I can't focus on the document I'm supposed to be writing at work. So I will write a blog entry because I have multiple things to put in the list at the bottom!

Birthday

It was my birthday last Saturday, and I got a lot of Garfield stuff. My old roommate Sara made me an amigurumi Garf with a Miku outfit that is removeable. I love him so much. Because normally I make cool stuff for friends and family and it was nice to receive a cool handmade custom gift.

For my cake I got chocolate with whip cream frosting, and my mom ordered it without any of the piping decoration on the edge. They still wrote "Happy Birthday Debra" in orange in the center, but that was manageable. The orange stained the white frosting though, and a couple of slices I could taste the nasty regular frosting. I had one of the last slices yesterday, and week and a half old whipped cream frosting is nasty.

Animal Crossing

Since last time I wrote, I have played Animal Crossing each day. I think maybe one day I forgot, but the next day I time travelled and completed that day, and then played the actual day. I ended up buying the HHP DLC for real and played it a lot in September and October, but stopped recently. But it was helpful to be able to order items through Wardell for a couple things I wanted to decorate in my house.

I have a lot of Lilly of the Valley that I am managing to grow but I have no place for it go at the moment. I am working on growing all flower colors, and I still need black tulips, black cosmos, green mums, blue roses, and gold roses. I have the golden watering can and some black roses saved so I could make the gold roses whenever but I haven't made any of the gold tools I have recipes for.

Floating along

Not being at school is hard. I feel a bit like I'm just floating through life. I still play games I enjoy, and I watch videos I enjoy and learn, but a lot of days are the same and I am in the house all day. It doesn’t help that when I am in the office, I don't talk to anyone usually. My one coworker in my team sits directly behind me, and I don't really say anything other than Hello to the guy who sits next to me in Licensing. Nobody sits on the other side of me because I'm up against a wall.

The other girl who is around my age and in my general department sits on the other side of our annex, and we are only both in office usually for 2 hours (I get in at 7 and leave at 12, she gets in at 10). The guy who sits across from me is also my age but he's also in Licensing, and he's in a Masters program currently. (We both went to MSOE).

I haven't gone to the Junto since whenever I blogged about it last. I don't know. If I went every week maybe I would get to know people more, but it's hard to get into it when everybody else knows everybody else and I know nobody and I'm not naturally talkative or find making friends easy.

I think about what my therapist (that I haven’t gone to in a while) kept saying, that she was worried about me “back-sliding,” which I understand that she wants me to move foreward, but that’s part of the reason why I don’t like scheduling sessions with her. I’ve scheduled couple sessions becuase I was having a really tough time and wanted to hear someone else’s opinion about the situation and ask for help doing something, but I didn’t really like the response I got. All the other times I scheduled a session is because my mom told me to, becuase she (the therapist) is supposed to help me during transitions like this (between college and graduation).

The last couple sessions with her I didn’t really know what to talk about so I shared personal goals I was working on for class, and she wanted to ADD to them, and it made me uncomfortable and added more stress for me. This happens a lot when I meet with her, almsot every time, where a suggestion she makes makes me stressed.

One of the goals I was chatting with her about and has been a topic for me is eating/nutrition (I’m fat btw), and her reccomendations are just not in line with me. Or reccomendations for relaxing or meditation (I don’t like medidation or breathing exerscises, they are NOT for me I CANT do them) and she’s like “drink your favorite tea” and I think to myself “well, I think tea tases fucking disgusting like dirty warm grass water” but I don’t say that becuase then I feel like all I do is deflect and she’s trying to help me so I should keep my mouth shut.

I remember specifically that I was sharing that I was tracking how many calories I ate in a day for a number of weeks for a school project, and that I was just tracking them and not like doing any strict calculations or keeping myself within a target, but she immediately said like, well the calories doesn’t really matter becuase it all depends on the type of food, like eating this many calories in bread will make you gain weight but eating that many calories in nuts won’t. And I think to myself “wow that’s great except I fucking hate nuts both the taste and the texture, and of seeds too." Eating nuts feels like i’m eating teeth and the taste is just not good.

Or she’ll give some reccomendation for somehting like “your favorite salad” and I think to myself “great cool thanks, I don’t eat salads.” Like who thinks salads taste genuinly good and would choose to eat one on it’s own? Like you choose to eat it? I don’t like leafy vegetables becuase the leaf part is NASTY in both texture and taste, especially the texture and especially the taste. The texture is awful so why would I endure the shitty texture if the taste is also awful? And salad dressing is not helpful, becuase the usual dressings taste bad, I think they have like seeds or vinegar in them, and I don’t like either of those things. And having like straberries in a salad, that’s a no because I don’t like straberries becuase They Are All Seeds. Avocados are also bad because they don’t taste good and the texture is so bad. And then the different leaves are all different textures of sad wimpy and each salad has a different taste and texture even if it’s supposed to be the same thing.

And I don’t wanna bring this up to her because I feel like I am deflecting and not being grateful. And she said one time that she was the psychological consultant or something for some weight loss show... And I feel like this a lot when she talks to me, that what she says is now another Thing I have to do like it’s a school assignment and it’s stressful and I feel like you should want to talk with your therapist if you are having problems but talking with her now just makes me feel uncomfortable. Because I can’t just tell myself that I don’t have to listen to everything she says like it’s scripture. I can try, but it doens’t feel good to me. I was having a small meltdown type thing when I was over at my gramma’s house and she was trying to cheer me up and she suggested talking with [therapist’s name] and I immediately said NO! because it would NOT help me calm down it would make things worse!!! I don’t know man.

Fright Hike

Oh, I just remembered I could talk about how I helped Maggie with the Fright Hike. At Lapham Peak each year for two days they put on a mile-ish hike through the trails from 6-8:30 and there are different stations where people set stuff up and scare people. It gets really dark because it's in the forest and there are only a few trail lights that get red bags put over them for the spooky hike. I don't know how Maggie got involved, but she has done it at least last year also.

This year her theme was Prome/Carrie. She plays the guitar so she was singing some prom type songs. I don't know how she leaves stuff to the last minute, but everything was done the week of the hike, which was also Maggie's Masters finals week. I was tasked first (well I offered) with adding grommets to this dress Maggie found so it'd fit her. Alex (her mom) bought a grommet kit. It took me four hours to remove the zipper, take all the beads off on the back, iron on some interfacing, add a ribbon with interfacing, cut the holes for the grommets, and add the grommets.

I realize now that the tutorial I was following used much thinner fabric. I could have made it without the ribbon and interfacing on it, and maybe even without any interfacing on the bodice itself. Because it was so hard to but through all those layers when adding the grommet holes! The hole punch it came with was SHITE and I had to cut through FIVE layers to make a big hole to put the grommet in, and then the clamps thing it came with went on at a real awkward angle, it was a mess.

And I worked on it the whole time I had a tummyache! I had thrown up the Friday morning a couple days before, and now my tummy had been hurting again. But I finished it and it laced up nice, and even though it was full of tiny shit that stuck out (like melted plastic threads and not fully rounded over metal grommets) Maggie said she didn't feel them.

Then I was tasked with finding some suit jackets and shirts and ties from Goodwill and it was like $80. Then I helped set everything up, which included walking a bit from the car down a hill through a rocky trail to her station. We set everything up which was a bit exhausting, then I sat with the rest of the peanut gallery and watched Maggie play and have people walk past. The peanut gallery consisted of Me, Alex (Maggie's mom), Nic (Maggie's boyfriend), and Kayleigh (Maggie's old roommate, IDK how it's spelled. Andy (Maggie's stepdad) was also helping but he didn't watch it that night because he felt like there were already too many of us there.

After she was done we packed up the speakers and guitar stuff and left. The next day we went a bit early again to clean stuff up after it rained, and add a couple extra things that Maggie didn't get to supervise the day before. She played and then we went to pack stuff up, and as soon as we had gotten the guitar stuff and electronics packed up, it suddenly started thunderstorming. Like at once I heard a roll of thunder and then it was raining and storming.

So we were scrambling to cover stuff up with fabric and tarps we had, and we had already gotten the big speaker loaded on the hand truck, so that was sent to the car, and then I was dragging the portable wagon I brought with a speaker and some other stuff. It was not easy to walk through the woods up and downhill over uneven ground at 9 at night during a thunderstorm. Dragging the heavy cart over to the hill took a bit, and then I had to drag it up the hill, and then I had to take it DOWN a VERY STEEP hill, and this hill was so muddy… I ended up slipping but somehow I fell onto my knees? Grateful I didn't get my ass soaked.

I was walking with Andy and he had a headlamp and could see the ground pretty well, but I had a dim lantern that I had to hold with my hand to try and aim the beam forward so I could see where I was going. Andy said that he thought that I was like dancing or something at first, which I don't know man. It was dark so I guess he's forgiven.

Then he held the handle of the wagon with me for the rest of the way down the hill, but I ended up slipping again, but I managed to fall onto the side of the wagon and rode it down for a couple seconds. Pro strat right there. We got everything loaded into the cars and I was instructed to sit inside one of them, so I did. I didn’t want to get dirt all over Andy's car because my knees were still covered in mud, but I moved the seat back and I was ok.

There was some deliberation over who was leaving, how long Maggie would be at the afterparty thing, who was going to wait for her, etc. So me and Andy were stuck waiting in his car for a bit, and he seemed unsure in how to entertain me while we waited. I tried to assure him that I didn't need entertainment. I sat there the whole time just sitting, not on my phone or listening to music at all. Definitely and Abed from Community moment when I am waiting sometimes.

On the drive back, Alex was driving Maggie's car and we were following her back to their house, and she said that she could barely see the road because of the rain and Maggie's shit windshield wipers and then Andy's headlights shining into her retinas on both mirrors.

I went home and washed my jeans, and then the next morning we went back to clean up the rest of the stuff and return the trail back to normal. I was exhausted the two times I went back and forth bringing stuff to the car and walking up and down hills. I even slid a little when I was carrying the wagon down the muddy hill but I didn't fall. Then Alex took us out to breakfast, but Maggie wanted to go work on homework for finals, so it was just Alex, Andy, Nic and me.

Nic told us that he was the only one stopped out of a line of three cars by some woman standing by the self-pay machine, where he was hounded about why he was there, while the person ahead of him went through fine and the person behind him this strand lady just smiled and waved at. Alex reported this to the woman in charge of the fright hike just in case it was an actual worker who did this, because it's not okay to only stop people of color when they drive into a state park. Like what was he going to do by himself at 10am on a Sunday after a thunderstorm.

Oh and also on Friday night (the first night) after the hike was done, one of the security guards referred to me and Alex as "proud parents," which is so funny. I was sitting next to her in this big camping chair and were watching all night, and it was pretty dark, so I guess that's what we looked like. I don't know if he assumed I was the father? Or if he knew that we were both women? But I don't think he could see in the dark that there is at least a 30 year age difference between us. Later Alex said later that I am more of a father to Maggie than her actual father is/was so I guess I win.

Popped Tire

I can’t remember when, it was probably in late September, but on one Saturday I was supposed to meet up with Maggie to help with her homework, and this was going to happen after my haircut at 8am, so I took one car and my mom and gramma took another (all three of us get our hair cut together) and I was following my mom, but then I went fast at the bottom of a hill and I heard a big metal CRUNCH and then a bit later I ripped the tire on the inside in a nice circle when crossing over an intersection.

My dad came and helped put the donut on the car, so now I feel pretty good about what to do if I pop a tire. We went to a tire place and after they got to my car they said the suspension was fucked, so we had to wait until Monday when our mechanic opened to get the car looked at. It was like a thousand dollars to fix it.

Meltdown at the store

This past Sunday I woke up a bit late and then got out of bed a bit late. Then my mom asked if I wanted to go to the store with her, and I looked at the list and it all looked like it would only be in a couple aisles. So we go, and I request to stop at Target first so I can get my pills (I was freshly completely out) and to get a bev from the Starbucks in there. I got my drink and then had to wait a few minutes for CVS to open at 11. My mom actually waited in the car while I was inside, becuase she didn’t want to be tempted and spend on crap she didn’t need at Target. I liked it becuase then I didn’t need to walk with her and keep stopping to look at crap.

My mom wants to go look for some hair thing at a beaty store, so I wait in the car becuase I can’t stand the smell of those places. Then we go to Aldi. I am having an okay time there, helping with the list, moving the cart around, helping find stuff, being chatty. At one point the line was really long but we weren’t ready to get in line yet, and when we did get in line it was short again.

Then we go to Woodman’s, and the parking lot is jam packed. We finally park a bit away, which kind of sucks because it’s really cold and windy out. We get inside and already there is a good amount of people. As we go on and my mom keeps stopping to get stuff, I guess I start losing my patience or my timer starts ticking down (it has already been going down since Aldi, and maybe even Target). We keep going and the aisles are just so full.

There was this announcement about donating food, and it starts with “Attention Woodman’s Shoppers” and I heard it like that, but after the annoucement my mom says something “Only women care about feeding the hungry? What about men?” and later I realized that she heard Woodman’s as Women but I didn’t get to correct her the second time it happend becuase at that point we’d been walking around a lot with a lot of people there and she started complaining a bit angerly (well it sounded angry to me) about how Men don’t care about helping people apparently, and I started to cry a bit and then it stopped.

She says something like “I know you’re done, but so am I” and I’m thinking, if you were done, you’d go to the checkouts so we can leave, but you keep going and stop and look at stuff and chat with me. Soon after that this woman starts talking to my mom and all I heard was “No it’s not normally like this…” and maybe like “Well, verteran’s day is soon, and the Packers aren’t playing today so people are leaving their homes for once on a Sunday…” but I learn afterword that this woman said unprompted to my mom that she can’t go to the other Woodman’s anymore becuase too many black people shop there??? What the fuck is this woman’s problenm to say that to a stranger? If I had heard her say that when I was already close to crying, I don’t know what I would have done.

We were still going, and eventually she turned to me and said “Why don’t you go to the car?” and it sounded angry to me so I said “Don’t get mad at me” and started crying for real this time. At the time it felt like she didn’t want me there and that I was ruining everything with my presence, but later I was thankful she told me to go to the car. On my way to the car I was walking down aisles to leave and they kept having so many people in them, but eventually I made it out.

When we got home and after we’d put groceries away my mom was talking to me about what happend and she said she was frustrated about how many people were there, and how she was aware that I was having problems and that she can seen when I’m done on my face. I said that when she said she was “done” it didn’t feel that way to me becuase she kept going and she was stopping to look at other stuff, stopping to talk to people, making comments about items she found on the shelves to me. She said that she feels like she has to grin and bare it becasue otherwise there will be no groceries and she will feel like a bad mom.

She was asking me about what to do differently, like leave the cart full of groceries? I said something like, well, we can just go to the checkout when it is too much and then worry about the other food later, but she didn’t seem to get the vision and was focused on the “worrying about it later” part. She also said that she always feels horrible when I start crying and she feels like a bad mom and she tries hard to fix it but she doesn’t always know how.

She said something like her version of being done was wrong, and I said no, that her version of being done was just different to me and my dad (who is also autsitc), and it felt like a reverse allism moment.

I knew that going to the grocery store on the weekend was doomed from the start. I did suggest later in our conversation that I just don’t go to the store on the weekend at all (I already don’t go to Costco on the weekends at all) and that I could go during the week when I am not working in the afternoon.

I can’t remember what else we talked about. But she was stressed about it, and then the next day she went with my grandma to her cancer doctor appointment and I later learned that basically her treatment isn’t really working anymore and she will continue to need more blood transfusions but they will look into anything else they can do for the cancer. And then my mom had to get ready to go to a work conference in Davenport this week and she didn’t want to drive but she probably will end up driving anyway. But I don’t know how to tell her that I realized that she is probably having a tough week and I feel bad for her.

This Way Up

I got the Map Men book for my birthday becuase it was scheduled to come out in November (my birthday month). I just read some more of it last night, and I was reading this chapter and the first page of it provided a QR code to a Spotify playlist of songs to listen to during this one chapter. So I decided I would humor them and listen to it. (it’s like french jazz, the french part is related to the chapter). And I keep it on when I get to the next chapter, and then Cotton Eyed Joe starts playing and I race to check my phone and it’s the last song in the playlist, and then I start cackling. It’s great.

Really liking the book so far (good becuase I like their videos). There is also a lot of footnotes that are really good, and there was this one part where it was an asterisk, and then a dagger, and then a double dagger, and then a section mark, all in a row, so you check the bottom of the page and it’s a conversation between the editor and the authors. So good.

Spelunky

I’ve been into Spelunky lately. I used to watch this one channel play it in like 2014 but I never got the game becuase I knew i would suck at it (espeically when I was 12). Then I was watching Joel play Spelunky 2, so I wanted to get Spelunky and try it out (there was no way I was going to start playing with 2 because it’s way harder).

I’ve managed to get to Temple once, and there were two times where I died in Ice Caves, but lately I’ve been managing to get to Jungle a lot and then just dying there. Or I get like 10+ bombs in Mines and then die right away. One time I had gotten 20 bombs and 10 ropes and I was still in mines and I was trying to do something I don’t know, and I was jumping near spikes and I accidentally landed on them and I was so deavestated I wordlessly closed the game.

I have the jungle shortcut already but I want to get the practice of playing Mines, and also racking up as many hearts as I can and get some treasure too. (One time I made it to the black market without the Udjat completely by accident because I was just trying to bomb my way to the Jungle exit becuases I was so done).

Closing statements

Didn’t anticipate to write this much. Maybe if I wrote more often I would have less to say. Okay have some cat pictures.

• Mood: Drifting through
• Listening to: Post Coital Dysphoria - Jim E. Brown
• Reading: This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (And Why It Matters) - Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman
• Watching: Old Vargskelethor Joel streams/videos
• Playing: ACNH and Spelunky HD
• Eating: nothing
• Drinking: Karuba Mocha Capuchino from Kwik Trip