fandomonymous | Kawa availability: logistically sound, emotionally WHAT EVEN.

The rest of "what's been happening lately" is as complicated as the funeral itself, but doesn't require as much content warning and is generally better. There's a cocktail hour and some handwaved casual sex mentions.

Friday:

I spend Friday not-working from home and sleep in. My therapist has a much earlier than usual slot open, so I go then. Other than that, I pick up my suit from the dry cleaner, get some groceries and a sympathy card, do laundry, and pack some things expecting to have to wear my fancy black dress and be out for 2 nights.
Alison is spending the evening at a museum and dinner with mutual friends and such. She doesn't get in until...midnight-ish? Yeah.
We collapse in bed. I do not think we actually had sex in any way shape or form.

Saturday:

We wake up mid-day. I treat her to brunch at the local Irish place, then get some pastries at the local Chinese baker to try later. I get the details on what's happening - viewing Sunday afternoon, funeral Monday morning.
Since I don't have to leave until Sunday morning, Alison suggests a concert a mutual friend is performing in that night at 8 PM in Lincoln Center; said friend can get her a comp ticket so only I'd have to pay, the rate is reasonable, and the music, primarily a cappella, looks like something I'd enjoy.
I finalize my packing, let Alison borrow one of my skirts[0], and somehow figure out how I'll dress half-nice despite co-opting a bunch of clothes for the viewing, funeral, and Tuesday. (The answer: my other gray blazer, a lace-over-satin blouse, decent slacks, nice boots.)
Around 6-something, we pick up a few slices of pizza nearby before going to the Long Island Railroad to the 1 to Lincoln Center.
The concert is a delight - an adult all-men's glee club (the organization is basically to promote men's singing in a semi-fraternal environment), plus two university choral/a cappella groups. One of the guest choirs is much more experimental than the other, but for all three, the quality is top notch. I feel complicated Catholic feelings around the rendition of Lo, how a rose e'er blooming in particular, but it's all stellar.
We meet our friend after, who wants dinner at the overpriced American bistro nearby. I get a really good burger and really lackluster asparagus coated in something not-crispy-enough and fried. (I thought it would just be asparagus cooked until crispy without the lackluster coating.) We go home later than I wanted but satisfied with music and friendship; we collapse.

Sunday and the first half of Monday happen. (Content warnings: Grief, food, more detailed stuff on alcohol, a small mention of gambling addiction and poverty/survival tactics, insomnia, miserable Christianity (specifically Seventh Day Adventists), complicated family of origin stuff.) I get back to Kawa Arena around 4 PM.

Monday afternoon/evening:

I actually get some work done that I should have done Friday. I apologize profusely for not working Friday when I thought I would.
I go to Poly Cocktails. Gabriel is there in fine form, as are some other Bi Request regulars. People are super kind about stuff that happened to me, and help me not think about it too much when I ask. Notable among the BiReq regulars is L, a lovely woman who has some things in common with me and is Very Clearly Into Me. She and I end up spending much of the night with Robin, a dude who is a Poly Cocktails regular, has similar things in common with me, knows my GM[1], and is clearly into both of us.
I end up taking both Robin and L back to the Arena. *Handwave* The three of us have a lovely evening.

Tuesday:

All three of us wake up fairly early. Robin and L leave early enough to give me some prep time, because not only am I going back to work, I'm going to a super fancy meeting. (Thus the dry cleaning pickup back on Friday!)
Go to my super fancy meeting in a confusing building. Don't kick ass, but don't fail either. Cromulence!
Go back to the regular office, go to a more normal meeting, and get other stuff done.
Go to Tuesday game night. L actually comes, as does the PartnerBeast. We split - I go into a Monsterhearts campaign I've been partaking in[2], L and the PartnerBeast play Spirit of the Century with another GM and seem to have a good time with it.
PartnerBeast treats me to Korean food afterwards at a new fancy space. I break down crying about the ways my family doesn't know how to communicate with each other. The soondobu is good but I can't finish it.

Wednesday is 99% spent not being able to concentrate but still being at the office. I do get some home cleaning done as part of January Cure. PartnerBeast soothes me into going to bed before midnight, though I wake up early.

Thursday, there's work (still not completely there but not-not-there, but also salsa class, class 2 of 8. Salsa notes I sent to an advanced Lindy hop and balboa dancing friend[3]:

Okay, got basic step, got side steps, actually got the right turn solid this week which feels like a good XP gain, left turn ahahhaha nope not yet, cross-behind steps ehhh but we'll figure it out
First shines/cross-in-front steps today, weirdly 'off beat' compared to everything else so far, but that's why it's a shine, gotta roll with it
Partner connection remarkably okay from first tries, but we only did basics and right turns with partners
I really don't know how this is going to go when the instructor stops calling the beat out. I gotta find salsa music where the bongos are full of stremf and power and start trying to get in by ear.
I totally had time to head to the post-BiReq dinner (I skipped BiReq for dance class this week, which I didn't want to do, but it was that or game night and game night won this time). But I'll see my favorites from there in the next week and/or had seen them Monday, so we'll live. Shouldn't happen next month.
I am sweaty and gross but I also wish class was longer, which is a good sign for future dancing both in terms of interest and endurance.
I am very lucky it didn't snow so wearing Slidey Shoes instead of Toothy Shoes was possible.

I also got a good deal of home cleaning done after, including clearing my pantry and finally figuring out what was causing some past problems, so go team Kawa.

Today has been some work (not none, but not a lot) in a very quiet office, and writing these posts. Therapy is in less than 2 hours. Hopefully this will teach me some things to focus my thoughts there. We'll find out.

[0] It's *so weird* having a partner who can actually borrow my clothing.
[1] My game master in the tabletop sense; in this particular case, the person who runs the Tuesday game group I do with the PartnerBeast.
[2] My character is Mehitabel, and she's a Serpentine (link to PDF of a blank Skin/character sheet). She's called Mehitabel because that's the generic-not-generic name my fancy high school used for fake forms/report cards, and clearly everyone else there were snakes. I picked this Skin at semi-random because I hadn't run into players using it before, and I wanted to play someone interesting with boosts to Hot. Only after did PartnerBeast point out that Serpentine is basically Immigrant Kid, the Monsterhearts Skin, which I will happily consider kismet. Knowing that made this session go very, very well in a creepy but also wonderful way.
[3] And ex/former fling; that's not relevant to this discussion but I weirdly like reminding myself about that fact. My feelings about this dude and the time that we would have considered ourselves 'together' is a thing I keep procrastinating on contemplating in therapy, but OTHER STUFF KEEPS HAPPENING.