The Writing Desk of Jakebe Rabbit

Last night I finally used the bath bomb Husboo gifted me as a birthday present three years ago. It was the first time we used the tub in the new place, and it struck me that it's in the *exact* place Cleveland's bathtub is in Family Guy. It might have been a high thought, but I couldn't shake the image of me falling out of the house going "No no no no nooooooo!" It still makes me chuckle. :)

Honestly? Wow. I felt so much more relaxed stepping out of the tub, my skin felt rejuvenated, and I'm two more episodes down in my Paradise re-watch. I have another bath bomb from the same gift set, and I'm really looking forward to using it. The iPad and the Wonderboom are a potent combo in the alcove that holds the faucet, and if I get one of those bath-tub trays I could easily see myself going for a soak at least twice a month. 

I spoke with my manager yesterday and she made me feel a lot better about the situation. When it happened, I stepped back to look at my life and felt like such a loser. Here I am in my mid-40s with no solid career path to speak of, no savings, a job that barely pays the bills, with old ratty clothes and poor grooming habits. I don't have a degree and it really feels too late for me on that, so the best I can do is some kind of supplemental education that might help my network make a case for me somewhere. I'm always going to be making the lowest wages in the household; at worst, I'll be relying on the charity of my community. It wasn't a great feeling.

But she helped shift my perspective a bit. This wasn't an indictment of my work ethic or effectiveness, and the passion with which she jumped into helping me land somewhere else was grounding on its own. She heard about a position in the Sunnyvale office opening soon and encouraged me to speak to the hiring manager ASAP, so I did. They're looking for a Metrology Calibration Tech to work out of the lab there; it'd take me out of the house five days a week, but that's not the worst thing as long as the pay was good. I think I hit it off with him fairly well, and he liked that I have the mindset for the work being an internal applicant. There are knowledge gaps, of course, but my manager forwarded training materials that I can study ahead of applying and interviewing. She also gave me her personal email address so we can go over my resume and wants to set up a weekly meeting to track our progress. It's surprising to get this kind of help so quickly from someone who had to fire me, though I suppose I've had enough good managers at this point I really shouldn't be.

Someone in the fandom who knows me from my 2 Sense days popped up with a list of open positions at a waste management company; a colleague from Udacity forwarded me a job at an AI tech company; an old fandom friend forwarded me a position as a Library Page for Santa Clara, having remembered how much I loved them. I'm always surprised that there are so many people willing to rally around me in times of trouble, but again -- I've had so many good friends at this point I really shouldn't be.

I'm not out of the woods, but I feel like I've gotten my bearings at least. I would like the Calibration Tech position (as long as the pay is right), so I think I'll give that a good try. Ditto for the Library Page position. I think I'll pass on the AI tech company though, for multiple reasons.

Tonight I'll be putting together my 2025 Job Application Tracker tonight and working on the Unlicensed Adventures game. The gang is working their way through a "dungeon" of sorts full of mind flayers and for some reason they keep getting their asses kicked. >.> I'd like to offer a way for the group to get some much-needed story, but that's very tricky with this group. They have little tolerance for untrustworthy behavior, but I'd really like to see if they could make an alliance of convenience with a bad guy to stop something bad from happening. We'll see how it goes. 

I think it's safe to say I'm in a depression. :) Just thinking of my mental state that way shifts me over into a different mindset that's...gentler, I guess. Less nest of angry bees and more blind mole snuffling around in an unfamiliar forest. 

I meditated for the second day in a row and already it's pushing me into better choices. Instead of losing time playing video games or listening to YouTube, I cleaned the kitchen. It was in a bit of a state, with corn cobs, arugula, tomato jam, and bacon grease all left out overnight. D: I saw a couple cat hairs on the tomato jam, so I know Goldie was keenly interested and likely couldn't help herself to have a taste. 

That makes me feel guilty, of course. I really don't want to be the cause of a bad turn for her, and the more chances she has to go off-diet the more likely that will be. I'll have to take extra care with the kitchen for a week or two; at the very least, I want to make sure she doesn't have access to any tasty food scraps that might be bad for her. 

Husboo was not happy about the dishes early in the morning, which...eh. I'm in this mood where if something has to be done, I'd really rather not procrastinate about it if I can do something about it. I have no idea what my energy is going to be like later today, so if I have the juice to clean now I'd much rather use it then and there. 

Discovered an ant trail in the master closet where Biscuit lives, which set me off on a cleaning jag. There are some small gaps in the baseboard where they must be getting in, and though I could trace the trail from the back corner all the way to the closeable gate we have keeping Biscuit in, I couldn't figure out where their ultimate destination could be. The master bathroom is the closest water source, so maybe there?

Anyway, Husboo asked why it set off this urge to clean and I had to stop to think about it. I guess for me, it's a sign that a place is unclean -- the places I grew up in had permanent roach colonies, and we were hit with a pretty bad flea infestation that really scarred me in high school. The thought of insects crawling around in high-pile carpet, mostly invisible, just makes my skin crawl.

But ants are relatively harmless insects and can even keep out more harmful pests by taking care of the grubs. There's a part of me that would like to figure out how to encourage the colony to look elsewhere for food and water, but who knows how well that would work? Ratty recommended a liquid trap that combines sugar water and borax, which attracts ants, kills them dead, and actually spreads through the colony. If I set them in the master closet, I'd have to be ready with the vacuum every day to get the fallen soldiers. I...don't want to eradicate an ant colony just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I'll have to sit with my feelings on that and just keep watch. If it ends up causing issues for Biscuit or getting worse, I'll use them.

Got word from my coworker-friend that the annual raise was...exceptionally small (1.4%) so that's about what I can expect. It's not enough to lift my regular "salary" (I'm paid by the hour) up to $50K, so that pretty much forces my hand. In the short-term, I'll see if I can get the Patreon up and running again for some extra cash. But what I really need to do is get my resume in order so I can start putting in applications. I don't want to leave where I am, even with their dog-shit health insurance, but I'm tired of not being able to buy stuff I need because monthly bills take everything and then some. If I can't make a living wage here, I *have* to find some place that offers one.

The rough part about that is it will likely mean going back to the office at least two days a week. Beyond the normal hesitance to be in public spaces, I don't mind that so much -- but it might make car-sharing a bit more complicated. It'd honestly be worth it if I could make $75K again, though. 

For now I'm just trying to simplify life again, focus on the next best thing. It made me feel better to clean things than "rest" with video games, so maybe doing other stuff I should have been doing all along will help just the same. 

Tonight, we're going to watch the new "Superman" movie. I'm fully expecting it to make me cry, which would be the first Superman movie to ever do that. But from what I'm hearing, this version is Kindness & Empathy Man, and I'm so starved for characters pushing that it might overload my little brain 

Writing out what I know of my parents helps me to stare at the story I've been telling myself this entire time and how it's shaped what I think of myself and my past. Looking over the last couple entries, it's...clear that I have a lot of big emotions to work through about it, even now.

I tell myself that the only thing I got from my mother is a broken brain. I may have dodged schizophrenia (so far), but I can never trust my own mind knowing that there's something fundamental that skews my perspective. I can never be sure that I'm seeing the information I gather clearly, that I'm interpreting it reasonably, and that I'm making good decisions based on solid assumptions -- especially when emotions are involved. Everything has to be viewed through that filter: what if this is my mental illness?

All I know about my mother I learned from her mother (my maternal grandma) and that one phone call. Even among my siblings, she's a distant mystery. But at the same time, I think we all have this attitude that makes us naturally distrustful. It feels like we all have this ingrained expectation of unjust treatment that the world is too happy to oblige. We've all dealt with this outlook in our own ways, and I'm not sure one is any better than the other.

I don't like that I've shaved my mother down to nothing but a broken mold that created seven misconfigured children. She's become this bogeyman, some cautionary tale of what happens to poor black people without access or support. At the same time, I live in fear of growing older and putting the ones I love through the prolonged sadness of watching my mind disintegrating, erasing the person that lived there. I worry that one day, I'll be more trouble than I'm worth, and that I'll be stuck somewhere and forgotten, buried in an institution or a home before I've actually died.

It breaks my heart to think about what happened to her, and how...ill-equipped we are as a society to even deal with something like this. We don't have the will to really...sit with the difficulties of this experience. We don't know how to treat the people suffering from this humanely. We have no will to investigate or treat this. It's not pondered in our art or culture. We can't even talk about it as a family. So it's this little black spot within us, too sensitive to really touch but affecting everything we do.

My mother is why I developed such a strong interest in psychology and mindfulness. I want to figure out how to bridge the gap between my skewed perspective and the reality of things, through writing, and art, and crafting a language that allows me to feel understood. I think, deep down, I need to understand myself. There's just so much that I can't...explain, because I don't have the words for the way my thoughts move and connect. It's frustrating, and it makes me feel alone. It makes the future where I'm some crazy asshole, locked in a box and alone, seem a lot closer.

My adopted mother is...a whole different tangle of trauma to work through. She was always so mean and it honestly felt like she never really wanted to spend that much time with us. But at the same time, I know how much she worked to make sure we were provided for. Every year we got new clothes and materials for school. She even gave us a little bit of spending money for field trips. She instilled in me a sense of deep responsibility for the people around me, and I think the way I try to keep working if I have even a little left in the tank is down to her. I try to make cleaning, straightening, etc. an automatic thing, something I can do with my hands without thinking about it.

But even now, I think about how little I felt loved as a child, or even liked. I did whatever I could to be tolerated by whoever had authority; most of the time I was quiet and dissociating with a book in the corner. I developed an Avoidant Attachment style that stifles me to this day, and I don't feel safe in relationships because the fundamental one I grew up with felt so conditional.

When she told me that she would have hated me if we were closer after I came out, it confirmed my worst fears about this woman who raised me. She didn't love me. She didn't even care enough to love me.

It makes me feel fundamentally unloveable, or at least...not even enough of a person to be considered for such a strong emotion. There's always this voice in the back of my head telling me I'm weird, not even in an interesting way, that no one cares if I fall down into my own internal spiral and never come out again.

I never had a mother who loved me. One was mentally incapable of it, and the other just didn't.

I never had a father who taught me anything. He disappeared into the bottle, and then into a blizzard when I was a teenager.

I don't have memories of being in a family as a child. I mostly remember the worst things my adopted mother ever said to me, or the one time I talked to the woman who gave birth to me, or the haunted eyes of my adopted father.

Every time someone talks to their family, or shares a memory of how they celebrated holidays, it's a reminder of everything I don't have. I don't have a childhood birthday, or Christmas, or Halloween memory. Just fear and abuse and alienation. That's all I have if I look back on my past.

But there has to be a better way to spin this story, hasn't there? There has to be some version of this story that allows me to keep the lessons and let go of the pain of it. Maybe I'll see a path there in time.

I was born on August 6, 1980 at 9:08 AM in Baltimore City. According to my birth certificate, my father was William J. (54) and my mother was Delores E. (47). I want to talk about them here because, well, they're my roots, aren't they?

I don't know much about my dad, William J. I know he was an Army veteran who served in World War II, but there are no details on what his service was like. He never talked about it, and I never asked.

He was a very quiet man. He liked his drink, and he would spend his days getting toasted with friends at this closed garage near our house. He always came stumbling home after dark with slurred speech and a desperate lean against whatever would hold him up. He'd pass out, then often be up and out of the house before dawn. I honestly don't know what he did all day. Sometimes he would bring home catfish in a bucket for my mom to clean. Sometimes he'd go "out with friends" and be gone for a day or two.

So that means Delores E. raised me. She didn't approve of his drinking, obviously -- I don't think she approved of him much at all, to be honest. She never really spoke well of him until after they separated in the late 80s. Then, she would talk about how much she missed him, how handsome he used to be, how good of a dancer he was. Looking back, I think she missed the man she married before...whatever happened to chase him into drink. By the time me and my sister were on the scene, alcoholism had already taken him. When he was sober, he wasn't present. It felt like some pain or memory had claimed him and alcohol was the only escape.

My mom was an unhappy woman. She and my dad would have fist-fights about his drinking when I was young, and when they weren't fighting mom was...hen-pecking him about everything. I think she came to only see the ways in which he had disappointed her, or maybe she was constantly chasing the man she imagined he would become after marriage. I don't know. But she wasn't happy with him and she was never happy without him, either.

Mom loved raising children, I think. She wanted to take care of people, loved to cook, and tried to keep a clean house as much as possible. But she was also severe and...constantly cutting. She would be by turns encouraging and then...cold. I think I learned very early on from her that love was conditional, that you could easily make a mistake and suddenly, that would be the last time you'd be supported in that situation.

When I was in first grade I signed up for a spelling bee. Mom showed up until I misspelled a pretty easy word -- 'has'. I think I misunderstood what the judge was saying or something, but no excuses here. I blew it. :) So Mom blew me a kiss and left immediately. She never attended another spelling or math bee again. She missed my eventual school spelling bee championship in seventh grade and my second (or third?) place city finish. She told me that she never came because when she did "I would always mess up".

Most of what I remember about my mom is all the times she made me feel bad about myself, or afraid, or alone. She brought us up as Jehovah's Witnesses, but left when I told an elder about a romantic affair she was having with another man and got (I assume) reprimanded for it. And that whole thing fucked me up but good. I remember all the times I would plan to run away with my sister because we were fed up over the ways Mom had mistreated or ignored us.

I remember her whipping my sister and me with a leather belt several times over the course of an afternoon insisting we knew why and demanding an explanation. It wasn't until evening that she realized an uncle who had been living in an upstairs apartment hid a porn magazine in our bedroom, and not us. We got a "my bad", and she moved on like nothing had ever happened.

I remember pushing her when she tried hitting me with a broom one time when I was 16, walking out of the house and across North Avenue to my aunt's house and crying as soon as they let me in. It was the closest safe space I could think of that would be open. She never hit me again, but the distance between us grew.

I remember how she handled my coming out. She wouldn't let me touch her because "she didn't know where my hands had been". She sat me down and made me call everyone in my family and come out to them in front of her. She told me she was glad we weren't closer, because if we were and I told her she "would have hated me". I wasn't even important enough in her life to be hated.

She told me not to come back home when I left for college that summer. I moved out two weeks later and didn't come back to Baltimore for 16 years until the death of my sister. In the intervening years, we'd talk on the phone, trying to patch together whatever relationship we had. When I found out how she had been living after my sister's death, I took over Power of Attorney and tried to get her finances together. I tried to find her better living arrangements that gave her some measure of autonomy, but she fought everyone who had been trying to help her. So she landed in a nursing home, and it's there she died in 2022.

My father was moved in with a family friend after they separated, where he was given an allowance and...basically managed as much as he could be. He would frequently take the bus across town and show up at our house, where Mom would drive him right back to where he was.

He walked out of where he was staying during a blizzard in 1996 (or 1997?). We have no idea what happened to him, but he's presumed dead. We were never able to get any official word.

So, those are my parents. My dad was an alcoholic who disappeared during a blizzard, never to be seen again. My mom was an abusive, caustic woman who made most people around her unhappy too.

Only, those aren't actually my parents. When I was a teenager, I found out I was adopted -- which gave me a little more insight into where I came from, but not much.

That's for tomorrow.

I spent the weekend down with the plague that's been going around -- or one version of it, anyway. There was a lot of coughing, though less than both Snepperboo and Rattyboo; the thing that sucked most was the overall sense of fatigue. I spent most of Thursday on feeling like a fat sack of crap, getting winded whenever I had to do anything.

The shortness of breath in particular reminded me of COVID, though our tests came up negative. I imagine it's just a particularly nasty respiratory infection of some sort, which is never a great time for me. After getting bronchitis in my 20s, those illnesses are specifically scary for me. There's a...weird dread in feeling this vital function within your body not working like it's supposed to, having to labor way too much for something you've always taken for granted. And when you're just lying there, in bed, and it feels like your lungs are half-filled with gel...it sucks.

As I get older I notice how much more worse colds feel. They've always felt bad, but when you're a kid you mostly just get on with it -- and when you can't your parents look after you, keep you topped off, and let you watch whatever you want on TV. Even when you give yourself permission to just...do nothing and rest, there's this feeling that pops into your head that's... "Is this what it feels like to die?"

I'm not sure if anyone else gets that feeling when they're sick. But the laboring for breath, the lack of energy, the way it feels like your very life-force is draining -- that feels like a new, adults-only feature that I'm not a big fan of. There's a weariness that edges everything, this sense that there are only so many more of these fights in you. One day, it'll be too much to fight for breath, and your lungs won't be able to inhale again.

Maybe I'm just...sensitive about this sort of thing. I've suffered from life-long allergic asthma and was only diagnosed somewhere in my early 30s, and I have overall "diminished lung capacity". Breathing is something I'm always working a little harder at, so when my already limited functionality goes further, it means a lot more. For the most part, I just try to get on with it. It's my job to manage it as best I can, and I could be doing a better job of that. There's a maintenance inhaler I should be taking every day to help strengthen my lungs but I haven't been consistent with it. I should definitely make vacuuming the upstairs of the new burrow a fairly big priority now that Goldie (our beloved household cat) is out most days. And I should *definitely* be building up my cardio fitness; the park near the new burrow is a quarter-mile, so it wouldn't be hard to map out a one- or two-mile run around the neighborhood.

But first, there's still a bit of settling to be done. The household illness set us back about two weeks, but we're working on getting the burrow in its final "lived-in" state again. Right now that means going through the remaining boxes and clearing out the clutter, taking another pass at the shared spaces to combine our resources and make the best use of space we can, and...doing a shitload of laundry to clean and reorganize our linens and things. I don't want to be overconfident, but I think we'll be 90% there by the end of the month.

Now that the move is officially behind us, I can refocus on where I'd like to improve. I've signed up for 4thewords, this neat little online writing portal that gamifies the daily practice -- basically, your little Word Warrior defeats monsters by completing a specific word count in a certain amount of time. There's a light story that helps motivate you toward those goals, and neat little armor sets to dress up your Word Warrior with. And there's a social component that helps with accountability and everything!

First I'll use it for "Swiftie's Intergalactic", the long-gestating story that I will stop talking about and definitely write this time. *nods* I'm trying hard not to build it up to be more than it is; a way for me to rediscover writing as an outlet. That alone is the whole point.

My brain is starting to regather itself from the sickness and the move chaos. It feels good to be a bit more grounded again. :) 

I had a pretty deep conversation with Snepperboo over the holiday, and one of the seeds sprouting from it is the idea that this is the year to write a novel.

I've been wanting to knuckle down into a project for months now; the most obvious (and potentially-rewarding) is the Patreon, where I write stories and get paid a little money for them. The entire reason I created a Patreon in the first place was to just "noodle around" with ideas I found neat; it would be a place where messy first drafts would go, so I could practice writing for an audience and build a good routine. I never could get that off the ground; the pressure of weekly updates without the discipline to get ahead of them broke me, and after many many years it's been all but defunct.

I planned for this to be the year of its resurrection. I have an angle on "Swiftie's Intergalactic" that I think I can work with, so that would be the first serial I'd present -- but only once it's done. The protagonist, Deimo, is simultaneously thrilled and terrified about the freedom of having his own jump-capable starship and interstellar courier service on the night he paid off his last debts. He had planned to party at Swiftie's Intergalactic Bar, this planet-sized saloon on the edge of the galaxy, but it's nothing like he imagined -- and mostly that's his fault. He's frozen by the reality of his dreams, so he can't actually act on them when they're right in front of him.

The short story follows Deimo's thawing through the evening. First, through the waiter who serves as his guide to the random hook-up that bought him a drink from "across the bar"; then, the valet who serves as introduction to the mysterious benefactor and....kind of a "Cerberus" guardian into the sexual escapades to follow; then, the Prince, a kaiju-sized squirrel recognized as royalty on a dozen worlds. And through the conversation and congress that follows, the tension caused by the mystique dissipates into a fraught, but quick companionship between people of vastly different worlds -- and sizes. By the next morning, Deimo is a little more content with himself -- and a bit more ready to take on the unknown constellations in front of him.

It's a good story to work on as I resolve my own block. :) The waiter and valet could be ciphers of the problems I'm struggling through myself, so that I get my own answer for these problems out on the page. It's a bit...confessional, nakedly earnest, but that's where I am right now. It'll be good for me -- if I can finish it.

But that's not the novel I'd like to write. When thinking about that, my mind keeps coming back to the idea other writers have always expressed -- writing the book they needed as a kid to feel better. I can't think of a better way to engage and explore my Shadow, the parts of myself that give me shame, fear, anger. Working through my experiences, and acknowledging the ways in which they've shaped me, could be this tremendous healing exercise that allows me to reconfigure my personal story. The more I think about it, the more excited I am by the prospect.

That might also mean I blow a good idea on a bad novel, but that's all right. The whole point is to get it done, to give my whole self over to his project until it's out there. Then, I can shape, cut, steal, or whatever.

So far, this is the basic idea: a sensitive black kid in Baltimore transfers to a new school after a divorce from his alcoholic father. He travels between three worlds -- his school, his home, and his church -- but without feeling like a part of any of them. Each carries dangerous elements he feels the need to hide from, even though they also provide something he's desperately looking for.

Somehow, he discovers he's one of the Folk, a magical race of beings created from the synergy of man with their environment. He's a Totem Child, one of the Folk with an affinity for a specific animal -- as well as the mythological traits associated with it. But there are many, many different kinds of Folk. Some are friendly, some are not.

The Space that the Folk inhabit is fraying because, well, the environment is dying. The imbalance between man and his world causes all kinds of problems that the Folk must deal with, while also dealing with the pressure of disapproving religion and disbelieving science on either side.

The novel would be his discovery and acceptance of his true nature, with the recognition that the world doesn't become less hostile in the face of self-knowledge. We just become better equipped to handle it.

I'm still cooking. We'll see where we end up with either story.

 And just like that, it's 2025.

I don't think I imagined the year 2025 to look quite the way it's going to. How could anyone? Who could have called that our cultural landscape would be dominated by the global slide toward fascism, and that we would have elected an incredibly stupid, racist reality star twice -- the second time after knowing how corrupt he would be in office, and clearly showing signs of cognitive decline? Ugh. The worst timeline.

But here we are, so we must soldier on through. This time, I have a better perspective on my power and limitations, and I have a better handle on how best to actually help things. I'm only one person, and I can only do so much. But I can do a lot more than I think. 

Personally, my focus is on community -- building it, maintaining it, strengthening it. I think one of the reasons we're in this mess is because we all seek out connection and companionship, but we've lost the language to talk about how we actually do that. Social structures and dynamics have become so charged that the words we use to describe them can carry a current through a conversation. We can't talk about organizing or values or how we live them without...stumbling into a blow-up about the rights of the community infringing on the rights of the individual. 

Suggest that maybe a group should live its values of compassion and inclusion through carefully-chosen speech? Tone policing. Dare recognize the right of a community to define and police its boundaries? Creating an echo chamber. It's hard to talk about our collective responsibility to each other because we've somehow tricked ourselves into seeing bonds as shackles, and freedom as an absence of any bond whatsoever. We seek to belong, but not be restrained, and belonging doesn't work that way.

So...what's the way out? Well, for me, that's being clear-eyed and intentional about the bonds I create, the structures I build to exist within. It's understanding that to enjoy the connection -- true communion -- with others, I must stop thinking about the cost of engagement as a sacrifice. It is a gift, freely given. 

I've talked about how we live in a world that...demands our attention, our allegiance to something, all the time. Just to have a space to type and share these thoughts, I have to navigate notifications and pop-ups from my operating system (Windows), hardware supplier (Dell), their business partner (McAfee), web browser (Chrome), its parent company's embedded search engine (Google), the ad blocker I use to keep more notifications from showing up on my browser (AdBlockPlus), and several other apps (Discord! YouTube! Telegram!). It's a nightmare just trying to do the thing you set out to do -- and I think it's become so ubiquitous we don't even notice it's happening sometime.

And all of these companies use language that hijacks the concept of community as a hook into our empathy, our morality. They claim these unceasing demands of our time and money are just "calls to action" as part of a "user community". If we care, we should prove it by becoming evangelists or banks for whatever we use. 

After a while, we stop believing in community at all. 

And that's all I have time for. More tomorrow.

So it's official enough for me to say it here: there's a very strong chance we'll be moving within the next month.

It's under positive circumstances for the most part. After getting notice from our landlady that our rent would be going up $200/month, we decided it was time to look for a house to rent with Ratty. We took a few hesitant steps forward, talking about the money situation and what our absolute ceiling would be -- and then we started looking around.

We were very pleasantly surprised by what we found. Housing in the area is still expensive, but we could very likely find something that would result in a net-reduction in rent for most of us! Combine that with the savings that comes from consolidating our utilities and shared accounts, and it makes for a tidy simplification while also improving our living situation significantly.

Snepperboo, I think, is channeling his anxiety into the excitement of the hunt. He's taken lead on stalking Zillow, Craigslist, and a few other places to find potential dens and he's come up with an exciting batch! It looks like good places go fast, so we really have to pounce on anything that looks like an opportunity. Thus, we've got viewings later today, Friday evening, and Saturday morning -- likely with more being scheduled as we get responses from the feelers being sent out.

Personally, I'm pleasantly surprised by the prospect of making a home with my two best friends, of building a place to entertain and comfort friends, of hopefully making friends with new neighbors. I'm excited by the opportunity to whittle down my possessions and build a new space with intention. I'm happy that we'll be able to have more space for Biscuit, and that we might be able to "rabbit-proof" common areas enough that future rabbits will have more run of the home. When the upheaval has time to settle down, I do think this will be very good for us.

There are a few kinks to work out, too. Ratty has an ancient cat that we all love, but that I'm highly-allergic to. We'll also need to start introducing our rabbit to his cat so there can be peace in the household as soon as possible on that front. Ratty rightfully wants his cat to have unrestricted access, which means our rabbit will be the one who needs to be segregated. How easy that will be largely depends on the layout of the house we get, so it's a bit early for solutions there. But we're hoping that the two can learn to co-exist without too much trouble.

I'm hoping that consistent use of anti-allergy meds and a reasonable cleaning schedule will help with the pet dander and hay pollen, but there's always a chance things get more complicated over time. There's also the ever-present clash of lifestyles that can be discovered only through living together. We're all adults who've experienced bad cohabitation situations before, but...it hits different when we're all this close. It can be difficult realizing we're better friends/partners than roommates, and no matter what happens we'll need to stretch our communication and conflict-resolution skills.

But honestly? It's worth it for everything we gain. Chances are we become stronger as a unit and learn how to bond in new, more fulfilling ways. And the change inspires us to make changes within ourselves to be worthy of this better space. We become more considerate, more engaged in our physical space, more attentive to realizing our home's potential to be a haven.

At least, that's what I hope for us. There's a long and uncertain road between this present and that future, and I hope to navigate it mindfully.

I stepped on the scale yesterday for perhaps the first time since Thanksgiving and was shocked by what I weigh: 218 lbs, which I think might be a personal record. I know where the weight is coming from and why; so focusing on my calorie intake while being more diligent about exercise is the best move. I have to accept that there are some things I just can't moderate my consumption of, so I'll need to stop bringing candy and such into the house. Once I find my water bottle and put stickers on it, I can work on replacing the candy habit with a sip of water whenever I get the urge.

I was approached to collaborate on a presentation for the day job next week, which I happily accepted. Basically, a colleague and I will share what we've learned about Bill Coordination with the rest of the team. I have a rough structure for how to present the information, but I'd like to take the opportunity to compare notes with my colleague and see what she's learned. I don't know her that well, and it would be cool to focus on what she wants to get out of this experience and see that she gets it.

This dovetails into a thought I'll have to elaborate on later, if I remember it, but I'm realizing how much people need someone dusting them off, picking them up, and pushing them to improve themselves. Different folks have different needs because of their temperament and where they are in their journeys, but honestly I think that might be the best attitude to walk into a new interaction with. "How can we help each other be our best selves today?"

For now, lots of work, lots of organizing, lots of breathing through uncertainty.

I'm back from the mountain, where we traditionally  hold Thanksgiving. It was simultaneously a huge affair and a much smaller one: Thursday night's dinner had about 20 people, but different circles came together on different nights after that. Friday was for the local folks; our host likes to have sex-positive parties with like-minded friends, and those of us who weren't inclined just hung out and soaked in the good vibes. Saturday was for us "non-local" folks; we dropped acid earlier in the afternoon so we weren't quite up until sunrise. I think it worked a little better, though I do miss watching episodes of "Old Enough" in that floaty haze with the sky lightening behind the screen. Still, I'm not a spring chicken, so being able to pass out before the sunrise was much appreciated.

Thanksgiving dinner prep went...all right. I forgot a LOT of small ingredients that were still really important for what I had planned to make, so the menu was pared back quite a bit. The deep-dish pie crust I needed for the apple pie was left in the freezer; we forgot the cream cheese I'd need for the carrot cake, that sort of thing. It was disappointing, but I also didn't feel quite as up to cooking as I did before, especially since the group was a bit smaller this year after the dinner. Friends picked up some cream cheese and saved the carrot cake, so that's lucky! I had thought I'd have to make an on-the-fly buttercream icing and I'm super glad I didn't have to.

The acid trip was really chill this year, which is how I wanted it. I think, instead of getting in my head about stuff, I wanted to just follow my body where it wanted to go and focus on what was right in front of me. We watched The Death of Stalin, which immediately became one of my favorite movies this year, and Welcome to the Space Show, this nifty little anime about a bunch of kids in a small Japanese town left alone for summer vacation and going on a truly-wild space adventure.

The Death of Stalin is a 2017 adaptation of a comic-strip series, directed by Armando Iannucci, quite possibly the best political satirist of our generation. (He's also responsible for Veep, The Thick of It, and Avenue 5.) It's a fictionalized account of what happened the week after Stalin's death, where his various lieutenants jockey for power in his wake and set up crosses and double-crosses that end up just killing the low-ranking soldiers and helpless citizens. It's a very black comedy, but also one of the absolute-funniest movies I've ever seen. One thing I love about Iannucci is his sharp eye for human folly, even in these storied halls of power. We hear so much about these bogeymen of Russian history, so it's...somehow cathartic to see them in this light, this fucked-up family fighting at Dad's funeral. At the same time, he holds these people to account for the many, many abuses of power they committed as part of their petty grabs. There is real tragedy happening in almost every frame, and we're never too far from the consequences of their brutality. It's this meditation on the limitations of consensus, and how hard it is to have an objective truth with parties so invested in creating whatever truth they want.

Welcome to the Space Show was much lighter. Five kids are left at a schoolhouse in the Japanese countryside to fend for themselves over the summer, which I guess is a thing that happens in small Japanese villages? Natsuki is the nominal main character of the ensemble, a recent student who longs to be a superhero but struggles to fit in due to her absent-mindedness. She lost her cousin's rabbit, Pyon-Kichi, before the story started and it's caused a rift between them. One of the children, Koji, is a sci-fi geek who meets a spaceship mechanic's daughter during his adventures and, I think, has to learn how to deal with the ache of missing someone who seems to just get you. It's a quiet arc played out in the subtext of a few scenes, but I really love how understated it felt.

The movie as a whole is SUCH furry bait. The alien they rescue to start the series is a dog-like humanoid named Pochi who comes from a whole dog planet. Pochi's ex-girlfriend is this pop idol who sings the theme to the Space Show, the most popular show in space. And there's a "hacker" alien character who is basically just this giant bear-like cabbit-person who is JUST. THE. CUTEST. It's also incredibly weird; it comes across almost like a Miyazaki coming-of-age tale, but there are more rough edges that make for some profoundly disturbing implications. Definitely recommended if you're in to weird anime; our host had it on Apple+, but I imagine it's available for rent/purchase wherever you buy quality anime.

Overall, the trip did its usual thing of making me less...fearful, in general. What's different this time is stumbling on an insight into what's driving that fear -- which hopefully gives me a much better shot at untangling that knot.

Over time, I think, I've absorbed the narrative that I'm bad or deficient at expressing myself. Or that the things I think aren't worth expressing. When I speak, I often get caught using the wrong word or saying something that someone else just can't parse. Or I'll catch myself expressing a thought that -- if I had thought about it for a second -- leads down this shameful path I need to examine. The more I speak, the more it feels like what's reflected back at me is "you're wrong/bad/dumb/weak" etc.

That feeling chills me to the point that I just don't say what I feel -- or even think about how to express how I feel. I think what I think, and I don't have the spoons to constantly defend myself from using the wrong word or being...gross/weird/awkward.

But I don't like the version of myself that doesn't engage with the world or advocate for the things I love. I don't mind being quiet, or contemplative, but I do mind being passive -- and not learning how to tell a good story, lead/manage a project, or help someone else through a problem they're having. I also feel more of a responsibility for myself and my place in the community, and I want to be someone who contributes as least as much as they consume.

So learning how to speak to the people around me is a skill...and I know it's one I can get better at with practice. It's more important to reach out, to be engaged, to really connect.

That's where I'm at right now. I'd like to be more assertive and confident, more self-sufficient, more conscientious. That means a bit of exposure therapy for the rejection-sensitive dysphoria, and learning how to deal with the barriers to being understood.

Well. 

What hurts the most is that after everything we've seen, 70 million Americans chose a convicted criminal to run an authoritarian government for the next four years. Somehow, over 50% of the people who voted looked at January 6th, scores of felony convictions, blatant misogyny, contempt for the rule of law, the promise of a government for the rich, and said..."Yeah, that's my guy."

It's hard to believe that this country is willing to become such a twisted version of itself, but here we are. 

I'm surprised that I don't feel more shock and despair, but maybe those emotions are lying in wait for me at some future date. In 2016, I felt genuine grief for the future we would have to lay to rest; maybe in 2024, some part of me knows there's nothing left to mourn. How can I identify with a nation that props up the worst of us to lead?

My focus, right now, is on whatever I can control. I should have done this already, but I'll make a point of renewing my passport ASAP and making sure my forms of identification are as current as they can be. I should (finally) gather my various 401Ks and transfer them to a single IRA at my credit union. Just in case same-sex marriage is repealed (or banned) nationally, I should set up Snepperboo as my legal proxy if anything should happen. I should look up a local mutual-aid network and encourage a more active, formalized support network among my friends. For me, the name of the game is self-reliance. 

At the very least, I can anticipate the government to be incompetently run for the next four years. The next administration has already signaled it will be intensely anti-science, anti-social, and deeply uninterested in protecting the vulnerable among us. All we have is each other; best-case scenario, we can just pretend the government doesn't exist so we can get shit done ourselves.

But the worst-case scenario is so, so bad. We could be dealing with mass deportations (even in blue states), an administration dead-set on taking out their grievances on political enemies and consolidating power; tariffs that will effectively break the economy and possibly throw us into a depression, a wildly-chaotic foreign policy that favors other authoritarian regimes. There will be no forward movement on climate change, and in fact most of the policies that have been quietly implemented by Biden will probably be shredded a hundred different ways by Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate. Wholly unqualified, deeply undemocratic people will be appointed to positions where they can deepen the damage through neglect, hostile policies, and aggressive dismantling of the social safety net. The courts, which will be filled with judges willing to weaponize the law to gain power, won't stop any of this. Our system of government is going to be so, so hostile to our way of life.

And I'm in California. I can only imagine what this looks like for people in Texas, Florida, the Deep South. So many Americans are held hostage by neighbors who want them to disappear. I am a queer black neurodivergent Buddhist. I know this country doesn't consider me a part of it, but I'm relatively insulated from direct experience on that. So many friends are in worse positions, and it's important to me that I hold myself together enough to show up for them. 

2016 threw me into a depression spiral that took me years to come out of -- years to even realize I was in one. I don't aim to repeat that experience, but I also don't aim to burn myself out on rage and sadness either. I don't know what actions I can or will take to make the world a better place from here, but I'm committed to doing more than shivering in my burrow at least. 

We're in for some dark times. But each of us can be a light to help each other through.