the deep moans round with many voices

Well this has sure been a week.

As I said to my mom on Wednesday: Happy birthday! Your present is the Democrats winning the Georgia Senate races, but also an attempted putsch. Is there a return option on the second part?

...

Anyway, I have been kind of brain-fried all of this week and most of last week too, on account of winter apartment inspections, which is where we enter every apartment the rental company owns in order to check for plumbing issues and heating issues. And also this year, to test smoke alarms! *headdesk* My feet hate me and I am now perfectly okay with all my own housekeeping failings for the rest of the year because holy gods, I have seen so much worse. (Seriously, if you ever want to feel better about your own housekeeping, become a cleaner or go into rental management. The change to your perspective is breathtaking.)

I'm also tangled in a health insurance Thing, which I have not had much time to untangle because see above in re: brain-fry.

Um, and we had a special Board of Trustees meeting on Monday evening, plus the monthly executive committee meeting on Tuesday (to create the agenda for the full Board meeting on January 13), so that ate most of my remaining mental/emotional spoons.

...

I am going to bed now. I need sleep.

There is a continuous string of honking cars (many with screaming people leaning out the windows or standing up through the sun-roofs -- driving around and around the Ithaca Commons right now. They've been at it for about two hours now, with a steadily increasing number of participants. People have now arrived with speakers and are blasting loud music.

On the one hand, I totally get it!

On the other hand, I am trying to concentrate on my actual paid job right now, and this is NOT HELPING.

*headdesk*

Yesterday there were two rallies on the Commons -- one for Black Lives Matters (etc.), and one for the police -- which was a little worrying both on a Covid-19 front and also because of the potential for things to escalate when the two groups encountered each other. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have gone beyond some yelling.

The BLM rally was in Bank Alley, a block and a half(ish) away from my office, and didn't disrupt my day at all. The Back the Blue rally, on the other hand, started right in front of my office while I was on my lunch break. People started crowding up against the office door, so I flipped the sign to "closed" and kept the doors locked until they moved east along the Commons around 2:45pm.

Other than that, it was a pretty calm day.

Today I have very deliberately done nothing in particular, aside from mail my November rent check. I got a call from Landlord Dude on Friday asking me to not rake the leaves this year because he feels weird paying somebody to do it. He doesn't exactly pay me, as such -- I've just been in the habit of knocking off $25 from my November or December rent (only one of them, not both) in recognition that raking is a lot of work and also I've had to buy yard waste bags and yard waste disposal tags. I started doing this because Landlord Dude kept not getting around to the yardwork and I do, you know, like having grass in the yard rather than letting the trees smother it. But I guess since he lives closer now (he used to live halfway up the lake, in Locke) he feels more able to handle the yardwork... or else he's going to rope his son into doing it, since I know he's had his son helping out with some mowing and roof work and such this summer and fall. *shrug* I told him I'd put my spare yard waste bags onto the porch and wash my hands of the issue.

...

If he still hasn't raked anything by mid-November, though, all bets are off. An unraked yard is just itchy, you know?

I have also signed up for Yuletide. That's always an interesting experience in years when I forget to participate in the nomination process -- I have to comb through the tagset looking for stuff I want to request, not just stuff I want to offer. But I found four things, all of which would make me very happy to receive, so it's all good. I have posted a placeholder letter and will get the real version up on... Tuesday, probably. Tomorrow will be busy.

I have concluded that on very rare occasions, it is okay to get drunk. These occasions are either at celebratory family gatherings when I don't have to drive, or when I am at home on my own (and therefore also do not have to drive). In both cases this is mostly a tension release mechanism, since I am not always great at that under normal circumstances, and it's nice to sort of let down one's walls in environments where one knows there will not be terrible consequences.

(Note: do not do this if your family is prone to lasting arguments, etc. My family occasionally gets into shouting matches, but that's only on a tactical level, never a strategic level and certainly not a grand policy level, so it's okay. Also we are good at saying sorry and reassuring each other we love each other and that while we may not always approve of each others' actions (to wit, when I used to hit people as a child, or some of my more self-destructive moves before I got a handle on battling my depression), we always love each other as people and want the best for one another. And Dad is not great at emotions all the time, but Nick and I know this and are okay running occasional interference when he and Mom snipe at each other, and also telling him to shut up, we're done with Topic X for the moment and can revisit it later when the participants are no longer at the edge of an emotional precipice. (He has an annoying habit of denying that he's upset and shouting when he is, clearly and objectively speaking, upset and shouting. We have been known to mock him for this after the fact.) We have also mostly managed the art of telling Mom that she's doing the guilt trip thing and please drop it, we'll come back to this later. These are important skills for successfully navigating family dynamics!)

I mention this because I decided to get drunk tonight (two hard ciders and two Black Russians will do the trick fairly well, though admittedly I spaced them out over six hours so... you know, without blood alcohol level analysis it is very tricky to experientially pinpoint the line between tipsy and full-on drunk? but anyway, I am plotched by any definition) because the last several months have been existentially stressful in a way where it's very hard for me to do anything that feels very meaningful in the moment (...meaningful in the sense of addressing my sources of external stress, that is, which are A) Covid 19, B) racism in America, and C) the state of the Ithaca housing market AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) and I needed to let go and unwind a bit of the knotted skein of tension in my chest before my parents arrive Wednesday afternoon and I have to be social and, you know, not a giant mess of a human being.

It's different putting on my work face, you know? That's a customer service thing and nobody expects you to be completely genuine. Everybody knows that's a mask to some degree.

But family expect to see you as you are, and I would like to be able to coherently express both "I am mostly okay" and "I am very stressed but it's free-floating ambient stress without a specific trigger point to address and fix, so it's manifesting weirdly and in ways I am not always well-equipped to handle" and also "I think I may need some external motivation and structure, but I am unsure whether I can usefully receive that from you or whether that will trigger some of my old maladaptive reactions and just make everything worse; I must talk to Nick first and see if he's willing to poke me into doing Assorted Work-Related Tasks before I risk asking you, my parents, to poke me."

...

I should probably go to bed.

I think I am going to have very odd dreams tonight.

Things done today:

1. I received my absentee ballot for the Democratic primaries (state/local and presidential). I don't remember if I mentioned here, but a few weeks back I got an absentee ballot application form in the mail, with the election in question pre-marked and a notice of what "reason" to give if I wanted to vote by mail because of Covid 19 restrictions. I am not sure if that was a statewide program or something Tompkins County decided unilaterally. Anyway, I thought it was an excellent move so I mailed back the application the following day.

I have now filled out my actual ballot (technically two ballots, since the state/local and the national elections were originally scheduled for different days -- yes, that is ridiculous and inefficient; many people have already made that point at length) and will mail it back tomorrow. Probably I will drop it into an actual mailbox outside the downtown post office outpost, for security, rather than clipping it to my front porch mailbox on Monday morning.

Today's other significant piece of mail was the proposed budget from the Ithaca City School District, and I should presumably receive an absentee ballot from ICSD within the coming week. It looks as reasonable as any budget can be under the circumstances.

2. I also received, via email this time, the proposed 2020-21 budget for my congregation. The Board of Trustees need to approve it by Monday night -- this will be an email vote that we will then confirm at our regular monthly Zoom meeting. Again, it looks as reasonable as any budget can be under the circumstances. There is only one part I'm confused about, but we're having a congregational discussion via Zoom around noon tomorrow, so I'll try to ask our treasurer about it then. (We're using the congregational discussion to test-run out electronic voting system. Here's hoping everything works out!)

3. Nick sent an update about the situation in the Twin Cities. The fires and looting are still well south of his new house and also away from his apartment, so he should be safe, but he's a little worried about driving back and forth as he finishes his move and also about reports of white supremacists coming to town and trying to agitate both sides into violence. I am so sorry for everyone in Minnesota right now. :(

4. Walked into town partly for general exercise and fresh air, but also to check if my barber shop was open now that Phase 2 of the great Un-Pausening has started in the Southern Tier. I wasn't terribly hopeful, since I'd tried calling earlier and got a "this phone number is not currently in service" message -- never a good sign -- and indeed, they were closed. But! I checked their Facebook page this evening and it looks like they plan to reopen (with restrictions) on Tuesday. So I will give them a call on Tuesday morning to see if my hair guy is in, and hopefully he will be able to fix up the wonky trim I gave myself to keep my hair out of my eyes and off the back of my neck.

5. Took a post-lunch nap. It was delicious. :)

6. Roasted asparagus for dinner. That was also delicious. :) I think out-of-season asparagus is actually better for roasting, since the stems tend to be thicker and hold up better in the oven. Skinny asparagus is really better steamed, but I don't have the kitchen equipment to do that properly.

7. Took kitchen compost to the communal backyard bin.

8. While I was out there, spent ~5 minutes doing some desultory weeding. My new thought is that if I spend ~5 minutes per day in the garden, it will never be enough time to register to my brain as "WORK UGH WHAT IS THIS NO" and yet I will still stay mostly on top of the weeds. We shall see how this plan holds up when exposed to reality.

9. Baked brownies for dessert. Continuing the theme, they are delicious. :)

And now I will attempt some writing before heading to bed for more delicious sleep.