General Update
I've continued to be a mess. No surprise there I suppose.
My neck and shoulder continue to be in pain. This morning, though, it was improved enough that when I woke up I was able to roll over and lie on my stomach for a while. That's been mostly out of the question for about two weeks, so that's a relief.
I tried to go to a walk-in clinic on Tuesday, but the two that I went to did not have walk-in hours that day, and I gave up. It was nice to be called "ma'am" at the second one at least.
On Wednesday, there was a trans and allies night at a local brewery, Malty National, that Miriam and I talked about going to. We ended up not staying long because of Covid exposure, and I've been having a really hard time since then. I wrote:
"Miriam and I got to the trans and allies event yesterday and only stayed for 10 minutes or so because even though the building wasn't very crowded yet, C0₂ levels were already pretty high. High C0₂ levels indicate poor ventilation, and are a proxy for one risk factor for Covid transmission. I bumped into someone I know from the online group who invited me to join them for pizza (which I couldn't eat because of the respirator), but I declined and went home with Miriam. And then I intended to be in the online meeting for the trans group on Wednesday, but I was too distracted and/or distressed and missed it.
I'm having a really hard time with this. I don't know how many more years of this I can deal with. I don't know what else to do. I'm sad and lonely."
I'm still having a really hard time with this, three days later. That, on top of being sick and being in pain have really destroyed what regularity I'd managed to find in my schedule with exercising and managing my food better. It's really hard for me to feel like anything is really worth doing in the abstract long term.
That said, I'm working on trying to get a CV done to either submit for academic library/archives jobs or to construct resumes from as necessary. If I get it done, I'm going to order some pizza for myself, because at least immediate tangible rewards feel somewhat motivating.
I do rather like the picture of myself I took when I got a little dressed up to go out, ane before I had to put a big ugly respirator on my face. This is the ear I'm going to get a helix piercing on, as soon as my mental health is good enough to manage taking care of it.
Yesterday, I was having something like a panic attack in the morning. I wrote:
"My brain is a mess lately.
This morning, a combination of two things are in there. 1: I have to get out of bed to take care of animals even if taking care of myself doesn't matter. 2: What if something happens to Miriam (who is going to a job-related thing) and she's just gone without me even getting a chance to see her again, like my dad. I was in tears at the door as she was leaving, asking her to please be safe as though she's going to visit a war zone instead of driving across town to the university."
Today, though, with the pain reduced and the chaos in my brain a bit more under control, I'm going to write about my ideas for my upcoming name change.