Work, pain and class consciousness
Friday, Apr. 01, 2022 - 4:00 pm.

I hit rock bottom this week. Relatively, as there are far worse lives to live than mine. Let me dial down on the drama and say that I've been stuck at work and in constant pain all over my face, head and neck.

The work thing is slow, and that's very much out of my hands. I sometimes make requests to people, they misunderstand what I want (even though I made it very clear), then I have to insist and then it turns out I'm a nuisance. I know I'm not out of place for asking for things that I deserve (e.g., a certificate of participation in a conference I took part in), but people's reactions often make me feel that way. It sucks.

The pain thing is a bit confusing. I saw my dentist this week for a follow-up on the treatment of my broken jaw. It feels weird saying this, like it just happened; I don't even know when it happened, except for the memory of falling on my chin as a child (a tween? a teenager?). But I actually never called it by its name. In my 20s I'd say that I was lucky that I'd never experienced a broken bone, but I actually by then I had two broken bones, one side of my jaw and the lower bone of my spine. Neither can be fixed and they screw up my quality of life from time to time.

Anyway, the pain in the jaw got worse first, as expected due to the treatment itself a month ago. Then it got better, and the past week it got worse again, with a wide range of painful points all over my head, some of which were new. I asked the dentist about this, but I guess this is just how things are gonna be.

Amidst my pain and sense of uselessness, working on my comic strip has brought me joy. Just wanted to put this out here.

Also, by Thursday, after feeling so miserable the whole week (and complaining a lot to a patient Andrew), I simply got optimistic. It felt like a familiar reaction. It reminded me of when I had depressive(?) episodes when I started this diary (over 15 years ago!), or when Joseph broke up with me (also so long ago). This time is nothing like those two times, but the pattern is the same: I feel so down that I can only look up and find solace in the weirdness of this state, knowing it will pass.

Tonight and tomorrow will be a nice break from this all, anyway. Tonight, Andrew and I and another friend are going to see a friend (C, also my thesis student, haha) and her husband. And tomorrow, Andrew and I are going to harvest hazelnuts, if rain allows it.

The latter sounds cool but I had my reservations. We're doing it for our friend K, whose family owns a ridiculous amount of land (and animals, and forests where pumas roam, and part of a lake). K and her husband asked us, and another couple of friends, to do it because they couldn't find people to hire. I hate that I'm dedicating my Saturday to doing labor that should be paid, for the profit of K's family and of Ferrero Rocher, who makes delicious chocolates but which I don't buy too often precisely because of the cost behind it.

I nearly said no to this job, but then I thought it'd be something new to do. It's not about the money, my bitterness, I don't care about getting paid. It just makes me uncomfortable, a bit angry, how one family can own so much that they can't even keep up with the maintenance labor of it all, and have to turn to the good will of their relations and yet they *still* make a profit out of it.

K and her husband are our friends and they'll scramble to show their gratitude (it's mostly K's dad's fault, as he thought that growing trees was cheaper and easier than raising animals). My annonyance isn't about their attitude either. But as you can see, my class consciousness often gets in the way of my friendship-ish with K, and I won't apologize for that.

ANYWAY! Having worked through my class guilt, here you have me, mentally listing stuff I should pack for tomorrow. And instead of working, I'm updating this dear diary. But again, work is slow for now so I can go for this.

Be well, stay safe <3

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