F: Misses

Exiled again. Not permanently, I intend to go back, but yeah.

I had a sense memory of late 2016, sitting up in bed with Mel asleep beside me, listening to Bruce Speingsteen on my earbuds. Something about those days called for Darkness at tbe Edge of Town.

I had my week off this week but it wasn't good. It felt like I was on call to help Mel with stuff pretty much the whole time. She received her new work laptop on Tuesday and the setup was kind of a shitshow. Even now, she has problems because she had put a lot of important stuff on Chrome but the IT dept doesn't want her to install Chrome. I don't know what the outcome of that is going to be. A bunch of other stuff was also seemingly lost in the move. I got second-hand disgruntlement from being nearby

Seemingly every day I have cause to think, I hate this dystopian future we're living in.

The week didn't totally suck, I got some personal writing done, but yeah, it was bad vibes all four days. We got some really upsetting fertility news that just capped it all off. It's hard to know where we go from here.

Our hearts are so fucking heavy lately.

Last weekend was busy. Saturday was Family Fun Day with Mel's sixe. It was nice but went loooong amd Mel was anxious at tbe end of it, which affected the next day, which was dinner at my mom's. It was okay in the end but naturally it's always right before seeing my side of the family that triggers occur. Mom kinda sprung on us that he wanted to introduce us to a new guyfriend, but he bailed and that left mom annoyed. Sounds like a shame but at least we didn't have to spend a whole night getting to know a dude and could just be ourselves. I only see my brothers every so often, you know? Eric even had to leave early because of a situation at work.

Monday was a nothing day but I think Mel felt bad that it was quite so much nothing.

Today was a lot of prep for Mel's upcoming trip to Dallas. She's a little nervous because of her last work trip -- and honestly where do these trips keep coming from -- but I think she woll do fine and even if not it's only three days, 2 nights. The main source of anxiety is probably the flight home, which has a stopover/plane change in Atlanta and gets in late. Otherwise we are pretty well prepared. We fit everything she needed in a carryon, albeit barely.

Mel is fixated on some missing jewelry. I wish I knew.

Watching the power meter go down.

Sometimes it feels like there is not a lot of "me" in these posts -- and it sure is true that I hold back -- but it's probably for the best.

Tomorrow we plan to go see a movie we know will be bad (Madame Web) at the theatre, the first time we've been to the movies since summer of 2019. Save room for popcorn.

Keep on rockin?

Scotto?

E: Ask me why

So it's another night sitting up. I wouldn't say I can't sleep -- I haven't tried. I thought I would do this.

The last couple of nights, Mel and I have neen watching this Brazilian time travel show Back to 15, and naturally it got me thinking about my own time travel: this blog. It only goes back so far, but that's far enough. I was reading posts from the end of Grade 12. And you know, the kid was really starting to get a flow with the patter. It was very recognizeably my voice, and while I didn't have all the writing tics I later developed -- or even my ability to self-edit -- I knew my way around a turn of phrase. Impressive for an 18-year old. By comparison, my mind today is mush, garbled nonsense from the daily grind and babytalking my wife. Actually that's an artform. That's love poetry.

I hit upon a post back then where I complain about too many dishes in the sink and needing to get writing done. Boy, the less things change, huh? Lots of vague talk though. You don't even really know whst's going on with the kid. Don't blame him though, it was always embarrassing when you mentioned someone on the blog and they saw it.

He went on and on about every minute detail of the day. I could never. Oh sure I can ramble. But would I tell you about the incredibly stupid email I received from some external partners? About my difficulties procuring stock for a top sci-fi writer? About my embarrassment that I forgot to put my OOO on while I was away? Even new experiences aren't new experiences. I'm not 18 anymore, something really needs to be special to rate the blog. Like new toilets. 

Otherwise I'm a little crusty.

I was sitting, listening to music, thinking about how we are how the universe experiences itself. (You know, as you do, so matter of factly.) Life's not a waste if you fill it with good things. Even if you work yourself sore all the time and are too tired to experience all the zestiness of a Mountain Dew commercial, exposing yourself to art and ideas and small moments make a life. Ecen just being the person who observed someone else's art. I may not always feel this way, but hey, I'm an optimist today. Maybe I'm just looking to embracd any mode of thought that suggests I'm in a good spot.

I fret over my next piece of writing, but at least I've written things that meant something to someone. That might even be better than getting 20k likes on a video of different accents. Not that I'd know what that's like.

Okay, I think I'm ready. Ah, and it even seems to be raining outside the window. Perfection. Keep on rockin'

-SW

D: The Giving of Flowers

So here I am again, up late, banished for snoring. I was in a good spot until then but my brain reactivated. We were up late for us because Mel is working with the west coast, so our schedule is adjusted, so we stayed ip watching a Brazilian tume travel show called Back to 15. Doesnt help that I made myself a full caf coffee in tbe afternoon by mistake, and I tried to salvage it by watering it down with milk. Seems like it didn't work.

Well ANYWAY, I am here and writing this on my phone, so expect typos. It has been a crazy week and not just because of timezones. After the egg retrieval, we received calls on day 1, 3 and 5, always early, except day 1 they forgot to call us, so we had to gheck back late. Mel's mom came over for lunch that day which was nice. I had the whole week off, but there was not much productive happening, if productivity is yohr thing*

* I did do something but it's not for SWP to know, you know

Anyway, the anxiety around early morning calls put us in a rough position. We had high hopes, as noted in the last post, but realistically we knew the number would come down. It did -- 11 eggs became 9 embryos, 5 of which made it past day 3, but only 1 could be frozen on day 5. This was pretty triggering -- what if we went through all that just to get only one more embryo? And we would have to wait another day to find out, so that's more anxiety.

Day 6 we found out we got two more, so that was, ultimately, a relief. Three was the bumber I had in my head, the one I hoped for at minimum. We still had one to watch, too. The suspense was killing me. If we had any powers of manifestation, I think we were completely spent. The next morning when they finally called -- and Mel was in the restroom so it went to voicemail -- they gave us day 6's report all over again, which was frustrating. I called back and left a message, then they called back to tell us that three was the final count. Sad it wasn't more, but it's done and we have a good number to move on with.

Where we go from here, look, it's a long road ahead no matter what but this is a good place to take stock.

We did our best to have a nice weekend anyway, going to Second Cup (which we are considering making our new spot) and the library so Mel could get some graphic novels to read. With anxiety riding high on Sunday we didn't get much done, but Mel wanted to enter every book we own into her Storygraph, so we did that.

Tonight for dinner I made a pork roast in the cast iron. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but it was good eats. It had been on sale a few weeks ago and I figured why not but a good opportunity never came up. With Mel working late it seemed a fine excuse. I was going to slow cook it but took a chance on the cast iron. Slow cooker can get rubbery. This was good. Even Mel said so. "And pork's not my fave." (Note: everything that's noy her fave, she hates.)

Work has been, ugh... lots to put up with from outside sources. I could go on a whole thing but wed just be chasing our tails.

Now I'm hungry. I'm trying to decide whether I prefer to not fall asleep until 3, or to sleep soundly until 4 AM. Both seem... suboptimal, but I have plenty of experience either way. Need to go get a snack before I can try falling asleep again. I even tried reading old posts, which was neat but didn't have the hoped-for calmative effect.

Well that is life.

Keep on rockim

-Scotto