i_like_eggs

i used to tell people i’m immunodeficient and they’d ask invasive questions about my diagnosis, whether my parents kept my childhood overly sterile, whether I was vaccinated as a child (with the implication that it would have been bad if I were).

Now that I say I have an immunodeficient family member at home, people smile knowingly and say, “oh, well you do what you have to do,” and “my mom went through chemo. I remember how hard it was to do all the precautions” and “that’s so kind of you.”

if i tell someone i mask because i’m disabled, i’m assumed to be the weak link in our society, a burden to my family.

And what you've relaid here reminds me of this line from the paper:

The main purpose of the stories, especially in the episodes where a dragon maiden has to be kissed, is to ascertain the worth of the human knight.

I stared at them through the dawning realization that they lived in a world where that was remotely possible. “My phone is on do not disturb if I’m sleeping. Why would I let random texts wake me up? My sleep is important.”

Equally baffled they replied, “What if someone at work needs you?”

“I am not a manager. No one at work will ever need me badly enough to interrupt my sleep. If I’m not working then there’s no reason to be calling me.”

“Not even if you need to cover?”

I laughed, “I don’t need to cover. They could ask me to cover but good luck getting ahold of me if I’m sleeping.”

They looked distressed at this idea.

To console them I added, “I have important people like my mom and my wife set to override. If they call they get through no matter what.”

There was a small pause before they asked, “You can do that…?”

And each time you look, try to find one thing you can appreciate about it. It’s fine if you don’t enjoy the art, but try to find something in it that has value, something you can respect about it, something that moves the world. It can be mastery of a technique, it can be the emotion conveyed, the thought it provoked, it can be color choice, composition, originality, or it can simply be the act of creation itself. Even in art that makes you uncomfortable, art that you find disgusting or bland or vile or ugly or just lame. You need to learn to see it. It’s ALWAYS there. Really look for it. Because you can learn from every single one of these things. Ask yourself why the artist made this, why they made it in this way. Wonder what someone other than you might see that you don’t see, if it has a meaning you just can’t grasp.

She talks about how, as a kid, you learn to finish work before you can play and that you take this with you into adulthood. So you keep the mindset of having to finish 'have to' tasks/chores before being allowed to 'play'.