Cleaning Run; Dentist Visit;
Dec. 12th, 2023 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeI cleaned yesterday! \o/ Washed and replaced the bedsheets, finished folding the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and straightened things up a little bit. R. moved the giant room air conditioner back into the closet for the year, and I got back in that corner of the living room to (finally) clean up the futon. I even managed to sort and store all of the socks, which is typically the last bit of the Laundry Monster to be defeated. So that feels especially great.
Today I'd like to straighten up the home office a little bit so there's less clutter. Maybe this weekend, since there's nothing going on, I might dump out everything in the drawers, go through the contents Marie Kondo-style, and put in the drawer organizers that I bought all that time ago. I like that there's a "catch-all" drawer, but it would be better if I could actually find everything in there or access them a bit more easily.
For now, it's all about the surfaces. There's a lot of detritus all over the place that I should figure out what to do with; I'm sure most of it is old bill stuff that I should either store someplace specific or just let go of. Ultimately I'll need a "staging area" for incoming stuff but that can be for later. Right now it's just enough to get rid of it -- or find a place for it.
The replacement crown wasn't nearly as rough as I was worried it would be. The worst part was the numbing needles, which went so deep into my jaw it felt like she was injecting anesthetic right next to the nerve. Maybe that was the point, because I didn't feel much after that. It's generally an unpleasant feeling when the dentist is going ham in your mouth, even when you're numbed. There was a moment of panic where I thought she had broken the tooth, but of course it was just the destruction of the old crown. The tooth next to it had a pretty sizeable cavity so she took care of that while she was there -- for a few hundred less than I had anticipated!
She said she would move the cost over to next year so I could save a bit of money, which I'm very grateful for. This might mean that I won't be able to get anything major in 2024, which is added incentive to take good care of my teeth. I don't think I'll end up flossing after EVERY meal, but once or twice a day is a good cadence for it.
I'll go back for the permanent crown a few days after Christmas -- or maybe a day or two before depending on how soon they can get things done. The dentist seems to be pretty keen on clearing her calendar during that last "dead week" of the year, and I can't blame her. I'll accommodate her schedule if she asks for it to be changed.
Yesterday I saw the first Barclay episode of Star Trek: TNG, S3E21. It was better than I remembered it! Barclay is an Engineering Ensign having trouble with is re-assignment to the Enterprise. He's always late, turns in sub-standard work, and can't seem to develop a rapport with any of his colleagues. To escape his very stressful life, he goes to the Holodeck where fictionalized versions of his coworkers taunt or comfort him. If they're riding his back in Engineering, they become foppish nobles in the Holodeck to easily dispatch, that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, random systems within the ship are malfunctioning while the Enterprise is carrying (I think) medical supplies from an unknown species. At some point the warp drive gets stuck in a positive feedback loop and the ship won't stop accelerating -- meaning it will tear itself apart in about 15 minutes. Riker, Troi, and LaForge have to navigate through Barclay's...unflattering Holodeck program so he can save the day.
Barclay is written to be unlikeable and kind of pathetic, though we're seeing most of the story through the implicit perspective of LaForge. But there are two scenes that really stand out to me: first, Guinan gives him an empathy check by saying it's likely Barclay already knows how little people care for him -- which would make him late and nervous too; second, when LaForge actually sits down with Barclay so he can explain what's going on, the ensign essentially comes out and says he has a crippling social-anxiety disorder. "You don't know what it's like," he says, as LaForge tries to understand.
It reminded me of my earlier days just figuring out how to talk about my mental illness with people who only partially understood what I was trying to say. Especially if you're not deeply familiar with certain disorders, how they feel, and how they're expressed, it can feel somewhat exasperating to hear someone go "I'm scared of people." But it's equally exasperating trying to explain the intensity of your emotions, especially to someone who can't relate to that inner world. How DO you explain to someone that social situations just take a lot out of you and sometimes all you can think about it not fucking up -- or the fuck-up you just made?
Everything turns out right in the end of course. Barclay saves the day, he agrees (I guess?) to therapy, and deletes his fucked-up Holodeck programs. I know this isn't the end of Barclay's story -- I hear he pops up on Voyager after a while -- but the beginning was a surprisingly nuanced tale about the struggle to cope with invisible illness. Even in a throwaway episode before the biggest cliffhanger of all-time, TNG is bringing the goods.
I'm also reminded of how differently this would have been handled on Star Trek: Discovery, which feels good. Even in a utopian society, there's progress. :)
Today I'd like to straighten up the home office a little bit so there's less clutter. Maybe this weekend, since there's nothing going on, I might dump out everything in the drawers, go through the contents Marie Kondo-style, and put in the drawer organizers that I bought all that time ago. I like that there's a "catch-all" drawer, but it would be better if I could actually find everything in there or access them a bit more easily.
For now, it's all about the surfaces. There's a lot of detritus all over the place that I should figure out what to do with; I'm sure most of it is old bill stuff that I should either store someplace specific or just let go of. Ultimately I'll need a "staging area" for incoming stuff but that can be for later. Right now it's just enough to get rid of it -- or find a place for it.
The replacement crown wasn't nearly as rough as I was worried it would be. The worst part was the numbing needles, which went so deep into my jaw it felt like she was injecting anesthetic right next to the nerve. Maybe that was the point, because I didn't feel much after that. It's generally an unpleasant feeling when the dentist is going ham in your mouth, even when you're numbed. There was a moment of panic where I thought she had broken the tooth, but of course it was just the destruction of the old crown. The tooth next to it had a pretty sizeable cavity so she took care of that while she was there -- for a few hundred less than I had anticipated!
She said she would move the cost over to next year so I could save a bit of money, which I'm very grateful for. This might mean that I won't be able to get anything major in 2024, which is added incentive to take good care of my teeth. I don't think I'll end up flossing after EVERY meal, but once or twice a day is a good cadence for it.
I'll go back for the permanent crown a few days after Christmas -- or maybe a day or two before depending on how soon they can get things done. The dentist seems to be pretty keen on clearing her calendar during that last "dead week" of the year, and I can't blame her. I'll accommodate her schedule if she asks for it to be changed.
Yesterday I saw the first Barclay episode of Star Trek: TNG, S3E21. It was better than I remembered it! Barclay is an Engineering Ensign having trouble with is re-assignment to the Enterprise. He's always late, turns in sub-standard work, and can't seem to develop a rapport with any of his colleagues. To escape his very stressful life, he goes to the Holodeck where fictionalized versions of his coworkers taunt or comfort him. If they're riding his back in Engineering, they become foppish nobles in the Holodeck to easily dispatch, that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, random systems within the ship are malfunctioning while the Enterprise is carrying (I think) medical supplies from an unknown species. At some point the warp drive gets stuck in a positive feedback loop and the ship won't stop accelerating -- meaning it will tear itself apart in about 15 minutes. Riker, Troi, and LaForge have to navigate through Barclay's...unflattering Holodeck program so he can save the day.
Barclay is written to be unlikeable and kind of pathetic, though we're seeing most of the story through the implicit perspective of LaForge. But there are two scenes that really stand out to me: first, Guinan gives him an empathy check by saying it's likely Barclay already knows how little people care for him -- which would make him late and nervous too; second, when LaForge actually sits down with Barclay so he can explain what's going on, the ensign essentially comes out and says he has a crippling social-anxiety disorder. "You don't know what it's like," he says, as LaForge tries to understand.
It reminded me of my earlier days just figuring out how to talk about my mental illness with people who only partially understood what I was trying to say. Especially if you're not deeply familiar with certain disorders, how they feel, and how they're expressed, it can feel somewhat exasperating to hear someone go "I'm scared of people." But it's equally exasperating trying to explain the intensity of your emotions, especially to someone who can't relate to that inner world. How DO you explain to someone that social situations just take a lot out of you and sometimes all you can think about it not fucking up -- or the fuck-up you just made?
Everything turns out right in the end of course. Barclay saves the day, he agrees (I guess?) to therapy, and deletes his fucked-up Holodeck programs. I know this isn't the end of Barclay's story -- I hear he pops up on Voyager after a while -- but the beginning was a surprisingly nuanced tale about the struggle to cope with invisible illness. Even in a throwaway episode before the biggest cliffhanger of all-time, TNG is bringing the goods.
I'm also reminded of how differently this would have been handled on Star Trek: Discovery, which feels good. Even in a utopian society, there's progress. :)
