An Unquiet Place.

"You have an unquiet mind."

Fr says it in the same tone that he would say "you have hazel eyes", like it's a trait I must already know, and he's simply observing it.

I’ve only lived in my mind, and I find it to be quite regular. Aldous Huxley said, "The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body.”

In my experience, thoughts cannot be compartmentalized. Of course I'd heard people say, “leave your work at work” or “don’t bring your personal problems to the office,” and I suppose I thought I was able to do that, but then hindsight and current experience tell me that I have never had any idea how to do that. For example, after seeing Les Mis on Broadway in 7th grade, I could not leave that feeling in the theater and I was depressed for two weeks. I cried in church, at school, in bed, in the shower. The same thing happened the first time my heart was broken in college.

      Ok, this case study illustrates I need groceries Piaget's pre-operational stage I SAID I
      DIDN'T LOVE HIM of cognitive I left my laundry development because I DON'T KNOW IF I   
      MEANT THAT the children are I don't want to work later learning to manipulate symbols but 
      are WHAT IF WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GET MARRIED not yet bananas, oatmeal, 
      eggs capable of HOPE HIS NEXT GIRLFRIEND IS BORING logical in the dryer thought. 

Thoughts tangle around and through each other like a rat king in my mind; each inseparable from the next. To say “compartmentalize your thoughts” feels as possible as separating wet from water.

Is thought compartmentalization something one learns how to do? If so, how? And why did I not learn it? I learned how to suppress nausea because staying home from school was boring. Is there no reinforcement strong enough for me to suppress a thought or a feeling? Are some people born with this ability? Everyone has natural talents. For example, I learned how to read with so little effort it feels like I was born reading. For other people reading is a great challenge, and learning to read is time consuming hard work. I wonder if Fr learned to compartmentalize his thoughts as naturally as I learned to read. I envy this ability. I imagine it would make the world feel quite still. 

...

President Trump extended the two weeks of social distancing set to end today (3/30/2020) to April 30th. God bless. Also duh. Seth said "We're not 'socially distancing,' in fact I'd say we're more socially on the same page than at any time in the last decade, and especially in the era of smart phones, we're coming together socially. This is 'physical distancing.' 'Social distancing' sounds like some Orwellian Newspeak for cold shouldering Wrongthink.” He is correct. But by either term, people are not physically distancing enough for  me.

I'm in line for a prescription. There are bright tape strips on the floor indicating where people should be standing, and yet a woman stands about 1.5 feet from me, leans near my shoulder and says, “excuse me. EXCUSE ME” to the pharmacy technician who is occupied looking for the medication of someone else (ME).
I turn my head slightly and stare intensely at the tape strip where she should have been standing. She looks at me and *heavy sighs.* I imagine an eye roll as she reluctantly moves.

That tech is looking for my anti-psychotics so you really should back up.
I don't say this, but I really want to.

Prescription Woman has the look of one of these soft liberal moms who has that sign in their yard that reads, “In OUR house women’s rights are human rights, science is real . . . “ etc. A sign which insinuates that OUR house is better than YOUR house, a sign claiming to promote inclusion but that is actually 100% ingroup/outgroup. She looks like one of those moms who thinks everyone is equal but that she and her family are more equal. 

I am annoyed that she exists near me.

She is a fellow human. Stop thinking so meanly.  

"When God said 'serotonin', I thought he said 'groanin', so I said 'why would I want that?'"

I chuckle out loud at my silly joke and Prescription Woman backs up even more.

Every human is in crisis right now. Prescription Woman is in distress and maybe in the normal world she is quite lovely and does NOT invade personal space while yelling at pharmacy techs. 
Yes. Good. I choose to believe that. 

...

Tonight on Step by Step, Al's guy friends no longer want to be friends with a girl. She makes new friends with girls who wear camouflage. This indicates that they are "bad news." After being grounded for breaking curfew and lying about her whereabouts, the friends pressure her to steal Cody's guitar. She lies to Cody briefly, and then tells the truth. Cody understands. Al tells Frank that she was wrong about her friends. He revokes the grounding. So Al has no consequences for breaking curfew, stealing, or lying.