coming up
not dead, let's cut to the chase, everything's surfacing this season. I'm really damn alive a lot of the time. Doing the usual - reading, writing, rabbitholing, casual occultism, being with people, occasionally playing videogames. Tossing in new stuff like showing up to local music shows and protests. Showing up.
-got majorly back into skating, which has left me with a grade 2 AC joint separation and some kind of awful illiotibial band/piriformis/hamstring problem - the shoulder is mostly fine so long as I keep up my home exercise routine (bunch of pulling/lifting every 2 days), the hip is still getting poked and prodded by doctors and I am banned from sports right now. Which is really bugging me, after having spent the last 2-3 years remembering that I was secretly a jock all along and now I can't bear to think of all the muscle mass I've lost since it got bad in March.
-Still chugging along at the dayjob, except now I have a pile of FINRA certs and last month our old broker principal finally quit, which is to say, they now literally can't fire me unless they want to shut down an entire business unit bc no one else there can legally do my (incredibly mundane) job. This isn't as comfortable for me as it sounds; I'm not good at string-pulling and am too susceptible to same, and I feel boxed-in by my lack of technical education or skills. My best bet is to get more comfortable with all the new responsibilities then bail for something similar. Bottom line, I am too far down the wrong line of work bc it's stupidly lucrative and I'm not bad enough at it to actually get fired, but it hurts bc I know there's something else I'm way better at but superficially less qualified for. These are such nice problems to have, no lie. It's a couple of winters since I last had a tax gig and I am super tempted to pick one up, but I'm already dealing badly with the dark and cold and how easily I hit my point of introvert burnout. Just, if I'm not allowed to skate, why not sink the time into to something else that's joyful and life-affirming for me that would help me pay the orthopedic bills?
-I allegedly semi-run Boston Fannish Brunch but actually![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elaineofshalott does all the work. I am so incredibly grateful it exists as a community, though, y'all are good company.
-I've maybe never been doing better for local friendships & community. Not even just actual friends but just people who I recognise & who recognise me at shows, at the rink, at Cafe 26 downtown, in this godforsaken broken industry, wherever.
-one of the more important personal decisions I made in the last few years was to completely quit reading books by white men. I decided this early last year, I think just after the inauguration, and it's been a really liberating decision & I have read so much really good shit since then. I don't need to cite any single reason for it because there are so many reasons istg. At first I told myself it would just be for a year, or just til the end of this administration, but I get more and more sure that I'm done for good. Beyond books, I am enjoying local hiphop, punk and metal shows, I eat from Haymarket when I can, and generally I want to use the opportunity of this thriving city to root myself in things that are close and meaningful. I've been to a few big shows this year, often with friends, but I've had a better time at the small ones.
-really good books I have read lately include
The Drowning Girl, Caitlin Kiernan
A Taste Of Honey, Kai Ashante Wilson
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
Rubik, Elizabeth Tan
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
Occupy Me, Tricia Sullivan
-there was 1 (one) good TV show ever made and it was sense8 and it's over now :(
-Infinity War was so bad it drove me to ragequit MCU for good. The domestic violence apologism was nastily triggering for me and I am just fucking done. I don't have to put up with this shit.
-Spent Christmas right here in Somerville atsilverandblue's place with elaineofshalott, a surprise seascribe, and others. We played the Orgeon Trail board game, which is a terribly made collaborative game about how HARD settler colonial violence is but we had a ton of fun.
-what else? I was in London right after thanksgiving, and stole a couple of days to go up to Leeds & Manchester as well, so I managed to see my siblings, auntie, plus Jessca, Fly & Alex and their various spouses, pets, small humans etc, and the city. I strayed by various old haunts and homes; Ealing Common at night, the basement of Watkins bookshop, where I told the cashier it had been years and he said "We're still here" as if it were a pleasant challenge. Spent aaaall the money at Gekko bc that is my literal #brand.
-basically I am on ALL of my bullshit these last 2 years and don't you forget it. except for cryptic mood blogging, I have missed that.
-got majorly back into skating, which has left me with a grade 2 AC joint separation and some kind of awful illiotibial band/piriformis/hamstring problem - the shoulder is mostly fine so long as I keep up my home exercise routine (bunch of pulling/lifting every 2 days), the hip is still getting poked and prodded by doctors and I am banned from sports right now. Which is really bugging me, after having spent the last 2-3 years remembering that I was secretly a jock all along and now I can't bear to think of all the muscle mass I've lost since it got bad in March.
-Still chugging along at the dayjob, except now I have a pile of FINRA certs and last month our old broker principal finally quit, which is to say, they now literally can't fire me unless they want to shut down an entire business unit bc no one else there can legally do my (incredibly mundane) job. This isn't as comfortable for me as it sounds; I'm not good at string-pulling and am too susceptible to same, and I feel boxed-in by my lack of technical education or skills. My best bet is to get more comfortable with all the new responsibilities then bail for something similar. Bottom line, I am too far down the wrong line of work bc it's stupidly lucrative and I'm not bad enough at it to actually get fired, but it hurts bc I know there's something else I'm way better at but superficially less qualified for. These are such nice problems to have, no lie. It's a couple of winters since I last had a tax gig and I am super tempted to pick one up, but I'm already dealing badly with the dark and cold and how easily I hit my point of introvert burnout. Just, if I'm not allowed to skate, why not sink the time into to something else that's joyful and life-affirming for me that would help me pay the orthopedic bills?
-I allegedly semi-run Boston Fannish Brunch but actually
elaineofshalott does all the work. I am so incredibly grateful it exists as a community, though, y'all are good company.-I've maybe never been doing better for local friendships & community. Not even just actual friends but just people who I recognise & who recognise me at shows, at the rink, at Cafe 26 downtown, in this godforsaken broken industry, wherever.
-one of the more important personal decisions I made in the last few years was to completely quit reading books by white men. I decided this early last year, I think just after the inauguration, and it's been a really liberating decision & I have read so much really good shit since then. I don't need to cite any single reason for it because there are so many reasons istg. At first I told myself it would just be for a year, or just til the end of this administration, but I get more and more sure that I'm done for good. Beyond books, I am enjoying local hiphop, punk and metal shows, I eat from Haymarket when I can, and generally I want to use the opportunity of this thriving city to root myself in things that are close and meaningful. I've been to a few big shows this year, often with friends, but I've had a better time at the small ones.
-really good books I have read lately include
The Drowning Girl, Caitlin Kiernan
A Taste Of Honey, Kai Ashante Wilson
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
Rubik, Elizabeth Tan
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
Occupy Me, Tricia Sullivan
-there was 1 (one) good TV show ever made and it was sense8 and it's over now :(
-Infinity War was so bad it drove me to ragequit MCU for good. The domestic violence apologism was nastily triggering for me and I am just fucking done. I don't have to put up with this shit.
-Spent Christmas right here in Somerville at
silverandblue's place with elaineofshalott, a surprise seascribe, and others. We played the Orgeon Trail board game, which is a terribly made collaborative game about how HARD settler colonial violence is but we had a ton of fun.-what else? I was in London right after thanksgiving, and stole a couple of days to go up to Leeds & Manchester as well, so I managed to see my siblings, auntie, plus Jessca, Fly & Alex and their various spouses, pets, small humans etc, and the city. I strayed by various old haunts and homes; Ealing Common at night, the basement of Watkins bookshop, where I told the cashier it had been years and he said "We're still here" as if it were a pleasant challenge. Spent aaaall the money at Gekko bc that is my literal #brand.
-basically I am on ALL of my bullshit these last 2 years and don't you forget it. except for cryptic mood blogging, I have missed that.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Not reading books by white men is SO GREAT. Binti was awesome! As was Rubik ofc.
Yay for having community!!
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I feel you, I've not documented my reading in years, and I'm not even that good at talking about it most of the time, maybe because I'm such a slow reader and would lose track. I see all these people talking about reading hundreds of books a year, whereas I'd guess I'm somewhere from 15-20.
no subject
I'm a fast reader, but I sometimes struggle to fit reading in with everything else I'm doing, especially with uni. I do read a lot of short stories though.
no subject
It's funny, today I had breakfast in San Francisco w Nakki and we were talking about how fandom creates 'safe versions' of traumas. seriously can ppl stop telling us not to read & write abt nasty shit, it's what we're here for.
no subject
no subject
Also uber suck about the skating injury :(
The job shenanigans sounds both good but also really :/
And yay for holiday fun times!
no subject
no subject
NINEFOX GAMBIT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD and i am frothing at the mouth waiting for my local library to get the next 2 back in!! PLEASE, OTHER PERSON, PLEASE, RETURN THEM.
no subject
no subject
Alsoe, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MENTIONED SENSE8 BUT NOT WHAT YOU BOUGHT AT THE SENSE8 AUCTION. You should mention that for posterity.
BINTI was amazing. Probably my fave new SciFi in a long while.
Stop destroying your body.
no subject
Eeee yay I was gonna ask if you'd read Binti bc it seemed Peak Nakki. I think you'd really enjoy the Ninefox Gambit series too, even though the science/maths is largely an aesthetic - other than that it has everything for your tastes, even sibling incest! Everyone is gay and/or trans and doing space authoritarianism, and CALENDARS have a similar role to that played by languages in IRL colonialism and genocide, only with more SPACE MATH. It also has literally the only well-handled rape subplot I've ever seen in a sci fi book.
you telling me to stop destroying my body is oppression, i won't stand for it. Srsly I'm just pissed bc I wanted to show you the route I hiked up from downtown Berkeley to Tilden and that would probably be a bad idea rn.
I have this recurrent problem where whenever I pick up a new medium to express myself, I can do it at first but then start feeling stifled & unable to be real. Cryptic mood blogging, obv the crypticness itself was partly a way to express without feeling too raw, but it was prolly better than nothing which is what I'm down to rn. So I should work on that .__.