"Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness"

Work is blowing up like a blowing up thing. today, I learned one of the directors is leaving and the next fiscal year's budget does not include replacing the staff assistant who left, which leaves me continuing to be the only person in the fucking office who know how to put paper into machines. So, I had an almostworkdate with Delight yesterday, where I narrowed my choices down to five jobs, and Light helped me narrow it further to two parttime jobs at the beast. there are also some interesting short-term part-time positions at MIT, but I have no idea if I really want to university-hop or I'm just discouraged at the moment, and will come to realize that staying here is the best plan. But I suck at resumes and I suck at saying nice things about myself. I don't interview well and I don't look good in a suit. But I'm a hell of a worker, and I need to figure out a way to sell that if I'm not going to stay here.

I've been feeling inadequate lately, in a lot of different ways. In part, it's the cons I'm working on. In part, it's my complete lack of motivation at work. In part, it's that I don't clean my house until it gets out of control, and it's possible I've resigned myself to living somewhere that always smells vaguely of cat pee. In part it's that I want to do these awesome things, and I want to have a friend pool such that if I post "i need a date for X event" I want a large enough throng of friends that I'll usually be able to find someone to go along with me. And I thought, for a while, that's what poly would be, that the sleeping-with part of the equation with meant that if Light wasn't available, Asshat probably would be, and I wouldn't have to go to things by myself.

There's a little holdover here from the crazy year (oh, omnia, they're all the crazy years), where I was convinced that I didn't exist when no one was looking at me. No, I can't actually explain how that might work, but I always wanted to be observed, I always wanted to know how people saw me, so I could calibrate what I was projecting to how I was being perceived. (Light and I were talking about passwords security today and it all abruptly slotted into a clumsy metaphor about how in the world, I often feel like I'm typing in one thing, it's being run through a mysterious process, and the rest of the world sees this other thing, and no matter how much data I collect, I'm never going to be smart enough, fast enough, good enough to figure out what the mysterious process is and so I flail around in the dark, trying to figure out if language ever really works, if maybe I'd be more loveable, appeal to a wider audience, feel a little bit less like I was always trying to catch up, if I could only figure out what needed to change about me.

And I'm not all desperation and sharp corners, I'm not completely any one thing or another. But I sometimes feel like I'm carrying over the problem I have with psychiatrists to the rest of the world, where people can either believe how messed up I am, and think that the calm facade is the lie, or see the calm facade and think the messed-up part is a lie. And I'm not saying I'm special, I'm not anyone's snowflake, much less my own. But I do think as people who know me here might know me better than people who only know me in real life, because it takes a long time before I'm willing to let people me break in person (except on the bus. everyone gets to see me cry on public transit, it's an all-ages show), but I'm always breaking myself open here.

I never know how to end my posts. I know the formula, I whinge and then I contradict myself, or move past the whinging, or say something bemusedly resigned, but it never seems quite like the right thing. Ah, well.

"Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness"

Work is blowing up like a blowing up thing. today, I learned one of the directors is leaving and the next fiscal year's budget does not include replacing the staff assistant who left, which leaves me continuing to be the only person in the fucking office who know how to put paper into machines. So, I had an almostworkdate with Delight yesterday, where I narrowed my choices down to five jobs, and Light helped me narrow it further to two parttime jobs at the beast. there are also some interesting short-term part-time positions at MIT, but I have no idea if I really want to university-hop or I'm just discouraged at the moment, and will come to realize that staying here is the best plan. But I suck at resumes and I suck at saying nice things about myself. I don't interview well and I don't look good in a suit. But I'm a hell of a worker, and I need to figure out a way to sell that if I'm not going to stay here.

I've been feeling inadequate lately, in a lot of different ways. In part, it's the cons I'm working on. In part, it's my complete lack of motivation at work. In part, it's that I don't clean my house until it gets out of control, and it's possible I've resigned myself to living somewhere that always smells vaguely of cat pee. In part it's that I want to do these awesome things, and I want to have a friend pool such that if I post "i need a date for X event" I want a large enough throng of friends that I'll usually be able to find someone to go along with me. And I thought, for a while, that's what poly would be, that the sleeping-with part of the equation with meant that if Light wasn't available, Asshat probably would be, and I wouldn't have to go to things by myself.

There's a little holdover here from the crazy year (oh, omnia, they're all the crazy years), where I was convinced that I didn't exist when no one was looking at me. No, I can't actually explain how that might work, but I always wanted to be observed, I always wanted to know how people saw me, so I could calibrate what I was projecting to how I was being perceived. (Light and I were talking about passwords security today and it all abruptly slotted into a clumsy metaphor about how in the world, I often feel like I'm typing in one thing, it's being run through a mysterious process, and the rest of the world sees this other thing, and no matter how much data I collect, I'm never going to be smart enough, fast enough, good enough to figure out what the mysterious process is and so I flail around in the dark, trying to figure out if language ever really works, if maybe I'd be more loveable, appeal to a wider audience, feel a little bit less like I was always trying to catch up, if I could only figure out what needed to change about me.

And I'm not all desperation and sharp corners, I'm not completely any one thing or another. But I sometimes feel like I'm carrying over the problem I have with psychiatrists to the rest of the world, where people can either believe how messed up I am, and think that the calm facade is the lie, or see the calm facade and think the messed-up part is a lie. And I'm not saying I'm special, I'm not anyone's snowflake, much less my own. But I do think as people who know me here might know me better than people who only know me in real life, because it takes a long time before I'm willing to let people me break in person (except on the bus. everyone gets to see me cry on public transit, it's an all-ages show), but I'm always breaking myself open here.

I never know how to end my posts. I know the formula, I whinge and then I contradict myself, or move past the whinging, or say something bemusedly resigned, but it never seems quite like the right thing. Ah, well.