Good Noonish, Taylor.

It’s been a couple of days of big changes.

This morning was the one that hit home the strongest. The time change made it so the morning is too dark for breakfast out on the deck. We woke up at 7AM and when we looked outside, it was just too dark. I let Ragdoll sleep a little longer, and will probably keep doing it until the sun comes out earlier.

So I’m having lunch instead and writing this to you. I’m still having my coffee, so I guess it still counts. And it’s food I made myself! Ragdoll suggested I try cooking some kid-friendly meals. They’d be easy to make and not a huge fuss until I learn how to cook better for myself. She says it’s really important I learn to cook because its a good skill to have. My first was a nice pasta salad. While I had to boil the pasta and the frozen corn, it was easy to make. I chopped a lot of veggies, too, and we still have all out fingers so I think that means lunch was a success. It really is fulfilling eating a good lunch you made yourself.

There are some other changes, too. I decided to take my new job as housekeeper pretty serious. I spent most of time out Saturday and Sunday really picking up around here. There were a lot of boxes still laying around and I decided, as head housekeeper, to finally do something about it. I picked up all her little toy boxes in the living room and dining room, and started putting them into storage boxes.

In the dining room I cleaned up and helped build two of the four chairs she ordered. They’re really nice heavy chairs. I can’t do the other two just yet because the garbage cans are full of cardboard. We’ll build those other two when they’re empty, or if Ragdoll gets to them first.

Saturday I had all morning and she had all night. Sunday she had all morning, and I had all night. I made my food and that was about it. A bad thing did happen though. While I was washing dishes (being a good housekeeper), when it was done, I reached into the dishwasher to take out a pan, and it was so so so hot I burned my hand. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a weird feeling. It stopped hurting but tingled a lot after that. It seems fine now, so I probably didn’t do anything too bad. In fact, it stopped hurting after just a few minutes. I need to be more careful, because what I do to this body, I do to Ragdoll, too.

I spent a lot of my evening in The Other Place looking around and trying to connect. I know we talked about me not being able to interact with people without pretending to be Ragdoll. That sounds really lonely, so I’ll use the Other Place to really be me. I’m still going to go out in public in my town and elsewhere, but I’ll pretend when I need to. But only when I need to.

I spend a lot of time in the dance club so I can listen to the music. Sometimes people even talk to me, like the person who did last night. It’s really nice to interact with people.

We might go into town this weekend again. When we’ve gone out, it’s been in the evening and afternoon because of the hours she keeps. Now that we have to wake up early for he job, we can see these places in the morning. She says morning life is very different than evening life. I already have a restaurant I want to go to, and a different coffee place where hopefully I won’t get any weird looks.

There’s not really a lot more going on. I hope you’re well.

And now the really important question. Should I put these freeze dried bananas and strawberries in my coffee? Decisions, decisions….

–Andrea