PeopleKeeper

My past week has mostly been focused on getting ill then getting better. As this is interesting for NO ONE, myself included, I am going to focus on explaining a bit more about my PeopleKeeper experiment. Most of the week I have looked like this:

Friends who have read this blog for a year or more have probably experienced firsthand that I no longer live in the physical place where I met you.  I grew up in a very small town outside The Big Scrapple for the first 17 years of my life. If things had gone differently, I very well could have become Leslie Knope and stayed in that little town forever.

When I was 17 years old I ran away from home for about two months. This was the first time I’d ever moved in my life, but it would be far from the last. In the past decade I have moved at least ten times in many different situations. Some moves have been across town, multiple have been cross-country.

My personality is such that I have an easy time creating space for deep connection with limited amount of time knowing someone. I have always been good at maintaining relationships without needing immediate proximity.  My best friend from elementary school moved away for middle school and we stayed in close touch through high school.

The flipside is that I have not realized until recently that there are emotional costs of constantly maintaining relationships, particularly long distance ones. A lot of people are either self-proclaimed “bad at keeping in touch” or are just unused to dealing with long distance friendships. Even near-distance relationships can be challenging, especially in big cities because there are so many things one can do with one’s time. I find that I have at least four distinct friend groups locally with modest overlap.

So when I set out to do my PeopleKeeper project this year, a big aspect of the project was to do some serious introspection regarding how I spend my energy. Though I am not currently diagnosed with mental illness or invisible disabilities, I have been diagnosed with Major Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder in the past. I have been reading a lot of interesting and novel access stuff. I really like the SpoonTheory of discrete energy units that may be become depleted by doing basic chores if one’s invisible disability reigns that day.

At the time of writing this entry, I have 1,077 “friends” on Facebook. I do try to “prune” occasionally but I am much nicer than a lot of people. Horrible as it may sound, I generally “unfriend” people on their birthday because it is the one time of year their name comes across my feed. Before acting, I go to their wall and look at several of their profile pictures to see if I remember meeting them, having conversations with them and what kind of person they are. I check the “see friendship” action and see if they have interacted with me publicly in the past three years. Sometimes, if I’m unsure, I also check our shared messages; but usually we haven’t spoken directly so that’s not an issue. If at any point along this checklist I either don’t remember them at all or there has been zero interaction, I solidify my decision and “unfriend” them. Generally though, if someone shows up with a birthday I go to their timeline and post “BAPPY FIRTHDAY” and leave it at that.

OK. So starting with a number 7 times larger than my target of 150, I decided to go the other way around. When I came up with this idea in January I decided that I chose the number of people before I chose the people themselves. I have noticed at times before that I get exhausted and overwhelmed talking to the same people too frequently so this new approach would hopefully give me insight into what contributed to this type of exhaustion.

Intimate (5/150, daily): The people I put on my “daily” contact list are my best friends. PartnerPenguin is at the top of this list. These are the folks that I share everything with and we have clear boundaries about when we need to stop talking.

Close Friends (15/150, weekly): Typically the people on this list have a day assigned and that’s the day I reach out and just say hi. The point of this experiment, on any of my “levels” is that a reminder to reach out is just to say “hi”. I am trying to work on the timing of when I reach out so that I get people at times that work better for them, but one nice thing about SMS or FB messenger is that you don’t need to respond immediately. If a conversation happens, great! If not, there’s always next time.

Loose Friends (≈30/150, biweekly): This is a confusing category for some but I’ve found it useful. A lot of folks in this category live in various parts of the country that are not in my immediate vicinity. They are busy people. I want to know what’s going on in their lives but don’t need to be nosy. I also don’t need a play by play of their lives, unless they wish to live Tweet it. Every two weeks is a good spacing to say “Hey, how goes?” Highlights of a two-week period can be summed up in a couple sentences. It’s a long enough period that generally my friends have some degree of introspection and don’t dump daily drama from this time period, but still feel close enough to share if something negative is going on.

Acquaintances (≈40/150, monthly): When I was asked recently what differentiates someone from being on the biweekly list from the monthly list I thought for a minute, looked the person in the eyes and answered “The monthly people are people I want to talk to twelve times a year.” This is the frequency for what I feel is the required boundaries of certain relationships. In a lot of cases, many friendships in this category are strong and long lasting. But my friends are busy, awesome people. Poking them once a month isn’t too much but helps me keep a good pulse on their lives.

One thing that I’ve been asked several times is whether my categorization is rigid. No, it isn’t and if people reach out to me I will generally respond. Except if I’m not in a good place, then I have been practicing a lot with drawing boundaries! A big reason I created the “less frequent” categories of biweekly and monthly were that I have noticed a trend in my adult life. I am almost always the one to initiate contact. I have historically been responsible (generally voluntarily) for the entire upkeep of most of my relationships. I wanted to give myself a break. Decreasing the frequency allows me to either let others step up if they want a more intimate relationship. It also allows me to forgive myself for “letting things go” in a relationship. I have only committed to reaching out once a month. I met that commitment. I can forgive myself for not being a “good” enough friend. I am good enough.

Professional Acquaintances (≈45/150, quarterly): Folks in this category are people I’m interested in knowing professionally or I need to keep a lot of distance for my emotional health. This type of category used to be accounted for by holiday cards but these days it’s a bit difficult to find holidays everyone can get behind. I have a lot of former classmates on this list and I hope that as we progress into our professional careers that they will become valuable players in our job searching quests. Part of going to a Big American University should be the benefits of the alumni network, right?

At this time you might notice that my total is closer to 135 than 150. I’m going to call that as a win for right now because the folks on this list are by no means the only people I talk to. It was more of a way to formalize my energy expenditure and give myself permission to chill out.

I am working with a company called Contact Otter to help design a product that my friends might be able to use. The founder of this company has put together a survey that you might be interested in taking if you would like to use that product. If you’re a computer programmer and you’d like to design a different system, let’s talk! I feel like I put significant time into crafting this the way that works for me, but I’m sure lots of other people work differently and there is space to make multiple tools.

**Challenges**

Sometimes my reminders pile up on my calendar so I wind up with 15 or more in one day. I have generally tried to work around that so there aren’t more than 10 people in a day. But when I was working the security gig the other week, the timing of the workday was really bad for actually communicating with my network. I tried to still contact people because I have found connection, whether deep and genuine or quick and frivolous, is legitimately the best preventative medicine for Depression. I generally gain energy from being around people so reaching out to friends and letting them know I’m having a hard day has actually increased my relationships and also lessened the burden of having a bad day.

**Surprises**

I don’t know why I found this surprising but this experiment has lead to SEEING a lot more people. Saying hi regularly has led to several impromptu get togethers. I have learned that more of my friends are OK with being physically present even if we’re working or it’s a challenging day to be mentally present. A lot of my friends will see my name pop up and then next time they have an extra ticket to a show, offer me that ticket. I realize this is exactly what I signed up for but I have been touched by how much closer I’ve gotten with so many people. My house has become so much more of a home, housing far more friends on a more regular basis than I’d ever dreamed. Once we even had ribs…though everyone involved that night agrees there was a level of serendipity there that was unreasonably lucky.

I hope this entry has given you a peek into my methodology. Thank you, as always, for listening to me. Here is a random giant ball of yarn to reward you for getting to the end of this post!

And now a show tune. A dismal, dissonant show tune. ^____^

Confessions of a High Femme Security Guard

So. I haven’t written in a little over two weeks because we’ve been juggling several large-scale things on the Key Route front. I’ve been prioritizing self-care and sleep over pretty much everything else. I haven’t seen most of my friends in this time…so don’t feel too singled out if I haven’t touched base with you in a while.

****Career****

Over the course of two weeks I applied to three State jobs with state versions of the EPA and other types of policy enforcement agencies. Initially, I took the exam to be an Engineering Geologist (EG) and I was so proud of myself because I passed with 80%. It was 49 multiple-choice questions with multiple-choice on references provided as to who could verify my experiences. This exam was all automated online and scored immediately. Great! There were two positions available for an Engineering Geologist so I started applying  for them.

I communicated with one of the HR people and also found out there was an Environmental Scientist (ES) position. It was a less technical job but also a less intense application. I then did the ES exam and passed with 85%. Then I had to MAIL the application in. Ugh. Whatever.

So I get to work on these Engineering Geologist jobs. Over the course of the week and half I prepare the applications I find out several distressing things.

1)   I did the wrong exam. Not a big deal; except that it turned into a huge deal. Instead of an automatically graded online test, I had to download the document and then mail in the test, with results to be mailed back within 4-6 weeks. I found this out on Monday. The test had to be completed and received before I was eligible to apply for the EG position. The deadline for the EG position was Friday.

2)   The test was 30 pages; every question required a short written answer. 38 questions asking me to detail the level of experience I had with every aspect of the job and in which class had I covered the material.

3)   Once I completed the test (with HUGE credit to my accountabilibuddy who didn’t leave my side until I was done) I had to mail the printed out document to the State capitol. Oh, and I didn’t mention that the radio buttons didn’t work so I had to fill them all in by hand before mailing them.

4)   The job stated that it required all of my official transcripts. Over the course of my college career I attended five colleges. Had to request transcripts from all of them, each request cost money.

5)   Each college transcript required me to FAX in a permission slip saying I really authorized the request.

After each of these requirements were met, I still had to write a two page Statement of Qualifications essay summarizing my education and experience (similar to a Personal Statement) and how I would fit into the position listed. While I love writing about my life, I generally hate writing about my life in a braggadocios manner. It took me 5 months of being unemployed before several friends pointed out that I should mention I graduated with honors when I applied to jobs. I held an assumption throughout college that the expectation was to get 4.0 so anything less than that was unacceptable and shameful. I never gave myself credit for actually living up to that.

Writing those two pages were some of the most excruciating prose I’ve done in a while. I created structure for myself by drawing out all of the verbs from the job listing. I then played that writing game where I included as many of the verbs as I could in the essay. I didn’t say I have excellent communication skills, I just showed it.

Then I also had to write cover letters for each position.

By Friday lunchtime I had completed everything and submitted all transcripts, diplomas, cover letters, statement of qualifications, copied my resume 4 times into different places and hit submit. I have no idea if I even passed the qualifying exam; and if not, the entire application was for naught! Yaaaay. .___.

Friday afternoon I went to a career fair in green tech utilities. Around my birthday someone recommended my getting into utilities as a stable possibility instead of starting my own business. I’m ornery and wrote off the suggestion at the time because I was vetting my business idea and I wanted the company to work. Three months later, I find myself at a utilities job fair.

It was actually a cute little fair with about 20 companies represented, about half of them Solar. Every time a representative from a Solar company talks about “solar systems” I crack up. They were mostly looking for sales agents and photovoltaic (PV) designers or engineers. I did find some interesting people with some really solid advice about how to network in this industry better.

I feel like job fairs can be pretty misleading at times. I went by the utilities representative for Oroenpaz City and the woman was quite cold and told me to take a pre-printed flyer. I offered her my resume and she informed me that all of the job listings were on the website on the pre-printed flier and good day.

I happened to swing by the same booth later and talked with a different representative. This guy seemed to be a middle manager that was certainly much higher up, maybe the other woman's boss? I offered him my resume and he literally said “Wow! This is really impressive!” Now we have a follow up phone screen next Wednesday. Looking forward to seeing if there is anywhere I can fit into their system to contribute my expertise.

****Housing****

 As the complicated application process unfolded, another event transpired on the home front. As aquageddon has transpired, a leak developed over our bathtub. I could see black mold peaking out through the sagging lintel. I report it to our property managers.

The same day (2/8), I find a piece of paper on our front door that informs us the property managers intend to tour the property with the new owners. The entire building has been sold, private sale.

On Friday (2/10) I came home from the career fair and there is a note on my clothes horse from the real estate agent of the new buyer. The note demands we fill out a form of estoppel certificate (I’m not even listed as a tenant) and respond immediately. Here is where the date is important. The letter is dated 2/9 and demands a two day turn around. It’s delivered on 2/10, on a Friday afternoon after the post office is closed. There is literally no way to meet the demands of the letter. To top it off, the letter closes with “Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression so make sure it’s a good one.”

In addition to trying to manage my own feelings of fear, intimidation and anger I quickly found that my neighbors demand emotional labor to manage their feelings. In addition to the emotional work of assuring them that they are going to be fine, they seem to also be less informed than PartnerPenguin and I when it comes to the legal definitions of rent control. One of the neighbors (who considers himself the on-site manager) is convinced that the new owner will just kick us all out with no compensation and that we will all be homeless. That is so far from what is legally acceptable, even if we didn’t live in a rent-controlled unit. It’s been exhausting to even interface with that viewpoint.

PartnerPenguin and I are working to put together a one-page summary of the pertinent laws regarding tenant rights and post them publicly around our development. Hopefully this will give neighbors actionable information without actually interacting with us. And hopefully I will be able to keep the kitchen door closed so my next door neighbor stops inviting himself in to complain while I prepare my lunch.

In the meantime, we are starting to explore our options around the area. This is a compound stress because if I get the job with the state I will be commuting 90 miles, one direction, unless we move a bit north. This housing search is providing different and interesting challenges compared to previous housing searches. I am acutely feeling the privilege of our situation and appreciating it immensely because, for once, I am not terrified of being outright homeless. Previously it would have taken us 3-6 months to save the necessary first, last and deposit ($4000-5000 with current rent prices) to change homes. PartnerPenguin’s job has allowed for us to save that amount much more easily and therefore we have it at hand, should we need to move out tomorrow. I still hope we don’t need to, but it feels completely different from the last two or three times I moved. To give perspective: moving to The Lab on The Hill left both of us with $17 before my first paycheck hit.

Oh, and another thing with housing. Since aquageddon started we’ve had a new house-guest:

 I found it on my laptop case. I’m 99% certain it’s a termite. We’re keeping it in a glass jar until the property management company is open again after the holiday weekend. But many things are pointing towards GTFO’ing this complex right now.

****Job****

Applying for government jobs creates artificially long timescales so in the interim I decided to connect with a temp agency. I have talked at other points in time about gender presentation in the workplace but I feel like this has dominated my thoughts for the past week.

My most recent adventure into this topic happened at game night about two weeks ago. A friend was wearing a very cute outfit but the shirt cut low to about what I would consider to be about 70% cleavage. She wore an under-shirt but clearly the cleavage was intentional. I was flabbergasted that that level of femme presentation was allowed at work. There were time at TLoTH when I thought I was going to get written up for “inappropriate dress” when I had been showing about 30% cleavage. I had assumed from my lived experience that femme presentation and work were fundamentally incompatible unless you had small enough boobs and knew enough about fashion to utilize it without being sexual.

 Going into the temp agency was a culture shock of an experience. Women dominate this workplace and most of the jobs are gendered. Positions seem to range from secretary to sales with a sprinkling of event staffing. I figured some work is better than nothing so I offered to accept whatever comes across my plate. It helps that I have a very specific financial goal that I’m working towards so I can count how each hour of work helps me achieve my goal. My current financial goal is to do complete my work with Sparkles and achieve a breakthrough with her.

This week I got my first assignment! I worked security for an info security conference. Translation: I was a human door. I “guarded” the Speaker Lounge. Ostensibly my job was to make sure no one but speakers entered the room. I also needed to watch two Macbooks that weren’t locked down because Apple doesn’t believe in creating physical locks for their products? I learned the following about myself at this post.

·      I am absolute rubbish at being intimidating. I tried to kick people out of the room and they took their sweet time and then came back later in the day.

·      There were a few people who were nice and genuinely interesting. Some even gave me excellent advice about networking and different approaches to personal branding. I asked for this advice, they didn’t just flyby dump on me.

·      Many conference attendees do not educate themselves with maps provided before they attend a session. The most common conversation I had was giving directions to either the bathrooms or the other buildings of the conference.

·      Women and people of color were the 80% of the people who said “Thank you” to me for doing my job. However they were <15% of the participants of the event, both demographics combined.

·      I greeted literally everyone who passed me. I found that if I tried to avoid eye contact or just stand there silently the time passed EVEN slower and I felt more isolated by the moment.

·      Not being allowed to use the restroom or drink water gives me a whole new appreciation for white-collar jobs where neither of these things are relevant.

·      In conjunction with not being able to take care of my bodily needs, I also interacted with thousands of people, creating the perfect storm to foment illness.

·      Finally: A lot of people don’t people don’t pay any attention to folks in these positions and literally treat them as objects.

I have worked a lot in my life to prevent myself from total objectification. I, like many people raised as women, were told by figures of authority that if my gender presentation was too showy/risqué it would lead toward my harassment and I would be at fault for inviting it. I, like many women, struggle with how to react to catcallers and other unwanted forms of attention.

By contrast and protest, I have decided to lean into my femme presentation by choosing to wear a distinctly red shade of lipstick while our President is in power. I discussed this last post if you’d like to read more of my motivations. The combination of these decisions brought me to look like this at my security post this week:

I was genuinely surprised how many comments and compliments I got on my hair and makeup while at this post. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been as surprised since I greeted literally everyone. The one comment I really could have gone without was one speaker who left the lounge and said as a means of departing:

“Y’know every time I see those braids I just wanna pull ‘em!”

At that moment I was a bit shocked and didn’t respond. I asked my amazing community via Facebook whether I should report the incident. I got a lot of really emotionally honest responses and was impressed with how civilly my friend group disagreed with each other. (In case you haven’t read this article about Uber, I would recommend reading that right now.) I sent a description of the event to the temp agency without using the words harassment or threat of violence. They responded that it was good to report it and they were sorry it happened.

The conference distinctly lacked a code of conduct and there were so many sub-contractors that there actually wasn’t a clear path of whom I should talk to regarding reporting the incident. One of the non-asshole speakers from the lounge helped me identify a conference organizer with whom I could share my concern. I found her and described the interaction and she made a decidedly disgusted face. She asked who it was, and shared her very different experience with the same person. She believed me though, which was important.

Other women whom I told responded in return that several years ago there were booths at the expo hall that boasted half-naked women to sell their product. It seems this particular conference has a pretty entrenched objectification problem. I guess it makes me feel better that it’s not just me?

****Good newses****

The main pieces of good news are that I have amazing friends whom I’ve continued to see despite all this crazy nonsense. They have done so much for me in so many ways and I continue to be grateful every day.

My people keeper thing has definitely been a major source of brightness and prevention from my falling into the swirling drain of depression that comes with dead end jobs. It is so much less cognitive load to just check my calendar about whom I need to say hi to that day. From there friends can hear about different aspects of my life that I may or may not write about. It’s been working really well.

To close out, I present the only thing that can truly cure you when you’re sick: MOAR COWBELL!!

And to counter a classic, here is a brand new song:

It’s Not Makeup, It’s War Paint

First, I’d like to credit Iliza Schlesigner for the quote I’m using for the title. It feels accurate this week. 

Content warning: brief mention of suicidal ideation.

Anxious Allergies

I have hella food allergies. A lot of people reading this already knew that. I have always had them and spent a lot of time being miserable because they weren’t diagnosed and I didn’t pay attention to them. For example: I am deathly allergic to eggs. When I eat an egg, I pass out within an hour. It’s a weird proportion things and I explain it that I can eat a cookie but not a quiche. When I was younger, growing up in a predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish community, this was a major problem. During Passover in particular I had a really tough time with starving. Passover was the one time during the year where my family was strictly Kosher and because of this we ate a lot more parve (neither dairy nor meat) foods. This included eggs. This made me feel very tired a lot and made it so I didn’t want to eat. By the end of eight days not eating anything but chocolate and matzah I was always happy for it to be over.

I cut eggs out of my diet when I was 21. It was amazing. I started getting more energy in my activities and felt a lot better. I was still experiencing some pretty intense physical issues at the time but cutting eggs did help.

Recently, I have found another food allergy: nightshades. Back in May I did an elimination diet as I suspected that I had an unidentified food allergy. When I reached the point of the diet where I was to reintroduce nightshades, the book warned that each group should be introduced separately as nightshade allergies can be quite severe. Not heeding this warning, PartnerPenguin and I made Ratatouille. I had two servings of this dish over rice and that will probably be the last time I ever eat it. In the next three days I experienced for the first time with incredible precision the effects of a nightshade allergy. Every nerve ending, inside and outside of my body felt like it was slightly on fire.

Perhaps the most important discovery with this allergy was noticing the linkage between my background levels of anxiety and the anxiety provoked by this nervous system inflammation. Specifically: I retroactively observed that several occasions when I experienced suicidal ideation were directly linked to my consumption of nightshades. Well, that’s some bull shit and completely avoidable so I have cut nightshades out of my diet entirely.

It has been a rough journey since May, on cutting these foods out. I can’t eat Mexican, Indian or really anything spicy at all anymore. I’ve recently been trying to eat more vegetarian lately because I noticed that since I can eat meat, I wind up eating a lot of it.

Pizza has been the food I have missed the most, besides Chicken Masala. Being able to just chip in for a giant pie is always so easy to do. This past Sunday we had a lovely evening planned with friends where we got together and watched The Dish. We decided to go in for pizza, but we approached the subject with great caution. We read through all of the ingredients and chose a white pizza with pesto sauce, chicken, garlic and a couple other things that were safe to eat. I ate the pizza with great gusto because I haven’t even tried to eat pizza in 5 months (again it was a white pizza).

Unfortunately by the end of the night I realized something horrible. The chicken (which had been listed as plain chicken) was actually soaked in a tomato sauce. I had eaten three slices. :< I started to feel a little queasy and asked the friends driving us home if we could leave. Everyone was really mad at the pizza company for not listing that the chicken had tomato on it. TTfDU called the store the next day and they said that they get their chicken from a third party and they don’t know what’s in it. At this point, I don’t know which disturbs me more: the fact that the ingredients weren’t accurately portrayed or that a company uses ingredients without checking what’s in them.

All told I ate about 3 tablespoons of tomato paste but that was sufficient to incite a terrible anxious reaction. Monday I canceled my plans (that I’d made weeks ago) because I couldn’t face the transit required to attend them. Mega props to the friend I was going to journey to see for offering to hang out on Skype. Now I have Skype and am starting to understand how much fun Skype dinner dates are.  

Political Thing-a-Week

As I mentioned two weeks ago, I am not interested in sitting idly by while the current President disembowels our democracy. This has been difficult to enact and I have had to remind my friends and myself that there are more than three ways to be an activist.

First, I have started to wear war paint. In my adult life I have never included makeup on a regular basis as part of my wardrobe. Since the inauguration, I found the perfect color and I have been wearing it every day. It is my war paint. It is aggressively femme and aggressively loud. It is my “smash the patriarchy” color and I’m super happy about it.

One way I have practiced activism is being there for friends. Showing up to my friends’ houses and actively listening as they decide whether or not to stay in the country. Calling and texting friends whose absence I have noticed from regular events to make sure they are ok. Adding supportive commentary on Facebook threads to make sure my friends know they are not alone in their views.

Another way I’ve been active is straight up protesting. I’d like to give a window into why that it’s not so simple. Sunday morning, the day after the Cheeto in Chief’s executive order on banning travel I felt too restless to stay inside. I made this sign:

I waited for PartnerPenguin to wake and let him know I planned on protesting. When he did wake me up, he held me closely and expressed his conflicted feelings. On one hand he did not feel like he could or should suggest I not protest. On the other hand, he was very worried about my safety. I have never been arrested. I have never been physically assaulted. We both know I’m rubbish at running. PartnerPenguin had looked into ways to get out of the airport without public transit or cars and there are basically no pedestrian exits.

I appreciated deeply feeling so cared for and knowing I have a home to return to. But on Sunday I just couldn’t stay home. I know too many people with their Green cards. I know quite a few people who have attended school through AB540 funding. I grew up with several Bosnian, Ukrainian and other USSR refugees. Members of my family are naturalized citizens. I just couldn’t sit still.

The protest itself was a lot less White than Women’s March. It was on private property but the airport as a company seemed to be in support of the protesters. They made signs to make sure protesters knew where to go. I held my sign (with its spelling error…that no one noticed) up above my head and sang “Move Trump, get out the way” with a woman whose voice makes mine look like a weak child’s.  It felt very 1920’s suffragette in nature.

 By contrast to the Women’s March, there were riot police at this protest. When they arrived I quietly took my leave and again avoided getting arrested. I felt a bit ashamed that I was there for such a short time and left when I was afraid of things getting messy but at the same time I was prioritizing being ready for the next thing and taking care of myself.

Another way I have acted is cashing in social capital I build at TLoTH. From this work it looks like the National Science Foundation is indeed part of the Executive branch and therefore cannot technically advocate or lobby on behalf of themselves when faced with the threat of defunding. But the person I contacted seemed to really appreciate my reaching out.

Children Are Monsters

Most of my experience with children for the past five years has been The Little Bear and her friends. The Little Bear has good home training, is intellectually curious but also is very cautious and shy in public. Oh Glob am I glad that going forward she may be the main kid I interact with for the next while.

The Shit Job of This Month happened this past week and good Glob was it shitty. As I mentioned last week, this company has been in touch since October and then finally offered 10 hours total. Turns out I really dodged a bullet.

The first day I showed up to a school with no instructions on how to sign in as a visitor or where the class I was to help with would take place. Eventually I showed myself to the office and signed in while I waited for the other teacher. She was about 15 minutes late, but ok. As we’re unloading her car she realizes she forgot some of the supplies. Oh well, these things happen and we could improvise. The classroom was stocked with chairs for pre-schoolers (we were seeing kids K-2) and the tables were too low to sit under. There were no paper towels and the teacher didn’t bring any cleaning supplies, but I figured that wouldn’t be relevant.

It was relevant. The activity we eventually did was measuring out water and rice. There was insufficient physical activity early in the class. By the time we got to the measurements exercise the girls were screeching and delighted to mix, splash and generally wreak havoc on the rice, water and measuring materials. The teacher also brought thumbtacks and pennies to measure? Not really sure what the original thought was there, but I’m glad the girls mostly stayed away from the thumbtacks. One girl grabbed a meter stick and began wielding it like a sword. I tried to ask for the stick back but…let’s say she did not go down without a fight. Other children were pretending to swim on the floor and by the end of class there was a lot of shrieking.

After the children left, I found a small rag that one of the children had started to clean the mess with. I used it to corral as many rice grains as I could find and had to wring it out every minute.

The other classes were not as bad as the first one, thankfully. I wore my hair in Princess Anna braids for several of the classes and I smacked down with children touching my hair without permission. In one case I said “We don’t touch people’s hair without their permission.” She said “May I have permission to touch your hair?” I said “No,” and then walked away. This is not a frequent occurrence for me, though it’s not the first time. I felt like it was a good opportunity to discuss consent and bodily autonomy.

The nice thing was that they have already paid me for my time and now I can move on. I hope your weekend is lovely. Today we’ll close out a song popped up when ParterPenguin typed in “inoffensive music for sick wives”, and YouTube returned the following.