picked a handful of violets in my name

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:24:57 GMT

Rough few days, depression-wise. I took a three hour sad nap Monday and my moods have been low. On the bright side, my sleep schedule hasn't been fucked over by it.

And I finally dug myself out from under my work for this week, and I have finally figured out what historyprof expects and how to work with her. I have an assignment due Saturday, but I already started it and it's going well. Everything else is done (~~save a final proofreading of Thing for today before I submit it~~ and submitted, yay).

Now that I am actually doing housework, I am re-configuring my life balance. Work is reasonably well blocked-out, since I have set hours for Fun Job, enough love of money to work reasonably consistently at Boring Job, and a total inability to bring work home. Classes are even better blocked-out but homework time really is not; I do all my stuff on my computer, which means poor separation between "homework time," "email break," and "internet time." Housework doesn't quite fit in yet - I tend toward mini-marathon cleaning (not hours and hours without breaks, but longer than Unfuck Your Habitat recommends), but I can also find lots of quick little tasks and do one or three of them before moving on to something else. But I've been using housework to procrastinate on schoolwork for a week or two (and then been completely ignoring the house to catch up on homework for a few days now), which means my balance is off. I'm putting all my homework assignments into SuperBetter now; part of the motivation for preferring housework tasks was that I got rewarded in SuperBetter for them, so now my academic work is gamified too.

Ellie and I are starting to think about moving. Our landlords would like to take over our apartment because it's a bit smaller and on the first floor of the building, and they're getting older and so on. (They've given us tons of warning because they're awesome like that.) Ellie wants to try living with people she isn't related to, and may be moving out of JP, whereas I don't feel like living with not-relatives is an important marker of adulthood and will maybe punch something if I have to leave my neighborhood. It's too early to be seriously looking for apartments, but Ellie is checking listings anyway - I am mentally splitting up our common possessions based on who bought what (mostly Ellie) and who uses what (varies) and trying to figure out what I will need to replace and what I can live without.

Now to get dressed and get to campus. Nerdy games to follow. :)

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Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:31:53 GMT

Going to see Rasputina tonight with Cid and Daly, with possible trip to Good Vibes beforehand if the timing works out. :)

Right now, I am sitting at home with my hair under a plastic shower cap, slowly re-purpling. I'll wash it out soon and then probably hit the lunch buffet at Ghazal. I ♥ their lunch buffet so much: a nice big plate of chicken tikka masala and rice, a couple of pieces of bhatoora, and a whole basket of naan to myself. (I am by nature a grazer, but since I have trouble noticing I'm hungry and remembering to eat on a regular basis, the ability to eat large and less frequent meals is important.)

I'm pretty sure everyone reading this has already seen Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression, but I too must link it.

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life continues as usual

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:42:36 GMT

So I posted a while back that I was really stressed about something and then I didn't post anything for a while. Oops.

The stressful situation is resolving itself, both more quickly and more slowly than I might have expected. But at least I've stopped losing sleep over it.

I've pretty much just been going to class, going to work, and doing face-to-face social stuff. I'm not in a bad place, depression-wise, but I am not as active as I'd like to be. I think it comes down to recalibrating myself again: the structure of my life has changed quite a bit lately.

Grad school has a different feel to it. The good news is, I'm keeping up with readings and assignments much better than I managed in undergrad. But I need to train myself into spending a bit more time on campus being involved in groups and meeting people. (Tangential to grad school: I have already encountered a fellow student in the local kink scene. We spotted each other on FetLife, but have not yet managed to be at any of the same events.)

I have been more social within my pre-grad school contexts. I attended a couple of munches - someone has relaunched the munch for Mob New England, and someone else has started a munch for bi/queer/etc. women in relationships with men. I also spent a nice chunk of time with oration on his birthday. I hung out with him while he cleaned his house for the party (and then had to leave the party early because being there while Cid was cleaning had upset my lungs something fierce, and I didn't have my inhaler).

Plus my Battletech group is switching to Shadowrun. The character creation process is so involved, and our schedules have been so start-of-term hectic, that we've only played one mini-session so far (and only one of us had a proper character - I used a stock character from the rule book and Cid was using a character our GM made, I think). We had a nice character creation session on Cid's back porch last night - well, Cid was working on a character and I just went over for people-time and got a couple of questions answered.

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Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:30:16 GMT

pinesandmaples: Resist temptation

Hurricane Katrina is not an opening line. It is never an appropriate way to start a conversation with a New Orleanean.

To update, belatedly, about Irene: I am really kind of shocked we didn't lose power. Very uneventful hurricane here in JP.

Conclusion: Doctor Who is not my new fandom. It is my new entertainment candy. (Conclusion drawn after noticing my total lack of interest in reading other people's reaction posts.)

That said, I think this leaves me adrift, fannishly. Actually I think at this point fandom is my fandom.

I've been kind of hiding out for a few weeks. Minor depressive downswing, I guess - I'm not sure I would even have noticed it (or, you know, experienced it) except that I've been so bad about taking my meds lately. Only really seems to have affected my social - I haven't been updating as much, have skipped loads of munches, etc. And it doesn't help that my semi-guaranteed social time (Battletech) hasn't happened for a few weeks because our GM burnt out.

Pleased to report that the Mirena seems to have finally stopped the bleeding portion of my period. I am still experiencing the early-warning cramps (which I only developed this past year-ish) but as those seem to be decreasing in severity I can hope they'll cease, too.

This leaves me with an unopened DivaCup, size 1 (won in the Muskrat Jamboree raffle back in April). Anybody want it?

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Mon, 30 May 2011 01:22:36 GMT

Recently

Went to a few yard sales (and the Kinky Tea and Tag Sale yesterday, where I spent most of my time socializing, and Boomerangs today, where I found a fantastic knife block for $2, which has made Ellie pretty happy). It turns out that yard sales make an effective carrot for getting me up relatively early on the weekends, and also getting me out of the house. Unfortunately, I walked 3.7 miles yesterday and 1.9 miles today, wearing flip flops for the first time since last year. Oops.

Links

( science, kink and fanfic, Dreamwidth stuff, mental illness )

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Thu, 05 May 2011 03:39:35 GMT

21 Days of Dreamwidth

( Since I'll be offline for a few days, I should get ahead. )

Side Effect: May Cause FEELINGS

So I have a question for the people out there who are not congenitally depressed.

Sometimes I experience semi-random happiness, where I'm just having a nice day and everything is kinda shiny and it's good to be alive. Sometimes I get enormously ragey over stuff that doesn't seem to merit serious RAEG.

And both of those ~~feelings~~ are pretty obviously tied to my meds (along with an increase in ability to Get Shit Done and a decrease in memory function). My question is: do I finally, after 20 years of being depressed, have a reasonable range of emotions?

Plans

Boston MCR show tomorrow night; I'll be in line during the day. Meeting with tuesdaysgone Friday morning for a ride to PA and another MCR show. Assuming the gods of train schedules smile upon me, I should be back in Boston in time for the SlutWalk. (Fingers crossed I can make all my transit connections.) And then there is the DC concert. Wheeeeeee.

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Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:36:49 GMT

21 Days of Dreamwidth

( day 3 )

Links

( four links: polyamory, police violence, crutches (metaphorical), web accessibility )

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links assembled pre-mj

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 23:11:00 GMT

3D printed "thorn dice"

Shapeways user Ceramicwombat created these great "thorn dice" and they're available in a number of polymers and metals, fresh and piping hot from the 3D printer.

... now to come up with some kind of gift-giving occasion so I can order a set for my boyfriend.

azurelunatic: Lucky Girl: growing up queer in a mostly-safe world

From that last entry, you'd think that growing up queer in suburban Alaska was pretty rough. I didn't think I had it particularly hard at the time. It was not like I had it half as bad as it could have been. I felt lucky to have it as good as I did.

oursin: Robert Frost's neighbour had a rather good point* (even if Frost didn't think so)

I find the thought of limits as enabling rather than confining really rather exciting, because it does tend to mesh with my experiences across quite diverse fields of endeavour.

That if there is no particular reason to go in a particular direction or get stuck into a particular task or if you're facing an enormous supermarket full of choices, it can really be somewhat paralysing.

Avant Game: Super Better - or how to turn recovery into a multi-player experience

SuperBetter is a superhero-themed game that turns getting better in multi-player adventure. It’s designed to help anyone recovering from an injury, or coping with a chronic condition, get better, sooner – with more fun, and with less pain and misery, along the way.

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To do over the next few weeks

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:52:55 GMT

Pack for Muskrat Jamboree

Attend MJ

Write capstone paper

Create 30-45 minute presentation for music seminar

Edit capstone paper

Write a few more blog entries for The Networked Society

Write two short papers for TNS

Write paper for music seminar

Possibly make Shiny Thing(s) to try and give to MCR after one of their shows

Go and see MCR a bunch of times

Remember to take my meds consistently (essential if all of the above is to get done, get done well, and get done on time)

And here are a few links for today:
( Read more... )

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Too down for a real post.

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 23:25:07 GMT

Turbo developed chronic kidney disease; Mom and Dad brought him in yesterday. He always loved going to the vet, especially when we were going on vacation so he got to stay there for a few days and have lots of social interaction. He got to hang out with one of his favorite vet techs yesterday. He was big for a Jack Russell - we thought he'd be smaller because we saw him alongside a bunch of Golden Retriever puppies - and he was never very healthy (allergic to people, other dogs, and out pre-Katrina lawn). But my mother still has three or so feral cats to look after, so that's something.

I've also realized that I am experiencing some twitchiness about my relationship, and engaging in some (logical but still not healthy) sabotaging behaviors. Not ready to blog about it, I don't think.

I'll be back in New Orleans in less than a month. I'm supposed to be working on my extended bibliography because I'm meeting with my advisor again on Wednesday, but today is just not the day for getting anything done. I made myself a sandwich and I sorted my stuff from the clean laundry and put it away. The rest of my day has been playing a silly little puzzle game over and over, and leaving a chat window open with Cory on the other end. It's comforting.

Quizzical Pussy: Legacy

I’m still a beaten girlfriend somewhere deep down.

I’m realizing who profoundly affected I really am by it all, to this day. My self-esteem was never great to begin with, but staying in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for years trained even that scant confidence out of me. And while, believe it or not, I’ve scraped a fair amount back for myself, if we’re making comparisons, I can’t escape the learned worthlessness that was my liturgy for so long.

Shakesville: My Point, Here It Is

When I ask a person not to engage in rape apologia in this space, because it is my space and I have not only not consented to host rape apologia here, but have also explicitly and repeatedly deemed it off-limits, and that person continues to engage in rape apologia nonetheless, without regard for my boundaries or personal autonomy, that's not exactly someone who's demonstrating a commitment to the notions of consent, autonomy, and respect.

That's someone who's leveraging the values of a rape culture to violate my boundaries.

That's someone who's acting like a fucking rapist.

Boston Area Rape Crisis Center Blog: Community Conversations

Rape is different than other types of violent crime. In my mind, rape is a lot like a hate crime, targeted at a particular group in order to scare and intimidate them. The reason we punish hate crimes differently than other crimes is because they affect the behavior of more than one person. An assault is always bad; we don't, as a society, condone assault (at least I hope we don't). But an assault perpetrated against a member of a particular community, let's say, or against a person of a particular ethnic background and infused with the intent to intimidate and scare everyone else who shares that background causes a lot more ripples than an assault that doesn't have that motivation. I can be scared of crime when I leave my house, but I'm not afraid that someone will specifically target me because of my gender or race. I don't have to worry that someone, seeking to work out their own misogyny or racism will choose to do violence on my body to satisfy their own issues. If I did, you'd better bet that it would change my behavior. I'd be a whole hell of a lot more careful about what I said, where I went, and how I acted.

thingswithwings: how to defend against accusations of hating queers

Anyway, this is just a rambling list of examples, but I guess I'm listing them just because it frustrates me so much, the way these creators are all huge fucking cowards who aren't brave enough to write a queer character into their children's book, their tv show, their novel; huge fucking cowards who blame the episode running long or the whims of the story itself (the story just never went there! it's like novels are magical creatures with self-determined lives of their own and not texts written by people!) for the fact that queerness is reduced to subtextual or extratextual appearances; huge fucking cowards who will use this not-quite-queer not-quite-not-queer kind of character to simultaneously protect themselves from criticism (if Dumbledore's not gay in the actual book, then his unrequited love for a monster isn't problematic) and protect themselves from the accusation that they fail to include queers. It's a giant pile of bullshit.

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link backlog

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:44:32 GMT

( links )

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in which I get shit done

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 01:01:13 GMT

Recently

I have finagled my inbox all the way down to four things in Priority Inbox (one of which is my flight info and one of which relates to the practice GRE I'm taking tomorrow), and eleven things in the regular inbox, none of which requires an actual reply (they're all emails containing coupon codes I stand a decent chance of using - I keep them in my inbox so they don't get lost, and so they can be easily deleted once they expire).

Anyway, yeah. Practice GRE tomorrow (free, and it's been a while since I've taken a test like that). I should just register for the next convenient real GRE,* since it's not like I am going to study. And I went to an hour-long thingy about grad school, in which I had a lot of things I sort of knew confirmed, and had to suffer through a lot of stupid questions. Not sure it was entirely worth not getting paid for that hour, but eh.

In other "did $thing like a motherfucking adult" news, I have successfully paid the internet bill (which we just didn't receive last month, wtf. Verizon has the absolute worst billing system in the world, I swear), and requested an absentee ballot (since, oops, out of town for the election).

* Or maybe not, since it looks like I don't actually need it. IDK if I should take it anyway, though. So, uh, I turn to my dreamroll! For your information, I am seriously considering the Archives/History dual degree program at Simmons** but also seriously considering just the M.S. and going back for a history degree later. So y'all should give me advice on that, too.

** xkcd really nailed it.

Links

Disabled Feminists: Let’s Bust Some Myths: Depressed People Are Always Sad or They’re Faking!
Mix up a few details, and Blanchard’s story is a pretty common one. Whenever I talk to people who are currently living with long- or short-term depression, or have lived with it in the past, they tell me the same story: Friends thought they were faking because they managed to get out and have a good time. They laughed at a joke once and everyone decided they were “over” their “funk”. They didn’t act like stereotypes of depressed people, so they must not actually be depressed.
britpop

Browse Dreamwidth styles by color group and color characteristics.

And there was going to be a link to a really cute picture I found while doing my actual job today, but it's on the test server, which A) I don't remember its IP address and therefore can't get to it from here and B) I probably shouldn't be linking the test server around anyway. But old photos of serious-looking small children, woo.

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Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:23:27 GMT

Recently

I bought more fiber! Only a few batts, though, and none of them were very expensive. Still need to learn ALL the steps for knitting projects, not just the part in the middle.

And I was chattering about Dreamwidth to Cory, and he started asking questions, and now I think I may have recruited his entire D&D group. Or at least him, for the purpose of a D&D blog. I foresee some unofficial Support work in my future...

Follow Friday

britcoms
Anything and everything relating to British comedies is welcome there (reviews, news, favourite clips, fanfiction, discussions about actors' other projects, and anything else I've forgotton to mention). The only no-no is filesharing of full-length, commercially available episodes; otherwise, join in and have fun!
aslinterpreters

fleecefiberyarn

Links

Disabled Feminists: Normalising Accessibility
Having accessibility notes does not create universal access. But it’s certainly a step in the right direction, of getting people to think beyond ‘special treatment‘ by positioning accessibility as something broadly relevant to most people, and something of equal importance as ‘who, what, where, when, why, and how.’ Which, for many of us, it is.
melannen: (no subject) [poll]
When I am talking about the novels, animated series, comics, web extras, role-playing games, audio dramas, and so on that are authorized by a particular fandom's owners but are not part of main canon, I call them:
emceeaich: Stay Alive
Many of our friends, family, and loved-ones who don't are constantly told, implicitly and explicitly, that they have no value, and ending one's life can be alluring. Fighting injustice is part of preventing suicide.
foxfirefey in lj_refugees: PayPal conduit offer
Somebody's comment on the last post made me feel like I should make an offer to be a PayPal conduit for people who can't pay Dreamwidth in other ways. I'll do this for at least two weeks from the date of this post.

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Not dead.

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:53:53 GMT

I promise I will update with actual things from my life! Some time later today (as it is now technically Monday).

But for now, the links: ( 10 links )

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linkity

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:41:47 GMT

( 15 links )

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:(

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:34:24 GMT

Well, internets, I am definitely experiencing a depressive episode that exceeds my medication's ability to compensate. :(

There are definitely some external components. Not sure if that makes me feel better or worse than Completely Random Brain Fuckery. I am probably experiencing a very extended sort of con drop, because I had 3+ weeks of New Orleans and parents and Doing All Of The Things (research, eating, shopping), 24 hours in Boston in which I had to Do All Of The Other Things (unpack, repack, work most of a day), then the con, and then more parents (they came up to Boston for a week to visit Ellie, so I got a few extra days with them post-con). Nothing to do but go to work, and I'm still part-time until the 5th.

( It is also approaching five years since I was raped. (formulated to be hypo-trigger-genic) )

I am dwelling on it because I promised to make an item for shadesong's Blogathon auction (I made three things last year). She always blogs for BARCC, but the theme for this year's items is the strength/resilience of survivors. I have no idea what I'm going to make, and the openness of the theme doesn't actually help (last year, I used shadesong's fiction for prompts).

( I probably should have made the Blogathon piece while I was in New Orleans. (there are some details here, maybe triggers) )

So my plan for the rest of the afternoon had been to catch up on my dreamroll, which I have not checked since Friday because spoons, but I think what I will actually do after I post this is play with my boxes of beads and whatnot. See what comes up.

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cheer up, self

Wed, 12 May 2010 01:35:24 GMT

Daily Song makeups (right-click):
Veruca Salt - Seether (May 8th)
The Pipettes - One Night Stand (May 9th)
Goldfrapp - Slippage (May 10th)

Daily Song (right-click): The Dollyrots - Because I'm Awesome

synecdochic: the ghost in the room, or, why modesty is a dirty fucking word

There are a lot of things I am good at, and a lot of things I do that are awesome. I feel no particular need to list them, and at least a few come up in general blah-blah-this-is-my-life (I am good at my job, for example, and the stuff I do generally isn't done by people with my level of education - there's a reason I call myself an apprentice archivist). I write well. I'm making an effort to contribute to my online community (having - I think - accustomed myself to frequent and at least moderately meaty posts, and having always been pretty zealous about replying to comments, I'm now pushing myself to comment more on other people's stuff).

As far as I can tell, the main limit right now on my level of kickass-doing-of-things is... depression and the learned procrastination, apathy, and lack of action that go along with a lifetime case of dysthymia.

( blah blah depression not-so-yay )

Basically, nobody worry! I'm just feeling less happy/content than I think I should be - for no apparent reason, which means it is cyclical brain chemical shenanigans.

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