Saturday

So quiet out here in this Jewish suburb on the Sabbath, the only sound I can hear is the HVAC firing up to defend the house from the below-freezing temperature outside.

Suddenly I feel one more night to self won't be enough.

Can I retire yet?

oh!

There's a beer/wine delivery service in Maryland???  I don't have to leave the house today???

Well, I'll still take Dax on a walk at some point, but alcohol delivery is a revolution, heh.  I was having alcohol delivered in DC via DoorDash but my MD driver's license has expired and that's causing problems with the verification.  It is legal, according to the Governor of Maryland, for me to continue using my expired license until this emergency has passed, but the DoorDash app was choking on it.  I'll soon discover whether this Maryland alcohol delivery service has the same problem.

planning a music album as a proxy for expressing grief

or as a way to train myself to express grief,

that's what I've been feeling this week, that I want to use music as a path toward expressing my most difficult emotions,

a week ago I'd stare at this page or stare at my keyboard thinking I'm a blank, my emotions are a blank, how do I emote?  but during the week I'd catch myself having emotions, they pop up all the time, but it has been important to me over the decades to learn how to go blank, all the ways in which I go blank, mainly by focusing on things other than myself, often abstractions or fictional people or historical situations removed in space and time,

when I get more than one night to myself, my focus ... returns to myself, I run out of distractions or I see through the distractions,

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after the Sunday meltdown and some successive words I've heard, I think T is judging me for wanting to spend time by myself on a regular basis during Quarantine, perhaps some of it is envy, some of it is jealousy, but also I think he doesn't realize how much time to myself I used to get automatically because he was traveling or spending time with B, or back in the very old days, he was coaching AIDS Marathon on the weekends and traveling to races for them,

and here he is gone for the weekend now, when I'd expected to spend this weekend with him and working on the house,

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Goddess, I don't want to do anything at all this afternoon, I want to luxuriate in silence and sloth, yet because I'm at the house I feel tasks nipping at me, it is difficult to completely relax here,

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I've temporarily locked myself in my old Black Box ... being locked up does make me feel hornier than freedom ... and I was starting to miss feeling so fucking horny ...

President Bug

My sister told me that she thought I would make a good President, that when she watched Kiefer Sutherland on Designated Survivor, that she envisioned me behaving the same way.  To fully understand her compliment, I guess I had to watch a bit of the show.  I'm flattered that she thinks of me that way.  Of course I could never be President, I'm too radical in my political ideals and my personal behaviors.  But that my sister who has known me for 50 years thinks of me in this way ... aww.

I'm learning how to be more assertive on the job, as time goes by and people look to me as their manager or reviewer or expert.  Yesterday I had to say something assertive, and I'm still feeling some emotional cost for it today.  I don't know that I have the kind of guts that my sister thinks I have, heh.  But I can pretend.  I can fake it until I make it.

The last show I watched him in was 24, which was pretty well done, although it frayed a bit in later seasons.  I don't know how long I'll stick with this show.  It was more to see what my sister was talking about, but the show pulls at my emotions and I'm trying to let more things pull at my emotions.

I think what scared me most about my Wild Week all those years ago, and in my PTSD moments afterward, was my emotions.  Why am I scared of my emotions?  I remember when I was angry about something once, I mean very angry, angry for days about something, and I was worried that I was broken, that I'd remain angry like that forever, with my broken emotional clock stuck at angry.  Well, I had reason to feel angry, and I'd been bottling it up for so long that once it started flowing it took a few days to finish.  I'd like to get rid of the bottles and just feel.

this show is really good

And I'm incredibly honored that my sister would think so highly of me, damn.  She must think of me as a person who is honest, who has integrity, and who truly cares about every person he meets.  I don't know that I live up to that image.

When I heard about this show, back when it came out, I thought it was just a gimmick.  But it's very well done.  At least the first season, so far.

And it's helping me to cry.

West Wing was good, but this show is better.