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twilight-resonance · 13 days
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Obstacle Course
This is a post about my brain. That's what you were here for, wasn't it? Well, whether or not it was, that's what I'm here for ultimately, so that's what you get.
Dude, sometimes my brain feels like a fuckin' obstacle course. I was sort-of parsing through how I might describe to someone the way that my brain works - or rather, I was actually parsing through how I might describe how my sleep works, and that's intimately connected with how my brain works. Always has been, always has been.
You see, different parts of my brain are active or "on" at different times of the day. And if I were to utilize the whole spread of those parts of my brain, I would only sleep from 3AM-6AM. This is part of why, you see, I had some terrible sleep problems for years - I was down to about four hours a night and dwindling, probably bottoming out on that 3hr stretch. I had to go to therapy to learn to sleep, and it was a whole thing.
More and more I find that a lot of organizational work has to happen in the morning - anything to do with planning, sequencing, deciding, etc. If I wait too long - usually somewhere in the 12PM-2PM range, but it can kick in as early as 11AM - a lot of the self-conscious, self-watching parts of my brain come online and actively prevent that organizational part of my brain. Or rather, it's there the whole time; but my brain has the right resources it needs to fend those things off earlier in the morning.
Afternoons are good for grinding. If I've already gotten a good headstart on a project in the morning - its sequence and scope laid out, all the problem-solving around any rough edges already done, etc - afternoon is when I have the energy and can just go and go and go. If I haven't already started working, good luck - what takes me 15min in the morning takes me more like 2 hours by afternoon, which seems extreme but is the regrettable state of things up there.
Evenings are good for relaxing. My brain is not good at relaxing, so this is important - a time when it can rest, and relax, and wander and play a bit rather than churn and chug away. It's the breathing room that keeps everything else happy.
Then, come about midnight - particularly once all the lights are out and everyone has gone to bed - two things happen. One is that the reflective, emotional part of my brain comes online. This is the part that is processing my place in the world and is in touch with how I'm feeling and what I'm doing and why; and is when it's closest to the surface for me to gently work with and witness. This is hugely important for my ability to operate the rest of the time - if I don't do this, everything during the day gets clogged up with lots of messy emotions and blocks.
The other part is that there are a lot of inhibitions that drop - the much more focused, planning-oriented part of my brain - goes to sleep; which means that creativity gets free rein. I do my best creative work in the deep night like this, and when I don't get that time, what I come up with for work tends to be a lot more trite and semi-recycled. So that's important too.
...So therein lies the problem. All of these things are important: if I don't get them all, all the other parts suffer. But if I get them all, I get a handful of hours of sleep a night. Like I said, I did this for about seven years - it started at six hours of sleep a night and slowly dwindled from there. I used to hallucinate semi-regularly from the sleep deprivation, in all kinds of fun ways. My favorite was the time that I was driving and suddenly everything flattened out; and instead of becoming closer, things got bigger instead. I was very lucky that I was driving a route I'd driven a million times, because I can't imagine trying to drive under those conditions on a completely unfamiliar road. Got there safe, and it was an interesting experience; but yeah, no thanks.
Like I said, I eventually went - well, got sent - to therapy to fix the problem. There were a few environmental things to help the process along - switching from a white overhead lamp to a yellow side-shaded lamp to mimic sunset, things like that - and the other semi-helpful thing was finding something that was (a) intellectually demanding, and (b) boring. For me, that was math. When it was time for bed, I used to have take a math textbook and a notebook and lay in bed doing math in bed for an hour-plus or however long it took to get sleepy. Can you imagine?
What actually ended up helping were two things. One, melatonin. I'm not a huge fan of drugs for solutions to this kind of problem; but this is one I found actually worked. It didn't take a lot - just a few mg, wait half an hour, and then the magic happened. I would get sleepy. It didn't make me pass out, it didn't make me stupid - but it made me feel like I had a choice. I could choose to go to bed, when my brain wouldn't let me otherwise. It took a few rounds of that to sort-of teach my brain how to wind down and prepare for sleep, and for the most part i haven't needed it since - I just needed those training wheels.
The other thing that helped was having someone I wanted to go cuddle in bed with. That was motivation to actually go to bed when the time came.
I like my sleep nowadays. Sometimes I sleep too much. I'm still ridiculously stupid-functional on no sleep, and probably always will be - that feels like something that was just broken into me over the course of those seven years.
...Of course, I feel like my brain doesn't work nearly as well as it did those years ago. Some of that is the Brain Damage, but some of it is that I don't get access to all those parts of my brain regularly. I'm figuring it out, slowly - figuring out how to wrangle The Obstacle Course and all the ridiculous trappings that come along with it. But that's how it works up there, and that's how sleep is so intrinsically tied to it, and that's why I'm going to have to battle sleep problems for the rest of my life.
Because you see: the reason I didn't want to sleep is because there were Things To Do. Stories and poems to write, things to learn, crafts to work on, planning to do, projects to work on... all of which were infinitely more interesting than sleeping. Why waste that time when you could do things?
(I am haunted by this to this day. I will always be haunted by this. Y'all know where Xitli comes from, right?)
So that's the obstacle course. And that's just one part of it. I've talked before about all the other things I've had to learn how to make my brain work - making sure I'm engaging in enough new processes and information and experiences and other "input", fucking with tiny variations in the lighting and where I'm sitting and what I'm listening to, all kinds of conscious run-downs on bodily needs, picking a particular scent to waft through the room on a given day... It goes on and on and on, and I swear it's nevereneding.
So that's me. Welcome to my brain. Guess what time it is now? You got it! 1AM! Tracks, no?
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twilight-resonance · 1 month
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On Film, TV, and My Favorites
Let's do visual - specifically film - media. Not a super interesting topic, but it's been one I've bouncing around a bit as my aunt (who works in a related industry) has been trying to figure out what I like. It's hard to express, I suspect because it's multi-faceted and complex; but I'll try, and I'll probably give some examples to illustrate.
The first thing, I think, is that I like things that are well-made. Or, as a friend put it, well-crafted. I like shows and movies where it's very clear that each part of the design and the writing and the acting - costuming, sets, music, lighting, camerawork, script, etc - were designed very much with the whole in mind, and designed to support each other to create that collective vision above all else. I like things that have clearly had a lot of design thought put into them. Examples that come to mind are things like The Irishman, Wheel of Time, and Reservation Dogs - and, for older movies, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson's make) especially.. That much I tried to express to my aunt; based on what she's shown me since, I think I have to correct that as being distinct from looking nice. Crisp camerawork and aesthetics and everything is... nice, I suppose, but ultimately superficial. I want something with depth and thoroughness, not something that glistens.
There's a secondary, related thought, which is... authenticity or spirit. The other niggling little thing in a lot of the "well done" things I come across is that they're polished and perfected to the point of, well, joylessness. Sure, they're "well-done" - but meant to appeal to a broad audience, and lose a lot of depth and direction in doing so; and they're so technically perfect in form and pacing that it ceases to feel lived-in in a way that's unappealing. Wednesday is a good example of this, as is The Diplomat. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs almost had this problem, but managed to avoid it - it has the technical perfection that starts to feel like sliding off of things, but it makes up for it when it comes to "what it's actually about" - which I think is the more important piece to me of the two.
Obviously, I also like very heady intellectual pieces that are making a point or have deeper underlying themes - I'm not as much a fan of light fluff or even light crunch. I'll watch it, but I really like things that make me think or that stir my imagination in some way. As above, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Reservation Dogs, The Good Place, and The Irishman fall into this category; as do The Grand Budapest Hotel, The West Wing, and Babylon 5 (for some slightly older examples). That tends to lean me against comedy and romance both as genres, although Death of Stalin I thought was excellent as an exception to that.
Sidenote, I don't like documentaries. I've found that most documentaries are basically one person's opinion and narrative that they're presenting, not an accurate accounting of a given situation or story. I grew tired of them very quickly once I realized that. There are occasional exceptions - all the Planet Earth works are lauded for a reason - but for the most part, I find documentaries to be pseudo-intellectual rather than actually informative.
So I suppose that brings us to genre. Fantasy is of course my greatest love, when it's done well; but it's not a popular genre - not high fantasy, anyway - and when it's done, it's often not done a very good job on, mostly because I think it gets seen as a kids' genre more often than not. Sci-Fi is... okay as a substitute for that, although I'm not as much into tech. What I really like is stories that transport you into another world, and that do so as much by showing as they do by telling - that have lots of tiny sensory details that really build the scale and lived-in-ness of that space and world. Babylon 5 and Lord of the Rings are both places where this shines in a more fantastical way; but so do The West Wing and Reservation Dogs, which are both decidedly more grounded in earth and in current events.
So that all covers function. Form is also important to me, especially as someone who does a lot of story-writing professionally and has a sense of how these things work in all their guts and parts. You'll notice that a lot of the examples above are generally from the last ten years; those are very much the exceptions to the rule. Most of what I like tends to be from a fairly specific period in film and TV history, for reasons as follows:
Firstly: when it comes to specifically TV, I tend to prefer shows from times where seasons came in batches of 20+ episodes. This has to do with the lived-in aspect of things: rather than having to focus hard-core on cramming as much story into what's being shown as efficiently as you can, there's room for the story - and the characters, and the worlds they inhabit - to breathe, and I find that that breathing room benefits them. Specifically, I find that it allows the actors and writers and others more room to play - with concepts, premises, "what-ifs", and silly ideas they had - and in doing so, infuses the end product with a great deal more love and care and also a greater depth of understanding going on from the creation end. Play is how you learn what works and what doesn't, and I would much rather have a handful of bizarre flop episodes that we pretend don't exist than the sort of soulless perfection that comes from pieces that have been workshopped and streamlined to death.
Secondly: again, when it comes to TV, I tend to prefer pieces from that narrow window of time in the late 80s-early 2000s when shows were undergoing a transition from monster-of-the-week style episodes - wherein nothing about the premise could change permanently from week to week, and the story would have to reset to baseline after every episode so that people who missed episodes didn't get lost - and serial shows, wherein there's a strong throughline of story and sequence. I like the narrative structure, and I particularly like the narrative structure over long periods of time; but once again, with room to play and really flesh out not only the world but all the details of the narrative and bring it more to life. All of my favorite shows - Deep Space 9, Babylon 5, The West Wing - are from this era.
Thirdly - and this one applies to both film and TV - I also tend to prefer pieces from a particular time of transition between eras of film technology and acting methods. As acting goes, for most of film history, acting techniques have largely been borrowed from stage; because that was the available art to draw from, and where actors' experience lay. The earliest pieces are far too stage, to the point where they don't suit the medium; but as time went on and people tried various techniques, there was a very blended style that emerged that I enjoy. Again, I feel like the 80s and 90s were the sweet spot on this one, but that's personal preference. From a technology standpoint, camerawork was much more limited by existing technology until - I think - the mid-2000s; this includes things like color and clarity, things like the ability for the camera itself to take moving shots through a scene and remain stable, etc. Because of technology limitations - and, again, where existed to pull techniques from - a lot of film also ended up imitating theater in terms of set design, scene blocking, and so on. I enjoy the period of time, once again, in transition; wherein film and TV had solidly established how to make that sort of stage element work best on film, and were starting to push the boundaries of what they could do. TV remained so for longer than film, in large part due to the way that sets need to be kept around for repeating locations in TV; but I liked that.
I probably don't need to say that I don't appreciate the heavy use of greenscreen and CGI as a substitute for going to physical filming locations and using makeup and other practical effects; but that's neither here nor there, and that's not an unpopular opinion. CGI should be used to supplement and deepen - not wholly replace.
So, what are my favorites?
Star Trek: Deep Space 9 If I had to pick a favorite TV show, this would be it. The characters feel very real and lifelike in the ways that they grow and change, and the universe much more grounded and less utopian than most of Star Trek; and I love the complexities with which they explore things like religion in ways that are traditionally sort of frowned-up in a Sci-Fi setting (as well as they way they handle culture with nuance, which is more what Sci-Fi is classically for). The story is well-written with actual stakes, and with its high and low moments both feeling earned within the context of the whole thing. I'm not a huge fan of its last season and its ending, I suppose, but everything up til there is golden. I would say... that most of Star Trek idealism is easy and meant to be portrayed as such; but Deep Space 9 is about holding onto your ideals even when it's hard, and that is meaningful to me.
Babylon 5 Babylon 5 has many of the same traits as Deep Space 9 (and, to be fair, at the time there was a lot of drama on that count between the two shows). It's a very different, much less idealized setting than DS9; but with just as much depth and character. This one also has excellent character growth and narrative design - knowing how this one was written with all its "escape-hatches", I'm always eternally impressed. This one also has hope and light in darkness as one of its through-threads, and of course that's my big theme that I always gravitate back towards. It's definitely a bit dated, especially as special effects go; but I love it nonetheless just for how good the writing and the theming is.
The West Wing As stated above, I love this one for how it simulates the environment of executive branch politics; obviously it's still a fantasy, but as an avid watcher of C-SPAN (yes, I know) I feel like it does a much more grounded, nuanced, interesting job of it than anything else out there. I also enjoy that it has a strong education orientation - explaining to audiences how certain parts of government work, and what needs to happen in order for certain decisions to get made, and what parts of the constitution are etc - and does so in a way that's thoughtful and not condescending. I never connected with the characters quite as much in this one - though I did enjoy both Jed and Leo - and it doesn't have quite the same kind of narrative storyline as the ones above; but it was also well-written and well-researched, and I enjoyed it a lot.
Outer Range This is the only recent piece that makes it onto my list. In truth, it's not a particularly remarkable show - well-done, but not remarkable - but I had to put this one on here because it resonates so heavily with me. Despite being set in, like, modern-day rural Wyoming, it is I think the most Fal shit I have ever watched. Someone was operating on the same brainwaves as me when they wrote this, and I'm sure as hell not going to turn that down. ...Whoever wrote this also has a background in Classics, I think, particularly Greek mythology and theater. There's the obvious references, of course - but there's so many subtle nods to ancient greek stories, and much structural stuff about the narrative that's pulled from the structure of Greek theater and myth, that it cannot be in any way a coincidence. I do also enjoy that intersecting of reality and myth, which... Well... shows up in the first two heavily as well, and is probably one of my other big themes.
Priscilla: Queen of the Desert This one is definitely the odd child out. I didn't mention it above, but I do also like character dramas with a lot of nuance and depth; and this one does it for me on that count (so does The Big Chill). When it comes to that type of story, the theme that I tend to gravitate towards is outcasts and people who do not fit for one reason or another; and oh man, is this ever that. I also like the queer element, of course; and it strikes me as made with a lot of love, and a lot of honesty; and that honesty being its own kind of love.
Lord of the Rings If I had to pick favorite movies, this trilogy would be it. The craftsmanship on these movies was insane; and it was clearly made with so much love and care for what Lord of the Rings was actually about and what it meant, from every single person and department involved. It is tender and heartfelt in a way that is almost taboo in stories right now; and also so very much along that light in the darkness theme that I'm perpetually on. They picked great actors for every role, they did an amazing job on the sets and special effects and filming techniques, and while of course the adaptation leaves something to be desired, all adaptations do.
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So those are my takes, and my favorites. All that said, I think I'll take this and copy it over to its own post and then put that post in the queue; and try again with something a little less pop-culture oriented, because that's a bit more where I'm at spiritually at the moment.
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twilight-resonance · 1 month
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Seeds of Spring
Got some time tonight, and I figured it would be worth doing some writing. Not for anything particular, mind you - just for its own sake.
I've been doing better. The promises of the last post - and that final piece of myself pulled back into place, and that haunt solved - have continued to yield dividends. For the first time in almost ten years, I can write again - and have, just for fun and just for kicks. As planning and projects go, I feel stronger; I've been catching up on things and working on bigger projects than I have in a long time. Tonight, even, I finished writing up profiles of all the known regions in the game world - something that would have been largely unthinkable the last near-decade. It feels marvelous. It's nice to feel like myself again, at least in this way (but with it, many others, too).
But nevertheless, that's not what I'm here to write about. Not that I'm here to write about anything in particular, mind you - I'm just here to write whatever comes to mind. For instance: we're going camping over the next few days. Out in the woods, of course, several hours away; and it'll likely be very rainy, and I'm hoping our tent doesn't soak through like it did last time we did rainy camping; but camping at all, which I've been sorely missing. I had the week off and Hearthsnail was able to take a few days off; and we're going to meet my uncle up there too, and that'll be nice. Frankly, even if it ends in a huge wet mess, I'll just be happy to have gone and tried it. I feel like I haven't had enough of those experiences in my life for a long while - Hearthsnail is generally very risk-averse, and it means we don't try things as often as I'm generally motivated to. But even bad camping trips make for good stories and lessons learned and wellsprings of inspiration, and by the gods, I need more of that in my life.
So that's where we're at with that. Figure we'll do the meal prep and packing tomorrow. It should be nice, one way or another.
As for other things... I've been enjoying the rain, as I often do. We had a power outage from the last storm a couple weeks ago - that was nice. I honestly enjoy the sort of quieter, slower pace of the day that comes with a power outage. We spent some time playing board games, and reading, and spending time together in ways that tend not to happen when there are computers around to be distracting; and we rediscovered candles on rainy days, and burned through 'em all (we only had a few left) and ought to get more. The downsides are of course (1) cooking and hot meals, and (2) worry about a fridgefull of food spoiling, but we ended up doing takeout for a few meals and the fridge appeared to come out of things mostly fine. So, all in all, not bad.
Winding myself down before bed right now. Listening to and half-watching more massage videos, as I've been wont to do recently... On the one hand it's vaguely embarrassing, and on the other don't knock it if it works. They consistently calm me down and make me sleepy, which is a godsend with my brain working as-normal again (which is to say, in overdrive, permanently) (did I tell you the part where I originally went to therapy for sleep problems? because I couldn't turn my brain off enough to go to sleep?). It's also done a lot to help with nervous system regulation during the day, which is nice in and of itself.
Aie aie aie. Thoughts on that for another time. Mostly about a friend, and all the complexities therein and in between. Nonetheless, there are thoughts.
Hmm. What else to write about? I suppose it doesn't matter - I ought to be going to bed soon anyway. Slept like absolute crap last night, hoping I don't do so again. I ought to pick some individual topics to write about soon - for the practice, if nothing else.
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twilight-resonance · 2 months
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Another Night (Olive Branch)
I know you've had one of those days when a song lodges itself inside your consciousness and you can't help but listen to it over, and over and over and over... On loop for hours. Today is one of those days. We're on hour... well, I listened to it on my whole drive, so that's about two and a half hours so far plus we've just started up again now.
My gods, it itches. Sometimes those songs feel like they're scratching an itch, and there's a feeling of relief. This one is almost there, but it never quite satisfies; and it's the kind of itch that, maddeningly, is both relieved by and irritated by the act of scratching it. But good gods, I can't stop.
This is the song. I can't explain why. I could explain why... but. But.
(In my version, the words in the first chorus are "Another night without you // Wishing you were dead"...)
See, here's the thing: I need to make that olive branch. It's time. It's driving me insane. I feel like a salmon called to the headwaters, or a whale when it's time to migrate. It's like there's a magnet in my brain and I need to make that olive branch.
It's rewiring my brain, I think. Is the thing. I think that's why this time is different. Why it's so itchy. There are some connections that sparked and some pieces that settled into place during my drive earlier, and I feel stronger now. There are some pathways that this song is knitting together that have been slowly creeping around the thicket separating them between, and they've finally found the other side.
Nyiss was probably my favorite innkeeper, and will be dear to my heart forever. But Xitli is important. Both for much the same reasons, if along different parts of the path.
(Xitli was the pathway in. Made a playlist for her, just for this song. Her working through those feelings through me working through her, or some such thing.)
My gods, but that chorus though.
Another night I had you, living in my head And I'm trying to work it out
Another night without you, wishing you were dead there... And I-I... I'm going down
You remember that part where I said that pop music has always been the clearest depiction of deep emotional turmoil, to me? Well this ain't pop music, but it's got the same thing. That chorus is so upbeat-energetic, and the words are just. A lance through me. Particularly juxtaposed against the music. I think I found a way to express why, the other way. It was (as all such things are), a post going around about grief; how one of the great tragedies of grief is the mundanity of it. You still have to go to the store and run errands and eat and sleep, despite the fact that your whole world has just been turned upside-down and you're a shell of who you were literally yesterday. It's that. That's it. The immense contrast of your world being obliterated and the mundanity of the rest of the world continuing on with its own, and that being the greatest blow of all. That's why pop music. Upbeat music. That's why it most clearly depicts suffering, to me.
Another night I had you, living in my head And I'm trying to work it out
(Do you remember when I would stalk around the house, twelve hours a day for most of a year, like a haunt that couldn't solve itself? Do you remember how many arguments we've had; how many ugly words we've slung; do you remember all the dreams you've visited me in, even years later and apart? Do you remember the way I've lived with you in my shadow, and mine in yours, for years now - how often I've had to think of you, whether i wanted to or not, because necessity dictated it?)
Another night without you, wishing you were dead there... And I-I... I'm going down
(Do you remember how much I've hated you, and how much I loved you? How each threatened to eclipse the other, and I was overfull to bursting? How many nights I wished you'd been there to talk to, for one reason or another; and how many nights I wished I could tear you apart with my teeth like a ragdoll? Do you remember how much these things have weighed-on-me-all, and dragged-me-down-drowning?)
That's the thing though. It's agony, it's absolute agony, but it's fun too. I'm not mastered by it anymore - I'm stronger, and I can feel it this time. I've solved the haunt. Yeah, another night I've had you living in my head - because how could you not? (What the hell you put me through) I am what I am because of you, and for the first time in a near-decade, that's okay again.
So you see, that's why I have to make the olive branch. It's time. It's beyond time. I can't do this anymore. It's going to drive me mad.
(As if I weren't already.)
(I'm going to go write now. For the first time in a near-decade. For the first time in a near-decade, I'm going to go write.)
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twilight-resonance · 3 months
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Hello Sleepless My Old Friend
I’ve come to talk to you again…
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a sleepless night like this. Plenty of nights where I couldn’t sleep, mind you, but a long time since one like this. Like the old days of yore, when my sleep deprivation ran wild and I was steadily retreating back to four hours a night; because I couldn’t turn my brain off and wanted to simply continue indefinitely on any of a half dozen projects, activities, and other interests rather than sleep. Which was boring. The good old days of periodic hallucinations and perpetually feeling as if I were going to float out of my body…
For real, though. It’s been a long time, and that’s for the best. A mentor ended up having to send me to therapy to get it fixed, and that along with some light experimentation with melatonin eventually got me there. There’s a whole cluster of permanent impacts from it that linger still, but the sleep itself is functional now. More so than I’d like sometimes…
in any case, my plan is to write until my brain winds down enough to sleep. My sense is that journaling will help shift me into a more right-brained space, which will in turn make winding down to sleep easier. Or would, anyway, if my body weren’t now complaining that it’s hungry and thirsty…. Seems like it’s working some so far, for what it’s worth.
Have a sense that this unexpected sleepless visitor may be due to some homework I was working on the other day. Well, that and the time zone readjustment, but following the flow and form of the feeling I suspect more the former. Was working on writing out a contract, as advised; theoretically a statement of contract you’ve made with yourself, so as to reveal what feelings and actions you’ve subconsciously tied together, but I found the base exercise unhelpful and generally too lacking in nuance and specificity. So I went about - very angrily, I might add - writing up a full contract, and as promised the process helped illuminate the nature of certain mental blocks I’ve been struggling with for years now. Including the underlying energy that is the source of the sleeplessness. That it’s come back in a way seems like a good sign, even if it’s inconvenient just now.
I’m going to set this down and try to sleep again; if it doesn’t work, I’ll come back and keep trying.
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twilight-resonance · 3 months
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youtube
Something I found and enjoyed and want to save. Twas neat.
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twilight-resonance · 3 months
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Wishlists
I had a thought earlier, whilst working to come up with winter gifts for people, about wishlists. Maybe it's just the way that I approach coming up with gifts, but I thought of a way to do wishlists that I wish I could explain succinctly to all the various people in my life and have them just do that. It goes thusly:
So the idea with a normal wishlist is that you have a list of a bunch of the various things you would like to get someday, and people can pick off the list to find something to get you. It guarantees they'll get you something you like, they get all kinds of ideas they'd never have thought of on their own but still get to pick what, etc etc.
What I'd rather are, like, wish lists. Things you wish about everyday life - like "I wish I wasn't so cold and sleepy all the time" or "I wish I could go camping every month", or whatever - and that's what the wish list was. So that people could look at the things you wish and come up with ideas that you'd never have known about or thought of yourself, they get ideas for things they'd never thought of for you, you get something that's helpful or useful or fun, and they still get the creative touch of coming up with something. It just sounds like more fun all around for everyone.
I want to test out the theory, so I'm going to try generating that style of wishlist for myself and see if it's actually a workable list. Also just for fun. Also just to practice the having opinions thing. So:
I wish I could be surrounded by amazing smells at all times
I wish I could go to a spa on a regular basis
I wish I knew how to do makeup
I wish our place had more decorations and also was full of things we'd crafted in some way
I wish it rained heavily way more often than it does
I wish we could go camping for longer periods of time more often
I wish I could get in the proper headspace to even attempt writing more often
I wish I had creative projects besides LARP and D&D to work on regularly
There's a ton more I could think of, but that's not half-bad at all. I think I like that a lot better. Now to figure out how to convey that to people and convince them to do that too...
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twilight-resonance · 3 months
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Nervous System
Somewhat unusually for me these days, the urge to write just sort of befell me and I have many topics floating around. I already wrote one post and queued it (also highly unusual), and so far as the rest of them, I think I'm going to just sort of write and ramble and see what comes out and look for the patterns in the flow of it. Like I used to, a long time ago.
Nervous system is one of those topics that come to mind. In a physical health sense, in a mental health sense, etc. Physically... well, I suppose I've been working to try to manage it in both senses, actually. Not that the two are wholly unrelated either. They're connected intrinsically.
I started taking magnesium supplements at suggestion of my doctor, and as far as I can tell they've gone a huge way towards improving my migraines. Makes sense - nerves firing (and thus all the unhappiness that has to do with migraines) has to do with an action of the sodium-potassium pump, and magnesium helps regulate that. They're not gone completely, but they're far less frequent and severe on the whole. Working on my posture is part of that too; correcting my posture has meant not putting certain kinds of strain on muscles in my back and hips and shoulders that were in turn pulling on things and also ultimately contributing to migraines. Standing more correctly also just feels better, in a way that will make some more sense shortly.
The mental aspect of it is a whole other thing. My therapist has been talking about working on my something called Default Mode Network, which is hypothetically brain stuff but when we're talking about it I can feel it through my whole body. I've also been doing a lot of looking into overexcitabilities and learning about my own and how they interface with my nervous system. The same goes for anxiety and a variety of less-than-functional habits I've developed through time. The point is, I can feel all of these in my nervous system, and I've been learning how to regulate them.
Massage videos is a sort-of silly example. I had a couple stressful emails arrive earlier, and my first thought-impulse was to sit down with a massage video going in the background and hammering the emails out. I also use them to regulate my willingness to go to bed - they help relax and down-key me enough to be willing to sleep. Why can be argued, but the physical impacts are quite clear. My breathing slows down, my heartbeat slows down, and I can... I don't know how to describe it. It's like I have eyes all over my body that are open and watching all the time, and in watching a massage video those eyes sort of close back up and go to sleep. That's nerves. That's got to be nerves. Those parts of me tend to be on high alert at all times, and while that's not quite either of those things that I listed - default mode network or overexcitabilities - it nevertheless feels interrelated.
(Please pardon me; I am tired, and may not make wholly coherent sense as I'm writing this.)
Anyway, it came to me tonight that the above was my given response to stressful emails because it helps me manage my nervous system being keyed up and on high alert; and in managing it, makes it easier for me to deal with the source of the stress. That wasn't consciously what I was intending to do, but I think that's the ultimate end result that I'm seeking. There are a lot of other things, too.
Smell is one that I've been using conscious to manage and regulate those same parts of me that are always prickling at high alert and over-active. Wearing perfumes, burning incense, going somewhere with a distinctly different smell, etc. That one's overexcitabilities, in that sensory was one of the high ones for me (okay, they were all high. Intellectual was actually the highest - I think I ended up with the highest "score" she'd ever seen for that one - and sensory was second highest, but almost all of them ranged from the 75th-100th percentile). Smell is a big part of sensory for me, as is touch; so I've been trying to use those thoughtfully to manage those parts of my system. Physical also, as far as overexcitabilities go: small exercises, stretching, doing things that ground me in my body a little and get the blood flowing (and in doing so, more often than not key me down). Et cetera et cetera.
(Intellectual I'm working on, since it's clearly the highest-need one. That one's harder, though, for... reasons. But it's a work in progress.)
Interlinked with all that is the concept of aliveness, which my therapist has also been having me work on. What she started having me do was keeping a sort of aliveness log; which I took and spun into my old style of logs and tracking and bullet journaling that I started over COVID and abandoned a year or so ago. It was easy enough to adapt that to aliveness (I just used the same schema as for moods), and to come up with some additional elements to track to see if they correlate at all (like mood, sleep, all those basic physical things). I figured that in tracking it for a month, I'd come up with other kinds of note-taking I'd like to be doing to help track that; and indeed I have, though I'll wait til next month to start them. The first I knew I'd need but wasn't sure how to format - simple listing of notes on the aliveness. Qualities and contributing factors to its presence or lack, etc. I think I would also like to track kinds of stimulation I'm receiving on a given day to see if that correlates at all. But the aliveness is correlated in some way to the nervous system-ness, I'm almost sure of it.
Anyway, those don't really go anywhere, they're just musing for now. Listings.
(Then I went and passed out listening to the given video.... So I think that tells me we're done for now.)
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twilight-resonance · 4 months
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Hair
Considering writing a sort of narrative how-things-are-going reflective post, and paying the toll by writing on a random noun topic again. This one's easy, though, 'cause I had this topic queued up after last time - it's hair!
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If you knew me in meatspace, you would know why this makes sense as a topic for me to ramble about. You see, my hair is very long - just about down to my knees. I have cut it twice ever in my life - more to say on that in a bit - and, while this is the longest it's ever been, it's been comparable lengths for most of my time on this planet.
It's a lot to take care of. I'm generally fairly low-maintenance on my appearance, and despite that it takes a lot of time. Brushing it, especially when it's wet, takes forever; and you can forget about showers under 20min long if I'm washing it (which needs to happen fairly frequently). It passed the point a couple years back when I can no longer have it unbound while going about my daily life - if I'm working, or doing anything moderately physical, it has to be tied back or it will get in the way and be a huge matted mess when I get home. It's long enough that I accidentally stand on it sometimes if I crouch down to do something, it's ridiculously heavy - you don't realize how heavy it is until you actually pick it all up and feel all the weight that's been lifted from my neck - and the hair spiders that it generates are unlike any others I've seen. It takes four to six hours to dry in the winter, it gets caught on everything, and when we're at home it's sometimes like managing a third person when we're trying to sit at the couch or cook or craft or go to sleep or anything else like that.
And - despite all of that - I love it. I love the idea of short hair too - like I said, I've cut it twice - but the long hair feels like me in a way that is hard to give up.
The two times that I cut it were decades apart. The first time was when I was seven years old or so, and I don't remember why I wanted to; but I did, and I was happy with it. I cut it to shoulder length, and then let it grow.
The second time was a much bigger thing. I was seventeen, and about to go on a study abroad class that was going to make taking care of it hard; the plan was to get it braided in cornrows, and my mom's condition for doing so was chopping off all the scraggly ends that she hated (more on that in a bit). I agreed, but the barber cut off way more than I wanted and I was devastated; so I went and cut the rest off myself, into a very short pixie cut. There was a lot more bound up in that haircut: a lot of pieces about identity, agency, and a deeper kind of pain. Not unlike, in a lot of ways, my own moment akin to that scene in the animated Mulan movie (of all things). I trimmed it in the front and let it grow long into a mullet in the back for a while, then eventually let the rest of it grow once the mismatch between the two became too much. It was cute - I look cute in a mullet.
That was the last time that I cut it. It's been more than a decade since then. Both times, my hair used to cap out around my waist; but sometime during the COVID years, something - I still don't know what - changed, and my hair started growing again and has kept growing since. I don't know when it's going to cap out - as far as I can tell, it's still growing - but I'm curious how long it will get.
It does have uneven ends. I know that you're supposed to trim the ends in order to preserve their health and keep them from splitting, and I know that it looks tidier to have it trimmed; and I've pondered it quite a bit, and I just can't. I don't know how to describe it - the way that it feels wrong. The closest thing I can compare it to feels like too much - the way that in some religions, you don't cut your hair because your body is a gift from that higher power and to do so would be to desecrate that gift. I don't have that same belief, in that kind of higher power and thus the necessity of adherence to such things - but even so. It feels weirdly violating, the idea of even trimming it. I like the natural shape of it regardless - a straight, even set of ends feels deeply wrong too.
The same goes for dying it. I've though about dying my hair all sorts of colors; but at the end of the day, my hair is dark enough that I would have to bleach it to get any color but black, and that too feels wrong. Even dying it black doesn't feel right, these days - it might be brown, but it's a dark brown with lovely highlights of red and gold, and at the end of the day it's mine. In a lot of ways, I'm looking forward to going grey someday too - I suspect I'm going to be one of those people whose hair stays dark for a long time, then goes grey all at once, and that will be neat when it happens.
(I did recently dye it with red henna - only because it wouldn't require bleaching it, and with the hope that it would mostly just bring out the reds that are already there rather than changing the color completely. That's more or less the effect that I got, and I've been happy with that too.)
There was one other change I've made to it - I had bangs for most of my life. I used to keep them long, too, often in my eyes; and just like the back of my hair, I hated having those cut too straight as well. I phased them out during my college years, mostly because I got tired of having to trim them regularly; I wasn't sure about it at the time, but I'm happy with it now.
I don't generally style it. Like I said, I'm fairly low-maintenance about my appearance in general. Almost all I ever do is braid it back when I want it out of my way or before bed - a simple single braid, nothing special or fancy (it still takes forever to do, even being simple). It feels like I spent at least half the time with my hair braided these days, between work and sleep and the occasionally other occasion with need. Having it down has started to feel special.
I do also like the waves that come with my hair when I unbraid it. If there were a single thing I were to change about my hair - or likely my appearance in general - I would want a very slight wave in my hair rather than the stick-straight that it is. Both of my parents have wavy-to-curly hair, I just didn't get it. It does hold a wave very well, though - I don't generally need mousse or any other sort of product, it just holds it on its own if it's been braided for a few hours.
There is an additional, quieter significance in the braid that I don't need to go into right now. In short, I used to wear my hair that way for a particular character in LARP; and whenever I wear it, it feels like a quiet touching in on that place where she still is somewhere. It's been reassuring, the last few months.
I don't know when I'll cut it again. A long time from now, I don't doubt - but I don't doubt that I'll cut it again at some point. Very likely, shorter once again than I've ever had it; I've contemplated going bald before - like with the mullet, it's a "hair" style I think I would probably actually be very cute in; and I could also see going for a buzz cut of some kind. Something queer-looking, probably. I think the hair is part of why a lot of people, even queer people, assume I'm straight; and also part of why a lot of people tend to assume I'm very young, which has started to become an actual meaningful problem in my professional life. Even so - I can't stand the idea of cutting it. Even despite that.
So that's up with me and hair, I suppose. Or part of it, anyway. This one signed off by (dedicated to?), the hair spiders that skitter across the bathroom floor and look like actual spiders running for cover, which regularly scare the crap out of Hearthsnail and I. Goodnight, dear hair spiders, and to whomever has sat through this whole journal entry.
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twilight-resonance · 4 months
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Temperature
I keep trying to get some work done and keep being sidetracked but this and that - and have come around to the conclusion that it's because I need to take some time to think my own thoughts and express myself first, and once that's tended to I'll probably be able to work and think more clearly. ...I am also realizing in this moment that I have gotten out of the habit of journaling that I was trying to hard to maintain this year, so whoops to that. That might explain some things.
Let's see. Brief rambling updates, and then I'll pick something to talk about. Had a doctor's appointment this week, and am finally making some headway (we hope) on my eyeballs and my migraines and the other assorted nerve problems. We're in the "trying things and seeing what works" stage right now, but it's still a step forward. The last few days have been cloudy - it promised rain and it hasn't, but the cloudy has still been nice. I know that we're supposed to have a fairly strong El Niño year this year, and around here that generally means rain... but I can't shake this feeling that it's going to be another anomalously dry year. We'll see. We'll see how it pans out.
So that's that. Let's pick something and ramble!
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Wow. The fact that it took me this long to come up with something means that this is, once again and always, a really good exercise for where I'm at right now. I actually got up to do some repair work on some props that have been needing it for months because apparently that was easier for my brain than doing this. Big topics keep coming to me, but they're too big for what I actually need right now - something small, and everyday, and concrete.
Temperature. Let's go with temperature. It's the time of year when the seasons are changing, and that often means a shift in how I behave and what my rhythm is according with the temperature. Let's talk about that.
I've grown up in a climate that is incredibly forgiving. The worst we get as far as winter weather goes is heavy-ish rain; summer can get relatively hot, but it's a dry heat - no humidity to speak of. There are no other big weather phenomena - no hurricanes, tornadoes, etc - worst we ever get is drought, which is going to become more and more of a problem as climate change does its thing, but the point is that I'm undoubtedly a weenie as far as inclement weather and temperature goes. I used to dress in shorts and sandles during the winter; and my heat tolerance is fairly good because for the second half of my childhood, I had I'm fairly certain the warmest room in the house. It would routinely be over 100F in my room, so I got used to it.
To this day, I'm still fairly resilient as far as heat goes. I don't wilt as fast as most of the people I know do, and even though it bothers me I can generally shrug it off. It can be 110F and I'm still chugging. On the flip side, I'm definitely more vulnerable to cold - doesn't help that I'm small, so there's not a lot of conservation of body heat going on. 50F generally does me in, especially if there's any kind of wind at all - it feels like it blows right through to my bones and starts sapping away at me.
Makes it a challenge in the winter where we're at. Our place generally stays nice and cool in the summer, but it's frigid in the winter. We do technically have a heater, but I'm unreasonably scared of it so we don't use it. We do have a small space heater that helps sometimes; but mostly I use the old fashioned method of staying warm as it cools down. Socks are the big one - big, thick hiking socks. Sometimes I'll wrap up in a cloak or a blanket - something with a hood especially - or warm up a beanbag and sit with that on my lap for the day. Warm drinks are nice but only work so well - they don't stay warm for very long, 'cause the heat of the house just saps them away.
Cold makes me sleepy. Hearthsnail's the opposite - if he's too warm, he gets drowsy and dozy. For me, it wakes me up. I'll often be sluggish and slow and can't think clearly, and then I remember to put on socks and perk right back up. Or if we're in the car and I'm driving, turn the heat back up a couple notches and that does the trick. He teases me about being a lizard, and I suppose so.
Temperature tolerance adjusts, though. It's funny, when I go to visit family in colder climates or go camping in the winter; we'll be wandering around in 30F weather with, like, boots and a light jacket and be fine; whereas if we were home, we'd be freezing. I remember a year we came back from visiting family somewhere colder, and when we came back home at the airport it was 50F and raining; and we just sort of took our jackets off and stood in the rain because it was warm, as far as we were concerned. We readjusted, of course, but that was a neat moment.
That's long-term temperature adjustment. There's also a trick I learned as a child that... I don't know how to describe it, exactly. You adjust your breathing, and you suppress the shivering, and you adjust your focus and after a few moments I can flood myself with warm. It always feels vaguely dangerous - like it would be bad for me to sustain for too long, or like if I messed it up there's be some other physical backlash - but it's a nice tool for warming myself back up to get going. I'm not sure what I'm doing exactly, or how, but it's worked for me consistently.
Then there's comfort. I tend to resist switching to long-sleeved shirts as long as I can, because my shoulders are broad and don't really fit in shirts comfortably - I prefer tank tops to avoid that problem. These days when I dress for winter LARP it's usually long underwear, pants, two layers of socks, boots, an undershirt and overshirt and coat; and if it's particularly cold out or we'll be out particularly late, bring along a hat and gloves. Summer dressing is less about dressing and more about water - I learned a trick watching nature shows where you put water on the insides of your forearms and let it evaporate (this is from kangaroos) to cool off quicker.
Oh my gods, and my hair. Even during the summer, it takes two hours to dry. In the winter, it can be six hours plus. I finally got a hair dryer this year because I was tired of being wet and cold all the time, and so far it's been helpful.
And - I know that I've been using Farenheight this whole time, but I actually use Celsius most often these days. At some point, Hearthsnail and I resolved to learn it by switching our weather apps to C, and it's worked great. As far as most comfortable temperature goes, I think it tends to be around 20C-23C for me, indoors or outdoors (though indoors slightly warmer). I have no idea what that translates to in F anymore, so there you have it.
Coldest it usually gets - daytime temp in the middle of winter - is ~5C. Warmest during the height of summer is often 36F, although we had a day a couple years ago where it hit 52C one day and the roads were melting. That was an eerie day - just how quiet everything was.
I do like it where we are. I do worry we're going to have to move someday, though, as climate changes takes hold. It's not temperature, but like I said, drought is a big problem here already and only going to get worse. When we're looking at buying a house part of me wonders - do we bother buying a house down here? How soon should we move north? You want to go before everyone else does; but how long do you stay? Especially knowing that we like it where we are, and wouldn't be moving by choice per se. It's something we'll have to spend time thinking about.
Welp, that's my two cents on temperature. Now, to work!
(I hope.)
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twilight-resonance · 5 months
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All Right
All right, all right, I'll write some. The little voice in my gut said so. I'm not sure what, mind you, but here we are.
Last month or so's been rough. The self-doubt is truly crippling. It's hard when no matter how well or poorly you do, you'll hate yourself no matter what; particularly so when that in turn blinds you to being able to assess whether you've done well or not. Among other longstanding and pervasive problems. My breaking-down point this time was more about how the problems recurse - it feels like I have the same fights over, and over, and over again, and I'm so tired from it and wish I could just have new challenges. Not the same ones I've resolved before. What's the point in resolving them if they're just going to come back?
But that's neither here nor there. I suppose I ought to write about how other things have been. We've had more days off together than we've had in a while - between school holidays, taking days here and there, and most recently an actual open weekend. It's been nice. I think we miss each other a lot most of the time. We went on a hike - first one in a while - and that we nice; we got a lot further up the trail (well, the mountain) than we ever have in the past, and it was neat watching the natural space shift with elevation. There were other days as well; mostly recently we've been playing For the King II together, and that's been fun. The first chapter we did with BIL, and that was a lot of fun and a nice chance to just hang out and bullshit around a bit. We've been playing it intermittently in the evenings with just the two of us otherwise.
I asked Hearthsnail to take on planning and making dinner a couple times a week (the days I'm not home), and that's been really nice. It's nice to come home to food of course; but it's also really really nice not to have to plan everything; and it's also nice in that it keeps me honest on my days about planning and cooking proper meals; and it's nice in that we've been eating a lot more actual meals rather than just odds and ends than we had been for the first half of the school-year-to-date. Mostly it's just surprising how much a relief it is, all in all. I feel like it gives me space to be tender in other ways - making him coffee when he gets home on days I'm there, or other little things like that. So that's been good for us both as well in other ways.
Gods, what else. It's hard to think in fits and spurts - I'm sort-of multitasking right now. Prolly oughta go to bed soon anyway. Oh - that was another. Pumpkin patch and corn maze. We still have not managed to actually carve the pumpkins yet, a week past Halloween; and we ought to at some point, if only so that we can roast the seeds but also because it would be fun. Just barely got out with our pumpkins before the patch closed because we got lost in the corn maze and brazenly decided not to take a map with us. That was a lot of fun, though - the maze was probably several acres across, so it was extensive. It was fun pulling out all kinds of rangering and dungeoneering techniques once we were good and lost, and seeing what was actually helpful versus not. I'd do it again for sure.
Bleh. Lots of things to process through at some point. Tonight's not the night though I think. I think this was more about getting this out of the way so that the processing can come later; probably also about... not establishing a baseline, exactly, but I've found that I enjoy looking back even at simple posts like this and that it helps ground the others in more general context.
To bed, then. An hour later than I ought've - so be it. Goodnight.
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twilight-resonance · 5 months
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Foresight and Hindsight
Had an inkling to listen to a section of a year-playlist from a long time ago, and dang. Sometimes there are parts of yourself that know long before any of the rest of you does. There's so much from that period of time - the music I listened to, the pieces I wrote, the small rituals I made for myself and followed - that are so achingly clear that I knew. Even before it was clear what was going on. Even before it was clear how it was going to end.
The foresight is nice to look back on and see there, made clear by time and distance. It's nice to know that there can be that kind of clarity somewhere quiet underneath, even when things are uncertain and tumultuous at the time and you do not think you can see the way.
Makes me wonder what foresight there is in my current moment. I don't know how much there would be to see, at this moment; I suspect that the clarity comes with those times when I am so much more wrapped up in myself, and more intensely drawn inwards - with music, with journaling, with reflection and feelings and so on. Which there hasn't been none of - but what's there has very much been a conscious work to touch a little deeper on myself rather than being subsumed by a moment in time and the emotions that come to swallow me with them. The difference between a practice and a possession.
Then again, maybe there are such things to be divined. I would still, I think, need to be more deeply in touch with myself to see them - more consistently journaling (right now I'm up to about once a week), more intentionally listening to music, etc. I would like to be; but I am also struggling to get a hold of other aspects of my life, and there is only so far I can advance any one thing. The kitchen is cleaned more often than it used to be. My work planning is done further ahead than it used to be. Emails are responded to more quickly than they used to be. I'm journaling more often than I used to be. None of these things is in their fullest blossom, but they are practices I'm observing much more diligently than I have been before, and I am still striving to do better.
Echo: I am always striving to do better.
The path sort-of splits two ways here. One way with the music, and one way with the writing. I'll do both.
(Echo: I always do both.)
The writing says - I've been doing a lot of work with, well, myself recently. Delving into lots of older parts of me that have been hitherto unexplored, learning about how to tweak and tug at myself to make everything work more smoothly, and so on. The posture element from the prior post is a way this manifests physically, really - looking at things that need healing and doing what I can to work out those kinks and find a better place to rest. But it's also been experimenting with sensory input, with workflow structures and patterns, with journaling more often, exploring emotional tension held in my body, etc. It comes from the same place as the rest. I'm trying to understand who and what I am these days, now that I've come out the other side of the woods - now that the traveling theme that has dogged my footsteps for so many years is reaching its end - because understanding that is the key to opening the world back up. To writing, if I can. To a richer creative life, if I'm able. To being more settled in myself and able to approach the world from a place of being centered, if I can touch it.
(It's like the desert. Many years ago, in college, I wrote a piece about the desert: about how the process of going out on my own felt like crossing a wasteland with the promise of a mythical forest on the other side, and survival looked like in the meantime. I had already been on my own for a few years before college, and it was a rough time. I did find the woods, eventually; and I did build my house there, eventually; and I think what I'm doing now must be filling it with the things you need to be not merely safe, but fulfilled.)
The music says, no really - there are parts of yourself that know, long before. Here's the list of songs in that section of music:
"Breathe" - Melissa Etheridge
"Fearless Love" - Melissa Etheridge
"The Breaking of the Fellowship" - Howard Shore
"Home" - Daughtry
"I See Fire" - Ed Sheeran (blech)
"Landslide" - Fleetwood Mac
"Parade" - Matchbox Twenty
"Bed of Lies" - Matchbox Twenty
"What Would You Do" - Bastile
"Hero" - AWOLNATION
"Glass" - Stuart Davis
"Lost" - Krypteria
"Crystal Ball" - P!nk
"Glitter in the Air" - P!nk
"Slut Like You" - P!nk
"Walk of Shame" - P!nk
For anyone who knows me, it's in my Years -> 2016 playlist.
You won't see what I mean - not really - but I do. For one, look at how pop-y that is. Pop music has always been the sound of deep emotional turmoil to me, and that's heavier here than it almost ever is. More than that, though, I was already saying goodbye. Before I knew the fullness of what was going on, or how bad it was going to get - I was already saying goodbye. "Breathe" is really the geologic marker for that era. I remember playing that song over, and over, and over again the night that the first slippage came about. There's so much in that song and the whole list that's not just the goodbye, but the shame - shame that wasn't mine to bear, but that was gifted to me in others' stead.
(Not since you sought to cast me out // As sacrifice for others' doubts // For sins we both knew were not mine // But bore for others' peace of mind)
Anyway, I'm not feeling particularly melancholy about it all at the moment, much as it might sound otherwise. It's nice to look back, sometimes. To be able to see from a place of clarity, and in so take those parts of myself and settle them gently back into place; (and in doing so is how we find healing). To see that sometimes, we do understand - sometimes, we do know - and to listen for the signs of that foresight and follow it.
It took a long time to bring myself to a point of being able to do that - to listen to that music again, and to that era of my life again. Last year was rough - in many ways not nearly as rough as the years immediately prior, but it was the first year of confrontation. Of being tested, and having to weather those tests however I could. This year poses new tests, but I have passed the first. Last year was a process of wrestling those feelings and finding some ways to fit them inside myself (echo: grief doesn't grow smaller; you grow larger around it) so that I could hold them and take another step forward, and another.
That's enough for tonight, I think. One last song, and then sleep. There's more work to do tomorrow, whatever that work may be.
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twilight-resonance · 6 months
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Posture
It's funny, the way things wax and wane. I've transitioned over to writing in a paper journal mostly, but every so often something guides me back towards here. Mostly because the two really do serve different purposes and suit different paces of thought. So we are here once again.
Posture is the topic of the day. I've been working on my posture a lot over the last few months - standing, sitting, driving, working, etc. Like many people I'm sure, mine got fucked up over COVID; and like many people I'm sure, it has also changed as I've gotten older and become less active. It's one of those things that gets even worse as you get older, though... and I want to be able to stand and sit comfortably for as long as I can. Turns out there are a lot of other things impacted, too.
There were some extra steps as far as my posture was - is - concerned. I have all the same problems that come with heavy computer use - slumped shoulders, a forward-tilted neck, etc. I also have all the same problems that many people who store tension in their shoulders do - shoulders turned forward and pulled up to my ears, chest pulled in, etc. But additionally, I had problems with my legs and hips - I discovered these when I was working to re-strengthen my ankles after COVID. Turns out my feet tilt outwards when they should point forwards; and that directly impacts my hips; and there's also something in my lower back that was tilting my spine too far back. So it's been a whole process of sorting all that out.
The first time I tried standing correctly - with everything adjusted to where it ought to be - felt strange. Like, on the one hand, I could feel in my body that the adjustments were correct - felt more comfortable and less strained - but on the other hand, the amount of concentration I had to put into holding everything in place was astounding. There were so many tiny things to hold and focus on. Most of what I've done has been small and informal - I've done some wall stretches to help with my shoulders, but that's about it so far as formal stretches. Mostly I just check myself every now and then while I'm walking or standing or at the computer, and adjust, and keep going while trying to hold that adjustment; and slowly, rebuilt the habit in my body in terms of where and how it sits.
It helps that I used to dance, even in only in small ways. There's a particular physicality that dancers have - that sort of elongated gracefulness - that comes from having your body where it actually belongs, dammit. One of the things I found helpful was the muscle-memory of dancing, and where everything felt lined up once I had done stretches and warmups and was practicing the actual dance. There's still a resting "memory" - a physical memory - of where things belong, and it helps to have that to gravitate back to.
Working on my posture has definitely just felt better, physically. Things line up better when I'm sleeping, and are more comfortable when I'm standing, and so on and so forth. My back in particular doesn't hurt as much, especially my lower back. I'm still working on correcting my stance - I still put too much weight into my heels, and it's been destroying my shoes - and I'm working on tucking my head back and keeping my neck straighter as well, and I suspect that those two things are probably related. Something about the balance of where I hold the weight of my head.
The other thing that working on my posture has helped with is my migraines. There's seriously a significant difference in how severe the migraines are since adjusting things. I knew that a lot of the problems originated in my lower back, and since working those kinks out I've had the really full-fledged migraines maybe once every month and a half, maybe two. Now, I still get migraines, mind you - strange ones - but they come with so much less pain and somewhat less sensory sensitivity than they did.
(Now, they're more like a presence - like I can feel all the nerves in the one side of my face turn On and they won't stop being On and letting me know that We're Here; and they tighten up the tension in my jaw and mouth and set my nose tingly-running; and sometimes there is light and other sensory sensitivity, and sometimes I still have trouble talking coherently, but barely any pain. Those migraines I still have several times a month; and I suppose they're longer now - they often refuse to resolve for a few days - but they're much easier to go about my day and my life with.)
These are not significant things. They're just interesting to me. And I still need to practice writing down thoughts and opinions, not just narrating experiences. So we're starting there, particularly as something lighter before heavier things that may be to come.
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twilight-resonance · 7 months
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A song recommended to me today by an old friend, after discovering we shared the same favorite verse of Hallelujah. This one speaks to me as well.
Suspect I ought to listen to more Leonard Cohen, in my current phase of life; that it may resonate with where I'm at. We'll see.
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twilight-resonance · 11 months
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Seawater Sick
This whole “being sick” thing is reminding me that we really are just fancy bipedal fish that need to be generally kept wet at all times. When you’re not sick, you generally remember that your eyes need to stay wet; but really it’s also your nose and your mouth and your gullet and all the squishy parts inside. Water alone won’t do it either, no; if you drink too much plain water it starts to burn in ways that start you wondering whether that’s what holy water is supposed to feel like to the living dead. No, you need salt water - broth - because we once came from the sea. And now you’re sick, and now you remember.
Anyway, it’s not that bad. This is only the second time I’ve been sick since the pandemic, and it’s definitely just a bit of a cold. Snuffling, a low-grade fever, the faintest hint of aches. But mostly the snuffling. We went through a whole box of tissues between the two of us yesterday. It’s on the way out for both of us - Hearthsnail’s a day, maybe a day and a half ahead of me since he got it first. I suppose it’s nice to have the overlapping-but-not-identical sick periods if we’ve got to be sick at all, because it means that at least one of us is functional at a given moment and can take care of the other. It was a bit all-encompassing the way that sick does during the worst of it, but seriously for the most part it’s been very mild. 
Made some progress on catering. Sent messages to three more caterers yesterday, and two of them have responded saying they’re available and can drive that far. Third hasn’t responded yet, but there’s still plenty of time. Now comes the part where we have to actually figure out what we’re going to make... Which will be an adventure. So far we’ve possibly come up with the idea of cauliflower sliders, and I want to do strawberry-basil or blackberry lemonade. Otherwise... well, we’ll see.
Playing saboteur right now with the various board game arena folks. It’s nice having that sort of mastery at something. I tend to find with board game arena games you have to be watching what happens to keep up with it, because the interface isn’t always clear; but I remember finding at some point - probably during COVID - that I was able to keep tabs on what was happening in a given saboteur game just from the log, and that’s even with all the signaling that goes on in that game. Or at least with the way it gets played there. So right now I’m enjoying tabbing back and forth between that and writing, because that’s one of the few things I can do that with.
It’s a nice day out. It looks and feels like a day that’s summer turning into autumn rather than spring into summer... All dim and overcast, and just the tiniest little winds ruffling the trees. Feels like home. It must not just be the changing of the seasons, then, that gets me - but change of the seasons, if that makes sense. A disruption in the normal pattern. Always gets my creative juices flowing and helps me get a leg over on the will to do something with it. 
Had a thought about RPGs earlier, or more specifically what makes them work for me or not. We’re playing in Hearthsnail’s BIL’s game right now, and on the one hand it’s really nice to be playing something at all rather than GMing; but on the other hand, there’s an itch it’s really not scratching for me. One part is the roleplay element - I want deeper roleplay than we’ve been doing, but that’s not going to happen - group size, medium, etc. I concluded some days ago, though, that the main issue is actually game world depth. More even than character RP, I really want a world that I can sink into and inhabit and get to know over the course of years. Which is not going to happen with BIL as GM, because he likes to switch up worlds and settings fairly often, and that’s just a fundamental conflict that will always be present. It’s a good thing to know in general, though, and as I said, it’s nice to be playing anything at all. (I wandered off and started to work on other things, so I’m going to take that as a sign and end this now. Anyway, this is Sick Edition TM.)
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twilight-resonance · 11 months
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In the Quiet
Hey there. Just checking in. Not going to have time to go journal properly today, so I figured I’d write something here.
Life goes on. My second spring break just finished, and we’re reaching the end of the school year - four or five sessions to go. Wedding planning is in a high fervor, by which I mean we can’t find a caterer and we don’t have clothing together for Hearthsnail yet and things are a bit of a mess. Weather’s warmed up, basically all at once; the flowers are out, and the trees all burst out with their new leaves, and it’s very pretty. We helped a friend move last week, and I busted up my knee pretty good falling flat on my face. As I said - life goes on.
The knee hurts though. I got myself good. Tore a huge hole in one of my good pairs of pants, to the degree that any of them are “good” - it had the good pockets, but all of the are getting a bit threadbare and thin. The knee itself is a beautiful bouquet of purple and red and yellow and green and oozing, and still quite tender. Took a few hits directly to it while LARPing this weekend, which isn’t the worst thing in the world but was a mite painful. Mostly it’s my pride that’s injured - and mostly I’m just glad I managed not to break anything, because I was carrying a box full of glass at the time. It’s funny the way the brain slows down - well, speeds up I suppose - in moments of disaster.
The new place our friend is moving into seems really nice, though, and much bigger than her old place. If we ever need to move out of our current place and aren’t ready to buy a house yet, we might well look for a spot in that area too. She seems happy about it, though, and I’m hoping it helps her be happier in general. Especially going into the next year, with whatever twists and turns that’s set to bring.
Wedding planning, as I said, is a bit in disarray right now. Like I said above, catering’s a mess. There are a couple more places we’re going to try - by which I mean, I need to email them and see if we’re in their geographical range - and if that doesn’t pan out, we’re going to have to try to do it ourselves. Which isn’t the worst outcome, particularly with our skillsets and the facilities and with help from family and friends, but it does complicate things. We also need to get Hearthsnail’s clothes together right away so that we can get them tailored in time. On the upside, my dress came back after finally finding a tailor for it, and it fits much better now. For much less money than the first few places were asking, too. Thank gods for that, because we’re needing to cut costs where we can.
I finally got insurance for work, which is good because that’s needed to happen for a long while now. I was lucky enough to find a broker who actually knows what LARP is and was able to pitch it well on the insurance end, and she got it a lot cheaper than the other place I’d gone to was able to. So that’s a relief. Been a long time coming, anyway - having insurance regardless is wise, given what I do. 
Playing saboteur while I write this, and enjoying it. Found a good group of people and we’ve done two or three games in a row. The saboteur community on board game arena is legit - there’s a whole network of people who know other people who are good at the game, so when someone wants to start one there’s an invite tree that happens to get games together. It’s nice, having that experience of knowing who other players are in even the smallest of ways. It reminds me of old forum culture in a lot of ways, which I miss.
Dunno. Just trying to enjoy my “weekend”, like Hearthsnail told me to. Yesterday was basically all dental work and not much of a weekend. I do have a nagging drive to work, and I need to do that too, but I’m trying to at least take a couple hours to enjoy things. Looking for quiet, too, I guess - maybe more amniotic than quiet. Looking for the dim, and the cool, and the wrapped-up tight, and the sort of muted bustle of sound in the background. That, and music. Just calm, and just quiet. It’s a certain kind of recovery for something deeper in me - the part of me that knows I’m all right, I suppose, and that links into my threat detection/fight-or-flight/whatever you want to call it. That part needs rest. 
Just need to remember to let go. All of the things that I’ve been able to repair, I’ve been able to repair because I well and truly let go of the outcome. I care, and I grip too tightly; I let go, and I can do what needs to be done. So I need to let go. It’s not in my nature, really, but it’s in the nature of my best self; and maybe along the way I can learn to tap into that more easily too.
Anyway, I need to go now - going to call Artkestral for a bit. And on we go.
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twilight-resonance · 1 year
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