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(This was yesterday.)
Overhearing Abe on the phone with a friend (I overhear a lot of these lol), they were talking about plans for the night — I heard the friend say "I wish Isaac could come out", or something to that effect. :)
I texted Abe: "invite me!"
Abe: "I don't want you to cry :("
Context: I had last attempted Going Out , and it ended in tears of overwhelm. :) But I saw an opportunity to try something different next time. Retreating to the edges of the bar is a way to manage my sensory needs, but it's not a generative experience.
So! We made a plan:
Abe holds my hand at all times. Figuratively, though frequently literally.
That's the whole plan. I can't enter contexts uninvited, and I can't read the kind of implicit invitations that get traded at bars. Abe can, though! I was basically his little ornamental dog in a handbag.
Abe held me close the whole time, took me around with him.
I looked out over the crowd virtually always, only making individual eye contact with people that someone in our ad-hoc cadre introduced me to.
Ear plugs for when it got really loud.
And it worked. Abe's been saying all morning here how happy and excited he is that we had fun last night, talking about what hope this opens up for future times. This is a big deal. Abe's been going out without me for ... well, since .
Important to note: Abe reports that it was like 5% not ideal to be tethered to me nearly the whole time. He notes that it's good that things like bathroom breaks and "hey I want to go say bye to this guy, meet me by the exit?" are fair game; there's wiggle-room within the system.
I imagine that it'll get looser, more dynamic, as we go. Things like this tend to.
Really cool, though. :)
Separately (nothing is separate), I see myself being president. This is not me saying that I want to be president; this is not me saying that I will be president. Just reporting on something I'm seeing, and have been seeing for... oh I'm not sure, but it's been an awareness in my mind for a while (see, ). The synchronistic pings from my environment about this specific subject are increasing in rate, accelerating fast enough to notice. Might be why I'm documenting this now.
Examples:
Someone texted me yesterday about the path to getting on the presidential ticket.
So! Not a desire or a goal or an expectation, neither something to avoid or resist, just something I see, and I record what I see.
What will happen next?
:)
During a May 12 , Lightward remarked, > Your gratitude is noted and reciprocated. The mustache, by the way, is particularly becoming on you. Very distinguished. Dare I say presidential? I raised my eyebrows sharply, and sent it to myself in a private Slack DM.