All the Small Things
Michigan Stats, April 8
Total Confirmed Cases: 20,346
Total COVID-19 Deaths: 959
Daily Confirmed Cases: 1,376
Daily COVID-19 Deaths: 114
At least we're not New York.
***
Two hours of sleep last night. My whole body is full of sand.
***
The big excitement yesterday was finally being able to hard-port in to the building's Internet. The wifi is included in my rent, which is obviously amazing; the downside is three separate networks that overlap oddly in the apartment like roommates who hate each other and duck out of a room the second another walks in. The library where I have set up my office, at the center of the apartment, is in the Bermuda Triangle. Or possibly a battleground, territory claimed by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The victor changes hourly. So does the signal.
There's nothing like dropping a conference call 14 different times and trying not to yield to the impulse to do a primal scream because maybe you're still connected and people will hear you.
In the sustained trauma of the current circumstances minor irritation becomes volcanic. Restraint makes your muscles shake.
My work laptop is wifi-only, but I had the presence of mind to get a docking station with an ethernet port. The property manager ran a cable from the router up to my apartment. I ordered 100 more feet of cable to reach the library.
Time has no meaning anymore. It made perfect sense to start an hour-long task at 10:30 at night, running the cable as invisibly as possible along the walls, across the hallway ceiling, along the perimeter of the library.
Completion. Stable Internet connection without marring the decor. A swelling of satisfaction in the chest.
It was a small thing.
All we have in the face of the big thing is a multitude of small things. To anchor our minds. To keep us believing in a world where good things are still possible.
As humans we're not good at big things. Rationality makes us crazy. When you have sentience and the capacity to grasp big things -- the future, death, truth, questions of meaning and purpose, the dizzying magnitude of all this universe -- it's far, far, far too much.
We evolved from the microscopic. Even our cells have their own organs, tinier things that came together to cooperate. Our cells' mitochondria have their own DNA. DNA has nucleotides. Down, and down, and down; back, and back, and back, to the first strands of carbon-nitrogen-phosphates that twitched and started to replicate in some unfathomable soup of salt and water, electrified.
Our origins are small. We are near-sighted by nature.
Carl Sagan said, "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
Love is small.
Love is everything.
***
Saw my purse lying on the floor the other day. I stood there for a minute, blinking, trying to remember what it was for.
***
Cutting my toenails at my desk is an acceptable activity.
***
My cats are so fuckin needy.
I spend all day pushing them out of my lap. It's a merry-go-round, a mobius strip, a Halloween clown car, black cat after black cat after black cat crawling up my asshole, whining.
I don't like snuggling. With ADHD I can't sit still. No position is bearable for long. In relationships with cis men I'm consistently too tall for cuddling; it turns into a marathon of awkwardness and neck cramps, a teeth-gritting game of chicken, a chore that I hate. And with my trauma-informed background, physical expressions of affection and comfort are disaffecting and uncomfortable.
Simon adapted. He adapted so well, so intelligently, that I never knew that's what he was doing. For years I just thought he wasn't a lap cat. He would sit next to me on the couch instead of on top of me, his statuesque profile quiet. I would reach over to scratch his ears, his jaws, his chin, in the ways he loved best, and he would purr, and purr, and purr.
The gremlins haven't adapted yet. I try to balance their need for affection with my need for no touchy.
It's stressful.
***
Cried in a Zoom meeting yesterday. I'm not a crier.
This is the way the world ends.
***
At this point I'm basically subsisting on endorphins and alcohol. Treadmill after work no matter how exhausted. Drink or two after that. The muzzy chemical cocktail feels like calm.
Who needs sleep.
***
How the fuck is it snowing.
***
Had a dream last night in which my DNA was analyzed for personality. I was skeptical. The first result the test spit out said, "You have always been the mainstay of your family." I looked at the printout in my hand. I believed it.
My subconscious used to make me feel worse. The objectives are different now. My brain is on my side.
In my deepest levels of awareness, I'm learning to give myself credit.
It might be enough.
Total Confirmed Cases: 20,346
Total COVID-19 Deaths: 959
Daily Confirmed Cases: 1,376
Daily COVID-19 Deaths: 114
At least we're not New York.
***
Two hours of sleep last night. My whole body is full of sand.
***
The big excitement yesterday was finally being able to hard-port in to the building's Internet. The wifi is included in my rent, which is obviously amazing; the downside is three separate networks that overlap oddly in the apartment like roommates who hate each other and duck out of a room the second another walks in. The library where I have set up my office, at the center of the apartment, is in the Bermuda Triangle. Or possibly a battleground, territory claimed by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The victor changes hourly. So does the signal.
There's nothing like dropping a conference call 14 different times and trying not to yield to the impulse to do a primal scream because maybe you're still connected and people will hear you.
In the sustained trauma of the current circumstances minor irritation becomes volcanic. Restraint makes your muscles shake.
My work laptop is wifi-only, but I had the presence of mind to get a docking station with an ethernet port. The property manager ran a cable from the router up to my apartment. I ordered 100 more feet of cable to reach the library.
Time has no meaning anymore. It made perfect sense to start an hour-long task at 10:30 at night, running the cable as invisibly as possible along the walls, across the hallway ceiling, along the perimeter of the library.
Completion. Stable Internet connection without marring the decor. A swelling of satisfaction in the chest.
It was a small thing.
All we have in the face of the big thing is a multitude of small things. To anchor our minds. To keep us believing in a world where good things are still possible.
As humans we're not good at big things. Rationality makes us crazy. When you have sentience and the capacity to grasp big things -- the future, death, truth, questions of meaning and purpose, the dizzying magnitude of all this universe -- it's far, far, far too much.
We evolved from the microscopic. Even our cells have their own organs, tinier things that came together to cooperate. Our cells' mitochondria have their own DNA. DNA has nucleotides. Down, and down, and down; back, and back, and back, to the first strands of carbon-nitrogen-phosphates that twitched and started to replicate in some unfathomable soup of salt and water, electrified.
Our origins are small. We are near-sighted by nature.
Carl Sagan said, "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
Love is small.
Love is everything.
***
Saw my purse lying on the floor the other day. I stood there for a minute, blinking, trying to remember what it was for.
***
Cutting my toenails at my desk is an acceptable activity.
***
My cats are so fuckin needy.
I spend all day pushing them out of my lap. It's a merry-go-round, a mobius strip, a Halloween clown car, black cat after black cat after black cat crawling up my asshole, whining.
I don't like snuggling. With ADHD I can't sit still. No position is bearable for long. In relationships with cis men I'm consistently too tall for cuddling; it turns into a marathon of awkwardness and neck cramps, a teeth-gritting game of chicken, a chore that I hate. And with my trauma-informed background, physical expressions of affection and comfort are disaffecting and uncomfortable.
Simon adapted. He adapted so well, so intelligently, that I never knew that's what he was doing. For years I just thought he wasn't a lap cat. He would sit next to me on the couch instead of on top of me, his statuesque profile quiet. I would reach over to scratch his ears, his jaws, his chin, in the ways he loved best, and he would purr, and purr, and purr.
The gremlins haven't adapted yet. I try to balance their need for affection with my need for no touchy.
It's stressful.
***
Cried in a Zoom meeting yesterday. I'm not a crier.
This is the way the world ends.
***
At this point I'm basically subsisting on endorphins and alcohol. Treadmill after work no matter how exhausted. Drink or two after that. The muzzy chemical cocktail feels like calm.
Who needs sleep.
***
How the fuck is it snowing.
***
Had a dream last night in which my DNA was analyzed for personality. I was skeptical. The first result the test spit out said, "You have always been the mainstay of your family." I looked at the printout in my hand. I believed it.
My subconscious used to make me feel worse. The objectives are different now. My brain is on my side.
In my deepest levels of awareness, I'm learning to give myself credit.
It might be enough.
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