For Love of Sea Creatures
[4 hours after the post I made earlier today]
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I feel like a total bitch lately. I feel like I should just "mind over matter" my hand hurting, "get over it" and move on with life. I feel like I should go back to doing all of my dishes and most of Paladin's dishes, making all of my food and some of his food, cleaning all of the floors myself, and so forth, and also earning money to support us and let him go on being depressed about how hard his lot in life is. God, how sick it makes me to support someone who can't even be happy about being supported! At least I loved being a house spouse! Christ!
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It is no wonder I feel like nobody can love me. I mean, listen to me. I'm spitting venom and hurt all over the place. And I'm trying not to do it where anyone can hear or see. Which is kinda untrue if I'm intending to post this to my journal after I finish writing it. I'm a bunch of crying contradictions.
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I'm squatting on my bed. My laptop sits supported by several boxes (one of paints and two of collectors things of Paladin's) and my keyboard is plugged into my laptop below. The whole computer set-up is on a wheeled desk-like thing next to my bed. At times I've used it with an office chair in a different part of the room. For now I have it beside the bed so I don't have to move my heat lamp around for work and for sleep. But it is kinda pointless because I can't use my computer very well with the heat lamp on where it is beside me because light severely bothers my eyes.
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I went downstairs briefly after working for an hour and a half. I found that Paladin is now awake and working on making me vegetable juice. He's only in the beginning phase of this. I didn't see any carrots yet peeled or celery yet washed. I've been up for over four hours now. Prior to this I drank a bottle of GT's Passionberry Bliss kombucha. That's $3.79 that I spent during the time that I earned about $25. Not bad when I look at it that way, and that is undoubtedly why so many people consider a daily cup of coffee for $4 plus a sandwich for $8 a fine idea. I think it is absurd.
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For a while I didn't earn more than $20 a day, so I couldn't have supported Paladin and I if we'd been drinking daily bottles of store-bought kombucha. Now I'm working on working more and eating less. I'm brewing my own kombucha too, but I have yet to master it well enough to drink a significant amount of it without it being overwhelming. I've been brewing kombucha-vinegar essentially.
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While I was downstairs in my brief less-than-a-minute visit I noticed the kombucha I'd started two days ago. You see, it is a several-stage process to bottle up kombucha. Firstly I need to prepare the tea and sugar for the kombucha to continue growing. This requires making the tea and letting it cool and also dissolving the sugar in hot water and letting it cool. Well, we did that two days ago. I was worried about it going bad so I added a little white vinegar to each yesterday. But seriously, I'm worried about it developing any bacteria it shouldn't, because if it does, it won't be safe for my kombucha and it'll either kill my S.C.O.B.Y. (symbiotic culture of bacteria & yeasts) or it'll produce bad brew that could make someone sick, or both.
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But because of my hand, I can't do anything about it. I need to ask for Paladin to do it. The half-gallon mason jars are too much for my wrists/hands to handle right now, much less when filled with water. Due to the open-cuts on my right hand I shouldn't handle the SCOBYs at all. And basically the whole process is moving about mason jars with or without fluid in them and handling the SCOBYs. So that means I have to ask him to do it and direct him, or I've just wasted a cup of sugar, two tablespoons of black tea and the effort to prepare them. Gah!
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And well, he's only just now gotten started on making me juice which takes him like an hour. Afterward he is always drained and tired and doesn't want to continue being in the kitchen and it is a wrestle just to get him to clean up right away. Why he won't clean as he goes along is baffling to me. If you can't manage to clean up as you go along, maybe you need sleep or emotional processing more than you or anybody else needs food, eh?
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I don't really agree with all of what I just wrote, but I feel very frustrated. I also noticed while I was down there the almonds that I started soaking yesterday because I want to mimic Dolphin's amazing fermented almond cheese. It tastes great and seems to agree well with my digestive system. But then I realized I'm not up for making it today, and I already need Paladin to do the kombucha and the juice. Gah!
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I'm so sick of my hand being injured. And I know it is my lack of connection to it, or my lack of doing something or other, which is preventing it from healing. It has to be. It was too minor of an injury to stick around this long if it weren't mostly in my head. It happened over three weeks ago, and it never even turned black and blue. No visible bruise. I hate invisible injuries because it is hard to take them seriously, even when you're the one feeling the pain. But then again, I don't really want a big blue patch on my hand that corresponds to how much it hurts, because that'd be rather ugly to behold.
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There is a visible bump if one looks very closely.
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Anyway, after I looked at the beginnings of the kombucha transfer, the soaking almonds on the counter, and the beginnings of juice being made I got really angry and came storming back up the stairs without much of a word to Paladin about any of it. I just asked him to rinse the almonds and put them in the fridge, affirmed that I want juice and left again. I feel bad about that. He's slaving away in the kitchen and I'm up here writing about my woes and misery. How messed up is that?
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I feel like a total bitch lately. I feel like I should just "mind over matter" my hand hurting, "get over it" and move on with life. I feel like I should go back to doing all of my dishes and most of Paladin's dishes, making all of my food and some of his food, cleaning all of the floors myself, and so forth, and also earning money to support us and let him go on being depressed about how hard his lot in life is. God, how sick it makes me to support someone who can't even be happy about being supported! At least I loved being a house spouse! Christ!
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It is no wonder I feel like nobody can love me. I mean, listen to me. I'm spitting venom and hurt all over the place. And I'm trying not to do it where anyone can hear or see. Which is kinda untrue if I'm intending to post this to my journal after I finish writing it. I'm a bunch of crying contradictions.
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Oryx left me a voicemail a while ago. I listened to the first 15 seconds where she said, "Have Paladin listen to this too, because it is for both of you." Then I turned it off because he was still asleep. I feel like waiting for us both to hear it just delays it happening for goodness knows how many hours. Why can't I just relay it to him when it makes sense to do so? I could have listened to it and then told him about it while he was peeling carrots. But as it is, I have not listened to it or stopped feeling annoyed about that introduction to the message.
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Nobody seems to get on my nerves like Oryx does. I guess that is why I needed her in my life, huh? A growth opportunity.
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Dolphin told me yesterday how happy she is we've become friends, how much it means to her to have someone accept her so fully. We were late to the Oneness Blessing as a result of her sharing this, but I didn't care about that. I did notice though, that I was the only one who seemed to be aware of the time.
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I'm kinda in love with Dolphin. It makes me nervous because Mermaid ended up leaving my life each time I got fairly attached to her. If I get too attached to Dolphin, will she too leave my life?
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[3.5 hours later]
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I put in another ninety minutes of work. I directed Paladin in brewing kombucha and starting some almond cheese fermenting. I smelled something that was giving me a headache during this process and went downstairs to my mom's apartment to investigate.
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I probably needed to go down to talk to her, and the smell was just an excuse my unconscious and higher self could contrive. Anyway, my mom said something that kinda startled me. She said, "Is it just coincidence that I visited LiveJournal today for the first time in months..."
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"Uh... I thought it had been years," I stammered, entirely caught off guard and furiously trying to recall what I posted earlier. Well, it is what it is. It doesn't seem like it could be coincidence, but I'm unsure as to how her knowing about these writings can help when she has stated that she can not relate to the emotional processing technique that has caused this burst of writing to come forth.
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I almost feel ready to reply Ocimum's letter now. I'm feel more integrated and less like a fragmented pile of distractions, worries and fears. But of course, now my back is saying "can we please quit this posture and lay down!?" and my eyeballs are like, "more monitor time? seriously?"
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[sighs melodramatically]
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It really is no wonder I'm ashamed of my own emotions. I'm such a mellow-dramatic wuss sometimes. I mean, I can barely handle it when other people are this way, so is it no surprise that I can't seem to handle my own feelings?
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I really do admire Dolphin. She thinks her uncontrollable feelings are a bane. But they're such a beautiful blessing to behold! She is so raw, rich in the authentic freedom that I crave. How can those who choose to be repressed understand that? I would have felt differently about her had it not been for all that Oryx revealed to me about myself...
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[hangs head in self-disapproval]
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I listened to Oryx's voicemail. She says the decision to stop treatment and to start it again was a positive thing. I'm glad.
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She had mentioned something about "someone who needs groceries and a roof over their head" as someone they'd like to help. I'd prefer to not quit my work, but Paladin has no work to quit, and I'd have a lot less work if I didn't have to feed him or worry about his messes. So I think. So I wonder if I can send Paladin to help them work on their projects and I can do my own thing for a while. It'd be scary at first, but in time it would undoubtedly help. I'd grow to appreciate Paladin more in his absence, and he'd grow to appreciate me more in mine.
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And Oryx and Hare and Rooster would get some of the help they need.
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It could work.