I have managed to construct a complex and multi-layered argument to something someone said. I found about 10 sources to back me up. I need to drop this.

I’m feeling freaked out and weird about money. Holy shit we go through money. I always thought that if I moved up the privilege ladder it would involve less freaking out about money. Nope. Now I stay up late at night freaked out because how in the hell do I share financial security with more people. It’s not ok that only a few people in the whole world have financial security.

There are developmental windows for learning socialization skills. Many of them occur in the first seven years of life. During that time it is important to practice interacting with as many different kinds of people as possible all day long. You know how people learn to be kind and thoughtful? They practice. They are gently reminded over and over and over again about their place in the world and reminded to think about what they have to give instead of what they want to take in interactions. It is tremendously hard work.

Early childhood education teachers should make six figure salaries.

So instead we neglect this stage of education and wonder why we are getting epidemics of mental health problems and physical problems and we wonder why suicide is a more and more common option for people. It’s the tenth leading cause of death.

People don’t know how to connect. Connection is what keeps people striving.

But if you were neglected during your own crucial periods of development, how can you provide that sort of training for someone else? Well, you can do obsessive tremendous amounts of research and work and learn how to behave and create behavior plans and fucking follow them religiously whether you god damn feel like it or not or you can outsource it.

I support schooling children. I really do.

There are many fine individuals working in education at all levels. There are men, women, and non-binary people who are drawn to a particular age or stage of development and they work magic with helping children learn the exact skills they need at that point in life.

Why in the world would I be against working with such people?

Ok, I recognize some evolution in my thinking here. I was once a lot more uhhh pushy about home schooling. Then I spent a few years home schooling and dealing with the extended home schooling community.

You’ve gotta do what is right for your family. That means right for the parents and right for the kids. No one is capable of teaching everything. Some things need to be outsourced. There is no shame in that. It’s human. Interconnectedness is necessary for a happy life. In my judgmental as fuck opinion.

Outsourcing is saying, “Hey I can’t do everything. You person over there. Let me acknowledge that you are just flat better than I am at Thing and I would love to help support your life by exchanging money for your help.”

Outsourcing is awesome on so many levels.

I outsource shit. I pay for some child care. I do trades for other child care. Do you know why child care is important to our family? A couple of reasons: they learn that I am not actually omnipotent (that’s a big god damn deal and something every child needs to learn about their parents), other people have patience for different kinds of activities than me so my kids get to experience different ways to live and pass time, my children are required to really learn how to follow the rules of different spaces–that’s a huge whole life lesson, and you know what? I need a damn break.

People need breaks. People need breaks of different intensity and different lengths of time. Some people are better parents if they have their children for 12 hours out of 24. Some people have that amount of support in them to give whether they have a job or not. Don’t judge. There are millions of reasons this can be true.

In my life I have been a pet owner, a teacher, and a parent. I have learned that these are all substantially different roles. A pet owner forms a bond that is about mutual dependency until death. A teacher drops into your life for a period of time, helps you over some bumps and then goes on their way. A parent pours their life energy into another living being and says, “Here is all I can give you to help you be independent of me. Go. Thrive. I hope you will call sometimes but I know you have a life to live of your own.”

These are all valid and worthy and important parts of life. Not everyone is called to fill every role. Not every person would succeed at every role. There are many roles in this life where I don’t even try because I believe in advance I would be a failure.

Do you know what I’ve never actually been? A financial provider. I have given people a lot of money. I have made gifts and loans of incredibly amounts of money. (To my, poverty-background self.)

Do you know what the universe did to me this week? It smiled on me. My Dad repaid the $10,000 loan I made to him several years early. He’s been working on installment payments for a while and now he is able to pay it off in full. I’m really grateful on a lot of levels. This is a magnificent time to have that money drop into my lap. It does a lot to shape my schema of trust in humans to see him pay this off early. It was a five year loan. I was terrified it would fuck with the relationship if he didn’t pay it off.

I can now breathe a huge sigh of relief.

That’s a release of tension and strain. Will he be honest with me? Will he follow through? Can I trust him?

That has lived in my mind for a while now.

I feel an enormous wash of gratitude that I can let that go.

Thank you, Dad. I appreciate your actions more than I can say. It helps me feel a whole lot more secure about turning around and loaning a bunch of that right back out to a different old friend. She needs a car really badly. Let’s get one. I’ll call her today. I could afford it anyway. I’m grateful to feel like I got the universe’s blessing at the same time.

Trust in people. Invest in people.

I differentiate heavily between gifts and loans. I have given tens of thousands of dollars over the years. Someday it will be tremendously more than that. I loan very selectively and only for specific good reasons. Often involving pride and support of separate identity. Gifts can hurt people.

It’s complicated.

I had a truly fantastic conversation yesterday. I got a new construction guy this week. He’s a whiz. He’s got almost as many years of experience as I have years of life. We talk about his daughter who is a year older than me and his grandkids who are are barely older than my kids. He was delighted when I told him I understand most of his Spanish and he is now trying really hard to get me to practice. But he’s friendly and upbeat and encouraging about it instead of taunting at all. It’s… really awesome.

We talked about spirituality and the problems Christianity causes in the world (among other organized religions). We talked about faithfulness and honor and how to pick your path in a changing world.

Pam, he spent a lot of time talking about how worried he is about climate change. People are listening.

We talked about the value of connection and relationships. We talked about technology and family and bonding.

I’m telling you. I had a fun work day yesterday.

That was really nice as I stood there with my hand cramping painting stupid flowers. Fucking fussy ass details suck nuts through a straw. I hate painting. Fuck painting. Painting is for idiots who don’t know how to manage their god damn time.

I’m totally going to paint more today.  FUCK EVERYTHING. I want the results. But working is for chumps. Sigh. I’m having a Baron Wulfenbach moment. Hello, I am Chump.

Do you know what I get to do next? PUT A TINY FUCKING DAB OF YET A THIRD GOD DAMN PINK ON THE FUCKING FLOWERS BEFORE COVERING THE MOTHERFUCKERS IN GLITTER.

Fuck.

FUCK FUCKING CHERRY BLOSSOMS.

At least I get to look at you fuckers for a very long time. So there.

I’m having very stupid feelings.

Today Noah is having dinner with his parents. The children are going. I’m on the fence. The reason I am inclined to go is so that I can do that reality distortion thing I do if they start talking about the kind of shit they like to talk about. I.E. shutting their racist, bigoted asses down.

I mean, I sorta trust EC to do it for herself. I suspect Noah will just change the topic. I don’t blame him. Get through dinner and get out and talk to the kids on the way home is an approach. It’s just not my approach.

But driving to San Francisco for dinner kinda sucks. And seeing his parents totally sucks. I could work. Or rest. Or do literally anything else and be happier. Watching the paint dry would be more fun.

I think I’ve decided. The kids are in camp today, the family is off to dinner without me tonight. That sounds like a 12 hour work day with a break in the middle to go to the dispensary. Numb the pain so you can continue working long past when it is healthy. Like a dumb ass. (I almost wrote like a grown up and then decided that was fucked up.)

I’m moving the needle on this project. Finally. I’ve been staging and prepping and accommodating other peoples share of the work for so many months that it feels really good to be moving the needle towards the end. Now I can see the end. Now I can list concrete tasks and say, “When this is done the project is done.”

Oh sweet cheese and crackers I need to be done.

It’s going to take till February. Mayyyyyyyybe mid month since now I have two guys who work independently and really hard. That’s a change from one guy who does lots of stuff and a guy who kinda assists and can follow out some tasks but spends a lot of time checking his phone. I will say that the new guy is… less of a perfectionist than the guy who has been here the longest. So I still want the one guy doing most of the tile work. He is fastidious as fuck. I like that in someone I’m paying to help me install a humongous piece of art.

Also: one of the new walls isn’t square. Not sure if the house wasn’t square to start with (totally possible) or not but the vanity couldn’t be installed properly without cutting a hole in the drywall. Just a small one to allow the corner to fit. Whoops. It will be covered with the tile back splash so it won’t be visible… but whoops.

Emailed pictures to the lawyer.

I would share some pictures but whoops I’m on the wrong computer. I’m on the computer that has a working battery.

Speaking of which, because my life is fantastically charmed, a MacBook Pro is on its way to me to help me reduce how much time I spend arguing with the tech in my life. Because some problems can be solved. Yes I have a lot of fucking data. Give me a terabyte of storage and leave me the fuck alone, a’ight?

At this point I spend 5ish hours a month arguing with my tech trying to make it work. That’s time I could be god damn resting instead of getting pissed off.

Done.

I lead a charmed life. I don’t have any right to be so god damn anxious. Yeah? Yeah? Watch me shiver like a fucking chihuahua.

I mostly have my living room back. Mostly. It’s coming along super well. I don’t really have the playroom back yet but I’m storing shit in there anyway because I’m about to lose my mind. The house is already feeling less like any sudden movement will cause hours of work. That helps. The garage isn’t better at all.

I can’t move most of the clutter out of the vestibule area until they finish painting the exterior of the house and the dudes can put my sheds back in place and I can move alllllllll this crap out of the garage back into sheds where it fucking belongs. We have a lot of tents, yo.

And I can’t get the main floor of the garage back until the tile is on the walls. It would be very hard to get the tile past all the shit in the vestibule area.

Like how I’m the kind of person who describes stuff as shit in the same sentence as the word vestibule? And fuck. I said fucking and crap, in a different but related sentence ,with vestibule too.

I’m classy like that.

It was the best of times! It was the worst of times!

And I’m not even talking about politics in this post.

Ok. Off to paint a wall. Motherfucker.