nerves

i barely slept last night, not sure why.

i was supposed to supervise mr smear on the bus this morning, but we were so wrapped up in our discussion of how to tell jokes across different mediums (and the importance of panel layout, he's got strong opinions on swamp thing) that we auto-piloted to the light rail instead :P

i spent a couple of hours preparing for my phone screen, after which it turned out to be just a non-tech introduction. but it was positive nonetheless, and immediately afterwards i heard back from the outsourcing form, who's skipping a step with me and has invited me to what might be the final round! i'm legitimately excited about this one, i really hope it all comes together.

after that, my eyes were giving me trouble and i was feeling quite antsy, and i decided to take a walk with my kindle. i found a nice spot in a nearby park and read a little, but after a couple of pages i realized i just didn't have the focus. i walked a little further, found a surprisingly nice little fountain hidden away next to the park that i've never noticed in the three and a half years we've lived right next door, and then returned home just in time for a call from swordschool.

jesus, fuck, he's been going through some difficult shit. we talked for quite a while, so long that i almost entirely missed urchin's visit (we literally had a couple of minutes to chat before she left), and we're going to continue the conversation tomorrow. i'm planning on giving him a boost with one of his ideas and hopefully we'll enjoy some quick success 🤞

mr smear arrived around the time urchin left, and we dove straight in to math homework. well, he did - he didn't really need my help, so i got some of the dishes done.

mr smear has been repeating some mightily inappropriate shit recently, directly from his new friends at school. i'm trying to impress upon him, just in case, that friends don't pressure friends into doing anything they're not comfortable with, and that if he does find himself compromised, he needs to tell us so we can help him out of whatever shit he gets into...

a short while later, we all left for the hospital complex, picked up some meds and then accompanied gd to the pain clinic for her nerve block. after getting her ready for the doctor - which took a while, but much less time than usual - mr smear and i went through his hebrew reading homework. he did really well, but there were a couple of moments that reduced my patience, and then his behavior afterwards (he didn't want to do anything that wasn't on his phone, including not doing anything at all) reduced it further.

getting gd home after the procedure was pretty straightforward, and after a brief chat with my mom i took mr smear with me to go pick up dinner. some of the walk was unpleasant - my patience had pretty much bottomed out by that point - but most of it was us talking. a lot of the talk was about heavy stuff (aging, illness and death), which was fine except for the bit where i said something so heavy it upset him and i immediately regretted it...

we picked up... too much food. like, two of the dishes we could've left behind, and it was quite an expensive meal. having said that, the meals were delicious.

there were some negative feelings around bedtime (the usual), but otherwise it's been a smooth evening.

tomorrow morning i've got an appointment with the israeli employment service...