Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

I "rested for a bit" at 8:30pm and woke up just past midnight. So let's pretend I wrote this first.

Today went fine. Early start but a smooth one, I'd slept well the night before and had time to fetch breakfast from the nearby Greggs before setting off. My manager helped set the rota to make sure everyone had breaks and that e.g. people doing the last shift one day aren't on the first one the next. I did the last shift today so my alarm is set for a very reasonable 9 tomorrow (so I'm a little bit less stressed about my disrupted sleep).

We had the debrief/orientation around our stand before the exhibition hall opened officially so by the time our first punter appeared, I could slip away. Which I did because it's someone I know well and, while not from the friends/volunteering group that so disappointed me, it's definitely someone I didn't want to be recognized by, so I slipped away.

Our hotel is a short (if very hilly, but then everything is) walk from the conference centre so in between my three visits there today I was able to come back here and rest which was nice. D was keen to look up fun things I could do in Brighton but even with my amazing new shoes (I am so grateful for prioritizing comfort!) my feet hurt so much my calves hurt too, so I just wanted to rest in my breaks.

My feet hurt because the co-worker "in charge" of the stall said first thing this morning we wouldn't be using the two folding chairs allocated to us and folded them away. This decision wasn't made by the guy recovering from a broken ankle (obviously) nor the co-worker who I learned later today is having an operation next week to address pain in her foot. But it was made by the first person to complain about her feet hurting, when it was still this morning! Sigh. I understand you want to accost people coming by the stand, but that doesn't mean no one should ever sit down! It just meant our folding chairs ended up being used a little way away, and the people sitting in them weren't any use to the stand!

Same kind of issue I had when the same person went to get a coffee and very kindly got some for the rest of us as well....but brought them back to a table across the way, saying "we shouldn't really have teas and coffees on the stand of course" as if that made any sense. It just meant everyone but me hung around over there while I (lacking even water because I'd brought my bottle empty having been told this was strictly necessary and there'd be water available in the conference center, and then of course security didn't care about the bottle at all and none of us had found the water cooler) had to keep talking to people. My throat got so dry! I did see two other people in masks today, so that was nice, but wearing mine also contributed to my dry throat I think.

It's actually possible the co2 numbers would be okay in there for me to take it off, but I kept it on in hopes of being harder to recognize as well. And some combination of the mask, a year or so of what the transphobes in the room call "experimental gender medicine" (apparently they had a fringe today that Helen Joyce spoke at, ugh), and my profound unimportance within the party kept me from being recognized by anyone. Except one lovely person, local-ish, who made eye contact, smiled warmly, and said "it's good to see you Erik." I haven't seen him in far longer than I've been called Erik so it was really lovely of him to use the name so smoothly, as if he saw me every day.

It helped make up to some extent for the fact that I got called "she" by one of my co-workers! No malice in it, but she didn't react like it was a brain fart or a mistake either. The matter-of-factness of it stung, as did the fact that she was saying this to a stranger that I'll have to follow up with. But hopefully it won't stick in his mind like it did mine, and when I do follow up it'll be in an email with my pronouns in the signature.

I do wonder if it's because this is one of my colleagues with sight loss, and however good I get at growing facial hair or hiding my chest landscape, what a lot of blind people use to gender me is my voice. This makes me a little sad, and keen to get to the top of the waiting list for Indigo's voice coaching which I was told a couple months ago should be soon.

Best news I had all day is that my last shift on Monday finishes about noon, so rather than having to leave after 5:30 like I was told to when I booked my tickets, I might be home by dinner time instead of bed time on Monday. That sure makes the prospect of going right back in to a busy week of normal work a little easier to countenance! And I cannot wait to see my dog and my humans.