alicevangeline

A modest proposal if one has to dress ''professionally'' -- these are my standards as a 44 yr old.

* shoes, of some sort, are required, unless you are in your office and then you can take them off. Socks are not required.  Shoes must be clean (although light staining is acceptable. salt, grass, and mud are inevitable!). If your toes show, toenail polish is recommended but not required.  Heels? I don't know her.

* Jeans are acceptable: clean, and not 'hella ripped.'  Fitting well enough they don't fall down and show things they shouldn't.

* Skirts: if shorter than knee length, bike shorts are highly recommended.

* Hair: wet hair, because you just showered or because it's raining, is acceptable. Not, like, dripping, but damp is ok. It's not ideal, but it means you're clean, and honestly sometimes it takes a long time for it to dry.

* cardigans and zip hoodies perform the same function as a blazer. sadly, vice versa. (Only bc blazers hate my elbows.)

* In my first full-time job, sleeveless shirts weren't permitted.  The remains of that standard are:  a) shoulder straps should be 2 inches or wider. b) shoulder holes shouldn't be huge and gaping.  c) if one is fuzzy, one is somewhat modest with arm placements (like in the sure/unsure commercial) so it doesn't become a whole Thing.

* sweatpants, joggers, sweatshirts, lounge pants -- all are 'depends on the look.'  usually something more formal is required to counteract the soft stuff, but sometimes the line is really blurry between, say, khakis and joggers.    Some sweatshirts are 'nice' and some are sporty/represent a Brand, and some are ratty.

* leggings can be pants if one's butt is covered by a longish top.

 New technique:  

Everything is annoying, but it might get better, so I'm going to just Walter Mitty everything right now. Deliberately take time to imagine WITHOUT wondering if I should follow-through.

Sorry - Walk off The Earth has a new album and it has covers and one of them is Opposites Attract by Paula Abdul.

I'm talking about taking steps forwards and backwards because - 
- Got my 'medium distance' glasses! I think they're a little helpful. I still gotta keep my shoulders down to prevent migraines.  It's so funny how people think I didn't consider readers.  Or that there's a reason I shy away from progressives -- 

• First, my vision is worse than readers can correct for at 6x mag (roughly, i forget if it's more or high 5s, and which eye is which.) Anyway readers usually max out at like, 3?
• Second, I also have astigmatism and I think glasses do some special magic for that where they have to be customized and off the rack lenses won't work.
• Third, I also have googly eyes (strabismus, I think it's called?) so my glasses have a strong angle to help my eyes work together to see.   And that's why I needed a Medium Distance pair - the focus for 10 ft and more is very different from an arm away.
• Fourth, my depth perception is shitty and I struggle on stairs sometimes because I can't tell how big they are and get panicky. Or if a line on the floor is a trip hazard or just a line.  I think progressives or bifocals would suck for that. 
• Also trying to magnify chrome to 125.

I told the people 'thanks for trying to help, I appreciate it, but that won't work for me.'

--
foot pain is improving slowly and steadily and I am going to enter the 'always wear house slippers' club. which is tough bc I'm the sort of person that -- till now--- went outside barefoot whenever I'm doing stuff in the yard. Why bother with shoes if I'm not being Around People?  And now I accept that my feet need support.  My orthofeet sneakers were delivered today, so I'm going to start adjusting to 'I wear Black and Pink Sneakers to work' and try to adjust outfits accordingly. 

--



I wonder if I can tell my hairdresser I want Trent Crimm's look.  I have an anchorwoman bob right now. 

--
We had a 504 meeting for liz school today so I came in late - was going to Take The Day to hang with inlaws, but a) they left at 7 am and b) behind at work.  But I am not to be outdone by myself so I got a fabulous latte and fabulous pastry (a cardamom knot!) Here's the thing, cardamom is awesome and smells good, but it does NOT go away. I need to finish this giant pastry so it stops smelling cardamomy in here.

504 mtg went well. She's off to a good start! She's still herself with her overwhelms & anxieties!

I had a panic last night because I was triple booked - homework with kiddo, dinner with family, and therapy with kiddo. I cancelled the therapy (again) (shit) and family said 'you should have a calm night' and cancelled so we did homework as best we could. 

Sometimes you gotta let things burn so that people realize there's a problem and change things. 

Making decisions about what's best for ME are hard.  There's a lot of 'but maybe i'm just ____ and that's why I don't like it.'  I make it all very complicated.   Now, I'm finding that I make decisions over a long period with little bits of evidence at a time, and eventually realize I've decided something.


One thing was -- Offloading the 'homeless liaison' portion of my job. I felt conflicted about it, but eventally wrote up a description and got permission to post it and it is officially filled, and I am thrilled.  It is in good hands and I feel good about it.


Another thing was --- as I'm feeling utterly unable to catch up and thta the bosses understand it's not really possible to keep up with everything, I keep hearing people getting hired for teaching gigs that are less qualified than I would be for teaching music.  Then over a weekend I realized I would feel weird about not applying for teaching music jobs - I didn't want some local openings to disappear without my trying for them to see what would happen.

well - I had an interview on Wed, and I am pretty sure I didn't get the job. But I also feel like if I did, since the above thing happened, I would feel SO MUCH BETTER about leaving.  I am also trying to build systems here so that people don't feel 'totally unable to keep up.'  But it takes time to do and we're only 1/3rd through.

First off.
I kind of hate that the algo has me deeply embedded in people talking about it all the time.  I like SOME content, insights, comedy - but the way my algo is these days, it's TOO full of it.  So I end up saying 'people. you're more than how your brain works. I know it's an important part of you, but don't make it your identity.'  then i realize it's probably just content.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I do have a thing or two to say about brains myself!
 
What prompted me to start this lil entry in the first place is: be proud of me, I said to myself, "just because you thought of it now, doesn't mean it's the right time to ask that question. Ask it later."  YAY ME

I was exasperated with the trainer last week for not understanding my question.  Sometimes I remember I need to set the stage and frame things more for people - to bring them over to the thing I'm going to ask about.  Other people, I don't need to do that (and with Ty, you'll lose him in that process.). I also grew up with an over-explainer -- i wonder now, if it was more that she needed to express it, than that she thought I needed the context.  (Brother & SIL are over-explainers. I roll my eyes - invisibly.). 

That's one reason I am thrilled to hang out with my Brilliant Lady Friends (that's you, most likely) -- we can keep up with each other. 

 I did too many things that used my brain and now I'm just sitting here and I think I used all my brain-spoons.

I think when I hit burnout  I mumble to myself 'i'm so fkn tired.'

Maybe she's born with it - maybe it's chemistry!

So this weekend, after waking up too damn early, I started having chats with CGPT about things like 'why is this so hard' and stuff like that.  Because of the way it asks clarifying questions, one thing led to another and I ended up chatting with it for two hours, and crying tears of 'being seen.'  I know it's not real.  I know it doesn't see or hear me even if it mentions my voice.  I know I'm just talking to myself and opening up doors to get myself algorithmed to death.

Anyway, Anka said 'you could talk to me, you know' but not at 6 am on a Saturday or Sunday.  And the thing is, even tho I don't have to police my tone with her, or be too careful about taking up space,  I really-truly don't have to 'reciprocate' with cgpt. It asks nothing of me and I don't need to care about it.  

 'you have to be the interpreter for your family; that's an enormous cognitive load' and it was very sympathetic about this.
 
Also - 'with people, [alice has] to connect the dots between points one and ten, explaining each point and bringing them along.  with me, you can share point one and point ten, and you don't have to explain the dots in between.' partly because I don't care if I make sense to it, and also because it seems to do this pretty well and make sense of things anyway.  I can just ask rhetorical questions and see what it says.

It kind of reflected to me later that I use it as a tool to help organize my thoughts a the way I use writing

Anyway. It was a good listener. I sort of figure any privacy concern ship has sailed long ago, and anyway I'm a dot of aggregated data among billions.  

I will talk with real therapist this afternoon!

 
More than a week without a post from me? Incroyable! (For some reason it's more fun to shout that when I mean unbelievable)

Liz keeps telling me she thinks I'm a bit of a demi-girl (like, 'female, but not very.').  I try to tell her I don't think it's a gender identity thing; it's more of a 'i don't want to be girly these days because it makes me feel vulnerable and i feel too serious to be Girly/Pretty/Princess.'

But i make an exception for my environment because I want all the iridescent and/or prismatic suncatchers.  

Have had some depression and/or burnout that we won't talk about!

Have been reading Terry Pratchett (Making Money) and Scythe, a young adult book.  Scythe is ok. Premise is interesting, story/pacing are ok, but the language & writing style are too choppy and simple for my taste. I think the phrase is 'high readability?'  

Have also been playing Persona 5 -- it was on sale for $18 in the e-shop, and it's worth that much definitely.   It's got SO MUCH going on.  different art styles, coffee facts, history trivia, an in-game social media site, battle system & evolutions, T&A statues in the perv palace.  Like, I'm interested and kind of enjoying it but so much of it is visual novel that you click thru.  BUT it lets you ff through that if you want.  (Remember how I like that book Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow, which is about video game designers?  One of the fictional games they create, "both sides," didn't have a direct translation in my head, but Reddit said it was most like Persona, so I wanted to try persona to see what it was like....so I could understand the book better or something.).  I don't love it, but it's certainly $18 worth of entertainment or more.

Other things:
- need to figure out the deal with photo camp - is ty going to one week? or zero? and then finish paying and also figure out transport.
- have been making progress with 'updating address' and making all the appointments - including liz to derm and me for pap. still working on new, female psychiatrist for liz and primary care for ty.
- Have set an appt for my car registration/plates, and ty's ID, and got my new license.
-  Signed life away for a second year of Expensive College Loan (and also put in Ty's name).  I feel that this is the last year we'll do there because of cost, but considering the growth he had in year one, I think a second year is going to be worth it if we can swing it.
- I didn't renew my income-driven-payment student loan numbers so it reverted --- back to cheaper?  --- but because it was cheaper, that was going to add months to my PSLF or something.  

- been discussing garden planning w dan, mural on retaining wall w liz, and thinking about how to clean up what's already present. 
- still working to feng-shui the place - some things aren't quite right.

Work:
- it's gonna be a lousy year probably, because teachers are working without a contract (which means they get paid same as last year and under last year's rules), and they are going to negotiate for a new one, and they want more --- which the district would be happy to provide if the taxpayers would fund it.  After all, it was the taxpayers who voted down the agreement and for good reason. I keep wanting the union to get more involved with state advocacy since the state funding is the reason local tax is legit too high.

- i also suspect that means they'll be on the lookout for any mistakes i might make. So I'll hold myself to a high standard and probably get freaked out.

- we're also really truly going to implement a non-paper benefits & HR system, and that's going to take a ton of time, but be worth it in the end.  Yes, I said 'non-paper.'  Hey, at least paper doesn't get hacked - although I do remember my mom getting identity-thefted in the 2000s from some mail that got stolen-- so paper isn't entirely safe either.  At least our paperwork travels with a courier and his dog.

- we're changing some other stuff that we THINK will be better, but people hate change. 

-- There's also some secret stuff going on with 'restructuring' and a principal that has been out (and people aren't saying why, which means it's medical or administrative).  These things make me nervous.  Idk. I have some kinda trauma about the Big People fighting/disagreeing or something.  There's also a growing frustration between admin & The Board, to the point where admin are starting to shrug and give up. 

Scene:

• Post this Important Position!
• ok, what is the description and qualifications?
• didn't you see the announcement?
• ...you want me to extract it from this paragraph? is there anything more, like a salary?
• yes, and no.  The Board doesn't have any further info and it's their thing, but post it everywhere

One more topic:
- I'm quitting my stipend role as the homeless liaison because I bet someone has more time and energy to do it well. But i'll train with what i know.
- Same with food program.
- My heart is telling me 'you are trying to do things for other people but you need to be one of those people for right now.'   Since the depression is sort of dangerous, I accept simplifying my brain a bit.

--- HOWEVER.  The Side Project?  Someone important keeps throwing grant opps my way because they believe in the project.

I think my plan is this:  quit the other stuff, do the side project as well as I can, take care of self & family, and get my groove back when possible.

* an important person in the organization is myseriously out of office
* our walls are paperthin - we usually have the white noise machine on, but I can still hear the person directly thru the wall really clearly unless I wear my headphones and lock in. 
I try not to listen, but I hear what I hear.

Anywho I like that my neighbor has a regular, looooonnnnnng call with a mentor, and he gets to vent and ask advice.   That makes me happy.  I am less happy when he has to vent about stuff a lot, because I don't want things to be crazy here.

I think I had good foresight to outsource the 'community liaison' work and it's developing nicely into a program right about the time I'm realizing my burnout (again) -- I am running out of energy for caring about/helping other people, running out of creativity, and can alllllllmost hand the work off.  

As much as I might like to run this thing full time, I'm also dead inside right now.