suddenly, it is cold. equally suddenly, it is december.

i have bought a tree.

tree!! pics if you feel comfy sharing pls!

i shall. but it is a very small, obviously fake tree.

today though i have a hair appointment. i am strongly considering making my plurk private so that i feel comfortable posting more pictures.

i don't like being photographed to a kind of silly degree and i want to be more at ease with records of my physical body existing, lol.

oh that's so relatable

i think partly it's just that i did grow up on the internet of predators, and not the internet of facebook.

total anonymity was drilled into us as a basic safety measure— never tell anyone online your real name. but we have not lived in that world for quite some time.

Handshake at the basic safety measure

Me: do I think it's ok to maybe meet this online friend, whom I have known for over 25 years, in person? Is that safe?

(If this person was going to try something shady it is highly unlikely they would spend 25 years setting it up)

extreme nod

if someone sees my face they will gain power over me

anyway on that note tonight i plan to fix all my problems with sheet masks.

update: i seem to still have problems despite the sheet mask

the sheet masks betrayed you

they did but it did really help my dry winter skin.

i also realized my humidifier was out of water so that may have been a contributing factor.

anyway today i am going to see wicked, i think. i also plan to roast a chicken… it is dry brining in the fridge right now.

oh yum!!

update: i did a different style of roast chicken than i normally do and i didn't like it as much but it was pretty easy. now the chicken has been made into soup stock/leftovers.

it's cheaper to buy a rotisserie bird a lot of the time but it's nice to make your own every now and then.

meanwhile, abigail has become a climb cat.

i keep finding her on top of the furniture and that is not usual for her and also not where she goes!!

i did put up the gallery wall i mentioned!!

oh it looks nice!!

i have some spray paint and i may try painting the frames

i'm frustrated. i got referred to this 12-week therapy thing and got approval to not work thursday mornings for 12 weeks. except the provider has called off four weeks so far, and with holidays what was supposed to be done by now has extended through the entire month of january.

i am trying to figure out why i am frustrated, because it's not as though i treasure the opportunity to work on thursday. maybe because i went through the trouble of speaking to my manager, finding coverage, etc, only to once again have this appointment cancelled with 45 min notice?

i deal with this a bit at work too, i basically never call out, say no to things all the time so that i can accomodate work, and when people do call out to do fun things it irritates me, even when they get people to work their shift. but that's mostly me, making myself miserable, and then getting mad about it.

abigail has become a climb cat… i keep finding her on top of things. she never did this before!!

she is learning

I think I am encouraging her because it's hard not to give her pets

acquiring skills

gahhhh i have an event tonight and i am not sure what to wear. it's an alumni holiday party at my school for nerds so idk that my usual maxim of being occasionally overdressed but absolutely always overeducated works

otoh the real reason i am doing this is to like, dress up in robes and sing in latin.

valid reasons to do anything

i know!! i'm definitely a bit overdressed but it's fine and i'm sparkly

I think it's reasonable to be frustrated at a provider constantly calling off.

Like shit happens but it's very disruptive to your progress AND super disrespectful of your time

yeah, with some distance i feel like… i don't know why my provider keeps cancelling, last time it was because their kid was sick so i'd want them to take the time off. but it's normal to be frustrated with last minute schedule changes. i'm just trying not to be mad at people because of that frustration because that's not always helpful.

Calling out because their kid is sick is valid but they really have canceled on you a lot. 4 sessions out of 12?

yeah, and i don't know why with all of them 🤷🏻‍♀️

idk i think this is a valid thing to get frustrated about, especially since you specifically made time for it, and it doesn't feel like the time is being respected. you could just gently say that you'd like 24 hour notice, if possible. obviously some things don't shake out that way (kids sick for example)

but that's just? a lot?

i cannot do that due to the way it is set up with insurance, etc.

and honestly 24hrs wouldn't make much difference anyway.

ahhhh. darn

yes, i think part of the problem is probably bureaucracy related and like… not something i can fix? so in a sense not worth getting mad about.

or rather, it is worthwhile to acknowledge the frustrations but not productive to hold onto them too much because there's not an easy way for me to address the problem.

also i have so much sick time i would never use otherwise so that is a win.