This is a painting I did in college

I really liked it

and I guess I have it to my mom

I just found it

not even vaguely protected

in the garage

luckily

I think the stuff that looks like scratches

is just filth

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

 this is a floor plan

Okay so she's out of the hospital she's doing really well she's taking her medicine

And

She's completely changed her mind about where she wants to live

There are a lot of details about it that I'm not going to go into

But for a variety of reasons she now does not want to live in the retirement community

She was dead set on an apartment

But then when she wasn't going to go to the retirement community she was trying to decide where she was going to go and I was like you know if you lived close to me it would be easier for me to check on you and it would be easier for me to make sure that you took your medicine and it would be easier for me to you know come over and maybe make you some food or something

Cuz I've been driving over to her house to work on cleaning up her s*** and it's only like 8 mi but it feels like it's a thousand miles and it takes me like 30 minutes to get over there and then sometimes coming home it takes me closer to 45 minutes cuz there's some traffic and it's just like Jesus you know this place she was wanting to move to was even further and I was like you know it's very far

So she came and looked at an apartment in my apartment complex and she was

Well let me just say the guy who showed us the apartment is the guy who works here that I really like I see him pretty frequently cuz he parks right in front of my apartment and you know I've been waving to him for years right He's really friendly he's really nice I really like him

And I felt like she was kind of borderline rude when he was showing us the apartment because she was kind of like you know when I was written apartments a one bedroom apartment was bigger than this

And you know she just did not like it I thought it was a super cute apartment but she thought it was really not good enough for her and she was making it clear that she did not like it

And you know I don't know it it she kind of embarrassed me

So then I was like you know look you clearly don't like that one would you like to look at some other apartments then she's like yeah okay

So there's this place kind of right around the corner from me and I'm always looking at it thinking man that looks really swanky

So blah blah blah I won't go into all the boring details but we went over there and we toured the apartment and she fell in love

It's a two bedroom two bath apartment it's like a 1070 square feet it's open concept it's got you know one of those kitchens that's basically in the middle of your living area which I personally don't like I like a separate kitchen I think those open concept things are kind of gross

But it's like you know a luxury apartment right

It's got a gym room downstairs and it's actually a pretty well stock gym I mean sometimes those places are kind of lame if you really analyze with the equipment but this was pretty well stocked really

And they've got like a little cafe thing that has one of those machines that makes different kind of espresso drinks you just push a button and it's basically the same kind of machine that Starbucks has so it's a really good quality drink that you get well that's in their little cafe thing you just get free drinks whenever you go in there

And they pick up your trash every day except Friday and Saturday

And ceilings are really tall it's got like exposed ductwork

One bathroom has a Roman soaking tub and the other one has like a step in shower that you don't have to step you know like over anything it's not in a tub it's just a you open the door and there's a shower it's got a walk-in closet in the master bedroom that's through the shower I mean through the bathroom we saw the model apartment the one that she's going to be getting hopefully is facing into garden with a fountain and trees and like a courtyard with benches and things

The main kitchen living room area has stained cement which is like one of my favorite flooring surfaces

The bedrooms have carpet and she was really pissed off that the apartment over here where I live had carpet in the bedrooms but it didn't really bother her that that one had carpet in the bedrooms so you know it's more expensive it's roughly the same size because the I mean it's bigger the one here was 900 ft² that one is 1,070 so it is a little bigger but it's not a ton bigger but it's you know it's nicer it's got amenities whatever

But she really wants it because she was trying you've got to apply online You can't like give them all your application stuff at the apartments You have to do it online which I think is a big pain in the ass

And she couldn't log on at home it was saying there was a virus

So

She called up there I mean she texted the woman we had talked to that evening or the next morning to tell her that she couldn't get on there and she didn't hear back from her and normally that would be the end of it she would be like oh they're not treating me like you know I don't know the God that the earth revolves around that she expects to be treated like

Normally that's the end

But she called up there and talked to the assistant manager and they said that if she came down there they would log into one of their computers and they would help her as much as she needed help and she told her she'd be there between 2:30 and 3:00 and she texted me and told me that she would you know be here before that and we would go over there and I was like there's no way she's going to be able to get here that fast and normally when she says she's going to be someplace she's like you know she doesn't leave her house until the time till like 10 minutes after the time she was supposed to be there and so she's however many minutes late it is that it takes to get to the place right so that would mean that she would you know get here at like I don't know a quarter to 4:00 or something but she got here at 2:45

She wants that apartment that she's never on time she's never on time and then we went over there and I mean that girl was so nice and she didn't get irritated or loser patients once it took us like almost 2 hours to fill out the forms and upload her proof of incomes and I don't think it should have taken that long that just seems really slow but whatever it took forever then she had to upload her driver's license and so I took a picture of her driver's license for her and emailed it to her and then she was trying to send it but it was she couldn't save it to anything and so I went and asked woman I'm like hey you know there was some stuff that was already preloaded in here that was stuff y'all had entered when she was here the other day I'm like is there any possible way that you can just upload the driver's license I knew you took a picture of a driver's license the other day and she's like well you know I need to take another picture cuz I got a scan it not Xerox it but but yeah if she puts something in that just one of the other things into that slot I can swap it out so we got that done and she is applied

And although it is what I would consider to be too expensive I mean she will get some use out of some of those amenities and it is really pretty

And it's still quite a bit cheaper than the house she was going to rent in the retirement community I mean actually the rent is cheaper than the rent was going to be for the house in the retirement community but then there was all this like buying into the community and having to give first and last month's rent and blah blah blah so although it's too expensive

I mean that's relative right

In LA when I was looking to see how much an apartment would be there they were very very expensive for like a shared room in a house

But to give you an example the apartment in my complex was two bedroom one bath and it was $1,248 a month all bills paid

Which is you know pretty good

And the floor in the living room and kitchen was some kind of I don't think it was actually limited I think it was actually some sort of a maybe it was laminate maybe it was linoleum I don't know it looked fairly convincingly like wood very dark wood and they hadn't swapped it out yet and he said if you're okay with this floor and we don't have to change out the floor they'd already changed out the carpet in the bedrooms if if you don't need us to change out this floor we'll take $150 off the rent looks nice and actually I think I prefer the dark would to the gray wood which is what the new would looks like like what they've got in the office it's kind of a medium gray it's not that pretty it's not bad it's all right but I like the dark wood better

And this other one it's two bedroom two bath and like I said it's got a lot of amenities blah blah blah it's 1,070 ft² and it's base rate is 1631 a month but then there are some other things that you get charged for and that adds up to being like $1,740 a month plus you pay all the utilities there isn't gas so it's just electric and water but I mean that's going to add up

But honestly I thought that the luxury apartments were more like 1500 for a one bedroom one bath so I mean I don't think it's price gougey I think it's fine I just think I would rather have the kind of quirky looking apartment for a lot less money

But she loves it she loves it and you know she can afford it and

I had spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to arrange things in the house that she was going to rent and then when she was looking at the apartment in my complex across the street in the other side I was like well it's smaller but the layout is similar so and it's not as much smaller as you would think because in that house there was a hallway that was 4 ft wide and it was the whole depth of the house and so all of that was you know space that you can't really use for anything cuz you can't put bookcases or anything like that in the hall it's not really wide enough for that so that becomes not really very usable space but it's still part of the square footage and then there was that back bathroom that was like had built-in bookcases as though you could store a lot of stuff in it but not really books or anything paper because it's a bathroom with the shower and whatnot so that was square footage but it was kind of you know like awkward so you know it was bigger

But with this apartment since it's an open concept it has a lot less usable wall space and you can't really I mean like actually the areas that you have you've got your kitchen but then the island comes way out into the room so you've got room for a table the model home had a table you got room for a dining table or kitchen table or whatever and you've got room for a seating area and the living room with like you know a sofa and a media state media console but you can't really start with a lot of bookcases and whatnot

So I had to really give it some thought and I mean I think I've got it all figured out and I was pitching it to her because the idea and what I've been telling her is you know for her whole life she's been telling herself and I think I said before as I'm cleaning up there are all these like you know affirmations and vision boards and whatever about how she wants everything to be beautiful and open and airy and clean and you know all this stuff but I mean she writes that down as her goal for herself that she wants to do but she doesn't manifest that she manifests you know a s*******

So you know I basically told her my idea for what I wanted to do and how I want to help her manifest this you know I want to help her get this thing that she's been saying not what she told me she wants or what she's been telling herself for like at least 40 years and probably more than that that she wants but you know that she's going to have to let go of some of this stuff because you cannot go into a place like that and put a bunch of stuff you know if you want it to be an open concept Air-y open and light and pretty and whatever You really have to not have a lot of stuff You can't have a bunch of you know bookcases and furniture line in the walls You just really have to keep it to a minimum and you know I pitched her bedroom design as kind of a salon kind of architectural digesty thing

With her bed turned she's got a twin bed right so it's not a giant bed and she's got room for a giant bed if she wants a giant bed but she doesn't she just wants the twin bed and I'm like okay well if we turn it sideways and push it against the wall then you can have pillows and stuff on the back and a skirt around it and it sort of looks like a sofa when you're not you know sleeping in it or whatever and then put the white bookcases along the walls behind it so it becomes like this you know built-in kind of bookshelves with books and her collections of objects and things like that and then she's got this giant mirror with a big gilded frame on it which is kind of hideously out of date in a way but you know if it's hung up on the wall so she can use it as a dressing mirror then it starts taking on kind of a salon you know like if you went to a fancy dress shop or millimeter shop or something and Paris or something you know so I think in that context it'll work and I'm like and since and then you can have your chair she's got this stuffed side chair kind of thing with an ottoman with this kind of light purpley flowers I don't know it's not my favorite but you know whatever and there's a thing in the garage that seems like it's a table but it apparently opens and you can store things in it like a cabinet and so I'm like you can have that over in the corner she's got that currently in her bedroom and then she's got these shorter white bookcases and I'm like those can go along this other wall and she can have pictures above it you know like an art wall and I'm like since you'll have your bed against the wall instead of sticking out into the room you'll have a big space in the middle and you can put you know a couple of tables maybe with tablecloths or you know something in the middle with some with like a vase of flowers and coffee table books and stuff and so she liked that idea and I'm like and in the living room

In that area she's got her she's got this zero gravity chair and I'm like will put your zero gravity chair and and she's got this antique ice cream table that's got like a black slate top I'm like we can put that next to the zero gravity chair so that you know if you're sitting in the chair you can work on your computer or you can have a drink and that'll be pretty and will you know look for a really cool lamp you know like stand up lamp

We'll have to get me some kind of chair to sit on so that I have some place comfortable to sit when I come to visit you and then maybe we'll have like a coffee table and then that's pretty much all the furniture in that area and then we'll have you know the walls that furniture will be out from the walls and the walls will be hung with you know paintings and stuff and then in the area by the kitchen in the model home it had a table and chairs but it was a little bit big for the space you know and she's got three chairs that are those classic design navy chairs from the '40s I mean reproductions of that not actual antiques from the '40s

I'm like so I'm thinking around table with a glass top so that it doesn't take up as much visual space and then by the door in the model home they had like a big shelving unit bookcase kind of thing I'm like but I'm not thinking I'm not thinking that I'm thinking more like a buffet against the wall so there's a thing there that you know when you come in you can put your keys on top of it and if there are things that you need to you know take in and out like I don't know whatever they'll be a cabinet that you put things in and close the doors so there's no visible clutter

So I just kind of pitched the whole idea of this apartment and then the second bedroom you know we can set it up with her sewing machine and that kind of stuff but then it's probably realistically going to kind of be a junk room because it just probably is going to be although I have gotten her to commit to getting a storage at least initially because there's just not going to be any way that we can go through all this stuff in the amount of time that we have so whatever stuff that she can't bear to be parted with you know it's just going to have to go into a storage until we can figure something out

Because the idea is that when this place becomes available we move the stuff in that she's going to have in there and then you know she can get in there and she can live with it and feel you know how it is and if there's some stuff that she needs or whatever then we can figure that out but not move all the stuff she has to the new place just move the stuff that's going to go to be her usable stuff so that she can feel you know what it's like to be in the open airy place and I think that will help her to detach herself some from all the other things and you know I mean I'm not saying that it's not going to backslide at all but she really seems to have bought into this idea you know and I'm really hopeful that I can accomplish all this

Wow that took me a really long time this might be really long I haven't any idea

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

stuff happened

I will tell you

but for now

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

So I've been mostly going through this room that's jam-packed with stuff

At least the last few days that's mostly what I've been doing

And all around the house as I pick up things off the floor I'm finding these notes and vision boards and things that say I want everything to be clean and open and airy and beautiful and you know the exact opposite of what she manifests

So I'm going through this room that when she let me in there I asked her what it was and she said who the f*** knows

While she's in the hospital she gave me these rules about which rooms I'm not to touch

Basically all the rooms she's been working in so the kitchen table area and the hold in and her whole bedroom I can't touch anything in those rooms

But the room that she let me in that she doesn't know what it's in that's completely full like it's difficult for me to go through things because it's difficult for me to move anything to another spot and not trap myself That's how full it is

I'm going through things and you know I'm not supposed to throw anything away right unless it's obviously trash and what's obviously trash is somewhat up for debate so that's part of the reason why that room I can work in cuz she doesn't know what's in there and she doesn't really care about it she probably hasn't looked at anything in that room for at least 12 years

And so from a certain standpoint you would say well that's all garbage throw it away but in fact it's it's not really all garbage there's you know a lot of artwork that's where she put the stuff from Edith for me that she said for 15 or 20 years that she's never told me she had

She also has a lot of art supplies

And a lot of those are dried up or whatever and so they're easier to throw away but she has all these containers I mean some of them are boxes and some of them are those plastic totes of various sizes full of fabric I mean like the whole middle of the room the thing that's blocking everything is all these boxes of fabric

And I'm like I'm probably going to have to move this fabric out of here so that I can get the things but I'm kind of trying to go through it and periodically I have to take a break from it and I'm talked to her on the phone a lot so I'm not saying that I'm making the most productive use of my time that I could you know if I was an overlord standing over myself I would say you are not working as hard as you could be but I'm doing the best that I can

So as I'm looking at these boxes of fabric one of them has just been transported from place to place it's from the mid-80s when she was going to make some fabric dolls right and so it has some patterns and it has some stuffing material and it has some things that are you know technically not garbage but you know I'm trying to reduce the amount of stuff because she has to look at every piece of garbage and you know she says oh I'm not going to keep all this fabric but there's literally too metric tons of fabric okay maybe not literally but it feels that way

So I'm like she's not going to make these dolls she wasn't even willing to pull out her sewing machine to alter a jacket that I had bought that just needed you know the sleeves to be the armhole to be widened a little bit or whatever you know I mean she's she's not going to do that she says she's going to sew things but she's not going to sew dolls and it's not like they were you know special patterns or whatever and I just I just do that all the way

And then I found another box that said white burlap and it's full of white burlap that I'm pretty sure she was using to cover things in her last studio so that's been several years ago and when she thought we might have to cover some things for the open studio she bought a whole bunch of white linen

She ordered it through the mail she didn't open it or bring it to the studio but she did buy it

So I'm looking at this box of burlap and it's not new it's you know been hanging in place for years so it's dusty and I mean yes technically burlap is washable but it doesn't look good after you wash it so you know if you're going to use it for a decorative purpose it really needs to be new crisp burlap once you wash it it's good for you know pet bedding or something but it's not good for anything decorative and when she thought she was going to need covering she didn't go and get the burlap from the other room she ordered more linen so I figured well the linen replaces the burlap so I threw that away

And there's a box that says couch covers and I opened it because I thought oh well that's great because couch covers are specific to the couch and we don't have a couch so that ought to be pretty obviously trash but the problem is that it isn't actually couch covers it's material that you could put over couches not like upholstery material but like you know woven fabric like I don't know blankety kind of stuff and it's pretty it's really pretty and so I looked at it and I'm like oh I can't throw that away but she doesn't want to live in a place with carpet or drapery because that leads to allergies and breathing problems she doesn't have a couch she doesn't have a plan to buy a couch so what would this stuff be used for it doesn't really have a purpose right so it's pretty but it doesn't have a purpose but if I look at it and go oh that's pretty I can't throw it away I think she'll look at it and say oh I can't part with that

So I think I'm going to sneak it out and take it and donate it somewhere I mean I guess I don't have to sneak it right now but she's coming home from the hospital today so I mean that's what this is like for me it's like you know it's either like throw away obvious trash which theoretically is not even like a piece of paper that has something written on it could be thrown away

I found these receipts when I was trying to clean out a Chester drawers that I thought Meredith might want I found these receipts for yard work and I thought well surely those are trash but I ask her and she's like no you have to save all of those here's a clip you can as you find them you can clip them all together

And it's like you know she's not going to be deducting her yard work she doesn't need those receipts for that it doesn't have his information on it it's just like a little generic receipt from a receipt book that you buy it like the drugstore or something so I ask her I'm like why am I saving these and she's like well we're not taking them with us they'll be thrown away before we leave and it's like so why do I have to take the time to pick them up one by one and put them into a pile and put a clip on them I don't understand

And on the one hand I feel like I should be helping her and helping her would constitute tough love where I'm getting rid of things that she may or may not want to get rid of and the most obvious place to do that is with things that she doesn't know what they are and doesn't care and isn't going to miss them but like when I was taking her I would take her a box of things and say I'm pretty sure this is all either garbage or donate just look at it real quick and see

And then I see those things sitting around in here like none of them were something we could get rid of even though they were all kind of old and ugly and things that I would have thrown away I really would have thrown away

So I don't know

I feel like if what I'm trying to do is help her get to her goal not what she's told me or goal is but what she's told herself over and over and over again for you know 40 or 50 years what her goal is I'm going to have to kind of not do what she wants me to do

And on the one hand I feel kind of proud of that but on the other hand I feel kind of guilty about that so it's it's weird

Anyway she's getting out of the hospital today and I ask her if she wanted me to come and pick her up and she's like no I'll take a taxi home you just do what you're doing so

But I've had a hard time getting going today and the cat was very unhappy cuz she's been gone for a long time and he needed attention and had to check the fly traps I set yesterday with wine

Because she still insists on having compost actually on her dining table she's like oh I put in a container with a lid on it and something on the lid so but if it's a problem you can take it out and put it in the compost outside That's like Jesus

anyway I love you

She's doing pretty well

As soon as her blood is between 2 and 2.5

they'll let her leave

it was 1.4 today

but she's breathing room air

and

the PT walked her around the nurses station

and her oxygen levels were at 100%

she doesn't take her pills

I have to be pill monitor

it rained really hard today

Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

She's in the hospital

seem like the same thing as before

but

I caught it sooner

she's not taking her water pills

she's got fluid in her lungs

her oxygenation is bad

not sure how long this time

at least through end of day tomorrow

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

So this morning I called my mother and told her that I couldn't come today

Partly because my knee hurt really bad but then mostly because I just was having kind of a depression and I felt like if I went that was going to spiral a lot of control and I just needed the day off

But she sounded really out of breath when I talked to her and I asked her how she was doing and she said she was feeling really tired she had slept 12 hours but she's felt really tired and she's been really tired but I've been really tired too and so that hasn't really registered as you know anything in particular

But the shortness of breath made me ask her if she was low on oxygen cuz she sleeps with the condenser every night

Because when she was in the hospital before and it's been about a year and a half now her oxygen would go way down when she would sleep so she's been sleeping all this time with a condenser

So she checked her oxygen and it was like 80 which is bad really really bad so I'm like go get back on the oxygen right now

So she did and it went up to like 96 or 97 pretty quickly

And I'm like I think you need to spend today not doing anything just you know chill sitting the chair put the cat stay on the oxygen

And I checked back in with her like I don't know an hour and a half 2 hours later and she said she was feeling okay but anytime that she got off the oxygen to go to the bathroom or get something to drink or whatever her oxygen levels would drop again really fast

So I'm like well you know and this is early in the day and I'm like okay well you know stay on the oxygen and she's like well you know it irritates my nose if I have the oxygen on for too long blah blah blah and I'm like well can you just hold it by your nose so that you can breathe oxygen but it's not in your nose and she's like oh yeah okay I guess I can do that

So then I check back in with her like another hour and a half 2 hours later and it was like the same story and I'm like look do you think maybe you should call the doctor

And she really didn't want to and I'm like well you know but look that can't be so I had her take her blood pressure and her blood pressure was really really low it was like well she took it like three times and one time it was like 80 over 50 one time it was 89 over 49 maybe I don't know but it was it was like not so low that it's like you need to be hospitalized immediately but like low enough that it was like there's a problem that you might need attention for and I was asking her about she took her blood pressure medication in the morning cuz she took her blood pressure and it was like 135 over something 80 maybe but I mean maybe she went back to sleep and then got up and took it again or maybe that medicine is too strong I don't know but her blood pressure was low and her oxygen levels were low and I'm like please call your doctor

So she called the doctor that gave her the oxygen and he's asleep doctor He's not a cardiologist He's not her primary care physician He's a sleep doctor but he's the one that prescribed the oxygen so okay whatever

So she calls him she doesn't get him she gets his nurse and she's like well you you probably be fine was what my mother told me first then with some more prodding apparently the nurse said you should go to urgent care and get checked and my mom's like well I can't go to urgent care because I can't take the condenser with me and if I'm off the oxygen for just a few minutes then my oxygen drops and then I'm not safe to drive and so the nurse was like well you know I guess just stay on the oxygen and sounds like you're doing the right thing and if you have any more trouble the doctors will be on call so just call this number and somebody will call you back

And I'm like well it's a doctor calling you back now and she's like no and I'm like well why not and she's like why talk to the nurse and I'm like okay but the nurse is like well I don't know I guess you're doing the right thing call back if you have any additional problem I'm like what additional problem I'm like you say that the thing that you're most afraid of is that your brain will get damaged but low oxygen is a thing that can damage your brain so you're just going to go to sleep like that and hope it all works out I'm like can you please call your regular primary care doctor and let her know what's going on with your oxygen levels and your blood pressure

So she's like yeah okay

And then she's like okay she told me to call an ambulance and go to Methodist

So then I'm texting her like every 20 minutes are you okay how are you doing You know if you call the ambulance yet

And like an hour and a half later she calls the ambulance cuz she's got a pack or purse and she's got a set stuff out for the cat and she's got to you know get things arranged and make sure she has everything but you know every couple minutes she's got to stop and get more oxygen and maybe she was thinking about not doing it I don't know but I just kept texting her like every 20 minutes asking her how she was doing so finally she went and she texted me she said the emergency room and she's patient number five and I figured well that was good she was triaged as number five she definitely wasn't you know like imminently expiring so they had taken an EKG and they took blood and they were going to take a chest x-ray and she was on oxygen and they had her in the hall and she wasn't real happy about being in the hall and I'm like it's a place full of covid and she's like no so if they had her in the hall not taking up a ICU bed then they must have thought she was stable enough not to need an ICU bed so that's good I figure but they were going to keep her overnight they weren't going to have her blood test results back for a couple hours and they hadn't done the chest x-ray yet so they were going to keep her overnight for observation

So I had a very stressful day and I feel as though I strong arm to my mother into getting medical attention and

So I guess

I guess I don't want her to die on her sleep

And I mean I think that actually dying in your sleep is kind of the goal

I mean I always kind of picture my perfect way to go as being kind of nodding off in a sunny window while I'm reading a book or something

And maybe she would have done that

And maybe I should have left well enough alone but I couldn't

Anyway

I'm pretty exhausted I'm going to bed

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

i want to use this for any future "official" pictures of me

i am low key obsessed with

what this kid is trying to be

for the booth camera

and

she's like four

or maybe five

not entirely sure

 

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I have no recollection of this

Edith brought over two boxes which is mostly my grand grand's old sheet music

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with that My mom says she may have had it like 15 years but she didn't tell me

But it did contain this

I think I might have painted this from a photo from Haarlem

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I cut my hair

it had grown about 8" since I cut it last year

and it was bugging me

so I cut about 6"-7" off

it's even-ish

but the curl structure is pretty forgiving

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

 goodnight sweetheart

i love you very much

*kiss*

this are some college graduation pictures

so like dec 91 or may 92

I don't remember when I walked

I'm super exhausted

I'm going to bed

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

I'm sorry

I got drunk and fell asleep without telling you I love you

I do

Very much

I dreamed I was in college

and I decided not to go to class

I needed a mental health day, I said

I went to some dark room where you sit on the floor and they show movies or something

Some girl came in

there were a bunch of us sitting on the floor

she had samples of some new kind of candy

it was these little hard cases

shaped like bugs

and you open them and take out pieces of the bug

the texture is between gummies and jellies

fruit flavored

delicious

these are really great, I said

then

there's a guy

who I don't think I was dating or anything

but we were definitely more than friends

and he had this house

it was smaller than normal

like a mobile home

kind of

but also

kind of like a toy house

plastic

and he wanted me to buy it

because he loved it, but couldn't keep it

and if I bought it

he'd still kind of have it

Nope

While I was writing that in fact

I got an email saying I was accepted

So I have officially filed my 2021 tax return

Yay me

That's my first time e-filing

I had to pay money though

I didn't like that but I wasn't sure what to do about the insurance credit thing

And I wasn't sure about a couple other things

I didn't want to have to read like the whole book and watch a bunch of videos so I figured I would just do the e-filing thing

And it was supposed to be free but apparently if you if you don't have a W-2 it isn't free

So whatever it's done now I don't have to worry about it

Well that may not be true it says it takes 24 to 48 hours to tell if the IRS accepted your return

And they want you to eat file so it's not like they're going to throw it out willy-nilly it's not like you know voting

But you have to put your they're like you need to put your AGI number from your 2020 tax return so they can identify you

And I'm like what the f*** is an AGI number what the f*** is an AGI number and I found my 2020 tax return it was exactly where I thought it was so that was awesome so that took no time to find and all the information that I needed to file the 2021 return I had where I knew where it was so that didn't take very long to find

I had to look a little harder for the 1095-A because that doesn't look different so I had all that important papers together but I didn't find I didn't catch that one on the first pass so I was like okay well I don't have that I need that

But AGI I'm like okay I filled it out manually and sent it in so it's not going to have any kind of like special technical number or whatever well when I looked it up AGI is adjusted gross income so I felt pretty stupid I guess I'm still not really used to acronyms for every single f****** thing

But of course they gave you the number of digits to write the rounded number and I didn't write the rounded number I did a number with a decimal place and cent

So then I had an existential crisis about which one I should put since I couldn't type in the number that was actually on the form I sent in should I type in the rounded number which is the number of digits they gave me or should I type in the number that I actually put and it just didn't have enough spaces for the last two digits and I don't know which is the right answer but I decided to type in the number I actually put and it just didn't take the last two digits so that maybe wrong in which case I guess they could theoretically throw out my return but I suspect they will not

But perhaps that would not have been a complicated question for most people perhaps that would have been easy and they would have just known what to do I don't know

Anyway I'm very happy to be through with that and not have it weighing over my head

I have to do taxes today

every time I woke up

and even now

I have 

here's my budget, here's my budget, heeere's my budget running through my head

I was gonna file for an extension because I'm in the middle of this and I can't deal

but I got an email yesterday that said if I didn't file then my government supported insurance bill might go up to full price

and they made it sound like

now mutherf*cker

so, whatever

I don't want to chance it

the whole point is

I can't afford it

And again

I woke up at midnight

I woke up  now

i have no idea what the NO spoon is about

i threw it away

i assume it had something toxic on it

but

if it's not safe to use

it was in a cabinet

not with other spoons

i also found that one of the little pieces of paper i found

that i of course looked at brfore i threw away

had

leave this here

written on it

i don't know if it was the random paper that was supposed to stay there

or something next to the paper

or

what

but it was too late

i didn't know where it was

and

i don't know what it was next to

i threw it away

i love you very much sweetheart

goodnight

goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

pastel of me age about 4

goodnight sweethert, i love you very much

I thought about it

And my dad did kind of abandon me

After I moved out

But that was more like I had abandoned him and he just wouldn't get over it and

So I don't know if it was fair to say that my mother's dynamic was more damaging

I do think that's correct but I think I made it sound like my father was better than it was

Also in fairness I think you've had plenty of opportunities to see me not be fun so I didn't mean to make it sound like you just kept me around for your entertainment so if that's what it sounded like then I'm sorry that wasn't right

I understand that there's a give and take that needs to exist between people in a relationship and that it isn't right for me to be just quiet off the radar for days at a time

But I have this kind of in grained resistance to the idea that I have to be the one to always be entertaining people and that that's all just expected of me and when I'm not completely in my right mind it's really easy for me to be a little hair trigger about that

Which starts this whole negative cascade which I can't believe you haven't witnessed before although this may be different or worse in some ways and certainly the fact that we haven't seen each other in so long makes things a little strange and other ways as well

So I'm sorry that I'm being a bad girlfriend

It's not that I don't care about being a good girlfriend

It's just some sort of personal version of resting b**** face or something hormones or personality change or I don't know what's wrong with me

Anyway all this is just to say good morning I guess

I love you

I don't find this kind of conversation fun

So I have a hard time imagining that you want a lot of this

I did not sleep well

I overslept after I finally got to sleep

And now I'm running behind

I have a milk recommendation

Good karma unsweetened flax milk plus protein is really good

In coffee I mean I don't know how it is just drunk as a glass of milk cuz ick I never do that

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

it's been kind of a rollercoaster

the last couple of days

and 

i guess i didn't say goodnight this morning when i went to bed

i did dream about you

but i don't remember what i dreamed

you may want to know what's been going on

but

i just don't feel like going through it all again

i love you very much sweetheart

goodnight

so, i haven't been in her house for years

and she had cleaned it out a bunch before bob came home

because she expected social workers

or health care workers might be through

and she didn't want to get pegged as non compos mentis (sp?)

and she keeps talking about how she's "getting rid of stuff"

but it was pretty full

and her "no furniture"

3 beds

5 chest of drawers

a zero gravity recliner

an arm chair with ottoman

2 drop leaf tables

a dining table

2 desks

an iron baby crib/bed/thingy (recently acquired)

a high chair (not from me)

a strangely out of place thin table (maybe entry or sofa table)

3 dining/side chairs

a fancy office chair

like 6 filing cabinets

a weird modular connected wrap around the room bookcase

and so so so many bookcases

white laminate, tall and short

folding, wood and metal

metal restaurant type shelving, white and silver, rolling and stationary

wood with glass blocks

she has no working lights

she had them all switched to florescent years ago

they have burned out, she has no new bulbs

how do you get around when the sun is not out

i use my phone as a flashlight

i don't want to talk about the kitchen

but she did ask me

in all seriousness

if i have dishes i want to donate

do i have to wash them

i sort of wish i had never been born

i have to go to sleep

i am super exhausted

goodnight sweetheart

i love you very much

The weird thing is

Although it's been a few years since I've been in her house

I remember there being a lot of furniture but I don't really remember seeing very many bookcases

Now there were some rooms she didn't really let me in so maybe those are full bookcases

Maybe she bought a lot more bookcases

Or maybe she just pulled the number 20 out of her ass I don't know

Also when I was asking her about things like sofas and chairs I know she had those things but now she says she doesn't so I wonder what happened to them or if she just doesn't remember that she has them

I find that she's not a very reliable witness and so I'm just really kind of wondering

What I'm going to see tomorrow

Not really looking forward to it

The closing on my mom's house is Friday

I'm going to her house tomorrow

to help her decide on what furniture goes to the new place

at least that's what I think I'm doing

she says most of her furniture is bookcases

she says she has 20 big ones

and 9 small ones

so

that may be true

or it may not

but

she doesn't need 29 bookcases

every wall doesn't need to be covered with bookcases

I had a bad headache since I woke up today

I'm going back to bed in a few minutes

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

goodnight sweetheart

I love you

bunches💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋