💾 Archived View for oldmansmix.smol.pub › 062021_ladiesandgentlemen captured on 2021-12-04 at 18:04:22. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space

Hello!

As I noted last night I am not dead, just very tired.

I do a job that is... technical and difficult to explain simply because it's the essentially invisible final step in a process that people might think they have a handle on. Unless you are involved in my industry you would have no idea that my job exists; even then you would probably only think about it when you actually came to see me.

But the big downside about being the last person in a process is that if anyone ahead of you in that process, at any point, fucks up, that will inevitably become YOUR problem, often at a magnitude much larger than it would have if they hadn't fucked it up originally. This isn't even a complaint, really, it's more like... it's an acid that eats at me. The most cogent thing to me, about everybody I'm working with, when I'm working with them, is whether they have absolutely fucked me, and it feels like this kind of reduces the degree of comradery I can feel with my coworkers.

So a week where... a lot of people, at a lot of different stages, have fucked me, it kind of causes my brain to curl up around itself and when the weekend actually begins it takes me a little while to unclench. I am also.... probably, fairly clinically depressed, Last night I actually had a moment, getting into the shower after getting the kids to bed, etc., etc., where I actually got to thing - wait, today was a Good Day. We had fun! We maybe made some memories!

Today was Father's Day in the United States, which is a weird holiday - Mother's Day was started to commemorate the dead of World War 1 and Father's Day's whole thing is like Respecting the Grill. I don't have a tremendous relationship with my own father, and I spend a lot of time struggling with a lot of the ideas of masculinity that even a weird person like me has integrated into my psyche. And as weird as my relationship with my own dad is, many people have it much worse! It's weird to be like, here's to us dads who have not abused our kids.

But I'm probably making it too weird. It was a good day! Eee got a scooter yesterday because her summer camp requires her to be able to scoot around the gigantic park adjacent to our neighborhood. She notably has never had a scooter before because frankly my wife and I fucking hate them, just the terrified cringing I feel inside every time I see a kid - sombody else's kid! - goes flying towards a crosswalk on a scooter with their parent yelling impotently a block behind.

SO we thought we were being clever by not giving her a scooter and now it turns out getting your kid on a scooter once they have a fear of pain and a sense of embarrassment is KIND OF HARD.

But we did some scooting and went to church (this is... for another post I think) and ate pizza in a playground and grilled out. There were frustrating moments but when are there not! It was a good day and a good weekend. I hope to inflict more links and songs on you tomorrow.