i love my family so much. @actuallylukedanes had plans to go with their spouse to the state fair yesterday, and i planned to use my alone time to work on projects. but when i idly mentioned that i wished i could go to the fair too, because smaller local fairs were an essential and literally-every-year part of my life growing up, my best friend said there was no reason i couldn't--and their spouse's reaction to the idea was to be enthusiastically in support.
these two people, my own chosen family, not only gave me a ride so i could enjoy the day, but spent as much of it with me as possible just because we could all have fun together. and they never once made it seem like i was crashing their couple time, and when i chose to try and walk the grounds rather than using a mobility device (like i do during zoo visits that make leander happy) they never once treated me like i couldn't handle it and enforce my own limits or like i was dragging everything down by needing breaks.
so this is just an appreciation post for my people, who were happy to invite me at the last minute for a day of sun and strangers and entertainment and curly fries and testing my limits. it was nice to be reminded that i'm capable of more than my everyday routine, and also to be reminded of the way i used to live, that i miss. spontaneous plans, and trading spoons for experiences without regretting it, and not assuming that i need to stay home while everyone else does things (or assuming that i should avoid being around two people who don't get a lot of time together, cuz i don't want to bother them).
yesterday was a really good day.
10 notes
·
View notes
I met up with a friend yesterday. By the end of our time together (about three hours), as usual, I had a lot of mucus build-up in my nose and throat. As usual, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to intensely blow my nose for several minutes and try to get rid of it all.
It was still so bad when I got home in the evening that I couldn't sing. It's still so bad today, 24 fucking hours later, that I can't even record a voice message to a friend. I keep having to violently clear my throat and blow my nose (all in vain, it barely makes a difference), and finding myself unconsciously grinding my teeth because I have so much tension in my entire head from struggling to breathe.
I wish I knew what my problem was. I wish even one of the numerous doctors I've consulted about this problem over the years had even pretended to take me seriously instead of just saying "Hmmm" while nodding very solemnly and then basically saying the doctor equivalent of "You get mucus build-up and develop breathing issues... specifically after hanging out with other people and talking to them for a couple of hours? Sorry but that sounds like bullshit, I can't help you."
I'm so tired of having a mysteriously dysfunctional respiratory system :( Wtf is my problem. I'll never be able to be a real singer at this rate.
3 notes
·
View notes
Hey y'all another "I suspect this is atypical but idk how atypical" question, this time about blood sugar! Okay, maybe a few questions
if your blood sugar is in the fasting blood sugar range, but you aren't fasting, does that count as low blood sugar?
2. Is it normal to have low blood sugar symptoms at not-technically-low-blood-sugar levels (today, 93)? Like, especially when it's that way when you have not been fasting, but also in general
3. How do you word "hey doc my records say you took my blood sugar when I was fasting, but I wasn't fasting. That was like an hour, hour and a half after lunch and I'd downed half a gatorade before I walked into the office and my blood sugar was in the 80s. Is that...maybe...a problem? That it's happened twice?" in a way doctors will care about?
7 notes
·
View notes
I had a dream last night; I do not remember much of it. But oh, look, Caleb Wittebane was there and all I remembered was the specific way he looked as I watch blood slowly clot on his lips.
The drawing is under the read more, his face haunted me all day, I was compelled to draw what I saw, it's not too much, not too macabre. But it is a dying man in a portrait, remember this.
I remember how there was a wound on the left side of his chest, only now when I write it do I realize that the left side of your chest is where your heart rests.
So this was my dream, and it's haunting me.
2 notes
·
View notes
do you ever find that a scene you have to write to get to The Next Bit of the story is hard, or boring, or just for some reason impossible to actually write? if so any tips on getting through it?
oooouu GREAT question honestly !!! i think the reality is i have probably three solid methods depending on the Circumstances lmaooo
method 1: just don't write it. easiest method in the WORLD and i think this works best when the thing you have to work on is boring specifically. it could probably do with a little analysis around "how Actually Important is this scene to the story" before making a decision like that, but if you're having a hard time getting excited about writing it (ESPECIALLY in shorter stories) i find 'don't write it' to be the best method in the book. i'd say it's not ALWAYS the right choice, and it probably helps to have a fair amount of experience under the belt to say when and where this method makes sense
-> a variant of this one is the "it doesn't have to be GOOD it just has to be THERE" which looks like instead of writing a whole scene to get a character from point A to point B, or a whole conversation to get to the point of a character saying they're going somewhere, doing something, etc, just...say it. start the next scene with "after walking from A to B, [blah blah blah]" or "[character] can't believe they agreed to meet up here, but here they are, [etc]". i also sometimes do this with inserted little flashback lines in the context of the scene i actually want to write, which gives the added benefit of picking and choosing when and where things are relevant without adding too much additional exposition
the key benefit of 'just don't write it' as a method is if/when you return for editing, there's always an option to add the scene back in. the way i personally edit involves forgetting about the story for like a week while working on other stuff and then coming back, which usually gives me the exact set of fresh eyes i need to decide whether the scene i decided not to write is actually needed or not. sometimes, it rolls seamlessly without it !!! sometimes i'm like damn i really need something in here to highlight what this character's emotional state is before [next scene], and maybe it's that scene i skipped or maybe it's a different thing altogether. either way, 'just don't write it' lets me get to the bits that i AM excited to write, and usually highlights for me whether the scene i'm avoiding is actually needed or not
method 2: like method 1 but a little more extreme, which i call 'write literally ONLY the parts of the story you're excited about right this second and forget about all the stuff you don't want to write cause it's boring/hard/etc'. which is a very long title, but i think it would do numbers in certain circles. this is basically method 1 on steroids and probably benefits from a longer story with LOTS of parts, especially ones you can skip between non-linearly. for me, this usually works for the hard parts especially, because i can build myself into a corner where, when i return to the hard part, i have a lot of clear detail on what has happened before it and what needs to happen in order to make the next parts make sense - usually this is reserved for the "i KNOW I have to write this or the story won't work, i just don't Wanna" type of scenes
method 3: the 'grin and bear it'. what it says on the tin. sometimes you just gotta buckle down and write the parts that suck, cause there are usually gonna be those parts in some places sometimes. what i WILL caveat here is that when a thing sucks to write, it can be helpful to examine why it sucks - what about it is boring? do you not like writing dialogue, or exposition? is there a way to not do the specific thing you don't like but still get the key elements across? would there be a more fun way for you to convey those elements? maybe a nontraditional format like a text message convo or a flashback? when something is hard to write, what makes it hard? is it conveying a character's emotional state? their physicality in the world? their relationships or thoughts on them? is there something about the character's personality you're struggling with that makes the situation challenging to write because you yourself are confused about the character or what's going on? sometimes i legitimately will step back and just type out something like:
character current motivation: [what they're trying to accomplish, do, say, etc in this exact scene]
character actual/overall motivation: [in the realm of the entire story, what is their goal? to overcome loneliness? to find peace with their past? to get together with the other character? to destroy everything the hero holds dear?]
anyway this can sometimes be a super helpful mental reset to make sure i'm keeping on track with both the story as a whole and the character themselves, especially when there are multiple characters cause i'll go through and do this for all of them that are in a scene and that can help identify the tensions, what direction things might need to go, who gets what they want and who maybe doesn't, etc. ultimately just a good way to refresh the brain, and sometimes that leads to making a hard scene feel suddenly a lot easier/feel like you know where you need to go next
secret method 4: arguably the even Worse method, which is 'wait it out'. sometimes there's just no getting around the brick wall right this second, and taking a break to refresh your brain by either working on other projects or like, doing something that isn't Creation is a good idea and can help jog things into place to relieve the boring/hard/etc problem. i say this as someone who does not touch grass nearly enough, but touching grass can also be very helpful lmao. and if literally touching grass isn't feasible, just getting out of your normal habits/routines and doing something different can make a difference too
ANYWAY let me just say: i seriously feel this ALL THE TIME lmao. i'm definitely a serial skipper these days (funny as i used to be a very serious 'i must write everything in order or else i'll DIE' type of writer) but it's ended up being quite good (probably?) for my creativity in that it's allowed me to spend more time excited about what i'm writing and less time stressed or frustrated with getting stuck. your mileage may vary, of course, but hope this is helpful!!
3 notes
·
View notes
it's very interesting listening to Lover songs and then Midnights songs back to back because I think if Midnights had followed Lover, it would have been less of a disappointment to fans/critics alike. They're both sonically and thematically along the same line of progression and a lot of people compare lover to midnights as the day vs. night albums and that feels apt. It's almost like folkmore was a gift and a curse for her. what now seems to have been a temporary detour into a creative side project all along has unfortunately become her life's greatest artistic achievement. to the point where people who'd never been interested in her music at all were drawn in and critics/critical fans were surprised and impressed for the first time in a long time at what appeared to be the next great evolution of her talents. the flip side of that is unfortunately those new fans were never interested in her prior work and are not interested in her return to that style, and the critics/critical fans who were thrilled by this new direction and excited for the future are equally disappointed and frustrated by her return to form. with a little distance now, I'm getting the feeling that the general dismissal, bordering on dislike, of midnights as a whole might be rather a manifestation of that disappointment and less a fair reaction to midnights on it's own. it is absolutely true that it's creatively a step down from folkmore, in dexterity and complexity and originality, nobody is arguing against that. but i know for myself, if i compare my opinion of midnights to lover, they're both the same level of mid generally. the highs of lover are higher than midnights, but the lows are also lower than midnights, so they average out to the same level of appreciation in the end. following lover, midnights does take a few steps forward, that had it been the successor, i would have perhaps celebrated as much as i did the Archer and such. midnights feels like a natural progression of lover in a way that, had folkmore never shown me how green the grass was on the other side, i might not have rejected it as viscerally as I did. alas, that's not how this played out, and idk if i'll ever be able to remove the stain of disappointment upon first listen to midnights in a post-folkmore world, but it makes me wonder. i think aaron is also to folklore what jack is to midnights in that had i not heard how her sound could grow with someone as texturally rich as aaron, i might hate jack's omnipresence less. and furthermore, it gives me a little insight into how differently taylor views these past 4 albums than we do and why sometimes an artist can be her own worst enemy on her way to realizing her creative potential, whilst the artist herself carries on blissfully unaware.
46 notes
·
View notes