omnia_mutantur | Recent Entries

There are a lot of things I want done around the house that I lack the courage or the confidence to do, both big and little and I feel like if I buckled down, watched some youtube videos, realized I'm not going to render the house uninhabitable if I fuck up a cupboard door more than it is already fucked up, and asked Hands to borrow some tools I could actually do, but instead I don't and instead beat myself up on the regular for doing so. I don't work. No one pays me to do anything. I mostly keep the house clean, the pets well attended to and the errands run, and when I'm at least at 60% functioning, the house full of food. I volunteer a couple places every week, but usually no more than 6-8hrs a week, I hang out with Spark once-to-twice a week. So I should be chock full of both time and energy with which to do all the things and yet the list of things I would "like" to do seems to remain constant or ever increasing.

I live in absolute dread of making things worse across the board. My mental health, my relationships, my back yard, the aforementioned cupboard door, and when I pair that with the assumption that I'm probably going to ruin everything I touch (both literally and metaphorically) that makes forward motion somewhat difficult. And I want to know all the things before I tackle anything, but it turns out the internet will provide me with an endless supply of confidently delivered contradictory information, adding to the paralysis.

I want there to be someone to hire to teach me about house-things, or classes to take. I want someone to explain what's happening to the front door (I think the veneer is peeling off and that the only fix is replacing) or supervise me recaulking the bathroom and give me real-time feedback.

But also I don't want it to be anyone I already know, because I can never tell until the actual moment if it's going to be one of those days that not knowing something feels socially dangerous in a way that makes curiosity really hard to access. I spend a lot of energy committed to being cheerful or at least not-super-defensive about gaps in my knowledge, and I genuinely like it when people teach me things, and in general, I feel like no one's judging me when I don't know things. But also spending so much time using every scrap of willpower I had to fake functionality left me with some situationally inappropriate reflexes, I get muddled on what is and isn't okay to know/know how to do. (Or I find myself asking questions not to learn, but as a placating/fawning response even when there's no threat and then I'm not actually learning anything because any information won't go into any sort of long-term storage.)

Eventually I'll commit to calling a handyman, or fucking it up and then calling a handyman, but for now i guess I'll spend a lot of time thinking about the problem without taking any action.

I thought I was going to talk more about MyMaidenName and the idea of bloodlines, but instead I am tired and happy and instead going to tell you about some of my day. It was Jawsfest at the Mystic Seaport, which involved some shark-related activities, a lovely talk by the person who founded Living Sharks Museum, learning the difference between why some people call them great white sharks and some people call them white sharks - according to the person staffing the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy booth scientific nomenclature usually uses great when there is also a greater, so since there is no greater white shark, there's no need to use great white shark, and got to watch a demo of Newfies doing various kinds of water rescues and, more important, got to cuddle a couple different Newfies for a solid ten minutes. Then, after the sun went down, they had Wendy Benchley (Peter Benchley's widow) give a short talk and then we watched Jaws on a big inflatable screen, and I saw a shooting star.

I've managed food badly this trip, I'm reluctant to plan but Light is bad at planning, so two nights I declared a CVS dinner, after we found a lovely restaurant we could eat outside at, and then the thunderstorm came and we walked to a CVS in the rain, both of us fuming, and dined on string cheese and tortilla chips and nuts sitting on a blanket on the hotel room floor, and tonight we raided the hotel's pantry for cheese and crackers because we'd had overly optimistic beliefs about the word "concessions" at the Seaport.

Something the shark lecture human said is rattling around in my brain, about the belief that everything's already been discovered, and how believing that might demotivate people, especially kids. And clearly, that's not entirely true, there's a lot of stuff that would be either cured or much, much easier if everything had been discovered, but I feel like I believed that and still kind of do, either once longed or still longing for a version of scholarship where I could have just gone and sat in a random room in a random library and ordered and read a million pages of correspondence from days of yore that no one had ever gone through before and assuming there's no such opportunities available anymore.

Also, I remain absolutely delighted by the idea that no one has ever seen a white shark mate or give birth.

(it kind of counts if I wrote it yesterday then didn't press post, right?) I guess as long as I post twice today, by whatever weird score I'm keeping with myself, it counts.

I'm in Mystic, CT now which, among other things, not one but two ancestral MyMaidenName burial grounds (one of which you have to trespass to get to, I have only seen it once attending a MyMaidenName family reunion and couldn't find it again), between the two spanning back (I think) at least 250 years. The bloodline goes back further, my father in his retirement decided to double down on genealogical research and traced himself back to the Mayflower by five or so different paths.

My father was very committed to enrolling all his children in the Mayflower Society (an organization for people who can do said tracing back). My little brothers acquiesced, one sister-in-laws said he had to wait for her kids to be able to consent, the other just let it happen. I declined, on the basis it was creepy and I did not wish to, and refused to provide him/them with a copy of my marriage license or with something legal stating Light was really truly divorced when he married me. I have gotten letters from the society in the intervening years, indicating I still had an open application. Along the same lines, my great aunt was a member of not just the Daughters of the American Revolution, but also the Colonial Dames of America, the fancy version for people who held some sort of advanced rank during that time. (the myth is up until this generation, a MyMaidenName has always been in a war)

I don't talk to my parents anymore. There's a lot going on there and I've written and deleted three paragraphs about it at this point, so clearly it's a topic to return to to. But even having severed that tie, even knowing all the horrible things my ancestors must have done to acquire and keep land and money in the New England region for that long in the general if not specific ways, I still like this idea of place-based continuity somehow. I don't think I'm especially proud or smug, I didn't _do_ anything, and I'm still trying to figure out if what I like about it can stand up to daylight.

But there's something about not belonging to my parents, but still belonging to this place, like I can skip over the people who birthed me and still have roots. Something animism-adjacent I suspect.

(here we truncate this entry because it is long and circular and bedtime)

We're headed off to Mystic tomorrow, to go to an anniversary celebration of Jaws, to see the beluga whales (to have complicated feelings about the ethics of aquariums), to sleep very late because there are no animals to wake me up. I'm mildly anxious, or at the very least, my nigh-permanent anxiety has decided to attach some of itself to this trip, and for all I tell myself overpacking for car trips is a perfectly legitimate way to self-soothe and make myself more comfortable going on trips, I judge myself every time I do.

I have a couple social outreaches pending, two I have to respond to (one to I, which is easy, one to a stranger I met at polyam speed dating, which is not) and two I need to decide if I want to reach out to again. There was one person from polyam speed dating I started to text with that I really liked but after initial contact, our attempts to schedule petered out on her end. maybe because she was trying to let me down easy, maybe because, as stated, she was swamped by helping out with a local pride weekend last weekend. There's a very cool-seeming (in a not-dating way) person on a local discord server, who expressed interest in hanging out, I proposed a couple times to and never heard back.

And maybe it's like how I sometimes go quiet because I don't actually want to talk to that specifically person, but it's so much more likely that I got overwhelmed by the world and my own fears and not wanting to talk to anyone, and then I can't reach out because I believe it's been too long, and I'm really grateful when the other person checks in.

I don't want to feel like I'm bothering anyone, ever, I try to read all the hidden cues, but I also am at least aware on an intellectual level that my traumas lead me to assume the worst of everyone all the time, and when I go looking for a hidden "go away" cue, I'm likely to make one up if I don't find one outright.

When Abundance asked me about going on dates as a result of going to speed dating, I kind of panicked, and firmly refuted the idea I wanted to date, declaring I was at capacity for the number of people I could model and adjust my wants to fit. I don't think I said it that way, I suspect it was something more obviously damaged, but while I remain quite lonely while polysaturated, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't pursue any kind friendships because I might not bring much to the table.

But I'm definitely not saying anything to anyone until we're back from vacation, so I guess we'll see how Monday me feels about all of this.

Be inspired, omnia, try to post in July. Not full "since last we saw our antiheroine" updates, not deathless prose, just posting.

Once upon a time someone "installed" a bank of three kitchen cabinets above, a section of countertop, and three cabinets below in our basement. (as if someone had taken a five foot long chunk out an existing kitchen, ceiling to floor and then precariously screwed it onto a couple of 2x4s that I don't even understand how they are attached to the unfinished basement wall.)

We've lived here since 2019 and I've always hoped to take them down and replace them with something a little less tragic and a little more useful. Clearly, because I'm telling you this story now I haven't. But, after first discovering I was emotionally labile enough to cry over drill-confusion, I have now removed at least everything we've abandoned into the cabinets, and taken down the upper half. While i have and had many hopes/plans, apparently none of them addressed what am I going to do with the spiky nail ridden tetanus cabinet traps after they're not attached to the wall. I know sometimes to make something tidier you have to make it messier, but also the garage has lost the minimal amount of cool it's mostly-undergroundness lends in the morning and I am dizzy, so I'm just walking away from the disaster, pretending I'll deal with a little more of it tomorrow, and then going on vacation until the following Monday. Future me's problem, I guess?

I made a card for Spark, who is away at camp, to their specifications. Is it important for a 7yo to know that an adult human is shit at crafts and still makes them? Possibly. Is she discerning of the quality of my crafting or going to pay more than minimal attention to the card I send? Probably not. Is it hard to step away and just send it and not try at least two more times? Definitely.

I keep thinking about posting and talking myself out of it and I've got 47 theories but none of them entirely hold up to examination. Something about wanting to be perceived/not perceived, I suspect. But I'm still here, I'm still reading, I'm still thinking all sort of things about my life that feel overly dramatic every time I try to write about them where anyone else can see them.

I got more added to my left-arm sleeve, Abundance and Nonsense and I all drove down to Baltimore and I added some wishing rocks and a snail shell to the top of it. I'm not sure if I'm going to run out of space or meaningful symbols first, but I do enjoy the spell I'm slowly building myself of all the symbols. I decided to wait for spring or fall to do anything to the top of my hands, hoping to find the sweet spot where I won't be touching the ocean or wearing gloves. My current theory is I'll get fireweed on both hands, and on the left it will be a continuation of the sleeve and the mirror on the other hand will be its own thing. But I'm also looking at trying for a continuous piece from bicep to wrist, so maybe I'll hold off on the right hand.

I always want people to tell me about their tattoos, or ask questions about mine, but that feels true of like 60% of every topic ever, I want to hear about breakfasts, pets, that thing from twelve years ago they've never stopped thinking about. I get so story-hungry and don't know how to find new people to tell me stories. I've think I've heard most the stories the people I know well have to tell, and now I'm just living in the story with them so there's nothing to narrate. Gossip, sometimes, of course, but even long distant events and people I'll never meet satisfy the urge. But also I just want to sit quietly somewhere with someone and play my solo journaling games and not worry if I'm supposed to be talking or something else because they also want the quiet doing-things energy.

I keep reading articles that are emphasizing the importance of care work, child care and housework and casseroles, and those are exactly the things I want to be doing for the resistance, and I haven't quite put my finger on how my mostly-feral probably-autistic introvert self finds the places where that kind of care is needed. Still looking, of course, still volunteering at a farm and a library and looking for other places to volunteer, still trying to figure out where to go with all this sadness-rage-despair stew of emotions.

Still playing games, reading books, crafting and cooking things, though none of those things in the quantity I'd like, or maybe it's just that I'm not getting the desired satisfaction from these things because I'm in an unsatisfiable state of mind, but I don't think there's a way to know which one it is. Someday the weather will be such that I can return to the woods, and maybe that will help, or it won't.

courtesy cactus_rs, the letter P. Comment if you'd like your own.

1. Something I hate: panicking

2. Something I love: August Uncommon's chocolate-hazelnut tea, Passage.

3. Somewhere I have been. Petrified Forest National Park

4. Somewhere I would like to go: Prince Edward Island

5. Someone I know: I apparently know no P names. My mother's mother Pedie? My old dogwalker Pine.

6. Favorite Movie: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Crafts: Extremely little, trying to figure out what a good project to bring to Wisconsin for the inlaw visit, both in terms of content and complexity. Definitely going to pivot from the witchy stitcher's possum-focused Empress card, could go with the flowers on the Junebug and Darlin Stay Tender, but maybe I don't want to have the inevitable "what does stay tender mean?" conversation and sadly I've already stitched the words. I sent the Yazeba's bookmark I stitched up to the amazing human who has been running the online Yazeba's game, and it was almost right, but I'd love to try it again and somehow describing Yazeba's to my inlaws (who remain concerned about the fact Light plays video games and d&d sounds entertaining instead of exhausting,

outside: still minimal, but I went on a lovely winter tea foraging walk at Arnold Arboretum and now have a strong, strong desire for birch tea, despite not being a forager and never intending to be a forager (I can't imagine having the confidence so to do) I really enjoy having the information. And now I know that the fibers in rose hips are a common ingredient in itching powder.

Cooking: still whiffing on this a bit, we did have the traditional dutch baby that I make when I can't think of food, because we will almost always have eggs, milk, flour and a chunk of cheese, and an embarrassingly easy black bean soup from nyt cooking (open six cans, two jars and add some spices).

Books: started and abandoned a handful of books, nothing is catching me, but nonthing is offending me so much that it goes off the TBR and onto the DNF. I'm always worried when a book doesn't catch me that it's about where my brain is at the moment and I might love the book at a different point, so it languishes on the TBR, lightly tarnished.

Games: it was an amazing week for games, played four, loved all four in different ways. I wonder if/when I'll start to feel like a legitimate participant in this hobby, but if walking around the fells (or any other thing I've ever done) can provide any evidence, the answer is probably I won't.

Other things out in the world: Got a haircut, am going to try to go purple in spots in the hope it'll fade blue instead of pink this time. Went to a volunteer gig which was socially awful and pretty decent cause-wise and I got to use a gluestick a lot. Went to an amazing Peter Mulvey concert in a UU church in the town next to where my parents still live.

Much on my mind these days: how to propose and run a body doubling online solo rpg evening. How the stars & wishes format of online gaming fractionally fills my desperate need for praise, how much eagerness is too much eagerness, why I'm worried about that and too much for what? How to volunteer with children. How to get rid of a lot of unused bras. Winter. If there's something other than rewatching old seasons of taskmasters we might want to watch. The next four years. How much I dislike the process of trying to buy a new car and what it says about me and change and how I learn new things.

I want to hold myself to posting weekly summaries, if nothing else (though I keep half-writing other entries) and in service of this will stop over-thinking what order to summarize things in and just do it.

Books: finished Rough Pages by Lev AC Rosen, the third in a series about a queer detective 1950s San Francisco, which both feels very good and is full of what I believe is period-appropriate homophobic brutality that is hard to read, finished the anthology Faeries Never Lie, which had some excellent stories and some adequate ones, and re-read Zodiac by Neal Stephenson, which simultaneously has aged very poorly and is a fascinating snapshot of Boston at very specific time and says interesting things about the omnia who adored it back in high school.

Cooking: Marinara sauce from the moosewood cookbook, shallot gravy from nytcooking for our new year's day tofurkey roast, and vegetarian sloppy joes from the leftover marinara sauce. I've been struggling with cooking lately, we've been scavenging or ordering what feels like a lot, and I wish I didn't feel quite so much like every night I don't cook I've somehow failed, but here we are and I still can't motivate myself a bunch of time.

Outdoors: an amazing First Day hike at South Cape Beach State Park and a social hike through the Fells, but it's been too windy/cold/wet for it to be appealing to go out solo.

Leaving the house to see the world: I went on a local queer and trans hike, and it was lovely and odd and I continue to be filled with this longing for community, with no real idea what exactly i mean by that, and even if I could figure that out, I suspect I wouldn't know how to form it. (this, of course, bears both further and permanent examination) But also, I went into the Fells office to sort paper, and I've discovered the exciting thing that once you're trained you can just wander into the public library and shelve books, so I've done that.

Games: It was an exceptionally good week for online gaming, I got to play in three online games, my weekly Wanderhome game, a Gawain and the Green Knight themed Descended from the Queen hack and a Norwegian wind farm setting for Desperation, a game which I would like to play with everyone ever.

New Year's Day and Eve were lovely and quiet, Light had a board game thing he went to on NYE, Abundance and I stayed home and played Overcooked and drank sparkling cider, then New Years Day all three of us played a bunch of Mysterium Park and made a tofurkey.

I'm having a lot of feelings about January, I always do, no matter how hard I try to shift it to solstice, calendar years and birthdays feel like pivot/reflection/inflection points, it's a month that contains a handful of local social things that I don't participate in and this year there's a permanent background wailing about the inauguration. And on the one hand, I feel like you can never entirely rip a quote out of its original context, on the other hand it is a very useful sentiment, so I'm just going to keep muttering something about beginning as I mean to go on, and I'll get around to addressing the fact that I'm always both beginning and going on any day now.

Well, fell down on that intention pretty immediately, but I guess the only way to try again is to try again. Begin by beginning, etc, but it feels like far too much to recount all the way back to the last entry so onwards. Sail in the direction of Troy.

I just got back from in-law land, it was uncomfortable but survivable and hopefully we won't have to go back to Wisconsin for a while, filial obligation discharged. My parents-in-law are fine people, toxic in perfectly contextually appropriate ways. Once upon a time, I think I hoped marrying into a family, being in a Serious Relationship with someone with a family would feel good. Parent-analogues who might approve, or siblingish people that I didn't have a weird stew of substitute-parent protectiveness and resentment That's not really what happened, then or now, it's not a language I spoke or a currency I have. Light's the most "normal" person I've ever been with and he's their black sheep and that's an unbridgeable distance. I suspect they like me in a limited kind of way, but it's uncomfortable, it feels emotionally itchy and I'm glad to be home for many different reasons.

Next week I head off to Baltimore for more tattoo, so I've moved on to worrying about getting the wrong tattoo, not being able to clearly identify exactly what it is I want, or not being able to articulate it to the artist, or not being able to critique a sketch I'm presented with. But I love everything Emi's ever put on me, so hopefully this will be the same too.

I keep wandering off into long confessional-adjacent prose, so here's my attempt at briefer summaries so I actually hit post.

I solsticed, solo again. I annoy myself remaining poised on this brink of enjoying a solo practice and longing for community, but we decorated the holiday tree (I continue to love our ornament collection) I hiked around the pond during the day, crunching through the snow and getting to see an absolutely glorious bit of the early side of the sunset. I ate yellow food for dinner, watched Taskmaster New Zealand with Light and when everyone went to bed, I curled up in front of our gas fireplace and the rainbow-lighted tree, to the intense dismay of the dogs, Nonsense kept sighing more and more exaggeratedly as the night progressed and I continued to complete fail to follow her suggestion that I stop fucking up her routine. I journaled, I thought about what I wanted to take forward and what I wanted to leave behind. I made clove oranges, and did one of the 500 piece puzzles my little brother challenged me to compare finishing speeds on. The sun came up, and I passed out and now the days will get longer, and I'll be able to drive later into the day and that usually feels better.

(here I remove an essay about (for the moment) my feelings about car shopping)

Since then, I've stayed at Delight's overnight to hang out with their fantastic kittens while petsitting, (here I remove an essay about pets, the pets I've had that liked each other, the pets I have that don't like each other, how dead pets reconcile me a little bit to the idea of ancestor work), volunteered at the Fells office (here's the essay about finding places to volunteer and the way I volunteer), finished Andrea Stewart's The At Thieves, (here's the essay about why my reading numbers for the year are at an all-time low and why I didn't like this book), played in both a Brindlewood Bay and a Yazeba's game online (here's an essay about aging in narrative gaming) made lasagna (here's the essay about cooking, and reasons why it may have wandered away from fun into mostly a chore), attended our nigh-yearly Melissa Ferrick post-christmas concert at Passim (the essay about how I'm not exposing myself to enough new music) and greatly enjoyed watching Nonsense dig craters in the snow in the backyard.

More of the same, even if everything feels a little bit of different flavor of awkward or lonely. The woods are still there, I'm still about to bring a delicious-smelling cake to our annual Cakemas, and I'm about done with a satisfying cross-stitch so here's the hopeful chorus that goes with the mopey song of this entry.

I have 100% forgotten how to begin one of these entries.

The day didn't unfold as planned or hoped, the snow and general chaos threw a wrench into the works, I didn't get to go back to the library to volunteer more, Delight and I just talked on the internet rather than watched the non-sunset in person before they took off for their holiday tour, Light, Abundance and I bailed on the Mt Auburn Cemetery solstice lights for the second time in two years, so I've still never been, but at least this year it was snow instead of rain.

We did manage to take Nonsense to the beach this morning, which was unsurprisingly almost entirely empty of people, a pair of humans with a pair of dogs on one end, and a tractor flattening the beach in the far distance, so Nonsense got to chase a ball and chase some seagulls and was generally just having her best life. And we also took her to pick up a snowy holiday tree in a mostly abandoned tree lot, I'm assuming everyone else either already has a tree or had the sense to stay home.

But we'll decorate it tomorrow, and keep it up far past the point of reasonableness, and it'll be all rainbow lights and googly eyes, and I'll make myself some yellow foods and stick cloves in an orange to celebrate the sun coming back. And maybe also pancakes.

This wasn't the entry I intended to write, I'm trying to figure out how to talk about discord servers and self introductions and unspoken ingroup rules, and in general how people do people things at each other, but Maybe tomorrow I'll unravel that mystery. Today I decided to just try for the part where I hit post.

Having been unable to figure out how to continuing posting here but still wanting to, I'm now going to focus up and talk about PAX.

I went to PAX. I played in games, I attended panels, I bought things. I had social interactions, I ate an appropriate amount of food, and did not drink nearly enough liquid. I had a different set of feelings than I have at local conventions, and in no small part due to that I suspect, a much better time. And I've been going to this convention for a while, and I think I've mostly figured out the way I want to experience it, and maybe I should be bolder, but this way also works.

I played in two amazing games (with strangers even). One was an incursion of Trophy Dark called Writer's Retreat, where you're aspiring writers on a famous author's private island off the coast of Maine. It's a play to lose game, you can't win, you can only go out interestingly, and I didn't manage to ruin/kill myself or anyone else during the course of the game, but I did get to say Yes when the forest asked me if I wanted to see, and I did get to walk into the woods never to be seen again in my epilogue. And I played with someone who I'd heard of on a couple discords and they were even kinder and more of a delight than I could have hoped. And you get to suggest awful things to happen to the other players, and I do enjoy trying to figure out how to narratively twist psychological knives, and i did get a couple "ooo, that's mean" comments from other players. The other one was a skin of The Quiet Year called The Deep Forest, where you're collaboratively building a map/creating a society/introducing and solving its problems. The base game you're a bunch of humans fleeing some bandits with a year to rebuild, this version your monsters who lost your homeland to the heroes a long time go, and now the heroes have left and you're undoing their works. You don't play people, you play factions, and no one owns a faction, you can engage with anything on the board on your turn (we had goblins, and medusa, and troll gods, and willow ents and a giant turtle, among other things) and it is very interconnected and messy in a very real way.

There was someone whose enthusiasm led them to keep talking over me (i was one of two masked people at the table, and generally quieted) and another person managed to get them to stop in a way I wish I remembered more about how it happened, because they were incredibly kind and matter of fact about masks mean we have to pay better attention to each other, and then made sure I didn't feel like they were being patronizing and it just made me feel all warm and fuzzy and seen.

I talked to people in various lines, I received a compliment on the sequence of shirts I wore (someone asked me if I always wore shirts that said cool things and I said I tried to, after having worn "your heart is a muscle the size of your fist" "radical softness as a form of boundless resistance" and "I am small and soft but also fight me") and I found out the person next to me in line plays in a game run by one of our friends who came up for thanksgiving, and I know it's a small world, but having someone exclaim "oh, you're that Omnia!" was also a source of much joy.

I always want to walk away from a convention with a new best friend, or at least some contact information that's going to lead to finding a new best friend (despite not really thinking best is a good adjective to apply to friendships). And I don't achieve that, but I meet people on the same discord servers I'm on, and have brief conversations with them that remind me I do like some people, I do want community of some sort and all that sort of thing. Here, in the Boston area, it feels like the relevant conventions are full of loaded history, missed chances and failures. (not PAX East, PAX East is just full of noise and flashing lights and migraines) People I got into unhealthy dynamics with, people who were affected by one of my burnouts or partial collapses or all the awkward ways I tried to help with safety codes, people who intimidate or intimidated me, people I probably could have been great friends with if I got out of my own way, and people who probably weren't that interesting in the end, but since I never found out, I assume they are. And so I feel like I should be in that web, and I feel like I'm not and that feels directly connected to all the ways I want to be in the world and haven't figured out how. And there's always the undercurrent thoughts of wondering how differently everything would have gone, would be going, would go if I could drink socially, but maybe that's a crutch and just an explanation that makes it feel kind of like an inevitabelr result of a necessary choice then something I haven't learned how to do.

But, in the end, I went to Philadelphia, went to PAX and I did things that I wanted to. I even cross-stitched a tiny Possum Creek-themed phrase and awkwardly handed it to the person at the booth and then basically ran away before they could react, but am still proud of myself for having done the giving. And I'm in two different ongoing ttrpgs right now, and usually playing in at least one one-shot, and it's not even a little bit about being legitimate or a fraud or successful, it's mostly about it being really, really fun and kind of world/life-affirming.

Lists make posts, right? If you can't find the narrative thread because there isn't one, just make lists.

1. I had a lovely feast day, we had friends up from DC that we don't see nearly often enough, my menu was extensive and delicious and there was a vat of caramelized onion gravy. There was also Tofurky, Tofurky ham,cider chestnut stuffing, whole grain mustard mashed potatoes, thai curry sweet potatoes, maple cider cranberry sauce, apple and brussels sprout slaw, ras el hanout broccoli spoon salad, green beans with garlic and ginger, maple roasted brussels sprouts, pies from a local bakery and a local ice cream place and we’re still living off the leftovers. Nonsense is absolutely infatuated with both of our guests, and I’m pretty sure she remembers them from year to year. We got to play The Dead House which has an absolutely fantastic concept, and sit around reading in front of our fire a bunch.

2. Light's back is out, and he can't go to PAX Unplugged in this state. We're contemplating him staying at a hotel up here (since he can't handle the dogs in his current state) while Abundance and I go down to Philadelphia, and that feels weird but all options feel shitty. But there’s a lot of indie games I might get to play, and panels I might get to attend if I go, and I’ve been looking forward to it for quite some time and Light claims he’d be happier if we went without him rather than stayed home with him. Last year, when I went to the convention, I also made a point of going back to the PMA for the first time in a gazillion years, and it felt amazing to see the Dorothea Tanning painting i’m obsessed with, to have it and the tattoo I got based on it in the same space, some sort of full-circle-ness, but it was also hard and maybe I don’t need to face down the demon of my college years and all they contained again this time.

3. I’ve had session zero of a game of Brindlewood Bay that I’m really excited about. I’ve been playing more online games, mostly Yazeba’s and Wanderhome, and I can turn anything into a meditation on aging and how our bodies support and betray us, but it’s going to be neat to be in a game where aging and gender are going to be explicit narrative focuses. Also, I got a compliment in a game of Yazeba’s that I’m going to continue to clutch to my chest, something to the effect that when I played a specific character, I was clearly an adult and not a teenager, but I was also clearly an adult who was also a goblin.” I continue to have an endless appetite for indie rpgs, and am starting to try to work my way through more solo journaling games, some of which have been awesome. Next, I need to find a solid epistolary game to play.

4. I’m struggling so hard with reading right now, other than the audiobook Abundance and I listen to when in the car, I don’t seem to be able to consume the written word, which is clearly another sign that all is not well internally.

5 (or more of 4). We’re switching up my meds, or we’re adding one and upping the dosage of another one and I hate this position where I need to try to pay some attention to my mental state to notice what might be working when the last thing I want to be doing is looking more closely at my thoughts than I absolutely have to, when I feel more like they should be treated like a snake I’m pinning down with a forked stick and staying a respectful distance away from.

6. I keep trying to do out-in-the-world things, which I’m probably being successful at, but never feels like I’m quite successful enough. But I took a guided walk in the fells this morning, and went to a geoarcheologist’s talk this evening and I checked out a new-to-me Trustees property this weekend and tomorrow I’m going to try to go take in the winter lights at a nearby botanical garden with Delight and Spark. (while they still delight me, are a delight to know and bring delight to the world, I think maybe I need to find a username that encompasses more). I’m not sure what success would feel like, so I suspect I’ll never feel like I’ve succeeded, because there’s so much more I want to do, and instead remain daunted by cowardice and early sunsets. I lack the ability to get myself there physically (yes, I know the boys can drive me and lyft exists) or emotionally (I’m nearly 50 years old, I’m perfectly capable of doing things by myself, I just need to get the rest of me on board with that sentiment) and I spend a lot of time feeling bad about that.

7. There’s a text based queer dating app that I don’t post personals to, but I think about what I’d say sometimes and the latest bid for attention that’s on my mind is “Do not enough people send you pictures of cool rocks they picked up on the beach? Do you not have enough people to send pictures of cool things you saw in the woods?" and then I'd want to say something clever about attempting to address those lacks.

Look, a post.

Maybe if I break the inertia by just posting something basic, I can outsmart myself and start posting again.

I'm still here, I'm still reading if you're still posting, I'm still interested in what you're posting even if I tend to forget how to comment. Now I just need to figure out how to talk about my life again.

I'm feeling exhausted by my meat suit, which is almost as hard to talk about as something like money, since I know I'm doing better than so many. But I followed up the wicked cold with a mysterious bout of vomiting, and now I have to remake all the appointments that I canceled while I was sick, and it somehow feels insulting to have to summon the energy/willpower to have to convince myself to call again.

I dread going to doctors for many reasons, but often the part I find myself trying to rehearse (and then talk myself out of going during the rehearsal) is the description of pain, they're going to ask me where and how much it hurts and I'm barely going to have the words for either. I don't have enough sense of my body to be able to pinpoint location or type of pain. I know, for example, my knee hurts. Sometimes it's behind the knee, sometimes it's the front of the knee. It's not a sticky/clicky pain like the last one, it's some other kind of pain.

And I'm overdue for an endoscopy and they're going to tell me I'm on too much omeprazole, but also for more than a decade I just thought throwing up in the bushes was a thing my body did, not a treatable condition, so there's some unrecoverable damage there. And the boobs hurt if the bra isn't industrial, but the industrial bra can exacerbate the reflux. And now I have to also head into MGH, to visit the hematology clinic, because my body has decided to veto the absorption of iron (also because of the omeprazole) so it's time to have some delivered by IV. Which will probably help with the fatigue and fog, but also isn't really going to be a fun time.

And it's all fine, and it's miserable enough weather-wise that I'm only kind of deeply upset that long walks in the woods aren't an option. And I think it probably makes the most sense to try to follow up on the knee, and then try to see if there are toe-arthritis options and I'm already bored by my own issues, which stacking on top of being bored with all of my hand-wringing "how do I figure out what to do next" means I'm very cross with myself a non-zero amount of the time, which means even less happens on the attending to my brain or my body fronts.

A couple days ago, I got a notice from LJ that 21 years ago I registered my first LJ (this is actually only my second), so that's a thing I've been doing on and off for a while. My smoke-free lungs can buy lottery tickets, my experience with lj/dw can now buy a drink. In a couple years, my sobriety can also buy a drink. I'm not sure why I like giving these concepts american legal analogs, but as long as it entertains me, I think it's a fine way to approach milestones. In a month, I believe my marriage can get a restricted license in New Hampshire even.

I'm in that anxious period of waiting to see if the tattoo artist in the area I like is interested in my proposal, and if covid tests feel eerily like waiting for a pregnancy test, seeing if a tattoo artist wants to continue working with me is some dreadful combination of college essays and dating website matches. But, I'm glad that I've focused on a couple different next images (I might even finally get my first skull (north american river otter) and I know that whether or not Drae picks me, there's a pretty good chance I'll get Emi to do a cuttlefish next summer. I still have ridiculously fond memories of following a set of three cuttlefish around while snorkeling while Hands and Hips and Light all finished their SCUBA certs, and how awesome it felt to be doing something so unrepentantly joyful after having spent so long angsting about whether or not I was not pursuing SCUBA certification because I was a coward (and hence should just bully myself into doing it and hope I was grateful on the other side) or being aware of my limitations and making choices that protected my emotional health, and while there are many awesome things I might get to see if I do try SCUBA again, those cuttlefish fucking rocked and in that moment, I felt pretty good about the choice. t

I feel like I should end on an up note, there are some good things, I feel like good things have been a lot harder to write about for a long time, I want that to change. It'll be September tomorrow, which means there's an ever-increasing range of beaches to take Nonsense to and maybe we can even make some progress on the teaching Noodle to swim. (she can paddle frantically to shore adequately enough, but I'd like a little more comfort and I suspect we can leverage her FOMO into practice if nothing else. I'm taking a very, very silly sounding one-off class titled "How to Tell Stories with Ice Cream from Start to Finish". Being the basic creature I am, I'm delighted by the fact Halloween merch is already out, soon there will be farmer's market apples, maybe even apple picking this year. My experience of last fall was pretty limited (fuck bedrest), even if my knee keeps me from much of the walking I want to do, I still expect to get more of this years than last and even my current experience of the pandemic makes me feel like I'm standing still and everyone else is moving on, I can still measure different kinds of progress.

It's been a minute or two, but the only way to start again is by starting again.

Highlights: More tattoo, so now I'm up to a half sleeve. A sealion put its head on my head. I graduated from PT and walked the Fells a bunch for a couple months, then aggravated my knee and knee braces in excessive heat suck. I had a bunch of dental woes, they're partially resolved but woe-like enough that when I went in for a cleaning and the hygienist told my dentist it looks good, my dentist response "Us Irish ladies don't like to make that sort of comment" or something to that effect mentioning irishness and luck.

Our dogs are a delight and a trial. Nonsense continues to have one of those faces that looks perpetually reproachful or sad and I worry about disappointing her or negatively impacting her life so much. Noodle continues to be a trial to her sister Nonsense as well as the snuggliest creature I have ever met (and that's saying a lot). I wake up most mornings with her having inserted herself as the little spoon some time over the night.

Light's D&D game has started up in person and Abundance has been discovering the joys of local camping/kayaking. I have new furniture inside and outside, and a lovely new deck that I think I anticipated using more. Still haven't talked to my parents, still feeling really good about it, still sometimes worried about being a person who feels good about it. I have read a lot and probably cooked even more than that. We've been watching a lot of live-plays, marching through Dimension 20 content and really anything else Brennan Lee Mulligan touches, and Abundance and I do jigsaw puzzles and Light and I build Legos. Frye the elderly cat is elderly and I'm struggling bunches with that, I refer to giving her fluids as "it's time to stab the cat" and that sort of grim humor helps but doesn't de-age her.

I've had my first close covid exposure (that I was aware of), my tattoo artist emailed me the next morning to tell me that they'd tested positive. No one in the house popped positive at any point, but I'm having a bunch of deep feelings about having done an ostensibly unnecessary thing and that having consequences. I realize calculated risks are still risks, but somehow also want to be rewarded for being so careful the rest of the time. Sometimes I feel like everyone I know also feels like the rest of the world is moving on in a way we're not, sometimes everything feels like it's still getting lonelier as practices diverge.

Someone recently mentioned something about reinventing themselves again/finding new/additional identities and my first impulse was to say "well, you can't have depressed housewife, that one's mine" so that's a thing. I do need a something next, I'm not sure how to find it. I've been thinking a lot about the jobs that made me happiest, and both examples come from my early to mid twenties and they somehow feel like that kind of job a) doesn't exist and b) isn't something I should want to do. One was combing EOBs to try to find discrepancies in data entry/write off calculations when we knew something was off but not why, the other was shelf-reading a college library, which involved quickly but methodically reading numbers off of spines and reordering books. Niche repetitive things. Apparently if I can't get my dream job of sorting small objects or untangling yarn, I'd like to be able to compare one thing to another thing professionally.

I guess this is true of everyone, but I feel like there are a couple things I'm excellent at, given the right context and sufficient support and I don't know how to find corners of the world to go do those things. The poly group setup felt good sometimes, I could be hypervigilant as fuck, pull out all the moments that pinged my "this could go badly" sense and present them to other people who I felt could be relied upon to be able to sort out the actually problematic right now. And it's mostly a shittily acquired skill learned from living with volatile people, but it certainly has its uses. But also as much as I want to immediately retract this statement (and have deleted it and then re-added it) there was some kernel of it that I was good at.

I used to point out every bird I saw to a small person I hung out with, wanting to figure out how to expand their field of vision without the trauma. I also used to drive in a perpetual state of terror, because everything that moved and something that didn't were a potential but preventable accidents, if I could just predict for every possible way any other vehicle or independently moving (and some not) thing might move. But maybe there's a way to turn that into a superpower yet.

Better posted than perfect, I think. For now, at least.

and, lo, there were dandelions, or a link thereto

https://www.instagram.com/p/CY-jOgzsUBF/

Crossposts: https://omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com/616022.html

New tattoo! Dandelions and ferns on the side of my left (unsurgeried) knee, wrapping around the back, which is not an area I suggest getting tattooed. Or, I mean, do what you want, having tattoos anywhere is awesome, and I'd probably do it again in a heartbeat, as long as the heartbeat was more than three days from now. It's a bit of a mindfuck to be limping again, even if it's a different leg, but the tegaderm will be off in a couple days, and their work was fineline enough that it'll heal quick.

I have a strong desire to show people, without really having anyone to show it to, and this corresponding desire to have new opportunities to be naked because I like showing off my tattoos, and I'm getting to the point where there's a bunch of them. And I'm not 100% certain what they all imply about me, but sometimes I think I like whatever it is.

They praised me for how well I was sitting, and I'm sure some of it was client management, telling someone they're good at something tends to get them to do more of it, but I also felt like a little bit of a badass and, well, praise - gods am I praise-hungry. But also, I'd love to think of myself as someone who can power through.

Also, I paid for someone's art and labor, and now I get to carry it around on me for however long my skin is a thing that exists and capitalism is weird, yo.

Crossposts: https://omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com/615838.html

I'm listening to the same handful of songs over and over again this week, ones that I identify with end-of-year feelings I think they're hopeful, maybe? The list feels a little trite and dated, and maybe even a little forced, but also like something to cling to, so I'll keep doing it until it stops feeling helpful.

Steady On - Shawn Colvin

Amy aka Spent Gladiator - Mountain Goats

This Time of Year - Melissa Ferrick

Valley Winter Song - Fountains of Youth

Start as We Mean to Go on - Thea Gilmore

We Are More - Erin McKeown

Level Up - Vienna Teng

Better Things - Dar Williams
Let Me Down Easy - Gang of Youths

Crossposts: https://omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com/615470.html

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omnia_mutantur

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merely tenacity

honey on the tip of the tongue knowing moon

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"And the mountain will always sit still"

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