schema

• I got my driver's license, and a car! I'm still a terrible driver, but having the option of driving let me search for jobs in a much wider radius, and has been pretty helpful in general.
• I had a job! From April until the end of September. It was a seasonal office job, full time for the most part with a lot of overtime in June and July. My bosses thought I was awesome and I managed to save a bunch of money.
• Through said job, I acquired a posse of tea-drinking nerd friends, which has been pretty great.
• Rather less positively, in August and September I got hit with some pretty catastrophic fatigue (sleeping 12 hours a day, falling asleep at my desk, etc. etc.) I never found any kind of medical explanation. I have since gotten back to a "normal" energy level for me, but I have no idea what triggered the fatigue or how to keep it from coming back. I'm kind of terrified of that happening again. It's extremely difficult to crawl my way back out of fatigue like that, because it leaves me with no energy to manage anything beyond the very most basic self-care (if even that), making it almost impossible to make and keep medical appointments or do other things that are "supposed" to help. Thanks, body?
• After being laid off from that job, I was thinking about looking for something part-time, but eventually decided to go back to community college and finish my AA. And then... wavered on that for months, alternately panicking and despairing and pretending I was super motivated and everything was fine. Everything was not fine.
• Found a therapist. We haven't made enormous amounts of progress on anything specific yet, but I have fuckin' issues with therapists, and the fact that she has not pushed me to make rapid progress on anything in particular is to her credit. Cautious optimism there. Maybe someday I will learn how to handle an ordinary workload without having panic attacks?
• At the last minute, I made the decision to defer going back to college until next quarter, by which time I will hopefully be able to manage it with less resentment and terror. Part of what makes the idea of going back to college so difficult for me is that... well, I don't actually want to. I view getting a bachelor's degree as the only way I am likely to ever attain a middle-class standard of living. There are parts of the process that wouldn't be completely terrible, but I feel that colleges are fundamentally exploitative.

( behind the cut: unexpected rant about the higher education racket )

I'm planning to major in economics, because this economy is so broken. (and for more reasons than that - I have some intrinsic interest in the subject, I think its core assumptions are extremely flawed and the field has failed to incorporate the insights of behavioral economics, and as a nice side benefit it seems to leave a reasonably broad range of career options open that are mostly pretty high-paying.)

Welcome! As you probably cannot help but be aware, Dreamwidth began as a fork of Livejournal, and its interface and features largely hail from an older time. The codebase is old enough to vote. Interacting with people and keeping an active blog on Tumblr is really low-effort in a way that it isn't necessarily on Dreamwidth, so I thought I'd post some pointers for translating the way you interact on Tumblr over to Dreamwidth.

1. Dreamwidth does not have likes, but it's totally acceptable to comment on a post to communicate the same basic thing. Same with comments, or you can just say "+1" [EDIT: If you used your likes more like bookmarks, you might be interested in the memories feature.]
2. Notice how you have 15 icon slots (more if you have a paid account?) In comments, you can use your choice of icon like a reaction gif. (You can, of course, also post a reaction gif in the body of your comment.)
3. There are two very different ways of responding to someone's post. One is to reply and discuss the post with the original author. Another is to use the original post as a jumping-off point for a substantial post of your own. On Tumblr, you would generally use a reblog for either of these types of response. On Dreamwidth, you usually want to use comments to reply/discuss, but if you're using someone else's post as a springboard, you should instead make a post of your own and link back. You might also post a link to encourage your subscribers to get involved in the discussion on the original post. Linking and commenting are pretty core to how people find each other.
4. Ask memes! Dreamwidth doesn't have asks, obviously. Instead, you would make a post for the meme list of questions, your subscribers would comment with the questions they'd like you to answer, and you might reply to that comment or in a follow-up post, depending on length/substance/personal preference.
5. The linkspam is a classic LiveJournal Post Type with a venerable history. A post can just be a link or handful of links to stuff that you liked or thought was interesting. A post can also just be a list of brief updates/thoughts on what's going on in your life that might not all constitute a "post" on their own.

I hope this is helpful - it's been a while since I was particularly active, but I've been on DW for a reasonably long time (longer than just this account), and if you have any questions I can probably help you find answers.

(also, a major quality of life tip: you know how it takes you to a completely new page when you want to subscribe/grant access to someone? Yeah, you can actually skip that - if you hover over the little icon next to someone's name, there's a popup you can use to subscribe/grant access without navigating away.)

To put it briefly, so as to get something written before midnight: this year sucked. I feel lonely and exhausted. I fought like hell to stay in school, but in the end I just couldn't. PTSD and recovery took over my life for a while. I haven't yet found work that I can do, and right now that's backburnered to focus on my health. It feels like every year, I lose at least as much as I gain.

But there have been gains. I might be less social and trusting, but I feel like I have a better sense of who can be trusted and how I can enforce my boundaries. Some of my brain is coming back for writing - in fits and starts; I'm not doing anything creative yet, but when I want to say something I can put the words together for it. In spite of all that's happened, I've been able to get to know some new people in ways that feel safe to me. I'm more in touch with my family - my dad visited recently, and that went well! My partner and I feel closer all the time, and we'll soon be celebrating two years together.

I feel stuck. I've spent so much of my life unemployed, not in school, living off money from my dad or the government, and nothing I've tried so far has been able to get me out of that. I'm not out of ideas yet, but I'm getting so close it scares me. If none of the health stuff I'm pursuing substantially changes what I'm able to do, I don't know what there is for me to try next.

I'm feeling kind of down right now - New Year's is normally significant to me, but I'm spending it alone and I couldn't get my brain together to do any of the rituals I normally would. So this post may be more of a reflection of how I'm feeling right now, than now my 2016 actually was.

Anyway, good riddance 2016. Hi 2017 - I assume you can't possibly be worse, but 2016 has kind of set you up to fail so I hope you can understand that I might be a little wary of you for a while. Anyway, welcome.

being approximately a smush of Fluxx, Mao, and Calvinball.

Supplies

• 1 (or more) deck(s) playing cards
• Notepad
• Writing instrument
• Players more interested in having a good time than munchkining.
• who knows???

Objective

[unknown]

Initial Rules

At the beginning of play, shuffle the cards and deal five to each player. Each player, on their turn, plays one card. If the effect of the card has not yet been declared, the player makes it up; this should be recorded. If the effect of a card has been declared, it is activated. At the end of a player's turn, they draw one card.

A friend and I made this up tonight and these are the rules we ended up with:

( Read more... )

I said Yellow would be about social plans, but I lied. Instead it's about my relationship with holidays.

My dad's side of the family knows how to do Christmas right. My grandma used to mail out big tubs of Pfefferkuchen topped with chocolate and a few sprinkles a couple weeks before the day. Christmas Eve dinner is usually something simple but nice, maybe cheese fondue or roasted duck legs. There's presents to unwrap and actually classy Christmas music playing. They polish the actually-silver-silverware and have a great fancy dinner, ending in a big, boozy trifle.

I don't have any of that this year. It's important for me to remember that that was my choice: the reasons I'm not there are awful and unfair, but I could have gone. It's hard not to be wistful, all the same.

Instead, I'm doing dinner with a couple friends, and I am going all-out, within the allowances of my budget. I have made cookies and acquired a duck and they're bringing the sides and dessert. It still feels strange to be the one hosting. I am confronting the question of what my own traditions are going to be, much earlier than I thought I would need to.

( extensive noodling )

Except the multicolored one, hmmmm...

I'll start writing in order of comments: that puts green first!

While I'm working on that: I have 8 more holiday cards to send, and I would like to send one to you. Yes, you! Comment below with your address, and I will happily send one your way.

Additionally! If you'd like a poem or some other piece of writing from me, leave me a prompt/word! No cap on writing requests. I should be able to get cards out fairly quickly; writing-not-for-cards may happen more slowly.

Holiday cards remaining: 8

The toothsome barnacles
bite into me
singing to my blood the stories
of storms and tides

I over-salt my soup.
My fingers are stained
brown with the
olives I suck
to stay out of dreams.

• I have successfully arrived on Vancouver Island! Flying was excellently uneventful. Cousin the Elder drove me to my grandparents' place; tomorrow I'm being switched over to my aunt and uncle's place, where my sister, Cousin the Elder, and Cousin the Younger will also be. Cousin the Middler, tragically, will not be here until after I've left.
• The power came back on sometime during Wednesday night, and lo, there was water! and the dishes did sparkle, and would not be engulfed in mold. The false prophecy was revealed, and the people didst cleanse themselves in running water, and don their dry, fresh-smelling raiments.
• Newly enwheelchaired grandpa saying "Vroom! vroom!"
• I stumbled upon the PDF of Metaprogramming Ruby and started reading. I understand all the concepts just fine, but I still have no ability to actually write nontrivial working code, so I'm trying RubyMonk again in conjunction with some other reading. I have stuck this in HabitRPG, here's hoping I end up with usable skills this time.¹
• One particular brainweasel is rearing its head. I am actually not particularly good at teaching myself things. (you may be inclined to assert that this is untrue. I am very good at absorbing ambient facts and will seek them by the pound, but I am very rarely successful at developing skills and depth-knowledge on my own.) I often feel like struggling with self-teaching makes me a terrible person, or I must be unmotivated or I'd learn the thing I want to.²
• I think people who are good at self-teaching have had more practice with being taught. I have had nothing taught to me in an organized way since I was 14. I don't know how to continually work on something that challenges me. My frustration tolerance is almost nonexistent. I have rarely been pushed in healthy ways - been pushed to do something I can do that stretches me. I've mostly been pushed off of cliffs - pushed to do things I know I can't do, without help, or else. The latter is not actually that great for developing one's capabilities. Highly successful method for developing panic disorder though!
• I have stayed up entirely too late. Whoops. Now I sleep.

<sub>1. context I forgot: I've tried to learn various programming languages several times with a variety of approaches.
2. Most brainweasels of this ilk manifest as me having extended angry arguments in my head. It's not exactly a thing I believe, but a broken belief that I'm dignifying with way too much brainspace.</sub>

I will be taking a break from the vast majority of the internet for an unspecified amount of time, starting tomorrow morning. Computery things I will let myself do if I want to:

• Talk to Emily
• Write my 750words
• Reply to the two letterlike emails I'm sitting on
• Tick stuff off in HabitRPG
• Listen to That One Song I'm transcribing
• Watch Crest of the Stars with Emily
• Things not on this list that are obviously necessary for and not distracting from the non-internet things I am trying to do.

Computery things I will not be doing:

• Checking email
• Doing anything ambiently or unfocusedly
• Anything not listed

Other stuff I will be trying to do:

• Read at least two books
• Random guitar flailing
• Poking at plants
• Meditating¹
• Hopefully other stuff. Maybe even drawing????

It is much too easy for me to waste oodles of time reading blog posts and wiki articles that I'm not going to remember for long anyway. I also have a bad habit of quashing my own beliefs and intuitions when people tell me to. This is a bad combination. Some memetic isolation will be good for me.

¹I have tried to "meditate" properly many times before, proper posture trying not to think etc. I realize that non-judgment and self-kindness are the entire point, but trying to meditate "properly" gets me very distracted and frustrated because I'm trying too hard at not thinking. What I do instead is sit however I feel like sitting and just... let thoughts happen without letting them take on a life of their own? Kind of just, experiencing the soup my brain brews up when I'm not letting it get new inputs or stuck in feedback loops. Also I constructed an entity that watches my thoughts with me and kindly tells me to stfu and focus on my breath again when I get distracted.