#was it covid? that's when this feeling started. I hope I don't have some permanent brain fog left over that's going to stay with me forever

[scarletspider-lily]

this is going to be a pretty long rant.

so my family is church of Christ (so like, babtist lite). I am a closeted agnostic. unfortunately, it's getting pretty obvious because my younger sister got babtized a few years ago, and I still haven't. I basically told my mom that since covid I've been disassociating, and can't "feel god".

she has freaked out and is using every chance to push religion on me. it's getting rough. what makes it worse is that our church hasn't had a permanent preacher since April. there's also this guy named C. C's family is very entrenched in our church. C has been both song leader and college group leader (our church is very close with a local college) for several years. C's sons run AV and events. C's dad was a preacher, and is now an elder. now, C wants to be preacher.

my mom is starting to think C is subconciously hungry for power in the church and is considering moving to a different church. however, she hates all the other surrounding churches of Christ. so she told me that we'd visit around and find whatever church helped me "feel god" best.

now I could totally reinvent myself at a new church, get babtized just to please her, and all would be well. except she wants me to do Bible studies on her Bible app and do family devotionals and watch her terrible preachy Zionist leaning YouTube channels. I'm exhausted. no matter what I do she'll keep badgering me because she believes it's her duty to make sure I get to heaven. I can't even ignore her, recently we went on a road trip and she got started on the topic again, and because I refused to talk to her about it, she pulled the car over and wouldn't move again until I talked. she begged me, said that the silent treatment was worse than anything I could throw at her, but I know how terrible my life will be if she finds out the truth. on top of that, I'm gay and hiding the fact that I'm dating one of my best friends.

she's even trying to find a church for me in a different city for when I move away for college. at least I only have 8 more months in this house.

my 18th birthday is in a few days, but I know that me being an adult won't change things. she's the parent, so she has the power. she'll never be happy until I'm under her control.

I know you probably don't have any advice, I just had to say it somewhere. I'm so tired.

hey, sorry for seeing this so late. to be honest, i dont have advice but i hope your situation improves, i can relate to some of it, like the finding a church when you move for college thing. once again i'm sorry for the late reply but i hope you know that youre in my thoughts, and i sincerely wish everything goes well and yeah, being 18 but still under your parents is rough, but not uncommon. it is good you're moving out though, i hope you can somehow find a way to lie that you're attending church or something, or just attend a few services- either way i hope it will be better than you staying at home now!

[so-bitya]

OK! I had some ideas for the plot and character arcs too i wanted to share. it felt like the show had some great concepts but didn't know where to go with them so..

–Main plot themes/changes

More focus more on the difficulties of growing up, being an adult, reality not being so simple as a child. What can't be easily solve as a precure, and what needs a precure attitude to solve it.

Oh and definitely all the girls are in contact with each other. Like we've been through Covid yall! you think they don't have discord or something?? and they're in contact with the boys too, more infrequently for sure, but they got Syrup, cmon!

–Angel

I think that rather than pollution and climate change, which doesn't really connect with main characters and rather feels too impersonal for the audience, human misery in the current age seems more appropriate. How people get wrapped up in their issues and find excuses to neglect others that it negatively impacts the town. Perhaps Angel was better taken care of in the past and something happened to her caretaker, or something else that's more personal, and she wants to reverse time before the tower is set for deconstruction?

A lot more focus on the passage of time and whether we cling to it too much, glamorize it through our nostalgia, instead of learning from it and moving into the future. I'd like if Angel was influencing the girl's transformations and her monsters were more time themed. (and obv something that saves Angel, because we can't have things too sad. Maybe they stop construction, or they don't stop it but the girls make something out of her memory? Like Komachi writes a book about the tower?)

–Nozomi

I think the first episode encapsulated what i wanted Nozomi's arc to be like. Nozomi became an adult, achieved her dream, and is great at her job! but she still misses being a precure, because the issues she faces as an adult aren't as easily solved back when she was a kid. Honestly, was hoping that the girls didn't transform so fast, or that there was more build up to it? Interesting concept if Nozomi was the last to transform, so she has to solve problems as the adult and feels distant from her friends that can transform.

–Rin

Rin's an adult now and she's got a lot on her plate! Between her demanding job, her hobbies, her family, she also wants to remain Nozomi's ideal best friend. She's genuinely bothered that she can't become a precure anymore, but doesn't even now if she wants to anymore! She and Nozomi have a great talk reexamining their relationship and despite how things change, they'll always care about each other.

–Urara

I thought her struggles were between deciding to be an actress or a singer. I think it would have been more interesting if the play was a musical to use both elements. perhaps Urara wants to emulate her mother too much (aka the actress) she neglects her own strengths (being a singer) keeping the same plot beat of Syrup saying he loves her singing but more involvement from the girls (and they all show up for her musical!!)

–Komachi

Pretty similar to her episode, but I'd like to go into her writing issues!! perhaps she's lost interest in writing fantasy that she was obsessed with when she was younger, so it's giving her both writer's block and a bit of an identity crisis. But after being so involved in the town and learning the townsfolk history, she wants to write about them and gets re-inspired to write more realistic fiction that's grounded and down to earth, that her audience appreciates for being more relatable.

–Karen

Stressed with her job, realizing that she can't simple treat people and expect them to get right back on their feet. She starts understanding some people lives will be permanently changed and can't be healed away (aka disabilities!) and thats okay! its just another matter of adaption. It would be a great mature topic for the show to have.

–Kurumi

Get that stinking manager out of there! Genuinely think workplace harassment should have been a bigger issue!! It would have been realistic issue that many people face, especially women, in the workplace. It would have been nice is Kurumi managed to get testimonies from her coworkers and got the guy fired. Or at least show that she doesn't have to put up with the constant disrespect and move on to a better job (i mean, not leave that for the finale).

–Coco

Cut the melodrama out lol. Honestly would have been fine with him showing up towards the finale so the girls could have some breathing room to revitalize their friendship, but well oh well. I think him having insecurities being king is interesting paralleled with the other girls insecurities after achieving their dreams. I could care less about the romance, but i think it would have been nice if he and nozomi worked on their issues with marriage on screen (like trying to live together for a while). It's nicer to think that they've been discussing it before and the big question during the show is whether they should take that one step further or to stop and move on with life (i don't even think nozomi thought about marriage in show, just being with coco).

–Nuts

idk man I just wanted to see more of him :( like interact with the girls or have a nice talk with komachi! i liked their editor writer relationship and it got him be more open with his feelings and relax more!! let me see it!!1

–Syrup

He's good actually (Except that outfit, throw the whole look out), but it would have been nice to reference his plot a bit, with cure flora and everything?

[brightgnosis]

Hagging Out 🌟 Anything But That

Once again I don't do Solstices, or Yule, or any of the other Winter Holidays, or, or, or, or; I have my own calendar that's not like anything else, so I'm always the odd duck out ... The Goose that doesn't fit in; always kinda makes participating in the specific holiday Hagging Out events of @msgraveyarddirt / @graveyarddirt's a little awkward for me (though I always love them regardless).

But the Secular New Year is technically a Winter thing™, right? And it's a very underrated Winter thing that- as my ex Jacklyn (yes, we still talk) said this year- "gets lumped in with Christmas, and everyone generally treats the time between Christmas and New Years as just vibing" ... So fuck it, it counts. Or, at least, I'm making it count for Hagging Out because I have nothing else to write about because I didn't do anything else.

Quack Quack.

I don't know when I started making a big deal out of the Secular New Year, honestly. It just .... Happened; one year I decided to start cleaning the house on New Year's Eve, and it became a thing™ for me- something I did every year before Midnight.

Eventually I added spiritual cleansing to the mix; sometimes it was the house. Sometimes it was myself. Sometimes it was both. There's no rhyme or reason to it, really. It's intuition, I think. Or laziness- being whatever I have the most desire and energy for after all of the physical cleaning was said and done.

I sat down and thought about it one day and decided it was "dumb", and that New Years' resolutions were "dumb", and that I wasn't going to do it anymore. But then in 2020 or 2021 (I can't remember at this point), I listened to The Happiness Lab's bonus episode titled "A New Hope"- which talked about how we're inclined to find impactful moments in our lives that can serve as significant psychological triggers to allow us to make "fresh starts" ... Like Birthdays. The first day of new Months ... And New Years.

This isn't a bad thing. When harnessed right, it can lead to solid, significant life changes that can propel us forward into healthy life growth. And I decided then that maybe it wasn't actually so "dumb" after all. Maybe I just needed to rethink it- and turn it into a real ritual.

I don't want to carry old energy into a new year with me ... Not on my Birthday (the Self New Year)- nor on my Ancestral New Year (Rosh Hashanah / Yom Kippur). Not even on the Spiritual New Year (my Liturgical New Year) ... And now, maybe not even on the Secular New Year, either- which is arguably the largest of them all.

And yeah, technically we can pick any day, any time, to change the course of our lives or decide the energy around us isn't great; to take the leap ... But time isn't linear, it's a cycle; the entire Universe is made up of repeating cycles, and patterns that are neverending. And The Happiness Lab was right: Psychologically, and even traditionally, certain points in that cycle just feel primed for change naturally. So why not New Years?

But at some point the after-effects of Covid finally caught up to me and kicked my Fibro into high gear. I wound up bedbound for months- then in Therapy for extreme suicidal ideation. Tack in a permanently revolving door of Doctor's appointments, and all that nonsense; nevermind I had to spend over a year re-learning how to be a semi-functional Human Being again (and I'm still not sure if I'm there). I never got the chance.

This year was the first year I was really able to put it into practice- and it's also the first year that my Husband has ever had New Years' Eve off with me while I did it. Which wound up being sorely needed, actually.

With three cold fronts prior, my body had finally hit its limit and I'd been neglecting the housework for a month- especially the vacuuming, since the vacuum had broke around Thanksgiving. Between the two of us, we had to spend the entire day cleaning in order to catch up. But we managed to finish it, still- with a break in between to jet to Walmart and pick up the ingredients for a traditional Alsatian New Years' meal; he even got my vacuum working again somehow, so I wouldn't have to sweep the floor.

After all of the physical cleaning was done between the two of us, I smoke cleansed the basement apartment with a stick of my "Garden of Eden" incense that I bought from Black.Moth when my old Covenmate and I went to the Curiosities & Oddities expo in November; usually I'd do a much deeper cleansing, but I'd just done one after December's Full Moon Message and I also didn't want to have the windows open for 5 hours in the freezing night air.

I put up the Ancestor Altar in the laundry on top of the Washer after that- putting my Gargoyle Candle on top of a yellow towel; my Husband offered Tobacco and Black Coffee to his Grandfather for the first time- and I gave a cup of Ivan-Chai sweetened with Linden Honey, and a Lemon Muffin, to my Maternal Ancestors. And that was it for the night.

Well, for him, anyways. I still had one more tradition that I've been doing since I was a child: My Year Ahead Reading; the results this year weren't great 😩 But with the news we got about my Husband's company just before the end of last year ... Well, we kind of expected that, I guess.

Finally with that done we counted down to midnight and drank a bottle of Alcohol Free Peach Cider together before crawling exhausted into bed.

In years past I used to do huge, multi-tiered lists of Goals across multiple areas of my life. And I genuinely loved that system. It was fun. It challenged me. But I know I can't carry that out here- and it's probably too much for me while I'm still trying to re-learn how to be human anyways.

So this year my only goal is to try and get myself back on a routine in general, because I know I function much better when I'm on one ... But I'm also more than aware of the fact that this environment- living with my In Laws- is both hostile and counterproductive to a solid routine. So I also want to try and be more gentle with myself whenever I fall off of it.

Maybe I just want to try and be more gentle with myself in general.

[nar-nia]

12:33 am

heeseung x reader

word count: 357

warnings: none

~~~

You woke up to the feeling of fingers running through your hair, pushing some loose strands away from your face. The fingers stopped when you started to stir, tired eyes opening to the sight of your boyfriend looking down at you.

"Morning," you mumbled, voice still hoarse from the countless coughing fits in the night before.

"Good morning." Heeseung smiled, but his eyes were full of worry. The back of his hand was now pressed against your forehead, your cheeks to check the temperature, checking if you still had a fever like in the previous days. Whatever the result was, he seemed content, his smile now more sincere.

"Come here please," you pouted, an arm outstretched in his direction. You had been clingy those last few days, you knew that, but you couldn't help it. Whenever you were sick you craved human contact, and it had only gotten worse when you started dating Heeseung who so happily complied. Just like this time, his hand grabbing yours before he pulled himself closer with a chuckle.

"You really can't survive 20 minutes without my hugs, hm?" he grinned, moving for you to make way for him.

"I can't." You still pouted, body pressed against the back of the couch as Heeseung laid down next to you. Within seconds your hands were wrapped around his body, your head resting against his neck. "I don't want to."

Heeseungs hand found its way back into your hair, the second one rubbing circles on your back as his body vibrated with another chuckle. You felt yourself relax within an instant, eyes closing again to just take the feeling in.

"I will be less clingy when I'm not sick anymore," you mumbled, fighting against sleep taking over once again.

"I don't want you to. It's cute."

"Aww." You wanted to say more, but lying here, Heeseungs warmth washing over you, made it harder and harder to stay awake. "Please stay here."

"I will be right here when you wake up again."

You nodded, or maybe you just thought you nodded, because seconds later you were already asleep, Heeseungs arms still tightly wrapped around you.

hi, did you miss me? 👀

this is coming a month later than planned, life has been hectic and on top of all i got covid last week (and still have it), but i hope you enjoyed this little self-insert story 😭😭 please let me know what you thought (or just say hi, it's been a while <33)

permanent taglist: @maeum-your @sunoona @hoonsmarsbar @soobin-chois @sjyuniverse @taekbokki @axartia

[you-didnt]

Ok. I've complained a bit here and there about having long covid but I've never really gotten into detail. Since I just reblogged a post about how most of society has decided to ignore covid I'm going to elaborate on why you don't want to catch it (again).

I, personally, struggle most with a very high heart rate, pain in my legs and cold-like symptoms when I overextert myself (which is called PEM, post extertional malaise, and the symptoms for that can vary too). Most days I just feel "wrong" (I have read people say it feels like being poisoned or microwaved) and fatigued, I have to sleep 10 hours to feel mildly rested. Sometimes there are new things: Last week I had chest pain and a headache that came out of nowhere and left just that suddenly. Due to that, my anxiety and depression have become worse. I'm afraid to move too much because every step could be the one that puts me back in bed again. Right now I've settled between 3k and 5k steps a day, depending on what kind of day it is. I have, comparatively, mild symptoms. I can leave the bed, if it's not a very shit day I can leave the house, my cognitive functions aren't affected, I can go for walks. At my worst I've been moderate. Here's the thing: "Moderate" has been so awful it made me suicidal. And there's hundreds of thousands of people out there who have it worse. It often turns into mecfs, which is a very similar but a lot worse can of worms I'm not going to open right now.

I've read countless stories about long covid. Some people have caught covid at the very beginning of the pandemic and have been struggling with it ever since. Some have healed after a few months, only to relapse after a while (what happened to me last month). That while can be anything between a week and a year. You think you're safe and suddenly it all comes back. It's unpredictable. It's scary. It also changes. Some symptoms leave, some new ones appear. It can affect literally any part of the body, you name it and there's at least one person out there who has developed issues with it after having covid. I'm in the longhaulers subreddit that is slowly approaching 40k members and while discussing symptoms and remedies, a big part of that subreddit is people talking each other out of suicide.

Doctors! Do! Not! Help! (Most of them at least) I know from the disabled community that this, sadly, has always been a thing, but it hurts a different kind of way to experience it yourself. I have a very nice GP who's written me referrals to specialists (who can offer me an appointment sometime in March next year but that's a different story) and who generally believes me, but unfortunately I know more than her about long covid and she can't help me. I begged a different doctor to prescribe me meds that have helped others and she refused and said she could get me a bed in a in-patient clinic for 3 weeks. That clinic (like the doctor in association) believes it's psychosomatic and it should be treated that way, like countless other doctors in every country around the globe. There are several indicators that prove long covid is not psychosomatic. I, just like everyone else struggling with this, know that doing yoga and meditating for 3 weeks isn't going to help and could even make it worse in some cases (remember PEM? That can lead to your baseline becoming permanently worse), that there's something wrong with the body, not just with the mind. But there isn't enough scientific evidence because studies on it (and with it I mean both long covid and mecfs) are criminally underfunded. There are some that look promising, but the scientists working on it say they can't do shit if they don't have the resources.

There is hope. With more and more people being affected (10%-30% of everyone who catches covid) it shifts more into the public eye. The first trial of a very promising looking medication just started in Germany and it might be available by the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. There's some existing meds and dietary supplements that seem to help some. But it's all just trial and error and since doctors don't know anything, all we can rely on is anecdotal evidence. I'm extremely scientific when it comes to these things so I had to... adjust to relying on some peoples experience instead of studies, but just to give you a picture of my desparation: I'm currently taking about 10+ different supplements a day, started doing breathwork exercises (which genuinely seems to help), completely changed up my diet and have gotten a hold of those meds my doctor didn't want to prescribe me another way (still legal, don't worry). I've tried.... fucking Reiki even though I have very strong feelings towards anything anthroposophic. Very few of them are positive. I am feeling a lot better than I did after my relapse a month ago, I have no idea what exactly helped or if it was just resting, but something helped.

Also I'm adding this because I feel like I can't talk about covid without talking about the vaccine: I've been vaccinated. Twice plus the booster. I've always been 100% pro vaxx. But now I have to question getting vaccined for the first time in my life, because there's a considerable amount of longhaulers who got worse after the vaccine. I know we don't like to talk about this because it invites anti-vaxxers to the conversation, but I think this is a conversation we need to have at some point.

So. Yeah. The next time you think "I don't need a mask" think of me and all the others who had a mild infection and didn't get better afterwards. There is a pretty high chance this could be you if you get covid.

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

your answer made me tear up too, i don't think anyone has cared enough to ask how i've been in so long. i feel like the bad days are permanent, they seem to appear so often i just can't bear it anymore. i try to hold out hope but maybe i'm just kidding myself. i've been so sad for so long, i don't even remember how to be happy. and that makes me so sad. that the thought of passing away seems so much more of a relief than to continue living. i know for a fact i failed my exams which means i'll either have to drop out or redo my exams. which also means i won't get to do placement. and if my family knows of this, i don't think i can go through that again. i can't. the pain was way too much last time, i suppressed those memories. i'm not stong enough to go through that again. i know death is the easy way out. and i'm a coward for wanting to take it but i'm so desperate. i don't want to feel the pain anymore. the numbness, the anger, the guilt, the sadness, i can't.

i'm sorry, you feel so much more comforting than my own big sisters. i don't think they even deserve that title truthfully. but thank you for letting me rant, you don't even have to post this. i don't mind. i truly hope your day today was much lighter than mine. i hope you experienced some form of happiness today. i hope you're well. love you more than words could ever say, thank you for letting me spill my words on here. please don't feel pressured to post this. i'm sorry for how weird this ask is. i'm sorry for unloading it all on to you 💕

Don't worry, you can always rant to me. Sometimes we just need to let it out, to get it off our chests because too often we don't have anyone trustworthy to talk to openly and many wouldn't understand it either. I wish I could help you through this, I'm having similar struggles too. I actually blew up my professional life a week ago because I panicked. They wanted to give me the residency I asked for after fighting with them for months and when they gave it to me I ended up not accepting (for reasons listed bellow but also because they bind you contractually for life). I just spent the last year not even living but surviving, working nights so often I didn't feel human at all and I barely saw my family (my younger niece barely knows who i am), I don't even have friends anymore because everyone kind of just gave up on me. They didn't understand how tired I was from work, I just didn't want to do anything after work. I went from a packed covid unit to urgent care back to infectious diseases and it's been so exhausting both mentally and physically and my chronic illnesses have all gone havoc in this time and I've come to realize that even though the pay is better when you work nights and on calls, my health and general well being have no price. So when my contract is up this March I'm going to be unemployed for a bit until I find a job as a GP and that's scary as hell and no one quite understands why I left a higher paying job in a hospital 20 mins away from me by foot that I lowkey dreamed about and wished for my entire life. Guess they were right when they said be careful what you wish for...I got my wish and it cost me everything else and I was miserable. If I had the option I'd leave healthcare altogether, but my background is basically a nursing degree and then a doctor's degree so I'm stuck with it...unless I marry a richy rich dude 🤣 (can I get Charles Leclerc pls) but yeah, I understand what you're going through. Life is so fucking hard all the time and most people just have to stay up float and that's it, but people like you and me are constantly swimming against the current with chains pulling us under. (There's a song by The Pretty reckless called Under the water, I recommend you listen to it, kind of like a soundtrack to this whole thing). I refuse to believe it won't get easier one day (despite my year starting with a firework going off in my face followed by a terrible case of chicken pox that made me miss a weekend trip to Austria, making my skin awful, and now a flare up in my condition), IT HAS TO GET EASIER. Until then, please reach out to me whenever you need it. It's not a burden. Hell it's like group therapy, we can commiserate together over shitshows of the day. Can even be fun? Either way, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere yet. I'll keep fighting and I really hope you will too so that one of these days we can talk about the good things we get to see and live. I'm hoping everything happens for a reason and one day that reason will be clear. 💕

[msvorderofoperations]

Shit Life Syndrome

I am in the midst of a crisis. Well, more so than usual as my life has been one slow motion catastrophe for the last year. To sum up: I was left holding the bag by a close friend that decided that he could no longer support me. I don't wish to divulge details but I did everything in my power to accommodate him on interpersonal, financial, logistical and emotional levels. It was not enough.

In the mad rush to get ready (though I don't know exactly how/when), I contracted COVID for the second time. While still isolating and recovering, I then had to start living on my own in a partially demolished space while I tried to get my feet under me. While that happened, I underwent surgery and it went literally as badly as it could. A week after the procedure, the incision tore open and became badly infected. I was all but bedridden for the next two months. As I was beginning to feel things take a turn for the better, my dad died. He was an utter piece of shit that I do not miss, but that he made zero plans for his death meant that the entire family was in disarray for weeks.

Literally the next day, I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to leave the space I had been living, even though I had been assured that I would always have a place until I found something permanent. I suppose that was a lie. I then had to scramble to try and get *anything* going for housing, while also having to rectify that I was now almost certainly afflicted with long COVID. As this happened, understandably (I hope) I got to a very low emotional state. I have flirted with suicidal ideation a number of times in my life, but it never gets very far. This time was different, and far worse. Just as I was in the worst throes of it, I had an epiphany. I have lived through worse, and come through the other side of it. All of these things that were weighing on me I have dealt with before, just never in such close proximity. I was not going to roll over to some amateur hour horseshit as being too sad. As has been said elsewhere, if hope cannot be found, spite can be a fine substitute.

Unfortunately, what is left unsaid is that spite is not infinite.

I have now been living in a tiny storage space with no more than a mattress, my clothes and my computer with my estranged sister and her deeply dysfunctional family for 3 months. I have been paying hundreds of dollars per month for the privilege, and do not have access to the homes amenities, and am still having to buy my own groceries. The only solace that I have is that I haven't had to move back in with my mom, who is bar none the worst of my abusers. But she lives close by and is constantly making things worse.

And to top all this off, to make this work I have had to move hours away from what few other supports I have in my life. I have not seen many of my friends in years owing to the pandemic, and to see any of them now takes at least two hours of traversal, a sizable portion of which is walking. This means that if I want to do anything I have to be prepared to lose 1 or 2 days just in the recovery.

This has also put enormous strain on my relationship with my girlfriend. She has been entirely understanding about all of this and has been an absolute paragon of love and support. She has also been working her ass off to try and make things happen wherever I cannot. I know that she is going to read this and worry, but I am going to reassure her and anyone else that happens to read this that I am not going to do anything drastic. I just desperately need to get these words out.

In watching a video by one of my favourite video-essayists, he has an aside on how COVID, and the ensuing health problems afterward delayed the very project that I was watching. For nearly a year. But having the video to work towards gave some structure and an end goal he could work towards even if he felt that he might not actually have anything useful to say. That his issues mirrored my own was discomforting, but that I didn't even have anything to work towards fully unmoored me.

Yes I have had the goal of finding a place to live, but nothing about that goal is concrete. I cannot any more definitively make a place to live happen by myself than I can will myself into being healthy. It is all down to blind, simple, clueless luck. We are in the midst of a generationally unique economic crisis which is inexorably tied to an almost entirely unprecedented housing disaster. I am of very little financial means currently, and for nearly everywhere that is not good enough.

And that's the real bitch of it! I'M ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES. I'm a white, cis-male passing person who has been able to find support within the social structures for disability available to me that precious few people will ever get access to. And for all that, it counts for nearly N O T H I N G. The monthly stipend for rent payments is utterly laughable, and it was already increased last year. Before that, it was even less. For years, bordering on a decade it was the Provincial governments opinion that $375 a month should be more than adequate. That has not ever been enough in my lifetime. And yes, I understand that elsewhere in the world It would be enough! But what isn't spoken about nearly often enough is that while Vancouver is highly celebrated for a great many things, all of that comes at the cost of some of the most extortionately high cost of living anywhere in the world. But I digress.

While feeling discomfited by the feelings brought up by this video essay, I turned to some of my comfort media. I am not unique in this, but frequently dour media has helped me get through tough emotional situations. This time however, did not. I was watching Chainsaw Man, and Denji's Shit Life felt all too familiar in tone, if not necessarily in details. And then I was hit with an intrusive thought of the absolute worst kind: when looking to narratives to comfort myself I fucked up because they were just that. Narratives. Stories. That actually have to meaningfully go somewhere. The real world does not enjoy that luxury.

For weeks unto months, I have been saying to myself and other that this won't last, that things will get better. But I don't know that. How many people in my situation or worse never pull themselves out of the mire they find themselves in? How many succumb each day to the elements, malnutrition, sickness, violence or plain unfortunate accidents? We tell each other that things have to get better because we believe that there is some narrative resolution to suffering. But for so many people, that never happens. One need only look to all the senseless deaths at the hands of the genocidal maniacs that are in power right now.

I don't have a useful way to end this. I am not going to beg for donations (seriously, I have to report any and all income and I could lose my benefits permanently if they don't like what they see), and I don't have any solutions or witticisms to ponder. Hell, I can count on one hand the number of people that will actually read this. I guess...just keep an ear out if you know anybody in the Greater Vancouver Regional District is looking for a roommate.

[maya-matlin]

I love your metas! I was hoping to hear what you'd name as a couple of the greatest strengths and biggest flaws of each of the OTH core five? Sorry if this isn't clear---I have covid and the brain fog has rendered me unable to form a coherent thought!!!

Thank you!! No, it's perfectly clear. I'm very sorry you have Covid. I hope you feel better soon and are getting a lot of rest. 💜💜

Lucas:

Biggest strength: His care for his friends and family members. While his love life is a fucking mess and he struggles with fidelity, he finds it very easy to show up for his loved ones when a platonic relationship is involved. For whatever reason, regardless of him generally being friends with his girlfriends first, he completely crumbles when it comes time to be a good romantic partner.

Biggest weakness: I could say his cheating so easily, but really I'd say his stubbornness. Once he's set on a certain idea, it's difficult to get through to him. He also often lacks self awareness, playing innocent when it's blatantly clear to everyone but himself what his true thoughts and feelings are.

Nathan:

Biggest strength: Holding himself accountable. While it can be argued that the show rushed Nathan's character growth back in season 1 and wasn't always great at calling out situations where he'd passively let other women flirt with him due to the show's latent misogyny, Nathan always seemed to be aware of his shortcomings and put in the work to earn back any trust or respect he'd lost. Also, his dedication to his family, particularly Haley and their kids.

Biggest weakness: While I feel Nathan had grown out of this trait by the final season, occasionally I feel that Nathan could be immature and unable to see the bigger picture due to being so blinded by his own ambitions and feelings.

Peyton:

Biggest strength: She's a survivor. Whatever you think of her life decisions or the numerous things wrong with the Lucas/Peyton relationship, Peyton always managed to pull herself out of depression and heartbreak. Fuck Lucas Scott. She saved herself. Also, her dedication to the arts at all costs.

Biggest weakness: Refusing to admit what she wants and then when called out for mishandling situations, not wanting to take accountability. It's very much a situation where like if she didn't intend to hurt you or has some sort of perceived moral high ground (ex: confessing to Brooke that she still had feelings for Lucas at the end of season 3), it's as if your pain doesn't matter because Peyton is sorry (questionable at times TBH) and wants back what she lost. She mishandled so many situations with Brooke and yet more often than not, we're supposed to side with her.

Haley:

Biggest strength: Her endless supply of compassion and belief in the underdogs. It's hard to talk about this aspect of Haley because it's just kind of.. obvious to me? It's present in everything she does, in practically every episode. Also, Haley is the true moral center of the show. While she's guilty of being judgmental at times, Haley also makes the people around her better, demanding they live up to their potential. If you're going to be a permanent part of her life, you'll inevitably end up being a better person just for knowing her.

Biggest weakness: As I said before, her judgment of others. I don't think she intentionally makes it so the people around her feel as though they can't be honest about their weaknesses, but because Haley holds herself to such standards and encourages her loved ones to live up to it it's like it's unintentionally intimidating. Also, she holds herself to unrealistically high standards, meaning she doesn't handle wanting something self centered or making her own mistakes as well as she should. Ex: the majority of season 2. Kind of like Nathan, this aspect eventually faded away as Haley started to give herself more grace. But during the early days of her marriage and still being new to relationships in general, Haley mishandled so much about the Chris Keller situation, being unable to set boundaries and struggling to differentiate between romantic attraction and admiration of a fellow artist. When this caused her to doubt whether or not getting married had been the right decision, she basically went into panic mode, keeping everything hidden and then only coming clean at the absolute wrong time.

Brooke:

Biggest strength: Her big heart. Brooke loves, loves, and then loves some more. I'm already off to a terrible start explaining this. Anyone Brooke loves, she loves to a great amount, oftentimes more than they're capable of loving her. And yet, she does it in such a beautiful, pure way. I hate that this sounds like a flaw when I don't mean for it to be. She'll do pretty much anything for the people in her life.

Biggest flaw: Vindictiveness. The reality of Brooke loving as hard as she does and doing what she can to make others feel loved and supported means that when they prove themselves undeserving of that devotion, the gloves come off. Brooke knows exactly how best to love and build up, but she also knows just how to inflict pain. When she feels justified and as though she's the wounded party, at times she's guilty of being utterly cruel to protect herself from getting close again. To be honest though, Brooke is capable of vindictiveness even outside of responding to emotional pain. Like with Rachel, she didn't need to go so hard with her. But it's like Brooke loses all logic and ability to stop herself from stooping to lows. Again, this comes from the idea that she's the good guy, and whoever she's fighting is the bad guy.

[jo603kinetictype]

Interview origin: Kiri Te Kanawa - HARDtalk Interview 2010 Interview 3:54-4:29 Dame Kiri Te Kanawa talks to Stephen Sackur about her career and her Foundation.

She talks about her 4 decades of hard work where she built up her career and reminisces on how lucky she was to have found a passion and to be able to continue to do it through her life. She looks back at her "golden years" and appreciates them.

The interviewer mentions that she was adopted into an odd family situation and she answers this awkward question gracefully. She talks about being blessed with her family and being thankful for growing up in New Zealand and never wanting to disappoint.

She started sining after her car trip story, eventually singing for her mother's friends and then singing on the radio and her path continued on from there.

She also mentions that she had a whole ladder of people through her life help her with her singing from the very beginning. She had many teachers and mentors who were strong and strict as they thought her but she says that she's thankful for it.

She talks about how yes its a world for men but she managed to find her own space in the music world.

She still feels part of New Zealand and visits often and stays connected to her origins. She was hoping to settle back in NZ one day.

What she's up to in NZ 2022:

At home with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa: Why she always knew she would come back to Aotearoa 2022 Article

"Dame Kiri has owned the property in the Bay of Islands for 38 years, but until now has not lived here permanently.

When Dame Kiri last talked to the Weekly, she had recently made the decision to move home from the UK to spend more time with her gorgeous 3-and-a-half-year-old grandson Luther.

She was seeing him once a week and she said, "I'm 77 now and I don't know how many summers I have left. I want those summers to be with Luther."

Dame Kiri remains grateful to be living in New Zealand while her friends back in the UK struggle with the Omicron variant. 

Being stuck in the north has not prevented her from continuing work with the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, which she began in 2004 to help young New Zealand opera singers when they start out on their careers.

Dame Kiri mentors the young singers and the foundation works to support them and  for a year, the 18 singers she looked after were supported with £800 (NZ$1600) a month."

What shes up to now May 2023

Lunch with ... Dame Kiri Te Kanawa - opera great opens up on her return to New Zealand, family life and her career (id read it but its behind a paywall but I guess it shows that she's still in NZ now!)

Dame Kiri on why she's taking a back seat and loving it March 2023

"When she announced her decision to retire, a Daily Mail headline trumpeted that the then-77-year-old had quit Britain to spend “her last summers” with her grandson in NZ after being kept apart by Covid.

There are no more performances in her; no plans to come out of retirement, not even for an informal get-together in her hometown of Kerikeri, she insists. She likens it to the agelessness of Marilyn Munro after her early death. “She’s never going to change is she? And that’s what I want people to remember - there’s my voice, it’s never going to change.”

If she does feel moved to sing? “I’ll do it in the car so no-one can hear me.” 

“I’m done, I've moved on and you're never going to hear another sound out of me, because that's what I want everyone to remember.” 

“I'm enjoying what I'm hearing and just…[doing] things that I can help with and just be with them and they love me being there. That's the pleasure I'm getting at the moment.”

This is why Dame Kiri set up the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation some 20 years ago. To nurture and promote young performers coming through from New Zealand - the next generation of Dame Kiris, and, now, the next generation of Phillip Rhodes."

[posts-for-when-im-high]

Personal life post but ya girl was recently diagnosed with Covid for the first time and boy howdy it's an experience. My partner had bronchitis right before I started feeling sick so Naturally I assumed I was also getting bronchitis (what I wouldn't GIVE for bronchitis now, ough). The only thing that clued me in was when I started losing the ability to smell. As a person with very autistic tendencies (sensory-seeking!!! Specifically through smell and taste), this was incredibly depressing for me. On top of this, it is the WEIRDEST GODDAMN THING I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED.

I've seen a ton of posts about how Covid obviously sucks and is incredibly dangerous (really praying I don't end up having long-Covid from this) but no one I've read has ever tried to detail what it's like to be completely lacking two of your basic senses when you are used to having all of them. I hope this isn't ableist of me to try and document parts of my experience; obviously my temporary lacking sense of smell or taste is DRASTICALLY different and non-comparable to someone permanently lacking vision or hearing. It's so hard to even begin to put this experience into words. And I'm not getting all science-y here; I've looked into a few articles about why and how this happens during Covid and I'm not educated enough to describe it accurately here. But it really feels like my brain has completely forgot how to taste or smell.

I know what things taste like. I have very distinct foods and scents I'm drawn to. Very picky eater since birth, so having to eat food while only experiencing Texture™️ is super not fun. But NOTHING TASTES. OR SMELLS. I know what it SHOULD taste like!!! I know what it SHOULD smell like!! But my brain is simply not making the connection between these memories and my senses in the present moment! I've been lighting candles this whole quarantine because small fires bring me joy but I can't smell anything from them. Doesn't matter how strong the scent is or how long it's been burning for. I've been drinking lots of Gat*r*de to try and get plenty of fluids in my system. Which color? Doesn't matter!! Who cares?? I can't taste it anyway!! It's kind of like those weird m-berry pills that people take to flip sour and sweet flavors around in their mouths, but instead of creating the opposite of a flavor, it erases it entirely.

There are still sensations to eating though. Obviously food is still crunchy or soft, loud or quiet. But I still get sort of tingly feelings from mint (mouthwash, toothpaste, peppermint...) and some afterburn and heat sensations from spicy foods (ramen, hot sauce, salsa...) But there is just no FLAVOR from these foods. I dipped a tortilla chip in Goblin Sauce (thank u Nekrogoblikon) like it was a queso dip and didn't even flinch. I've been more experimental with foods these past few days than I've been in my entire life. No regard for flavor whatsoever. But this also makes it so SOUL-CRUSHING when I have foods that I know I enjoy. I'm at the very end of my Girl Scout Cookies for this year. Those aren't around all the time!!! You're telling me I'm not allowed to enjoy my goddamn Tagalongs in the VERY short time I have them for??? There is only ever the vaguest hint of a broad flavor, like Sweet or Salty, and nothing past that.

Not being able to smell perfume is also really strange. I have quite a decent perfume collection with some distinct notes I very much enjoy. Like the candles, regardless of how strong or noteworthy a perfume is to me, I get absolutely no smell from it. I could douse myself in an absolute cacophony of scent and never tell the difference if I was wearing no perfume at all. My lovely partner has realized that this means he can go outside to smoke without me and I won't complain to him that he reeks of weed!!! It's weird!! I can't even smell my cats! One of the best pleasures in life is being able to bury my entire face into my cats fur and inhale!!!! I'm mcfreakin losin it!!!!

[f-sews-whatever]

Progress on my recreation of Stede's yellow banyan, 29th April 2022

It's been longer than I expected since I last posted. I often feel like I haven't made enough progress to warrant a progress update, but the longer I stall, the harder it is to make myself sit down and write something. So, here we go :)

I already had a drawing of the soutache pattern on paper, so I thought I could make a "stencil" out of it by poking tiny holes along the lines with a pin.

(back of the stencil after I used it; the red ink has seeped through the holes) (the marked fabric)

Then I pinned the stencil in place and transferred the pattern onto the fabric. I tried using a pencil first, but it's hard to leave a mark on the satin part of the jacquard fabric, so I ended up grabbing a permanent marker that happened to be laying around and dotted away. It may not be good practice, but it worked. It took me a while to transfer all the swirls along the length of the strip piece. Dotting to the beat of some rock music helped somewhat.

The Soutache Situation

It turned out that my interpretation of the soutache on Stede's dressing gown was very wrong. I feel stupid for not having done enough research and only finding out about it recently.

I somehow assumed that soutache was the same thing as couching: just some ordinary cord sewn onto the fabric, right? Wrong! I found out from this post that it was actually done with "cord with a groove down the middle, and you sew it down through the groove, which can be done by hand or machine." Then when I went to look at screen shots from the show again, I think I can kind of make out that there's indeed a groove down the middle of the cord.

Big whoopsie😬

I'm still going to use the cord I found: it's just normal, round cord, but it's a perfect match with my fabric color wise and it seems to be a waste to just discard it (I bought half a kilo of it, hello?) I don't think it'd be easy to find proper soutache appropriate cord that ships to my location anyways.

I'm going to follow through with my original plan, which is to kind of "whip-stitch" the cord onto the fabric with threads of the same color. To make it easier, I use an embroidery hoop to keep the fabric taut during the process.

I know there are ways to hide the threads completely, but it would be too time-consuming for me. I hope they aren't too distracting from a reasonable distance.

I didn't have threads in the right color at first so I ordered some online (from a store based in Shanghai orz) and it took almost 2 weeks to arrive due to the recent covid lockdown there. I was impatient, so I started anyway with some threads I already have in a similar color. The new threads match better color wise and are thinner (60s/2). I think I'll redo the ones with mismatching threads because they are kind of obvious.

(the ones I did first with thicker threads; they kind of look like worms???)

Oh, and... Hannah Greene, a costume maker from the ofmd team, replied to my DM on ig! She doesn't have any more photos for me, but it's never the less very exciting to be noticed XD. She also mentioned that the soutache goes all the way to the back of the neck and connects. I'm procrastinating thinking about that.

I've cut out the outline of the banyan from both the outer and lining fabric. Sections of the arms have to be pieced because the fabric's not wide enough (it's also been done historically). I secured the same allowance in place with a sneaky running stitch.

I didn't do any pattern matching, but somehow, at one spot, a butterfly-flower circle has formed across the seam. It's perfectly centrosymmetric! By accident! It's embarrassing how delighted by this I am :)

(the perfect little circle)

I then matched the inner and outer layers and stitched all around the edges in order to treat them as one piece from now on. I know the embroidery hasn't been done yet and the stitching shouldn't show on the inside of the lining, but I can't be bothered at this point. I want to be able to wear the dressing gown as soon as possible, whether the embroidery is finished or not.

I think this is all I did for the "Stede's Yellow Banyan" project since the last post. A few of you have followed this blog since I last wrote. Hello and welcome! Thanks for coming along :)

I think I'll mainly be couching away for the foreseeable future. I'll update you on that.

okay bye

[benlaksana]

2021

It's been roughly a year and a half since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic here in Indonesia, and I've recently been trying to understand where I'm at. Not physically, as in physical space, but mentally and probably existentially. What is the state of my mind? I am aware that I've become somewhat bitter, my late nights are sometimes riddled with anxiety for what the next day may bring and reoccurring personal-collective grief has at times, and recently more often than I would like to admit, numbed me.

This may probably be my mind's automatic coping mechanism seeing all this death mainly as a result of how my government has failed us, its citizens, especially during a time of crises. And I really need to stress this point: how my government has failed us Indonesians during the times we need it the most and I very much believe that it is because of this why many of us Indonesians are in constant misery and haunted by that feeling of despair. If chronic physical pain causes constant daily anguish, I am not surprised if chronic physical and mental pain caused by structural violence causes persistent misery as well.

I'm somewhat fortunate in this regard, I'm grateful that I've learned ways to keep my sanity in check. My contemplative practice is key for me. Honestly, I wouldn't have gotten far in life without it. I have many people to thank, but Art Buehler especially, my former professor in esoteric contemplative/meditative practices who reminded me and pointed a certain possible direction of where I should head when I sense a lost in my life's direction, is one those I should thank the most. I know this seems like an individualized response to structural oppression, and I don't intend to paint such a picture, but I do believe we need some kind of mental stability to keep on going. To survive if not thrive.

Art sadly passed away in 2019. I received an email about his passing. And come to think of it I never really did allow myself to properly grieve for his passing. I don't know why. To be told through a short concise email that someone you cared for died, without having the opportunity to properly say goodbye feels like that person never really passed away. It is horrible way to end relationships. A sudden cut, nothing finalized, and since goodbyes are relational, now nothing can really ever be concluded. I have to make amends with myself and only with myself. If I said goodbye yesterday, or if I say goodbye today or perhaps tomorrow, will it ever be enough for me?

Life is individual yet also relational. It's good to have friends, family, people that care for you or the odd mix of all three to get you through life. So although I have these array of tools to possibly help get me through life but if the people whom you look for some kind direction is no longer present, I'm just not sure for how long I can maintain it if I'm doing all this by myself. Will a breaking point come to me?

The mind is a fickle thing, and the mind is as strong as its habits. Bad habits, bad mind. Good habits, good healthy mind (no habits, no mind?). They also say that things that might happen, will indeed happen. It is just a matter of time. If so, how will I break? To what extent? For how long? What will change? What will I lose? Will there be something renewed? Will I come out the same person? Will I come out changed but for the worst?

This is one of the things that worries me. That certainty of uncertainty. The certainty of breaking, the uncertainty of when and of its form. Will I explode in sudden exasperation, engulfed in madness? Will it be a quick balloon pop yet a slow descend into meaninglessness? An unabashed diatribe rant towards someone I care? Something that's just a twitter post away from me on actually doing it. Will this be an opening, an opportunity for 'satori', a sudden lift of the 'veil', bringing about comprehension and understanding of the true nature of things? Questions, questions, questions, not much when it comes to answers, is all I have for now. To be hopeful is hard these days and with the wavering hope, very much coming and going like waves, it has become incredibly hard to even retain any semblance of kindness. That is something I do not want to actively become a habit of. Without hope, comes the cold embrace of fatalism that many on the 'left' are guilty of. Clutched by fatalism, empathy becomes harder to come by. I've seen it, and I have felt it.

I know that my eroding sense of hope is connected to my personal dreams. Specifically how it has become very hard to actualize it. Rara and I never really planned on staying in Indonesia for long. I was confident enough, a bit too confident come to think of it, that we will be out of Indonesia by 2021 the latest. A mere 2 1/2 years after our last stay in New Zealand. The plan was for me to continue my studies, getting into a Ph.D. program and of course a scholarship. That was our ticket out. Hoping that we'll be back to our old routine in Wellington, in and out the university's library, my head in books, loving our 'flatwhites' while regretting having too much of it, the usual stint doing some university tutoring, community organizing stuff, lazy gardening, out and about on the weekends tramping around Wellington and if Covid did not happen or/and maybe if my government handled things much, much better I think that would've been the case. Or at least I constantly would like to imagine that would be the case.

Yet here we are still in Indonesia, me struggling to do my Ph.D. through this wretched distant learning, initially in the comfort of my home yet steadily devolving into cabin fever. And Rara with her own struggles trying her best to get back on her feet as an aspiring musician. None of it is going as well as we had hoped for. All this while juggling trying our best to keep ourselves safe and our families and friends safe. Both of us have become direct witnesses how challenging this has been, physically and mentally. Both of us slowly grappling with the continual kick in the gut, the never ending structural absurdity, violently absurd.

That slow grueling realization of how fragile our lives are. Not just existentially. It is existentially precarious yet at the same time understanding that precariousness in many of its aspects is structurally and politically maintained. It is this political construction of precarity, which Isabell Lorey elaborates in her book State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, that angers and saddens us the most.

Lorey provides a nuanced approach in unpacking and differentiating this thing called being 'precarious'. The three dimensions of being precarious: precariousness, precarity and then precarization. On precariousness, Lorey draw's on Judith Butler's conceptualization of precariousness which she sees as existential, relational and inevitable. I'll insert my existential philosophy and Buddhist values here, to help me see and more importantly accept the transient nature of life and that impermanence or change is the only constant. Our lives, our bodies are destined to die and wither away. We humans are fragile mortal beings. The loss of life, the loss of one's identity, the loss of everything that makes us, us is unavoidable. It's also a 'relational' thing, as in it is also a shared experience. Everyone will experience it. It is the great equalizer some say.

Then we have precarity. Yes everyone dies, but the process of dying or even the process of grieving someone's death is dependent on what Lorey see as the “effects of different political, social and legal compensations of a general precariousness”. Some die at young age due to starvation, riddled with poverty and disease and have nothing or no one to ease their pain, others die surrounded by family and friends in a well-cared for hospital. Some have days or weeks to grieve, others have to go back to work the next day as she or he have no luxury to stop working even just for a moment and simply grieve. To stop working even for a day draws some closer to the possibility of death for the person or those dependent on the person working. This is the inequality of dying and grieving due to our social hierarchies. How fragile we are, is dependent on those social hierarchies.

And last we have Lorey's third dimension, governmental precarization which is the instrumentalization of insecurity by the government. In other words, the government using the idea and the reality of insecurity as a tool or device to control its citizens. The calculated, deliberate attempt by the government in destabilizing our lives in order for us to be easily governed. Insecurity, be it real or due to perceived constructed fear of insecurity is an effective governing tool. The fear of being labeled "useless and lacking in contribution to the nation-state". The genuine insecurity of not being able to get a job due to the false understanding that it is simply a result of an individual's laziness rather than due to systematic government policies. The deliberate attempt in making our lives constantly insecure, constantly on the edge, without us initially knowing it and when we do come to understand, the blame is on us. It is normalized and it is internalized.

This is not simply a social issue, it is a deeply existential one as well. We Indonesians have very little to make us feel safe at the moment. Covid and the government's response to it has severely limited our movements and it's not simply physical immobility, but also an existential one, the inability to even have the imagination that our lives are actually "going somewhere", towards a forward direction. Perhaps some sort of minute incremental progress, but progress nonetheless. This imagined mobility is what Ghassan Hage calls as "existential mobility" and this immobility suffered by many of us is what he also calls as "stuckedness".

Turning an often momentary or the ephemeral nature of a crisis into something prolonged and perhaps even permanent is another part of the strategy of governmental precarization. Our lives or jobs are always on the line and again coupled with the sick prevailing idea that we only have ourselves to find the solution. The crisis is permanent, we don't know why but we've been told that way, if we fail to overcome it is because of our personal inabilities thus proliferating and intensifying this sense of stuckedness.

Forcing us to accept whatever solution the government-messiah presents us with in order to relieve us from this suffering. From labour laws that normalizes precariousness even more, to oppressive new laws that limits our desire and ability to dissent, to including who or how our enemies are defined, easily accepting who is to blame for all this insecurity we are all suffering.

Be it the long dead Indonesian communists, the Chinese Indonesians and the racist perception of them being "selfish and greedy", the Indonesian Islamists - the kadruns and their conservatism, the "foreign forces" whomever they may be constantly trying to take over Indonesia, anyone or anything is to blame. Anyone but the Indonesian government and its affluent patrons. Insecurity and the fear that rises from it renders many of us easily governable and compliant.

This governmental precarization and this 'stuckedness', which Hage sees no longer as a possibility that may or may not happen but an "inevitable pathological state which has to be endured" is how Rara and I feel at the moment.

Rara and I feel our lives are going nowhere. We feel that our lives are stuck, constantly rotating in a hamster wheel trying our best to overcome our precariousness. No progress, no forward movement, no growth, just trying our best to survive from this sustained uncertainty. It's an awful feeling, paving way to existential dread. We are very much looking forward to moving back to New Zealand as soon as possible but with the conditions right now, that is something I can't even dare to imagine.

And although I am grateful that the weave of our privilege with at many times just pure sheer luck has kept us alive and physically well for the time being, we both now realize that we have hit a proverbial concrete wall here. Adding to the already precarious nature of life here in Indonesia, our line of work as a fledgling social science academic and aspiring artist and what Rara and I aspire to do socially, what we aspire to become, easily ends in stagnation if we intend to continue to live our lives in Indonesia. (I want to direct you to Social Science and Power edited by Vedi Hadiz and Daniel Dhakkidae to get the gist of what I'm trying to get at here.)

This is a hard pill to swallow, harder to write and even more so to act upon. I am existentially tied to Indonesia, my family and friends are here, my father is buried here and so will my mother. Memories of the distant past, the colloquial language when shitposting on social media, my mind and body have been shaped by Indonesia in ways I possibly do not even fully realize. This is why I oscillate between guilt towards others and guilt towards the self. I feel guilty for simply having an exit strategy when many others don't, I have the luxury of choice. Yet I also I feel guilty for feeling guilty about this, as it means I am also neglecting the well-being of myself, now and in the future. I need to work on this and find my bearings, being stuck in a guilty limbo won't get me anywhere.

And the future is far from stable, I wonder what is on the other end of surviving this pandemic? There is so much collective grief, collective anger and of course personal anger. All this will amount to something, I'm sure of that. Although I don't know what exactly, I'm not entirely confident this something will be good. John Keane's new book 'The New Despotism' comes into mind.

What do I personally do with all this anger? I’ve noticed how anger, especially when it is on the verge of hatred, morphs itself and easily descends into madness, into aggression and often showing itself, unawaringly to us, when the act of expressing anger happens. Your mind becomes instantly clouded, ending in mindless action. This inability to have control over oneself terrifies me. I already have so very little semblance of control over life in general at the moment, if I truly have no control over myself whatsoever, what then do I have?

And I wonder if it is a waste of time asking these pseudo-intellectual questions? I don't know, yet I do know I live in a society where it hones aggression and hostility, whether it be in physical and digital spaces, and I would like to draw myself away from all this at the moment before I transform myself into something I do not wish to be. Anger I can fully understand, and it is needed and useful. Yet to actively transform it into deep blinding hatred and sustain it daily, is something I feel psychologically destructive for me and I'm trying my best not to go on that path.

I rarely update this blog I know, but this blog has always been used as a personal chronicle of how much I have progressed, digressed or both. And I needed to write all this, because I've never been this least sure of what my life should be like and where it should go. I know I am not alone at this. This pandemic has destroyed the lives of many, our futures, our dreams, our sources of love and I hope that anyone of you reading this finds a way to get through it, doing anything you can do day in, day out.

I'm not sure it if amounts to anything. Maybe it won't, maybe it will, or maybe it has but maybe we just can't see it. All I can personally do for now, is to hold on to these 'maybes', and maybe, just maybe I'll get through this too.

“Where must we go...

We who wonder this Wasteland

in search of our better selves?”

- The First History Man, George Miller

[pompadourpink]

bonjour, maman! j'espère que tu vas bien. there's a dilemma i'm hoping to get your advice on and it'll probably be long, sorry! i've always been the type to keep moving and not envision myself anywhere permanently (location, fixed career path, dating etc). when covid started, i moved back to my country, thinking it was temporary, but ended up staying (quite happy about that now). this prolonged time back home has kind of made me face that i have attachment issues. (1/4)

it's not that i've been burning bridges but i never really set my roots down anywhere (apart from a few close friends). the idea of living here has been growing on me and i'm trying to think long-term now - it's been fine career-wise but when it comes to people (whether in friendly or romantic terms), i still struggle. i've been living in a new town for half a year now and am about to start an internship where i know a former classmate also works. (2/4)

we were friendly but never really hung out and didn't keep in touch after i changed schools. it's been about 8 years since, i've seen him around in our hometown a few times in recent years and we've chatted a bit then.i'm debating if i should reach out to him ahead of that or just go with the flow if/when i bump into him. it's a big company and i'm only working there for one project and he's not involved with it so i might not even run into him. (3/4)

at the same time, i'm curious to hear what he's been up to and could use another friend around here so i'm tempted to reach out. i don't know if i'm scared of rejection, committing to things or something else but it's making me feel weird and overthink this, i really don't know how to go about this. (4/4) merci!

*

Hello dear,

I think the priority here is that you find a therapist that's been trained in attachment issues. In my experience, if you drag untreated trauma behind you, you will sabotage your relationships, even if you were lucky enough to find the right people, because your brain will gaslight you until the other person decides that you're too much to deal with and they haven't signed for this (you cancelling all the time, being too much, getting disappointed for no reason, etc.)

If you don't want to mess it up with that guy, start by getting Bumble BFF, finding people to have drinks with on your local subreddit, going to a class, a museum, the gym - anything that you have a personal interest in - and seeing if you can find someone who looks inviting, start a light conversation, and ask if they'd like to keep in touch at the end. Be the friend you'd like to have. Talk to anyone you can and learn how to make small talk, just to get used to it, to realise that sometimes people will want to see more, and some other times not, and that it's okay.

Therapy is particularly important if you struggle to befriend people because outside of personality, there might be reasons why people keep their distances. For example, someone who's been through a lot and hasn't healed yet is likely to share intimate details with perfect strangers and suffocate them. That behaviour screams: I need help, this is too heavy for me, I need someone, I don't care if it's you, I have issues, I want someone to carry them for me, no we can't talk about yours, look I'm crying, hold me, where are you going, come back I love you. Nuh-uh. Not your therapist, not your parent, this is already exhausting and I've only known you three days.

(This is an example of co-dependency, one of many options.)

Realise that you also have opinions about the people who try and talk to you, and if someone doesn't send you the right vibes, it's not a personal attack. They're just not the right fit. And yes, sure, when you bump into the guy, you can throw him a bone and his reaction will tell you everything you need to know. Your job will then be to accept his decision instead of taking it personally and letting it get to you.

Love,

Mum

[fandomfluffandfuck]

Hiiii! This ask is gonna mention Covid so if ur not comfortable with it or honestly just exhausted from it (same) that’s okay, u can just delete it, no hard feelings 💕 I saw u posting about Covid the other day and figured u or someone else might relate

I am just so tired of seeing news after article after tv show after literally anything Covid related bc in the US, it’s just getting exponentially worse by the hour. All I wanna do is curl up in a pile of blankets with some soup and watch Netflix until it’s all over. And I feel guilty for being so cautious about it (I stayed home and took college classes online for 1 & 1/2 years to stay safe). And then I came back in the fall to finish, only for omicron to spike during winter break. And now I kinda wanna stay home for a few weeks to ride out the wave so me and my family don’t potentially get sick, but I know my friend that I roommate with won’t be super happy that I’m gone that long. But to me, it’s not about just not going to the hospital (even tho I have asthma, so idk what it will do to my lungs). It’s about not getting Covid at all. I don’t wanna lose taste and smell, or have everything taste horrible. I don’t wanna have permanent or even temporary lung, heart, or neuro damage. I don’t wanna run the risk of getting any version of Covid bc it’s still very dangerous to get, even mild cases. And about 50% of people rn are getting long Covid (I think that’s the current stat). It’s so scary to me, but what my friends don’t get is that I’d rather isolate with my family for another 3 years than risk getting Covid just to hang out with friends or partners like they’re doing now. I feel so stupid or like I’m being too anxious, but I also feel like I’m allowed to be in anxiety-overdrive about a global pandemic ya know? Ever since Covid started, I’ve had a debilitating fear of germs. I Clorox damn near everything in my bedroom and wash my sheets every few days. I can’t stop washing my hands. If I got anywhere, I have packs of gloves and masks in my car. And so do my parents. Like I said, I just think the best option is to just eat warm soup and stop looking at the news lol. I hope someone who reads this, especially u S, feels like they’re not the only one worried about Covid. Sorry for the long rant!!! 💕💕💕

^ ^ ^

More covid talk under the cut

Yup.

I feel that.

All of that.

Except, I really actually feel worse when I don't watch at least some sort of news because if I'm not, then I feel like I'm giving up/sticking my head in the sand (which isn't true, but it makes me Feel that way). And, for me, the only thing worse than not knowing what's going on is when people who I previously knew were being very cautious and careful stop because they are so exhausted. Rightfully so. But it just makes me more hopeless because if even the considerate, careful people stop wearing masks, stop trying to wash and sanitize what needs to be, stop trying to socially distance... than this never ends.

I will be wearing my double masks into the foreseeable future. I will be washing my hands like crazy. I am vaxxed and I will get the boosters for as long as we need them and they keep making boosters. I will social distance whenever physically allowed. I will try to keep my head above water because-

We are still in the middle of a fucking pandemic.

Rant over lol. Hopefully you find some solace in someone else feeling this, sweets!

[zukadiary]

Slowly Waking Up From a Takarazuka-less Stupor, Part 1: Romeo & Juliette

Is there even any point in saying it's been a terrible year? Not only has live Takarazuka been out of the question, but very poor mental health, work-mandated increased screen time, and laaaate EST starts have made it very difficult to partake in livestreams. Like... I missed Tokyo Anastasia and Daimon's mura raku. That bad.

Things have slightly improved on the start time front with a move to the West Coast. I managed both Romeo & Juliette streams so far.

This is................ for me, a very bittersweet production. I'd fully planned to see this live before everything went down. I was looking forward to the hypothetical shinko perhaps more than the real thing. Neither of those panned out... and the casting choices in what we got left me with a number of questions.

But! I don't want to forget how to write. And life without my one and only hobby is stupid. So, let's get back into it.

A quick overall,

Coto can only meet my expectations because they are so high. Wonderful, fantastic, I hope someday she gets to be funny.

Maisora? VERY cute, and A+ costumes in a sea of HMM.

On that note, in addition to the inexplicable LL Bean-inspired vibe, there were some puzzling choices, like B-cast Benvolio (Ayaki) and Mercutio (Amahana) looking so similar I can't imagine how they could be distinguishable to new fans (something I presume a company floundering financially in COVID would very much like to have more of).

I wish I could see the ensemble better. RetJ shows its small theater roots; it's not a great troupe show when you are limited to the camera angles.

That said, BACKGROUND ALL-STARS: Sazanami Reira always and forever, I wish she was DEATH; Asamizu Ryou for noticeably characterizing her Montague (Bloom, apparently!) as a lovable airhead?? despite, you know, everything about her; Minato Rihi for her whole VIBE; Yuunagi Ryou for her B-cast performance cradling her dying best friend, which I swear I'm not only saying because I'm dating her biggest fan; Amaki Homare for not doing anything in particular but at least giving herself hair I could find easily; Amato Kanon and Houma Toa for always doing the MOST back there; and Taiki Hayate for the expressions and the cartwheels.

A VERSUS B!

Tybalt:

If I'd cast this I think I would have just made Aichan the every day Tybalt, because that makes the most sense. Neither was a home run for me (though I'll say I have very high expectations for Tybalt, because the face Teru pulled within 2 seconds of walking onstage in 2010 in the first show I ever watched all the way through is literally the reason I'm a Takarazuka fan). I AGREE with pushing Seo out of her comfort zone, but I think Tybalt was the wrong push (I'd have rather seen Mercutio). Aichan's death had a horniness I wish her Tybalt had more of, but that I think would have eventually come out maybe with less switching.

Benvolio:

I REALLY liked Seo's Benvolio, and I'm only one off the full mark out of respect for Aka-chan, who, to be fair, I think also did a heck of a job. I loved the way Seo styled herself, and she gave me stronger best bro vibes. I just! would have liked! to see Seo Mercutio I think!

Mercutio:

:))))))) y'all I love Shin. The last time I saw Hoshigumi live was the Man from Algiers/Estrellas 2.0 tour, where (having never watched Algiers before) I was SHOCKED by the closing scene and Shin's delivery of it. Despite 2020 feeling 1000 years long, that show feels like four seconds ago... but we're coming up on two years, and Shin has only continued to climb in that time. This is the performance that made me feel like I got my money's worth out of a cast to which I otherwise would have made several changes. Her energy was impeccable, her look was appropriately crazy, her death scene was heartbreaking, and she did it all with the aura of someone who's only like 2/5ths done growing. I can't WAIT to see the rest.

I truly feel so much affection for Ema, but she was not giving me what I needed in this role; it was low energy, and not even by comparison, because her stream was first. I think she would have done Benvolio a lot of justice, or (hear me out!): Love. IMO her vibe is soft in a way where it should be highlighted as her strength rather than challenged out of her.

Paris:

It's not just Shin love (although she was cute AF); I think this was just "well Aka-chan has to go somewhere" casting, because she's too big and earnest as a person for Paris. He needs that foppish, twinky, completely unfounded huge ego vibe.

Death:

I have mixed feelings about this. Because like... Aichan's Death was A LOT, but also kind of a weird choice?? Death is historically for ken 5-9 future stars experimenting with emoting; of course a ken14 nibante who's been through Senka is gonna kill it... I just think she's a resource that should have been permanently relegated to something higher stakes.

My rating is based more on how OVERMUCH Aichan's performance was, than on a dislike of Ema's. I definitely preferred her Death to her Mercutio. She was giving me a WEIRD ENERGY, but whatever the energy was, there was a lot of it, and it was different.

Love:

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't have cast EITHER of these people as Love. Hoshigumi just IMO has better dancers and/or bigger upcoming stars, and I'd have loved a Love/Death relationship and chemistry that made sense.

Overall, I definitely preferred A cast! Looking forward to seeing them one more time.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Are you really happy without the conventional work? How do you deal with feeling like a failure compared to your peers? How the fuck do i adult i'm so tierd and stressed and don't know what i'm doing

I'm really sorry about how tired, stressed, and uncertain you may be feeling. <3 That's really hard stuff to feel. And I mean that with every ounce of sympathy I wish I could express better beyond this stiff text. Sending you all the love.

I am happier without doing conventional work. It might be less stable because my jobs are short-term, and the instability does make me nervous, but I feel like it has more pros than cons for my personal happiness. It will not be for everyone, though, and I would not recommend it for everyone.

I'm assuming when you ask about feeling like a failure, it's both in concern to how I feel with it, and how you might feel yourself. <3 <3 I hope that this answer ends up helping. It's the best I can try. <3

As for myself, I don't for a second believe I am a failure. I've always been a cocky bitch, and here the cockiness reigns supreme: I'm pretty awesome whether I do anything or not. When I'm exhausted and unhappy and Depression takes over (and hooboy Depression can take over like demon possession), my mind might stray to unbearable self-hate and self-deprecation, but I argue against those voices rather than let them enter my everyday language about myself. (It's a dangerous habit to ever repeatedly insult yourself; it ingrains those thoughts in you worse, it really does.)

There's nothing that makes me a failure compared to my old peers. They're pursuing jobs that society traditional deems "successful." So what? They're irrelevant to me and my life, and my life is irrelevant to them. Society's ideas of what is and isn't good has always been complete bullshit anyway... why should I care if I amount anything to what broader society feels? Broader society is stupid and I don't give a damn about it. I'm not saying this out of bitterness or rejection or something; I honestly don't care because it's irrelevant to me.

I'm here to pursue myself, pursue what I personally like. If I feel happier, if I make a milestone that's relevant to me and myself and I, then that's awesome. In many ways, if I'm different than my old peers and not following into their notion of success, then I know I'm doing right by myself. ;) It's proof of my own growth, isn't it?

The truth of the matter is, nobody is a failure for being different than someone else. Every person has a different life path. I know for many people, they are more self-conscious about how the world around them operates, how the world sees them. If the world doesn't find them successful, beautiful, etc., they feel like shit. Maybe you feel self-conscious about not meshing with society or being "as good as" other people around you. And I'm here to say: your life is your life. <3 <3 I know it can be hard to stop comparing yourself with others, but in the end, I do believe we have to understand our own innate value is permanent. Our value is there no matter what. You are beautiful. Period. There's no ifs, ands, buts, accomplishments, actions, or choices that will change the fact you are innately incredible. <3

The people whose heart meshes with yours, the people who lift you up, those are the people that matter, and those people will never believe you're a failure. Those people will see you as the diamond you are. If people judge you and are cruel to you for that, then their voices are the irrelevant ones to be discarded, because they aren't valuing you, and so they don't have good life advice or good values. There's no value listening to idiots, fools, and castigators. Now, that's not to say that good friends and acquaintances won't tell you you're doing something wrong or struggling or making a bad choice... a good friend is someone who protects you by speaking honestly and warning you if they think you're stumbling... but they aren't going to put you down as some failure, either. They're there to help you move forward with your life's journey for yourself.

We all struggle. We all stumble. We all fall. We all fuck up. We all get tired. We all don't know what we're doing. We all flail around aimlessly. We all make the wrong choice. We all look "better" to outside viewers than we see of ourselves. We see the sloppiest parts of ourselves whereas most others don't, so that's why it's easy to be the most critical with yourself and start bashing on yourself. But I guarantee that my peers, shiny as their PhDs might look, have probably had nights where they've cried into their pillows, or been frazzled, or been at bad low points, or wished they were anyone else. And I wish them the best and emotional security, but what it means is: we're all some level of fucked up anyway. Some people have worse struggles than others, and that needs to be respectfully recognized, but at the end of the day, we're all human and we all struggle and our pains are all real things we experience. The pain is real and it's valid to feel bad over it. The best we can do is give ourselves a break, stop tormenting ourselves internally over our natural inability to be perfect, and when we have the strength, to give love and support to others so they don't stumble as bad as we did.

I want to relate to you by saying... I think I was constantly clueless, confused, anxious, and apprehensive in the first half of my twenties. It sucked and I'm sorry if things suck for you.

Somehow....... I think a switch was flipped somewhere when I got more years of "adulthood" under way. The switch flipped from "I hate that I don't know what I'm doing" to "ehhh, whatever, life is life." Now, it's not to say I'm more organized. I'm not. My refrigerator has more mold than food. There's a horrible smell coming from the kitchen sink where water's been resting in a dirty pot for several days. My laundry is scattered all over the floor and I've run out of pairs of clean underwear... ran out several days ago. Don't ask what I'm wearing. I don't know the last time I've vacuumed and my place looks like a tornado zone. It took me several months to have the mental energy to schedule my first COVID shot, and I often have to cancel my banjo lessons like an unreliable buttfart because something Came Up In Life Just Now. In many ways, my life is still a chaos zone. I think I'm getting better (I've earned a ton of money in my savings account the last two years, victory!!! I'm no longer living month-to-month!!!). But I just want to say in all this.... it's okay. It's not preferable that my house is disorganized piles of crap on the floor, but I can continue to live. If we manage to wake up, get ourselves food, do hours of work, then we have achieved adulthood, and everything else is icing on the cake.

In the end, I think "stability" in adulthood is being semi-comfortable with instability. Adulthood just means handling unstable shit, and if we're novices with it, so be it. Maybe as your life goes forward, things will be less tiring and less confusing. Maybe things will be more stable. Or maybe not. Maybe the same problems will keep coming around. But I think adulthood is the ability to accept that these problems come around, and handle them, even if you aren't 100% a master at the novel circumstances.

And over time, I do believe it gets easier. <3 It takes more to rock the boat. It takes more to daunt you. The things that were initially anxiety-causing become a part of everyday affairs, and when a new novel circumstance comes up, you're more mentally prepared to try on something new. I encourage you to keep at it, my friend. I hope things feel better over time. It's okay that you aren't sure what you're doing right now. Maybe someone can help you in the present day. Maybe in the future you'll know what you're doing with tasks that previously confused you. Maybe in the future, the new weird tasks won't feel as daunting. Adulthood is weird and we don't know what we're doing, but that doesn't mean that life is going to fuck us through that.

In the end, you will still have beauty in your life. No matter what, beauty will exist in its simplest forms, and the simplest forms are the best. You don't need to achieve anything to get there. You don't need to be put together (although being put together is nice and something I want to help my friends feel <3 ). You don't need to look impressive in society. If you see a beautiful sunset, if you see a cluster of cute mushrooms, if you pet a cat or dog or animal of your choice, if you spend twenty minutes talking with your friend on voice call, if you read a good book for half an hour in the morning, if you buy yourself a tasty $4 drink to treat yourself, then your adult life is worth it, and your adult life is enough. <3