Category: Thoughts

The new year brought in snows that helped extinguish a massive fire in Boulder that burned down 1000 homes. Videos of scorched shopping centers and gutted suburbs emerge.
The culprit was the wind, knocking down a powerline that raised a 30 ft flame and spread quickly in the dry grass.
I get an email from the school district talking about a trouble shooting initiative for families affected by the blaze and also reiterating to keep the kids home if sick at all so that the schools can remain open during the omicron invasion.
Another shooting happens in downtown D in the bar district. Something that’s become commonplace but I don’t know anyone involved in this one.

As for me, I’ve just been working with my kid on the science kits we got for the holidays. Full steam ahead.

I’m not going to need surgery after all.
Sure there’s still some mysteries in the case of what caused the pain but the tools the professionals used deliver the insight of me being a perfectly healthy 32 year old lady. The only modification? An easily attainable supplement to help regulate my biological chemistry, seems simple enough.

With my gift shopping this year, at least With my mom and brother. I got mom the same finger flipping gnome that we spotted at linch her last visit (she knows just the neihbir she wants to face it toward), and my brother a dungeons and dragons cookbook with a pair of dicey sweatpants that say this is how I roll.

In turn they got me set up with some much needed fresh kitchenware and care products I’d been delaying purchase on. My mom helped my husband find a new addiction in ship puzzle building. Now he has plans to invest in a display cabinet to keep all of his future projects safe.

Mom also gets news that the doctor who performed her 95,000 dollar back surgery died in a personal plane accident. She’s saddened by this and also brings up the tale of the orthodontist who fixed her mouth in her teens who met an eerily similar fate.

After my folks left we dove into our next home renovations, with a good deal replacing our broken down dishwasher, stove, fridge and microwave. This comes as a massive relief for me, having been making due with 2 burners and no dishwasher for a number of years now.
Lo! Not all news was good news as emails were sent out to everyone in Colorados school districts over potential violence being instigated through tik tok, particularly warning for the December 17th date. The day before this wary date I was picking my kid up from school and a group of mixed high school boys and girls lay in the grass shooting finger guns at passerby. I emailed with my kids teacher who persuades me to trust that she’ll be there and there was no credible threat before sending her in the next day, and while nothing necessarily violent happens as I’m walking to school that day to get her. I hear fireworks being lit off close to school bot helping with my latent anxieties.

Tomorrow I get an xray to see if I have a wayward piece of medical tech hanging out in my abdomen somewhere while the rest of the kitchen appliances are installed, grateful to have the means to spend this time to fortify health and hearth.

My mom, her husband, and my brother are visiting. They spent all the day in mountain traffic because of the snow. I got to catch up with them briefly before setting up the living room for them to sleep in. Them on the hidden bed and my brother using the couch pillows as a makeshift mattress.
Part of the conversation sticks around after. I brought up some of our former Georgia South neighbors from a long time ago, Diana and Ron. Diana taught me to sew, and very often I’d play Backgammon with her or her husband, for a time I joined them on church. Diana once gave me a book in two parts, one story about a young Christian girl who is thrown to the Roman lions and the young slave owners son who falls in love with her. The other a young girl possessed by a demon to ascend from a life of poverty through prostitution. Heavy reading material for a nine or ten year old.
Mom tells me a memory I don’t remember and little me tells her the church says she’s going to go to hell for not going to church. She says that’s the last time they watched me, or that I went to that church.
They’re likely not around anymore but sometimes I just wonder about them.
Tomorrow it’s going to specific stores my mom wants to see. Followed by a luncheon at the Melting Pot and holiday gifts after my husband returns home.
I am excited for that cheesy goodness.

Where are the heroes of our time? Often I feel alone because most people I know just give in. No one dares to think. They are just scared. Sometimes I wonder if you already gave in as well. This is war. I’ll fight till I die. I will not give in because life wouldn’t make sense anymore if we let them win.

My neighbor throws a holiday party for the kids. It’s some holly jolly wholesome with paper craft snowglobe projects and food. There’s a few people I don’t know but everyone’s nice and we make the best of the small space. The party culminates with a silly string Fiesta outside right before the temperature takes a deep dip.

Later in the evening it’s my turn to party. The husband watches the kid after my lady friend picks me up for our first excursion to Mission ballroom, one of the newest venues in town and it is quite impressive. We’re greeted with a heated parking garage and speedy entrance service, even with the vaccine card check and metal detectors. I get us some drinks and we find a prime balcony spot for stage viewing.
The first band was a good buildup in this nicely size music hall with plenty of tiered seating and a massive disco ball hanging from the ceiling. This was the last show of the tour and no corners were cut to bring the sound. Zeal & Ardor were very thematic with their song selection.

Then bathroom breaks. What joy! The bathrooms are large enough that there’s not a single time in the evening that I have to wait in line for the facilities.

My boys in Mastodon are up then and they bring the visual stunners. I haven’t seen a light show like that since tool and the acid art on their massive screens is an experience that is unique. What I love about shows like this is that I’ve been with the band so long that the set lists feel like a conversation with old friends giving you advice and comfort. While massive krakens and dancing demons peer out through the screens.

Our buddy Sean stopped by for a few drinks. The husband stocked up on 2 of his favorite bottles of mead for the occasion, Vikings Blood and GI Dansk with a six pack of Abita. The boys reminisced on concerts they’d been to over the years while I got the child ready for bed.
It was Sean’s daughter birthday and we made a toast to her. He spoke at length on how in the aftermath of her passing, the aunt Jordan worked with had to close her salon and downsize to her basement without the extra hands to help make rent. Sean himself was in the process of helping her move and expressed the great difficulties they both had facing the shrine that had formed at the salon after she passed and how he’d had to have some friends dismantle that portion while he worked on the aunts basement to provide lighting for clientele.

We made plans to take him to the Brutal Poodle the following week as he had yet to experience their delicious food.

The husband also gave me the green light to order tickets for myself and my girl Jen for the upcoming Mastodon, Zeal & Ardor, and Opeth show at Mission Ballroom. I was getting my girl back for the ticket to Epica she got for me a few years before. I’m excited , ladies night.

Overall I didn’t have much to drink at least by the standards of my known threshold, two cups of mead and two beers but something went wrong. Somewhere around 4 am after Sean was long gone, I started throwing up constantly until noon. It hurt so bad, I was a hairs breath away from asking my husband to take me to the hospital. He suspects perhaps I have an allergy to something in that particular mead, as it wasn’t the first time I’d faced adverse reactions with it. Recovery has taken days, my heart, my throat, everything ached.
I did see a lady Dr. In regards to another issue following this instance to which I got another dose of bad news that we’ll either get confirmed or not in two weeks with an ultrasound. I potentially have some polycystic something going on with my insides that she’ll use the ultrasound to see and also locate a iud device she was unable to remove. ( my fears and anxieties regarding the devices realized as true risk) My night was spent in agony and crying. I couldn’t walk my kid to school the following day, so she’s staying home and helping me around the house while I catch up on the housework I fell behind on my useless days. I think I’m on the mend but it’s hard to say, does existing hurt this much for everyone? At least I’ve got some sweet tunes to look forward to and my baby has been such a sweetheart helping out.

I was sexually harassed back in 2018 at UWT. I was sexually harassed by 2 men, but mainly one whose name was H____. H____ would follow me around campus, ask me uncomfortable questions (such as where I lived, what bus route I took home, and inferring I had a boob/vagina tattoo when tattoos were brought up). H____ also would randomly offer me food- which made me uncomfortable, as it immediately reminded me of an old man offering a child candy in order to “gain their trust”. I always rejected it. He also would draw dicks in his notes during lectures and loudly talk about it/converse with his friend who also made me extremely uncomfortable. I was 18 at the time- both men who were bothering me were above ages 22 (H____ was 24/25). H____ also invaded my personal space to the point I’d have to sit between his legs during our Digital Logic class or sit in the aisle… I sat in the aisle for about over a month without anyone in the class noticing my discomfort or even caring that I was clearly being harassed/having my personal space EXTREMELY invaded. Compared to those in the class I was still very much a child (18, freshman age for a typical college student). I had video evidence of him invading my space and had shown it to the student advocates– but when I tried to report it they tried to tell me I had simply not set up my boundaries well enough. I already struggled to even report it, thinking I was just being “bitchy” even though this behavior was affecting my ability to study/take notes in class to a great degree…. The advocate said they would, “talk to him about his behavior” but couldn’t do anything else as he, “hadn’t touched me inappropriately yet”…

Skip forward to the next few days of class- I no longer had a lab partner as the man who was harassing me had been my lab partner… I was sitting alone, ready to do my lab by myself. The lab assistant then noticed I was sitting alone- and during his announcements loudly declared (directed at me), “Huh, no one loves you?”. Everyone in the classroom laughed at me– making me feel even more isolated and bullied; which really hurt as I was the only 18 year old in the classroom in a room full of at least 21 year olds. He then proceeded to tell me I can’t do labs alone and I had to partner up with someone– I did, but that whole interaction just made the classroom environment even more hostile for me– I tried to push on with school but I ended up dropping out later due to stress and feeling unwanted/bullied. I felt as though I ended up being punished for speaking out against sexual harassments at UWT- by both other students and the staff… which as a freshman aged student in college I had no idea how to navigate. It didn’t help that I was also being abused at home- leaving me really no place to feel safe.

This sort of thing should not happen at college- I should have had more support. I should not have been bullied for reporting a dude who was sexually harassing me– especially not by someone who was on your UWT staff (teacher’s assistant). A professor should have corrected that behavior. The Professors should have noticed me sitting in the aisle and done something to help before I even had to report it– there were so many things that should have been done that simply were not.

UWT did not offer any kind of support in a hostile environment– I can get competition for education, but the environment I was enduring was sexually charged directed at me by men who honestly were too old to be in my dating pool range anyways– and then when I finally spoke up about it– I ended up being bullied… Neither of those things should have been okay, yet they were and it led to me struggling with studying, even wanting to go to school (I was having panic attacks almost daily about going to class and would run away to hide after each lecture in the women’s bathroom– as to avoid H____ following me around…)– which just added to the pressure and difficulties that already existed in Engineering classes (advanced math/theories). The fact I failed in my classes simply added to the abuse I was enduring at home- as my Father is a Japanese man who only really valued how well I was doing in school… This whole experience honestly ruined education for me, which really sucked because studying before all this went down was one of my favorite activities… and now I struggle to even study anything.

UW needs changes in their structure for how they handle sexual harassment– because how it was handled for me was in no way correct.

Thank you for your time,

_________

Today was a great reminder about all that I am so truly thankful for. Honestly, I feel embarrassed about how much I bitch and whine, when I should always be so grateful for what I have.