Went to bed at 10:20, woke up at 3:30. I miss sleeping in. I hate being awake in the wee small hours of the morning. However, once again I'm up watching this ADHD seminar, so there's that, I suppose. I cried and cried through most of it for hours.

I wrote a goodbye letter to Scott. I'm seeing him one last time at Fiddler this weekend and then I won't have any periods of time where I'll see him since he's taking a break from shows, no parties going on, and well, it'll be easy to avoid each other. It's a good time to drop a bomb/put it in the mail so he won't have to deal with me IRL (and I can't say shit in person anyway), and also end the mental question of "will he want to give me a present or say Merry Christmas" at this point--probably not anyway after how last year went. I'm finally going to say that he really hurt my feelings with that outburst, I've been avoiding him ever since, and I'm sorry that I've been acting weird and that I liked him/was Too Much in the first place. I don't expect that he'd ever want to talk to me again after I say that he hurt my feelings, but I think at this point I'm ready to burn that bridge since I'm probably going to be gone one way or another in 2024. I'll get it off my chest and be done with it. My therapist would say no to this (I read her a trial letter awhile back and she was all, don't say most of that), but fuck it, I just want to say it all, drop the bomb and get it all out, and then be gone.

Then I got an early call from the caseworker for the program and did the phone screening then. I have another video screening tomorrow afternoon and then the program starts Friday and runs till the end of December (Christmas Day is off). It's only from 9-11 in the mornings M/T/Th/F, but there's an in-person group therapy on Wednesday mornings (sigh...fine) and/or possible appointments with your case manager or the psychiatrist or whatever... and I'm not allowed to see my therapist for those two weeks (GOD FORBID YOU SEE AN OUTSIDE THERAPIST!...I note Kaiser would not provide me with one of those ANYWAY, but yes, that was the 'tude I'd been warned about), sigh, fine. You get "access to" a psychiatrist but not an actual regular psychiatrist...good lord, these people with the access, wtf. At this point I'm thinking it might be easier to get a unicorn at the unicorn store than a psychiatrist.

Speaking of, I asked about accommodation signoffs and got no, they won't do that, just two weeks of part time work, they won't do anything outside of occupational health (which as you might recall, won't do anything for you without workman's comp), but I can send paperwork through the same thing I did last time. Also, when do I get a regular psychiatrist....???? possibly after the program is over????

Then I had to go to Kaiser immediately for the urine drug test because I MUST DO IT RIGHT NOW. Which I will fail, and said so ahead of time. Sigh. I feel so fucking stupid on this topic, though they said it doesn't rule me out of the program. Then after that since I was out of the house and it was on the way home, I dragged myself to get groceries and five boxes of Kleenex. And I found a chocolate advent calendar for cheap, albeit $2.99 rather than like $1 at this time of year...whatever, it's the first one I've found and I miss that daily chocolate. I ate all the way to day 13.

I had my therapy session, pretty much just recapped the last week (her on Mom: you can't really count on her for emotional support...true), said I'm not permitted to see her for two weeks. I'm surprised she didn't say it first because she's so rules-y. She asked how I ended up in this position work-wise, asked if I'm burned out (YES), etc. She asked how it felt and I said sometimes I'm just crying and crying, and other times I'm....fine? When distracted, anyway. Been all over the map today, for sure. I did grumble about the drug test and she said I might not test positive after a month. I said according to the Internet it's 3+ months and the doctor was all "1-2" and she said she'd probably go with the doctor. I still don't know what they do to me when I test positive, for that matter.

Melinda called for about an hour--we're going to try to get together Monday afternoon--and she talked about trying to conform at work, job hunting, and how she hates my office and I'm doomed no matter what there. Also heard from Roger asking if I'm coming home for Christmas (I guess? First I've heard on this topic) and Mom saying they're going to come up here for The Shoes and drop off something for Evan on Monday, do I want to meet for lunch. So there's a bit of juggling come Monday.

Meg said she plans on visiting but has no idea when. Did hear from Becky after I finished the entry last night, told her about Dawn's palliative care confusion and she said she'd look into it.

After all of that, I hung out on the patio for a few hours reading Cassiel's Servant. I admit I wasn't too hyped on the book--I love the Kushiel series, but Joscelin is like, the most stoic character in the entire world--but it's actually pretty interesting. Finished the scarf I made for Mom, so there's that, as it's done blocking and I could sew the flower on.

Tonight I took Ashley to the Winters Christmas party at their new venue. We both came dressed as Christmas trees and people kept asking if we'd gotten them at the same time/from the same company (nope) and why mine had lights and hers didn't. Me: "Mine has lights, hers has jingle bells." But people got a kick out of the outfits. Also dressing weird was Jim, who came in a green combination of elf + cat, as his hat had cat ears and he had on cat leggings with his Christmas shirt and shorts. I made sure to get photos of all of this. There was also a couple named Pinky and Mark--I don't think I've met them before--but they both had on (different) Christmas flamingo sweaters. I got photos of that too.

I was a wee bit concerned about bringing a strange person to a party where she didn't know anyone (Robert and Janene were no-shows, sigh), but I introduced her to Cameron and whatever other castmates, Ashley remembered meeting Gail and Tom at Green River before, and she had an entertaining time listening to the older people at our table telling jury duty stories and the like. Germaine in particular told some horrifying stories about when she had to live in Georgia as an Army wife, went to get her Georgia driver's license and they handed her a WRITTEN EXAM in which she was supposed to describe driving conditions in great detail. Germaine was all, "I'm a Phi Beta Kappa with a master's degree and I can't figure this out," and when she said that, they were all, "Oh, we gave you the wrong test," here's the usual one with the 36 questions to pick. The essay quest version? THAT'S WHAT THEY GAVE TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN PEOPLE. Germaine also noted that she's a mimic/actress and thus started talking with a Georgia accent, and when she was inviting people into her home, they were all, "You're not from around here, are you?" Ashley had a good time hearing these things, which makes me think, "Huh, maybe I could bring her around Dawn and Loretta and the former library bunch," I've though they might hit it off for awhile but they're older than her usual crowd, so I wasn't sure.

I note that Scott/Vinny from TnT1 was there, very chill for him, said hi. Who else did I see? Bridget (told her about the work situation), Greg/Ana, Linda/Elliot, Robert from Robin Hood (Friar Tuck) and his wife, Alexis and her brother Mark (haven't seen him since 2019, clearly doing well, cheerful, no longer gaming on his phone all night), Tom and Ann.

I will say this: the gift swap game tonight had THE BEST STUFF I've ever seen in one. Like there was an epidemic of stealing of good stuff, and for once people weren't like, fighting over a gift card. I note that Linda ran it...interestingly...first by saying, "you have to take the gift home," and then we realized she'd just written out 40-something random numbers, not knowing how many people would be in it, so we were missing #1, #3, etc.... and kept calling numbers until had one.

I got Ashley's Encanto puzzle that she brought--I note I encouraged her to buy it and I was all, "I WANT THAT PUZZLE AND I SHALL GET IT," and I stole it from Robert, who I think was fine with that. I think she thought I was stealing it to be nice to her and I was all no, I want it! We will do it together, probably.

Ashley ended up with a candle and rose wine. Which was...interesting because she vacillates between "I'm not supposed to drink," vs. "I wanna drink." And tonight she told me her dad had A Bad Feeling about the party and didn't want her to go, to which I was all, "dude, it's gonna be a party of chill theater 65-year-olds," (which it pretty much was, I think me, her, Cameron, Alexis and Mark were the only ones under 50) and indeed, nothing happened, neither of us even drank anything but chugging sparkling cider. However, apparently he told her, "Don't come home with any wine...." I said I'll take it or she can hide it at home, or she can just walk in and go, "I'm 23, I can bring home alcohol!" She wanted to keep it. I don't know her dad's reaction, but her mom on the phone found it funny.

Notable steals:

* Robert ended up with a small ladies' Christmas vest (from Germaine), which was stolen by Ann and then stolen by Greg to give to Ana, who Ann said gave it back to her later.
* The most stolen gift, and the one that ran out of steals, was a "Murder Mystery At The Theater" board game. Mark, then Robert, then someone else, then Robert finally ended with it.
* Gail brought a fake Oscar ("It's a major award!"), which was also stolen several times. Mark ended up with it and then his sister Alexis stole it from him...but I saw he seemed to have it back again by the end of the night.
* There were not one, but TWO Christmas squirrels in the game. I made some comment about how there can't be two squirrels AND THEN THERE WERE.
* Ana ended up with my Baby Yoda lunch box and book. She said she was shopping for "Caitlin," whoever that was, so...??? Nobody stole it, anyway.
* Somebody had a package of Archie McPhee candy, like boogers and mac 'n cheese candy canes.
* Bridget ended up with wine and...a hat that was a coat hanger with mistletoe and a sign hanging off of it.
* Germaine ended up with "The Perfect Man Chocolate Bomb."
* Ton got Martha and Snoop Dogg elves...which Jim stole. Someone asked if he wanted those for another white elephant party and he wanted them for himself, which fits.
* Scott/Vinny got beer. He announced to all, "Great, let's get the alcoholic beer!"
* And finally, Jim's gift was a cow cookie jar. Linda ended up with it and was fairly clear she wasn't into this...and then ah, it ended up getting smashed at the end of the night. Jim: "Linda, if you didn't want it, you could have said so!"

Did get some fresh new bad news about Ashley though: her dad's job site is being shut down and he's probably being transferred to Oregon. She doesn't know what the hell she's going to do about having to go to Stanford all the time. Move to Oregon and not go or have a loooooooong way to go? Will she have to move into some group home somewhere in California? She's been complaining that her Alta caseworker literally disappeared/disconnected her number/didn't do anything anyway, and apparently Alta is where she'd have to go to ask about getting living care services, 24-hour care, etc. I told her to call them ASAP, crying, and say it's an emergency and she needs someone new, but she was all, "I can't deal with this right now, I'll do it after the new year." *shrug* *sigh* I hate to hear of the move, though, for obvious reasons, plus now I feel bad about not going to karaoke if it's ending soon, dammit. DAMMIT.

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