Diversifying Toolkits

I woke up in the middle of the night, but since I had already called out last week and I had the Benoit meeting today, I wasn't about to call out again. I took a few Seroquels - no chances - and set my alarm. No chances. Though I could obviously have just turned it off and gone back to bed. One of the first emails was one of the items I entered yesterday, and I should have cc'd Kathy when I entered it. But really, since I was just doing extra credit, she wouldn't have seen it until today anyway, and probably even later, so it would probably have been more problematic. But if I'd been responsible in this timeline, we wouldn't have relied on luck. The format of the Benoit meeting being so vague was both a blessing and a curse. I'm used to skating by at the bottom, especially when it comes to formal docs, so not really knowing where that bottom was dug into my fear of failure. But it also assuaged it, because realistically, even if I'd just shown up and said "yep - remand," that would just be treated as my starting point, and we'd go from there. So that horrible Perfection or Bust couldn't fuck things up. It's a collaborative process, not a crucible. The only real tradeoff was that I only got about half of the eservice we'd received checked in. Still way ahead, still counts. I'm going to try to get a draft for her by next week.

Sam stopped by in the afternoon, offering to take me out to lunch at some point, as long as we walk over there. He'd messaged me about a proposition to the city the other day, but I wasn't up to guarding boundary blurring. I asked about it now, making sure to keep the kitchen counter between us. I'll fuck Sam again when I've got a satisfactory surface in the living room. Until then... He wants to see what legal avenues are available for the city to recapture largely abandoned buildings and turn them into low/no cost housing. He commented on Houdini's cage, because I guess he didn't see the update. My eyes still watered, but I've pretty fully explored that emotional landscape. It was the best possible outcome, and emblematic of exactly why I adopt feeders. Houdini is the goal.

I didn't really have any good projects to occupy me until the Happy Hour started, and I wasn't even sure who, if anyone, would show up. I've obviously never minded being on camera, so I just hopped into the Zoom alone and journaled while I waited. Kathy was the only one who joined, though Julian also called, so I tried to get him in. It didn't work, he cussed some, then apologized for it, all while Kathy could hear him. See again re: their clearly limitless patience. Kathy and I talked about work, and about how I. Do. Not. Want. to go back to working in the office. Insert Homer-Womb Dream. She brought up getting Lady Miss Friday certified as Support, which would probably be easy to do, given my clear and well-documented affection and dependence on her. But getting her to and from the office would be torture for her, even with catnip, and that would obviously be unacceptable. I mentioned my seething rage at knowing I was falling and not stopping for her. At one point the word "rehab" even slipped out. Then we swapped to my recent workload acceleration. She brought up that Carl doesn't have much else to do when he's working from home, and I at least understand the effort to maintain plausible suspension of disbelief. We talked some about her son, because the topic of astrology came up. He's also apparently one of that subset of Virgos who are ambitious and messy. And he shares my exact difficulty telling when chores should be done when. Things like dishes are easy - if dish, then wash. Anything involving judgment catches us in a trap. We talked some about Julian's visit, and I was quite blunt about my willingness, but not initiative, to take time off. I take Harmony Bear to my usual extremes, but I'm not Psychic Bear, and I violently reject that expectation.