When I was a small child, one of my favorite movies (or sets of movies, I guess) was Disney’s Aladdin series. I grew up with those movies, since they came out in my early years and my parents believed Disney movies were an important part of a child’s upbringing, at least for me and my older siblings. That perception had faded by the time my youngest sibling had been born, but I grew up in the 90s and watched mostly disney movies and PBS kids. And while a lot of the Disney movies can deal with a lot of heavy ideas, like losing your parents or violence, both against defenseless people and in pursuit of justice, only one such idea has stuck with me since I first heard it as a small child.
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Some Change Would Be Nice. Not Time Change, Though. That Sucks
Man, fuck daylight savings time. I don’t care if this is going up a week removed from the event when I don’t feel as mad about it, but the whole “change your clocks twice a year” thing is bullshit. We should just adopt DST as our always time. I think more people could use the afternoon/evening time in the sun than the morning time, but I recognize that people who actually get up at that time would maybe prefer the sunlight then. Ultimately, I don’t really care which way we go, so long as we just stick with it. I have enough trouble sleeping without needing to suddenly offset my normal sleep schedule by an hour.
Continue readingWriting For Myself
We’re approaching the halfway point in the month as this goes up, but it’s only the end of the first week when I’m writing it. I hope I’m still doing as well with my NaNoWriMo challenge when this posts as I am when I’m writing this. Right now, I’ve not only written every day, but I’ve also passed the daily average for National Novel Writing Month’s 50,000 word goal. I’m, you know, only five days in, so there’s plenty of time for that to change, but given that I was able to do last night’s words in about an hour, I think I’m in a good place to succeed.
Continue readingI Just Think Nebulae Are Pretty Neat
I love looking at space pictures. I prefer looking at pictures of nebulae, especially different pictures of the same nebula captured using different lenses, different filters, different anything. It’s so amazing to see how different the world looks if you capture the light using something other than human eyes. Like, most giant clouds of space dust look kinda bland to the human eye, but point the right camera at them and suddenly they’re a visual feast, so many different colors and intensities mixing together.
Continue readingReasonable NaNoWriMo Goals
Whenever I do something that I know will be difficult or particularly taxing, like take my current level of stress and work and dial it all up a notch by deciding to participate in a month-long writing event, I like to set two separate goals for myself at the outset. Goal one is my realistic goal. It is something I know I can meet with a reasonable amount of effort no matter what happens. My second goal is more aspirational, something I think I can do but that might take more than just effort to make it happen. For instance, in NaNoWriMo 2021, my primary goal is to write in a book project every day. My secondary goals is to write 50,000 words in that book project over the course of a month.
Continue readingA Small Vacation
I have a difficult time actually taking vacations. I’ve written before about my struggles, mostly in terms of financial cost, but I also struggle with taking a break from a mental and personal perspective, too. One of my oldest and least-healthy coping mechanism has always been “keep busy.” Which isn’t necessarily unhealthy on it’s own, but if you’re going into this with the thought of “gotta stay too busy to be sad,” then you’ve strayed into an unhealthy mindset and mechanism. The other side of this, which makes this into a problem I actively struggle with, is the fact that I also just like to keep busy. I like having things to do.
Continue readingAs Soon As I’m Ready
Some days, as I go through the ordinary tasks of everyday living, I find comfort in the humdrum moments of the life I live. Much can be said about the power of the familiar and the comfortable. Like a cliche in a pleasant movie, we enjoy the familiarity as much as we might decry the sheer normalcy of it. Everyone wants change, and excitement, and for the world to respond to us as we seek to interact with it, but few want it constantly.
Continue readingPlay Some Happy Music, Sad Man
I had an awakening yesterday (a week and a day before this goes up), while I was preparing to run a Dungeons and Dragons game. I’d spent the day in what I like to refer to as “low energy mode” since I’m struggling to find even keel after a few tumulutuous weeks (relatively to the past few tulmultuous years) and was looking for a way to get amped up for my D&D session. I was genuinely excited to run it, but most of the day had slipped by in a fugue as I went about my work tasks and final prep. So I turned to music to shake me from my stupor and get my brain moving.
Continue readingSome of these Toxic People Apologists Really Need a Mirror
There is a segment of the population that, for whatever reason, views severing ties with someone as always the fault of the person creating distance. I say “whatever reason,” because you can usually figure out why if you dig a bit, but the reasons tend to vary per person and most of them deny it if confronted (at least they do in my experience). Normally, I’d list exceptions here, things that even these people wouldn’t argue with, but I couldn’t type out a single one without thinking of a time someone faulted me for ending a relationship with someone for exactly that reason. It is staggering, sometimes, to think about the number of relationship and abuser apologists I’ve encountered in my life, and how many of them were otherwise good, friendly, sensible people.
Continue readingBeing Single Doesn’t Suck. Being Lonely Does.
I’ve been single for most of my life. Which is probably true of a lot of people, but not something I frequently hear framed in those kinds of terms. None of my relationships have lasted very long (usually for good reasons, but not always) and I’ve spent most of my adult life seeking a romantic partner. Pretty passively, if I’m being honest. Partly due to life events and partly due to my distaste for online dating, but mostly due to my preference for a strong personal connection as the foundation for a relationship.
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