Struggling to pin down how I feel today. Just kinda ambient dread, i guess? Feeling like I might've gotten too chummy with my bosses, because I'm calling out fake-sick tomorrow, and they'll all know it's a farce because i've been talking to them all the past few shifts about trying to get it covered. So it seems like it's gonna come across as a "fuck you" to people I consider myself to be on friendly terms with. Is this maybe one of those times to own being a bitch?
Like, yes, I got employee of the month even before they knew I was leaving, yes I've already given notice beyond two weeks, yes, I have never called out once at this job, but! people might not like me as much for the last week that i'm there and. i just really cannot handle people not liking me in a normal way! ugh. it's that conflict aversion. The workplace is such a fucked up place to try and work through that too, if you don't really have relationships outside of it.
Not having clean clothes is also really bothering me, but it's just kept getting away from me to take the car to go to the laundromat. I really hate it, because having clean clothes has been helping a lot with getting back on my feet in terms of my mental health, but it's only until tomorrow morning, and I'm working a short shift tonight. Maybe I'll play some Minecraft before I go to work, or start one of the two games in my actual backlog. That seems pretty relaxing for the cafe.
In brother's karamazov, we're learning more about the life of a young elder zosima, as retold through alyoshka. I think this is one of those chapters from the book I'd recommend standalone. The book has quite a few of those, since it was published serially, and will sometimes devote an entire chapter to a character recounting some side story.
I feel lonely in a particular way i didn't before. It's hard to make sense of my own role in moving. I've had a lot of help but I'm always so reluctant to give myself any credit in bringing happiness to myself. Like part of this is stuff that only I can do. Whatever. I'll tell work I have a cold and it's not like they can fire me. Same deal for my last day because I don't like anyone there enough to fuck up my visit to go see Nathalie for it by pulling an all-nighter.
Played the game nathalie sent me. Started playing Fran's game. It's in the second person. Some people can find that destablizing. I wouldn't say that applies to me necessarily but it is made stranger for knowing Fran and being able to place some of the biographical particulars. I guess this is nothing new for how personal her other work is but it's. It's still a little weird (neutral.) Let's all combust together!
I was thinking about spontaneous combustion for reasons I can't remember, maybe a week ago, or longer. It kinda stands out to me as one of the stranger fringe phenomena for its straightforwardness. Like what if a person just caught fire for no reason? And that's it. Maybe you can say it's aliens or to me but it doesn't really seem that way at all to me. Maybe it reminds me of joan of arc, who very much caught fire for a reason.
Oh, I was thinking about. People who light themselves on fire on purpose, and people who see that as aspirational in an unhealthy way. Hard to articulate how that could be aspirational in any kind of healthy way, but needless to say, extremely critical support for self-immolation. Like, please never do this. I don't light myself on fire because it would only hurt the people who love me and accomplish nothing. It's a good opportunity to remind myself of that. There've been times where I might've been sympathetic but I think I'm soundly past that now.
That was weird and uncomfortable in a way that feels like it wasn't entirely exorcised by capturing it in writing. Funny how I still think about stuff in terms of exorcism. I think hanging out with Nathalie is gonna lead me to realize I have a lot of religious baggage that I never really registered as such. But that would be really good to get out of my system, in a secular way. I was going through my bookmarks trying to find Fran's VN and I had something in there titled "therapy was never secular."
Very much looking forward to an opportunity to wrangle all my bookmarks and my digital life in general. Give my wiki a home outside the fragile flash memory of this laptop. My music collection off that flash drive. Staving off digital mortality.
Back to diary.