David

Indeed, I don't really need a reason besides "I cannot work today."

My approach is being sorely tested because my key staff person has decided to extend her Latin American vacation and I still don't know for sure when she's coming back.

🥴

And my garden season is finally starting

*that

and

*progressive

need to put down the phone and go to sleep

I don't entirely understand what she means since I am an ignoramus who has never engaged with Marx.

I suspect it's because I tell staff that slavery is over and they can refuse work and take time off for any reason and as long as it's done with timeliness and respect there wont be repercussions...

I mentioned the she is racialized (and indeed her parents were immigrants to Canada) because she understands to a significant degree what motivates me. She is very progessive and once commented that I have a Marxist approach to employment...

He paid a fortune for a PSW program because it might give him a chance to migrate to Canada. But he's struggling to find work. I cannot justify hiring him as a gardener. I have learned that I need people who are passionate about plants. But I had him help me tidy my space... He is a great worker.

Yesterday I met a young man from South Asia who got screwed by the decision by all levels of government to cut the international-student-to-landed-immigrant pipeline that has been making up short falls in tertiary education funding for decades in Canada. I want so badly to hire him...

The racialized woman who is my HR consultant reminds me from time to time that I'm running a business, not a social service agency. But honestly the only reason I tolerate running a business is because it allows me to create work for people in a way that challenges capitalism while selling labour...

"Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment. For without exception the cultural treasures he surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate without horror. They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it is transmitted from one owner to another. A historical materialist therefore dissociates himself from it as far as possible. He regards it as his task to brush history against the grain." – from Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Illuminations, Ed. Hannah Arendt, Trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1969), pp. 256–57.

When your philosopher friend responds to your new year's wish that the coming quarter century might be an improvement over the one that just came to an end.

Not as hopeless as it may seem, though Walter Benjamin is quite the enigma.

#BeBeyondBelonging #BeTheBang

This is no small part of why I am rarely here these days.

Guarding my peace.

A red poppy anemone flower

Anemone coronaria 🌱

#Bloomscrolling #RedWednesday #RedWed #ColorADay #Flowers #Gardening

Boulevard cypress bonsai forest composition in a dark blue oval low profile pot with moss and rock landscape.

Boulevard cypress bonsai forest composition in a dark blue oval low profile pot with moss and rock landscape.

Boulevard cypress bonsai forest.

🌱🇳🇿

A closeup of several pale blue tiny violets growing in green and brown grass.

Acta Plantarum tells me this could be Viola riviniana 🌱 growing on pastureland. I was able to lay down on the grass, while Lilly the calf-sized dog waited patiently.

Thanks. Not at all. Figuring that out is what saved me.

This is how I feel about television. All the time.

‘My lovely distraction’: live stream of kākāpō – world’s fattest parrot – and her chicks captivates New Zealand More than 100,000 people have tuned in to watch a kākāpō – a rare flightless bird – sleeping, tidying her nest and fighting off intruders

Reminder that despite the awfulness there is still a beautiful world out there.

Trying to cherish that awareness.

By the way, I seriously recommend this. If you are trying to improve something about yourself, write the best version of the compliment you’d like to get for it 🤣 Like giving yourself a gold star in advance

#Overheard

"We are all called to discipline."

"Indeed, Mistress"

*C R A C K*

It may sound nice to not have any of the physical symptoms of anxiety (I still have other responses that it took me years to recognize), but anxiety is like pain. It warns you. Anxiety calls attention to problems. And at the right level, anxiety can activate you to solve them #phobagnosia

I don't know how or why we are succeding at the goal of enabling me to feel anxiety and fear directly in my body, but it has been clear for a few years now that we are making progress.

The degree to which I was able to invoke those feelings in my doctor's office today was an achievement for sure.

A key therapy goal for me is getting more in touch with physical feelings of fear in my body. Overcoming what I call #phobagnosia.

Recounting what happened today with my therapist accomplished all of that to a degree that in the past would only occur when I am startled or watching horror movies.

What's interesting about this is the profound sense that what I was experiencing was real (and inescapable?}.

Hypnagogic hallucinations are normal for me. They are usually nonsensical and sometimes frightening enough to startle me awake. What was the [neurophysiological] difference this time?

Thank you.

I was just reading about "night terrors" but this felt even more compelling.

I cast my vote in the @ndp.ca leadership election on the very first day.

I am being DELUGED by email from candidates, none of them the one I actually voted for.

It's so frustrating.

I can be SO bossy.

He knows me well. I doubt he was offended.

We agreed no more Dayvigo.

I am fine, despite the fact that for a brief while I had one of the worst psychic experiences in my life.

Remarkable to realize for some people with bipolar or other diagnoses, this stuff happens on its own.

Deeply thankful that I had my weekly appointment today with my prescriber who also provides talk therapy.

It is the best model even if it is an unattainable luxury for too many.

Amused to recall myself lecturing him: "It's more constructive to talk about mediating emotions, not regulating them."

This thread. And yet, Cons in Canada want us to have more private healthcare.

Text convo with a friend I am working with, about my being behind on our web development project.

Them: "Just take your time with everything in your life."

Me: "Yes, believe me, I know that it all works out in the end... it has to, because we die."

Them: "That's oddly soothing."

#NothingMatters

Seriously don't need to know. LOL

But thank you.

I do consider myself a progressive+radical Catholic. It took me thirty years to come back to that admission and I offer it warily because I know that "The Church" (which I don't consider myself as belonging to) is capable of incredible evil.

When I say "it felt psychotic" I mean that it felt COMPLETELY REAL but the small slither of rational consciousness that faded in and out told me that it made no sense. Furthermore, it was TERRIFYING.

@psychunseen.bsky.social, @drsanil.bsky.social @awaisaftab.bsky.social prescribe with a warning.