me, to any number of my online or in-person friends: I've got it. I've figured out what my problem is!
them (pouring a second cup of coffee and trying very hard to stifle a yawn behind their hands): great. good for you. what is it today, Rose?
me, triumphantly: I just need to be less self-absorbed and get over myself!!
them: ....really. you don't say.

I am of course joking; my friends are much kinder to me than this

Social media is just: here's a bad thing, here's another bad thing, here's a funny picture, here's a GoFundMe you should probably donate to, here's another bad thing, here's another GoFundMe, here's a shipping meme, here's another bad thing HOW DARE YOU SCROLL PAST THIS...

1. I'm so fortunate to work in a place where my coworkers and other higher-ups in the institution care about matters of social justice. Of course we still have a very long way to go, and the institution itself can never undo the harm it does - but we did have two very very good action-focused meetings today where we talked a lot about ways we can leverage what power we do have into multiple different strategies to help and support anti-racist work and the students of color who are suffering. Alone, nothing I could possibly think of doing would never be enough - and of course, none of this is enough either. But I have to say that it feels more hopeful when I'm in a meeting with ten other people who all cared enough to show up, with all of us talking about multiple things we can do at the same time to help as best we can. It's a good reminder of how important collectives and communities are in all this. Sometimes I feel so hopeless when I'm by myself, like I'm not courageous enough alone. And maybe I'm not - but I'm able to tell other people when I want to do something but don't know how, and together we can make more things happen than each alone.
2. I'm also fortunate to have gotten a hilariously cracky idea with my co-creator this morning and to have spent the day talking and working on an extremely silly (and extremely NSFW) short fic-art collaboration. On the Devil's Back, if you're interested.

...All this is to say it's been a much better today than yesterday.

...At least, I think it's week 10. I've been skipping my documentation lately, and I'm going to try very hard to stop doing that, because I think part of the reason I'm feeling the way I am is that I'm missing my grounding.

The truth is, I'm struggling. Not in new ways, not in worse ways than anyone else, not even in worse ways than I already was. And of course it's not that I deserve any special treatment for my struggles, when they are so empathy-based, when I'm struggling not because of things happening in my personal life, but because so many other people are suffering so much more.

It's just - being in the US, it's just so awful. Seeing more and more belligerent ignorance and malicious indifference coming from government after government - and the federal government not least. I'm in the area where the coronavirus first took a significant hold, and thanks to general good sense coming from our governor and many mayors, we've largely avoided the catastrophes seen in other places. The peak everyone expected didn't really hit for us. But I see other places refusing to do the things we've done; I see my governor say that in order to open up we'll need more and more testing capacity and knowing that that's not going to come from the murderer-in-chief and his villainous lackeys - it's almost too much to bear sometimes. And meanwhile I know that so many people are struggling from so many different things; I know that the health crisis spirals with the economic and environmental crises that have been targeting so many people for so long, and I know it's always been bad, but it just - it feels worse. And I feel powerless to stop it, and that combined with that niggling privilege-guilt creates a sinkpit in my stomach that I just can't quite fill with distractions or platitudes or fragile, futile-feeling hopes.

And all the while, I miss little things. I miss going to visit my friend and having sleepovers and adventures. I miss the buses - who woulda thunk, right? - and the ability to leave and go places if I want to, on my own. I miss dropping in on my coworker-friends at work; I miss my biweekly flute rehearsals (which are not the same when technological difficulties constantly intercede). I miss feeling in control of my life.

Last week I learned about union policies at my workplace that might mean my job isn't quite as secure as I had thought. My position still needs to be filled . . . but I don't necessarily need to be the one who fills it. And I've been so worried about feeling stuck or complacent where I am, and only now that I have to consider what I might do if I get bumped out of my position do I realize that maybe I'm not ready to leave here yet. Maybe I'm still here not only because it's easy, but also because I like it. So I've been trying to make contingency plans, think about those grad-school possibilities - but all of this future planning feels so useless in a world where I feel so out of control, dragged down by these situations and sick with guilt at my own privilege - and at the fact that I'm so tired of it all, so tired. I know - again, I know so well - that my own struggles are so much less serious than those of so many other people, but I'm just so tired of it. I've been thinking about all this for so long and I'm just - I'm so tired.

I'm so tired.

This week has been one - much though I've tried to resist it - of frustration and despair.

I've been staying at my mom's house, and if my desire for companionship ever makes me doubt that I am not an especially extroverted person, being around her constantly is enough to remind me. She keeps insisting that we're "social distancing," while . . . not really social distancing. I mean, she is somewhat, but I just don't think she's doing enough. We haven't had social gatherings, but if it were up to me we wouldn't even have anyone over to stand around a fire outside. And other siblings are flocking to her house as well, which means it's getting full over there.

(It's true that their amount of contact with people is reducing, and I haven't been quiet about my discomfort, so I'm hoping that once things settle into a rhythm we can actually do the isolation thing. But we're not there yet.)

By yesterday morning, I was vibrating out of my skin. Even the tiniest interaction with a person felt like being poked on a sunburn - the touch wouldn't have hurt, were I not already so raw and annoyed and frustrated. It's so hard to find this balance between knowing that I don't want to be in my tiny apartment wholly alone, but also not feeling comfortable in a large house with four other people.

I'm lucky, though. I have somewhere else to go. My dad is away at his other house, close to his parents, so I'm currently spending a few very necessary days in solitude at his empty house with his cats, who are deeply affectionate and lovely. And I figure I'm not really seeing anyone, so it won't make a difference to the terms of the isolation.

Of course, I'm probably like everyone else in that respect. "Yes, everyone should stay at home - except me, for this very specialized reason." Because that's, of course, how everyone is treating the stay-at-home order that has finally been issued here. "Leave home on essential business only" and suddenly all business becomes essential.

At least our governor is trying, though. I hit a bad point somewhere in the middle of the week, thinking about the public health and economic impacts of all this - and then the shortsighted, narcissistic, and actively malicious response of the federal government. I'm not surprised, of course - I wouldn't have imagined that it would be handled any other way by the people in charge. But still, when it comes down to it, it's just devastating. I can be coolly cynical about the government's reaction; I can share all the gallows-humor memes that come across my social media pages; I can declare with the best that I dislike the USA as much as anyone. But sometimes the horror of it all is so vast that cynicism and humor only make it worse. I know things have always been terrible here, that bigotry and structural inequality have always existed in every one of our policies. And I know that covering them in dog-whistle language doesn't make it any better. But still there's something striking about this - this crisis has stripped all the masks away. There's no possible falsely-moral shield, no possible insincere justification that can be made - the lies have been torn away. People from all places, all identities, have asked the "president" and all the fall-in-line party-toeing lackeys who have enabled and driven him on at every turn, "Do you care about us?" And without any attempt at justification, the answer is a stark, indifferent, "No." And the vast horror of that just takes my breath away.

And the thing is, there are people in government who care. I do believe that, for all that is wrong with our political system. There are people who care, and there are people who fight to do the right thing within the constraints of a horribly twisted apparatus. But those people are outnumbered, decency and nuance are stomped out, and sometimes it just gets to me, you know?

The United States is nothing but a carefully-constructed card castle of all the conditions for apocalypse. It's not a surprise that it's finally collapsing, but I can't help but be shocked anyway.

I've been gripped for a long time with the cold certainty that the apocalypse would happen during my lifetime. I just didn't expect it to come this way.

The prompt for day 17 of Whumptober - fairly appropriate for the direction I’ve taken these prompts, wouldn’t you say?

Legolas/Gimli, ~300 words, major character death.

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More sad fic including major character death and OCs.

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I'm starting to think about Valinor. I have many headcanons for Valinor, but I'm starting to try to put some of them in words.

Also, this just in: I have never known how to write about friendship in a non-romantic way.

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