Sleep report: took 2 trazadone again, slept 8.5 hours. Huzzah!

IOP today: values. NOT a topic I like to discuss because I'm so tired of hearing it in the context of applying for jobs (hi, what do I do when my value of creativity does not match with my value of safety?) but in all honesty it was more about fight, flight, freeze, or fawn somehow and I was more into that, realizing that I probably do "fawn" at work, which was defined as going along with whatever the other person wants so you don't get in trouble. Agree with that. Still got annoyed at not going through all the slides, though. :P

After that I went over to Dawn's for lunch with her and Loretta. We tried to do this MC Escher tile puzzle Dawn got and frankly, I ended up having to cheat to finish it. We thought the white tiles were on top but really they were the black ones...and frankly I had to cheat a lot to get it to work.

Here's a funny for you: I brought her some stuff I picked up for her while I was gone, and she said she'd gotten me something but couldn't find it. I was all, "hey, St. Anthony, can you find whatever Dawn got for me?" and she found it by the time I got back. (A magnet that says "Being a little weird is a side effect of being awesome," it was in with her other Christmas gift stuff.)

Then I went back home for the PCP doctor's appointment, updated her on what's been going on, asked if SHE can fill out limitations paperwork (guess what, no!), but she did say they'd look at my medical records for figuring out what my limitations are, they SHOULD be able to make a January 15 deadline but let her know if there's a week to go and no documentation yet. She also said that's the documentation you submit to the LEAP program for disability and that "should" count, but as for actual filing for disability, I shouldn't do that one until I am out of work, but my attention isn't great right now and I could go on disability if my memory keeps glitching. She did say a possible accommodation would be to have someone proofread my work, but work may not want to do that one. I said, well, that might be what we go for...and she liked the reassignment option. She did ask how long it took me to realize I'd made mistakes and I said most of the time I don't, someone else finds them. Also, "is tattling a thing at your work?" Well, it is now.

She also said, "you're not stupid" and "there should be no job where you're expected to be perfect."

Per Roger, I asked if I should get a physical checkup and she was all, "eh, probably not, but we could do a blood test just to make sure it's not a B12 deficiency," which she doesn't think it is, but hey, wouldn't that make everything easier if it was just that. So she put in for the blood test and I ran over to Kaiser and got that done quickly. I note they had a wall of entertaining things to look at while you're getting the blood drawn and one of them said, "One out of four people in this country is mentally unbalanced. Think of your three closest friends. If they seem okay, then you're the one." I sent this to Dawn and Loretta and Dawn claimed it must be the imaginary fourth person at lunch, har har. Did tell Roger I did it, so there you go.

Conversation with Ashley, whose medical team STILL HAS NO PLAN:
Her: "Can I just be a weirdo for the rest of my life?"
Me: "You're going to be a weirdo for the rest of your life anyway."
Apparently her heart doesn't act up as long as she stays in house jail....whee.

Singing lesson: more Fifty Percent, she more or less thinks I'm doing well, we talked about how to work one measure of it to hopefully be played more slowly like I normally sing it, etc. She asked what part I was going for and I said, "what part? I don't get parts here" and "Dannette will probably get them all anyway," and she said yeah, Dannette gets Fruma Sarah there, but I could shoot for Golde. She asked what the problem was and I said I'm weird to cast, at a weird age, weird looks, average performer, and I said she has different issues as a lead actress. She was all, "you think I've always been leads?" Good point. And also that talent sometimes has nothing to do with it. That said, if I fuck this up, it doesn't matter, I could sing "Happy Birthday" and still have the same role of "old lady," so there you go. Oh well, at least I'm onstage. (I note I had the same argument with my mother later.)

After that, I went back to Dawn's, where apparently Loretta had been helping her wrap up gifts (foodstuffs from some cherry place in Michigan) to ship to people. I hung out there for a few more hours, filled them in on the doctor's stuff today, finished one sleeve of my sweater and got pretty close to finishing the other. Loretta said she has a B12 deficiency and they're trying to figure out if she's absorbent-deficient (some term like that? I forget?) and should be getting shots instead, and I was reminded that Scott has that with the shots. They kept complimenting my knitting supplies--rainbow scissors, sheep shaped measuring tape--and I said they were from Scott. I apparently hadn't told Loretta about the letter thing, so I told her and she thought it was pretty weird he didn't say anything after reaching out like that. So...yeah.

I also got an email from Anthony saying the following: "I think you have a habit of invalidating yourself and forgetting that you have people in your life who appreciate you. They see the good in you. It's easy to forget about our goals in relationships when we are caught up in our feelings. I'm glad you were able to step back and consider how you would have approached that situation differently, considering your goals. You wanted self respect without harming the relationship. It's ok to have feelings about what happened and the loss of the relationship. It's a sign that you are human, you wish things could have worked out differently and that hurts. Great job for sticking with this path of healing, it's a messy road at times."

Mom wanted me to talk to her after I got home, which started out argumentative (she kept nitpicking Dawn's husband's situation, I only know so much, he was fine tonight once he got up is about what I can say), then it went into stuff like "what do you do every day?" and "what did all of the doctors say?" and "did you tell them all of this?" (yes) and she did talk about the day my dad had a breakdown at work and called her saying he couldn't do this any more. She had to come get him, said watching him cry was very scary, and he was out of work in a week. I said I don't exactly know how he felt since mine is only in my bad head, but...I kinda do.

As for the Scott situation, she said, "he probably doesn't know how to respond to that," and I said yeah, I didn't think he was likely to say anything anyway and she said I let him off the hook, I overthink things and I need to let people have their say. And "you should never close a door" and "always leave it open that someone can contact you." I said I didn't say he couldn't, I just said I got that he'd probably never want to speak to me again after this. She wants to read the letter now, but I dunno on that one. We'll see if she remembers about it, let me put it that way. I may send it if she brings it up again, but odds are pretty low she'll remember or read it if I did.

She told me about the time some woman called her office desperate and looking for help and they were all booked up, and she told the lady to try other accountants, was overheard by a boss, and they threatened to fire her over it (me: "what were you supposed to do, just say no and that's it?" Her: "yes.") and then never got back to her and never said anything about it again, and she was upset they didn't let her defend herself. Me: THIS IS MY WORK SITUATION EVERY DAMN DAY EXCEPT EVEN WORSE. Then she finally got it. She seemed to get what I was talking about, and I even pointed out from the class yesterday that some of her trying-to-be-supportive reactions are...not always actually supportive in reality.

Actually, the conversation went pretty well, all things considered, for a mom conversation.

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