Account inactive @literorrery@awoo.space

So... I'm gonna just put two things next to each other that wandered into my field of vision:

1) https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17037606/telegram-open-network-app-ico-cryptocurrency-ton, https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/telegram-open-network/ -- Telegram's launching a cryptocurrency to help pay for itself because its founders were self-financed and the service has no monetization engine without it.
2) https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Features -- There's apparently a software bundle aimed at doing remote VPN that also hosts Matrix, among a bunch of other stuff.

I suspect I see May's project.

I cannot thank my partners enough for their support, their understanding, their empathy. I love you all so very much, and I can only hope I manage to share with you the same shelter and respite that you offered me last night.

I was told on Saturday to focus my dreams for the next few nights. My nights have been blissfully empty, restful and restorative. The mornings have brought peace and calm, a welcome respite for which I'm thankful. I feel better after each long sleep. I hope it lasts.

The early night was rough. I'm too quick to read disapproval into thoughtful silence, disappointment into confusion. I feel dependent on tools to weather the worst of the emotional storms, tools which make it harder to write, harder to focus, tools I still can't fully embrace because they make they make it harder to write, harder to focus, harder to be fully me in all the ways I need to be me to be happy being me. I offered a lot of thank-yous last night, and I expressed a lot of gratitude.

I'm not well today.

I'm slowly coming to terms with just how badly the last five years have hurt me. I think I'm finally at a point at which the damage is no longer actively accruing, but my mental wounds are still being hit on a regular basis. I want to make it clear, if and when I start to process this shit in any kind of open fashion, that I assign no blame and expect no dogpiling. Everyone involved was doing their best, but some people simply are not compatible, and lots of people got hurt.

... debating whether my trauma is bad enough that I'm going to have to block a server to cope with it. Feeling kind of shitty about even asking if that step is acceptable. Feeling kind of shitty about having to ask whether taking care of myself requires negotiation.

"Twilight Sparkle is... one of those __theory__ profs, isn't she?"

I'm not expecting it to make any difference, but let's see if filing a complaint with the Office of the Insurance Commissioner has any effect on things.

Despite that, I know that I'm at least trying to leave the world in a better state than I found it, for the sake of all those who will outlive me. If there is a soul that transcends death, a part of the self that outlives the mind, it's found in the stories that others share of us when we're no longer around to tell the tales of us. It's in the lives of all those we touch in the time we have and the memories we leave in others. We live as long as people remember us.

Let me also be clear here: I know I often fail to live up to my own standards, and I know I can never know just how bad at it I am. I try to turn the scathing touch of the caput mortuum on myself first. I know I'm not doing everything I could be doing to make the world better. I know that I'm consciously opting in many places to favor my comfort over others' survival. I recognize the limits of my own empathy. I often fail at not expecting of others what I don't do myself.

If you're in pain, I hear you.
If you're hurting, I see you.
If you're suffering, I believe you.
This world is cruel beyond measure, doubly so because it doesn't have to be, but because small minds and closed hearts have made it so to protect themselves at the expense of everyone else.
Please, don't give in to Moloch. I know how hard the fight is. I struggle daily, and often I fail. But still I fight, because I believe in the world beyond Its reach. I see you fighting, too. I'm proud of you.

Never assume your employer will have your back.
Never assume your employer will see you as a person.
Never assume your employer will reciprocate the time, the effort, or the mindpower you give them.
Never assume your employer will see you as anything other than a potentially fungible resource that will have to be replaced one day.
Build your care networks away from capitalism and its evils.
Find what comfort and solace you can in those who will see you as a person, not as food for Moloch.

He told me that he felt that every action the company took was to support as many employees as they could. I asked him how I was supposed to feel about the company if the actions they took to cover as many as possible left me in the cold and their answer to being confronted with that fact was "oops, sorry." He said he hoped I didn't feel like the company didn't care about me because of this. I said, "that's exactly how I feel, increasingly every time I talk about it."

THIS is why we need unions.
THIS is why we need collective action.
THIS is why we need solidarity.
THIS.
The benefits rep on the phone said flat-out he's having to tell a patient with breast cancer that she's exceeded her limits, and he "felt terrible" for having to do it. I about screamed on the bus, "your feelings won't pay for her cancer treatment."

To be sure, at one point he did fully admit that our corporate benefits package sucks and he hates having his hands tied, and it was good to hear that acknowledgement, but learned helplessness doesn't move the needle. He did say by the end that he would ask about how long my spouse would have to be without treatment before they could apply for TNS as a "new depressive episode," and that might work. And he did say he'd tell me how to manage an external review. But none of that _fixes_ this.

Benefits rep for the parent company called me this morning to say "we're doing everything we can."

I asked if they were contracting a second insurance provider so we'd at least have a market from which to choose, or if they were lobbying for single-payer at the corporate level.

He said no.

I said, "then you're not doing everything you can. I expect better."

The conversation didn't really go anywhere after that, but it took him forty-five minutes to recognize that.