Today I

[kiya]

* called a number of masons to see about getting estimates to prove to myself that a particular renovation project is unaffordable
* did the Tuesday Zoom lunch with folks from church
* supervised assorted small children
* took the reptiles to the reptile vet (reptiles are both in sound health)
* did not utterly collapse upon arrival home, nor did I partake of the alcohols
* discussed doors some more with whispercricket, producing a "ONE DOES NOT MERELY WALK INTO MORE DOORS" comment
* fixed the heater in Mo's tank and actually saw him out and about (he's a largely nocturnal creature and still getting used to us so he is basically always in his hideyhole)
* failed to beat a Caesar IV scenario in a manner that requires a restart, really
* signed a contract (more details later, the circumstances are weird enough I'm waiting on any sort of substantial announcement)

This has been much too much adulting (though not all of it was wearing), particularly with my meds apparently being offkilter from the symptoms I am dealing with.

Comments

[graydon]

That is certainly a lot of adulting. Yay for getting through it?

[kiya]

I am very "one day at a time" but at least today requires less going out and doing things, which is unfairly exhausting. And it was hot enough that masking up was miserable.

(I have a mask that doesn't give me a panic attack to use but the 'does not cause freakout' effect is... degraded in the heat.)

[graydon]

Bother, panic attacks.

(Having there be a heat warning in May strikes me as one of the signs of the apocalypse.)

Masks and heat's pretty awful, yeah. My earliest extensive experience was late teens and dust masks for an awful sanding job, so at least it feels normal in some way.

Do you know what the bad thing is about masks as artefacts?

[kiya]

I get complicated sensory overload from enclosed hot/humid spaces, so finding masks that didn't freak me out was such a victory and then the weather warmed up and ugh. Maybe I can just never leave the house again. It seems so much easier.

I am not sure what I would specify as "the bad thing", so elaborate please?

[graydon]

I know people who can't stand wearing anything on their face; sometimes it's actually anything, and sometimes it's anything slithery and sometimes it's very specific texture. (E.g., anything plastic, with anything partaking of the cling-film nature (as some diving masks do...) being Right Out.)

It sounds like your response has less to do with the substance of the mask and much to do with the sensory overload. And even really excellent masks from an airflow perspective are still hot and humid, so this one is tough to solve.

[kiya]

Ah, yeah. It's a "convince my brain that I am not being BURIED ALIVE" problem, first discovered as a child wanting to burrow under blankets and finding I needed to leave them open enough to breathe cool air.

Brains are silly things.

[graydon]

Brains is brains. (It's not like avoiding burial is a silly thing to want!)

Positive-pressure systems from canned air can be cool air, but vadering-about is both heavy and awkward.