Y'all know I was out of the real workforce for a long time. Between the parenting gig, and then freelancing, elected coop jobs and working for my ex partner, my last real job was at fucking dennys. So wasn't optimistic about returning to real work. But this job that I fell into (after applying for jobs I didn't want and couldn't do, a housemate mentioned they'd gotten hired at this place and quit bc they need something more physical) this job is everything I could hope for in an entry level spot.

I'm making almost the living wage for my city, which doesn't sounds great when I put it that way, but I'm making as much or more as friends who have been at their call center jobs for a couple years, or than friends in shit retail or foodservice jobs. With the lifestyle we've gotten used to, coop rent, etc, I can actually get by just fine once I'm getting 30 hours a week.

But beyond the pay, it's a job I feel like I can tolerate. It's an answering service, not a survey call center, or customer support, or god forbid selling shit. People call in to some office that's closed, or the after hours line for like, apartment maintenance, and I just get their info, find out the problem, and get the message to the right person. If somebody is mad because they have a problem, I'm not the one who caused it or can solve it, so I tell them "I'm just the answering service, I can get that out to the relevant person." And boom, they ain't mad at me.

And these calls take at most, a couple minutes, than another minute or 2 to dispatch out if I have to call instead of text it out. We have some more complicated procedures, but I'm not on those calls yet, and those are just time consuming, not hard.

And some parts are hard, trying to get people to just tell you the information you need instead of their whole life story, or people with bad connections or who are just hard to hear on the phone, or things where they are distressed and all I can do is take a message because whoever is on call just doesn't do what they need, but its all really manageable. The hardest part might be the boredom in between calls, but we can be on our phones, bring a laptop, snack, read, do crafts, whatever between calls.

There's no official break system, you can just go pee, or smoke, or walk around, or grab a snack whenever you want as long as there is someone else on. Sometimes the other person on might be remote, or you might be the only one on, in which case no breaks, but from what I can tell that's never more than an hour or so.

And its a tiny local company that's been doing it since the 50s. 14 people total in the whole company, including remote. I'm not working for some faceless corporation, I'm working for a tiny ass company. I don't work for the man,I work for some guy. And the owner doesn't really run it, his girlfriend (I think, according to the office talk) who has worked there since before I was born, runs the whole ship. And still takes calls. And her son works there, and the person who trains me is good friends with the managers granddaughter, and brought her boyfriend in to get a job. So there is a real casual, everyone is comfortable with everyone vibe because it's practically a family business.

Most call center jobs are the shit you do while looking for other work, but this one people STAY at, like one dude worked there the whole time his wife was at UW, and she graduated when he'd been there 12 years, she got a job out of state and he just kept this job and went remote.

Basically it's fucking awesome. I legit spend over half my shift playing games and reading fic on my phone between calls. When calls come in I have to be efficient and professional, but otherwise I am being paid to keep myself entertained. I probably should develop hobbies I can do there besides my phone.

And I got my first paycheck, which probably has a lot to do with how good I feel about the job. But I was ready to do things I would hate and would be too much for me for a paycheck, so this is amazing.

I know it's only been a couple weeks, but I'm feeling excellent about it.

Like, a real job. At almost a living wage. That I am capable of, and that has hours I can actually work. It's the call center for an answering service, so taking messages and forwarding them as needed. So no face to face, no on my feet, mostly evenings and overnights, and no calling people at home and bothering them, like most call centers I've worked before. Super chill work environment, they get employees staying for like 10 years, which is such a good sign. 15 minute walk from my house,and they encourage you to bring in your laptop to watch movies or do homework, whatever between calls once you've got the hang of things. Option to go remote eventually, they've had people work for them for years, and keep the job when they move across the country.

Holy shit.

I've still got to get through until I'm off training and getting full paychecks, but I'm selling tarot readings and scrounging whatever I can to stay afloat til then, and it's a lot easier with the end in sight.

or Mav gives themself back pats for basic life functioning.

I hadn't been very motivated to cook lately. For a long time, really, but recently it's been a lot of heat and eat meals, or leftovers from a housemate, or butter noodles. But tonight, I was like, wait, there's chicken in the freezer, and I've got parm, and my kid is about alfredo sauce again, so I made a bacon chicken alfredo pasta, and it turned out awesome. So I got that going for me.

Otherwise, ugh, life.

I'm not posting about the current fucked up shit here, other than my personal experience. There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said better by smarter people. I've been doing what I can to spread info on fb, and irl, and watching streams for most of my waking hours, except for when I've been out on the street.

I went out the first day people were protesting in Madison, right after they started teargas, with the intention of staying on the sidelines and helping people who got sprayed or tear gassed, and instead wound up at the front for a minute as they advanced on me and I was too stubborn to run. I finally saw the clip my protest buddy got, of me standing there with my hands up going "oh god, am I really doing this" as they got closer and pointed the pepper spray gun in my direction.

I stupidly held my ground until they were close enough to touch, and then backed away, asking them if they thought their moms were proud of what they were doing. Their response was to throw a canister between me and my only path away from them, forcing me to go directly through the cloud. After that I mostly stayed at the edges of things with milk, (until I discovered how much better antacid worked at the end of the night) occasionally pulling people I knew out of the rush when they got gassed, keeping eyes on people who were on the front line, and setting up in front of a local business for a while to remind people it was local as other businesses were looted. I say I was at the edges but I still got close enough that I got pretty heavily tear gassed three more times that night, and got pretty close to cops while trying to talk them into getting a houseless friend his backpack that they wouldn't let him grab when they cleared the street. He was getting in their faces a bit, and I stepped in and used my whiteness to de escalate and then distracted them a minute while he ducked down an alley and over some fences to get his gear.

Another houseless friend got pepper sprayed directly in the face while kneeling, and then they dropped a canister right in front of him. That's when I found out antacid worked better, after dragging him out of the crowd they were pushing down the street while he was blinded and trying to clear his eyes with milk for maybe 15 minutes.

I haven't gone back out since that night, because if I get hurt or arrested I'm worried about the kid having to go to her dad's, who she basically fired for abusive behavior in November. I've done what I can signal boosting, and telling the group of younger protesters making signs on my porch how to stay safe, but I'm probably going back out if it gets wild tonight to help however I can.

My partner's older stepkid has been out every night, and got arrested monday night while trying to keep things peaceful, breaking up fights, stopping looters,
(while still throwing back tear gas because he has gloves and a gas mask) and his face and wrists don't look like they were nice about it. They straight tackled his brown ass face first into the concrete. and I have to just be grateful they didn't do worse, which fills me with a rage bigger than I am. I've known him since he was like, little, I considered him family even before I was with his stepdad,so it hits home. I saw one of his cousins, who I've also known since he was a kid, get pepper spray straight to the face on the news feed. I'm so scared that the cops are going to kill one of these brave young men one of these nights, and I grieve for every child they've already killed.


I haven't been sleeping before like 11 am for days now, because my brain just won't stop until I'm at collapse mode. And when I do sleep, I dream of trying to protect small poc friends who I haven't seen since quarantine hit. Like, I know T is walking, and L must be speaking in full sentences. and I just miss them and want to keep them safe. Last night I dreamt of holding them both strapped to me while they slept peacefully at a place (rainbow) we were all safe.


Living downtown during this has been weird in it's own way. I'm close enough that I can hear it when it's on the bottom half of state, theres sirens all night, we've had people coming to hide out in our yard from the cops and gas when it gets too hot a couple blocks up, one of our neighboring coops had tear gas come in the windows and hit the fucking children in the middle of the night, and I still get to hear white ass frat boys talking about grabbing bricks and "joining the fun" while they party like it's any other day.

And it's small in comparison, but my favorite fucking rainbow bus got taken by the fucking cops for offering food and first aid, and I'm not okay with that either. That's the bus I sat in helping injured people and wishing I was a medic when the guy attacked people at a gathering, and it got taken as a "threat" because it had knives and hatchets for the woodstove, and I feel some kinda way about that.


I know it's fucked up to be making a post that's all about me and my experiences with this, as a white person, but I need to get it out somewhere, and this is less publicly taking up space than anywhere else.

I had already been on what I thought was my last fucking scrap of cope back before quarantine hit, and haven't had a minute to fully recoup and process from the shit that went down in my life in December and January before all hell broke loose on the larger scale. (That included my kid having a mental health crisis that had me trying to decide whether she needed inpatient care, and considering putting myself in because it was making me breakdown, and a medical issue causing one of my partners to have a full crisis episode, and the entire social fabric my house falling apart) I'm apparently great in a crisis, but I need time to recover after holding it together, and shit just keeps coming.

Also, I lost my job yesterday, which is good for me in a lot of ways, but probably real fucking bad for my house and the larger coop org. I actually was going to post about that, and have it written up, but got distracted.


It's just all too fucking much.

For the annual rainbow gathering, and it's even closer than I'd expected. Like, about 5 hours away, this side of lake Superior, right near where I was born. Still don't know how I'm getting there for sure, but I've got a few maybes, and lots of people are going to be passing through Madison on the way. I'm so excited. I'll be in the woods ywithin 2 weeks!

Part of why I'm so excited is this year Luna is really able to have pretty much full freedom (with some caveats) since it's her second national gathering, her 5th gathering in general counting small ones, and she's nearly 13. She can run loose in the woods, which means I can too.

Every weekend that I try to spend with him. Found out he has stage 4 lung cancer in the spring, have been trying to just enjoy whatever time I have with him since then, but he's getting sicker every time I see him. And he's trying so hard to hide it, but then he just seems miserable and angry at everyone. And that isn't who he is.

And when I'm with him, we're both ignoring it as best we can, because it will kill him faster if he thinks I pity him, or am being kind because he's in pain. So we just pretend it's normal. And even when we are both doing great at pretending he's not fucking dying, and things are great for a bit, that actually hurts more, because that's what I am going to miss the most.

And honestly, I'm not sure if I can survive him dying. I have to, because I have a daughter to raise, but I'm pretty sure she's going to be living with a zombie until either I somehow get over this, or she's old enough I can kill myself to be with him.

So the last few months, along with dealing with the co-op, I have been vaguely helping to write a bigass novel length Interactive Fiction game based on my co-author’s experiences the summer of 2013, up to the house fire. It’s in the Spring Thing IF competition if anyone wants to check it out. It’s called Harmonic Time-bind Ritual Symphony, and I really like it.

http://springthing.net/2016/play.html#HarmonicTimeBindRitualSymphony

I know I haven't posted in forever, But I finally have good news! After unfathomable delays, we go approved to move back home. I get to go home.

to find out if we can finally move back in. We have to pass. We've done so much work, and it has been so long, and I just really hope the universe can come through for us on this one. I just want to go home.

It has been hard being home doing cleaning and repair and then having to go not-home to go to bed. I hate it.

I've been too busy to remember to post this, but Lothlorien opened back up last thursday. It's still kind of a disaster, with one working shower in the whole place, among many other issues, but we're home.

I can not even believe we finally made it back. I've got my house back, I've got my amazing people around me, and some great new ones, and it's amazing how much I have come back to life just being back there.