The Countdown is On!

 Well, today I am 38 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Baby is due in less than two weeks. 

AAAAAHHHHH!

Lol. 

We have all the basic necessities ready - except for a reliable doula - I got one but things don't seem to be working out. She was super responsive and great in the beginning...via phone...but I haven't even met her in person yet nor do I have the contact information of her backup doula and she's barely responding to me. Apparently she caught covid about two weeks ago and I guess I should give her grace for that, but...it's crunch time and I'm getting worried. 

She said she would call me yesterday and didn't - I don't even have her full first and last name. Meh. Thank God my friend Kim wants to be there with me when I give birth - Cal is worried he might not be able to stay conscious. 

But on to the better things. 

I graduated! On December 16th...and I now have a master's degree in science communication! I have a big-girl job as a science communication specialist, and I ACTUALLY ENJOY WHAT I DO! This is awesome. I'm so grateful. 

I got hit with the nesting bug super hard last week, lol, and deep cleaned my entire office (it was previously a bonafide disaster), put together as much as I could of my birth center bag, packed the diaper bag, and organized the bedroom. I also got rid of all the empty Amazon boxes that had been sitting in the hall for weeks. 

Today is my last day of work before I go on maternity leave. Unfortunately I'm three weeks short of qualifying for FMLA (paid leave), but oh well. It is what it is. If I had started my job on July 1st rather than August 1st I'd qualify, but like I said, it is what it is. Thank God I make enough big-girl money that I've been able to save for the weeks I'll be off. 

We'll be alright. 

My mother-in-law showed up this past weekend. She'll be spending 3-4 months here in the city since her second home upstate costs too much to heat during the winter months. I secretly think she just wanted to be here when the baby is born because she's afraid she won't get much of a chance to be around the baby otherwise. Also, it is in fact really expensive to heat her home up there. Hopefully her and my sister-in-law can manage to keep the peace between them - that's been my biggest concern about her coming back. 

Hopefully. 

Oh yeah. She also brought her six dogs with her...so now the house has four Yorkies, two Great Danes, and three cats. And only one of the dogs is trained to go outside to use the bathroom. 

Lol. I guess at the end of the day I made my choices and knew what I was getting into and now I have to sleep in my bed the way I made it, as my mother used to say. It's true what they say about how when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Welp. 

We're going to try to move out within a year or a little more, though. 

So! Pregnancy symptoms! I often wake up at night with Braxton Hicks contractions that are NO FUN. They feel like period cramps...but like burning too. But then when I go empty my bladder and drink a ton more water they ease up, and baby isn't here yet, so I guess they haven't been the real deal. 

It's VERY difficult to get out of bed now, and it's also a pain to get back in. I get up between 4 and 5 times a night to use the bathroom, whether I drink water throughout the night or not. But if I don't, I get woken up by Braxton Hicks multiple times a night. So I drink water. 

I get hungry every two to three hours - ravenously hungry - so that's a thing. This week I feel like I've been getting hungry more often than that...so maybe baby is going through a growth spurt. There are hiccups almost every day, a few times a day (baby's hiccups, not mine), and squirms, kicks, stretches, and occasionally punches to the bladder every few hours. Oh, and I've experienced the joys of lightning crotch now. 

They really meant it when they said "you'll KNOW when it happens to you." Yikes. It's like a lightning strike - in your crotch. And even when it happens four or five times back to back, each one still strikes you off guard and makes you flinch. Pregnancy, amirite? 

Let's see, what else? 

At the last ultrasound (two weeks ago) baby was estimated to weight 6lbs, 13oz. So baby is probably pushing 8lbs by now. I have another ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow morning, and a non-stress test. And a midwife appointment. And Cal has a dr. appointment in between those two. Hah. Last week we had one dr. appointment each day every day of the week, and this week we have them all piled in on one day. Guess we'll see which is better, lol. 

I got my TDaP shot last week and also chose a pediatrician's office. It's nearby and seems really great, ticking all the boxes we care about and a lot we didn't know we cared about. Gosh. I'm hungry again. I just ate at 8:00 this morning and now it's only 10:00am. Also, Cal is awake now and hasn't eaten yet...guess I'm off to get us some grub! 

We need to go grocery shopping today, too. 

Laters!

33 Weeks

 33 weeks along...only 7 weeks to go and it both feels like this is taking forever and like it's flying by. 

Oh yeah. And cal and I both caught covid this week. 

Sigh. 

You know what's weird? I know I have a crap ton of stuff on my plate to finish up so I can graduate and get things ready for the baby and everything, but why do I have such a hard time giving myself grace and forgiving myself for shortcomings? 

Like, I'm literally 33 weeks pregnant AND I have covid. I feel like sh*t. I have no energy. I also feel awful on top of the no energy. Yet I'm beating myself up for the unopened Amazon packages, for the unwashed dishes, for the lack of mental focus...and feeling like I'm a bad wife/person in general. 

If there were ever a time to cut myself some slack, it would be now, would it not? But I only have five days to complete my master's capstone project (when I got all my official instructions I only had two weeks). 

I need to change my...what's the word? Priorities? No. I need to set boundaries for myself and stick to them. For too long I have had the habit of taking on too much on my plate at once, and I also have issues that make it hard for me to cope with that. 

Like, I was raised to be a people-pleaser, by a people-pleaser. Who had serious anxiety issues and I suffered the brunt of them. So I never learned coping mechanisms. I had to figure them out on my own, and I didn't even get allowed to use them properly. 

Being pregnant has brought up a lot of thoughts about how I don't want to be anything like my parents when it comes to being a parent myself. Yes, they did their best with what they knew, but ugh, where do I even begin? They treated me like I was a parent to them. They made me their marriage counselor from the time I was less than ten years old. I grew up feeling like every time they argued, it was my fault somehow. My father relied on me WAY too much, from when I was a teenager I went grocery shopping, paid the bills, cashed his checks, listened to his marital problems and stresses and tried to give him advice (he would literally come home from work and talk to me instead of my mother about his day), I did the laundry...and I know some of these are life skills that a child needs to learn, but not in the way that I did. It got to the point where now that I'm married and have moved out, he is learning to do all this stuff on his own. He didn't even know how or where to go grocery shopping, or how much food cost. 

He would tell me story ideas over the dinner table, tell me to write them up, and send them to Warner Bro's as movie ideas, but how should a 15 year old know how to do that? What's to stop Warner Bro's from stealing the idea? Wouldn't it need a lawyer? Or a thousand other nuanced things? Where would I find their contact info/who to contact about story ideas? Who would read the contracts/do all the communication back and forth? It's not that simple. And then he would blame me for us not being rich - saying if I were to just have written down the story that he told me in fifteen minutes over dinner once - then we could be millionaires and own a house. 

But that's how his ideas always go. He gets a half-baked idea, tells it to me, and expects me to make it happen so that his dreams can come true. Always in something that I have zero interest in, too - so it would take away time from what I actually want to do with my life. 

Sigh. 

Anyway. My point is, I really don't want to be like them. I don't want to care what other people think, because really, how does that affect me? As long as I'm doing what's right, it doesn't matter. There will always be busybodies and nosy people and those who think they have a right to be super involved in your private life. Which they don't. 

That being said, my dad doesn't even have the right to be super involved in my life anymore. And I'm rather annoyed with him and rather annoyed with the fact that I still feel like I need to not disappoint him.

I have to enforce my boundaries.

And learn to give myself grace. 

I'm tired of typing...I think I'll get some rest. 

update

 The presentation went well! I had several people approach me randomly in the hotel after the fact to tell me they enjoyed it and would be checking out The Link. 'Tis awesome. 

And I'm so glad it's over. 

I think I've reached that point in my pregnancy where I'm over it. I'm always feeling full, yet I get hungry every 2 hours or so, I'm always thirsty, and there's no such thing as a comfortable position to sit in unless there are at least two pillows involved (same goes for lying in bed, except make that three pillows). 

Walking hurts (round ligament pains and a baby who likes to hang out in the "bottom of the barrel," as the midwife put it) and just adjusting myself in my chair or rolling over in bed gets me out of breath. I have to sleep in satin so that I can glide when I try to turn over, or else it's pain that feels like my groin is being torn in half. No, I'm not being dramatic. 

I'm ready to go to sleep for the night by 5-6pm (like utterly exhausted) and I'm frequently nauseous, probably because I always feel so overstuffed. I've discovered a ton of stretch marks on my hips and under my boobs (oh yeah, the boob soreness is returning, slowly but surely. Probably milk production). 

What else? I get up to pee at least three times a night, if not more. 

But on the bright side? I get to feel my little jellybean moving throughout the day and night. It's so cool and weird to think that there's a small person inside there...a person who is part me and part Cal. So weird. SO cool. 

We're finally starting to stock up on things that we need for the baby (with ten weeks left before my due date). We've got a crib, a car seat, and a glider (I feel like I may have mentioned this already), a breast pump, some nursing bras, a 5 pack of 0-3 month onesies and a going home outfit in both newborn and 0-3 month sizes. We've got bottles for when I have to go back to work and leave milk with Cal, we've got a couple of potential names (boy and girl names, because the gender will be a surprise) and a few swaddles/a blanket. 

I've asked Cal to assemble the glider when we get back from this trip, because the hotel room has an armchair that makes life infinitely better, lol. I need that at home, too. 

Once November 15th comes and goes, the completion discount on our registry will kick in and we'll be able to start buying some of the things that people haven't bought (because I'm paranoid that no one will buy stuff until it's almost too late - fine, maybe it's nesting kicking in) and we'll get it at a 15% discount. 

I'm thinking to go to Walmart and look at baby clothes there - I've discovered that things are quite cheap indeed at the mart of the wall. We need diapers and wipes, and a baby carrier. I'm still hoping someone will buy that off of the registry, though - that thing is like $80. 

A lot to still be done, but I'm starting to get excited now, and I'm also totally ready to not be uncomfortably pregnant anymore lol. It's only going to get more uncomfortable, unfortunately, leading up to labor as the most uncomfortable...and there's only ten weeks left. Yikes. 

But it'll be worth it... :)

Nervous

 So you know the drill, I usually write when my mind is too full and I'm stressed somehow. 

I've got a presentation coming up at a science research conference, and I feel utterly underprepared and like...just terrified of speaking in front of people. I keep telling myself it'll just be like improv, I'll go and talk and it'll be over with and it'll be a learning experience, but that's not helping. 

I'm anxious because I have to travel for it. It's in Virginia, and I'll be spending four days in a hotel and even though the presentation is literally 30 minutes out of 4 days...it feels like that's all I can think about. 

I'm anxious because I'm 29 weeks pregnant (I'll be 30 weeks on the day of the presentation) and I get out of breath easily - and I worry that I'll sound gaspy or raspy or that it'll make my presentation look bad. 

I worry that because my presentation is about the website that I run, that I'm not talking about anything important, it's basically just an advertisement, and I don't like that. 

I worry about leaving my cats here and them running out of water because my sister in law adopted a cat off the street and I think she doesn't give him water...because he comes upstairs several times a day to drink the water from our cats' dispenser. 

So I'm writing this post to do an exercise from CBT that my therapist taught me...you write what the worst case scenario is that you're worried about, and then you work your way down from 1000 to like, 50 in terms of anxiety. 

So. It feels like it's all I can think about and like it's the entire weekend. But really, it's 30 minutes, and I don't have to use up all of the time. 

I feel unprepared, like I won't have enough to say, or will forget what I'm supposed to say. But I have a speaking outline. I have a powerpoint presentation. And I'm not going to use notecards - that was a huge thing that was making this more difficult.

I'm worried about being short of breath during the presentation. But I've decided I'll let them know I'm pregnant from the start, and to expect that that might happen. I'm also going to build into my presentation notes times when I should pause and breathe. I'm also prepared to catch myself tensing up and I will relax my shoulders, hold onto the podium, and breathe. 

I'm worrying that my presentation isn't worthwhile enough, that the attendees won't get anything out of it. But I'm in complete control of what I say and what I offer them. They're going to be finding out about The Link, which is a resource for them to learn actionable tips to do better scicomm. They're going to be finding out that they can get experience creating content, and hopefully they'll feel inspired that they can contribute to making the science communication space a more diverse place. 

I feel a bit better now. 

I'm worried about the cats having enough water, but I'm going to block off the staircase so the other cat can't come upstairs while we're gone. 

I have an outfit planned out for the presentation, and I know what to expect that the environment will be like. 

I know that I should dress business professional, that it'll be 76 degrees that day, that there will be a podium with a mic and I can have my notes and my powerpoint on google drive, and that I should get to the room 15 minutes early. 

It's less than an hour out of the entire weekend. I've got this. It's less than one hour out of my entire life. 

When I'm done with it, I can completely focus on just grading (catching up with grading, technically) since I've been teaching a class this semester (oh yeah, I'm never doing that again), and prepping for maternity leave. 

We're at the finish line, now. 

I can do this. 

21 weeks in

 I'm 21 weeks pregnant now, and you can finally kind of tell. Like, my belly is too big to just be overweight, but it's still not that perfect D shape. The jelly bean is fully formed now, not just a little tadpole with flippers and a beating heart. It looks like a whole baby in there on the ultrasounds. It's kinda mind-blowing. 

We could know what the gender is by now, but we've decided to have that be a surprise. We'll find out when the jellybean gets here. Oh! And news! I got the scicomm position that my supervisor left! I started on August first and I love the work. It's great. It's fun. It's awesomeness. 

I run a scicomm website called The Link, and well, I don't feel like going into a bunch of detail about it right now, but suffice it to say that it's a great platform for connecting science communication research to practice. 

The morning sickness (actually, the all-day sickness) lasted for about ten weeks. It was bad. I was barely functional, everything I smelled made me gag and want to puke or pass out (although I only puked once), and it led to me having to postpone my masters capstone project into the fall. So rather than graduating in the summer, I will hopefully be graduating in December of this year. 

It's so weird to see my body changing. I've got stretch marks all over my breasts and the top of my belly (was it really worth it for the bigger boobs? I'm questioning it...) and I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life. I weigh 224 lbs now...but I'm tall, so it doesn't look horrible. It's just...weird. I can't bend over easily anymore and rolling over in bed or standing up from a chair is uncomfortable to the point of pain. (Apparently that's normal and it's called round ligament pains). 

My skin gets super dry and itchy...but at least I can eat most things again now. The nausea is gone, and I found a new prenatal that doesn't make me feel ill...it's called Ritual. It even has a pleasant citrus flavor to it (and it's a vegan capsule!). The only problem is that my organs are beginning to be squished, so I get full really quickly and overfull very easily (my brain still hasn't adapted to the fact that I can't eat as much at one sitting as I normally could) and then I'm uncomfortable for several hours. 

Adjustments. 

Today I tried on one of my workout jackets and to my utter surprise, I couldn't even close the two sides of it to zip it up! I took a video, because that's definitely a milestone, haha. Oh...and yesterday I felt the jellybean kick me...for sure. I've been uncertain the other times I've felt things because I have an anterior placenta, which means the placenta is at the front of my belly and cushions any movement I would feel. But this time, I saw my belly MOVE, and I was resting my iPad on top of it and my iPad jumped, too!

Pretty darn cool. 

It's weird to think that there's a little person in there. Someone who has a personality and will one day be a functioning member of society. They're literally inside my body right now. Doesn't make sense. 

Still cool. 

Anyway, I'm gonna go and do stuff that I have to do for scicomm stuff (don't feel like it because I'm tired, but I already got a one week extension, so I need to make the best of it...yeah today happens to be the deadline of that one week extension, ugh, I know). 

Laters!

SO many updates

 Wow.  

I knew it had been a long time since I wrote on here, but almost two years? That's a record, even for me. 

Where do I begin? haha. Maybe I should do a summary run down...let's see. 

2020: The covid pandemic hit. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others... and BLM. A lot of working at Starbucks. New York banned plastic bags. Fully in swing with my Masters in Science Communication, finally. In November, Cal took me to spend a weekend at a tiny house resort upstate and it was UTTERLY AMAZING. While there, my brother jokingly mentioned that Cal and I could start our own resort...and we took it seriously. On the way home, we started looking for properties.

2021: 

January 2021: Calvin and I decided to use our covid relief stimulus checks and the covid-related unemployment he was getting to save to buy property. We started watching a ton of videos on what to look for when buying property and how to build tiny houses. My dad got hurt at work: broke his hand and tore something in his shoulder. 

May 2021: Combined, we'd saved up $5000. We happened to see a 1.3 acre property on Zillow in VA for $8000 that looked pretty good, and I said you know what? We should go see it. So, on a whim, we drove 9 hours to a tiny town in the bottom of VA and had a look at the property, and while we were traveling, the price dropped from $8000 to $6000. 

We bought it. Cash. 

July 2021: Calvin asked me to marry him. I said yes. (cue happiest happy music). The same day, my niece gave birth to her son, and the next day, my childhood friend Kim gave birth to her second daughter on her kitchen floor (el gasp). All are healthy and thriving. We started taking trips to the property to plan out what work needed to be done on it - it's undeveloped land, just trees. No water, electricity or septic installed. However, there is public water at the street, and electricity available just across the street. During one of our trips, we realized that Google maps had really lied to us, and our property was MUCH narrower than we'd previously believed. If only we could have the property behind it, too....

August 2021: We looked up county records to find out who owned the property behind ours, and it turned out it was two little old ladies in their 80s. Sisters. By this time, we had saved up another $7000, so we decided to ask them if they would be willing to sell. A point in our favor was that they were land-locked, which is what it's called when your property is surrounded on all four sides by other people's property and you have no way to get to it without crossing someone else's land. They initially asked for $9000, but we told them that we had $7000 in cash and we owned the property in front of theirs. They agreed to the $7000, and in September we closed on our second property, 4.7 acres. 

September 2021: We became the proud owners of 6 acres of land. We also applied for and got our marriage license. The past few months were also a whirlwind of helping my dad, taking him to therapy and doctor's appointments, and dealing with workers comp lawyers.

October 2021: WE GOT MARRIED! It was a beautiful little event, technically what you'd call an elopement, by a lake in Central Park. Only a few guests were there - our closest friends, a few family members. My dad and Kim's mom were the ones who did our vows - and Kim's mom was so happy, because years ago she had asked me if she could be the one to marry us when the time came. The next day, we took a mini-honeymoon to VA to work on the property and to have some time to ourselves. We got to know the couple who owns the farm behind our property, and they were so excited to find out we'd just gotten married, they had us over for dinner, gave us a tour of their house and property, let us feed their donkeys, and ride their 4x4. It was really fun. 

November - December 2021: Nothing much happened.  I live with Calvin now in his mother's house (she's moved upstate into her new home). His sister lives downstairs and we have the whole upstairs to ourselves. I was finally able to bring my kitties to come live with me and they're as happy as can be. Married life is good. Really happy. Wait...nothing much happened? Not true lol. In November I got really sick for 3 weeks with what might have been a flu but felt more like covid. During that time, I helped my dad apply for a mortgage and we all went down to VA because he put an offer in on a house and it got accepted! But he backed out at the last minute...sigh. Cal and I are still scratching our heads on that one. He could have been a home-owner right now. 

Other 2020-2021 things that happened: I got a scicomm internship and it turned into a fellowship after that. SUCH FUN! Finally doing good, real scicomm work. I did my first actual research, too, and wrote up a paper that is nearly ready to submit for publication. I got interviewed on Instagram live by two scientists about the scicomm that I do, and my page grew significantly. I randomly started an aesthetic cozy gaming instagram account in March 2021 and it grew, well, not exponentially, but WAY faster than I remotely expected. I also started a scicomm podcast. :D

2022: 

My how the time flies. 

January 2022: Can't think of much. I know it was good. 

February 2022: I hit 1000 followers on my gaming account and I launched an Etsy shop, Gamer Noir Collective, selling stickers and prints with Black girl cozy gamers in mind. It did really well at launch, and the occasional order still trickles in. This was my last semester of my masters program, so I was really focused on that, plus working in the scicomm fellowship capacity and loving it. 

March and April 2022: My internship/fellowship supervisor left her position and got a job with the EPA (how cool is that) and trained me to take over. I've been filling in for her since she left, and I applied for the job vacancy, too. I was on a science and society virtual panel (one of 3 guest speakers) at the Bay Area Science Festival and I got interviewed by Kid Pundit (a 10 year old prodigy on YouTube) about scicomm and the CDC. Went to my supervisor's going away party and met everyone in person for the first time, AND found out the school of journalism director speaks fluent Swedish. We totally bonded and had a whole convo in Swedish/Norwegian. Also...my period was late...for the first time ever. 

May 2022: On May 6th, I took a pregnancy test. IT WAS POSITIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh. Just, oh my gosh. We've caught up to the present time, now. May has been a whirlwind of morning sickness (oh so bad) and finding a midwife/OB. Calvin is excited and when asked, says he's basically feeling "all the emotions" which is the same for me. I finally had my first prenatal appointment yesterday, May 31st, (they took 7 vials of blood, the darn vampires) and had my first ultrasound too. DUDE. The little jellybean has a beating heart. You can SEE the heart beating. It was surreal. Calvin recorded it and even though the technician told us that the printer wasn't working, she tried anyway, and it printed!! So we have a photo of our little jellybean. This is so....wow. Happy-making, as the Pretties would say. I've gone through so many emotions since finding out - panic attacks, excitement (I made an entire registry the first week after I found out and then skeeved myself out somehow and haven't wanted to look at it since - don't worry, I know it's still early so the registry is still private). I've broken down and ugly cried twice since the morning sickness got real bad. For the last two weeks I've been non-functional. It's been all day, every day, with nothing really helping and I haven't even been able to throw up to get some relief. 

Strangely enough, though, I forgot to take my prenatal one day this past week, and the next day I was almost fully functional. I didn't take it that day either, and by the third day I was fine. Come to find out, prenatals make EVERYTHING WORSE. Nausea, constipation...ugh. So I asked the midwife what to do, and she told me she's not surprised - apparently all I REALLY need is folic acid and a decent diet. So as of yesterday I started taking just a folic acid supplement, and I'm really about to throw those prenatal vitamins in the garbage. Two weeks of my life in misery, and for what? SMH. I'm still dealing with the constipation...

But yeah. There you have it. Today is June 1st, 2022, I'm a married woman, happy, and about to become a mama. The little jellybean is due mid January of next year. Hah. After all I've battled with...who would have thought? You know...it's true what that therapist said in the meme online...counter your negative thinking with "What if everything works out? What if all your hard work pays off?" And what Mark Manson said (or maybe it was someone else he was quoting - and I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Unless you are completely dead: mentally, emotionally, and physically, you cannot anticipate your life 5 years into the future. So get over the conflict about your life's direction and take risks. You cannot lose what you never had, and most losses are in the mind, anyway."

And the one that's helped me the most, because it's really worth remembering and implementing: Stop worrying about what could go wrong and start focusing on what could go right.

After all, if there is even the slightest possibility something could go wrong, that statistically means there is a possibility it could go right. 

Love ya. 

my mind is cluttered

 Too many thoughts...too many changes at once.

Is this what life is? Struggles and changes and floundering around and being unsure and never really knowing what you're doing or what you're going to do or what you're up against or how to deal with things? 

Never-ending change? 

Side note - speaking of change, I don't like the new layout for the blogger new post page. 

meh. 

Cal believes in Jesus. This is awesome. This is better than I ever hoped or dreamed or imagined or expected. 

He's started reading the Bible, almost every day, and he's making changes in his life. He's trying to stop cursing, and he's asked so many questions about everything he's read that it's made me very happy. 

It's also made me very unsettled. It's strange to hear him say "all praises to the Most High," and it's scary to watch him get up to the parts in the Bible that are all about patriarchy and women must be silent and so forth. 

I'm afraid that it will make him judge me. Heck, I feel judged, just because he's read the parts about women should have long hair and men shouldn't. Now I know this means he will probably never grow his hair out again once he cuts it for school - oh yeah. He's going to a marine merchant school in Maryland and he's going to be gone for 6 months at a time. 

[insert saddest face possible here]

But on the bright side (there are many bright sides) he says that one good-length voyage would be a down payment on a house that he had shown me on Zillow. He also wants us to get married one day, and to be able to buy and move into our own house "very soon" afterwards. 

So these are good things. Bright sides. 

I need to remember them when the pms fears and thoughts of insecurity kick in. 

Thoughts like, what if he didn't really mean it? why did I have to ask? does he really love me? am I pushing him into this? will this all work out? can I handle having him so far away for so long? what am I afraid of? what if he's not meant to be with me and realizes that while abroad? how do I cope with not celebrating Christmas or the idea that we're actually hebrews? 

It's a lot. 

Then again, it's always a lot. That seems to be what life is: a lot. 

Well, he's got a plan now, and he was talking about saving money and I was saying how when he's on the ship, there won't be anything to spend his money on, and he went "well in our situation, if we were paying off a mortgage, the money would be coming out of that account." 

So. 

Why do I need to reassure myself so much? Why do I start doubting things so quickly? How do I stop? 

I need cuddles. 

I am so tired.

I am mentally exhausted. I am emotionally drained. I am creatively tapped out.

There is too much going on in the world.

First the pandemic. Then the lockdown/quarantine/stay at home order and worldwide social distancing. Then George Floyd's murder (the latest in a long string of ropes that make up the noose tied around Black people's necks). Now the protests and looting and rioting that have led to an 8pm curfew here in New York City.

The misinformation and the rumors about Covid-19 and the vaccines. The conspiracy theories. The not knowing if any of it is really true, because of course if it was true they'd deny it anyway.

The uncertainty regarding the fall semester and the reopening of school, just when I finally got started again.

The fear anytime I see a police car behind me. The constant worry about my dad and brother and boyfriend - if they were to get stopped by police.

The everything else that usually bothers me.

I don't know what to do.

I didn't want to join protests, because I don't want to be a martyr that's not counted when I could make a difference somehow behind the scenes. Also because I'm genuinely afraid. There. I said it. Maybe that makes me un-Black, or weak, but I'm afraid of going to a peaceful protest and having a SWAT team descend on me or a police officer knock me over. I don't like confrontation.

But I'm also angry. Angry to the point of being unable to think straight. I'll try to focus on doing research for my June blog on meditation, and my thoughts keep going back to a blurry mental image of George Floyd on the ground with a knee on his neck. Or to the caption I read that contained his last words. How he called out for his mama, even though she'd died two years before.

Why?

Why do they hate us? Why are they afraid of us? Why do they create groups dedicated to eradicating us and depict us as stupid and take the credit for our discoveries and inventions? Why do they teach us that our history began with us as slaves? Why did they steal a country from one indigenous people and uproot another to rebuild it with blood and death and tears and torture - and then refuse those people (both Natives and Blacks) the right to live peacefully and free from fear and mistreatment in that same country?

Why is the only history we learn told from the European conqueror's point of view? From the European explorer's point of view?

BUT WHY?

Why do they say that our natural features are unprofessional and not beautiful - curly hair, dark skin, thick lips - yet they lie for hours in tanning beds, risking skin cancer to add color to their skin or smear tinted creams on themselves, they perm their hair and pump their lips full of filler, they slap cornrows on a celebrity or a model and suddenly it's acceptable.

It almost makes you want to hate them.

Not all of them. Just the ones who are horrible, or who are ignorant and refuse to allow themselves to be educated. But it's hard to know who is who when you see them on the street or in the grocery store. It's hard not to feel a pang of resentment knowing that they will NEVER have to be afraid for their life when they're pulled over by a police officer, or that however they look is the universal standard of beauty. That they're able to go to a good school and get a good job or decent healthcare treatment just because of the Caucasian name on their resume/ID card.

It's not fair.

I grew up with a White mother who frequently forgot she wasn't Black, because she lived in a Black community, surrounded by Black people, married to a Black man, raising a Black step-son and biracial Black daughter for the last 30 years of her life. More than half of her life. People would ask her if she was Jamaican because of how integrated with the culture she became, even though she had blonde hair and green eyes and skin that burned after thirty minutes in the sun.

I grew up thinking that most White people in America were like my mother - kind and openhearted and loving of Black people - until she died and Trump got elected president, (as a matter of fact he didn't get elected, it was just the stupid electoral vote that isn't fair anyway, the majority wanted Hilary Clinton) and all the closet racists and neo-Nazis and patriotic bigots came out of the woodwork.

I was shocked.

I used to think it was cool to be half-White. Now...now I don't know how to feel about it. It's screwing with my identity and sense of self big time. It feels like half of me hates me. I don't proudly tell people I'm mixed anymore. I just say I'm Black. And that also feels like a betrayal of my mother, who was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul, and I know she would have been out here at these protests, doing something to make a difference.

I miss her.

The feelings are all so convoluted.

My friend asked me the other day how being half Black and half White affects me in this current racial climate...and the truth is, it confuses me. I don't know who to identify with, because while I never wanted to pick sides before, now it feels like I have to. And of course, I'm going to pick the Black side, because no one should be treated the way Blacks are in this country that WE BUILT. LITERALLY. I'm going to pick the Black side because the color of my skin and the texture of my hair dictate that I'm viewed as Black by anyone who looks at me, and the stupid one-drop rule declares me Black and subject to the same discriminations that anyone not one hundred percent "White American" would face.

But it feels disingenuous. Almost as if I'm hopping on a bandwagon. Like I don't deserve to be a face amongst the ones who are discriminated against, because I'm not one hundred percent Black. Then again, is ANYONE one hundred percent White or Black or Asian or Pacific Islander or whatever other stupid racial categories they have on the Census form? It's all just ways to divide us - I understand that now it's to make sure we get what we need because we've been discriminated against in the past and it's to make sure there's room for diversity and affirmative action and all that....

BUT THAT SHOULDN'T BE NECESSARY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

That's always been my point, back when I was flying the banner of All Lives Matter. My point was that it should never have gotten to the point of needing to actively include people or marginalize them further because they were marginalized in the past and now you need to make sure you make up for it.

But I get it now. Black Lives Matter because they don't matter to a scarily significant number of people who have authority over us, and because they don't matter to the troll who calls himself our president and shoots tear gas at peaceful protestors so he can get a photo op with a Bible.

The BLASPHEMY and HYPOCRISY.

Will it never end with this man? How can people support him? How can people say that he's the best president we've ever had? How can he compare himself to Abraham Lincoln and claim he's done more for Blacks than any president besides Lincoln?

My dad says not to hate him. I'm trying not to.

The problem with being hated and targeted is that it's hard to not let your anger turn into hatred as well, especially when you see such stupidity and willful ignorance.

Sigh.

I'm glad I got that out. I don't feel that much better, but my mind is a little clearer. My heart is still racing low key, though. I hope some change for the better comes out of all of this, and that it's not a one world order. I'm not ready to handle that level of biblical prophecy coming true just yet.

Laters.

I think I have to word vomit

I had a great weekend. Sleepover and bonfire with Cal, plenty of cuddles and watching Avatar the Last Airbender (it's on Netflix now) and trying out a new game he got: Nioh 2. It was kinda fun, but I'm not feeling the whole "demon" thing. They creep me out, and if I'm being honest, my dad's beliefs about such things have rubbed off on me a bit. Can't discount it, anyway.

Still. It was a really nice weekend.

Oh, my glasses arrived today. I ordered them from Firmoo and they look fantastic. I got one pair that's clear/gold rimmed and has a night time anti glare coating on it, and a burgundy pair that are blue-light cancelling. I'll wear the gold ones on the regular and the red ones when I'm on my computer.

I also installed faux locs in my hair again - the last time I did that was maybe in 2014 or 2015. My dad hates it, of course, and is convinced that I am sliding further and further down the slippery slope into hell - apparently they're not a protective style and they're just a means for demons to enter me I suppose. Well. Sigh.

Thing is, the person that he wants me to be; the daughter he wanted - that's not who I am. I'm someone who likes piercings and playing the piano, who wants to try out video games and likes to speculate about aliens and time travel, who believes in science and stretches her earlobes and wants to have pet cats. I'm someone who always wants to know why before I choose to believe something, who wants to experience life on my own terms and drink a bottle of beer once in a while (as in once every four or five months).

But he wanted a singer with a heavenly voice; a gymnast or basketball player who wears long skirts and loose clothes and never ever ever cuts her hair. Someone who is one hundred percent involved in an old-time Pentecostal church and never so much as looks at a man unless she's been told by a pastor that this man is to be her husband. Someone who reads the Bible every single day (I'll admit, ain't nothing wrong with that) and doesn't question what she's told. Even if it's social media telling you that a vaccine (that doesn't exist yet) has a microchip in it and is going to be the mark of the beast. I swear this is getting to be too much to handle mentally.

When I got depressed after my mother died and lost 30 pounds, he told me I didn't look good; I looked too skinny and who would want me like that? Meanwhile literally everyone else was telling me how great I looked, and aside from wishing my butt was a little bigger, I liked myself at that size. Then when I gained back the 30 and an additional 10, he pointed out the cellulite on my thighs and said I was getting too big, that men don't like cellulite, and asked if I was pregnant.

*laughs bitterly and shrugs*

Can't win with him, huh? That's why I've pretty much given up. I think I need to move out, but the problem is, I can't f*cking afford it. Not unless I live in my car, and what will I do with the cats then? Perhaps I should keep applying for affordable housing. Maybe I'll get lucky.

At least I'm back in school now, working on my masters. That reminds me: I need to register for fall classes, but first I have to find out whether or not I qualify for financial aid if I'm part time. I'll do that this evening when I'm done writing on here.

Tomorrow I have a zoom call scheduled with a feminist/steminist/motivational coach, and I really hope that I can participate in her program and that it helps me to stop procrastinating and doubting myself.

I mean, I can either continue to live in my dad's shadow and second guess every decision I make, feel bad about doing my hair or whether or not I decide to spend a bit of money on some decor or clothes, or I can woman up and be an adult and start living like one.

And I don't think I can reasonably do that still living at home.

I will first get myself stable financially, and then I will move out. I can't deal with the anxiety anymore.

I get anxious when I know he's coming home, or going to be home. I start to feel like I've done something wrong and I'm going to get in trouble whenever I think of him. If I spend an extra night away from home I'm convinced he's going to kick me out. I live in constant fear of judgment.

Oh my gosh.

Now I see what my mother was going through. Now I understand why her anxiety was always through the roof, why she often took it out on me, and why she was stressed.

It's very unfortunate. I can't imagine being married to the person who makes you feel that way, and worse, being 100% dependent on them because you're not working.

I must never be dependent on a man.

I've noticed that my anxiety from my dad is leaking out into other areas of my life and making me worry about what other people think of me, too. It's not good. I will conquer it.

Yeah. I'm aiming for a one bedroom apartment. I might like the idea of studios, but ain't nothing wrong with a one bedroom if you can afford it. Alrighty.

The writing has helped.

And my glasses are cool.

See ya next time.

It's 2020, and I never did a 2019 me.

So here's me...but it's an April 2020 me.

• my hair is growing out
• I dyed it bronze-ish auburn-ish (it was supposed to be blondish)
• same two cats and a new betta fish named Raxacoricofallapatorius 
• still work at Target
• started my masters again in science communication (FINALLY)
• four years into my relationship (and things have gotten SO much better than I ever expected)
• I stand up for myself a lot more than I ever used to
• I wear more black and red now than anything because work uniform
• I started drawing again
• I taught myself how to make stickers (from scratch)
• I learned to make GOOD baked macaroni and cheese (have my own recipe now)
• my bedroom looks like a minimalist boho studio apartment
• I do my own mani pedis with gel nail polish 
• still obsessed with the mortal instruments and all spin offs
• the new doctor who seasons suck
• but I'll always love the old ones
• went on my first cruise
• went with cal and his mom & her friend
• it went to bermuda
• went in a hot tub for the first time
• I'm growing my hair out again
• I had cut it into a buzz cut so it was less than an inch long 
• I transitioned from classical to jazz
• got drumsticks as a gift (only took 13 years)
• still dress mostly sporty/athleisure 
• getting curious about makeup
• actually really like playing video games
• spend my weekends at cal's (& dad is okay with it!)
• there's a frigging pandemic going on
• I've kept plants alive for about a year now
• my relationship with my dad is pretty okay
• relaunched my science instagram and gained quite a few followers 
• gotta stay active
• paid off my amazon credit card
• went to the corn maze with cal for the second year in a row
• gained about 45 lbs in about a year and a half
• hey, at least I have my butt back
• gotta get rid of this belly gut though
• it scares me that I question christianity so much
• but I do believe Jesus died for my sins
• I still want to know "why" everything
• favorite color....maybe pale dusty rose? I like neutrals a lot.
• favorite food: chicken wings
• favorite movies: still day after tomorrow, I robot, and transformers
• favorite tv shows: doctor who, that 70's show
• best book I've read lately: funny. I don't remember the name of it but I read it while on the cruise. that one. 
• I look more like my mother than ever before
• had to give my cats away and then got them back
• I really need routines and lots of breaks
• I have an obsession with notebooks
• floral things. all things floral.
• I still do a lot of psychology research online
• did a road trip to NC, stopped in Delaware and passed through virginia, saw the Capitol
• cal told me he loves me

2019 was a really good year. It was actually the first year since my mother died that I spent mostly happy. Genuinely happy, content, and with positive feelings for most of the year (there were a few hiccups here and there but overall, it was good.)

I just realized I've had this blog for ten years now.

I guess you could say it's my longest commitment ever. LOL.

Wow.

Ten whole years.

I still remember the day I started it, sitting in biology class with...what was her name? Pearlmutter? She was a cancer biologist. The theme was different back then...all black and dark and emo, haha.

This has basically been a place where I've dumped all my fears, hopes, dreams, fantasies, plans, heartbreaks, adventures...for a whole decade.

I kind of can't believe it. And in that time, only what, four people really know it exists? It's best that way. It's basically my diary.

If I hadn't had this, I'd have gone mad years ago.

Thanks for being here, blogspot.

things about him pt. 3

The way he will lean on me when he's sleeping, even if he's facing the opposite direction. The way he will play with my hands or reach up to hold them when I'm on the bed and he's playing video games. How he always gets super affectionate if I've fallen asleep before him and will wake me to give me a goodnight kiss. The way he wraps his arms around me from behind sometimes and will lean his head on my back and just rest there. How he's willing to listen to my insecurities and asks about them but doesn't get upset or judge me. The fact that he made a photo of me his laptop wallpaper - and I just happened to notice one day when he was on his laptop. The fact that he made his password the AIM username I had when we first became friends 13 years ago. The orgasms. Yeah, I went there. How he will call me from work and spend hours on the phone with me while working, while driving home, and then stay on the phone with me until he's ready to go to sleep (usually after midnight). How he doesn't mind being on the phone with me while he's sculpting, or while he's doing other things throughout his day. The way he will check to see if I've made it home safely if I don't text that I'm home within the tine I would usually get home from work. The check-ins that he gives me when he's gotten to work, is done, and is home, or if he's at a friend's house. The fact that his friends are so sure that he's in his last relationship, and that he said if he ever messed up he has everything to lose. How he said he's gotten used to me sleeping next to him, and his sleep isn't as satisfying if I'm not there. How we spent six hours or so laying in bed cuddling innocently on our fourth anniversary, just holding hands and caressing each other. How he wants to play video games with me and got me a sci-fi video game for Christmas, wrapped up and tied with a ribbon. The level of skill he has with sculpting - how much he's improved over the years. His skill with building furniture from scratch. His support of whatever I want to do, and his faith in me.

There's more. But I got this bit out of my system to remind myself to appreciate what I have. Who I have. Don't let the fear kick in.

Things I've discovered about myself

I need a routine. I need to stay busy. Too much time alone with my thoughts and unless I'm in a great place mentally, I'll be in a horrible place within the hour. I don't deal with stress well. I multitask a lot - I'll be watching one YouTube video on my TV, another on my iPad, reading an article on my phone and alternate between cooking, cleaning and drawing or painting, approximately every fifteen minutes. My default mode is silence - I don't talk much when I'm content or comfortable. I need to go outside and physically touch nature every once in a while; pick up a stick, rip up some grass or sit on a rock near a pond or stream.

I overthink too much. Way too much. I'll overthink the good things, then project them onto someone else besides myself and start overthinking bad things.

I stand up for myself a lot more now than I used to. I let people know when I'm not okay with something they've said or done, whether it's to me or someone else. I've become obsessed with the color pink. It's kind of ridiculous, really. I take criticism very hard, even though I try not to. I try to be open and vulnerable and courageous and love. Sometimes I succeed.

I can't go too long without eating pasta. Cuddles (with Cal) are the best thing ever. I'm not as much of an adamant "paperback book only" kind of reader anymore. I might buy a kindle. I've become more swept up in the feminist/steminst/blacklivesmatter movements than I ever thought I would be.

There are more things, but for now, let's let that sit.

okay.

Places that need attention:

• space in between cabinet and fridge
• hall closet
• garbage can situation
• front of kitchen sink situation
• bottom of thing under microwave
• side table
• my closet

Now we need solutions: 

• standalone storage compartments with shelves (for the blender? coffee pot? cereal? teas?) and space for a bin to hold recycling bottles underneath. Oh yeah. Top shelf is definitely getting a fake plant. One of the expensive ones. 
• coats only on one side, other side holds toolboxes. Install shelves along one side of back wall and side wall. vacuum cleaner gets stored in there, along with toiletries and cat litter bag. That's where garbage bags and stuff will be stored too. Oh yeah, we'll also keep cleaning solutions in there. laundry detergent and the like. Wouldn't it be great if we could fit two hampers in there for our laundry? Guess we'll see.
• bout to drop $200 on a simplyhuman two part stainless steel garbage can which will take up way less space by the sink. 
• get rid of that rack in front of the sink. We never use anything that's stored on it anyway. All it does is take up space. Get rid of the little side table too. And the tablecloths that are on it. 
• either set up or get rid of the game consoles and put a cat bed there?
• put the books from the side table in the space underneath it.
• get rid of ninety percent of what's in my closet, clear out top shelves, store off season clothes up there (in baskets - will they fit? they'd better)

Okay. 

see, the weird thing about how I live now

is that it sometimes feels like I live alone.

And that can be a good thing and a bad thing. Like, I forget to clean sometimes. Or I just have no motivation to, if I'm being honest. However, I don't let it get too messy before I start to go nuts and go on a cleaning spree.

But for the things I don't like to do, like clean the toilet. Or wipe up beard hairs from the sink.

Funny thing is, if I were married, I probably still couldn't escape that.

But I'm home by myself a lot. When my mom was alive, she was almost always home. So whenever I got home from school or work, she'd be there. There was always the vibe of someone else being in the house.

Now it's usually just my cats.

And while that might seem lonely, it's not. It's actually just a stark reminder of where I probably ought to be in life by now.

For example, where we live now, it's not by choice, exactly. It's much less than ideal when it comes to the quality of life. HOWEVER. Rent is EXTREMELY cheap, considering we live in New York City. And who really needs that much space anyway?

But here's where the "not-living-alone" part kicks in...I clean the kitchen table and come home to find it covered in bread, buns, napkins and plastic forks.

Know what? I just had a thought. I'm going to cherish this, because one day I won't have it.

That's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. The fact that one day, if life on this planet continues the way it always has, my dad won't be around. Neither will I. And nothing says that one will happen before the other.

Sigh.

But my point is, since I digressed, that I would like to have things a certain way. Decorate a certain way. Build shelves, get rid of barrels and the walk-in closet (yes we actually have one, it's in the hall, though) full of winter coats that my dad hasn't worn in three years (going on four).

Should I do it? Would he resent me for it? Gosh. I open that closet and don't know where to begin. It's full of things we never, ever use. Really, the only thing we ever take out of there is the vacuum cleaner. He doesn't even keep his work bag in there anymore.

There would be room for his shoes, proper organization of his tools, all our bulk paper towels and toilet paper...we could actually hang the coats we DO use in there...I would even put a paperwork storage system in there and buy a shredder.

You know what? Maybe I'm just being lazy. Maybe I should do these things anyway. I want to replace the rinky dink garbage and recycling cans we have that don't close properly with stainless steel ones that take up less space.

All the water bottles he brings home? There would be space to hang a bag inside that closet to put the empty ones in for recycling. Or that little space in between the refrigerator and the...what is that called? China cabinet. I could install some shelves there with a bigger space on the bottom to hang a bag for the bottles.

We need to recycle all our plastic bags, too. I noticed to day that Target has a plastic bag recycling bin. Since I found out that plastic bags aren't recyclable the normal way, there's no point to throwing them out with the trash.

Oh yeah. I want to switch to biodegradable garbage and recycling bags, too. I found some on amazon.

I know people say that it's the big corporations making the most pollution and they're not being held responsible for it, and that's true, but that doesn't give us the excuse to be crappy human beings and add to it as well.

I've pretty much gotten my room the way I want it, or at least to a way that I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks. I need to tackle my own closet as well - since working at Target I've accumulated way too many clothes and I find myself struggling to decide what to wear, a sure sign that I no longer have what can reasonably be called a capsule wardrobe.

I spend too much money, too. I think I should budget out how much I need for two weeks, withdraw that in cash (including gas money) and leave my debit card and credit cards at home.

Yeah.

And take the target app off my phone. Or at least unlink my debit card.

I impulse buy much, much too often. It's like an urge overtakes me and I spend, spend, spend until I have either just enough left to pay my bills or too little.

I can't keep living like that.

I'm tired again. I took a nap when I got home, but probably only slept for about two or three hours. I didn't sleep well last night (had an allergic reaction that woke me up in the middle of the night) and then went to work for 7:00 this morning. Worked until three fifteen...came home...I guess I could do with some more rest. It's almost midnight now. One minute away.

I'll finish cleaning up my clothes and then go back to bed.

See ya. Thanks for listening.

I haven't spoken to my mother in almost four years.

It sounds weird when you say it like that.

Like we have some kind of fatal disagreement, some kind of resentment simmering under the surface, and she's not a part of my life or my children's lives or my husband or my future.

But the truth is, she's a part of all the things that matter.

I haven't spoken to my mother in almost four years because it's been almost four years since we lowered her casket into the ground, the rain pouring down around us just like always happens in the movies.

It's not by choice.

Strangely enough, it doesn't feel like that much time has gone by since I spoke to her. Perhaps because she's in my dreams - with less frequency now than a few years ago - and we talk there. Most of the time, when I wake, I don't recall what our conversations were about. There's only a lingering sense of satisfaction, of a void having been filled.

The thing is, my mother's DNA makes up half of mine. That's what I tell myself on the days when it gets to be too much to bear: the idea that she's not here, that I can't see her anymore, can't touch her hands or come to her for a double-sided hug. I tell myself that she is in me, literally. Not just in my heart, or whatever soppy nonsense the Hallmark "Thinking of You in Your Time of Sorrow" cards would have you believe.

She comprises the building blocks of who I am today, both literally and figuratively.

I see her in myself when I laugh a little too hard and catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface...our smile lines are nearly identical.

I see her in myself when something bothers me about someone, and I pause and choose to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than jumping to conclusions or confronting them in anger.

I see her in myself when I don't allow clothes and books to be in the same pile when I'm reorganizing, when I pick up an item that's fallen off a shelf in a store, when I feel the urge to pray if I hear a siren passing by.

She is in my love of reading and creative writing, my tendency to say "gesundheit" rather than "bless you" when a person has sneezed, and in my propensity to gather leaves and pinecones in the fall.

I see her in the front part of my hair that refuses to curl no matter what I do to it, the shape of my fingernails when I let them grow long, and I hear her in my voice when it's played back on a recording.

So yes. I may not have spoken to my mother in almost four years, but that doesn't matter. Twenty years can have gone by and it still won't matter.

Why? Because really, she's still here every day.

I love you, Mamma. Happy would-have-been-60th Birthday.

guys, it's so much

I'm trying to start school again in the spring.

My school is offering a certificate program that will lead into the master's program once the master's program gets approved by the graduate school board, but get this: the deadline for enrolling in the spring is October first. That's a little over two weeks away.

As if that weren't stressful enough, I have two options:

1. Come up with $500 for a readmission fee and fill out a one page form (my preferred option)
2. Reapply to the university for a lesser fee, but potentially as a new applicant, which would mean I'd need letters of recommendation, possibly have to retake the GRE, order an official transcript, pay an application fee and have to redo my personal statement.

Trouble is, here, that they're trying to make me do the second option, because the certificate program is technically "a different program" than I was originally enrolled in.

I'm like, look here, people. You accepted me into your master's program in science journalism. I got all A's. It's not my fault that my mom got sick and died, or that my job refused to allow me to continue school when they PROMISED at hire that I could attend grad school and they knew about it from the get-go. It's also not my fault that when I was ready to return, your program got shut down and then the opening date got postponed by nearly two years.

I think that with all that taken into consideration, I should be allowed back in, no questions asked. Like, for real.

I guess this is what they speak of when they say "red tape."

It's annoying, frustrating and discouraging. If I speak to them in person, they get all excited and say they want me in their program. Yet I have to jump through hoops to get back into it.

I'm not going to give up, though. They'll grow tired of me and have to let me in just to get me to shut up and leave them alone.

I'm going to keep at it as far as I can go (although I refuse to retake the GRE...that would simply be unfair and I'm pretty sure that me re-applying from scratch would cost just as much as just re-enrolling) until they say "okay, come on in," or "we don't really want you."

One or the other.

Funny. I was getting stressed and then I realized, duh, you're dealing with college again. Of COURSE it's stressful.

You'd forgotten.

have i done anything productive today?

Let's see.

I woke up at like seven this morning, drove to Brooklyn to pick up my coworker and take her to work out in Long Island...then I drove a little farther out and brought my Apple watch to the Apple store to get it fixed.

Hung around the mall while I waited for my Genius Bar appointment and bought a gorgeous glittery nail polish, an organic aloe and turmeric face mask, and two scented candles (FALL SCENTS FINALLY).

Left there and went to physical therapy, left that and went to pick up Cal and take him to the post office to ship off the mask he sold (his car got towed because of idiots not paying him on time so he couldn't pay the tickets he got for delivering THEIR goods) and then played hooky from tutoring because I had neglected to tell him I had tutoring so we were still driving around when it was almost time for me to go. I texted them and tried to reschedule for tomorrow (got no reply, so I'm a little worried, but still).

Checked up on my birth control prescription, and of COURSE the doctor denied the refill because they want me to come in and take another pregnancy test before prescribing me any more refills.

Never mind the fact that I'm ON my period.

But okay.

I only have pills left through saturday, and it's wednesday now. Yes, I'm aware I didn't capitalize the days of the week. No, I don't care enough to change it. Yes, I do care quite a lot, and yes, I realize that in the amount of time it's taken me to write all this, I could simply have gone back and made the adjustment.

It's not happening.

What else? I went to get gas & Cal got out to pump it for me (apparently he has a thing about that boyfriends shouldn't let women have to pump their own gas...I think it's a little extra but cute) and then we went to Checkers...

Oh yeah, we went to the bike shop too...and CVS and my doctor's office...

Sat outside his house in the car eating the food and found out I have to mostly stop sleeping over because his mom is bothered by it (grumble grumble) and then I went home.

Crazy rainstorm (got drenched) and then he texted to ask if I wanted to ESO for a bit.

Sure!

So we went online, ran through the sewers of the Imperial City slaying Daedra and being slayed by reds...& he called me on facetime audio so we could coordinate.

That was around 7:30...it's now a few minutes to eleven and we stopped playing a long time ago. He's been sculpting and I've been cleaning my room...still on the facetime audio.

Can I pause to cheese really hard here? This feels like when I realized that I can work on my novel around him...not feel distracted or self-conscious.

I fully expected him to say he had to go when he was going to start sculpting, but instead, he's stayed on the phone with me the entire time.

#happy

It's weird being happy again.

Funny how I overthink too much. Well, not funny.

Especially around my period. Wish I could shut my brain off or put my emotions on hold.

I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m overreacting to something - thanks Jayleen. She was my first therapist, and an awesome one. I’ve toyed with the idea of looking her up on facebook just to say thank you. I worry that it would be unprofessional or inappropriate, though.

Knowing her, however, I doubt she’d mind. She’d probably just be really happy to hear how much she helped me.

Know what? I think I’ll do it.

I’ve spent two nights in a row by Cal, and it’s about to be a third one. I went with him to work today, too. When I write it, it sounds unhealthy, but it’s a nice change from only seeing him one day a week and only for a few hours before we both fall asleep. It’s not like I make a habit of it.

Seriously, though. Things have gotten so much better since the “I love you” admission. Not that they were bad before - everything with this relationship has been on an upward trajectory since October of last year, and especially since late December, when we stayed up all night talking about us and admitting how we really feel about each other.

Physical affection is pretty high on my list of love languages, and that’s also one of the ways I’ve measured our relationship’s progress. He’s gotten literally a hundred times more affectionate in the past eight months, and we have gotten so much more comfortable with and around each other.

Like today, when we got back from work, he had to use the bathroom so he was downstairs for a little while. I came up to his room first and laid on the loft bed he’s built (from scratch, after being inspired by my loft bed, lol) and started playing ESO. He came in and walked over to the window, then turned around and on his way back stretched up and gave me a kiss on my forehead as he went by.

A year ago, that would NOT have happened.

And there’s so much of that now. We fall asleep holding hands. I get good morning and goodnight kisses on the cheek to wake me or before we fall asleep.

I’m loving it, lol.

Oh yeah! So, the other night before we went to sleep, I gave him a kiss and said “I love you,” and he went “I love you too.”

EEEEEKKKK.

Yeah. I’m such a dork.

To make it worse, my heart started pounding and he could feel it, and he started teasing me about it *facepalm of embarrassment* UGH. Why so cute and embarrassing at the same time?

Anyway. I feel really lucky lately.

I keep thinking of the first day I met him in person, when he came to visit my church and met my parents. When I got home that evening, I asked my dad what he thought of him, and my dad went “What? You want to know if you can fall in love and get married?”

Of course that was NOT where I had been going with my question...but isn’t it funny how far we’ve come?

My iPad battery is at 9% now, so I think I’ll publish this before I run out of power and it gets lost in my drafts.

See ya!

I am incredibly bored right now

I’m on my break at work, but it has been incomprehensibly anti climactic. I was excited about the turkey sandwich I’d brought for lunch, but one should not apply mayonnaise if one is not planning to eat the sandwich for another seven hours.

Let that be a lesson to the wise.

I brought my iPad, which I’m currently typing this on, does not have enough of an internet connection to watch Netflix.

Meh.

At least I got my writing in for today.