(no subject)

"Not enough time in the day," is my current feeling.

I do have more energy than i had last week. My doctor gave me a five day burst of prednisone to help with the itching, and has recommended Nexium as a H2 blocker that can be safely added to the H1 blockers like Claritin and Allegra. This morning i believe i'm feeling better.

Christine drove around yesterday and saw her surgeon: all is well. She's still keeping to a recline until Monday; gets decaf coffee on Sunday morning.

I've been mucking with twitter, and that's led me to reflect a bit on who knows about my Elaine Grey identity. I value the openness i can share things as Elaine Grey. It's not that i can't share them with my j-e- identity, but that in the many hats i wear, some of those roles demand discretion. As manager, as employee, as participant in different communities: i don't think it's dishonest to self censor. There's particularly a question of overlapping communities.

Christine's surgery, for example, is a place where i feel the need to self censor because of overlap. While there are people she trusts, there are also people on the edges of her interaction space who she doesn't: and with good reason. While we're out about her being transgendered, people who meet her accept her as female. (Some have recognized she's not cisgendered.) For folks who haven't really worked to understand cisgender privilege and other gender assumptions, the Surgery is a big deal. I've seen the cognitive challenge that happens when people who assume she's had gender confirmation surgery hear she hasn't. I recognize that while being out about this and challenging assumptions helps people along on working through issues of privilege, it isn't required that she has to do that work in every area of her life. It's right to allow her to choose her points of disclosure.

So partitioning is valuable. This is an easier case to point at than, say, me whining about workplace issues or my depression. But those, too are partitions.

In other news, spent time on the phone with Dad and L re my grandfather's situation. Need to call my Mom. My sister thanked me for my role as her therapist: i'm not sure that's a good thing, but i do think supporting them all as they more directly engage with the family drama is what i'm called to do.

I have a little nugget of mystery-feeling in my heart regarding this. I suspect it's pain over unrequited love for my grandfather that got packed up early in life. There's also emotional connections to my parents: visiting my mother's parents always triggered huge "I'm going to divorce you" fights between my parents on the return trips. I hid in books most of the time we visited. Pain and anger and nothing nice to say. I don't think i want to unwrap that.

Weep

I'm sure i'll get through this fine, but i just need to *feel* for a moment the frustration that my work email is delivering to me.

On one hand there is the message that i and my team are just a small bit of a huge machine and we must submit to other's decisions with little input and certainly no consensus discussion. The other is that we're in independent control over all aspects of our functioning.
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(no subject)

Not a productive day, yet.

Unless finishing a partition on twitter, and tuning my RSS reader, and beginning to tweak LJ & DW so that i don't see the same posts twice, and other flittery jittery data flow issues count as productivity.

Meta productivity, i guess.

The emotional turmoil around the two extremes of my work situation ("Divorce Identity from the Confederacy of Clouds command from one side, turn around to "Identity and all the other clouds will be managed through the One Project to Rule them all" edict) hasn't helped. But i did productive things, like call someone more politically respected than myself.

I've NO IDEA how i'm perceived in the home office of the Whale. I am willing to own up to there being a problem. I don't know how much is communication style, detail orientation and information density, gender, internal politics, or what. I have control over some things, no control over others. Today i recognized the battle i needed to fight was not trying to hone my communication but to urge others to deliver my message for me. I did it.

Erm, i did time cards and the kitty litter. Yay me!

I talked with my sister, in crisis about needing to be home with her spouse this weekend but having made a commitment to go with my father to join my mother in Florida. I was there when she needed me, that was productive.

I'm not itching. YAY.

My connection with others today is colored by process stuff: i don't feel connected. I have probably left more comments today than on average, partly because something in my brain is telling me i'm not connecting well enough. What is enough here?

I'm having a hard time being reasonable about spending time this evening and am falling prey to all or nothing thinking: It's either an all-nighter to do EVERYTHING, of give up and do nothing at all. I know that's a mental trap and by the power of dungeons and deskwork, i could get Enough done. Yes, this is continued procrastination, but i feel like i'm carrying so much.

I am thankful taxes aren't due on Friday: Christine and i have been Distracted. I am amused to find out why: Friday is a Federal Holiday. Really? Yes, it's April 15 — District of Columbia Emancipation Day.