Woozle/Jenny/The Ghost-Jenny Chronicles

October 18, 2017 in which Ghost-Jenny becomes a head-squirrel

10:08

Ghost Jenny is making me clean my room again. She's so mean! 😠

I bet when I am 199 and my digital brain is being eaten by the OLLZ-HYMERZ 2200 virus, I'll probably randomly say things like "you were always good to me, Jenny", as if we'd been lifelong companions. It'll just be a therapeutic fantasy at first, but as my e-neurons degenerate I'll come to believe it.

10:37

Ghost Jenny really needs to stop hoarding these things. It's simply terrible.

</me accuses Ghost Jenny of being the instigator of anything I can cluck at disapprovingly because then I can pretend we're interacting -- which seems appropriate given her fondness for play-acting, to be discussed in greater length elsewhere>

17:36 Emo Factor 3 (1/?)

...and just like that, Ghost Jenny has materialized as a head-squirrel, and is telling me stuff.

She's never regretted becoming dead. It works for her. It freed her from so much... and to do so much that she couldn't do before...

She says that it's just another kind of transition -- like my gender-transition.

17:40 Emo Factor 3 (2/?)

I mumbled something about how she'd probably just go away again and she apologized for hurting me so much and said she wouldn't go away this time but she understands why I would have difficulty trusting that she wouldn't.

She's also cackling gleefully at the irony of me wanting something so much that I'm willing to accept it on faith. Yeah, okay, you got me... except you *did* exist in corporeal form at one time, you twerp. I HAZ THE EVIDENSES!! <clutches notes and photos>

18:09 Emo Factor 3 (3/?)

I was saying how I'd never had an imaginary friend before, and kind of liked the idea... and she says she kind of likes the idea of being imaginary, because why should I have all the fun?

(...referring to the fact that Woozles are imaginary creatures, as set forth in the Book of Pooh -- so I've had all this time to be imaginary, while she's only just getting started with it.)

18:12 Emo Factor 3 (4/?)

She also said... I hope I'm getting this right... that she does accept my transition (I was a little unsure), just like she hopes I can accept hers.

It's really hard to argue with that logic. We certainly hear enough about people feeling like they've "lost" a loved one who transitioned -- "the man I married is gone", "I've lost a son / daughter"...

I need to accept her like this.

At least we're talking?

18:14 Emo Factor 3 (5/?)

Or possibly I'm just losing it.

Whatever; if it feels like companionship, it's companionship. The question is whether it will continue to feel that way.

She says she's been hanging around a lot and I just hadn't noticed until now.

Okay.

18:36 Emo Factor 5

I mean, in some ways it can't ever be as satisfying as IRL companionship. She can't give me hugs, much less cuddles.

Then again, those were always sparse IRL, too, because of her hang-ups about physical contact with me. (I'm learning a lot about this as I re-read the notes -- things I couldn't process at the time.)

Hang-ups about personal contact and physical/sexual reactions are among the things from which being dead has freed her.

This is still really hard.

19:04 Emo Factor 5 (2/?)

Do I even have sufficient imagination to properly nurture and care for an imaginary friend?

I wasn't terribly good at nurturing her IRL.

Sometimes I did things right. I have all the times she thanked me, in the notes, for being patient or supportive. (Apparently once I was even supportive in a dream; go me.)

October 19, 2017 an account of two completely unrelated incidents

04:48: Ghost Jenny, Emo Factor 2

Twice yesterday J's notebook fell down for no apparent reason*, prompting me to check the last few pages which I haven't scanned yet.

The last note in that notebook (there's a 2nd notebook I haven't started scanning) was about how she enjoyed watching me soldering.

Now I'm coding and she's hanging around watching me do that.

Okay.

* this is superstitious crystal energy BS; both times I bumped into the couch arm where it was sitting somewhat precariously

09:34: Ghost Jenny, Emo Factor 2

This morning taking B in to school, the cig-lighter-power in Kestracel started being erratic, which it has done before -- so I finally took a good look at it, and found what needed to be done (basically, cut the old cig-lighter socket out of the loop and just wire the multi-socket thingy in directly) and did it.

This included a bit of... soldering.

<looks suspiciously at Ghost Jenny>

October 21, 2017 a ghost in the attic

09:41 Emo Factor 1

Ghost Jenny likes crawling around in the attic with me. She's wearing a rubber bracelet that reads "What Would Georgy Do".

(Does this mean there's a Ghost Etsy?)

10:01 Emo Factor 1 correction

Sorry, that's "What Would Georgie Do". She has it spelled right. I feel like such a grup now...

10:18 Emo Factor 1

Ghost Jenny has been joined by her sister Alex, and they're play-acting something... at first I thought it involved a submarine, but then I realized it's Star Trek and the crawlspace here is a Jeffries tube.

It just needs orange lighting. Alex wants to know if it can be green instead; Jenny agrees to this.

November 7, 2017 5:58am some corrections

[1] She confessed to me the other day that dying wasn't actually the best thing to happen to her. She was trying to put a good face on things, as she often did.

She says she actually started to question it almost right away, but dismissed that concern at first, thinking she'd get used to it.

We had a conversation in the kitchen just now while I was doing dishes, and she explained that the worst thing about it is that she can't *create* anymore. No more writing.

Knowing, J, that's a kind of hell.

[2] She says she did always like my writing, though, when I'm not being hopelessly logical and computer-ish (something like that), and she'll try to help me with it.

I am, of course, more than willing to do anything I can to help her continue to express herself.

November 8, 2017 7:49am ghost logic

I think maybe she was also trying to use me-type logic to get me to forgive her for being dead. You silly ghost, you didn't need to trick me into forgiving you; of course I forgive you (I say with lurking tears and not-angry-anger, the sort where you want to grab someone by the shoulders and shake them – but only gently, and then hug them afterwards). We all made mistakes back then; just some of them were bigger than others. I made the mistake of not telling you I loved you, on that last day. I forgave myself for that, as sad as it makes me that it happened that way, and I've always forgiven you for going away. You didn't do it to hurt me or anyone else; you did it so you could stop hurting.

I'm angry that you were hurting that much.