I’m done working. 8am-12am is god damn long enough. Now I’m medicating for bed. The pot helps and hurts my sleep. It interrupts my dream cycle and prevents me from getting as deep of sleep. It helps with the pain and allows me to lie in bed that long. It’s a mixed bag.

This tile work is fucking awful. My fingers hurt. They hurt like pushing on the back of a razor blade for hours and hours for days and days hurt. Cause I’ve been doing that. The scissors just ain’t sharp enough.

I feel like I drive everyone away. I’m glad Noah is here to validate how hard the cognitive plus physical load of this job is. I’m feeling insecure and whiny and impatient with myself. I can’t tell if the tile guy is complaining as much as I think he is or if I am just being neurotic. We have this weird dynamic where technically I’m the boss but mostly he treats me like a flunkie.

So he constantly interrupts my work flow for questions and requests. Things like asking me to explain the lay out of an area he doesn’t want to do for weeks. Which… is complex and requires switching gears in my brain to explain. Then I get back to work. Then he interrupts to ask me to go get him a pen. Then I get back to work. Then he interrupts my train of thought to ask why I haven’t finished some area I haven’t started already.

I’m going bananas.

He asked me to go get him a phone charger; it was in the car so I had to get the key from Noah then go outside then get the adapter from the living room. Then he didn’t use it.

Shit like that.

I am not amused. Sixteen days in. The progress is coming right along. The tree is growing in huge chunks. Today I prepared approximately 10 sq ft of tree trunk and bower. Tomorrow they are also going to start work on the snow wall so they can go back and forth between the tree and the snow wall when I’m gone at medical appointments. Whee.

Strategizing what they are going to do when is a constantly moving target because his mood shifts. Sometimes he is adamant and fussy that all pieces must be x shape and y dimensions and then the next day he yells at me that I’m stupid for doing it that way because look, this new area he’s working in wants this other configuration. Why didn’t I see that?

I’m struggling to be nice.

I mean, I get it. This really is a bitchy job. He’s taken to chanting puta madre all day long. He’s struggling and this is super hard and he’s not used to jobs taking this kind of cognitive load and this was dumped in his lap with no actual negotiation. The other real tile guy has bailed on him because he thinks this job sucks.

Sigh. And still we struggle on.

I need this guy. So I have to figure out how to deal with his mouth for a while all strategic like. Thus typing to myself. I don’t think as well any other way.

Also! There is always Spanish music playing and they speak to me more and more in Spanish. So my brain is working in god damn triple time.

Good golly I need a break. Luckily we are going to be able to sneak off to that upcoming Saturday event. You know the one. Or you don’t and that’s ok too. I’m not going to be doing the hot tub part because we are going out to dinner after. We will be there by about 4:30 if you want to see us…

I may be frisky.

We’ll see.

I’m feeling pent up and overworked as fuck. I want to play and rest and I don’t know which I want more. One of my buddies sent me an email telling me she wants to go dancing in a club again soon. Oh man. That sounds so late at night and so tiring and so fun.

I don’t have the spoons. Shit shit double shit.

Someday. I hope.

Fuck this work shit. I could slack off and only work when they are here. Ha. “Slack off” by working 40 hour weeks. That’s me in a nut shell. That’s why my family all harshly argue with anyone who calls me lazy. They don’t need me hearing that word. It’s Pavlovian. I’ll work until I sit down on the floor for a “little rest” then wake up 4 hours later because I passed out unconscious and then I’ll get up and work again. It’s easier to work when the kids are sleeping. Then I’m not ignoring them.

I couldn’t go without sleep like this before I had children. I wasn’t physically capable. Parenting has taught me a lot about what I’m capable of doing.

Do you know what I’ve been thinking about lately?

I keep thinking about Jenny telling me that the story of me is what I do with my agency and not about what happened to me. I’ve been talking to tile guy about developmental trauma, brain plasticity, different stages of development and the various processes for healing different problems, going through different therapeutic styles and talking about why they are useful…

I’m telling you. I’m under cognitive load here. These are hard concepts to explain to someone who is mostly functional but not at all educated in English while you are concentrating on fidgety, fussy, particular work.

I god damn MOTHER FUCKING HATE FIDGETY, FUSSY, PARTICULAR WORK. OH SWEET CHRIST I HATE THIS SHIT.

I can’t ever sell this house.

I have poured my heart, soul, dreams, blood, and children into it.

It’s going to turn out that only one of my children will be born here. That’s ok. It wasn’t really a fun experience at home. I uhhh did better at the hospital so that’s plan a. Next to find a doctor as cool as the person who was randomly on duty at Valley Med. Well. Next is get pregnant. Yo. We are doing what we need to do in that department. Sometimes bodies say, “You know how you are working obscene hours? No. Not yet.” I am ok with that. I’ll get knocked up soon enough. Nine months of trying for four pregnancies is still an average I can’t complain about. Ok, ok, only two full term pregnancies. Miscarriage has been on my mind too. I feel like I keep seeing references to it every where lately. Mostly I don’t think about it because if those pregnancies had worked I wouldn’t have Youngest Child and I really like them. I think they are a neat person. I’m glad I get to watch them grow up.

I can accept that I mess things up as I learn how to do them right.

Yeah. I do that.

I showed the owner of the construction company the mold in our bedroom. He uhhh was concerned. Apparently they are going to do a bit more work to determine the extent of the leak in our bedroom. Wood is warping and the primary reason that would happen is a leak. So they need to open the drywall and replace it and I think we’ll just go ahead and have them insulate the walls cause good golly.

Oh fuck money. Money. Money. Burn it all.

Oh yeah. Pay that bill.

The internet is so damn useful. Organize your thoughts, bitch to your friends, strategize, flirt, read all the news, stream movies, and pay all your bills. I didn’t even mention porn yet. But there I go. See, the internet is awesome.

Thanks Al Gore.

Politics are scaring the absolute shit out of me. I’m feeling self absorbed and horrible for being as selfish as I am. I couldn’t do this project like this if Noah weren’t here doing food and a lot of kid wrangling and taking them to classes and…

Good golly I’m in a weird spot. When the country was doing better and most people were having it pretty good I had it shitty. Then everyone else got in a bad spot and I’m not any more. I don’t think it happened because I’m more deserving. Life is complicated.

I’m spending a lot of time listening to the problems in their large families.

I just listen. I don’t speak unless they ask me a question. It seems kinda… rude. But luckily they ask a bunch of questions. They think I’m something else. I’m given the elaborate praise from the assistant, “I don’t think I would have slept through your class.” No kid, you wouldn’t. No one did. If they tried, I helped them wake up. I get one hour out of your day. I won’t burden you with undue homework. Give me your attention for one gosh bleepin hour.

I’m feeling a bit scattered you might say. I really wanted to put a k in scattered. Sigh.

Krissy with a god damn K.

I should go to bed. I’ve been medicating and talking to myself for an hour (I take breaks between sections right now because my arms hurt fiercely). I’ve been missing talking to myself. I’m allowed to segue straight back into talking about my siblings again if I’m talking to myself.

It’s hard listening to them talk. Sometimes when the older guy is coaching the younger guy through how to be a better family member I have to put my ear phones in and drown out the sound. I listen to loud female singers in English and bop around.

We can’t all have what you have. It sounds truly wonderful. No. I can’t just “get over it” and go back to my siblings and act like we are a family. We have never been a family. We are relations; si is la verdad. Pero no familia.

They are asking me fewer questions about me and more questions about wide ranging topics that they are curious about. I’m playing rent-an-encyclopedia. I read a lot of shit. I go a lot of places. I talk to a lot of people. I know shit.

Sometimes when I strop and start making a list of the topics that we cover: government, developmental psychology, trauma recovery, addiction mechanisms, vivid descriptions of various places and stories about my adventures (carefully sanitized to a degree–I mean… I specifically said that I’m queer but I’m leaving kinky out), educational theories around the damn world, and world religions.

I know some god damn shit. And I can talk about it on request for about as long as you have patience to listen because I have more patience than you and I study this shit.

Why shit? Because I’m shivering and pissy about it. But I don’t want to stop smoking. Whine. I know I need to stop smoking again. For the duration of this project I need to just medicate a lot on edibles and deal with paying for it. I’m all up in my feelings about money and health and fork and erk and

I HAVE TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.

And every few minutes the kids wander in to talk to me and ask me questions.

Sometimes Noah comes in to tell me he thoughtfully bought me chocolate. Thank you, dear.

This right here is why I like working in the middle of the god damn night when everyone is sleeping.

Deep breath. I am grateful for all the blessings in my life. I am so glad I am not alone. But learning to work with such constant interruption + pain + everyone expecting me to be patient and sunny in disposition at every moment = holy tomato I’m overloaded right this minute.

I’m wearing my cranky pants.

I’m really enjoying the new Lady Gaga album Joanne. The very first time I heard some of the songs I wasn’t sure…. then I listened a second time and I was hooked.

I have privileges. I have parts of my life that are hard. I have parts of my past that were downright shitty. Ok.

Lots of other people are having a hard time right this minute. If I’m doing really ok in a time when people aren’t that is a moral obligation.

I wasn’t exactly raised with the expectations that I would have to learn how to manage a lot of money. This feels really stressed about money right now. Not because we are doing poorly. All I have to do is go look at our net worth and I can’t believe that I’m doing poorly. But I feel like I’m fucking up and up and up and up and up.

Life is costly. I have some very particular expensive tastes.

Like… corset dresses… ooooh. If I’m not going in the hot tub I can wear the dress at the party… That sounds potentially fun. Maybe.

Maybe. It’s work. Ha. I’m feeling like pudding. Maybe that’s the sign to go to sleep.