1.5-ish weeks of fieldwork left and I'm pretty ready to move along. Mostly, I think, because I have a lot of anxiety about What's Coming Next and things aren't moving as fast as they need to there. Same old things. X only gets back to me once every week which is way too long because I need Y's signature on paperwork as well and they, too, are flaky. Oh and everything needs to be (ideally) done and dusted by the end of the November. Which is next week, which is also Thanksgiving week. Ell oh ell.
However! It's been nice to have a Girls Week with L what with S being out of town for work and all. I've been a bit hyperfocused on trying to keep things clean and this is a lot easier with two people and one cat versus three+ people and one cat. Which is helpful for mental health reasons overall. I'm not sleeping as well as I'd like which is unhelpful for mental health reasons. This, I think, is mostly due to discomfort and I don't feel more exhausted than usual so I guess I'll take it.
The day we dropped S off at the airport we kicked it off with tha gym (which - I'm glad I went to the one I did because it's getting shut down with almost no notice), then Spenard Roadhouse, then the museum. And that's all the things I can do in a day. Three. Just three things. Wish I knew why. But it was...oddly nice to go to Spenard Roadhouse, especially? It was sunny and the tater tots were lit and going to Spenard is a kind of like our Little Seattle/Portland. There was a group of four girls in the booth next to us and they were laughing and talking about romantic entanglements, etc. Just normal 20s stuff. Unboxing little funko pops. You know! In any case, one of the girls facing our way had that one Mary Oliver quote tattooed on her forearm. The one in the title. Nice, but vaguely accusatory. Got me thinking, for sure. Do? Do what I can. Do the next right thing? What I did end up doing was going to the museum and watching L pet a blue-tongued skink.
My educator took two sick days last week which was okay because it added some pizzaz to my schedule. I got to see some different therapists and still treated those of my kids who showed up. I just don't have enough stuff to do outside of actually being at the clinic so I didn't take any home days myself. Why am I not sick? Unclear. Even if I were, I don't get sick days as a student.
There's a huge kerfuffle going on right now about the re-categorization of professional categories as per the Department of Education. Occupational therapy (among many, many others) is no longer considered professional which apparently currently mainly affects the amount of student aid/loans someone can receive. There are two schools of thought and I don't disagree with either: one is that we don't need a doctorate at all and it costs too damn much anyway, universities really need to stop charging out the ass; the other is that this is going to result in fewer people pursuing the professions that got axed because money and that, of course, is going to have negative impacts. And of course of course, the whole system (healthcare and higher ed and the government and your mom jk jk) is broken anyway so kind of 🤷 As per my Facebook feed nursing is especially up-in-arms about this though and, I assume, educators and PAs are too.
So we (L and I) went to an actual party last night. I know! What?! It was a housewarming for someone I hadn't previously seen in over a year. Nothing shocking about that, per se. There are only two sets of friends I see more frequently than that and that only because either our kids are friends (set one) and they are extremely mindful (think: top 3 life priorities) about reaching out to and spending time with all their friends (set two). And it was nice except for that there were about 50 people there and I was extremely confused because I didn't get a chance to talk to the friend at all (kinda got the vibe that they were surprised I came?) and it appeared that the friend was now partnered whereas this something I'd never before known them to be (???) and I only knew two other people at the party. I successfully chatted with a pharma rep I'd never met before and the other two people I knew and otherwise kind of felt panicky and like Oh No, a Party. L had a good time though. She's a party animal.
Typically I think I would dwell on Why Can't I Just Be Normal At a Party, etc. But this time it was a little more like: maybe this just means I'm in a different time of life. I've heard a lot of positive shit about myself in the past 2-3 years from others, but this doesn't typically extend to hang-outs and one-on-one connection or feeling like Part of the Group. Perhaps I just have Big Therapist Energy and that's that. I don't think I'm particularly problematic at this time in my life or abrasive. I don't typically enjoy interjecting myself into conversations beyond what's needed to keep Flow, and I do (with one or two exceptions) find social participation to take up a lot of bandwidth which can result in a deficit that lasts a while. So...maybe it's okay that I'm kind of a hermit? It only seems to feel hurtful when I notice that everyone around me seems able to connect in ways that I am not*. And honestly it seems difficult to catch anyone at all up on What's Going On. I wonder if part of that is the length of time between hangs. Maybe I should just write letters to all my friends. The 'tism-friendly way!
As is it's always: What's new with you? 500 million things. And me? Um. I'm still coming to terms with everything you just told me. Ima pick 3 things to tell you, and mystically forget everything else I've ever known, done, or thought in the past 6+ months.
I know to have a village you have to be a villager, but maybe I should just lean into the inevitability of becoming, essentially, Baba Yaga.
The ice fog came in clutch last night and the trees look magical and the mountains look magical and it's all extremely magical out there. And I imagine this when outside or driving around town.
I finished (sort of) the main quest of Blue Prince and have decided to call it good. Could I play it in theory almost forever? Sure. But the game mechanics annoy me. I use up my patience in other ways and demand a little more of the storyline, if I'm honest. Therefore, I've been replaying Pentiment. It got deleted from the Xbox, so I re-downloaded it from the cloud. You thought I was done, S? The deuce, I say! I have more murderers to accuse! More letters to write! More 16th-century Austrian village in which to experience escapism! I'm considering re-downloading Stardew Valley but I don't especially enjoy the grinding.
Happy Chicken & Waffles Day (Wednesday)! Yes, that's still a thing. You can pry it from my cold, dead hands.
*I was going to explain this more, but you know what? Nope. Not today. Maybe it's delusion, maybe it's a function of trauma, maybe it's autism, maybe it's true. But I'm filing it under d for doesn't fucking matter. Although it could also go under f. As in: fuck-it bucket. Into which I chuck things.
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