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Well, so much for trying to hold on to the idea that everything will be okay... Doc’s car had to get towed last week and we were waiting on a repair estimate, which came in over the weekend. It’s, uh, two to three times what his car is worth, so we’re going car shopping today.

We ended up agreeing that we have a house already but Doc doesn’t have a car, so let’s let that take priority and put the new house off for a few years. I was already worried about my job long-term and about upsetting Toby’s routine, so waiting just makes sense. (And honestly, the decision feels like someone canceling plans: Sure it was a fun thing you agreed to, but suddenly not having to do it? Hooray!)

Plus! We already secured a HELOC with a great interest rate to act as a down payment (so we wouldn’t have to show and sell the current house with Toby in it before we bought a new one; the things we do for our old man) so now we can use that to FINISH THE BASEMENT and I’ll be able to get a guest room after all.

This feels like the right decision but truly, everything that’s happened this summer has me like this:

 

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As we look casually at houses, I’ve been thinking about new sewing room storage and furniture. Then I realized I could probably do something about what I don’t like NOW instead of waiting for a future that may or may not happen any time soon.

For example, this was the current state of my Kallax unit:

The serger thread lived in one of those broken down boxes and it was an ORDEAL to dig out 4 cones of a matching color:

So I got a base for the Kallax and two drawer inserts and some fresh storage boxes for the top and it’s so much nicer now.

Just look at this serger thread!

I also got some fresh inserts for the rest of the existing drawer units and sorted and rearranged all the different supplies:

This kept me busy all weekend and got me out of the house to IKEA (twice) so I think it’s a net win for my mental health, even if it is giving a little bit of, “Could a depressed person organize this?”

“Hey Karen, why does organizing things make you so happy?”

Well, is there a more powerful visual metaphor than going from this…

…to this?

The world may be chaos, I may have no control over my future employment, but by god I can PUT THINGS IN BOXES and LABEL THEM. So I did.

It was another long weekend of cleaning–we did the 21-day re-spray for bedbugs after vacuuming everything again and checking the baseboards and the closets. I’m feeling hopeful that chemical warfare did the trick!

But wow, everything still feels like such a struggle: the extra cleaning, the everyday living, the elderly cat, the future. Maybe this explains it?

It’s probably a long weekend for most people for the Fourth tomorrow. America, I’m sorry your party has been crashed by assholes. Hang in there (said to America and also to all of us).

1. Incredibly sobering read on the “immigration enforcement” budget in the spending bill:

America is about to fund and build a huge secret police force that will, I promise you, be used to attack and imprison and exile the president’s enemies, of all sorts. Better to look this fact square in the face than to continue to kid ourselves as long as possible as we march down the road to the gulags.

2. It’s funny cause it’s true:

3. Maybe gorillas with helicopters can save us?

4. How being alive feels right now (“that’s awful”):

 

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This newsletter from Cheryl Strayed arrived this week as I was getting news about company layoffs (I’m not affected but I was RIGHT to be worried) and wow what a good reminder (emphasis mine):

Every time I’ve made or done something, I’ve felt better. It’s a fact I’ve returned to over and over again in these past months/years/decades in order to save myself or toss a lifeline to someone else. Action and creation are a salve, a balm, a cure.

Perhaps making and doing things is so powerful because in doing or making you break out of stasis. Even if only fleetingly, you get unstuck and, afterwards, have proof of that. Something exists because you made it. Something happened because you did it. You baked the cake and decorated it attentively and inexpertly. You showed up at the protest with longing in your heart and a smile on your face. You shot and edited the footage and now you’ve got a movie. You stitched the scraps of fabric together and ended up with a quilt. You put the seeds in the soil and eventually a flower bloomed. You put one foot in front of the other and then looked back and realized you’d covered all that ground on your own steam. Your troubles were not over. Your problems were not solved. But you had something. You did something. You could not deny that. You made it this far and making it this far meant you could keep going.

Keep up those hobbies, friends.

Compared with “maximalism” or “bro summer” of the last couple years, this summer’s word is shaping up to be “unsettled.” What’s unsettling me? A list:

• Bedbugs (although I haven’t gotten a bite in two weeks!)
• My job security (not a great time to depend on public health funding)
• Thinking of moving and spending money, because job security
• Toby aging
• Thinking of moving and upsetting Toby’s routine, because aging kitty
• Millcreek Canyon being under construction
• Living under increasing fascism

Other than re-spraying insecticide every 21 days and calling off the house search, I really can’t control any of these things. I can’t even go touch grass/wade in the stream in my preferred canyon spot. Even MORE unsettling!

So I’m trying to just sit with it (ugh) and get myself out of the house when it feels TOO bad. Even a neighborhood walk has delights:

I’ve had a pair of the lightest blue summer jeans cut out since May, then I tabled them to make a couple of pairs of gym pants that didn’t fit. I finally started them right before B-Day (the day of the discovery of bedbugs) and now I want to abandon them again to make a waterproof beach tote.

I know I will love them and wear them a lot, but I guess the jeans sewjo just isn’t there yet. Oh well! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That fresh bite on my shoulder yesterday? It turned into a cluster of three bites and itched like hell all day. I realized I have seen ONE mosquito all month. On a whim, I googled, “Mosquito bite vs. bed bug bite,” and reader: OH FUCK.

Bed bugs bite in a line or cluster (all of my bites) and itch and swell for even longer than mosquito bites (all of my bites) and can leave a dark mark after they finally stop being active (all of my bites). So I tore the bed apart yesterday afternoon into evening and OOOH FUUUUCK:

My brother is on his way over right now with commercial spray and all of my clothes and every piece of fabric that can’t get boiled are going to bake in my car in the sun all day (120 degrees for 30 minutes kills bed bugs and eggs. Learning!).

BUT OH MY GOD. I would be more eloquent about it all but I spent the night on an air mattress having a low-grade panic attack, so I am not at my best.

Good lord. So much nope.

When you keep getting bitten by Mystery Mosquitoes on your face and neck every night for a month, you break down and order something from Amazon:

Is this ridiculous? Maybe. But does it work? YES. I still got a bite on my shoulder at some point last night when I got up with Toby so I need to remember to cover up when I get out of bed  (and also find where these little fuckers are living, omg I am going crazy).

But I have slept under my head tent for two nights and I have NO new face bites!  Now I just need the 4 on my forehead to stop itching and get the 2 on my eyelids to fade and hope the 6 on my neck don’t leave too much of a mark, either…