Service Slut

Last week, work rolled out a new collaborative platform to IM, share documents, and all the other stuff that lends itself to productivity. I was part of the pilot group and loved that my swearing was unchained. But much to my dismay, ass-licker, bitchface, and countless others were now off limits. Added to some arbitrary library managed by some asshole that wanted to hamper my self-expression. Fuck that guy.  It's more than just questioning authority.  In the context of relationships, when you start to follow blindly, the common result is that you lose yourself in the identity of the other person. This is what we call co-dependence. The bad kind where your happiness depends highly on the happiness of another.  How can you reach self actualization when everything (or most things) you do are purely at the direction of another? I'm addicted to approval. I will ride on a "good girl" accolade for the day if not longer. I want to make him happy. Anticipate needs. I want to ...

I'm burned out. Tremendously. I am very far from a frontline worker. But am I part of a workforce that has been impacted as a result much like everyone else.  Human resources is an interesting space to be in right now. Behind every workplace that has to be made safe, there is an HR professional that is likely contributing to that in a big way. Shifting into an unknown territory means that your employer has likely had to get familiar with things they never thought about. How can we set up people for remote work if that was never an option before? How do we do it quickly? What if people don't actually work while they're at home? What will the procedure be for people who test positive? What financial assistance will be given to employees that have to be put out on furlough? How do we determine which employees should be furloughed? What metrics should be used to determine if they should be recalled to work? How do we modify workspaces to prepare for a return to the office? All ...

D-type. My phone's keyboard learned this word (phrase?). It also learned D/s, Sir, Daddy, and at one point, Mistress. I taught it what was once taught to me. I'm not sure these honorifics mean anything to me anymore, but I've also been away from all that for a bit. I remember the vocabulary part of my indoctrination how ever many million years ago. Learning to be respectful meant addressing people appropriately, how they wished to be addressed. I'm not sure there was ever a problem with that. Kind of like when Katherine prefers to be addressed as Kathy. Pretty harmless. But as it turns out, being respectful is simply making the choice to not be an asshole. My phone still knows D-type and s-type. They are catch-alls for what could be any role; I still place value in being respectful of relationship types. Most people I knew in the community are FB friends. Real names are known. Vanilla lives are known and sometimes we are a pretty intimate part of each other's lives....

No, really. Happy to get to be around for an anniversary like this. Happy that I'm around to know I do not want to die. I thought I would have some kind of shitty day. I braced myself. However, other than feeling tired from a typical night of meh sleep, it really felt like a typical day.  Check out the below for yourself or someone you know.  Suicide Prevention Resources

I remember the small cups that were on a tray. Each containing pills. Just like you've seen on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Girl Interrupted. You wait for your name to be called. The cup with your meds and another small cup of water are handed to you. You have to open your mouth and lift your tongue to show you took them. I remember how excited I was months later when I felt the impact of a good cocktail. Finally a path to peace in my head. Pills aren't the only part of the solution, but they do make it easier to get to a stable place.  Lately, I've been taking them later and later in the day. Sometimes I think about not taking them at all. And then yesterday, I didn't take them at all. This scared me quite a bit. I've seen that story play out. It is a shit show. I received caring reminders to take them today and I did.  I've been obsessing over why I've been so ambivalent about meds. Much like everything else in my life, I have an itch...

My eyes hurt entirely too much, so I present this for your listening pleasure.