It’s 32 degrees right now, and we have a frost advisory. A FROST ADVISORY!
It’s May 6th. For fuck’s sake. And, yes, I said this yesterday as well, but it was 40 ‘feels like’ 39 at the time. Now it’s 32. This is right in my wheelhouse, but as I’ve mentioned before, my body is really unhappy with the bouncing up and down that’s been happening over the past few weeuks. The average (mean) for May is 59. We have slid around that temp, but mostly been below it so far. We’ve had a few days in the seventies, including one that was high seventies.
I am getting whiplash from the weather. If it stayed in the 30s or 40s for several weeks, then I’m fine. If it’s in the 50s, I can deal. Low 60s and we’re starting to get in my uncomfortable zone. Anything over 70 is not what I want at all. If it creeps over 80, I’m done.
I remember I used to visit Ian when he lived in Raleigh. It would get well over a hundred with so much humidity in the summer. I would be dripping wet and hot, even after taking a shower. It made me realize how much I hated the heat. I mean, I have always hated the heat, but this just underscored how ill-suited for it I was. I wilt and become listless, and I do not want to move at all.
When K lived here, we would go out once a month or so. In the winter, I would be perky (well, as perky as I get–which isn’t that perky) and happy because I love the cold. She would grumble and shiver, even if we were being heated, and she would say, “Doesn’t the cold make your spine scrunch up?” I said, “No! It makes me feel alive!” I may have laughed maniacally at the end, too, but that’s just because I’m so happy in the cold.
On the other hand, when we went out in the summer, I was hot and miserable. I hated it so much when we were outside. Once, we were at a beach when it was in the nineties, and I just wanted to dive in the water and never get out. That would have taken too much energy, though. More to the point, I did not want to be outside at all. The heat makes me listless, miserable, and if I can’t get out of it, angry.
I’m really frustrated with myself right now. Two reasons. One is my sleep. I’ve always struggled with it*, and I’m trying really hard to make my bedtime reasonable. By reasonable, I mean 3 a.m. That’s reasonable to me.
Side note: One thing I’ve talked about with my friends is how there are flaws you need to fix and flaws that you can accept. My sleep is one that I dearly want to fix, but I am having such a hard time with it. An example of a flaw that I do not care to fix–working to the end of a deadline. I’ve accepted it and made it work for me. As long as I make the deadline, that’s all that matters.
I was talking about it with a neurospicy friend. She’s known it about herself longer than I have, and she’s the one who suggested that I might be autistic myself. I’m so grateful because without her because it wasn’t something I would have thought of myself. Plus, she’s someone I can talk about it with no holds barred. We are both people who are very open with people we trust. We have asked each other pretty intimate questions with no expectation of having to answer. So far, I have welcomed all her questions and vice-versa.
I told her that I was so happy to have someone I could talk about these things with. She’s bi, ENM, trans, and nonreligious as well. I’m not trans, obvisouly, but I’m agender, which means both of us aren’t cis. It’s so refreshing not to mask with her (or mask less, anyway), and to be able to talk about things that I don’t with other people.
Side note: this is what I’m looking for in my friendships, by the way. Someone I can be chill with, have in-depth discussions with, and be silly with. It’s also what I’m looking for in a lover, but with the sex added in. I have always liked being good friends with the person I’m having sex with. I don’t want tension in my romantic relationships (well, nonsexual tension, that is). I really like it when I reach the ‘we can lie around in sweats’ part of a relationship–and I never want to leave it.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this new friend of mine for clueing me into the fact that I’m probably autistic. She didn’t use those words. She asked if I’ve ever considered it. She walked me through the symptoms that showed up in non-cis-male people, and I fit so many of them. SO many. Plus the ones I didn’t was because I masked too hard to let them through. When I took the online quize she suggested, they even said to answer unmasked. However, I had been masking for so long, I could not completely drop it.
For instance. One question was about how comfortable I felt in making small talk at a party with people I did not know. Or was it how good I was at it? Either way, because I’ve been forced to do that kind of shit since I was a kid, I didn’t know how NOT to do it. So I would say I was very good at/comfortable with it. What would my answer be unmasked? I could not tell you because I do not remember a time when I was fully unmasked.
In other words, I don’t know who I am when I don’t have the mask on. I mean, yes, when I’m home alone, I’m not masked. But I’m also not interacting with anyone at that time. That’s one reason I like to be alone–I don’t have to mask at all. Or more to the point, I don’t have to think about masking or not masking. I can just be.
*Except after my medical crisis after which I slept like a baby from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. without waking up. I was so stuffed with drugs, it made falling asleep a breeze. It was the most restful time of my life, but my body needed it, obviously. After dying twice, I mean. Other than that, though, my sleep has been so off.