was that it?

 it's almost 3am as i begin typing this, i've just spent two or three hours watching random youtube videos and playing minesweeper (a really hard minesweeper - total minesweeper), after a really mixed friday after a rather awkward thursday.

thursday (yesterday?):

after dropping mr smear off at school, i called back the ministry of education representative who very clearly and urgently set things in motion. later, i received a phone call from the school counsillor inviting me and mr smear to an urgent meeting on sunday morning. when she reminded me what the plan for moving mr smear was, i reminded her how the plan was always to make sure that mr smear didn't disrupt anyone else after being neglected and left in a known bad situation for years.

i wrote up our experiences, and i feel like i should have posted them publicly but decided to wait on my mom's edits instead, which i sadly received yet. posting's potentially going to open us up to attack, though, which does make me a bit nervous.

thursday afternoon was shit. a lot of fighting with mr smear not doing his homework, it was a real drag and absolutely exhausting. in spite of that, whenever he did achieve or complete something he got really excited, and that was hugely rewarding.

gd had a dental appointment (i yelled at the second receptionist to try to cancel it at the last minute and then ignored me and tried to hang up when i told her to give me a moment so i could explain to gd what was going on), and i ended up having to order dinner, which worked out alright in spite of my reservations (we've been burning a lot more money these past couple of weeks than we should have).

friday (today?):

it started off well, we went to the open day at the art school and, aside from the dance demonstration, mr smear was very excited. and so were we. everything was great until we were on our way out and i was trying to summarize / translate the important bits for the two of them, which led to a simmering fight with gd that lasted the day until it became an all-out battle in the evening, which never got resolved. just ugly feelings all day.

while that was going on in the background, i went to pick up insoles for my rain boots and they seem to fit better. i'm now regretting asking the guy to order a better size for me because i really don't wear them enough to justify a whole other pair of boots...

... and then i spent the rest of the afternoon coaching mr smear through the remainder of his homework. it went much smoother than the previous days - although we did have one blowout incident in the middle - but we pushed through and rushed through together and a little after sundown we were done, with a good feeling all round.

after his shower (during which gd and i really got into it), and before dinner, we spent some quality game time together. dinner wasn't great from a vibe perspective, but it was encouraging to see mr smear being empathetic and trying to raise spirits (and not picking sides for once), and at bedtime he asked me to join him while he read calvin & hobbes out loud which was nice.

as soon as he was in bed, gd and i went to bed. i'm not sleeping well, and i'm feeling shit emotionally, and i feel like i neighbor's coughing and the jackals howling has been fitting accompaniment. i don't know what i'm up for right now, but it's not sleeping, it's not reading, and it's not playing anything.