Elise Matthesen

 Past Me had a very good idea the other day, and it turns out that smoked fish (which was on sale at our grocery) is exactly the sort of Very Soft and yet Very Protein that Current Me is appreciating a lot right now.

Om nom. Thanks, Past Me. And thanks for the second bottle of limeade, too, which is extremely comforting right now.

Edited to add: 
Even more gratitude to Past Me, this time for having gotten ice cream, which was either going to be wonderful or terrible, in terms of dealing with the mouth pain.  It turns out to be wonderful, which is both useful in soothing the mouth and tremendously reassuring that the additional pain was in fact trigeminal neuralgia that was being triggered by the problem that got removed this morning. Current Me is gladdened and soothed and cautiously optimistic.

 I have been so damn lucky in my life.

Especially in the people I've met. You all are a pretty amazing bunch, and I'm grateful.

OK then. Onward.

thank you to you all
because you all took a hard day and improved it
improved it so much that it is shining now
i mean, i don't even have words for how much good you brought

thank you

the hard stuff is still hard,
but you all make coping with it so much more possible
because of kind words and
especially because of the good things you let me see through your descriptions

thank you

also a bunch of you all are hilarious as heck
and I really appreciate that too

<3 <3 <3

Bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese are my birthday treats this year. Om nom nom salmon on a bagel is so goooood. (Big thanks to Catherine Lundoff for making sure there was cream cheese when I had neglected to get some.)

Today got eaten by sleep again mostly, after a fruitless attempt at sleep last night, followed by work until I found enough sleepiness to try again. Well, work and a nice cold bath. It is too hot here, and my domicile is currently not air conditioned. I'm glad to have finally gotten some sleep. The good thing is that today I managed to get meds in me at the right times, so I have hopes that the rest of the week may go more smoothly. (The current format of my timing is that I sleep when I'm tired, and take meds when the schedule says I should, as much as I can manage that.)

And now I'm actually tired and also sleepy, so even though there are 7 small pendants already photographed and ready to go up, I am going to go to bed and see how that works. (I think it was the bagels and smoked salmon and cream cheese. They just make me feel good and safe and well-fed. Such a comfort food they are to me.)

Do you have comfort foods?

Edited to add: Oh, forgot to say, the perfume of the day was Leather Jacket from CB: I Hate Perfume. Like other CB:IHP scents, it does what it says on the tin, which is pretty cool for a water-based accord.

In another venue, someone asked what kept me going in difficult conversations about stuff that is hurting people and needs changing. Looking at my response to her, I realized I had just written a kind of thank you note. So here, this is for all the people who challenged me to do better.

"What helps me do that is remembering all the times I've been wrong on something and how long it took sometimes for people to get through to me. The ones who changed me profoundly were the ones who did not just pat me on the head for meaning well and give me all sorts of unearned slack, but who instead challenged me to think, to listen, to ponder what other people contributed and why they might think and feel that way, and to look at whether my reflex defense of a particular status quo was costing us in ways we rarely acknowledged. They made me uncomfortable and sometimes I got mad and thrashed around a lot and behaved in ways I wince about now, but their honesty and their insistence that if I applied myself, I could get up to speed on dealing with this stuff and start participating at a much deeper level, changed my life. I am forever grateful to them. Even the ones I was "chewing up nails and spitting out tacks" about back then. Maybe especially them, in fact. It's not the ones who put up with me who taught me. It's the ones who expected better of me, and left the invitation open for me to do the work and join the larger conversation."