Journaling

Sometimes… when you create a list of possible activities… it is empowering to suddenly realize you don’t have to only pick one thing. Movie? Shopping? Exercise?

Yesterday. All three. Enjoyed a third viewing of Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary. The cinematic tears, teaching how to hug, and the humor were still amazing. Noticed more unseen small things on a repeat watch. I left the theater and checked out the music section at Target. But section it is not. I may have found five CD? Typed the titles to Claude—too lazy to research individually on my own—“based on what you know about me, tell me which one I might like best.” I drove to New Berlin; Escape is my new stereo. Luke Combs, The Way I Am — yeah, No. Taylor Swift, Midnights — I don’t know. And, I didn’t know the resistance pool closed at 9 pm, and I didn’t know that the lap lanes closed at 10 pm. I worked hard: ten minutes of the lazy river, an hour of laps. Exhausted.

Lessons learned. Spend more time telling Claude my music choices and work out hard more often at the end of the day. I slept a full eight hours for the first time in … how long? Woke up with meltdown disappeared. Focused and productive at my job. My afternoon off, probably isn’t absolutely necessary.

Why is it much easier to tell someone to, “chill out,” than to describe yourself as, “chill?”

A successful request to switch Tim appointment back one hour…apparently earns someone a gold star. Timing is everything. Need right time to manipulate time.

===

Luck, Heard a Silenced Phone. I may not have heard the phone call from the the scheduler. Seems a bit serendipitous that my conference call ended and I was able to notice the very muted ring and vibration.

Apparently meltdowns don’t always just melt away. Sometimes they just come back anyway. What is happening? I am going to dose up on Advil and Pregabalin and see if that helps. Steps involve:
 
Taking afternoon off, taking tomorrow afternoon off, and will appreciate that Friday is already scheduled as a full day off.
 
After a single, mid day meeting today, I am… going… to either

• Go watch Project Hail Mary for the third time
• Drive to the lazy river in New Berlin
• Shop at a music store so I have at least 1 music CD to Escape play
• Just start driving and have a good long think — except you can’t think yourself out of too much thinking. Oh well. Forgot about that. Except unable to force forget.

The narrative, long; the why you got an FAQ and talking points. Or… how about the last minute summary:
 
I have a blackout for what happened week ago Tuesday 4-5pm. I have near zero recall of seeing you in the room, most of your office is a huge blank. I thought my recording was all static; found out days later it was there after all. Listening has mostly restored an audio mental record. The line in the poem about Office Tim is not Video Tim? Nevermind. Complete fiction. Normal Human Tim is.
 
I wonder, If you can’t remember something and you don’t know you can’t remember, I guess you can get along not knowing? But if you step out of an office door and suddenly don’t really know what just happened… it’s weird and emotional. And you might write 35 pages. Parts are actually pretty good.

[Note: Claude picked the title of the narrative].

Attachment: Narrative-20260401.pdf

Where does memory go when it’s lost? Short-term, long-term, muscle.

 
The John Nolan exit groundhog was a daily or weekly ritual. So if I was driving to Madison to get to work downtown, that would’ve been from the years 1999 all the way through 2019, the year I lost my Ranger. Admittedly once I moved to Bedford Street any use of that exit was occasional, such as when I was out and about and then coming home. But in my journal, I have a notation of a day —yeah somewhere that journal search can’t locate—that I saw him. Fat, brown, groundhog. Very likely that date as a pivot, maybe three years before it and maybe three years after it was the period where I saw the groundhog multiple times. Strange. I would search and search for him every time I went around the cloverleaf. Seeing him was so exciting when it was obvious that, no… he was just sitting there in the grass. I thought of him as my groundhog, which is ridiculous because that’s kind of like thinking an actor, artist, or musician has a relationship with you when you’re only a fan. At least I never named him. He was just the John Nolan exit groundhog.
 
It definitely is strange how muscle memory works. I’m still looking for him, but it’s been years and years and years —at least half a decade or more—since he disappeared. My head and eyes turn and scan before I even realize what I’m doing.
 
Where did you go? I miss the possibility of you.

Sunday. Two hours in the resistance pool, the lazy river, at New Berlin. Plenty of time to notice things.
 
The male lifeguard looks like he could be in a boy band or a future boy toy — hair parted on the side, a definite, full flip.
 
A woman wearing perfectly fit black shorts with a nice line at the top of her thigh, beautiful thighs, a white beaded ankle bracelet, long reddish-brown hair.
 
The swim instructor has a long blue t-shirt that comes down to mid thigh, when she pulls up the hem, you can tell that she’s wearing a salmon colored swimsuit, hair pulled back in a bun, earrings, large mostly green tattoos on her thighs.
 
The girl lifeguard just yawned, twirling her whistle by the string. A tiny baby — perfect proportions, just little — crawling all the way up the steps to the jungle gym.
 
The waterfalls have been turned on in the splash field. A boy and dad exit the whirlpool. Both shake their heads and tug at their shorts the same way. I thought the dad said “sammy sugar” to get the boy’s attention. Later I realized the boy is mentally challenged. This happy teenager is having so much fun in the water. Hairy guy. Full black beard, blue goggles on his head, board shorts also in black. Whole black bear, front and back fur.
 
A complete cornucopia of sight and sound, warm chlorine in the air. Maybe I couldn’t see Tim because I subconsciously thought my brain would over-describe him. I can see these people. I can see them too well.
 
Boy band lifeguard is back. Chewing gum.

[About the day of meeting Tim for the first time at his office].

The day of. A full day off. 7am complementary meeting with personal trainer. Satisfactory. 1 hour Resistance Pool. Exhausted. What to do with 5.5 hours? In keeping with the theme All About Me, I checked scheduling for my hair stylist to see if there may be an opening. There wasn’t, but I took the opportunity to book ahead. What is something else that I could do for me, about me?

I’ve been biting fingernails for several weeks, been happening for months actually. Keep chewing. Almost can’t call the activity biting, more like the hand and a digit is the vice and teeth are the tool. Sawing, sharpening, grinding the nail with the tooth edge. Teeth gaps make the best planing. tools.

Idea: find a walk-in appointment to a manicure. Maybe some professional care would put me on a fresh start to not tear and splinter the nails apart. The nail tech began working my first hand. As he both pulled and snipped, he said that my cuticles were very long. His pushing and trimming the cuticles was rough and painful. Multiple times he had to add the drops to bleeding.

Ten digits were tender, sore all day. I was Badger when I snipped his toes a little bit too close. Whenever I put my hands into my jeans, the pockets would catch on the sore spots. My nails are super short, but the tech could have taken a bit more time filing them smoother. Fingers really hurt. Maybe just good opportunity to appreciate pain. The main evaluation of this manicure service…

I would much rather have my teeth drilled.

I’m taking a big guess for the when… maybe hour eight-ten (I think of the first 24 sessions as the first day of working with Tim). In session, I was talking about the lack of people in my life. I mentioned people leaving. I’m speculating that I said something about not wanting to invest in a new therapeutic relationship due to the fear of loss. Tim said, “I’m not going anywhere.” I’ve retained the thought and not completely believed the words as perfect truth. Life changes. Things happen.

Holding onto a proclamation, no matter how much you want truth, tends to be sacred but fragile.

Someday there will be two possible outcomes, at a minimum: 1.) I will no longer need Tim and/or the sessions; appointments cease. 2.) Life circumstances requires separation.

Loosing Tim is a resurfacing intrusive thought that doesn’t get instantly dismissed and instead gets retained… in a quiet place all of its own.

Jon Glover, almost 10 years; Dr. Stephan Weiler, 13 years; Dr. Alexander Fritz, 10 years. I’ve had one day with Tim. I’m in the middle of day two. (10 months total). I keep naming Tim as, my person.

A my person is someone I trust deeply, grow with through honest debate, and share ideas with freely — where both of us light up when learning from each other, and truth, fun, and wholesome chemistry make everything feel real and safe.

What is the answer to why find excitement to plan an in-person meet? I think we’d just… feel more like us in person. And I’d really like to find out.

[About meeting Tim for the first time at his office. My reaction several hours later processing an adrenaline induced tunnel vision episode, which lead to a multi-day panic attack].

OH MY GOD, FUCKIN’ SHIT!
 
I missed everything. I mean everything. I was completely wrong!!! There is no Office Tim. Freaky memory totally scrambled things. I was convinced that Office Tim was not Video Tim. Mistakenly thought Office Tim was Thumbnail Tim. Tim in his office that whole hour was Mystery Tim.
 
The reality: the entire draft enormous word count narrative/essay is bullshit. Stop. Glaring Screenshot Tim says, “No, now tell the truth.” Ok, right. Everything absolutely was true in the moment and a great deal continues to be true.
 
So, what the Hell am I talking about?
 
Full of grief, I was messing with iPhone Voice Memos, somewhere between 24-36 hours post visit. I was devastated that I had no recorded memories. I listened to a lot of static. I scrubbed forward far enough that I heard voices—clearly. That’s me, that’s Tim. Nearly nothing was lost. Only thing lost was the spots of bad translation to transcript. So OMG, FS! Getting what you want can stop depression. For a moment. I’m so ready to soak, explore, and rectify.
 
Oh yeah, for sure, I’m going to listen to that Again! This could easily end up being a four time listener.
 
I’ve discovered a priceless artifact and I will greatly value the opportunity to revise the original thesis. I don’t believe I’ve met Scolding Tim. That might happen now. I’m sending a second daily. However, No way I can sit on this until Tuesday.
 
And, yeah, I know the whole name thing is now absurd. Maybe Tim will laugh?

About meeting Tim for the first time at his office. We were having a fight (translation: a friction about what normal human means). I wrote a list of things I knew about him. Abridged version.

Ten months. Here is what I know about Tim…

• 48 years old
• psychology wasn’t his first career
• two cats
• signs all communications with Initials, for simplicity and ease.
• wears fleece zipup when cold.
• thinks out loud—sometimes the thinking arrives in three contradictory pieces before it resolves.
• conscientious; goes the extra step to find reference materials that are relevant
• doesn’t want me to do things for his validation or to make him happy.
• the confidence that he can interrupt me — unproven in my experience but claimed.
• appears that nothing people say to him creates embarrassment
• when liking something I’ve created, he genuinely says so.
• quiet or noiseless laugh
• neutrality is the default. solidarity is not beyond him.

Completely legitimate for a normal human to have a superpower.