congregamus

[congregamus]

It will never stop being noteworthy to me that because of work I tied a bowtie most nights for years, and now on the one or two times I do it annually, I turn into that gif of the lady doing high math.

[congregamus]

Not long ago I realized that Christmas as it is currently known in the US is the marketing legacy of the Coca Cola bottling company. Once I realized that, everything else kind of makes sense, so I don’t feel a failure at anything except capitalism, and that’s fine by me.

[congregamus]

I waited until Friday to try and put up my tree, and now I have this to deal with.

At first the strand didn’t work at all, and no one on my regular habitrails had replacements, so I had given up. However, I plugged the lights in yesterday (just in case they decided to play nice) and I got this flash, which demonstrates the non-working bulbs. I put tape by the culprits just in case the flash stopped. We’ll see if replacing the bulbs fixes the half-strand. I am not optimistic, but I am willing to try.

[congregamus]

The "Small Group" leader at JF#2 just left me a panicked voicemail because "Fr. [interim] said it's time to think about Epiphany...."

I'm a good mind just to suggest a study of Luke (since it's "Year C" and no one asked me when no one was in crisis). But also, Epiphany is a big change to realize things. What should Christians be realizing right now lol?

[congregamus]

I cannot get enough of this Interview with the Vampire reboot. It “gets” me in a way that nothing else has for a long time.

[congregamus]

The person recording the livestream this morning had Bumble on his hat, and it gave me everything I didn’t know I needed.

[congregamus]

I almost forgot. I pulled a pitch out of thin air last night on demand.

Scene:A study group, whose task it to turn the lyrics to "What Child is This" into a "theological reflection"

Singer: What's our starting note?

GP: [casually]...This ought to be ~ an E-natural [humms]

Singer: Is it though?

GP: [continues to hum; pulls out phone / pitch pipe app, which sounds in unison]

Group: 😲😲

GP: 😎🤪

[congregamus]

Streets are saying that Mother McDonald's performance of Mama Rose has lent to what was already a Broadway masterpiece the weight of a Greek tragedy. Audra, Euripides hearts right outta our chests.

[congregamus]

I enjoyed this very much. It's good anti-dogma.

[congregamus]

I plan to start a new practice in the next couple of days. It’s free, which means all the books are PDFs, which means that working where there’s a printer and free office supplies is finally going to “pay off.”

[congregamus]

Someone has heard my prayers...

[congregamus]

I made a list of songs I might do for a cabaret, and I thought, "She Used to be Mine" would be a very good ballad for the penultimate number for the first half.

I immediately thought, "D♭ is probably the best key, so let's just try on the dress already." Didn't even get two lines in. Well, the short version is that I know how to make myself cry in the future, if need be.

[congregamus]

Oh thank the Magdalene, I was able to articulate something in my private journal about an even deeper issue that gives the problem scale. It is not insurmountable, no matter how it has felt lately. To climb or even summit will require a lot of energy, which I do not currently have in excess. But part of my learning now is about how to use what is actually there, in the amount and for the real time that it is available, in ordinary ways. So there is hope that I will be able to find that and do something.

Also, special thanks to @mosspriestess for being herself.

[congregamus]

.

[congregamus]

Today has been awful. Most days lately are just awful. I'm stuck because there is NOwhere that I feel safe except in my house with the doors locked. So I feel like all I'm doing the whole time that I'm in the world is lying (read: "masking"), because if I did what I felt like doing, I would just scream in the middle of the street until someone had me committed.

I really, really understand my late sister's last decade lately. As much as I loved her — believed her even — I still minimized her suffering regularly. I was impatient with her cries for help, because, back when she really needed me, I was "proof" that a person — through what I did not know was denial — could insist on success and apparent functionality. And so, because it was apparently true regarding myself then, so it must also be for her, in parallel. "If I can do it, so can you."

Not so, not so. And more's the pity for the health of my soul, too, because of that lie that I told us both.

[congregamus]

When we started the two-month waiting list clock back in early October, I had hope I would be seen by a therapist before 2025, but that seems to have been me lying to myself so I wouldn’t end the year in an unsalvageable heap. I’ll be a heap, but there will be stuff to claim, I reckon.

[congregamus]

If I could just cry I would feel so much better, but I can't. The only feeling I have historically allowed myself when it's like this is rage. Because there is protection in the white-hot tip of fury which none will touch. I keep telling myself, "it's OK to feel sad, too," but whoever is running the software right now has a veto on that command, I guess. (Whoever is running this is not "me", which is to say, "the one that the others sometimes call, 'Surface Dweller'.")