February 6, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 312: I’m on Week 3 of a cough and sore throat that won’t quit. Smol Acrobat came down sick yesterday and couldn’t nap or sleep properly so they’re home, and JB’s off school today too. Depression grabbed me by the throat on Saturday and it’s been a 48-hour-and-counting fight to stay neutral against passive self harm ideation, digging in my heels against spiraling further down this riptide, with no end in sight.
To say I’m gritting it out is an understatement.
At any given moment, I’m on the verge of throwing up, screaming with rage, and curling up into a ball of apathy never to move again. At the same time. Depression is a bizarre companion. Fatigue doesn’t make anything better.
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January 30, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 307: Woof. Stayed out way too late last night. Happy Year of the Bunny or Cat depending on which zodiac you use!
I’m going with Bunny-Cat. Which makes me think of Bunnicula.
I’m on Week 1 of the new medications. Telling myself to be patient during these first three weeks isn’t actually making me be patient.
It’s annoying that while I was the frog slowly boiling in depression, I was entirely focused on surviving day to day. Now that I KNOW that it’s likely been what’s driving at least some of my inability to focus or be patient, now that I am actually on meds, I’m hyperaware of each symptom that’s been blocking my focus. Irritability! Anxiety! Snapping at JB for being late! Anger at myself for being late! Anger about my fatigue! Every! Unreasonable! Thing!
Please let my lowest effective dose be really low so that I can get to it sooner than later. I don’t know that my frayed temper can take four or five weeks of this.
Year 3, Day 308: I actually slept deeply last night but still struggled to get up. I can’t say I felt rested, generally I never do, but I felt less unrested if that makes sense. I’ll take it and hope for more.
The tendons in my fingers aren’t working right today. That’s awkward! I rather need my fingers to flex as needed. That’s sort of crucial to all the typing and dog walking, eating, and driving that has to happen today.
Letter writing was a lot harder too, with fingers that didn’t want to grip or glide a pen across paper.
Year 3, Day 309: My mentor reminded me that we have enough money that we can use some of it to buy our peace of mind. I’ve had to sit with that reminder a bit to see what form of help we can buy that would be a net benefit.
Some things, like hiring cleaners, are more stressful than they are helpful because PiC is extremely particular about taking care of our things and the last set of cleaners didn’t use ladders or stepstools, they climbed right on our furniture and floating vanities to clean above them. That worried me, I didn’t want them slipping and falling off or the floating vanity to crack off the wall. At installation we were told the beams attaching it to the could hold a certain amount of weight but the vanity weight plus a person might be too much.
I’ll start with ordering food delivery. It’s not the best bang for our buck but on Friday, we won’t have to figure out what to do for dinner and that’s a small cache of brain we can reclaim. PiC and I both think about dinner, that’s probably not efficient, but we’re sharing the pain and that’s something.
Bigger picture, we may have to take that full time daycare hit sooner than planned. Last year, I thought maybe we’d start around the summer. Now, I’m thinking… maybe much sooner. These part time weeks are wearing on me this year.
Year 3, Day 310: Every time I hear a pharma ad run through the side effects and say something about not taking this while breastfeeding, I feel this whooosh of relief that I’m not going to ever breastfeed again.
The prices at our new local Mediterranean restaurant have gone up 20%. Yeeps! I ordered anyway. We’ll have some for dinner tonight and I’ll freeze some for next week.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are hectic. I’m cramming a whole day of work into a few hours before self defense. We try to arrive half an hour early so we can get parking and to give JB another 15-25 minutes of cardio. The kids play serious games of tag and gymnastics before class starts. Makes me feel like we’re getting extra bang for our buck. We already save 30% by prepaying for the year but when would I ever turn down a little extra bonus?
I hit the Gap and Old Navy clearance sales for our Lakota families. If everything ships, I’ll have acquired 44 tops, 10 pairs of pants, 10 pairs of sneakers and toddler boots, and 64 pairs of socks split between the Allen Youth Center and the Red Shirt School for $370.
Year 3, Day 311: Maybe the meds are helping even at sub-therapeutic levels. Maybe it’s a placebo effect. Whatever it is, even with my cold getting much worse today, and terrible sleep interrupted with nightmares, heartburn, and other indefensible reasons last night, my level of end of week despair was not nearly as high as any other Friday of the past few months. PiC did cover a lot of the work day with Smol and that helped too but I took my turns both morning and afternoon despite feeling like garbage with this cough and chills.
Today’s dinner: small pies and fancy salads!
Pies: Chicken Tikka Masala, Cajun Chicken, Beef and Stout, Apple Saffron
Salads that I wouldn’t have time to make: Seared Lemon Pepper Tuna , Tabouli Quinoa Salad with Mediterranean Chicken, Duck Breast.
Very expensive for the quantities we’re getting but I couldn’t make this without doubling the cost in time and ingredients. Triple that of frustration. Also it’s sampler style so we can taste four different pies in one go. One pie can barely happen around here, forget more than that!
January 23, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 300: I love and hate holiday Mondays. This one everyone else has off except me. I should have taken it as a vacation day but I forgot to.
On the one hand, it never feels like Monday, it feels like an odd floater day and it makes all the rest of the week feel off. On the other hand, I got to sleep in a little because Smol didn’t insist on being officially awake at 6 am (minor miracle) and no one else had to be taken to school or to daycare or anything by a certain time. I always appreciate a little more rest when I’m this fatigued. My nights have been plagued with intense fear nightmares since last week. My subconscious is clearly fixated on my fear of abandonment. Is this enhanced because of the upcoming psych evaluation? I realize that I’ve internalized the old stigma of the ADD/ADHD from days past. I certainly didn’t feel anything like judgement for friends who were diagnosed in adulthood in the past few years but I feel it for myself.
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January 16, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 293: We were doing so WELL for a few days there. Smol Acrobat was eating most meals with gusto, they were communicating better and best of all: were not coughing, sneezing, dripping, or burning up. Until today.
Add that to the last three days of terrible sleep (worse than my usual, which is saying something), caused by searing pain in my neck and shoulders, and feeling really shitty about the weekend of conflict with JB which had me feeling like a total parenting failure. I could absolutely cry today.
All I want is a burger, fries, and 16 hours completely alone with my computer, some books, a pile of blankets, and Sera.
Sigh. None of those things are happening, of course. Not on a Monday, not with a sick Smol to tend to. I vented to some friends and sat at my desk, glumly working as fast as I could, wanting to let out the stress with tears but not being able to.
At some point, the thought occurred to me: everything feels very hard right now. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to give myself a little break. Maybe I can commit to just a little time to myself, sometime this week, if Smol can be away during a school day.
My therapist often says being gentler with myself would help let off a little of the pent-up pressure and I usually don’t know how, but that silent ghost of a promise helped.
I stress ate some candied pecans (why do they sell these by 6 oz bags and not the pound?!), went in on a little lotto pool with a friend, tried to set up Yotta and got rejected, and discovered that Smol can put on their own jacket. I had forgotten they would have learned at daycare by now, so when I asked semi-jokingly “can you put on your coat?” and they said “yes”, well surprise surprise, they can! Only when they’re inclined to.
This tweet thread is timely. Given these two options, if I am transparent at all, I’d almost always opt for emotional transparency instead of vulnerability. I get close to emotional vulnerability here, mostly, and with a very few other people. I think it’s because I am so accustomed to people not showing up when I express a need or a struggle. I expressed it in the past and I was still on my own. So why bother? Why bother and be disappointed when I could just skip that entirely? I understand the flaws in that thinking now but I remember why it developed.
Year 3, Day 294: Treating my pain today is a whole universe away from when I first experienced my chronic pain 27 years ago. None of these factors listed on the tweet below were ever examined back then, most certainly not the trauma bit. It’s not eliminated my pain, this week is a huge reminder of that even if I were inclined to forget, but it makes a big difference. I can function more. The joy is dampened by having developed ME/CFS in the meantime but I can appreciate the reduced pain frequency nonetheless.
Year 3, Day 295: Alas, we did not strike it rich on the Mega Millions, friend and I bought tickets on a lark, so after a terrible night of hysterics and some vomit for Smol (with PiC and I sort of splitting the night), and night sweats and nausea for me, it’s back to the donut factory for both adults this morning. Darn.
Semi-related: My sense of taste is all off this week. Things taste metallic or “chemically” (I don’t know how else to describe it) to me, where they taste perfectly fine to others. This could just be my normal weirdness rather than anything COVID. I go through cycles where potatoes taste bad and carrots taste like soap. No idea why, but I hate it. Last night’s Japanese curry dinner tasted too salty and my berry flavored sparkling water tasted like medicine. 🤷🏻♀️
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Some days I feel all kinds of conflict internally: I want to be up and about, I want to curl up in a ball and hibernate, I want want want. It’s puzzling today because I already let myself lay down for a couple hours today to rest, anticipating another hard night with Smol Acrobat. These feelings make me feel like a child. Shouldn’t I feel like an adult by now, here in my 40th year? What does an adult even feel like?
In fact, that reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend and mentor who is starting a new stage in life and likens it to being like a toddler again: it’s exhausting having feelings, feeling them, and learning how to navigate them. No wonder we get sensory overload and exhausted.
Speaking of lacking emotional vulnerability: I saw a tweet asking for help for a stranger going through medical issues, from a friend of theirs, among many many other Mutual Aid tweets. It struck me, again, that my whole emergency and savings planning revolves around never asking for help. I want to save enough for retirement and for our future health needs, and set very high goals, because I don’t ever want to tell anyone that we need help in an emergency. I spent too many years digging out of financial holes, and getting set back frequently, and I can’t believe or trust that anyone would care enough or be able to help us if we hit the rocks. SMH. My scars run deep.
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A whole lot of friends discovered they had ADD/ADHD during the pandemic, and I was happy that they were getting treatment that helped. It took Abby’s latest post to make me start wondering if I might have a touch or more of it. I emailed my GP with the list. I am a slow learner!
Weirdly, as I sent it off, I had this bizarre feeling of “no I don’t WANT to have another thing wrong with me!” I was almost embarrassed. I feel so broken. I already have fibromyalgia and ME/CFS.
And yet, I will have to laugh if I end up with another diagnosis, courtesy of blogging friends. So many gifts from Twitter/blogging/the internet.
Year 3, Day 296: Much less overnight hysteria from Smol last night, though they still had multiple wake-up, which was much appreciated because my joints and tendons are furious today. It feels as though iron spikes were driven deep into my joints. It was impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in that didn’t make it worse. So, that’s fun! /sarcasm
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I’m trying to redeem an expense benefit from an employer today. They offered a small stipend for certain expenses this year so I chose to use it on daycare.
Since daycare won’t take credit cards, we paid in full and followed the directions (I read them three times) to submit a claim for reimbursement with the receipt.
Dear readers, they rejected the claim today because “you paid in full”. Yes, we did, that’s why we’re asking for a reimbursement. Duh? Who asks for a reimbursement when they didn’t pay? That’s a whole other verb. That’s what the whole reimbursement and uploading a receipt process is for, is it not? Annoying. I’ve submitted a help request. Let’s hope someone gets their head out of wherever it’s hiding. I’d like to cross this thing off my list and deploy that money where it can do some good.
January 9, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 288: Gas is below $5/gallon. I checked our records and it went below $5.25 around Thanksgiving weekend. What a difference it makes to each fill up total! We’d been nudging $100 for a 3/4 tank at those prices. *shiver*
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We have a break between storms today and I’m trying to make the most of it. I ran out of steam yesterday. We’ve got two more loads of laundry, I’ve got some donations to ship to Allen Youth Center, and I’d like to get Sera a doggy sweater.
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Huzzah! Nicole and Maggie’s comment fixed my problem. Well, got me to fix it. When the block editor was first rolled out, we were able to pick which editor to use for new posts. Then they took that choice away. So I went into the settings but my toggle to turn off block editor was greyed out.
I checked again this week and the toggle is functional! I can write new posts in classic editor! 🎉
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I noticed on Twitter that a player collapsed on the field during the Bills/Bengals game, and the NFL didn’t immediately, or very quickly after, cancel the game. I don’t follow football but this is the kind of stuff that floats up to my attention because it’s something my circles are interested in. It was both not at all surprising that the NFL didn’t have what it took (morality? souls?) to immediately cancel the game and apparently expected both teams to take the field again shortly after, without knowing if a fellow player was ok. I heard that the teams and the team reps told the NFL that the game wouldn’t go on (buzzfeed article). There’s something deeply wrong with parts of our society for that not to be an immediate decision, IMO. And football is such a dangerous game.
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Inspired by the vacation that very much wasn’t, I designed a couple new tees: small body, big feelings (guess who?), big heart big feelings. Tickled by silliness about people being more charmed than sensible: skritches get stitches. (more…)
January 2, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 281: Sharing a Donors Choose project: Clothing Closet.
My stomach has been excessively grouchy for the last few weeks. I respond by eating less and less because everything irritates it to some degree and it seems logical to give it less to be annoyed by. Maybe it’s stress related. This reminds me of my childhood where I was constantly having stomachaches and no one knew why. The doctor just diagnosed me with a (never ending) stomach flu and gave my mom a hundred amoxicillin to treat it. Pretty sure he was wrong on both counts. Today I suspect this is and was all stress related.
Year 3, Day 282: Someone wished us a Happy New Year today and I was thoroughly confused. I still don’t feel like Christmas has happened yet so it’s too soon for that. But it’s not actually. Phew. Weird times.
Just took my fourth COVID test in two weeks. Negative still. I have had an intensely sore throat for several days and my sense of taste just suddenly dropped out so I figured I should check. I’d be more certain with a PCR test but we won’t be able to get an appointment for a few days yet.
Year 3, Day 283: Another negative test today which means once again probably I just feel terrible because my body is broken.
Big storms are predicted for the Bay Area but I’m still unclear whether that includes our little bit of it or not. I love rain but not so much flooding.
This was Smol chomping on my face and my shoulder today (image of Fritz the hippo at the Cincinnati zoo chomping a larger hippo). WHY SMOL WHY. (Weekend note: Upon meeting a new to them doll from the hand me down basket, they greeted said doll with a nose chomp. Again, I ask you: WHY?!)
Year 3, Day 284: I’m still impatiently waiting for updates about the under 5 bivalent booster. While Smol Acrobat is catching everything under the sun and bringing it home to me, I’d very much like to continue to dodge COVID for as long as possible.
My throat is a little less painful, after two weeks of testing and meds, and I’m still guessing it was related to exhaustion. Except the fatigue and causes thereof are still high, so it’s unclear why it’s less painful. Not complaining about that, mind you, just observing. Perhaps a more perceptive mind than mine will spot a pattern.
My cough has only gotten worse, though. No congestion, just a dry cough, but a hacking deep cough that frequently nearly induces vomiting which is a whole other dimension of fun.
Year 3, Day 285: I’ve avoided using the WordPress app block editor for ages by copying old templates but whenever I start a new post, I have to use it. I hate it so much! I need to set up a way to dodge it on new posts too.
Also hate: when I run into someone who reminds me of my biodad in some ways but clearly leads a totally different life in some important ways. It brings up much hated guilt over how his life could have should have been better, grief for the father I thought I had but never truly did, sadness that my kids will never have the grandparents that I also wished for as a child.
I shared some of this on Twitter and long time reader friends and Twitter friends provided support that is objective enough that even I can’t argue that I should be to blame.
I’ve also updated our Giving Page here to carry us into the new year. It feels slightly impossible with Twitter falling apart but I’m going to hold hope that people will continue to share and donate through the year.
December 26, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 274: Fluh. Smol is finally through hand foot mouth and then immediately caught another virus. *Slump*
They’re grouchy as all get out and I’m still tired as hell because my cold thing still hasn’t gone on its merry way. JB is sniffling a bit, too, may it go no further. We’re quite the merry band.
I have got exactly zero holiday spirit at this point in the week. Maybe it’ll change as we go along but I’m skeptical.
*****
What’s the opposite of self preservation instinct? I caught myself feeling today as if I were not rested, but as if I had enough of a break that I should start thinking about how we could possibly fundraise in 2023 without a functional Twitter. I don’t have much reach here on the blog, I don’t want to spam email folks. But I also don’t want to let the Lakota Giving Project wither away.
I asked a friend to holler at me to settle down if I try to start hatching plans too early. I really do need a real break before diving headfirst into new iterations of the project.
But surely brainstorming ideas isn’t doing anything?? I don’t want to use a fundraising platform, I’d stick to the easy and informal setup we have now with Ruth. Put together a page on the Giving page again and ask friends to share it? Maybe offer small rewards when someone gets us over a fundraising milestone? I wonder if that makes sense. Thoughts?
Year 3, Day 275: Smol was screechily excited to meet our friend’s cats, they’re already friends with JB, but that delight was their downfall. They’re really good at petting cats gently but they can’t help their squeal of excitement once petting commences and that squeal absolutely terrifies the cats who take off running. We practiced doing shh shh shh with a finger over our lips, they imitated that, but the second contact was made: *delighted cackle* and off goes the cat. I can’t fault their joy but it was working against them.
*****
Oh hey, I made a sale on Kindle Direct Publishing! A little book that I designed was bought by someone! That’s very exciting! I hope they like it.
Year 3, Day 276: I thought my congestion had finally moved to a clear mucus stage but no. Alas. Not yet.
I had stocked up on kids; medications, thinking we’d have enough to get through the end of the year before I had to worry and of course the Imp of the Illnesses overheard my nonsense. Bam, we’re halfway through the medication supply, no end of their illness in sight, and not a medication to be had from any store.
My dear friend happened to be around. He checked all the local stores I hadn’t checked (because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have it either and I was right) and then ran over with some from their own supply because his partner had stocked up before the shortage without any notion a shortage was coming. That buys us about 7-8 more days, I think. Haven’t quite figured out the math on volume to doses to how long a single 4 oz bottle will last.
*****
I’m organizing all our receipts for the tax year. I’d dated several of them incorrectly and had to download another dozen or so. Usually I’m a lot better about keeping up with all the paperwork as we go through the year. This makes me mildly paranoid that I’ve forgotten to either record the donations or to download the receipt, or both, for others. For the moment, so far as I know, I’ve gotten that all together.
Year 3, Day 277: This time of year feels BEYOND hectic but there are some small bright spots. We got to visit with a very good friend. She was talking about buying me some clothes but I didn’t want them to go to the trouble, so I redirected with my current need I’ve been pondering: what kind of wallet can I switch to? My debate is between two fundamentally different shapes: a long slim zip around, vs a thick squat sort of shape. Having had both, I couldn’t decide.
She happened to have an old but never used wallet in their closet and so I have now inherited that. Perfect! It saved me the trouble of overthinking this for the next six to twelve months! But it didn’t ultimately deter them from buying me clothes which was the point. Whoops. But they were awfully nice sweaters and I’d just discovered four holes in one of my two turtlenecks so it worked out in the end.
*****
A Black professor I follow talked about how she grew up surrounded by Black people and was loved growing up, enough so that she was surprised by anti-Black racism when she encountered it as an adult. She was talking about this in relation to people disbelieving Meghan Markle’s not realizing how very very racist the UK was going to be towards her. I had a similar experience growing up within Asian culture. Asians have a real problem with anti-Blackness, that wasn’t a surprise to me but I learned to see it for what it was because I grew up playing with Black kids and anti-Blackness was easier to identify as wrong. I was surprised by Asians claiming to be superior Asians to others. I was, of course in this scenario, the inferior Asian. A boy I dated told me his mother would just have to deal with the fact that I was “an inferior Asian race” (paraphrased). She only wanted him dating the superior Asian races. Of course. I was offended but I was more surprised than anything at first because what? What’s your problem??
Year 3, Day 278: Smol’s whatever they’ve got, and my cough, seems to be finally on the mend so naturally, OF COURSE, JB spiked a fever of 104. They went from playing at top speed and top volume, of course, to dragging, no appetite, burning up, and exhausted with a headache and sore throat. I put them to bed at 7 pm and crossed my fingers.
That’s about all I can take of this week. I hope everyone’s holiday weekend will have gone well by the time you read this.
*****
Help! Our lovely elderly neighbor we have said hello to most mornings for the past few years as she passes by gave us an unexpected Christmas gift and a $25 gift card. I consider that a not-small present, especially when we don’t know them beyond 2-3 minute conversations. Our kids/grandkids don’t play together.
I have trouble with feeling transactional about gifts of any kind, it’s taken me 20 years to shut up and accept gifts from chosen family that are greater than what I can give them, so this throws me on a bit of a loop. What’s expected in a situation like this? Do I need to get them something? Do I not commit to a gift giving cycle and send them a warm thank you note? Would it be unforgiveably rude not to gift back to them? I really don’t know if there’s an etiquette for this.
*****
Thanks to Nicole and Maggie for highlighting these Donors Choose campaigns to support trans kids that only have a couple or a few funders and may not fund in time. Can we help them out?
We Don’t Ban Books – We Read Them – yay this has funded!
Reading without Barriers This has until Jan 28 to fund.