jack

I expected my appeal of the decision to deny me disability welfare benefits was rejected.

This money is supposed to be for the extra costs of being disabled -- taxis, a cleaner, assistive tech, whatever you need. It's not supposed to pay your rent and bills but it did for me, for years. I'm grateful it doesn't any more.

What's unexpected is how hard this has hit me. It just...fucking sucks to be dispassionately informed that my needs have not been detected (again).

I agreed to do a favor for someone at work that meant going to Sheffield this afternoon.

I was briefly filmed answering a few questions that the interviewer thought I had in advance but either I didn't, I didn't read the email that contained them, or I did read them but they were so boring and generic I forgot that they existed. All seem about equally likely.

It was very quick and dull but then I got to do something way more exciting, which was see sfred and actually catch up in person, something we haven't done in so long we don't even remember when it would last have happened. We agreed that Dreamwidth is a great way of keeping in touch, but also being able to hug was better. I was not prepared to be able to be gracious in response to being told that the gym has made me noticeably more hench, heh.

We talked a lot about how good the Springsteen movie was, of course.

Getting home was going far too smoothly (I got on a train with plenty of time to spare despite it arriving only three minutes after I got to the station! I'm not used to this) until we got delayed and then diverted around some kind of ominous-sounding incident in or near Stockport. By the time I finally got to Piccadilly, it was chaos as almost everything departs via Stockport and even trains that don't, like mine home, were held up behind all the other trains.

So I got home just in time to eat dinner and then it's bedtime!

I get to stay home tomorrow, and then I'm off again on Thursday, work takes me to Liverpool this time to do something equally dull but it'll take much longer.

I worked hard at work today, all day. My butt barely left my chair. I was pushing my brain to do a lot and it felt bad and stressful but at least I did enough work that I'm not too worried. I have two work trips this week, both about an hour away by train, but it eats into my time and energy so much to have to travel.

After work, I was aware that angelofthenorth had to take her cat to the vet and when D left too, to drive them, I figured I should make dinner. It was very basic but ready not long after they got back, so that worked out. And while I'd been working on that and waiting for things to defrost/the time to put the burgers in the oven after the fries got a head start, I made a Tesco order for tomorrow, which was sorely needed.

And then I ate dinner. And then, after dithering for a while, I did get myself to go to the gym. D kindly drove me there too, which got me through what felt like the most difficult part of the process. I happily pushed myself a little on the rowing machine and most of the weights and I even did some extra core exercises at the end, just like in lift club on Saturday mornings. The trainer for those classes would've been proud, I figured.

And then I came home and showered and now I'm in bed! I have some clean laundry I really should put away, and some more dirty laundry I should put in the basket to take downstairs, but that might not happen tonight. It feels like it's been such a busy day, one thing after another.

( cancer, child death, suicide [no one I'm close to] )