Shut Up, BrainWeasels!

Depression

Anxiety

BrainWeasels are what I call it when I have evidence that I'm depressed and/or anxious just because my brain does that, rather than it being due to grief, given situations, specific stresses, etc. 

I mean, Abby is working, Lizzy is being helpful without being asked, we're all healthy... and I'm feeling that depressive cloud hovering over me like it wants to let go of a deluge at any moment. Or maybe it's the anxiety thunderhead. I'm not sure. 

When by all reasonable measures (for me - your definition of 'reasonable' may vary) I should be in a great mood today. 

Whatever it is, it has me feeling pretty fragile for the second day in the last three or four.

Depression cloud, anxiety thunderhead, something else... I don't know. But it's there, and it has invited the BrainWeasels out to play today.

Good thing I have therapy tomorrow.

Maybe there is a reason. Maybe it's friends who have lost homes in fires in California, or August being what it is for me, or the fact that the SSA hasn't paid me survivor's benefits early, although they usually do. Maybe it's nervousness about the school year coming up, or Chadwick Boseman's death, or the fact that I am really low in my workplace's hierarchy.

Or maybe it's G: All of the Above.

And the 2020 of it all, as well.

Hypervigilance is bad, mmkay?

Excuse me while I send this post to my therapist so she knows what she's getting into.

I do feel a bit better, having written it out. Which is why I do this, after all. 

Best Purchases of the Covidpocalypse, (Nearly) Six Months In

 So if you haven't seen this post, you're missing out. All these folks are still definitely in my favorites of the Covidpocalypse, but some of the honorable mentions have moved up into the main list.

Michelle's Maccs, yep, still love her treats, but they're special treats, you know? Not for every day.

SodaStream, aside from cementing our favorite flavors (the kids like the lemonade and I like to vary different flavored water drops), nothing has changed.

LEGO, let's just say a lot of Lizzy's birthday wish list and our quarantine quest list still include massive amounts of LEGO.

Amazon Fire Stick, well, it's similar to SodaStream. It's awesome, we're happy, nothing has changed.

Michael's Crafts and the Museum of Flight Store, we're pretty stocked up on what we like/need/want from these places. 10/10 would use again at need.

Cassondra Creates, we love her masks and hair flair, always have, always will. Don't need any just at the moment but we will go back when we do.

Now, let's talk about Shipt and FUNimation Now.

FUNimation Now, well...  we're still using it, every single day. We've added Star Trek Lower Decks on CBS All Access, and of course, we've watched our share of Disney+ and Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu, but FUNimation we keep going back to. I think Abby even has a subscription to their YouTube channel so she knows when all our favorites have new episodes or a new dub of an old favorite. We have had a lot of fun this summer, watching anime together, playing Name That Voice Actor, and researching obscure word meanings in Japanese so we understand the puns.

Shipt has a yearly membership for free delivery on any $35 (or more) order and it is still easily one of the most cost-effective purchases I've made this year. Their shoppers give the best customer service ever - they check on everything I might need to change, if they don't understand my wacky notes, or when the strawberries look iffy. One of my favorites actually picked up some paints for Lizzy while she was shopping for herself (because she had tried to no avail to find the paints we wanted on Shipt shopping trips), another brought me flowers and extra Abby-safe snacks (because she said my nice texts brightened her day), and the lovely Shipt shopper I had today took extra care with finding exactly the right shade of food coloring (for Abby to tint her famous vanilla buttercream for Lizzy's birthday cupcakes). 

On the two occasions there has been a problem with Shipt shopping (once the shopper's phone went dead so she ran late with no way to tell me, and once the shopper didn't know the difference between two kinds of sushi and got us the not-vegetarian one for Lizzy), their customer service department has been awesome. "Sorry about that, Ms Kirkland, we'll credit your next order for the price of the item and the delivery fee in case you want to order only that one thing." No questions asked, just here ya go. Now that is customer service.

One last one is Outschool. We've had a few lessons here and there; Abby's been part of an anime discussion group for teens and Lizzy took a neat class in writing her name in katakana. Liz also tried a class on gemstones but had a sensory issue, and Outschool was terrific about refunding the second class in that series. She's taking a weekly class from them in executive function which she isn't enjoying, precisely, but at least she's tolerating it.

In any case, there you have it. No-one has dropped off the list - they're all great - but some of the top five from the original post are a "sometime food."

And... Random! August 26, 2020 Edition

My ex-husband is coming to take our daughter to a socially distant lunch today. This is both A Good Thing (they haven't seen each other live and in person since March) and A Scary Thing (because pandemic, even though I trust him to be safe). It also happened the trigger the word random in my head, due to a game of Talisman in The Long Ago, wherein said ex-husband played a truly random Leprechaun who kept casting the Random spell and giggling maniacally.

This led to a memory of his (Shadowrun?) character - I believe he was an orc or a troll - being stuck in (or waiting for?) an elevator in-game. The rest of the characters are fighting for their lives and here's M, whistling or humming The Girl From Ipanema every time his turn came around.

Anyway, I'm probably misremembering the details, because we are talking about decades ago and I have Quarantine Brain, but it tickled my random funny bone this morning.

And yes, this is a good example of the tendency of brains to randomize when there is no "normal." And also the caring-about-important-things-and-fluff-things at the same time. It's our brains' way of protecting themselves, I think.

I keep forgetting the date. That will be a little easier once school starts in our school district - though it be remote - next week.

Trying to appease everyone leads to appeasing no-one, and then everybody is mad. This applies from groups the size of major government all the way down to households.

I really want a massage, but I don't feel comfortable with getting my hair cut yet, much less full body massage!

Abby will be working a bit next week before school starts! Office stuff to add to her resume and build tuition credit at Studio East. Only four people in the whole building, masked, gloved, cleaning surfaces every could hours, etc. As safe as one can get in these circumstances.

Speaking of work, who knows what I'll be up to this year? Nobody to take to school means no need for a special driver, at least not until they start having kids in schools in person. I'll find out more tomorrow during a meeting with the PtB, I imagine. 

I'm craving pizza but that will have to wait until tomorrow or maybe Friday.

Mini mommy-meltdown last weekend because Abby will be 18(!) in December and Lizzy has graduated from TinkerCrate (STEM ages 9-16) to EurekaCrate (Engineering & Design ages 14 and up). She will be 13 next week, so this is kind of a big deal.

Speaking of Lizzy being almost 13, one of her besties is trying to make her a dress for her birthday (don't worry; Liz doesn't read my blog). Now, this bestie can sew, and she keeps asking Lizzy her sizes, but she (at 12) does not seem to have grasped that some of her peers are now rather - ahem! - larger than the last time they saw each other in person, and there's no way to safely do fittings. 

So bestie's mom and I are working on framing this friend's wish to make clothes for Lizzy as a good idea, but maybe a trapeze-style top or dress is in order. We need something loose and flowy, because Lizzy is no longer shaped like the little girl she was the last time she and her friend saw one another on anything approaching a regular basis. Which was in elementary school.

Ex is back with our daughter. I can relax now. I'm glad they got to spend some time together; it's been hard for them both, because they adore each other and they both suck at phone/text/email communication.

That was, in fact, a fairly random post, wasn't it? 

It's the Little Things... And the Big Ones

This tweet I saved a couple weeks ago sums it right up, doesn't it? For those of you who have trouble viewing it, it's a tweet from mid-July, 2020 by comedian Adam Conover, stating, "Gentle Reminder: Folks can care about important social issues AND frivolous distractions simultaneously. Most do, in fact. It keeps us sane."

It sure does.

I mean, today alone, before 3PM, I've thought consciously about the following:

• Whether I should get out of bed now (at 7:30) or just in time for my ten o'clock Zoom therapy session (I ended up splitting the difference at 8:30)
• "Thank god the temperature outside went down some!"
• Getting the milk out of the milk box before the temperature goes back up
• Making sure the coffee and the toast were done at the same time
• Making a meme about melatonin and posting it
• Working out some scheduling issues with my pod
• Checking on my MyTribe Tribespeople
• Worrying about the Post Office and kids in cages
• Sending a note to my kids' new pediatrician, suggesting that she approach Lizzy from a concrete, scientific, measurable standpoint 
• Working on the article I'm writing for my not-school job for 15 minutes
• Complaining about the world at large (especially people who Just Don't Get It™) and my therapist telling me that's totally normal under the circumstances
• Writing on Facebook about how I'm supposed to cut myself a break about these things
• Getting pissed off at people who Just Don't Get It™ (especially the WhatAbouters© and the ButMahRightsers©/MasksCauseHypoxia-ers© and more especially the BLM-are-thugs-ers©)
• Remembering that it's okay to get pissed off at these people
• Unfollowing/Snoozing/Blocking assorted people who Just Don't Get It™ (and in a few cases, reporting their posts for mocking victims, false news, or even threatening a public official)
• Fretting about my school year job as it's for a school district and It's All Very 2020 Out There™
• Making lunch
• Fretting about my kids in school as it's distance learning and It's All Very 2020 Out There™
• Checking on my MyTribe Tribespeople
• Wondering which Squeenix game I should (re)play next, as I'm not feeling the Final Fantasy 90210 I (re)started a few weeks ago.
• Adding a manual back massager to my amazon wish list
• Working on the article I'm writing for my not-school job for 45 minutes
• Making up with an internet friend as in the light of day, it seems we Both Get It Just From Different Angles™ and apologies were made
• Making a new internet friend I know I can agree with because of our mutual friends
• Writing this post

Seven and a half hours. And I'm not done. Not by a long shot.

Case in point, just before I hit the Publish button, I got a call saying our department meeting for my school-job (scheduled for Wednesday) has been postponed but we will see the meeting members on Thursday for our other thing (in-service training, online).

Something else to think about...

Okay So It's a Slow Start

 Yeah, the bedroom redo is taking longer than anticipated. Surprise!

But I decided that y'know what? 

It's okay. My self-imposed deadline of end-of-day August tenth was just that - self-imposed. And really a goal just for the symmetry, not an actual deadline. Am I justifying laziness to myself? Maybe. But it's just me, it affects no-one else,  so no big deal.

Then I started thinking, because that original goal was, as I said, for the symmetry of a new start on the anniversary of Laston's death. It's a tough day anyway, and why make it harder on myself? 

Anyway, so I was thinking - I said to my mom yesterday - how I was surprised and gratified that Lizzy doesn't seem to mind wearing a mask. She has a number of weird sensory quirks, like her inability to cope with that one Outschool teacher's voice, and some food texture issues and so forth, and she really seems to need the sensory input of chewing on things sometimes. So I was surprised that a) she doesn't mind the masks and b) she doesn't chew on them. It may simply be that she hasn't had to wear one long enough for it to bug her; our schools are online starting September 2nd and it's not like she's been gallivanting about town. The longest she's had to wear a mask has been an hour or two for fireworks on Independence Day.

But it still struck me as odd that given all the grumbling about distance learning and missing their friends such, both my kids are pretty sanguine about all the health and safety protocols.

And then I read a note on Facebook about how kids think they're invincible, and it hit me like a slap to the face.

Because of Laston, they know they're not invincible. Or at least they know deep in their bones that not all family members are invincible. 

They may not even be aware of this consciously, of course.

But what a grim, tarnished silver lining that is.

New Starts

Yes, I am making changes in August instead of January. Why do you ask?

So my room is a pit - and has been as long as I can remember - because I am a slob have issues with executive function and getting started on a project this large is a big issue for me. And then there's the enormity of the project itself, the weather, the fact that there's a bunch of little crap from my desk at AT&T (from which company I was let go in November 2017), me not wanting to erase the last vestiges of Laston from our bedroom, a dust allergy, blah, blah, blah.

Excuses? Sure. Most of them are reasonable ones, though, and the weather actually helped in this case, but still, excuses.

How did the weather help? I'll tell you. You see, when Laston died, nearly four years ago in August 2016, I had trouble sleeping in our room. Lots of trouble. In early 2017, during the Great Cleanathon, I was convinced to make it mine instead of ours with him missing by getting a nice cushy mattress topper and changing the sheets and blankets and all that to blue (my fave) from brown (which was his). I also bought curtains but never got around to putting them up, so I was still using the temporary paper curtains from late 2013 when we moved in.

It worked for a while. About three years, assisted by the Calm app, therapy, and better sleep hygiene.

Then came 2020. And all it entails, and now it's not enough to have different sheets and a softer mattress because of all the stressors added - Covid-19, 45, the world at large, perimenopause, etc... I need a bigger change. Actually moving furniture, a change in perspective, space.

So earlier this week, in a fit of householder responsibility, I ran the sprinkler in the front garden. I remembered to tell Lizzy to keep her window shut. I forgot that I had opened mine a bit in the middle of the night. That paper curtain disintegrated entirely along one edge.

Now I have lovely dark blue curtains in my room. Lizzy helped me assemble the super skinny table I'm using as a headboard now (it's basically a shelf and a baseboard-heater guard), we moved the bed across the room to under the window; I have the cute little teddy bear I got from the Museum of Flight (see pic), a wooden tray full of reading glasses, and a small wooden bowl of lip balm on the shelf/headboard. There is a small table with a lamp and more small wooden bowls next to it, and a tall, skinny, oscillating fan near that. That - plus laundering sheets I haven't used in years and making the bed with them - was what we managed on Day One of the Great Bedroom Redo of 2020.

This project is gonna take a lot longer than the two days I estimated. This morning I have done yet more laundry, cleaned the blue bookshelf that has been outside the bedroom french doors on the (covered but still dusty and cobwebby) porch for ages (and will go over it again with disinfectant wipes this afternoon), and gotten rid of a bunch of scraps like empty shipping boxes and naked wrapping paper rolls. 

This afternoon I plan on taking more junk out and playing store-pitch-keep with it, cleaning the giant headboard, and swapping the headboard for the bookshelf. I may also do another garbage run, and rather than giving away the big-ass headboard or pitching it, I'm going to use it and an outdoor chaise lounge I was given for a reading/chilling nook on that porch. Oh, and I'm putting up fresh paper curtains on the french doors (black instead of white this time) before bed. The neighbors don't need to see into my bedroom, and neither do the assorted raccoons, chickens, coyotes, rabbits, cats, and other critters we have around here. 

I will post pictures when I'm done. There are not before pictures because, well... no. Just no.

Then? Then I'll have my space.