Saturday, Jun. 17, 2023 - 10:32 am.
I'm not in the best of moods so I should be quick. I should be in a better mood, really, because it was Andrew's birthday on Thursday and this afternoon we're off to a nice seaside lodge to spend the night.
Also, last night I got my plane tickets to go to my home country from July 21st to the 29th. It's uni break so I can do it, but Andrew isn't coming. It gets on my nerves that it's always "I'll go next time", but he never does. It's not bad faith on his part, it's always either the money or the short period of the trip. But I get tired of it, especially because my family's always offering to pay for his plane ticket (and I get he isn't comfortable with it, and we wouldn't need it, I have savings).
I have yet to make plans about what to do there. I know I don't want to tell Helen because she'll go, and I'm also not in the mood to have anyone else inserting themselves in a plan I'm already reluctant to pursue (indeed because of the reasons that Andrew gives, though let the record show he was the one who made me book the trip, because he appreciates my relationship with my family). I'm not gonna be able to travel later in the year, though, and I know I'll feel good that I went and saw my family when I could.
Why I'm not in the mood for anything, however: I feel so desperate, over a number of things that I have no control over but that are screwing me over.
The UK visa application centre hasn't even returned my passport. It's been a month and a half since I gave it to them. Refuse me permission to go into your goddamn country but GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING PASSPORT.
I have to make enquiries about a payment I'll get for a short story that will be published (that one from Penguin Random) because international payments are a headache and I don't know how to proceed.
I have to make enquiries about my taxes because they're charging me huge amounts I already paid for. I submitted a message and they said they were looking into it and then ticked my enquiry as resolved. I should go to their offices but I have so much work to do and it seems such an uphill battle that I have a hard time making that a priority.
I'm still bitter about Pride month. I guess that's enhanced because months ago a student society approached me asking to give a talk... about something that's not the focus of my work, but then I offered them a talk on something similar within my expertise. Well, they stood me up for our first meeting, then they finally scheduled the talk weeks later and no one showed up. They scheduled at a time when they knew it was unlikely people would show up.
Then we rescheduled for this month, but these students went on strike and didn't let me know if the talk was happening until I asked a few days prior (it didn't happen). Then I saw yesterday they'd scheduled another talk with a local LGBT+ group. There were few people in the audience but still far more than in the one for my talk, which was zero. It was all bad management and unseriousness on the part of this student society, but I feel angry and hurt that they wasted my time and work like that.
They still had the nerve to message the IG account of my lab to ask us to share the ad for the talk. And T, my assistant and former student who runs the account, did. That also pissed me off. She was gonna be in that talk with me, and she knew very well how they kept ping-ponning us. She said she shared it to support the local LGBT+ group, which I understand, but woman, have some fucking pride, too.
I keep getting bitter when I see Pride events within my circle because I feel so out of it. I feel unheard and I invalidated. And maybe that's just hypervigilance on my part, I think people think I'm just an ally. There are indeed queer people who must speak instead of me, like people from the local LGBT+ group, they must have more valuable queer grassroots experiences and insights than I do, personally and academically. But I hate feeling like my own are worthless.
Since we're on this subject, I'm also upset because I got another paper rejected by a journal. It wasn't due to the quality, they just weren't receiving those topics for now as they had a few papers in that line under review and whatever. All valid reasons, but it still feels personal to me (I submitted it there precisely because they were publishing those topics), and it makes me desperate because preparing the manuscript to submit to a journal it's just grueling, and I'll have to do it all over again.
Anyway, I'm once again referring to something deeper than just "oh, I didn't get to give a talk", "oh, they rejected my paper". This is just the major topic of this diary, isn't it? I feel this way constantly with all I do: my research, my writing, my comics. All stuff that I love doing and that I put all of me into making, but that gets me nowhere (at least for my research I get paid though). And by that I mean that it doesn't seem to speak to other people. It doesn't connect with others. And that hurts so much because I see what I do and I say, hey, it wasn't bad.
I just don't feel things go my way. I don't get a win. I say I get little victories, and I do from time to time, but when these recognitions come they are often in the form of more work that'll also end up nowhere.
I have abandoned writing. I've gotten stuck with my Simeon writing and comics, rehashing them over and over. They are my happy place, but they mean so much to me that seeing that they mean nothing to others just breaks my heart. I'd like to explore doing other things, in terms of writing and drawing, but with what time? I'm tired after work, or I have to dedicate my energies to family and domestic issues, which are also a priority for me.
None of the failures I'm experiecing are personal, but they sure seem as if they were and hurt just the same.
I said I wasn't gonna take long with this entry, but I needed to cry a lot. Hopefully our weekend trip with Andrew will be a good break from all these, and I'll come back with a fresh perspective.
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