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#letting her help in the kitchen

slippery-minghus · 22 days

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hmm. had an actual conversation with nightmare coworker today that seemed mutually productive. she apologized for saying some bullshit that hurt my feelings and i clarified that my intentions are to help not to undermine her, and we both agreed that there's no competition against each other and that it's the lack of growth in our role that's the problem. it was...productive.

and further cementing for me that it is time to begin making my Exit. i will be sending out my resume to a few places this weekend.

i'm still processing the conversation, and am struggling to place myself in where i am responsible to better my behavior. because i genuinely don't want to be an ass, even though i really don't like this lady and will jump for joy the day i never have to see her again. she stated that she knows my intentions aren't to hurt her, and that she thinks i'm very kind. i apologized for if my behavior came off as undermining her, and said that my intentions are only to better my own growth—and that i know she's trying to succeed too. i validated her feelings, and complemented the effort she is putting in.

where i'm struggling with is: am i in the wrong/causing harm and needing to change if the issue is that her feelings are incongruent with what she knows of my intentions? her feelings are her responsibility (WOW i almost typed "her feelings are my responsibility". i feel like that's a freudian slip) and she states that she knows i don't mean to hurt her. i'm going to try to be more clear in wording my intentions with her (she feels like me trying to take work off her plate is to undermine her. when really, i'm caught up and see her getting overwhelmed, and i want to help and also have something to do since i'm bored).

but i'm really struggling to look at my role in this and pass judgement on myself. i can and want to do better, and i don't think i did anything wrong, but i'm always so hesitant to say it's not my fault or i didn't do something bad. like i can't trust my judgement on that. my intentions were good, her bad feelings are ones caused by her insecurities, which she more or less has expressed to be aware that they are not true—the hurtful thing she said to me, she acknowledged was said out of hurt and not what she actually thinks. so, is it fair to say i'm not the bad guy? i'm not in the wrong? i know good intentions that still result in harm don't absolve anyone, but when the things that are clashing are insufficient communication and reactive insecurities... i'm not a monster, am i?

#well. i AM probably a monster for how much i dislike this lady #but i don't ACT on it #and i genuinely couldn't care less about her. i participate in decent human pleasantries because i am a decent human.#and at work we're stuck together #the thing that's irked me so much about this conversation is just.. her self centeredness #that she thinks everyone is out to get her. to undermine her. whatever.#bitch nobody cares about you enough one way or the other to put in that kind of effort. i sure don't #i empathize but i do not sympathize. to feel that pit that makes you feel like the worst kind of center of attention #i get it. but genuinely you are not the main character and no one is going to spend their limited time and energy to slowly attack you #you are not the cat with all the knives pointed at it #it's a terrible feeling to feel like you are! but when it influences your behavior to the point that you are making snide comments #to people who have no option not to interact with you then uh. then you're in the wrong buddy #and the people around you (who cannot easily leave! bc work!) should not have to bend over backwards to assure you #that they're not pointing knives at you. to protect themselves from your feelings making you say mean shit #like yes. i can be more clear with my intentions. i'm generally not the greatest at that. but my baseline that i want to #modify my behavior from is NOT one that a regular well adjusted person would take as anything but kind #and if a regular well adjusted person got a little offput by me volunteering to take work off their hands we would've had a very chill #3 sentence conversation about it MONTHS AGO.#i understand and respect (even if i find it annoying and overbearing) the need for me to announce my intentions like im working in a kitchen #and saying 'hot water' or 'knife' as i move around other people but we shouldn't have reached this conclusion this way #and frankly who's to fucking say me being more clear with my intentions will only feed the flames of her thinking i'm out to get her!#'i caught up on my stuff and your plate looks full. i'm bored. anything i can do to help?' could be a pointed knife for all i know!!#and if it is- and my actions still hurt her in that scenario- am i still responsible for the hurt caused??#like WHERE DOES IT FUCKING E N D ?#personal #*exhales* okay i feel better now #i just hate talking about my interactions with her bc i just want NOTHING to do with it. i want her out of my head!!#but until i process it i can't let go #and i'm still going to have to go over all of this with my shrink tomorrow #it just makes me mad how much of my time this bitch takes up. i'm not getting paid to think about work right now!!!!

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softquietsteadylove · 1 year

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Dear!

The Mermaid AU is absolutely amazing! Can you write some cute fluff? Maybe Gil is cooking for Thena while she's examining his house further and asking questions about all of his stuff.

🖤✨ Hugs and much love!! ✨🖤

Gil turned down the stove burner with their seafood chowder to let it simmer. Cliche or not, Thena really did like any recipe he had with any form of sea life in it. Even just seaweed soup seemed to whet her appetite.

He kept one ear trained on the living room while he was cooking. Thena had fallen asleep on his shoulder on the boat ride home, leaving him to carry her inside. He had initially thought about putting her in his bed, but he wanted her a little closer. He wanted to know a little more certainly that she really was safe here, with him.

She had been strung up in a net just a few hours ago, after all.

He had gotten her to the couch, pulled his shirt on over her head for when she split her tail later on, laid a blanket over her. Her skin still had red marks on it from where she had been thrashing against the net's hold, but he assumed she would heal those up for herself.

He still wasn't sure if it was the right move to keep her on land with him, but he had to admit that it pleased the more selfish part of him--the part that wanted to keep her close so he could protect her. If the only ways to protect her were to keep her with him or send her away, he definitely had a preference between them, even if he still believed that the other method would have been just as effective.

Gil chopped up the celery, the last vegetable he was adding, hoping it would stay a little crunchy while absorbing the creamy soup. Thena was fascinated by plenty, but especially loved crunchy foods. She said she had always wondered what it would be like to take a bite of coral - like a parrotfish - and that this was much better.

He blinked as a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. "You a Cuddlefish, now?"

Thena pressed her face further into his back.

"Hey," he whispered, raising his arms up to try and turn around in her tight embrace. He manged it somehow, bringing his arms around her delicate waist. "You okay?"

"I'm sorry," she all but whimpered into his shirt miserably. "What if that man comes after you?"

"It's okay," Gil assured as best he could, rubbing his hand over her arm. "As long as you're safe, that's all that matters to me."

Thena just sighed, still clinging to him, as he found she was rather prone to do whenever she had her legs on. "What are you making?"

"Chowder--it's a creamy soup, and I added lots of fish for you," he smiled. She was still burrowed into the front of him, but he couldn't imagine how much she was reeling from being caught like that...no pun intended. "Are you hungry?"

She nodded. "They offered me some fish, but..."

Of course she hadn't wanted to eat in front of her captors. Gil kissed the top of her head, "do you want a little snack while this finishes?"

She finally pulled her head up to peek at him.

"I got more of those dried sardines," he drawled, attempting to tease a smile out of her. He had discovered that she loved the dried little fishes that crumbled to the touch. Maybe they were like a bag of chips, or popcorn to her.

Thena finally managed a smile, small and fragile, but real. He could practically imagine her tail wiggling in delight. "You did?"

"Just for you," he promised, tapping her nose as she released him to hunt for her new favourite snack food. "Cupboard?"

Thena looked around herself for a second before reaching out and just barely pressing her finger to one of the many small doors lining the kitchen.

"Good, top and on the right," Gil nodded. He was all too happy to encourage her exploration of his home--a human home.

Thena moved her hand from the bottom cabinet to one of the ones above the counter. She pressed her fingertips to each door one at a time, until she was at the end. She looked at him, and after receiving a nod, she opened it delicately.

The first one she had ever tried she had ripped right off its hinges, assuming it would have some resistance to it. She had apologised in a panic but Gil let her watch him screw it right back on with a spare hinge--no harm done. She liked watching him use tools.

Thena pulled out the crinkling bag of little fish with a bright grin, showing off her fangs. She ripped it open, inhaling like someone might with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Gil was enchanted by just the sight of her.

She closed the cupboard door again and came back over to him, looking infinitely more comfortable with her hand wrist deep in the bag, shovelling sardines into her mouth. "What is that?"

"Hm?" Gil looked around him, moving his hand slowly until he could find what exactly she was asking about. "The stove?"

She nodded.

"Hm," Gil paused; how to explain the entirety of an oven. "Well, most houses have them now. They used to just be a metal shell you could build a fire in. But now we can use electricity and gasoline to make much smaller, more controlled fires so we can cook with them."

"You like cooking," she surmised as she took a seat at the table, her favourite spot from which she could watch him work. "You're good at it."

Gil shrugged with some modesty, not that it mattered to the woman who was used to snatching fish as she swam alongside them and tearing into them raw. "I've always liked cooking. It always makes people happy and brings them together."

Thena tilted her head a few times. Gil was comforted by the sight of one of her many personal habits. "It does make people happy, doesn't it?"

Gil nodded, coming to sit down with her. He was honoured when she offered a small pile of her precious snack. He would be worried about her ruining her appetite if he had any concept of how much she could and couldn't eat. He picked up a few in his fingers, "do you eat meals together?"

She considered his question, knowing he was referring to when she was among her own underwater. "If you're hunting together, you'll eat together, but we don't go to an effort to gather for it."

Gil had plenty of curiosities of his own about her, but with most of his larger questions answered by now, he had started asking the little things. The questions that seemed almost silly to ask, but that always made him happy to know anyway. "Do you eat while you swim or do you, like, find a little resting place?"

Thena shrugged (which she had learned from watching him and Sersi). "It depends on what you catch, I suppose. If you have somewhere to be, you then just eat as you go."

"That makes sense," Gil agreed, finishing off his little pile. He smiled as Thena immediately replenished it. He looked up at her with a grin, "you feed me, I feed you?"

She rustled the bag on her lap. "It seems only fair."

Gil pinched a few more morsels between his fingers. "Would you share stuff with your brother?"

Thena immediately let out a loud groan and rolled her eyes.

Gil couldn't help but laugh. "You sound like Sersi did when she was younger."

Thena tilted her head at him, her hair tumbling over her shoulder. "I don't understand that--you seem like so much better a brother than Ikaris."

Gil shrugged, smiling at the topic with love - and exasperation - built right into it. "Yeah, but you don't get along as well when you're younger. When we were kids, it seemed like everything I said annoyed her."

Thena tilted her head a few more times at him. "But she loves you."

Gil beamed. "Yeah, she does--and you always know your sibling loves you, no matter how much you fight. I like to think I was a pretty good brother to her when we were younger."

"I'm sure you were," Thena muttered with absolute certainty, digging into the bag with a renewed fervour. "I think I had to fight Ikaris for everything when we were hatchlings."

That was a cute term for when they were kids. "Siblings fight a lot, I guess."

Thena sighed, though. "We were maybe...more aggressive than some our age."

Gil snorted. He could already imagine his beautiful Angelfish hissing up a storm at her own brother over the littlest thing. "You liked annoying each other?"

She smiled faintly. "I suppose so. And for all his grievances, I admit that there are worse brothers one could have. I can't imagine it at the moment, but I'm sure it's true."

Gil laughed. She certainly sounded like someone who very - very - reluctantly loved her brother despite his faults. "Does he like sardines too?"

Thena gave him a smile that showed off all of her teeth, "hates them."

Gil stood to stir the stew again, "then those are all for you. I'll always have them in the house, too, if I'm not around to cook for you, okay?"

Thena looked from him to the fridge. He had also explained the concept of leftovers, and that she could open any of the containers in there and eat anything she found.

He didn't tell her anything about heating anything up. Something about the idea of Thena and electricity just...made him uncomfortable.

"It's ready!"

Thena looked up at him with a smile as he set down a bowl in front of her, positively heaping with seafood and with a little nori sprinkled on top. "Thank you, Gil."

He blushed. She looked so cute, sitting there with her legs crossed at the ankles, his shirt sleeves billowing around her tiny arms that usually had scales dotted along them. "Anything, anytime, Angelfish."

Thena gave him a grin that he had come to learn was her feeling mischievous, "am I not a cuttlefish, now?"

"Cuddle-fish," he corrected with a grin of his own. She seemed humoured, although her smile turned faintly shy as she looked down at her food. He picked up his spoon and poked at his serving, "that's okay, though. I like having my very own Cuddlefish."

#Thenamesh Mermaid AU #I just know Gil would be all about the silly cute nicknames #He wakes her up in the morning with Sunfish #maybe calls her Pufferfish when she's pouting because he wouldn't let her play with the electricity or something #She helps him cut vegetables in the kitchen and he calls her a regular ol' Swordfish #he thinks it's cute #Thena never comments on them #but she finds it absolutely adorable #also Thena loves nori snacks #she loves dried sardines and fish floss #and she even kind of likes goldfish crackers mostly because they're funny

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purplespacecats · 8 months

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my wrists are fucked up and i can't work and i'm not getting paid for medical leave even though legally i'm supposed to,

but also my friends are all helping me with chores whenever i ask and keep bringing me food without me asking

and i wanted to leave that job for the past year and also i got fucking permanent residency finally so in theory i can go on EI but of course i still haven't gotten the paperwork i need for that from my old job but at least i'll have health insurance for the rest of my life starting like 4 months from now

and it's been three weeks since i had to stop work so i found a workers' comp union and they helped me file a complaint and i have enough to make rent and a few weeks worth of meds and am having a yard sale over the weekend

and i was going to sell my broke down car but i can't because i haven't paid off my parking tickets but the cars for cash place only offered me 400 bucks for it anyways

two separate friends have crashed on my air mattress while going through breakups during all of this which has honestly been pretty convenient given my inability to cook or clean

and my wrists still hurt but they're healing very slowly and my friends nearby keep checking in to make sure i ask for help if i need it

#i'm very stressed but hopefully i'll figure it out #my friend anna randomly dropped off zucchini bread today #the second breakup-recovery houseguest left today and bought me cleaning supplies as a parting gift #(i did not need cleaning supplies but they were appalled by me handing them a spray with bleach in it to clean the kitchen counters lmao)#they also gave me boric acid bc ants invaded two days ago and they helped me get rid of them #when alyssa was here she cooked me a bunch of meals and chopped and blanched and froze all my vegetables #even allister let me keep the whole food bank haul that i normally split with her this week #oh the injury is tendonitis from work it just got really bad lol. eating was hard for a week or so #now i can type on my phone again (in moderation) and use the bathroom sink and pick cups up without it hurting!#oh AND my grandmother is in the hospital and my parents are coming to visit in a few weeks 🙃

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