jkatkina

So irt my previously-stated intentions to spend more things on things that take more time, mixed success but not no success so far. I think I'm cut back on tumblr (etc) a bit; I've been reading articles rather than just closing them, and -- honestly the thing here --

I am playing Video Game.

I bought the Silent Hill 2 remake: preordered by a couple of days, when the earlybird reviewers were beginning to put out positive reviews, but I believed in it before then. It's the first triple-A video game I've bought in... shit, it's the first triple-A I've bought full-price that I can remember. Everything else came used, or later during a sale. I am not generally a release-date player of anything -- and in the past several years I have not been a player of longform video games at all, out of a combination of lack of focus and lack of motivation.

Silent Hill as a franchise lands solidly in special-interest territory for me, though. I know the lore and I know the background of the games and I will listen to all of the video essays. Playthroughs on youtube of the OG games are comfort food. That in mind, this time I ignored the sensible notion to wait till it's no longer fucking $90 and dove right the fuck in.

It's so interesting to observe my brain squirming under the pressure of doing something volitionally that takes time and attention and decision-making skills, even when it's something fun that I chose to do. There is a part of me that squrims about it, even when I'm enjoying it: something that feels a weird little dread that this thing is taking Effort and I might be Tired afterwards, so am I sure I want to do it? I am also not being possessed in the same way I do when something's a bona-fide brain-chemistry hyperfocus, but I am genuinely enjoying it, and all that in gestalt feels like good practice for relearning how to just enjoy things.

also, fuck, if you've ever been interested in SH it's a great in-road. it's so so SO well done. AGH. ACK. EUGH. ETC. I think I gave myself an actual neurotransmitter depletion hangover last saturday when I played it for a handful of hours straight.

So follow-up to some of yesterday's navel-gazing (which I ended up talking with TL about with a bunch this morning, crystallizing some stuff), I'm trying to think of boots-on-the-ground strategies for rewiring some of the habits I talked about last post.

1. Less tumblr. not going to say no tumblr because I know myself and know cold-turkey doesn't work. "Less tumblr" also as a catch-all for rapidfire and algorithmic social media; I can't just start using facebook again instead and call this one done, lol


2. Strategic use of discord. i.e. cultivate the friendships and spaces I'm interested in instead of trying to be everywhere scattershot. This means using spaces for what they are good for, not what I want them to be good for.


3. Take the void I feel from the reduced time spent on 1 or 2 and turn that discomfort towards picking away at things that take time. I know from past experiences simply cutting stuff out doesn't work; I end up doing nothing if I haven't come up with a replacement behaviour, and it's bad for the long-term mental health. In this case I'm leaving it open-ended: read a book or a paper you've been putting off looking at. Pick away at a response to someone else's stuff (don't have to finish it, just have to put a little time in). Write a blog post. Meditate, or try to. Make the body move around or go outside. Think about some character or plot work I've been putting off.

I don't expect any of it to feel good: at this point I've kind of given up on the idea that my brain will chemically reward me for anything I actually want to be doing. That's the point: I want to start learning how to earn that slow dopamine.

Anyways, the habits hopefully I can do something about, and trust that my brain will slowly shift back towards something a little less wired towards constant small dopamine hits. I have no conceit that I'll get back everything I've lost, but just being able to focus a bit better will help. There are, after all, concrete things I can do to shift that.

The other stuff... I'll keep working on in the ways that I can, but that's way less concrete and way more, like, therapy-and-self-work based.

I've tried to keep the replacement behaviours to relatively low-stakes things. I'm not ready to start combining the dopamine rewiring with the creative and social fears, but that's the eventual hope.

and hey, I did this rather than scroll through tumblr. if both things are kind of meaningless uses of time then I haven't net lost anything by doing this, and have spent a little time reminding myself how to put words down in an order.

So yesterday was somehow, out of the blue, kind of a perfect day.

• We got some more work done on the big terrarium. It's 50% siliconed/textured now!! Hopefully time for dirt and plants next week!!!
• We settled on where and how we're going camping this week.
• Worked the fuck out (in anticipation of said camping trip, which will also be a long canoe day)
• Got my COVID booster -- not fun, but good.
• Hung out in a coffee shop and got some writing done on Constellations! Only like a couple hundred words but progress is progress!
• Signed the contract for my upcoming job! July - January, so I'll be hunting again in a few months, but hopefully the industry will be less of a garbage fire then.
• A friend reached out to say hello and ask some advice about freelancing! That felt really good, both the hello and the being able to help.
• Spent the evening finessing my boards for class this wednesday and ended up with some stuff I'm really proud of.
• Went to sleep cuddled up with TL and feeling actually peaceful.

It's such a 180 from the past several weeks. My skin is clear, my crops are watered, my people are thriving, and all of that literally. Man, you can't anticipate them, but when the good days hit, they're better than gold.

If there are ~two wolves inside everybody~ mine are thus:

Sleep, rest, denning up. Learning to be okay with less. Doing less, having less. Contentment with self, with presence, with just who I am and where I am. The surrender of earthly goals in service of allowing the soft animal of my body to simply exist in warmth.

and

Teeth sinking into the world, a joyous, fierce grab, hunger, HUNGER, HUNGER, connection, expansion. The collection of experiences, people, joys, pains, fears, successes. The uncompromising drink, swallow after messy swallow, from the cup of life. The desire to see how far, how fast, how bright.

I mean, I like em both, the tension only comes in the conflict between them

but also shit like this happens, where having spent three months post-surgery necessarily living in the space of Wolf #1, the hot second I'm feeling human again and an opportunity comes down the pipes to test my limits Wolf #2 allows no quarter and goes YEP WE'RE DOING THIS

"Hey, you want to try your hand at supervising? I think you'd be good at it!"

"Sure, sounds like a fun challenge!"

*facepalm*

Something something hospital stays are harder than I thought, something something this sucks, still glad I did it, home tomorrow, lots to unpack, cool new scar.

More later. Sleep now.

A friend of mine had his top surgery a month ago. He's healed enough he can start posting pictures, grinning and topless.

( gender and surgery )

So TL and I booked our road tests for driving the better part of a year ago, and they're finally up. Hers was today, and mine's tuesday. She didn't make it, when she was very confident she would -- she got caught right at the end in a complicated intersection situation and got spooked, did a thing that disqualified her.

I've been having lessons all these past few weeks and I don't feel ready. I really, really would like one of us to have our license before we move next month, but good lord, with bookings happening eight months ahead of time... our best bet is snapping up cancellations, and without a vehicle of our own to test on, that's going to be hella complicated.

I really do not enjoy driving. Even with ten lessons under my belt, I still find it spooky as fuck. I'm a slow thinker, and the road is ever changing.

Wish me luck next week.

One of my ancient traditions had been, for many years, to spend the last bit of Christmas Eve writing a "parody" poem off of that one that starts "twas the night before chrismtas", about and for a dragon cyberpet writng/drawing community I had been a part of. (I say "parody" in quotey quotes because, for real, they got increasingly less silly and more sincere as the years went on.) This comm was a big part of my growing up, and my main hobby stuff and source of inspiration for ages.

Ten or so years ago, this community finished a long, slow decline, such that we all drifted apart and the old forums were abandoned.

Then, this November, out of the blue and a shock to all of us, I think, one member of that old cavalcade put out the call that she'd made a discord server, and like 90% of our old crew descended. That's nearly sixty people, out the blue, for a community that vanished a decade ago.

I just spent my first Christmas Eve in years and years writing that poem for those people. I don't know how long this community will last this time around, but at the moment, I feel a profound sense of homecoming. I feel, for just a moment, at peace.

boy howdy. I don't know what's going on but the last couple of weeks have been harrowing. Nothing's changed in my environment, that I can tell, but my allergies are going MAD. I've been a mouth-breather, fully congested, for days, and my skin is just... having a histamine party.

IT sucks. I'm tired all the time. It kind of makes doing anything but work too much to handle.

I guess quarantine is a good thing right now. :B

I've fallen off the DW horse again, which really shouldn't be, because this is a fascinating time and I should be documenting it.

I'm still working from home. The world is still mad right now. TL's still unemployed. The last few months have felt like melted ice cream: all goopy and running together and somehow wrong.

Inevitably, I've been grappling with feelings of helplessness and, interestingly, anger that at times threatens to just explode everywhere. None of us deserve this, none of us should be having to go through this, but here we are: at the mercy of our governments, of other people with foolish beliefs, of a merciless, mindless virus. And it's not fucking fair.

Everyone I know has tried their best to be a good person and to survive and thrive in a world that is stacked against most of us, and this is how that world is paying us back. I know there's really no rhyme or reason to anything, but my cultural background has instilled me with this gut feeling that good should be rewarded from above. (Though my family of origin is solidly atheist, our collective background is solidly WASPy and.... whatever the catholic version of WASPs are.) Framed charitably, I call this my sense of justice: in my worst moments it's a raging sense of entitlement. They're two sides of the same coin. Anyways, it's interesting feeling full of rage and helpless to change the situation. Horrible, and I'd rather we not be here, but here we are and I can at least frame it as interesting and channel it where it can do some good.

( Now here's the hope part: )