Be the change you want to see.

Fri, 13 Dec 2019 00:00:54 GMT

Back to therapy today, because I have been so frustrated with the psychotherapist no wait psychiatrist at Kaiser and her b******* unhelpful attitude. We talked about that for a bit, and then Laura also had some specific and concrete suggestions for things I can do to help my organization, she suggested an executive functioning coach, which I did not know that was a thing. She also said I should be able to self-refer within Kaiser for the mental health department. Or to complain or appeal the decision to not give me further testing for ADHD. She said there is wellness coaching available at Kaiser which should be for free and that the wellness coaching is CBT oriented and happens by way of the telephone. She also thought that doing some kind of brain training might be useful and mentioned biofeedback as a possibility? Especially if I don't want to try and go on to medication for the ADHD.

She also suggested that I might find it easier to stay engaged in writing, by using different writing modes. Which I already do, for example right now I'm using speech to text, occasionally I will hand write things, and I'll use my phone, or the laptop depending on circumstances. She recommended something called snowflake. Which I'm going to have to look up, but it sounded vaguely familiar and like it might prove useful especially for outlining and organizing ideas.

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Intimacy part 5 of n

Fri, 25 Jan 2019 21:32:53 GMT

There's a YouTube channel called sexplanations (good job, voice to text spellchecker!) Dr Lindsay Doe does it.

She just released a video called sexual frequency, and I disagree with her underlying premise for the entire video. She seems to be taking it as given that's people will use sex to reward behavior that they want see more of. I have a problem with this and have since I was 18 and my college boyfriend offered to bribe me with unreciprocated orgasms, for every pound of weight that I lost. I was offended then, but didn't have the experience are the words to express that nor did I have the confidence.

I mean to give dr. Doe the benefit of the doubt, it might be that she was using that behavioral reinforcement model and using b******* just as how to explain behavioral reinforcement. (I think it's hilarious the voice to text censored BJ). Okay so the question for me becomes: is it ethical to use sexual behavior in the process of training other behaviors. I'm feeling like there is a ton of really sketchy s*** about that idea. And there's so much complicated business around sexual relationships and power balance and imbalance and peer pressure or pressure from your spouse or significant other.

Time to make a embarrassing confession, or if not embarrassing perhaps it's shameful. part of the problem I have with this idea of offering sexual behavior to motivate other kinds of behavior is that I have no such leverage like that in any relationships in my life at the moment. I have nobody for whom I could offer sex in that vein, also nobody who would offer sex to motivate me to do something. I have complicated feelings about this. This kind of power to influence *might* have been mine in the past, but I don't remember ever working like this with someone, and this still feels sketchy and even exploitative to me, unless negotiated thoughtfully.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm more inclined to believe this kind of a dynamic would be effective and enjoyable for both parties in more of a BDSM flavor dynamic. Where one partner does what the other partner pleases, or does what they say. Because that's what the two folks have agreed upon. A lot of BDSM seems to be about playing with and in and around power over, power with, choices and decisions.

In the past I have been pressured to have sex, and I have also pressured other people to have sex. I feel like the way dr. Doe explains her "sex as a motivational tool", could easily fall into the pattern of sex being had under pressure, and that's where I get uncomfortable these days and also wanting to talk about it (instead of suffering in silence without the vocabulary to express what I was feeling).

To start with, the video seems to start with the assumption that women, or the blowjob givers, have all the power of who gets to have the sex. In some sexual relationships I'm sure that's the case, but the "women as gatekeeper of sex" myth is one foundations of the toxic culture of the "MRA's" and "incels", and personally I don't wanna give that idea *any* boost or traction.

It would have been better, in my opinion, and more egalitarian, to use a euphemism like "going down" or the non gender specific "oral sex" or "mouth to genital contact" both of which she did use... but using that consistently. It would make the video more inclusive of lgbtq folks too.

By modeling the premise of using blowjobs to, for example, get someone to wash the dishes, it's... Like... Mixing the streams. Like, doing chores and getting motivated through rewards is... Fine? I guess? You're an adult. Take care of yourself and your business. If you are a grown ass adult you should know that Shit Gotta Get Done, and not require bribery.

Or Maybe it's the kind of bribery I object to. I definitely have rewarded myself for finishing projects or tasks with food, or with an outing, or with quiet time with the book. I don't have a problem with rewards per se, especially for motivation.

Bribery blowjobs just seem... Cheap, I guess? But also ripe for onesidedness, manipulation, and abuse. "I don't feel like doing my share of the chores, so what? No blowjob? I don't care... Now I guess YOU have to do the dishes, haha."

I don't know if I'm making myself clear.
*Pulling at hair*

See, the sex part of a relationship already has so much potential to hurt and harm people, and she's talking about "slurping the gherkin" like it's both silly and the ultimate answer to everyone's I don't wannas.

This framework... I'm just realizing has a dual problematic underlying assumption: not just the one of the b****** giver in a position of being the gatekeeper of sex, and also being the person who is the project manager for taking care of the household. There's an excellent essay which if I can find I'll try to link here later, about the invisible labor that goes into being the project manager of a household. And why so many women and femmes get burned out about it. It's an unequal load that we don't talk enough about.

Like I usually love the videos doctor doe makes for sexplanations, but this particular video just leaves such a sour taste in my mouth.

Can you help unsnarl this or find some more clarity?

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there's problems with the cats.

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 07:32:11 GMT

To begin with, my big tabby Otter has now manifested with Diabetes. we're having to control his food portions, no more free feeding, and on top of doing sub-q fluids to support his potassium levels we started four days ago giving him twice daily insulin injections.

I'm okay with needles, I've had enough of them in my life even aside from the tattoos.
Jeff is surprisingly okay with them considering he hasn't had to do needle stuff to himself ever.

But Tribble, my calico. She's peeing and pooping outside of the box. Tonight was the second time in a week that ONE of them peed the guest bed.

Jeff's convinced that it's her who's doing all the peeing. but I think that now we know Otter has Diabetes that he might have had occasions of muscle weakness and maybe some of the puddles have been his. The only reason that's important is that he, Jeff, has said now on three occasions that if we (or I) can't solve the cats peeing and pooping outside the box and in various places around the house that she'll have to go, or be sequestered, or something.

That would be intolerable to me, and if I wasn't trying to write this and get it out of my head to where I can problemsolve, I feel like I would be frozen from some combination of all the feelings that thinking about that wants me to feel.

If I'm writing, I can hold on to the feelings and keep myself cerebral instead of what? exploding? imploding? borrowing trouble anyway.

Problemsolving can do some damn thing to help.

my current theory that something makes her feel unsafe in the litterbox which is why she poops in corners of the room. the peeing i do not know.

* one thing I'm going to do to collect information is get with my Facebook cat owners/peeps and ask to have conversation with any who have experience with cats doing this.

* another thing I'm doing is getting with a cat behaviorist who I think will have a variety of things of advice to say. I fuckin hope so, it's going to be expensive, but at least she's local and won't charge me to travel.

* a third thing I'm going to do is some yoga. my body is tense and hurts. And get in the hot tub too, because my therapist had to cancel our massages this time.

It would be real easy to spiral about how lucky I am how privileged and stuff. I'm trying to not. Obviously... but yeah. This is overwhelming and I'm not good at this kind of project-management, where I'm emotionally involved.

okay. that;s all i have for right now.

writing is going okay just it's interrupted tonight. which, dammit, I almost had a handle on the current chapter.

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Election 2018 (2/2) the downside of that polling place

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 21:55:22 GMT

and I swear I am going to actually share this information with the county polling officers.

...for those who don't know, both other times I've volunteered at a polling station: I received, at the end of the day, forms to fill out about the other folks I volunteered with. Feedback forms. They normally get filed into the same envelope that holds the voter registration forms, any forms for people who are interested in applying to be pollworkers themselves... and maybe one other form? I think the purple/lavender form for voters to log complaints/suggestions.

Okay, that said, yesterday working with P. was bad enough that I was *looking for those feedback forms* and never found them. nor did I get any response from P when I asked her "do we have the pollworker feedback forms?" beyond a blink, a short stare, and then looking away from me.

P was the "precinct inspector" which means that she's supposed to be the most knowledgeable/experienced person volunteering, which by extension I've always figured, means they're the person who can answer questions or will take on the responsibility of making sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.

the *least offensive* of my complaints about P is that she really didn't know her stuff. And she didn't make the effort to do any of the research that would have brought the answers up. Like OH look the thing up in the binder that's PROVIDED FOR POLLWORKERS that has all the protocols, check lists, manuals and handbooks.

okay. so now I'm getting pissed off remembering this, and I'm gonna just make a list.

Our polling station was at the local high school, and for the first time, I had teenagers working along with me behind the table. They were good eggs, all three of them. I feel bad that I can't remember the name of the third boy, the first two were Ben and Mateo. (Oh i know why I remember their names, I made their nametags for them.)

okay so these boys take to the necessary record keeping like ducks to water. They were SO polite and just kind??? to everyone and they were just ON IT. You know?

Here's some of the bologna P. was putting into the world. (I'm a writer and I couldn't make this shit up)

she tells each of the boys, repeatedly, stories about serial killers. One I heard her tell at least twice about how sensitive Ted Bundy was, how horrifically physically abusive his parents and grandparents were in EXPLICIT DETAIL
she's talking about other serial killers and how she's convinced that as a self taught researcher, she could heal them.
she starts digging into the Stanford rapist story and retelling it in all its gory details including the shittiness of the rapist's dad trying to argue he shouldn't have to register as a sex offender, to the degree that I had to say out loud several times in a row "no, no, no, stop it now, please, I can't listen to this, I must have a more cheerful topic of conversation" because she COULDN'T READ MY DISCOMFORT AT ALL OR ELSE DIDN'T CARE
I must say I'm awfully fucking proud of the fact that I didn't curse at all around the boys or the voters, especially given P's repeated provocation.
P hadn't read any of the propositions or any of the candidate statements, she said, because she liked to "make decisions on the fly". That's just annoying, not offensive, unless you consider that the precinct inspector is intentionally keeping herself ignorant? It was troubling.
Also troubling was that she came out as a trump supporter. Like she says she loves how he got in a reporter's face and told him to shut up. She was giggling as she recounted it. In the polling station.
*inhale* *exhale*
Her inability to stop talking when someone else was uncomfortable made those boys' shoulders round forward and in. One escaped into a novel he's reading for English class. One stared into space. The third one just had that uncomfortable smile on his face.
She DIDN'T DO HER JOB. The only time she worked at the table was during the few moments where we had enough varied people who needed help that, for example, I'd get up from the table to help someone find their polling place on the map. She LITERALLY sat there telling her awful stories and watching the teenagers do all the work. And me. I was also doing all the work.
She called the managing inspector who has 8 precincts to supervise, and got him to set up the polling computer (we only have one, it's meant to assist voters who might need audio-visual assist in their voting) and also called him in to get him to take it down. Like, we could have done it, but with only two adults it would have been a pain. but we could have? only it felt to me, like she thought it was so much work.
oh and okay while I'm at it, when I mentioned that I'm a writer, she said, "oh i always thought I could write a book" but then followed up with "but I don't like to write" and then a minute later, "yeah I don't like to read, I do love youtube videos though"
and I'm STILL OFFENDED two days later
I started going through the manual during the lull in voters a bit before lunchtime, started filling in the checklists so we could make sure we got all our stuff done for the day, reviewing the protocols and procedures for closing. Because I remembered the confusion at end of day and how everyone was rushing around trying to a) figure out what needed to be done and b) trying to figure out who would do what.
no lying though, the managing inspector, Ronnie, was a GOOD GUY. He shared the basic information we'd need to close out the polling station, and helped us prioritize our tasks so hopefully we'd be ready when the courier crew arrived. He was super helpful.

I'm working on getting the feedback to my county office of voters. (conveniently, as I mentioned above, P. failed to pass out the feedback forms that I've always gotten before from my polling supervisors.)

I phoned into the Election Officer Hotline and basically lodged a complaint but I think I'm going to have to go down myself to get ahold of the polling supervisors' feedback form and fill it out. This here should help with detail

...and now I have that knot back under my shoulder blade that I always get when I a) am frustrated and b) have spent a lot of time at the keyboard.

comforting thought: the boys were VERY clear-eyed about things, I think, and could probably tell for themselves that P was full of shit. And just unprofessional as fuck.

I wish I'd done a better job of *protecting* them from her FLAT OUT BOLOGNA (oh yeah, she also claimed to know how to operate a CAT scanner and that she could tell "if you were violent, if you were lying, just by what part of the brain lit up" which, fair, probably CAT scans can DO that, I'm just disbelieving that SHE could do that, because of the rest of the bologna she was shoveling.)

but I never in a million years would have expected this kind of awfulness from a pollworker, to be honest.
Everyone else I've worked this gig with was kind, completely professional, had a good sense of social boundaries, and were committed to trying to do as good a job as they possibly could.

The day was far from a total waste, I feel like I did solid work and had tons of positive interactions, but I ... if I was in those boys' shoes, I doubt I would ever volunteer to do that again, for fear of having that kind of precinct inspector again.

I've decided I can run a precinct myself next time and do ten times as good a job as P. did. Not a doubt in my mind.

I'm gonna sign up to run a precinct.

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