Echoes Sung into the Grove

jonathan breaux

Hey Marysue. 

I've been reflecting on the state of our affairs; I am asking you to reconsider your request for radio silence.

Obviously, you'll need to meet with Madeline 1:1 before we talk to her together. I need to have reliable expectations as to when and if you intend to go through with that.

We also both need to be on the same page as to what we intend to do with the very limited time you have offered to spend in group. Madeline won't host us without that prerequisite being satisfied.

I'm really looking forward to this opportunity and I want to make the most of it for both of us. I would appreciate not being left in suspense, waiting indefinitely to be updated at your leisure.

If you intend to commit to this engagement, please inform me at your earliest convenience. I'm respectfully writing in polite sterility because I know that I'm approaching you against your wishes and completely in the dark, but I am hopeful that this conversation might proceed with a more upbeat, amiable tone. If you choose to respond, please assume control of the cadence as you see fit and trust that I will harmonize kindly.

Yours,

Jonathan

Marysue Curtis

Hello! Yes I said I would so I will. I will try my hardest to meet with her this week and make sure to set an appointment asap. Stubbornly, I really want to use my insurance and I don’t understand why they would take yours and not mine. Do you think if I emailed her my information she could check? Or does it not work like that? Either way, I’ll prioritize it. Also, do you think she would be able to write me an ESA letter or also no? 

As for intentions, maybe give me an idea of what you are hoping to accomplish and I can add to it. All I ask for is to maybe if you can keep it small and digestible for me? Like your response I mean. If that makes sense. 

I’m chill with being chill. If you’re chill I’m chill. 

Marysue Curtis

Idk if the digestible but was the right choice of words. I’m trying to convey that my tone is light and I would like to keep it light. Also maybe not the right chose of words 

😊J

jonathan breaux

Okay! Yay 🎶 that's a relief cause you chill I chill we chill. 

Yes can keep digestible like small bites for small belly. 

She might be willing to do that if you establish a relationship with her. Which - I've already signed off full HIPAA disclosure to you so that you may benefit from any relevant contextual information she has access to from my own care records, so that's a unique bonus that only she can currently offer if you choose to continue with her for personal care. Not that your sessions would revolve around me, obviously, but it's a better to have and not need than need and not have.

You can try emailing her or calling Headway. Maybe you just need a prior authorization or something.

§

Regarding intentions, feel free to call me to sort this out more quickly. Otherwise, would you kindly tell me a bit about why you decided to make the offer that you made, when you made it? We've been on a path manufactured entirely by you alone for over a year now, and you've relinquished the wheel to me with a hard limit of less than three hours to find a safer, kinder path for both of us. I'd really like to show you that this is a wheel I've always wanted both of our hands on, that I'm not going to try to overpower you, that we can trust each other to guide the journey together and make meaningful progress even if we both think we want to go different directions.

I've been asking you to do this for years, and I'm overwhelmed with the weight of that history that I've been bearing alone. I need to know more about where you're at; I need to know that this is something you're offering in good faith and that you aren't just accepting to go through the motions so that you can say that you tried it and it didn't work.

This next, I ask gently and not out of pettiness but to highlight a valid point about expectations and reality; this is not a slight. You said that you said you would do it, so you will. It's that who you think you are, or who you are working to become? And when is or was the date that truth is effective of?

What do you want?

§

Okay so, medium bites. You're a big girl. 

🫰

PS I just saw your follow-up email and it did change my understanding of what you meant but I think what I wrote still fits the updated context so I'm not revising it 🙏 

🙏M👍M

jonathan breaux

Marysue Curtis

lol that’s a cute emoji. I was thinking about what I wanted to say but I felt like too much time had passed without me saying something so I reacted with some emojis in the meantime  

jonathan breaux

☺️ Oh okay thank you for the clarification

No worries, take your time. I appreciate the update! 

Hope you've had a good week 🎶

Marysue Curtis

I appreciate it!! 😊 Hope you’ve had a good week too! Hope the pain is better! 

jonathan breaux

Thanks Marysue 🙏 

Hey, in the meantime - are we quitting JJK or putting it on hold or are you open to watching if you end up with an opportunity to do so at any point

If you're on the fence, remember that we can do it without talking to each other. You can just listen through the TV and not have to deal with headphones and hardware 

Best,

🎶

PS. Have you watched Loki yet? That's another one I've been holding off on that I'd forgotten about.

Marysue Curtis

I’m still down but I’m going to have to start from the beginning on my own time cause I’m super lost and I kept falling asleep. You mean like a new season of Loki? I dont have Disney + so I haven’t seen it, no 

jonathan breaux

Okay, that sounds good! I'll rewatch up to our stopping point on my own time as well for similar reasons. Are you just watching from the beginning of this season or are you going to go further back? Also, it's on prime video, but I still had to purchase it outright. You probably still have access to my profile on the Xbox so just login with that and let me know if you have any issues!

And yeah, there's more Loki now than what we watched. I don't have it either but if we ever get to a point where we both want to watch it I'll be happy to get the subscription. 

🎶🫰

Marysue Curtis

From the beginning of this season for sure and probably some super long detailed recap cause I forgot everything 

jonathan breaux

Lmao okay I feel you. I'll be here if you require any assistance. 

Keep me posted on your other tasks. I know you're a really busy person so I don't need much but it would be nice to keep our expectations in sync when possible 🐼

🎶

Marysue Curtis

Yes yes I will. I’m sorry I’ve been super busy but I will get it done and update. I agree that it is important. Thank you so much for being patient with me!! 🦦

😊J🙏J

Marysue Curtis

Hi! I just wanted to thank you again for being patient. I really really appreciate it. I hope you are liking your new apartment, I know you were feeling like it was going to be a downgrade so I’m hoping you’re still able to make it cozy. I have ants and this morning I noticed a wasp nest next to my balcony door. 

Have a great weekend! 🌱

jonathan breaux

Hi hi 🎶

Thank you so much for checking in, it's good to hear from you. 

Sorry about your pests :/ they come with the territory. The lake, the trees, the shade, the breeze. The wellspring of life, the semi-tamed wilds. You joined their ecosystem, but I'm confident you'll find the means to redirect them away from your new home and back to somewhere better for them to be for your comfort and their lifespan lol.

My apartment is okay. I hate the location but I liked the way it smelled until I moved that couch in, so now the apartment just smells like the previous owners Huskies despite how much I've cleaned that couch over the past few months 🫠 it's also much too big but I really don't want to get rid of it. 

Reach out whenever you're ready, I'll always make time for you.

I'll be here. 

Cheers ~

Marysue Curtis

Ugh that sucks I’m sorry. Are the covers removable? Idk if my couch genuinely smells better now or if I’ve just grown accustomed to the smell 

jonathan breaux

Yeah, unfortunately not. Just like, bonded leather with some fabric. It's not the worst of my troubles, I've got nobody to impress.

I never thought yours smelled so bad, I'm sure it's aired out plenty since then. Did you ever get the ozone generator? 

You've been busy?

Marysue Curtis

Are you able to open the headway site? I think it might be down. Doesn’t work for me on my phone or computer 

jonathan breaux

Yeah, it's working. Are you trying to open headway.co ? Because headway.com is something else

Marysue Curtis

So it’s super weird but I was able to get it working by moving to a private browser. Does she have a different booking link? Or maybe one directly to her calendar? The one you sent me before doesn’t work and when I go to manually search her I get this. 

jonathan breaux

Strange... Let me see what I can do. I'll reply again within 15 minutes.

jonathan breaux

Oh, search for her again. Looks like she has a duplicate profile. The one you pictured is closed, but the one that populates under it is open.

Marysue Curtis

Can you send me a link to that? Literally every one I open is closed 

jonathan breaux

https://care.headway.co/providers/madeline-flores-3

Marysue Curtis

Oh nice that worked perfectly! I booked an appointment for this week. Thanks for the help! 

jonathan breaux

It's my pleasure, of course. Thank you for letting me help. 

Hope to hear from you soon.

jonathan breaux

Is there some other reason for all of the extra silence and distance here that you just haven't yet felt the need to tell me about?

Marysue Curtis

Not really. It’s more comfortable to me I think but if you had something to say or wanted to casually chat about I wouldn’t turn it away. That would be fine too I think 

jonathan breaux

Okay

jonathan breaux

Marysue Curtis

Nice!! What’s your opinion on Duolingo so far? 

jonathan breaux

The speaking portions play too much because they always ruin my perfect streaks even though I'm saying the right words with good pronunciation 😩

I unlocked the diamond tournament so to win I'm going to try to get first place for three weeks in a row.

It's a bittersweet thing. 

jonathan breaux

Marysue Curtis

They do play way too much. Is this from today? 

jonathan breaux

Yes ma'am, a few minutes ago

Marysue Curtis

Aww that good! I bet they were super hyped to see you 

jonathan breaux

Yeah, I've had to spend a lot more time in New Braunfels this past month and it's so bittersweet getting to see them.

Loba and Abi love each other, Kuma has been having fun getting to be around the girls but you can tell it's waning and he's ready to come home. Chai seems to be trying to make the best of it but she's clearly hoping to leave. When any other humans come in or out of the house she behaves normally but when I do she immediately starts sprinting around looking for someone to pick her up so she can wriggle at me like she thinks if I can see her at eye level I'll be able to carry her back to you. 

What's up with your ESA? When are you planning on going to get her?

Marysue Curtis

Well I’m hoping when I talk to Madeline I’ll see if maybe she can? If not I’ll just schedule an appointment with another woman from headway and hopefully they don’t make me do multiple sessions to get the esa. ADHD online has upped their fee to $199. Wild. And then I’ll go scoop her as soon as I have it. 

jonathan breaux

Okay, thanks for the update

Have you seen Obsession yet

Marysue Curtis

I have not but I heard it’s super good. Have you? 

jonathan breaux

Yeah, I've had maybe two or three days I've been able to walk well enough to get out of my apartment at all since I collapsed last month and Daphyne came and took me to see Obsession with one and Backrooms with the other. 

Man I don't know if you remember this about me but I struggled with horror movies so bad as a kid, but that switch flipped off at some point and they stopped bothering me at all. Actually maybe it was from watching Insidious with my old friends like every time they all came over for a whole summer lol I don't know but whenever it was has been a long long time and I've been fine watching horror ever since. 

Let me tell you watching Obsession is the closest anything has come to flipping that switch back on. Movie fucked me up. I knew literally nothing about it before going to see it and I came out of it with something slithering around in my brain.

Go watch it while it's still in theaters!

Marysue Curtis

Well damn that was a really great review lol I’m sold. You should write that in IMDb 

I’ve heard a lot of great things by everyone that has seen it but I’ve also unfortunately seen a bunchhhhh of spoilers on social media so I hope it doesn’t ruin the experience. 

Did you like backrooms? 

jonathan breaux

That's me


But damn, yeah I hope they don't ruin it for you cause it was, uhh... it was a special experience for sure, in its own category. You're like a spoiler magnet 😫 get off the internet lol

As for Backrooms, mmm it was definitely one of the movies of all time. It was slightly unsettling in a very deja vu kind of way for me because I've had so many dreams throughout my life with uncanny similarities to a lot of what you see on screen and the feelings they stir up. And I think a lot of people have had very similar dreams of their own which adds to the weirdness of the experience. It's kind of like a meta-horror movie in how it creates this real-life feeling of uneasiness throughout. It was a very A24 film lol. I'm really interested in seeing if it flipped a breaker in my brain or something that will prevent me from ever having those kinds of dreams again, or if it will change the way those dreams feel or play out.

I've always loved that weird feeling of finding myself in a hallway that seemed a little too long for the building I was in. Or a parking lot that was a little too symmetrical and abandoned, a carpeted room a little too big. Oooh you remember how the Teamlab Planets experience walked us through those rooms that gave that larger than life feeling? Backrooms was like the dark side of the dichotomy in which Planets was the light. Two sides of the same coin. Plus some noise.

Marysue Curtis

That’s what I was hoping to get from it. Idk if I’ll get to that one though. Have you watched anything else? 

jonathan breaux

Mmm... No I've been lucky to even have those two days where I could limp out of the house at all. And the only shows I'd care to watch from my apartment are on hold. But I've re-read some books and almost finished listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and that has been a really great mental vacation for me. 

It starts out fun and charming with touches and warnings of darkness, and it manages to keep the fun and the charm while gradually exploring darker situations and more intimately painful themes. Plus the narration style is exactly what I used to dream of doing when I was practicing and trying to get into voiceover gigs forever ago so it also makes me feel proud of my artistic comrades out there building success with a passion for the same art I failed to get off the ground. The studio who produces the audiobooks puts a lot of work into making every character unique and every situation as immersive as possible without getting distracting or feeling forced. I've found myself unexpectedly feeling seen very intimately in some parts of the story and I've grown very fond of the production as a whole.

If Project Hail Mary is one facet on a priceless gem, DCC is another.

I've also got a couple hardbacks waiting for me that I'm nervous about getting into. But depending on how the next week and a half of procedures and exams go, I might have a lot of time to read them this summer so I'm not in a hurry to start just yet. 

This past week has been the first I've had any dreams at all without you in them, even if just a few. It's a weird experience. But you're usually blithe or insouciant toward me in my dreams anyway which is quite rude seeing as they're MY DREAMS, MADAME. Get your shit together. Rayna shows up from time to time but she oscillates in her demeanor, which makes sense considering I haven't had the pleasure of getting to know her. Both of you are rabble rousers 😮‍💨

How has everything been going? Staying super busy? New career updates? Any updated feelings or projects with the apartment? Your birthday is almost here, do you have another exciting vacation planned yet?

Marysue Curtis

I’ll have to check out the dungeon crawler stuff! Those are some big words even for me. I had to google insouciant. I don’t think I dream and if I do I forget it right away. I did have a scary dream the other day that I woke up in my own apartment but it was just a little off and I kept thinking I’m in a dream I need to wake up and then I would “wake up” in my bed but I wouldn’t realize I was still in my dream until I went to the living room and the cycle just kept repeating over and over. 

Are the procedures something we are hoping for? 

As for my apartment. Still hate I think. On Sunday the breaker was tripped so my power was shut off and I was losing my mind trying to figure out why and I was thinking maybe I forgot to switch over the utilizes or maybe I didn’t set up auto pay and I FORGOT there was an emergency line so all my food went bad :( it turned out to not be my fault at all but I was really beating myself up for a second there. I found a wasp nest on my balcony and I still have ants. Hate hate. 

I’m dreading my bday. No plans but my dad wants me to go spend it when them in Seattle and then Hawaii in August. Still undecided on that but I’ll definitely be in Hawaii sometime in August. 

jonathan breaux

Ooh, those are an interesting sort of nightmare. Jung wrote psychological philosophy on dreams and it's reference material that's definitely worth having in your brain, you'd probably find it interesting if you ever chose to make yourself read it. I did, but I didn't even finish the books I started there. I should go back and restart them.

I'm sorry about the crawly creatures :( the apartment complex should take care of those for you if you want to go with poison instead of trying to remove/relocate. Wasps are tough, and ants are... ants. Nobody would blame you for poisoning them just be careful to make sure any poisons are scrubbed and rinsed away before Chai comes home to you. 

What's to dread? You always enjoy your time in both those places. They both have always sounded like a dream to me. I'm still salty that we talked about going to Seattle together to meet your dad so many years ago and you just never went until after you left 😔 The first vacation time I took for myself was a week off to move apartments 😩 and I didn't even get to enjoy that because I spent it in emergency rooms and hospitals 😫😫😫 part of me wonders if I had just got the uhaul van and moved myself that Friday like I intended if things would have been different and I'd have just had a week to relax and organize and recharge before getting back to work. Merp

As for whether we're hoping for them or not, it's a mixed bag. Monday I'm just getting an epidural which, if it "works" will be great, but also just a pause on the timebomb rather than a delete. If it doesn't work we move to surgery immediately because of the severity of the injury. The operations we can go with are a spinal fusion, which will permanently immobilize two or three vertebrae and eliminate that section of my range of mobility forever; a viadisk proprietary procedure where they basically inflate the disc with genetically modified material and wrap my own viscera around the disc to give it structural integrity and to protect the adjacent nerve root, which is only available if the disc is herniated but not ruptured; or a ceramic disc replacement which came with a grave warning from this surgeon who is apparently one of if not the best spine surgeon in the United States, that the operation would be conducted through the abdomen and has an alarmingly high mortality rate even when everything is done correctly, but would preserve my strength and range of motion and prevent future herniations.

So, I don't know. The options are not great no matter what happens. And I have a feeling I'm going to die on the table this time. Things just keep going wrong, everywhere, and I feel like it's a rigged fight. It's scary, and sad, but it's what I've been dealt and there's no way around it so now there's nothing left but to wait and see.

I'm sorry about all your food :c that's awful. I forgot to mention that I ate the soup you gave me. It was really, really good, I didn't add anything to it. I ate all of it and then I boiled the leftover bone and scraps into a broth and drank that too. It brought me strength I didn't think was available to me that day, it felt like finding a stranger with space at their fire and a moment to rest on a long and cold journey. I gave a small prayer of thanks to your and your family for the nourishment.

Marysue Curtis

Damn, so you wouldn’t be able to throw ass anymore? 

jonathan breaux

Lmao I kid you not, I literally told the surgeon that specifically was all that I cared about coming out of surgery and recovery when he asked what my ideal outcome is. So our entire timeline of procedures and operational decisions is focused on maintaining my ability to do exactly that. I think he had to write it verbatim in my medical chart

Marysue Curtis

You verbatim said “what if I can’t throw ass doc?” Like walk me through this 

jonathan breaux

Close! When discussing surgical options and timelines he asked "what is your top priority for your quality of life coming out of surgery and the recovery process? Is it most important to you to have as little pain as possible, or to maintain mobility, or to be able to get back to deskwork as soon as possible, (and so on)?" And I said (as verbatim as I can remember) "yeah of course I want to be free of pain, as much as possible, but I'm fine with normal post-surgical pain and rehabilitation pain... what I'm not fine with is losing any of my flexibility or mobility, anything that will, like, affect my athleticism or speed or strength... you know? Like, it's important that I'm not sidelined for weightlifting or dancing or sex, you know? Like, if I'm not going to be able to throw ass then what's the fucking point, right? That's what's most important to me regarding my health"

He was very professional about it and assured me that some of the options (I don't remember which) wouldn't impair me at all in those areas but I have lingering doubts because I can't imagine him being really familiar with how much involvement the hips have in dancing and sexual experimentation. Like bro I want a family and competition is bad enough out here and I know you're vanilla as fuck because your money carries all the effort in your relationship so you may not get it but if you lock up my hips then I lose my last card in the game, this ridiculous sounding request is very important to me

🍑 👏 

Marysue Curtis

Is it bad that even though the options seems risky I’m feeling hopeful cause atleast you’re being presented with solutions? 

Also, we are migrating from zendesk to something called mintlify. Are you familiar with it? 

jonathan breaux

Truthfully I don't think it's consequential one way or the other. I think it's a nice thing for you to say in our context, and I appreciate that you're hopeful for some resolution for me. I'm on the same page as you, so those words feel like you offering your hand for me to hold before going into the grey. But overall I feel about as important or interesting to you as maybe a c-list influencer that you follow and care just enough about that you don't want anything bad to happen to them but you wouldn't actually have your life disrupted if something did. A more painful part of me believes you would most likely be relieved, though you would be unlikely to admit it. At least for a long time or only in very intimate conversations. Overall, thank you. I do appreciate the mindset and I'm also glad to have the options even if they're scary.

I'm on a Duo experience combo and I've already missed a lot of time writing this message so I gtg but I'll look into it and report back in like an hour! First impression though never heard of them and it's probably not a great move 😒

While I'm gone check out this insane picture a teammate sent me. The context is he called to check in on me and sitting the conversation I mentioned I felt like the office had been pretty sterile with nothing too crazy happening in a weirdly long time, this picture got found and circulated the very next day so he shared it rolling otfl. Extra context, the guy pictured is a very autistic in personality and very almost Patrick-Star sounding dude as far as his voice goes. I have several mini stories about him but he's mostly quiet. He's a menace when he gets drunk though, AS YOU WILL SEE BELOW

jonathan breaux

Okay I'm back! Some nerds are really trying me with their drive for those leaderboard spots and the guy in first gotta be cheating cause he's an order of magnitude ahead me and I'm twice the score of the girl in third. Sketch

Looked into Mintlify and they're so small. I imagine y'all are just switching over because there are line-item features you want that are much cheaper to get through them. In exchange CIQ is dumping massive amounts of security and platform unity, which is just going to end up costing more in backend developer overhead (and ticket reopen rates and probably csat and mid-management workload) than what you'll save in annual spend, and greatly increase the risk your company is taking on in handling highly sensitive data. 

Also obviously taking a hit in Omnichannel ticketing, accountability and compliance, customer support, ITAM, self-service capabilities, and native integrations. Especially with us having just rolled out more functionalities and AI tools to our suite customers without increasing prices. Weird choice 

Looks like a desperate margin-cutting decision from the outside with absolutely no other information. Be interesting to keep an eye on CIQ's upcoming public fiscal reports.

But idk I've only been right about business movement like 9 out of 10 times 😩😏 INCLUDING EXACTLY WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON WITH THE SPACEX IPO TODAY.

Really though there's no info to go on and you didn't ask about all that I'm just yapping for your entertainment

jonathan breaux

Can you set aside some time to sync? Any time tonight after 7p and before 3a, or any time tomorrow before 1p or 2p at the latest, ideally.

Marysue Curtis

I don’t think I can tonight but Can I get some context as for what you want to sync about? 

jonathan breaux

The context hasn't changed. I've been waiting on you long enough that perhaps you've just forgotten what expectations you set and what you are supposed to have been doing to fulfill them. Would you prefer to retrace your own steps in our correspondence to remind yourself or would you like for me to do it for you?

I'd have done it without asking but I opted for this route to acknowledge and respect our outstanding issues with, in part:

- your perception of my trustworthiness

- your agency complex

- my perception of your tendency to take advantage of me

- my expectations for you to keep your word

- the mutually acknowledged asymmetry of our intentions and discretion 

- my experience of your tendency to make and rely on assumptions without addressing them and

- my experience of your tendency to ignore, dismiss, or refuse to acknowledge my contributions to our conversations according to a basis unknown to me 

Also, you tend to work yourself up when I try to address outstanding issues or talk business. And I think that when I talk about things that I'm able to process better than you are, I fail to frame the conversation in a way that's less uncomfortable for you because there's just a disconnect between your perception of my side and the objective reality of my side of the conversation. Like if you feel like something I say is scary or emotional, but I'm already well past the emotional difficulty of the topic and just trying to wrap things up, you refuse to believe that I'm at where I'm at. You know?

Even explaining all of this sucks so much more in text than in a conversation, like if we were sitting across from each other and you could see my face and read my body and hear my voice I know you would experience this all much more peacefully and casually than how you're probably experiencing it right now. But this is what you've given us. What you continue to choose. I hope I'm wrong and you actually don't feel any stress or hostility at all but I never know with you and these things usually go worse than they should. I don't know man, I'm trying but I'm only human and I'm working with what I got and I'm mostly alone in my effort here.

Sincerely kindly, please.

Marysue Curtis

Okey dokey. Idk about tomorrow but what about Monday? I’m totally free after 8:30pm. I might also be free tomorrow but it’s up in the air so I don’t want to commit in case I can’t but I can check in again if you end up still being free. 

jonathan breaux

Actually, that probably works for me. I appreciate your cooperation 🙏 let's block out a little time after 8:30 on Monday.

jonathan breaux

Ahead of Monday night though, I just want to remind you that you're the most annoying person I've ever met. 

Marysue Curtis

Perfect! Talk then! 

🫵J

jonathan breaux

https://open.spotify.com/track/24wT9mkalLcUIDt9rkpYJJ?si=3TUMspRARMi_sdO9kbzWzQ