Status Updates From On the Calculation of Volum...

This IS different from the first in that Tara is no longer lamenting her cursed existence but learning how to cope with it. She’s still not taken ownership of it precisely, but is on her way there, I think.

[I retreat indoors, I sense a certain restlessness, but nothing happens. Yesterday evening I went to the theater, but all I could see were people trapped within a space, on a stage. They roam restlessly around but can find no way out.]

I wonder about the people whose days do change slightly. Think of the retail workers responsible for stocking and inventory. They’ll notice they’re suddenly out of [whatever product Tara took all of] and wonder how they could have gotten so low so quickly without a staff member noticing and ordering more. So, even if only a few minutes, their day HAS changed a bit.

It’s fascinating that her endless November days are strictly written on loose leaf paper, and her seasons-tracking done in her green bound notebook. I know Tara said earlier that switching to documenting November days in the notebook would solidify the time warp she’s fallen into, but there’s more to it than just that. This is a pathological division of documentation. Tara is going crazy.

[My foot still aches, but the swelling has gone down and now I wear thick woolen socks on both feet, because wool goes with winter. Winter goes with wool. Winter goes with big boots and I have found winter for my boots. They walk through the park, they walk through winter puddles and they let me walk with them as best I can.]

Her only companions are her notebook and her shoes. The loneliness is palpable.

[Then, at just after seven, I asked the newly arrived morning receptionist for help to delay my Lund check-in until midmorning, so I can now be doubly sure that my room will not be occupied when I wake up on the eighteenth of November.]

… no? Bc it would reset in the night like everything else. Hence her saying she needs a room that hasn’t been occupied in a couple days. So folks wouldn’t appear in the night

[At reception I had been able to get printouts of temperature graphs and snowfall tables which I folded and slipped into the note-book.]

This is so unnecessary. It’s going the be the same 18th again and again. Just google where there’s snow at the moment and go there. The f—?

Another way in which I don’t relate to the character/how she’s chosen to tackle this problem: I won’t lie. If I realized that everything reset overnight, I’d be having a blast for a while. I can go do whatever I want day after day after day without financial or interpersonal impact. I can call into work and spend all day reading because why not? I can spend all day at the fair, paying for the upgrades, etc.

(Continuing my thought) I guess once you’re so detached from normalcy the possibilities are endless! She doesn’t have to pay taxes or have a job etc bc she’s living an existence that just isn’t what our systems detect.