#4300s

another long day today.

joel to work. pick up things from mama. visit papa. work on things for naz. go to work. help friend. wait for second student. get joel. bring joel home. visit papa again. work on other things. change phone for papa. have headache. get gas. get dinner. home.

i'm exhausted. not eating food all day isn't great.

(wednesday, june 3rd, 2026.)

i am exhausted. rightfully so.

i:

bright joel to work

mailed a package back

stopped at barnes and nice

went to spend time with my dad

picked up naz and brought her to her appointment

bright naz home

went to physical therapy

picked joel up from work

stopped at home quickly then brought joel to the game store

went to craft night (it was wonderful. i missed my friends. 🩷)

picked joel up

went to applebapples with dao and joth and talked until 1:15

finally got home around 1:30

am finally in bed

it's been a long day and i used half a tank of gas. time to do something similar tomorrow.

at least i got those minutes done. i'll send them tomorrow.

and joel is already asleep behind me. i love him so much. he encouraged me to write before falling asleep instead of just passing out. so i post.

today i didn't get to go see my dad. i got up and went to the school for the first ipse meeting, stopping at dunks to get something to eat. it was about 40 minutes and i took ten pages of notes. after the meeting, i spent more time with melissa talking about additional ideas and important details that we needed to include.

then kendall came to the school and she and i went and got dairy queen for lunch and just sat and talked for a little while. it was nice.

after lunch, i started typing up the notes i took, and i met with a student at 3 to do business math, and then i went back and sat to wait for melissa because when im there and naz is not it is my responsibility to get melissa to leave at a decent time.

i failed.

another friend of melissa's stopped by and the three of us talked for a while longer, and we didn't leave until about 6:50. i needed to go to grab some things from walmart and i ended up getting more things than i anticipated, but it was needed.

i also ended up being very hungry and i stopped at mcnaldos and waited until i got some answers from joel and john and i ordered food for us.

i ate and then i opened my computer and finished typing the notes and started working on the minutes format i wanted to use and then i was tired of it so now im in bed and about to go the fuck to sleep.

(monday, june 1st, 2026.)

tw: hospital stuff

tl;dr: dad's okay. :) i visited him all day yesterday and earlier today. i worry.

today my papa went in for surgery. major neurospine surgery. didn't know that until i got a text from mom about it.

went to bring joel to work and went to see my doctor for a med check. told him about my updates - the pain and spine, the fibromyalgia diagnosis, the manual depression fighting - and i got a sign off on my adderall as well as an update for my bupropion.

talked to mom again on the phone while waiting for my updated meds to be filled, then went and picked them up before stopping aromatic joseph's and going to physical therapy, where we worked on my mid-lower back and hip. it's miserable. since my pain and spine appointment on wednesday, i've felt like a twisted shirttail hem and a stuck telescoping radio antenna in how badly i need my back to pop. it's like scrunched in the wrong way and it sends shooting pains to different places and i'm very uncomfortable most of the time. it sucks.

after PT i talked to kristen briefly, just to check in. i called the hospital to check on dad, and i called mom right after to get answers because they wouldn't talk to me. so dad at that point was still out and would be staying in the ICU until he got the OK from the doctors to lie on his back and then would be moved from there, i guess. not really sure on it.

i talked to her for a while and then went to pick up joel from work because i'd spent my whole day out and about to where i didn't do anything but talk on the phone and go to two doctors appointments.

i picked up joel and we made it home, i changed into something warmer and played my game a little bit. around 5:30 we headed out to go see our friends stopping on the way for food. and instead of gaming like we'd intended, the five of us really just hung out. it was nice. very chill. joth cooked. we talked and worked on little things as we chatted as dao worked on some commission pieces that they need to finish. i got to assist in flipping a particularly stubborn tail inside out to be repaired and refurbished (pun unintended but very appreciated). eventually it was almost 11 and dean had to go, but the four of us left went to get chocolate cake and cannolis. we sat in the car for a while and talked and i was happy to do so just to catch up and spend time with them. i've missed them.

and then we came home and it's now two hours later and i'm still awake and i need to be at the hospital by 10am and i am grumbling at myself but hopefully i will be able to sleep enough that i am not still grumbling in the morning.

joel is already very much asleep. i love this man so much. i worry about him a lot but he has reasons for the things he does. and i think the meme of "we listen and we don't judge" is so funny because i do listen and i do judge because yes i love you, but sometimes the people i love do stupid shit. and i'm here for it.

today was joel's birthday!

we slept in today. i took my meds late. my physical therapists office called to reschedule my appointment

so eventually i got up and showered, and i got dressed in the coordinating outfit naz and i had planned yesterday while we were at walmart. striped dress, leggings, black sneakers. she added a black cardigan and i added a pink bow to my hair because today was also kristen's baby sprinkle at work. not quite a shower. a sprinkle.

on my way to the school, i stopped at target to pick up a gift for kris, in such i was greatly successful.

i made it to the school and i went to "distract" kristen but i wanted to check on her anyway. she's been having tummy problems lately because of the baby and she's been tired and unable to sleep a lot. plus naz said she needed kristen distracted to bring in the cupcake cake she made. but mostly i did want to check in. i'm concerned. she's so close to her due date and she's been having a lot of issues lately between hormonal fluctuations and money shit with being out of work for a while, so. i wanted to ask.

but eventually she said that she new something was going on today, because she's very observant and very smart and nothing gets past her.

naz made a cupcake cake in the shape of a baby bottle which was super cute but for some reason it tasted funny? it could've been the cake but it also tasted funny in the frosting. so it might've been something in the air in the kitchen that affected it while it sat, but i don't have any guarantee it anything.

but it was good - she opened no fewer than six things that said "little sister" on them. kristen cried at the set of flower onesies i got for the baby. also i got this white eyelet onesie with a button butt that was so cute and i had to get it for her. and the card i picked out coordinated with the bag with a mobile on it of the moon and stars (where the bag was the planets) that had little gem stars on it and said "little toes little feet little sleep" and i laughed because i been knew she's not gonna be sleeping well for a while.

regardless, it was very cute. we finished up around 2. i went with naz and melissa to melissa's office and the three of us sat and talked about the upcoming programming we'll be working on, so i have some answers to work with, for which i am grateful. i have some direction now.

at some point chelsea texted me - she said it's been four days and she's still in love with the mac n cheese i made. i am truly honored she likes it so much. i will absolutely make it again for her.

after all was said and done, i took naz and we went grocery shopping again a little bit. we stopped at hannaford and got stuff we couldn't grab yesterday at walmart, and i picked up some stuff too.

then we stopped at the macaroni and cheese place to grab dinner for joel and his game, and as i handed the boxes to naz in the car, i heard my name being called - it was my coworker federico! he was getting into his car but he saw me and called out to me, and he came over to say hi. he is very brave. he asked me what i got and judged me for what i got and said original and white cheddar were boring lmao. he's funny. this is the kid who i awkwardly gave a hug at graduation and haven't been able to stop thinking about because it was THAT awkward. but i'm glad it's been completely forgotten by him and it was nice to see him. it's weird when people exist outside of the school.

so i brought naz home, texting joel to preheat the oveb for the macaroni. when we arrived, naz and adam took the groceries upstairs. adam said to me, "you are as kind as you are tall," to which i said, "slightly more than average?" and he goes, "more than me." we laughed. and then i headed back to joel's to make sure the house didn't burn down and that the mac n cheese got cooked.

once it was done i brought it out to the troops. as i walked out, i reflected briefly on the macaroni and cheese in my hands and the fact that it's joel's birthday. and then, the thought came to me unbidden that "macaroni and cheese" and "happy birthday to you" have the same number of syllables. that connection was the first thing i said as i walked in with the tray, and so the idiots started to sing "happy birthday" but "mac n cheese." it's arguably one of the better versions of the song i've heard.

john served it up to them for firsts and i took over for seconds. we also had ice cream cake, which i cut because i had the best leverage as i was standing, and i made an appropriate number of pieces. once everyone has been served i brought it back inside, bringing it eventually downstairs and putting it in the freezer. and then, i looked around for joel's water bottle which he'd wanted, so i found it and filled it and bright it out. caitlyn headed out because her tummy can't handle the mac n cheese and everything, so i took her seat and read for a while.

they were talking about history, altered history, and their 1970's dresden game. it was sort of wild. the amount of knowledge contained in this group of people is truly bonkers. i love it. it's incredible.

today was okay. i had my appointment at pain and spine this morning, and we discussed the pain in my hips and my lower back, we talked about future options, and then i told him about the pain in my middle back, which he recommended i do physical therapy for. i said, "great, i have an appointment tomorrow so i'll tell them then," so that was good.

but as i ended up making my way back to joel's, i realized that my back hurts and is shooting between my hip and my lower back and i can't fix it, and i can't stretch it out either. it's miserable and i just want to have it go away. it sucks too because the last thing we'd decided was for me to decide if i wanted to go through with the needles or whatever for the nerve ablation. i would simply like to crack my back.

i was home for a while, back hurting the whole time but happily reading some byler fics. i trimmed my nails and i snacked on pasta salad. it's so good. i then went to pick up naz for her appointment this week, and she got a second miserable injection in her left knee, but because the first shot was lidocaine, her knee was numbed and not hurting for a little while, so we made our way over to walmart where we picked up a bunch of stuff for her and her roommate adam. we got her groceries and some warm-weather clothes because her wardrobe was destroyed by being left outside for like a year and a half or more by her genuinely fucking insane and incredibly abusive ex.

i know - the word is not something to use willy-nilly. it's not something i say lightly. words have meaning. i am still learning to do and be better about making sure my words are what i mean and not something different. this time, i mean it. it's not my place to tell about it, but from an outsider's perspective it's still genuinely frightening.

anyway.

we got her food and stuff to make cupcakes and we got matching dresses that we'll be wearing tomorrow, and i'm excited about it.

but after that, we stopped at the gas station where filling my tank cost $55 exactly without any topping off or anything.

i brought her home and made my way to the school where i stayed for a few hours, snacking on an array of mini cookies i got from walmart. then i came home again, and we had pulled pork and played our star wars game.

and joel just finished watching a stream just now and it is now time for us to sleep.

today i got up early, played on my phone a bit, got up at my normal time, showered, stood in the water as it drained slowly and recognized i needed to take the clump of hair and yuck out of the drain, finished up in the bathroom, got dressed in something cool for the hot day ahead, and brought joel to work.

i then made my way to the bakery i love for cupcakes for my favorite person at the physical therapist office because it was her birthday today so i got her cupcakes and i got cupcakes for everyone else too. i was early to pt for the first time in my life and we worked on my forearms for an hour and change because that shit's been hurting like the devil. i'm confident some of my mysterious bruises are from my physical therapists. i have at least that's developed from the work today.

after PT i went to the school and ended up sitting in with melissa and working on things with her for a little bit and then working with my friend damien on some of his sociology stuff. i then worked with my friend furqan's sister on her microsoft applications class, but we weren't able to finish and she works longer than i do so we'll be meeting on saturday.

after work, i brought another student home so he didn't have to walk or wait for a bus which wasn't out of my way at all. i went to haywards to get some ice cream too, because all day i've been struggling with aches and pains and tiredness and cramps. at one point in melissa's office i remembered i had a king size kitkat bar and then i proceeded to eat it sideways without being thrown out onto the highway. this was just after eating a fruit by the foot by slurping it, the same way melissa was doing it. and at one point, kristen came in, took a look at my one bag instead of my five, and asked, "are you okay? you don't have your snack bag so i figured something must be wrong." incredibly astute observation. good to know i am predictable in the most genuine of ways.

the ice cream was yummy but they didn't have m&m so i got strawberry instead with my moose tracks and mint chocolate chip with rainbow sprinkles.

i came home, ate dinner, brought down laundry soaps, put in my laundry, cleaned out the yuck from the shower drain, washed down the bits with hot soapy water, cleaned up my tools, cleaned the sink. (i cleaned the mirror this morning. it's nice to see it's still clean).

i played animal crossing and then went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and washed my nose piece before taking the trash next to my side of the bed and putting it into the big bucket so i have space again.

but my head has been steadily hurting more and more over the last four hours in the form of a migraine/cluster headache. so i suffer.

joel is wondering why people are stupid. i do not have a good answer. ("why do they think they have to buy the book??" i have no other context.)

my tummy is grumbling at me despite being fed. boo.

my nails are too long. i need to cut them tomorrow.