Elijah G. Burton

9:12 woke up exhausted, having stayed up late the night before texting with my QPR*. Allowed myself to go back to sleep

10:15 my alarm went off and I rolled to my side to scroll on tiktok and Muriel (my velcro cat) immediately perched on my hip

11:00 moved Muriel off and got myself out of bed

11:19 the weather changes have been hell on my sinuses, so I took sinus meds and my usual morning medications along with some coffee to get me going

11:20 sat down at my piano and practiced the anthems for the next two Sundays at St. Peter’s Episcopal where I work as a singer, and looked through some books to select anthems for Christmas Day.

12:15 checked the weather, dressed to leave the house, and packed my bag with my laptop, bullet journal, watercolor supplies, and KF94

12:43 left for the big central Free Library location

12:52 the empty light had been on for a bit, so I stopped at Wawa to get $5 of gas: enough to get through the day’s errands without spending more money than I have right now.

1:07 Felt lucky to find a parking spot right in front of the library. Don’t have the energy today to walk far, but I don’t have a handicapped placard yet. Paid $2.15 for parking. For all that the library is supposed to be available to all Philadelphians, it has steps to enter and the automatic doors don’t work. Thank fuck I use a cane and not a wheelchair

1:12 in the music department to find German arias for Christmas Day. My preference is Bach, but Mendelssohn or Schutz would also be fine. I hadn’t been in this nice a music library since conservatory and I’ve missed it.

1:45 got onto a computer to track down and print as many of my medical records as possible, since I just found out they can delete any records over 7 years old without even notifying you. None of my MRIs, CTs, or X-rays are on mychart anymore. I logged into Mayo Clinic to remind myself of what testing I had done, but I have a couple years before any of that documentation is in jeopardy

2:30 printing all of my records from University of Chicago medicine would have cost $35, but that’s more than I have right now, so I paid $5.75 to print the 23 pages of medical records most likely to be deleted in the next few years

2:40 I was in line to check out the scores I found and heard “ma’am!” louder and louder until I finally realized I was being addressed to go to another, shorter line. Even in a big city like Philadelphia on a day where my chest is bound and I’m wearing all men’s clothing I still get loudly misgendered. The arias better be worth this

2:46 began heading towards John Heinz when I realized my blood sugar had gotten low, so I stopped at Target and got myself a can of spaghettios and a bottle of water for $2.98

3:36 parked my car, again lucky to find an open spot near the trail head, and headed for the scenic lookout area.

3:50 arrived to my spot and took out my paints and sketchbook only to realize I’d forgotten to bring any brushes. In a combination of exhaustion and stubbornness, I refused to waste a trip here, so I used a thread to tie off the end of a curl, cut it off, and used it as my brush. The painting of the shore wasn’t good, but that’s only partly my impromptu brush’s fault

4:15 took another dose of sinus drugs and walked back to my car. The water level is lower than when I was last here on November 1st

4:30 ate my can of spaghettios in the car and headed home

5:20 played through a few of the Bach arias from the library to see how demanding the part is for our organist. I’m pretty sure we’ll go with Süßser Trost, mein Jesus kömmt (BWV 151), and then What Child is This for the congregation.

5:45 I’d been so worried that my journal entry would be boring that I overdid it and sent myself into a fatigue crash, so I spent the next nearly 2 hours in bed ignoring Netflix**

7:33 made chili from scratch using a recipe from budget bytes. It’s serviceable, if not amazing.

8:49 ate the chili with some instant mashed potatoes and took my evening meds

9:26-10:30 texted my cousin Alex (mainly about suicidality and transness and how much easier it was to start over in the 19th century: we’re clearly both handling the election really well) while stitching in the linen portion of the lining of my wool bedgown. Although I am planning to wear men’s clothing nearly exclusively for 18th century events in the next few years, this extra warm layer will be necessary for when I dress as a woman. Oddly, this stitching is my primary job*** and the music is my secondary job, but preparing for Advent made the music take over today. Back to sewing tomorrow

10:50 trimmed my larger and calmer cat’s claws so she won’t snag my flannel when she lets me hold her for a few minutes

11:00 sat down to watch netflix, but then remembered I hadn’t put the remaining chili in the fridge. Put it away and grabbed the medical records I printed today and some other paperwork from my living room

11:15 turned netflix on and filed medical records and rx slips and then sorted and filed bills for utilities

12:45 finished the day just how it started: horizontal with Muriel perched on me

Metrics

Times Muriel made me hold her on my left shoulder: 14

Expenses: $15.88

Distance walked: 2.1 miles

Medications taken: 14

Pain: 8.5 out of 10

Physical contact: none whatsoever

Times misgendered: 8

* QPR: Queer Platonic Relationship. It’s a sort of relationship common to the asexual and aromantic communities

**as I’m editing this on Wednesday afternoon two days later I’m still in a fatigue crash.

***my primary job is making 18th century clothing the way they were made in the 18th century for history museums and historical sites, and it’s just a weird fluke that the day I was assigned was a day when I needed to be focusing on my secondary job instead.

Elijah (he/they) is a disabled genderfluid cult-survivor who spends more of their life angry about the industrial revolution than he'd like. Standardization of product standardizes the method of production, which in turn standardizes workers, which excludes disabled people from the workforce and from being considered equal members of society. He's constantly trying to cultivate a pre-industrial level of interdependence in his life. Their personal insta is @reikabijou and their sewing insta is @augustusandrebecca but he never remembers to post there. You're most likely to find them in the gayborhood or at a historic site, but even more likely he'll be at home and unfindable.