Methodist and Mikell at Open Door and Liz locking the door

July 25, 2023: Ok I’ll start this ahead of time. This morning I took my meds at 7:45am with a strawberry vanilla yogurt, and then I checked my schedule at Methodist with Anne. I went into it then, and weirdly Methodist was less fun than it often is today. There just wasn’t that much Spanish for me to translate and I didn’t feel that useful. I saw a volunteer who I thought might be someone I talked to extensively a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t him. It was a different guy named Michael. The only thing that I really succeeded at was having my lunch at a decent time. What I did was I had three slices of their frozen pizza, and I last ate before 12pm. Then I went back home to do my 12:45pm meeting with Dr. Rohe, and I had a great talk with him. We even talked about my fears of never making another friend. He told me to explore ASU alumni groups in the Twin Cities and also to explore Buddhism, which he insists doesn’t involve believing in a god. I also told him about my upcoming interview with the Bilingual Learning Center, and he said that if that doesn’t work out, I could look at some bilingual pre-kindergarden childcare options, like Tierra Encantada - Bryant in Minneapolis. Honestly given that I didn’t have the greatest time at Methodist this morning, I’m hopeful for Open Door, which I’m going into early to be able to talk to Mikell about options with doing some graphic design and shooting the 5k coming up in late August. Ok, leaving at 2:35pm. Ok so I got there and I had the best conversation ever with Mikell. Mikell gave me information on the shoot I’m doing for Open Door of the 5K on August 19th. She suggested that I bring a long lens, so I decided to definitely bring the 70-200. She also gave me some things to make sure to shoot. And then she also talked to me about maybe getting involved in some graphic design work for them, and told me that they design everything they do in Canva, which I’ve used before. We also looked at my website a ton, and she even looked at my videos page. She said that she’d like to do a photo story that includes some Open Door clients at some point, though we agreed that it was totally impossible to get good candids of clients when we have permission to take photos of them. I told her that it would need to be at some kind of event that has everyone sign something upon entrance giving permission for photos. Also, looking at some of the videos I did for SHOW, we talked about whether we could ever do something like that for Open Door. After I talked a ton with Mikell in a side room for like an hour, it was time for my actual Open Door shift at 4:15pm. For that shift I felt pretty useful. Honestly I felt like I used Spanish more than I had in the morning. The only thing I really wanna write about is that I had a second best conversation ever with Liz at the end. She even mentioned that she felt like me and one of her sisters would get along. The sister’s name is Naomi and she also has some serious medical problems, like I do. Then we also had a very important conversation about what I’d discovered with Dr. Rohe during my appointment today, that for a while I’d been defining a “friend” as someone I went to high school with, and therefore thinking I’d never make a new friend again since obviously I'm not going to high school again. So then Liz also gave me her sister’s Instagram, and talked to me about maybe getting together at Sea Salt some time, though I had to remind her of the name of the place. We talked about more too, which I didn’t write down even though it was quite important. What I did then was I went home and took my meds perfectly on time at 7:45pm with half a box of mac&cheese for 12g of fat. Funny because I was talking to Liz so much I almost missed the time I had scheduled to go home, since she had to stay to when the last client was shopping, and I just chose to hang around with her. I even told her it was not a hardship at all. Oh and I did show her the BeReal I took of her locking the doors too, and learned that she does not use BeReal. Honestly I only wanted to take it because I wanted some photo of her to use for this, since it was kinda the best part of my day. Oh and I also decided to take a shower at night, just because I have the job interview tomorrow at 1pm, so ideally I won't do one after my morning yoga class.