some self-care things i am doing
Nov. 8th, 2024 11:56 am-I've been using the Finch self-care pet app for about a month. Your little virtual bird pet gains energy when you accomplish self-care tasks. The app has a decent first-aid kit contained within: breathing exercises, stretches, soundscapes, reflections. And you get to put little outfits on your bird, and build it fancy houses.
-I'm going to stop keeping up with the news. We all tacked in to "staying informed" last time the Orange Menace was in power, and, if anything, it just convinced the media that he's good for business. The media space seems to me very full of gossip, fearmongering, and propaganda, and very devoid of seriousness or expertise. So, I'm not going to follow along with every twist and turn of what's to come at the federal level. I'll stay in touch with my local polity, and the greater city-state we're a part of.
-I've been following the news avidly most of my adult life. In order to fill that space in my brain, I'm going back to some old literature. I mean to work through the last Shakespeare plays I don't know well, and I think I'll read the Aeneid, which I've never done. Ancient literature is still with us because centuries' worth of humans passed it along. There's the merit of the work, and then the meaning created by that chain of transmission. If I want to study mankind, I'm going to turn in that direction for a time, instead of to the news.
-I'm putting more of my juice behind writing regularly. Maybe a poem a day? I know that when I write more, what I write gets better.
-I'm going to stop keeping up with the news. We all tacked in to "staying informed" last time the Orange Menace was in power, and, if anything, it just convinced the media that he's good for business. The media space seems to me very full of gossip, fearmongering, and propaganda, and very devoid of seriousness or expertise. So, I'm not going to follow along with every twist and turn of what's to come at the federal level. I'll stay in touch with my local polity, and the greater city-state we're a part of.
-I've been following the news avidly most of my adult life. In order to fill that space in my brain, I'm going back to some old literature. I mean to work through the last Shakespeare plays I don't know well, and I think I'll read the Aeneid, which I've never done. Ancient literature is still with us because centuries' worth of humans passed it along. There's the merit of the work, and then the meaning created by that chain of transmission. If I want to study mankind, I'm going to turn in that direction for a time, instead of to the news.
-I'm putting more of my juice behind writing regularly. Maybe a poem a day? I know that when I write more, what I write gets better.
no subject
Mar. 29th, 2024 09:39 amJob hunting is so needlessly stressful and unpleasant. But it proceeds apace; interview this afternoon!
I'm starting so many seeds this spring. I want to fill out the garden, but, as I hope our time here will be coming to an end soon, I don't want to spend a lot of money on it this year; so, as many starts as I can get going! Between new starts and volunteers, I'm getting comical quantities of lupines. The opposite of a problem, lol.
I need to write about recent reading. I've got behind there. RN, I'm trekking through James Meek's "To Calais in Ordinary Time," which I picked up for plague reasons, but am most interested in because I want to see where the formalist experiment with period prose is going, and how Meek is going to pay it off. The writing is simple but truly archaic. Time spent reading untranslated Chaucer, and reading French, are helpful in smoothing the experience.
My dad and sib got a room for eclipse viewing, and I'm invited to roll along if desired. IDK... there's been a lot of schlepping about since my parents started splitting up, and these two-sisters-and-one-parent excursions keep being Weird and A Lot. Maybe I'm sticking with my newer family unit. B's 19th birthday coming up shortly before the eclipse date, and I want him well fussed-over, since his ties with his biomom have definitely been fraying over the last year.
I'm starting so many seeds this spring. I want to fill out the garden, but, as I hope our time here will be coming to an end soon, I don't want to spend a lot of money on it this year; so, as many starts as I can get going! Between new starts and volunteers, I'm getting comical quantities of lupines. The opposite of a problem, lol.
I need to write about recent reading. I've got behind there. RN, I'm trekking through James Meek's "To Calais in Ordinary Time," which I picked up for plague reasons, but am most interested in because I want to see where the formalist experiment with period prose is going, and how Meek is going to pay it off. The writing is simple but truly archaic. Time spent reading untranslated Chaucer, and reading French, are helpful in smoothing the experience.
My dad and sib got a room for eclipse viewing, and I'm invited to roll along if desired. IDK... there's been a lot of schlepping about since my parents started splitting up, and these two-sisters-and-one-parent excursions keep being Weird and A Lot. Maybe I'm sticking with my newer family unit. B's 19th birthday coming up shortly before the eclipse date, and I want him well fussed-over, since his ties with his biomom have definitely been fraying over the last year.
no subject
Jul. 14th, 2023 12:52 pmOh I am so constrained in the fussing and chronology of daily life/time! I want out, out, out! Why can't I dream/write/drift/stabilize/be alone and content with it?
The above declaration sounds distressed, but I feel like I'm actually on to something. Achievement can so easily become a False God for me, a goal in and of itself, and I know, I KNOW, that when that happens it actually cuts me off from my vital, interior, messy, generative self.
Scraping too low is bad, it's re-traumatizing; but continual "growth" toward more and more achievement is also not necessarily the way I want to try to live. I don't want to be perfect, that I'm confident of. Wanting to be "successful" is more of a lure, and at a certain level that's for real, practical reasons. But it can also so easily get out of control.
I want to grow; not drive/experience "growth" in the sense of capital. & those are not, NOT, the same thing.
this lovely essay about "personhood" by Johanna Hedva was epiphanic and clarifying for me today.
I've also been meaning to link this essay from Mo Ryan about Cordelia Chase for a few days, hat tip to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
musesfool. Cordelia <3
The above declaration sounds distressed, but I feel like I'm actually on to something. Achievement can so easily become a False God for me, a goal in and of itself, and I know, I KNOW, that when that happens it actually cuts me off from my vital, interior, messy, generative self.
Scraping too low is bad, it's re-traumatizing; but continual "growth" toward more and more achievement is also not necessarily the way I want to try to live. I don't want to be perfect, that I'm confident of. Wanting to be "successful" is more of a lure, and at a certain level that's for real, practical reasons. But it can also so easily get out of control.
I want to grow; not drive/experience "growth" in the sense of capital. & those are not, NOT, the same thing.
this lovely essay about "personhood" by Johanna Hedva was epiphanic and clarifying for me today.
I've also been meaning to link this essay from Mo Ryan about Cordelia Chase for a few days, hat tip to
musesfool. Cordelia <3no subject
Dec. 2nd, 2022 01:46 pmI read Zen Cho's book "Black Water Sister," and liked it very much. And experienced a lot of feelings about my own grandmother, the spiritualist, who I'd give anything to have back again to talk to.
Watched "Fiddler on the Roof" with A. He'd never seen it. What a beautifully structured work. Still makes me cry, after all this time. I played Chava in a school production when I was 13.
Lots of complicated nostalgia/homesickness emotions of late. Thinking about past loves. Reflecting on the lingering entanglement of my remote, difficult place, and how it's connected to my life and choices. Proofread a wingshooting book project, partnering w my folks' company, written by an old client of theirs who was around a lot when I was growing up. Conservative, gentlemanly. White. Familiar. Sometimes I feel like an exile, other times like an escapee.
Many of my elders are struggling with health declines this season. My father had a mini-stroke, and realized that he needs to get his blood pressure back to safe levels. He told my sister and I that it reminded him of taking acid. And others in the chosen family system have had scares and struggles. We've never gone to that little local hospital so many times in a sixmonth.
I made such a good run at my Vorkosigan WIP, and then life hit me between the eyes, and work, and I lost my momentum.
This is an unfocused little ramble of a post. I'm trying to write more in my own voice.
Watched "Fiddler on the Roof" with A. He'd never seen it. What a beautifully structured work. Still makes me cry, after all this time. I played Chava in a school production when I was 13.
Lots of complicated nostalgia/homesickness emotions of late. Thinking about past loves. Reflecting on the lingering entanglement of my remote, difficult place, and how it's connected to my life and choices. Proofread a wingshooting book project, partnering w my folks' company, written by an old client of theirs who was around a lot when I was growing up. Conservative, gentlemanly. White. Familiar. Sometimes I feel like an exile, other times like an escapee.
Many of my elders are struggling with health declines this season. My father had a mini-stroke, and realized that he needs to get his blood pressure back to safe levels. He told my sister and I that it reminded him of taking acid. And others in the chosen family system have had scares and struggles. We've never gone to that little local hospital so many times in a sixmonth.
I made such a good run at my Vorkosigan WIP, and then life hit me between the eyes, and work, and I lost my momentum.
This is an unfocused little ramble of a post. I'm trying to write more in my own voice.
no subject
Nov. 16th, 2020 12:55 pm...just realized, after a long talk with my mom about potentially related matters, that when I talk about myself or others withdrawing from/during a conflict, my mental image is always of Wendy Darling telling Peter Pan (with "hauteur," no less!) that "if I am no use I can at least withdraw."
Covid coming closer
Nov. 9th, 2020 01:17 pmOh man ... it feels like the pandemic's found me again. Cook County numbers on the rise. My sister's shut out of her workplace due to contamination concerns, tho she and my cousin who work with her both got negative tests back today. But my institutionalized great-aunt's roommate is in the hospital with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, and my aunt's being quarantined in her care home. My aunt is developmentally disabled and aging, and unfortunately due to family finances and state laws is still in gods-cursed Indiana, where everything's been thrown open again for the last month. My aunt has cold symptoms; we're waiting on test results. It would be a blow to her if her roommate passes away, as well; she's had a few too many losses in the last few years.
I'm safe, I don't go anywhere, A's negative but he has to face the holiday retail scene and it's a mess. My sister's talking about permanent changes to her food&bev sector career. Ugh.
I'm safe, I don't go anywhere, A's negative but he has to face the holiday retail scene and it's a mess. My sister's talking about permanent changes to her food&bev sector career. Ugh.
no subject
Mar. 21st, 2020 12:38 pmWell, I'm sick -- with the same thing A had a mild bout of last week, and he thinks with the same thing that's been going around his workplace. A is the manager of a GameStop store by his home, which company has been famously dragging their feet on shutting down. They'd put together a ridiculous document declaring themselves an essential service -- but he's just texted me that they're going online order-pickup only as of 5 pm today, when the shelter in place order goes into effect here in IL.
No one in the group of us has been tested, so we don't know what we've had, just that it looks fairly similar in all of us. A and I both had sore throat, sudden exhaustion & sleep, and head and body aches. No fever in either of us. I'm also on my period, so symptoms are somewhat obscured.
I'm going to assume that I've likely got the novel coronavirus; it doesn't seem to me to have the feel of a head cold, and I'm suspicious that we've managed to spread it even through all our handwashing and disinfecting measures -- I don't think a common cold could have got through. We're so close to the city, there's every reason to expect community spread. Without fevers, though, it doesn't feel worth seeking testing. We'll just be turned away -- and I, at least, lack any health insurance to pay for such a thing.
I'm very far away from all my family, for which I'm grateful.
I've no reason to assume that I'm at any particular risk from this sickness. We stocked up on medical care supplies awhile ago, so I don't need to go out for medications ect. I'm going to be okay, but we'll see about the world, won't we? Anyway, if you're keeping lists of good and bad actors in all of this, put GameStop on the bad list; they've likely infected a bunch of us here due to corporate greed and mismanagement.
After this, I don't know if I'll ever bring myself to be able to work for an employer again. The uncertainty of self-employment sucks, but at least I don't have to knuckle under to borderline-immoral demands under threat of abandonment ect.
No one in the group of us has been tested, so we don't know what we've had, just that it looks fairly similar in all of us. A and I both had sore throat, sudden exhaustion & sleep, and head and body aches. No fever in either of us. I'm also on my period, so symptoms are somewhat obscured.
I'm going to assume that I've likely got the novel coronavirus; it doesn't seem to me to have the feel of a head cold, and I'm suspicious that we've managed to spread it even through all our handwashing and disinfecting measures -- I don't think a common cold could have got through. We're so close to the city, there's every reason to expect community spread. Without fevers, though, it doesn't feel worth seeking testing. We'll just be turned away -- and I, at least, lack any health insurance to pay for such a thing.
I'm very far away from all my family, for which I'm grateful.
I've no reason to assume that I'm at any particular risk from this sickness. We stocked up on medical care supplies awhile ago, so I don't need to go out for medications ect. I'm going to be okay, but we'll see about the world, won't we? Anyway, if you're keeping lists of good and bad actors in all of this, put GameStop on the bad list; they've likely infected a bunch of us here due to corporate greed and mismanagement.
After this, I don't know if I'll ever bring myself to be able to work for an employer again. The uncertainty of self-employment sucks, but at least I don't have to knuckle under to borderline-immoral demands under threat of abandonment ect.
I always work from home, and so far my work's been remaining steady, so mostly I'm being impacted right now with an increased cognitive/emotional load; I have to process the changes in the world and make mindspace to keep writing essays ect. It's been a bit of a challenge. As of yesterday, I've cut almost all the way off the news to make it possible.
I welcome the Biden administration, may it begin soon. & I'm so grateful to Gov. Whitmer in MI for protecting my family.
Personally speaking, I'm relatively safe. I'd made the shift out to A's house in the suburbs just as this all came down, in late February. We've been getting our respective small possessive tabby females to tolerate each other for the last three weeks. I'm not all the way moved, at first we just took me & my bedding & the cats in the car. We drove back to the city yesterday to get more of my things, in case of a shelter-in-place order. I've not been on the CTA since middle of last month, a significant change for me.
Mostly, I feel like I'm having to adjust to being locked in to my current trajectory, when I had been enjoying having some play of choice. My lease goes through June, so there will be time enough to go back for the rest of my books & furniture at some point. But for now, I'm in a lifeboat with A, and it's a good lifeboat, and he's a good lifeboat partner. I didn't mean to choose so fast or hard, but so it goes.
Finished the last season of Mrs. Maisel (pretty, currently v. soothing.) Am reading Kate Manne's book Down Girl & listening to Madeleine L'Engle audiobooks at night.
I welcome the Biden administration, may it begin soon. & I'm so grateful to Gov. Whitmer in MI for protecting my family.
Personally speaking, I'm relatively safe. I'd made the shift out to A's house in the suburbs just as this all came down, in late February. We've been getting our respective small possessive tabby females to tolerate each other for the last three weeks. I'm not all the way moved, at first we just took me & my bedding & the cats in the car. We drove back to the city yesterday to get more of my things, in case of a shelter-in-place order. I've not been on the CTA since middle of last month, a significant change for me.
Mostly, I feel like I'm having to adjust to being locked in to my current trajectory, when I had been enjoying having some play of choice. My lease goes through June, so there will be time enough to go back for the rest of my books & furniture at some point. But for now, I'm in a lifeboat with A, and it's a good lifeboat, and he's a good lifeboat partner. I didn't mean to choose so fast or hard, but so it goes.
Finished the last season of Mrs. Maisel (pretty, currently v. soothing.) Am reading Kate Manne's book Down Girl & listening to Madeleine L'Engle audiobooks at night.
no subject
Apr. 27th, 2019 08:42 pmMy grandmother the actress is leaving soon. I was there last weekend, but she resurrected on Easter and ate a whole breakfast, so I came home. I'm crashingly busy and tired, but still battling the impulse to fling myself back on the South Shore and go back to her tonight. If the weather wasn't so dreadful I think I would, but it looks forbidding out there and no one needs to be driving late to pick me up. I'll go in the morning, belike.
So instead I'm sitting in my room crying and thinking about her, and if you all don't mind I'm going to share, because she was the most remarkable of the remarkable people I've met so far, and I don't think I'll ever meet her like again. ( Read more... )
eta: on she went, a little after 3 this afternoon. blessed be
So instead I'm sitting in my room crying and thinking about her, and if you all don't mind I'm going to share, because she was the most remarkable of the remarkable people I've met so far, and I don't think I'll ever meet her like again. ( Read more... )
eta: on she went, a little after 3 this afternoon. blessed be
... it's not like I'm the princess of cleanliness. But I'm big on space aesthetics, and people tell me my rooms are always very good. At this point, I've also gotten very good at living functionally and aesthetically in small spaces with low budgets. So this is all very much stuff I think about.
It's also in my mind of late because I've been dealing more with other family cultures around stuff. Aesthetically, I'm very in line with my parents, and extended family - we're all semi-broke aesthetes with attractions to art objects, books, visual simplicity, and nature motifs, so there's a lot of overlap in what we consider treasures. ( Read more... )
It's also in my mind of late because I've been dealing more with other family cultures around stuff. Aesthetically, I'm very in line with my parents, and extended family - we're all semi-broke aesthetes with attractions to art objects, books, visual simplicity, and nature motifs, so there's a lot of overlap in what we consider treasures. ( Read more... )
no subject
Dec. 15th, 2018 01:17 amDoing pretty well, all things. Finding life here in Uptown very easy, much easier than the hard winter in the cold rural world I'd been planning on getting through. Emotionally, I'm continuing to process and move forward. I am continuing to find myself grateful for my current ease, grateful to be enjoying it, to have the means and education to escape.
Going to feminist book club; ready Sady Doyle's Trainwreck, next up This Bridge Called My Back. Read the first half of Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me on the bus to my sib's this evening (two things struck me; the epigraph from Baldwin, elliptically describing the aftermath of a lynching, that made me stop hard; and a bit when Coates is writing about his response to an image of a black child hugging a police officer, and Coates doesn't identify him by name but I remember, I remember Devonte Hart cause he's dead now, his crazy white mother drove his whole family off a cliff. hoo.)
Working a lot, and making money. Feeling lots of existential angst about if I'm doing good enough or not. The impermanence and instability of my situation seems to me to be a great defect -- although, now that I write it down, it's also been one of the reasons why I've gotten through all the upset in my personal life as easily as I have, because my work is portable. Hmm.
Listening to Louisa May Alcott. Read a great editorial in the New Yorker (eta: link!) about Jo/Bhaer as daddy kink, with specific implications of Bronson Alcott; the essayist didn't address it, but I increasingly see Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom as id-tastic daddy/little girl obedience and reward fantasies. It makes the moralism easier to bear; like the argument people make about The Taming of the Shrew.
Going to feminist book club; ready Sady Doyle's Trainwreck, next up This Bridge Called My Back. Read the first half of Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me on the bus to my sib's this evening (two things struck me; the epigraph from Baldwin, elliptically describing the aftermath of a lynching, that made me stop hard; and a bit when Coates is writing about his response to an image of a black child hugging a police officer, and Coates doesn't identify him by name but I remember, I remember Devonte Hart cause he's dead now, his crazy white mother drove his whole family off a cliff. hoo.)
Working a lot, and making money. Feeling lots of existential angst about if I'm doing good enough or not. The impermanence and instability of my situation seems to me to be a great defect -- although, now that I write it down, it's also been one of the reasons why I've gotten through all the upset in my personal life as easily as I have, because my work is portable. Hmm.
Listening to Louisa May Alcott. Read a great editorial in the New Yorker (eta: link!) about Jo/Bhaer as daddy kink, with specific implications of Bronson Alcott; the essayist didn't address it, but I increasingly see Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom as id-tastic daddy/little girl obedience and reward fantasies. It makes the moralism easier to bear; like the argument people make about The Taming of the Shrew.
