You look great!

Penny is back from getting spayed. I've got her in the bedroom because that's the place with the least stuff to jump on. My living/kitchen area is all open and there's a high window she likes to jump from the table to the window.

The bathroom is out because I discovered last night she can jump into the builtin cabinets.

So she's in the bedroom and immediately she jumped on the bed. I hope this doesn't mess up her stitches but there's no other place I could put her.

Liese, you look lovely. Not a lot of makeup.

Probably too late, but you look fab, Liese. Very subtle and professional.

askye, I'm trying to keep Xusha from jumping, and it's pretty hopeless.

Maria, what everyone else said about not having foreknowledge. I'd have regrets if either of my parents died suddenl (ptui ptui ptui), and yet knowing that isn't going to spur me to call them and lay shit out. I think regrets, like imperfection, are part of being human. No relationship is perfect.

Maria, there will be regrets. I have some pretty big ones surrounding the death of my father. I wouldn't say the pain fades, but for me the times that I get blindsided aren't as frequent. When they do happen they are just as hard, but at least they aren't every day any more.

I don't really know how it gets better, but it does get better. Things never go back to the way they were, but it becomes possible to find joy, and to be able to actually enjoy it.

Liese you look lovely! I kinda want your haircut too.

Thank you, everyone. I really don't even know quite how to explain it. It seems more surreal now than it did right afterwards. It doesn't help we still don't have an official cause of death. I'm more anxious than I've ever been before, and things that never bothered me (like the dark) are huge right now. I've got my house lights on a timer and I've put nightlights in the hallways. I'm sleeping with the light and TV on too.

I have no motivation and focus. I don't want to get up and go to work, but I don't want to stay in the house all day either. There are pockets of time when I forget and can actually laugh at something, but those are few and far between. Looking at pictures of him hurts worse now.

Mostly, I just want him back.

I'm so sorry Maria. Your whole world is shifting its axis.

Oh, Maria, it's just going to be hard for a while. I wish you could have him back.

Thanks guys! I swear, I need you people since I don't have coworkers! Anyway, it was all kinda pointless since I rushed around and prettied up and got here and...my first student is a no-show. She's paid up, so at least I'm getting paid to sit here with you invisible peoples. The last one called to apologize and say that she would definitely be here this week, so we'll see what happens, but I still won't have more than two students even if everything goes ideally from here on out.

I am glad to be back getting income from the store, but I feel somehow about having to deal with the vagaries of private lessons again.

eta: Oh, and

I kinda want your haircut too.

Thanks! It's a weird growing-out stage haircut, so I appreciate the compliment. I think it's finally getting to a reasonable length again so I went out and bought hair clips and elastics and bobby pins. Now we'll see if I'm capable of actually doing anything with them.

And because I'm trying not to make it all about me, all of the time: Liese, that was not a lot of makeup. That color looks good with your skintone.

Thanks, Maria. I'm so weird about it at this point since I'm so new to it.

But also, dude? You can totally make it all about you for a while. We're all good with that. And you're not anyway, but you can.