#I'm not fully satisfied with the result but I spent a lot of energy on it

[xandrikart]

[tetrisfinished]

the c-word

has finally come for us. yes folks, that's right. my roommates and i (husband, kid and me) have finally been hit by the covid bug. woohooo....2 years later.

so here's the timeline of events as i remember it:

my in laws came from the states and visited in the last week of july/first week of august

we spent time together at wasaga beach on july 31st

they came for dinner on august 2nd at our place

on august 3rd yasir's aunt held a dinner which esa and i did not attend but yasir did

that day on august 3rd when yasir left, he did not come back home until his family had left back for the states again which was friday august 5th when he came home

yasir thhen started feeling his symptoms on monday night of august 8th

last week yasir tested positive on tuesday august 9th for covid and started isolation right away

however, of course it's really quite difficult to isolate from everyone when you're living under the same roof soooo of course i also started feeling symptoms and then tested positive for covid on friday august 12

on friday night esa had a fever pretty much throughout the night; we gave him medicine but didn't test him - i'm almost 100% certain he also got covid

luckily though, esa's fever broke on saturday morning and he's been back to regularly scheduled programming since then (thank goodness!)

today we are at monday august 15th, 2022 and the situation is that esa is still Alhumdulillah good, yasir feels like he's back to 100% (except that he's still testing + as of this morning and his sense of taste/smell hasn't fully recovered) and i thought i was almost all the way good again too except just about 20 minutes ago a headache started creeping up above my eyes on my temples that i can't seem to shake off. oh and i've also completely lost my sense of taste and smell.

so. yeah. that's where we're at. esa's been home from daycare ever since yasir tested positive so wednesday to now. the daycare's policy is that the child can return to daycare once the effected member(s) of the household have crossed 5 days of isolation (GIVEN of course that the child themself is also not showing any symptoms).

so as such, esa can only return to daycare 5 days after my positive result which was on friday - i.e. he'll be able to go back on thursday august 18.

it's not been totally bad having esa home though! i've quite enjoyed it but esa's also enjoyed a LOT LOT LOT of screentime.

which frankly i've allowed because if i'm being honest with myself (aside from the fact that i've been working this whole time - which i have) i've really gotten used to not actively being a parent 24/7. i know that's a shitty thing to say or think but there it is.

i suppose every parent must get used to that feeling eventually when their child starts school but perhaps it's a bit unnatural for me to start feeling this way this early.

in any case. that's that. i really don't want to wallow in mom guilt at 11:43 pm at night on a monday.

so instead i'll tell you the surprising thing about how covid has effected me. the symptoms i had were congestion, frequent headaches (which is not normal or regular for me so it was actually kind of a pain), cough, and of course the loss of taste and smell.

the surprising bit about it is none of that (even the headaches) really bothered me as much as the loss of my sense of taste. it is such a SURREAL experience to have not to be able to taste anything. it's as if you're going on a diet except that you aren't going on a diet.

what do i mean by that?

like as if you were restricting yourself from your cravings except that you see yourself eating exactly the thing you're craving but gaining absolutely NONE of that inner happiness over having satisfied that craving!

it is honestly the WEIRDEST feeling and i do feel so spoilt going on and on about it because thankfully my body is still able to extract the energy from the food that is still readily available to me - but i just can't taste it. i mean - talk about a first world problem, eh!?

so ya. i'm told this loss does come back eventually....it's a really weird feeling so i hope that that's true.

but ya. that's how our covid experience has been.

now this current headache is urging me to stop staring at my screen so goodnight from me!

much love,

-k

[bangchanswolfpelt]

So I'm not very familiar with Stray Kids at all, but somehow I wound up watching bits of Bang Chan's lives and what the fuck... It was like watching myself talk, only without the Aussie accent and a little more smiley. So if you ever wanna know my everyday vibes, it's basically Chan. Also I find it so attractive how open he is with everything, he comes across as having really good emotional intelligence and I'm like 😍😍 In terms of kpop biases that is the kind that attracts me but IRL it somehow ends up the opposite, I end up with more reserved, less emotionally attuned sorts.

Muselin rambles.... Someone dropped into my ask box the other day and asked me in terms of D/s dynamics where I fall, and it's not very clear cut but I'm more sub leaning. However you would never say that from observing me. Apparently research has shown that most people's personalities align with their D/s preference (talking proper BDSM though, not just dabbling), but a minority show the opposite. I assumed that people would want to act out their less realistic fantasies so their D/s alignment would not match their personality and that's how it was for me, but it was surprising to learn that for most people it isn't like that.

So back to Chan, I've seen some moments where his nonverbals give it away. Mind you these were brief and based on very limited time I've spent on it but they've all been very unguarded moments. Especially when he turns PROTECTIVE MODE on, or is trying to contain anger, the other members look to him with this sort of compliant energy, even though usually he's so cheerful and smiley.

Ramble over. I just had to 😌

i woke up from a twelve hour nap and had to immediately kill two spiders for the Roomie, then opened up tumblr to three full paragraphs about one of my biases, so—thank you for taking the wheel and steering my day up out of the immediate nosedive it took 🥺

ahhhhh, Chan's lives are so soothing, whenever i need sound and can't decide what to put on, they're absolutely one of my go-to's. i'm one hundred percent with you, re: his openness and warmth being really attractive, it's definitely a big part of why he's my bias 😭 if you want to get more into Stray Kids, or just see more of Chan, their interview with Zach Sang is really good—Chan's the most vocal one during it, and it was definitely the thing that tipped me over from just occasionally appreciating Hyunjin's face into fully writing werewolf porn and setting Chan's face as my lockscreen and ordering wolf plushies 💀

that's super interesting about the research results! in my experience, it's always been a pretty mixed bag in terms of people's preferences matching/not matching with expectations—it's neat to hear that we have some actual studies done on it. if you have any specific reading you'd recommend, i'd love to hear about it!!

i love hearing your take on Chan! i think that really open, warm attitude is—not fake or insincere, but something very deliberate he puts out? like, i feel like Chan is someone who actively works to be as gentle and welcoming as he is, but that doesn't mean it's something that comes super naturally to him or that it's who he is all the time, and it's definitely not hard to catch flashes of something a little sterner underneath (just fuckin watch him gently rebuking stays for bad behavior😂). he also keeps seven of the rowdiest lil motherfuckers i've ever seen in line, and you definitely don't manage that while being a pushover. 😭 i've always thought of him as being switchy, but distinctly dom-leaning—Chan isn't just the leader of his group, but he was responsible for putting the entire group together and getting them to debut and is still responsible for a lot of their musical output, and i think that level of responsibility and control is something's he's actively chosen both because it comes naturally to him and because he finds rewarding. getting to let go and allow someone else to take care of him would probably be really satisfying for him sometimes, but i think his first instinct is always going to be to take charge and take care of people.