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Daily div.
21 July 2021 18:37 I was slumping along today until I made an impromptu decision to eat half a block of cheese (a European-sized block, to be clear!). Now I feel almost normal! Yay for cheese! :)
(But the cheese rescue didn't come early enough to finish this post... catching up now!)
Yesterday's divination was interestingly diverse... I wondered how the heck the celebration card and the Queen of Spades were going to get along... and the answer was, "awkwardly". I think I was celebrating - all of my references got back to me, and I've got almost all of the onboarding paperwork done - just gotta piss in a cup in some dingy office, and we're golden. I don't even do drugs (even alcohol is difficult to binge on for me) so it seems like I'm about to embark on the next phase of my life! :) I don't currently feel deep existential dread, either... and now that I write those words... perhaps I am celebrating THAT more than anything else.
And... as usual...the Queen of Spades promised pain, and delivered. While filling out reference information today, even though I had the required minimum, the software wanted me to provide several more to "complete" the task, including one more manager. Trying to think back to the last actually good manager I had prior to the one who'd already promised to review me, I couldn't think of how to contact him outside of Facebook. So I signed back in to that dreadful software.
I decided to quickly scan the feed to see how some of the contacts I only know through there are doing - bad idea! Bad idea!! - and I found out: someone found a lost cat; someone went on a nicely challenging mountain hike; someone's front porch was ransacked, probably by her political enemies; and the spouse of a dear friend of mine cross-posted an article titled "Why We Should Just Force Everyone To Get Vaccinated Already."
I clicked out of Facebook like it was on fire, and wrote to the HR person to request that they just go ahead with the references I already had. This was accepted.
The pointy end pierced me straight through as I sat there afterwards and realized that, most likely, I will never see that poster in person ever again... and due to the close connection... my dear friend, either. As in most Fourth Turnings, the times are determined to viciously divide us, in ways none of us could ever have predicted even two short years ago.
Who would have thought that I, for my part, would have ever questioned taking a vaccine? I got myself injected with Gardasil, the most recent new vaccine I can remember, as fast as I could get access to it. I was thrilled to have a lower chance of cervical cancer (I got it while too old for it to be perfectly protecting). I usually get a flu shot - I've only skipped them due to scheduling inconvenience, and always regretted it. I couldn't have imagined that this miracle of modern medicine might ever need to be resisted.
And who would have thought that this Facebook user - a hyper-rationalist, trans, union leader who I always deeply admired for her solid grasp on finances - would have ever cross-posted on a public forum something advocating for an insufficiently tested medical treatment to be forced upon everyone in the country, using every method short of a gun to the head?
As I told my husband when I could finally speak about it (it took a few hours)... I forgive her. She is trans, and that comes with many, many medical complications. Obesity out of the suffering of her childhood; the transition hormones, which seem to not be interacting very well with her system; other issues that keep popping up, then side effects from the medications she is taking to treat said other issues, and so on, and so on... I think at one point she had lockjaw and had to eat through a straw for a while. She's been a shut-in since long before COVID kicked off - staying upstairs during my family's visits, most of the time, due to not feeling well. Per my friend, she was upset enough about her father's passing (a year before COVID) that I was able to read between the lines and suss out that she isn't emotionally prepared to face the ending of her life just yet, either. No different from most people, of course!
The point I'm trying to make here, is that should anything change about the society we currently live in - and I mean ANYTHING - she may very well actually die. If any circulated diseases are incompletely vaccinated against or become even more so; if the medical infrastructure shudders and she is unable to access emergency treatment from some medication reaction in time; if there is a disruption in the medical supply chains, which cut off any of her medications or the transition hormones, and she is then unable to access medical care for withdrawal symptoms; and of course if there is a huge backlash in this country against rank Democrat mismanagement and the Republicans take control--trans people have been portrayed as the ultimate child-devouring bogeyman among that crowd for years now, and now that we no longer "do" medical privacy, will likely be served up on a silver platter to appease the mob...
Can I really blame her, for advocating for a policy that she believes would protect what she has, or even save her life? No, and who could?! Even if I were to tell her all the reasons why it won't work... how could she possibly hear anything other than "You're going to die, and you have to deal with it"??
She's one of the people I have feared for the most throughout all this mess. But... I can no longer protect her. That moment--in which I realize that there are people I care about who I can neither help nor save--has arrived. I would have hidden her in my home. I still will, if she asks.
My outcome card was "choosing security over risk" and as this was the day that my last real concern about not getting this job somehow dissolved, I feel that I have chosen the security of a well-paying job over the risk of crouching in my home until the unemployment finishes paying out. Then again, looking at the world we live in today... what is safety? What is risk? I've chosen the path that society thinks is the ideal one, for sure, and that has its own rewards. It will be good to be paid, to have healthcare and dental. But there's no such thing as a perfectly safe choice. Not in these times, and not in any times.
On that lovely note, let's get today's divination done, and go on a walk.
Me: Queen of Clubs - creative, optimistic, holding a little one
Situation: 6 of Clubs (The Tower) REVERSED - thank god no earth-shattering realizations to come today, "more of a manageable or expected change, the questioner able to handle it graciously"
Outcome: 2 of Clubs REVERSED - no discussion or debate, "will lead to an adventurous, exciting conclusion - the questioner needs to jump in with both feet!"
The cards are lightening up, hooray! A straight clubs flush - does that mean I'll be particularly creative or daring today? And on that note... I'd better go schedule peeing in a cup. Back tonight!
(But the cheese rescue didn't come early enough to finish this post... catching up now!)
Yesterday's divination was interestingly diverse... I wondered how the heck the celebration card and the Queen of Spades were going to get along... and the answer was, "awkwardly". I think I was celebrating - all of my references got back to me, and I've got almost all of the onboarding paperwork done - just gotta piss in a cup in some dingy office, and we're golden. I don't even do drugs (even alcohol is difficult to binge on for me) so it seems like I'm about to embark on the next phase of my life! :) I don't currently feel deep existential dread, either... and now that I write those words... perhaps I am celebrating THAT more than anything else.
And... as usual...the Queen of Spades promised pain, and delivered. While filling out reference information today, even though I had the required minimum, the software wanted me to provide several more to "complete" the task, including one more manager. Trying to think back to the last actually good manager I had prior to the one who'd already promised to review me, I couldn't think of how to contact him outside of Facebook. So I signed back in to that dreadful software.
I decided to quickly scan the feed to see how some of the contacts I only know through there are doing - bad idea! Bad idea!! - and I found out: someone found a lost cat; someone went on a nicely challenging mountain hike; someone's front porch was ransacked, probably by her political enemies; and the spouse of a dear friend of mine cross-posted an article titled "Why We Should Just Force Everyone To Get Vaccinated Already."
I clicked out of Facebook like it was on fire, and wrote to the HR person to request that they just go ahead with the references I already had. This was accepted.
The pointy end pierced me straight through as I sat there afterwards and realized that, most likely, I will never see that poster in person ever again... and due to the close connection... my dear friend, either. As in most Fourth Turnings, the times are determined to viciously divide us, in ways none of us could ever have predicted even two short years ago.
Who would have thought that I, for my part, would have ever questioned taking a vaccine? I got myself injected with Gardasil, the most recent new vaccine I can remember, as fast as I could get access to it. I was thrilled to have a lower chance of cervical cancer (I got it while too old for it to be perfectly protecting). I usually get a flu shot - I've only skipped them due to scheduling inconvenience, and always regretted it. I couldn't have imagined that this miracle of modern medicine might ever need to be resisted.
And who would have thought that this Facebook user - a hyper-rationalist, trans, union leader who I always deeply admired for her solid grasp on finances - would have ever cross-posted on a public forum something advocating for an insufficiently tested medical treatment to be forced upon everyone in the country, using every method short of a gun to the head?
As I told my husband when I could finally speak about it (it took a few hours)... I forgive her. She is trans, and that comes with many, many medical complications. Obesity out of the suffering of her childhood; the transition hormones, which seem to not be interacting very well with her system; other issues that keep popping up, then side effects from the medications she is taking to treat said other issues, and so on, and so on... I think at one point she had lockjaw and had to eat through a straw for a while. She's been a shut-in since long before COVID kicked off - staying upstairs during my family's visits, most of the time, due to not feeling well. Per my friend, she was upset enough about her father's passing (a year before COVID) that I was able to read between the lines and suss out that she isn't emotionally prepared to face the ending of her life just yet, either. No different from most people, of course!
The point I'm trying to make here, is that should anything change about the society we currently live in - and I mean ANYTHING - she may very well actually die. If any circulated diseases are incompletely vaccinated against or become even more so; if the medical infrastructure shudders and she is unable to access emergency treatment from some medication reaction in time; if there is a disruption in the medical supply chains, which cut off any of her medications or the transition hormones, and she is then unable to access medical care for withdrawal symptoms; and of course if there is a huge backlash in this country against rank Democrat mismanagement and the Republicans take control--trans people have been portrayed as the ultimate child-devouring bogeyman among that crowd for years now, and now that we no longer "do" medical privacy, will likely be served up on a silver platter to appease the mob...
Can I really blame her, for advocating for a policy that she believes would protect what she has, or even save her life? No, and who could?! Even if I were to tell her all the reasons why it won't work... how could she possibly hear anything other than "You're going to die, and you have to deal with it"??
She's one of the people I have feared for the most throughout all this mess. But... I can no longer protect her. That moment--in which I realize that there are people I care about who I can neither help nor save--has arrived. I would have hidden her in my home. I still will, if she asks.
My outcome card was "choosing security over risk" and as this was the day that my last real concern about not getting this job somehow dissolved, I feel that I have chosen the security of a well-paying job over the risk of crouching in my home until the unemployment finishes paying out. Then again, looking at the world we live in today... what is safety? What is risk? I've chosen the path that society thinks is the ideal one, for sure, and that has its own rewards. It will be good to be paid, to have healthcare and dental. But there's no such thing as a perfectly safe choice. Not in these times, and not in any times.
On that lovely note, let's get today's divination done, and go on a walk.
Me: Queen of Clubs - creative, optimistic, holding a little one
Situation: 6 of Clubs (The Tower) REVERSED - thank god no earth-shattering realizations to come today, "more of a manageable or expected change, the questioner able to handle it graciously"
Outcome: 2 of Clubs REVERSED - no discussion or debate, "will lead to an adventurous, exciting conclusion - the questioner needs to jump in with both feet!"
The cards are lightening up, hooray! A straight clubs flush - does that mean I'll be particularly creative or daring today? And on that note... I'd better go schedule peeing in a cup. Back tonight!