Proximity, Access, Agency & Teflon

August 23, 2026

Proximity, access and agency.

These words somehow came up this morning while I was drinking tea and now they’re sitting in my head with Teflon, which was my nickname for my ex because nothing fucking stuck.

This seems like a completely reasonable grouping.

I don’t have a filing system for people. I barely have a filing system for anything. I have piles. Physical piles. Mental piles. Things I’m currently interested in and things that have apparently ceased to exist because I’m doing something else.

Art has made this particularly obvious.

I can disappear into what I’m doing and be completely happy there. Hours go by. People go by. Probably entire events.

My daughter called me self-satisfied by my own company years ago.

I remember being slightly offended.

Excuse me.

And also, yes.

I’m more aware of it now. Getting older has done that. I notice things about myself that apparently everyone else received in the original instruction manual.

Then I still have complete blind spots.

You had a birthday?

Shit.

This has been logged with the complaints department.

Unfortunately the complaints department is also me, so it is still waiting for an investigator.

There are several outstanding files.

I do care. I just seem to have a fairly unreliable notification system for things that aren’t currently happening directly in front of me.

Actually, that’s probably why proximity ended up in my head.

People who are physically around me naturally exist in my day differently. Not better. Just… there.

Access feels different.

I can be open without actually giving someone much access to me.

I hadn’t thought about that before.

I’ll talk about almost anything and somehow still be private.

That makes no sense.

Except apparently it does.

And then agency.

Agency feels familiar.

The Arbe Edit.

We reserve the right to change our mind. No notice.

I wrote that because it made me laugh.

Still does.

Also apparently true.

I can change my mind about what I want, what I like, who I want around me, what gets access to me.

No notice.

There’s something wonderfully obnoxious about that.

I meant it then.

I changed my mind.

Both things happened.

Then somewhere in this thought I said I can forgive someone and still not share a meal with them.

Yes.

Absolutely.

I can forgive you and still not want you near my potatoes.

Apparently potatoes are where access gets serious.

And forgiveness has nothing to do with whether someone learned anything. I never even think about that. Their lessons are theirs.

Consequences, however.

I’m quite happy with consequences.

Which immediately makes me think about people who do the same thing repeatedly, get a shitty consequence repeatedly and somehow never think…

Wait.

Again?

How many times can the same thing happen before curiosity kicks in?

That’s another thought entirely.

Probably another complaint.

Still no investigator.

And somehow we’re back at Teflon.

Nothing stuck.

Maybe that’s why the nickname still makes me laugh.

Proximity. Access. Agency. Teflon.

No filing system whatsoever.

Just four things that ended up in the same pile this morning.