💾 Archived View for gemlog.blue › users › birchkoruk › 1725671218.gmi captured on 2024-09-29 at 03:02:34. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Been a long time since I posted last. I got back on mastodon for a bit, but then I slacked off in June when summer started getting busy, and during the summer I haven't been writing anywhere at all. I think mastodon will stick, but it's obvs not the same as journal/diary style entries.
Cat passed away in August. I thought for sure we'd have a couple more years with him, but I realized he hadn't come out for wet foods in the evening, and when I went to check on him, he was curled on the bed with Other Cat closeby. Spouse was gone on a trip. I had to call him and tell him Cat had passed. Cat had been low energy all day and I thought Cat was depressed because Spouse was gone. It was hard. I got his body bundled up and took him to get cremated the next morning. Miss that cat so much. Other Cat did not seem to have much trouble adjusting, perhaps because she was right there when he passed.
We'd planned on adding a cat in September. We had to wait until after the trip to CO for my aunt's funeral. The day after spouse's birthday, spouse decides we need to stop by animal control and check out the kitties. It's his turn to pick. They had some great older cats, but spouse thought a kitten might make for an easier introduction to Other Cat. So we went in to see the kittens. He holds one kitten and watches him a little bit with the other kittens and decides he's the one. He's curious, but not too bold. So now we have Kitten.
Other Cat spent a couple days angry-hissing at Kitten, then sulking under the bed. We had to get the crate out to get the kitten home and she really hates the crate. She calmed down some once the crate was gone, but she's still been hissing at Kitten, like a grumpy old lady. Not really mad, just perfunctory hissing on principle. She doesn't even bother to get up. Kitten is in the office and Other Cat is across the hall in the bedroom, where she spends the majority of her time. It's not too hard to keep them apart and give them turns at access to the rest of the house. But gosh I wish she would chill out already. He's got such a sweet personality. He and his litter were found abandoned and he's obviously been bottle raised. Loves people, loves to cuddle. Really wants to be friends with Other Cat, if she'd let him. Yesterday we got this mesh door panel with a zipper opening and tacked it on the office door frame. It lets the cats see and smell each other while keeping them seperate. So far Other Cat sees this as an opportunity to intimidate the interloper. Kitten just holds still and is silent, poor little guy. Really hope Other Cat gets tired of hissing soon.
There's a ton of scampering and crab hopping going on in the house right now. The last time we had a kitten was Other Cat, and she was/is shy and hid under the furniture half the time when she was little. This guy is a lot more bold. Running up and down the hall. Getting everywhere he can get. No toes are safe. He farts, though. Silent, stinky kitten farts.
So we went to Colorado in mid August and I saw my family and caught up with old friends, and I had a challenging one-on-one conversation with my mom. For a couple years after June 1 2020, when Trump gave a speech about the George Floyd protests and had that photo op in DNC where he held up a bible, I did not speak to my mom, and when we eventually did have contact I kept it very short. We had been texting that day about how terrible certain world events were going and I watched the speech and my mom said some stuff defending Trump and I just lost it. I didn't understand at the time why I had such an intense emotional response. I went off on a rant about what a malignant narcissist shitbag the guy is and how could she support him as a former ICU nurse and a christian, etc. Like he basically abandoned the elderly like my mom to die in covid and he's the farthest thing from a christian you could find, and he's waving around a fucking bible after tear gassing protestors and THIS is your guy?? For reals? I. Could. Not.
We didn't communicate at all for a long time. My mom would contact spouse now and then if there were news. A couple times I tried to write up why it upset me so, but it always came out too raw and hurtful. And I don't have any safe way of communicating just with my mom. Back when they had their old land line, my dad would pick up the other phone and listen in. He always felt entitled to share our conversation. Same with letters. I assume he looks at her phone if he wants (if he can figure it out - he's not as good as my mom with tech). It would never occur to him that if I get it touch with mom, that it's just for her and not for them both. The best way to let it out was in person.
Mom and I got ice cream after the funeral. I told her how I had so much respect for her for keeping our family afloat, because my dad was not a great provider because he's shit at working with others. How I didn't want to bring up that dad was abusive because it would just make her life harder when she was doing so much and had struggled with depression since I was little. I told her how disappointing it was that she supported Trump, who is such an obvious abuser. How I really cannot tolerate support for abusers, and how Trump is a fascist who is going to hurt vulnerable people. I told her she was being a good german. The conversation kinda went all over the place and is hard to sum up. How I really hate when she evangelizes at me and the reason why I am not a christian is because of dad.
My mom is just ... parked in Trump supporter mode. She doesn't know what news is real or how to tell what news is real. I think AI generated stuff has really done a number on her sense of reality outside of what she personally experiences. She says they don't watch any TV news anymore. She just glosses over the bad stuff and chooses not to believe it. She doesn't want to look and find out. She just wants to be on a team with her christian buddies. She thinks Kamala is "not smart".
She did agree to check out stuff I share with her, so I guess that's something. I told her all I want is for her to not vote for Trump. She doesn't have to go wild and vote democrat. Just don't vote Trump. Leave it blank. It's really important to me that she not support that fucking asshole. Also, never evangelize at me again.
What I learned from the conversation is kind of sad. I don't think my mom is capable of accessing or processing her negative emotions. When she was depressed when I was growing up, and then seemingly got better, I thought she figured out the magic key to mental healing. Like, I was in awe. I thought she was some kind of saint for putting up with my dad and rising above to be the breadwinner for our family. As it turns out, I think she just shut out her emotions and wouldn't allow herself to be anything except baseline cheerful and positive. Anything difficult just rolls off her like water off a duck's back. She can't grasp it. She can't allow herself to grasp it, because she never dealt with her own difficult childhood. I was talking with my sister and she thinks mom's first sexual experience was rape. We know she got molested as a kid by a family member and her family didn't believe her. We know her mom was cruel and played favorites and called her fat. So my mom just boxed up that hardship and buried it and took on the persona of "good christian wife". If the instinctive responses to abuse are fight, flee or fawn, my mother's locked in response is to fawn. She butters up my dad. She does whatever she thinks will make him feel good in the moment, to keep him happy and not angry. She's a good christian woman so she sees suffering as her burden, and regulating her husband's emotions is her job. And the cost of her "happy marriage" is the part of her soul that lets her feel things for herself. She only exists for others.
My mom admitted she knew about the abuse, years ago. She said, "dad has never been good at patience" (no shit). She knew. She just put her blinders on and ignored it, and ignored me as a casualty. She couldn't deal, so she didn't.
I got to say what I wanted to say. I don't feel bound by the old family roles. But nothing was resolved in any kind of hallmark fashion. There was no big emotional climax. Nobody cried. We weren't miraculously made closer. My mom didn't have a "come to Jesus" moment about Trump (even though she fucking needs one). It just is what it is, but I said my peace as honestly as I could. And I feel free, and that's all I wanted. There is no obligation to "what will my family think" anymore. I instinctively didn't want to make my art too honest because that would somehow expose me for being something I shouldn't - an abused child. Like my emotional expression was less important than preserving my dad's reputation. I got so good at hiding and covering that I hid myself too. Maybe I picked up those vibes from my mom.
My mom immediately snapped back into acting like nothing happened. Wouldn't surprise me if she erased a lot of our conversation from memory. We had a party the following day and it was all smiles and sunshine. She's texted me since and it's just normal life things. Pictures of their cat. I need to put together some links about Trump's latest bullshit at Arlington to trade back. "Thanks for the cat pictures, here's your guy committing a felony while disrespecting veterans." Make sure she watches the upcoming debate.
It's a strange thing. Like I care but I don't? I'm in a little bit of a "haha, fuck you" mode. I'm not angry at her, I'm just not going to filter myself anymore.
I should get going. I am woefully behind on summer projects. I've only got about a month more of good weather and I have so much to do.
I've started a new diet thing. My sister told me about this instagram account she follows: the "glucose goddess". This french biochemist put a glucose monitor on herself and figured out some tips for preventing blood sugar spikes, which she thinks are a root cause of a laundry list of common health problems. And since I can feel when my blood sugar spikes and I know it's bad for my headaches, I'm going to give it a shot. I got her book "The Glucose Goddess Method" and honestly the core premise is so simple I'd feel embarrassed for paying $25 for the book, except it did come with a lot of simple recipes that genuinely look good. (I should have checked the used bookstore first, rats.) You can find all her tips online - none of them are mindblowing on their own but together she might have something. Like any ambitious modern would-be health guru she also sells a supplement, but pretty sure it's expensive horseshit so we won't be doing that. She has suspiciously good branding and of course she is thin and pretty and french. She worked for 23andme, which IMO is a red flag for a supposed scientist. I feel like she has carefully packaged herself and her "method" to be accessible and make her rich. But hey, if it works ...
Week one: eat a savory breakfast. Just skip sugar at breakfast, so no jam, pastries, sugary coffee, etc. Bread and whole fruit are okay.
Week two: 1 tbs of vinegar in a drink or salad dressing per day (no sugar added). I like vinegar drinks anyway, twist my arm. Apparently kombucha doesn't have enough of the right acid so back to poor man's kombucha it is.
Week three: eat a vegetable starter once a day. Just a vegetable appetizer (no sugar) before dinner, like a salad or carrot sticks, etc. Gets you more fiber, fills you up.
Week four: 10 minute movement after a meal. Of course this is a good idea.
There's some other tips but all 10 of them fit on a single page. Stuff like, you can have dessert but eat it after a meal of real food, to limit the affect on blood sugar. The theory is if you keep your blood sugar more stable, your body won't freak out and process the excess energy into fat, leading to better sleep and energy, reduced cravings, weight loss, yada yada, shit magic rainbows.
Couple of our gamer friends are doing hard keto and seeing good results, but I don't have the mojo for that right now. I thought about whole30 but again, don't have the desire to do a lot of food limiting on top of what I now do normally. Frankly I just really like potatoes. And noodles. It's hard enough thinking up meals without picking around a minefield of no-no's. So we'll try this glucose goddess thing and see what sticks.