It’s been a nasty weekend. Some scoundrel didn’t exactly blackmail me, but did near about the next best thing. Quite a mess. Emails all about. Legal departments contacted.

Of course, I was told it would all likely be settled fine on Sunday, so I thought Monday would be just another day, more or less.

Monday, of course, didn’t see it that way.

I woke up in the morning (and I must be terribly vulnerable in the mornings, when reality is stretchy like taffy) and a large part of me thought that this was the morning several years previous when, in a ramshackle graduate dormitory, I received death threats from my estranged parents in the mail.

Well, what would you do?

That was a very nasty two hours, trying to drag myself back into the present. Like trying to undo dreams; I’m not at all good at lucid dreaming, which mostly slips me from one nightmare into the next.

After a bit of that, I called up work, said nothing doing until noon, and then hit the shower. Shower didn’t help.

I called up my psychologist and left him a message on his voicemail.

And then I went to work, because I’m mad like that.

The ferry ride was beautiful. The sun was out, the sound was like a ripple of silver, and the skies were clear and blue. And I cried, quietly, a lot.

Later my psychologist did call back, and I was on the verge of collapse (though I did manage to participate in meetings, sort of, earlier) and managed to find an empty office and holed up in there. I sat on the floor, and dropped the phone, and I was glad iPhones have speakerphone built in, because I was not doing well. So, lying on the floor, I told him about what all that happened the weekend and morning.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, my friends dragged me to the emergency dean, and thence to the campus and local police, and thence to a county waay the hell over to get my hair properly chopped off (I had nice long hair, down to my ankles, don’t really miss it). Then we spent the entire weekend there watching movies like Life of Brian.

That was a good thing, because my parents showed up and ended up on the doorsteps, garages, and offices of anybody they knew was even remotely known to me. I think after they threatened a dorm clerk that the police really got involved. At some point my parents sped through a traffic light, and that was how they were finally caught.

The police officer involved was a tall black man, actually quite a nice guy, but this time he used his full policemanness to tell my parents to get out of town. Now.

And they did.

The next day, everything was different. Well, it was different before really, and this was just a new path of different.

SEVERAL HOURS AGO, my psychologist and I pieced together the associations.

An overblown—seriously, seriously overblown—reaction from somebody, quite nicely left in my inbox/mailbox. Not knowing how to deal with such an occurrence the first time. Instigator, somebody who I had had remotely fatherly ties with, although that last part is something of a stretch. Not knowing if people around me would help or would run off.

RIGHT NOW, well, people around me have helped, and have not run off. I know a bit better how these things work, although I am still uncertain on one important bit, but I hope what I’ve been told about the personalities involved is true, because otherwise I think a next level bad might be coming up.

Tuesday morning: more of the same?

I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m trying not to sleep, and I’m so tired, and I better get to sleep, to better know what Tuesday brings.

But if I knew what I know now and was asked if I would do it again…

Fuck yeah I would.

Both times.