Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

I keep being like "I need to get back in the habit of posting on DW outside of mental health emergencies" and yet HERE I AM, ONCE AGAIN, with Big Drama.

( like seriously devastating drama )

Ummmmmmmm outside of all this, SF is pretty good. The Alcatraz audio tour is amazing, I nearly cried - a lot of it is clipped from the actual oral histories from prisoners and guards. I really did enjoy walking around Russian Hill, the place I bought the tea was a vintage et al shop called Molte Cose and the ladies there were really into my outfit. It's been cool but sunny the whole time we've been here, although it's supposed to get rainy tomorrow.

Over the past year or so, I seem to have gradually replaced the psychological symptoms of PMS with cramps. :/ It's nice not to feel like a total worthless jerk anymore, but waking up in the middle of the night because the cramps are that bad sucks hard, and so does feeling like I can't eat anything in the morning.

I've also realized that my not being able to fall asleep under my light quilt (rather than the duvet) is probably an anxiety issue, and I'm thinking about weighted blankets. Anyone have experience with those?

Over the weekend, I went to Dad's - so relaxing (minus the cramps). On Saturday we went to the piano/voice recital Bella's fellow students put on; it was kind of awful, way too much piano and it went on a lot longer than we were led to believe, which was an issue as it was held in a church and we were all sitting in pews, and I'd just driven four hours and had a migraine starting because of some nasty traffic. Sunday was really all about hanging out and FINDING MY GIBSONS, I FOUND MY GIBSONS, ISN'T THAT AMAZING??? And then this morning Dad worked from home, so we got to hang out more. Owen had been hiking with his gf on Saturday, so they were both there that night - she's perfectly nice, and I like her more than his last one (who was really possessive of him), but I just don't really like her. Dad and Owen and I watched GoT together, which was hilariously even more awkward than usual because of that tight close-up on that actor's junk.

This morning, I was wearing my newly de-sleeved dress and had my hair up in a bun - I forget what I was doing, but Dad came downstairs and said I really reminded him of his paternal grandmother, which was Deeply Meaningful as he barely ever talks about his family. He says the only thing he ever understood her saying to him and his brother (she was Sicilian, and probably spoke English by the 1960s but I guess with a really strong accent) was, "Eat, eat!" That's the kind of thing that makes me deeply satisfied to dress like a crazy person. That and when I got home one of my neighbors - who'd actually been away in Latham over the weekend, very very close to where I was - told me how much she likes the way I dress, too. I AM ART.

Total subject change, but: I was starting to get involved writing ~sexy comics~ scripts for a purveyor of ~sexy comics~, but the editing process, ugh, I do not have the time for this, not worth the money.

Dad called me this evening to let me know he had a car crash, fell asleep and went off the road at high speed and dislocated his shoulder. Very upsetting, really wrecked me for a few minutes. It was mid-afternoon, which we always laugh about being "naptime" because he often literally naps then. So there's that.

He also wanted to tell me I made everyone feel awkward because I wished "both my fathers and some of my grandfathers" a happy father's day. (I got a lol from Owen, that's all I really care about.) I'm not sure why it would make anyone feel awkward. Either people don't know why I said it, in which case they probably came up with a few things (hey, maybe the one I'm not addressing is my mother's father, who died years ago), or they know that one grandfather hasn't wished me a happy birthday in almost ten years, even after we exchanged letters last year, and they don't feel awkward because they recognize that the man deserves a snub. My dad dislikes him more than I do, I don't know why he brought it up. There's no way he's thinking of reconciling, near-death experiences aside.

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Two different bra calculators told me that I should be wearing a 32I, which is not a size I previously knew existed. I don't think I believe it. Maybe a 34D instead of 36. Or 38? I spent most of this afternoon working on the VaVaVoom bullet bra but I still don't know how I feel about it. After finding that the cups as drafted didn't fit I drafted new ones, but then realized I just needed a little extender piece at center front for my wide ribcage. I have a hard time with bras because I have a high bust (inches-wise; proportionally with my torso I think it's average) and they're not even 100% right with the straps as short as they'll go, which I don't like to do as obviously they wear out faster that way. This is especially bad in my stripey dress, which is just meant for a different shape. They didn't do much if any updating when bringing the pattern out of retirement. At the same time, I of course want to be "that girl who dresses well, she's old-fashioned but quaintly adorable" and not "that weird girl who's always in costumes". I've altered the VVV pattern to not be so pointy and we'll see if it works to give me the shortness and support I'm not getting from regular bras, at least for dresses that need a different foundation.

I was actually thinking about a merry widow the other week, because my Rago shapewear isn't narrow enough in the waist and my hips are fine, they don't need slimming, really. I gain all my weight on my gut, I need something to haul that in for these 1950s looks. Plus the top of the girdle gets into fights with my bra, because that's how short-waisted I am. But merry widows are way more expensive than other things and I am going. to. stop. spending. I've spent my entire last paycheck and saved nothing. Plus some of my next paycheck I think, leaving enough for the rent. This is annoying. I used to save so much just a month or so ago, what happened?

My train on Saturday leaves at 7 in the morning from Syracuse omggggg That means leaving at about 4:20 from here.

Babysitting Bella tonight, took her to Girl Scouts ... picked her up from Girl Scouts half an hour late /o\

I made up for it by helping to carry the conversation in the car, which is something I generally let her do.

Owen just quit his dishwashing job. They were already being illegal by refusing him breaks or dinner during 9hr shifts, but he found out that he was expected to stay tonight for 13hrs and would be fired if he didn't. So he quit. I'm trying to get him to report them to someone.

Okay, since this is a serious post, I know it's not really the done thing to bring things from an anon meme, but - I'm reading this thread on a post made recently to call out an incredibly toxic SJW. The incident that poster is referring to (also referred to here) is this. It just ... it just burns me up that multiple people, especially catvalente, can participate in these threads and still think they're the ones who've been offended and hard done by. And it makes me wonder, what is the point of trying with any -isms when there are so many people who quite clearly don't actually believe in their supposed principles? Because the fact that someone can say, "Really? You're really going to slap the hand of someone who loves what THEY'VE taken from an experience in a place that's foreign to where they came from [and which is less privileged on a global and local scale]?" and nobody bats an eyelash, in the same thread that someone saying, "I apologise if this seems unkind, but we are real, we are more than our myths and our past, we are more than a fantasy trend that's over and all the other things. ... But today you made a number of us feel deeply elided and uncomfortable. I'm sure this was an accident, but I'm not sure some of the commenters realise the cumulative effect they are having," gets repeatedly and viciously jumped on for attacking an innocent (American, whiny) woman - that tells me that no, really, there are plenty of people who are ... I want to say "lying", but that implies a kind of deliberateness that's not there. They are both

- not interested in considering the principles they're supposed to be upholding, but are completely ignorant about any situations that do not fit into the ones they've decided Count, and aggressively defend not having to consider those situations

and

- frighteningly happy being as vicious, insulting, personal, and/or weepy as they can think of, ignoring those of their own privileges that they've decided Don't Count (generally, class privilege and US privilege)

All of this is old news, really, but sometimes it just hits me like a ton of bricks how completely fucked-up the social justice discourse is. I'm sure it will pass, especially given the uptick in people publicly criticizing it, but for the present it makes me deeply unhappy.