Pole Sitting

I’ve done protesting x3 and phone banking x2. I like protesting and, strangely enough, getting flipped off by passers by. Pole sitting originally was planned for the art fibers group I head called Stitch & Resist to sit with me at the poling place and crochet/knit/embroider or just sit and witness the voting, but mostly to be there and record any ICE shenanigans. That was the plan, but I got tangled up in my calendar, missed meetings and it never quite got off the ground. So, my alternative was to sit in my car at a single poling place and watch for the aforementioned shenanigators and be there to record them from the comfort of my car. While I crochet. Nothing has happened as of yet. I was there from 7:45 am (after I personally cast my ballots) until about 2:00pm because my car didn’t come with bathroom facilities and I desperately needed water. My whole body goes weird if I don’t get my daily 160+ ounces. I’ll head back out around 4:00pm to sit at the same poling place…in the car. On my way in to the house for the bathroom I heard I was doing it wrong. I’m supposed to be a happy cheery shiny example in the poling place. Nope! I need the security blanket kind of comfort from my car.

There have been incidents with ICE at the poling places. Two to be exact. One the TPD was helping them which is against the city rules I’m told so if we see that again we need to take a picture. The other was just an empty ICE vehicle. Not scary, on paper. I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to be a bystander who does nothing. This is rankling my anxiety – obviously – but that is the purpose of these outings. I’m trying to learn to be braver than I think I am. If I can slowly ramp up to something more useful. I’m tired of being afraid and hopeless.

We the people, I have learned, are not powerless even though the kakistocrats want you to believe we are.. Example: I took to personally boycotting Target with others in the US because of their involvement with ICE. I have found other places who need the money more than that ubiquitous retailer. In a SURJ meeting I heard they lost money. They reported a negative profit for the quarter. I hope they have it for the happiest season of the year too!

Through all this I have been listening to myself and what I feel comfortable doing, instead of just ‘pushing through’. Yes, it gets done either way, but I don’t want to go back to gritting my teeth and doing it only to boomerang back into the dark rim of the void. I am learning to say ‘no’ to them. I’m willing to push my limits and comfort zone on my terms. My New Years Resolution for this year was to attend a protest, do phone banking and go door-to-door. I still have to go door-to-door and I’m not sure that’ll get done before the end of the year. I do know phone banking is easy and you can have some interesting conversations but it is not for me. I don’t even know why it’s not for me, it’s just not. Most importantly I’m not taking it as a challenge I need to overcome, I can do other things. I am not required to do everything or anything beyond my capability. I am unique and I cannot compare myself to others. no matter how I compare with the capability of others.

Some of this new found confidence, I know, is from the “Finch” app. I’ve stuck with it for 161 days. I still don’t have any friends. Harlow is fully grown, she has an interesting wardrobe and a lot of cool decorations for her nest. Each week we are able to add tasks for the daily grind and I’m over 40 at this point. The thing is, I’m doing most of my morning things without thinking, I forget to put in my hearing aids most days but I know to go back and get them so I can grow my finch a millimeter more. This is a wonderful app. Does anyone want to be my friend (Harlow 7Q9WR39BGK)

It never fails to amaze me how beauty can triumph over the oppressive will to standardize the environment.  Never, ever, stop being you.

Passion With Teeth

Berkley Passion Flower

Walking the streets of Berkley I came across this perfectly inviting flower so I had to have a picture.  Looking at it closer later did I see the teeth at the heart of it all.  Every rose has a thorn and passions bite.

Life Always Finds A Way

Look closely at the middle nest….someone is home.

I’m in a parking lot waiting for an email and when I got out I heard a cacophony of birds.  I looked up and saw these nests.  At first I thought it was wasps….not a fan.  Too my delight, I realized they were birds nests.  The building is still new, and i wondered if they used to nest in the trees that used yo be here.  It just proves life always finds a way.  And so will I.

Stitch & Resist

Today we meet to work with our individual moral fibers (crochet, knit, crosstitch) in an effort to create community to build resistance for the current amoral political climate.

This is my “leftovers” gathered into one ball.  Once it gets to big for the basket I get to make a monster blanket.  I’m normally do a 100 row granny square, this time I’m going to do a different 100 row monstrosity. 

Why is this a glimmer?  Every time I look at the basket, I smile and get excited about the winter.  I should be able to work on it, stay warm and relive all the projects I’ve done.

The Dark Days Are Over…

Let the terror begin.

Okay, melodramatic, I know.

Good news; I got a job. The fear of never being wanted or hire-able or useful for the rest of my life is waning. That doesn’t mean I won’t get fired again, or I won’t stick my foot in my mouth. I’d like to believe I have learned the lessons of my past.

Now my brain is tripping over the fear that I’ve forgotten how to draw blood. That I’m not going to be effective with old veins and get the blood I need to get. There are so many aspects of this that is driving me crazy, but if they are being truthful about the money, it should out weigh all the items on their phlebotomist to do list. I’m just panicking, like always.

I saw the new shrink. I was at the office for three hours, not all talking to someone, but he put me on a new anti-anxiety that’s supposed to help me sleep, and it does. Until 3:00am and then I’m wide awake again. I need to get up and do something, but alas. I don’t. I just put my story back on and lull myself into a light sleep I don’t want to wake up from. I’ve also moved my Wellbutrin from 200mg first thing in the morning to 100mg at morning and one at night. I’m not waking up with the absolute dread of the day and the long discussion and bargaining of “you just have to get out of bed and that’s it” conversations have stopped. I’ve noticed I’m ‘feeling’ more, which I haven’t decided if it’s a good or a bad thing.

I think Finch (@finch) is helping with that as well. I never had a digital pet before, I remember wanting one but they were too expensive. ($20). So, I’m going to stick with the program until I hit a wall. Hopefully it happens on a weekend so it won’t interfere with my new job. One of the things I talked to the doctor about was going back into therapy. I just need to sharpen a few tools, I think. But I can’t afford Ellen’s rates on unemployment. I should be able to afford her now. I hate the idea of having to break in and train a new therapist.

As If & I Don’t Care

I was meandering through a journal entry yesterday. (Meandering is like a mash-up of free writing about a specific subject and stream-of-consciousness writing.) I wrote something that was both new and not new to me but I recognize it as my new norm. I was discussing the efficacy and practice of a mantra for love and worthiness.

I have come to the decision it doesn’t matter what I thing/feel/see when it come to my worth and, well, me. I am acting as if:

  • I’m worthy
  • I’m of value
  • I am talented
  • I am loveable
  • I am loved
  • I am sane

I wish I could act as if I was a size six but that would make me delusional. And I don’t want anti-delusional meds, so I won’t go there. 🙂 Or maybe instead of “As If” it’s more “I Don’t Care.” I don’t care what the evil pixie thinks of me, says to me or tries to trip me back into the darkness. I don’t care because I control my life. Yes, some days the pixie adds weight/dumbbells to my emotional baggage I carry around but I get through and continue to go towards my goals. I lament my speed and compare it to the speed I should/could be going if I wasn’t bogged down by the dead weight of my emotional dysfunction. I will continue to move forward one bag at a time, one inch at a time, one breath at a time.

Journal Entry from 06/06/26*

I keep waiting for ‘sanity’ to rise up and save me, I realize. Sanity isn’t a white knight to rush in an sweep me into the world of normalcy, like it’s a fairytale castle. I am the princess and the dragon in my own fable, I know that. I have the tools I amassed through therapy, and perhaps my shed could be larger for storage of the excess baggage I carry, but even with the baggage, I am not without the ability to tilt at my own monsters. When I get tired, and my guard is down, the pixie uses the shadows in my brain to creep up and discourage me. “As if” adds light to those times, but it still feels like I’m still giving the darkness power. “I don’t care” feels like the ball is in my court and though I might foul or make the basket, it is in my hands not in something else’s.

I have bee using a self-care app called Finch. It’s like Tomagachi (electronic pet from the 00’s) got it’s MFT in CBT. I’ve not been doing it long, Tuesday will be two weeks, but it’s simple. It allows me to track my mood and name my emotions when I need it and I can look back over weeks and see my progress. I’ve only told two people I’m doing it so I don’t have a lot (or any) friends on the app. Which is fine. My Finch’s name is Harlow. At night, just before I put my head down I do three minutes of breathing designed to help with sleep, and it does. I get up with a plan and I follow through because I want to mark everything off that list. But it is something you do every/other day/week/month kind of thing. I like it right now, so if you’re looking for something to help you track and prove you are just getting through some days, there is an app for that. If you join, please be my friend: 7Q9WR39BGK.

* My journal entries tend to jump from one thought to the next without grace, so please forgive if the quote seems a little jittery. I could have corrected it but that would defeat the purpose of quoting the journal.

AI Image of Me

I asked the AI generator to do a picture of me based on my Chinese zodiac and my favorite hobby….this is what I got. It definitely got the amount of yarn right…..

Granny Squared

A city made of granny squares…..what a cozy place to live.

My phone updated and I found an AI Image generator. I wanted to see what a world made of granny squares would look like. Just thinking about all that yarn just makes me soooooo happy.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Dreams show us how to find meaning in our lives, how to fulfill our own destiny, how to realize the greater potential of life within us.” Marie-Louise Von Franz in The Way of the Dream

Early this morning I dreamed a dream where I was trying to explain to someone what it is like when you are drowning in a depressive episode. Even when you know what it is, that it will pass, and you will be okay if you don’t do anything to fuss with it. It still hurts, it still impedes activities of daily living. and you rarely have the words to express…

This is the example I gave to the dream inquisitor:

I once lived in a town called Victorville. It was high in the California desert where scrub and Joshua trees are the dominate flora broken up occasionally by a bright yellow daisy. In the summer it’s 120 degrees but it would drop down to a brisk 90 at night. In the winter it would be 75 during the day and you’d wake up to ice and snow in the morning. I loved winter there. But the example comes from early spring when it rained. It never rained normal, if there is such a thing. Most of the time it would shower for like two minutes, barely dislodge the dust on the windshield and then the sun comes back. Except this one time when I was out on the street with my companion when the sky darkened ominously and the heavens opened up and dropped water so fast the earth wasn’t ready to absorb it. Within a few minutes, water was rushing down the street like a river. Not deep enough to jump the curb (thankfully) but deep enough to know not to cross the street. Then like a faucet being turned off the rain stopped, the clouds moved and the sun came out again. Within minutes, the water stopped flowing and the overworked storm drains worked according to plan, and it was like nothing happened. Except me and my companion were soaked to the bone.

You’d think I’d say ‘the desert represents the depression’, but no. Yes, depression is a dearth of serotonin on the brain, but that’s not what it feels like. Throughout my life I have had the general sprinkling of depression where it is dark and there are some drops keeping me from speeding along in life until it passes, I mean, who doesn’t. But that downpour where it felt like God Himself was draining his tub onto the earth, is the feeling when, for no good reason, the sky in your emotional landscape clouds over ominously and then it rains so hard and so fast you don’t have time to correct it. You are trapped in a downpour without protection and all you can do is watch as the emotions rush by you trying to pull you into the current. You can’t move, you can’t protect yourself. All you can do is take you social meds and wait. You fight against the urge to step into the torrent and be washed away, but mostly you just wait. You practice your CBT techniques but you wait. People see it as being ‘lazy’, but you wait. Then the drops stop like a faucet being turned off, the light comes back out, and the rushing water turns into rivulets and then disappears. Everything dries up and you go back to the work you left when it all started as if nothing happened in the world, because to the world, nothing happened.

The image is comforting and I now have words to explain what it feels like. It’s a memory of mine which comes up when I see a hard rain. The desert isn’t prepared for a lot of rain because, well, it’s a desert. They trust the water will be quickly absorbed into the sandy loam before anything horrific could happen. Except for those two or three showers a year where the rain falls faster than the absorption rate and the water is flowing swifter than the storm drains can catch. I wish the depression would hold to such a minimalist schedule, but it doesn’t. But unlike Victorville (when I was there anyway), I now have the infrastructure to be like an umbrella. I am able to protect myself from the emotional onslaught of painful, relentless drops. CBT, journaling, blogging and even talking to a family member or a friend can help during the storm. The storm passes, you take a shower and change your clothes and you go back out into the sun and work until the rain comes again. Thus is my life.