombie-fied lately, but things are happening (in slow motion, but still). It's hard to force myself to focus, prioritize, stare at the screen for 4+ hours and write, but it was a little better today. In part because my task du jour is making a lil' manual for the year one students for their respective orientations at the inpatient psych hospital and I sure do love doing that kind of thing. Here is a dictionary! Some acronyms! Who to contact when! A little schedule! Some items of interest! The blood of secretaries runs in my veins, what can I say?

Speaking of inpatient psych, the hardest thing so far has been motivating myself to transition between the rehab suite and the units to do things with patients individually. It's kind of like the difference between someone showing up at your house and you having to go to a party, I think? The most anxious-making things about 1:1 OT to me so far is the getting-to-know you period and the just not knowing of the person and the circumstances. This is kind of already taken care of in outpatient and mobile outpatient (and, I assume, home health), but less so in schools and inpatient rehab and psych. Nobody's going to show up for an appointment at a certain time, I have to go to them and/or ask them to come and I'll probably be pretty good at that by the end of this rotation, but for now - my god. The social anxiety. I'm going to have to reframe that somehow. Hm.

Also: there's a rec therapy kind of...room...attached to the rehab suite, and there's a bathroom attached to that which is accessible to patients during groups and that sort of thing. I know for a fact that someone goes in and "cleans" it every morning, but for at least 1 week there's been a single booger stuck to the wall above what I'd guess to be someone's average sightline just to the right of the door. There's a single strand of hair just hanging out on the sink too which hasn't been touched in 2 days and counting. I suppose I should just clean them, but I am curious. How long will it take for someone else to notice? Has someone else noticed and they're just playing at the same game I am? <<in the style of Carrie Bradshaw>> At the end of the day, aren't we all just thinking, "snot my problem"? <</Carrie Bradshaw>>

Working on my ABS

There's a line from Glengarry Glen Ross: "Always be closing." They're salesmen and that's generally good advice if you're a salesman, I guess. I somehow conflate that with the phrase, "Always be selling." and consolidate that to the acronym ABS in my head. There was one co-worker I used to have at Sbux, and she was pretty great so we all got into the habit of being very complimentary towards her (think things like, "I like your hair!" "G is so great - they're so good with customers!" "You don't even have to ask, G already did it!") - as you do. But she liked to talk about how she wished she were fit (she already was), and was one of the very few people who actually made samples during her shift. So I started having the recurring thought that I should say, "G's always working on her abs, to be honest - because she always be sampling!" (if the opportunity arose), and then explaining the tangential connection to Glengarry Glen Ross. And although the opportunity did arise many many times over the course of over a year, I never did. Why? Lack of executive function, probably. And anyway, that's one of the reasons I suspect I have some form of attention deficit.

Sleep has been alternating between ~7 hours per night and ~9 hours per night, but about every other day I wake up between 3 and 4 AM. Fun times!

L's school is cancelled today, because of freezing rain and ice. This is the...third snow day of the year? Which means they'll want to extend the school year. Safety first and all that, but you'd think there'd be a contingency plan in place. Like, a learning from home day. But also: we have an enormous backlog of homework to anyway. So maybe I shut my mouth and we just work on that.

Today is my designated "work from home" day, so school being out has disrupted approximately nothing, which is nice, and I went to Costco yesterday so we're pretty well set on food and that.

Lately L's been going through some things that make me remember how tough it was to be seven. I'm glad she feels comfortable enough to tell me when she's sad and what she's sad about. The self-doubt is real (as in: should we have switched schools?). And I hope I'm right. And I hope she understands someday. And I hope it doesn't all have to blow up as a result of national politics. But it might. 

Anyway. Seven. Hard.