I'm forever shit at comments, sorry / stressed out about my car
icon: "giving (two cartoon figures: one fills in a heart with red marker on its chest while the other watches. Then the other points at it and "...?" appears as a thought above it. The one with the heart on it smiles and glomp-hugs the other, who looks startled, then blushes and hugs back. The first one pulls away again and the heart has been copied onto the second one's chest. both smile. image repeats.)"
Well I lost my streak but I'm gonna try again because it was really good for me. I got a bunch of stuff posted that had been half-finished for a long time and that felt good. And 11 days is the longest streak I have had in a REALLY long time. But I remembered that part of why I don't post every day is that there's this horrible paradox where if nobody comments then I feel invisible, but whenever people comment and I don't reply I feel guilty. But I also want to read and reply on my flist and I usually don't have time for both.
So, often I don't post because I have built up too much guilt about not replying to comments. I'm just going to have to accept that I do this, and until I get enough programming knowledge to make an app (that doesn't suck) for reading and replying on LJ, I will just have to warn people: I suck at replies and am only slightly better at commenting on other people's posts. I wish I was better but it is a mental thing that I don't seem able to control. It's related to my ADHD -- because it reloads the page after every comment, each one feels like a context switch, and context switches wear my brain out SO BADLY.
My car worked for a good three days after the last examination before it went out. I have been taking lyft to the bus stop every day, and while I'm grateful that I can do this and that I know how to handle myself when I don't have enough money, it is very stressful. Worse is that Jeff -- my mechanic who I have been taking my cars to for a decade and a half -- is now semi-retired and I couldn't get in touch with him when I needed to move my car from where it had been sitting in a friend's carport.
So I asked for recommendations from locals and picked the nearest one and talked with them. They seemed decent so I had it towed to them. Then they did not check out the part I said was the problem, quoted me a price that was easily $70 over what it should have been, and informed me after the fact that they were gonna charge me $50 for glancing at my engine. I was furious, but felt helpless because I don't know that anywhere else would be better, and I was literally about to give them the go-ahead when Jeff finally texted and begged me to call him. I did, and he recommended me someone else and offered to pay for another tow (because he felt bad about being out of touch when I needed help), so now I'm waiting to hear back about that.
I feel a lot better with Jeff helping me find someone else to trust. And Jeff knows that my car is vulnerable to unethical mechanics because I have my politics clearly written on my car (literally, with paint), and he assured me that this new guy will treat me right (he referenced that the new guy had grown up in a very non-conservative part of Atlanta). He thought about something that I would be worried about and reassured me without me even having to ask.
When I thought I was going to have to find a new mechanic on my own, I felt just hopeless about it, and I realized fully how lucky I am to have a mechanic who listens to me, respects me, and treats me as a friend. Jeff is a straight cis white man over 50 who puts most white men (including young or gay or trans white men) to shame when it comes to respecting people. And Jeff has told me to call him if I am ever stranded and need a ride (and he means it). I feel so lucky to know him.