Me, 3:40 PM: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my boss just texted me and asked if we could "connect for a few minutes" in an hour or so
Me, 4:04 PM:
cool cool cool I managed to focus enough to finish up what I was working on but once I hit send, my brain was like LET'S JUST BE NERVOUS FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR so I guess that's what I'm doing
Me, 5:10 PM
LOL ALL THAT WORRYING AND I'M GETTING A $500 BONUS
I don't want to turn this into Danny's Pet Projects Hour, but if any of you are able to donate money to the West Brooklyn Waterfront Mutual aid, you can do so here (https://opencollective.com/westbrooklynwaterfrontmutualaid/donate), or if you're interested in volunteering, you can do so here (https://www.wbwmutualaid.org/volunteer). We've been expanding our range because we get a lot of out-of-network requests for other neighborhoods that have been harder-hit in Brooklyn, so any help contributing to our grocery fund or offering to help run errands/make deliveries would be immensely useful. Thank you!!
tryin to feel blessed that my job is still paying me to work from home, functionally paying for me to have an extremely private, extremely long term coming out about being non-binary to family i'm isolating with. the cat being out of the bag is a good feeling........but not having a lot of control over material changes i can make to my physicality right now ofte have me feeling like everyone is kind-heartedly playing along with a very polite farce--my wife included ;-;
I have a serious autoimmune disease so I haven't been out of the one bedroom apt I share with my dying mom and my dad who is still working. My aunt and uncle have been hit with covid; my uncle is on a ventilator and his wife, my aunt, doesn't know. Nobody can come see them, and they took care of my disabled (MH/MR) uncle when he had cancer. It's very, very sad. My mom is dying from congestive heart failure. My dad's heart is broken. I try to get through every day with little things; tea, cannabis tea, lemon tea (wow that's alot of tea). I look forward to your posts, Danny, and admire your writing. I do have a book of my own coming out in August, and I am trying and failing to be excited for that as the world burns.
There is incredible confusion of too much at once that makes it very hard to hold the excitement parts that are there. Soothing pleasures are so wonderful. I'm excited for you to publish your book based on this comment where you expertly wove where your life is at now.
Somewhere between 'Meh, Not too Shabby' and 'Could be Better I Suppose, but Pandemic?' Two of my pet tarantulas moulted last night, including one of my much-beloved Fire Red Bird-Eaters (I told her she was a good spider, and a pretty spider). Unsnarled a complex admin issue at work. My breakfast wrap was nice and crispy with not too much sauce. Remained crushed beneath the psychic weight of the knowledge that the human condition is soaked in misery that could easily be prevented if it humans were capable of possessing power and empathy at the same time. So, a solid C+ / B- all around.
I put them in a zip-lock bag, carefully mark them with species, date, and size, and then save them in a big plastic tub. If it's large enough, I might use it to sex the tarantula first. If I wind up selling one, I'll offer the old moults with it.
Tarantulas said fuck the sex binary! I didn't realise they could be so difficult to sex. I'm an arachnaphobe who had a Traumatic Encounter with a regular old house spider this morning but this is still super interesting.
In Wales someone found a tarantula moult in a building site? Abandoned building? Somewhere that asbestos was being removed from that had apparently landed on a passing stray tarantula who understandably moulted tf out of there, leaving behind a random asbestos-y moult. I cannot handle pictures of spiders at all but weirdly fine with that mental image.
I just finished my last exam! Technically I have a bachelor's degree now! (Well, not technically for a number of reasons, some of them pandemic-related, but in my heart, I guess.) The news is horrifying and I am on the wrong side of the Atlantic and relatively helpless; it's at times like these I wish I could believe in prayer. Hope you and Grace are well and have recovered. I finished your latest book a few days ago and adored it- thank you so much for your work.
I got laid off for being insufficiently productive. during *gestures* all this. It sucks. It wasn't a job I liked and it didn't pay well but now I don't have a job and I'm anxious and angry and just, all the feels.
I feel you. I just got my two weeks notice yesterday for a job I moved states for in February. Apparently they decided I'm not a good fit for their industry, even before lockdown, but I think it's just their company culture sucks. I was already fed up at the lack of support and was just trying to get through this. I'm also anxious and angry, currently about the fact that the CEO thinks I can get a job offer in my previous design industry in two weeks.....
I am terrified of NYC reopening. You guys, quarantine is not being grounded. I feel like the folx with disabilities and compromised immune systems are just being thrown to the curb. Since quarantine started, my career is honestly not bad at all, and people have been communicating with me with such a degree of respect that I have never experienced before. I guess it was too good to last.
I'm so scared of it too. It feels like it should be September, MINIMUM. My roommate is pretty sure he got COVID so my hope is that I am asymptomatic but I'm immunosupressed and if that's not the case and I go back to work in-person and then get it??????? I cannot deal at all.
I could not agree with you more. I feel like everyone is just tired of being thoughtful and conscientious and they're lashing out, whether it's racism or ableism or ageism or homophobia or all of the above. And De Blasio is like, "Yeah, it's not safe to take the subway really, so IMPROVISE!" Fucking crazy. Stay well, stay safe!
I'm in Saint Paul, so it's both heart-breaking, frightening and beautiful. The community has come together in amazing ways to support advocacy for the arrest of George Floyd's murderers, but it's horrible to watch it come to this after so many years of repetitive police violence against black Twin Cities citizens.
I'm a St. Paul native, now living in Boston. My parents said Midway was burning last night, and I feel so sick and helpless stuck on the other side of the country knowing things are so bad in my hometown. I've donated what I can to the Floyd family and the bail fund, but I feel so impotent. I keep tipping myself over into news spirals, but what else can I do?
I'm glad the community is coming together, and I'm beyond heartbroken that it's come to this. None of this should have happened, George Floyd should be alive and with his family.
Fully shit! Turns out breaking up during a pandemic sucks a lot, messes with my sleep schedule and my motivation to do pretty much anything. Although the weather's good and I got to go outside AND I saw some baby chicks so I should count my blessings (she said begrudgingly).
That sounds very shitty and if you want to feel bad about it I’d say that’s incredibly fair, you don’t have to measure your bad time agains a standard of every bad time possible to feel them
On the plus side: it's a therapy day, plus I have kefir and sourdough a-fermentin' on the counter and the weather is perfect for it. I'm about to give up trying to work for the day and just ferment things and watch Home Fires and drink diet soda.
On the minus side: Eightish weeks in and telehealth therapy still feels awkward and less helpful, so every week I just feel anxious all day up until my appointment, and then after my appointment I feel frustrated.
Weirdly, I manage to cry every week in couples therapy … but in individual I'm like "Surely it's been 50 minutes" and it's only been like 15 and then I tell a story about my cats to fill the time.
I kind of ended up ghosting my therapist after a few weeks of doing telehealth because it didn't feel like it was at all helpful. Also I really wanted to do phone-only and he was pressuring me to do video and I kind of hated it.
My therapist asked whether I wanted to do therapy via Skype or on the phone, and I chose over the phone (even though I hate talking on the phone). Apparently all her clients chose the same, it must be a weird uncanny experience! Also you have to put a shirt on.
My wife’s uncle died yesterday of coronavirus, and her mom is putting the Catholic guilt full court press on her siblings to attend the funeral. It’s so unfair that he was a good man who should get to be memorialized by his family but it feels like watching her mom put them all at risk and it’s very upsetting.
Trying not to chicken out of breaking up with my therapist before I just default to going to my next session! I hate disappointing people! Trying to talk more about blackness last session helped me realize how things really weren't working...
I'm so glad you've found clarity on what's not working for you. It's hard to end things with a therapist, and I hope you find peace and strength around letting them know. Good luck.
Today is one of those days I miss the old internet where people were anonymous and we didn’t have to be social to interact with others. Then this link appeared and reminded me of the old forums and I’m glad for that.
Also my antidepressant medicines aren’t working and I’m wondering why I expected them to, when the world itself does not lend itself to such stability.
I have been on testosterone for a month now and it is Interesting, by which I mean I am so, so horny and also hungry and right now eating some store brand Coco Pops as my second dinner of the night, but not that much is changing externally yet. Which is surprising me as my bloodwork showed that I had low estrogen and I've always been hairier etc than the cis women I know, so I sort of imagined things happening more quickly. But I'm using the gel which is a lot less common in the UK, so maybe it's because all the UK based transmasc support groups have a different experience based on sustanon being by far the most common option here because it's cheaper. Also literally nobody warned me about the hot flashes!!! I don't know anyone else who got them! All of this is to say that it's all a rich tapestry, and living alone and also avoiding social media right now means that it's just A Lot and this comment has no actual purpose or structure to it sorry! (FYI I finished my NHS allowance of therapy a couple of weeks ago and it really helped and I'm not feeling *bad*, but I can't afford anything private)
Also I watched Julie & Julia while eating my first dinner (Keralan seafood curry and lemon rice) and now extremely committed to (like Julia) thoroughly enjoying life and spending it cooking with lots of butter and having lots of sex, but also wondering how food bloggers have mostly not become any less irritating in the years since Julie's day!
Seconding the C+/B- from a previous comment. Just ordered from a Black-owned restaurant and donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Feeling impotent and sad. Trying to focus on the good while also trying not to feel bad about trying to focus on the good. Weird day!!! Sincerely hope you and Grace are as well as possible.
The news is breaking my heart. In personal news, I would really fucking love it if these plumbers coming over to my apartment multiple times this week could rub two brain cells together between them and stop my bedroom ceiling from becoming a fucking waterfall.
My landlord sends out dudes to “look” every time I put in a maintenance request and I’m just like ???? every time. “Okay I’ve seen it now I’ll get permission to buy the parts and be back tomorrow, probably.”
Minor fretting over video-tours (this is not an ideal time to need a new apartment). I'm a nice person!! but do I SEEM nice on video?? Is hissing "DO NOT PERCEIVE ME" an acceptable response to questions. Should I put on a costume...
I'm applying for jobs today because my current one has told me I might not have mine next year - it's been many months now, exacerbated by pandemic, of "maybe", "not sure", and "we can't say yet" and my contract ends soon so the only thing I can do is wait and shore up backup plans which is emotionally exhausting.
STMSADY kicked off a real crisis for me back in February, where I finally faced my life not being "different and that's okay :)" but in fact deeply experientially impoverished. I only had a month's worth of baby steps before the lockdown hit. While that's given me a unique space to explore some things I couldn't before, it's mostly just left me with way too much time in my own head. Life's gone back to being about 'getting through' each day as passively as possible, and I feel like even When Things Open Back Up™, I'll still be the same person who just opts out of everything life has to offer while living vicariously through other people.
Huge huge huge mood right there. For me it's mostly been a case of missing out and failing to complete stuff due to trauma, which has been helped by therapy but....it's hard to do anything but sink back into passivity even as lockdown starts to ease here in the UK (things are reopening far too early here so I am still going to be self-isolating). I'm hoping to go back to university by September '21 but who knows what universities will look like by then.
I'm staring down "my life is just going to be different and that's ok" right now and it is scary af. I know things will come out alright in the end but it's still upsetting! to have my career just explode in my face.
I'm doing OK. Things are moving ahead regarding my transition; I got my readiness letter for hormones this week, I came out to a few co-workers, and am being referred to an endocrinologist. Watching the news from the States in horror, though.
Well, a bit down from reading Twitter and the news, but a bit optimistic because I'm about to have a consultation call with a new therapist. Fingers crossed!
having on of those days where everything feels extremely surreal and if my wrist didn't hurt and my sports bra wasn't too tight I might be worried I was actually still asleep
put a new mattress on the bed. idk if it's a great mattress but it's 1000% less gross and misshapen than the old one so it's like 61% less bleak in my bedroom. those are solid numbers.
I live in NYC (Harlem) and I am petrified of the city reopening. I understand the whole "economy" argument, but I feel like people with disabilities and compromised immune systems are just going to be thrown to the curb. Since quarantine started, my career actually has been pretty great and people have been interacting with me with so much respect and grace. It was too good to last.
Pretty good, for me - I just finished a Zoom reading of a Shakespeare play with some friends and friends of friends - the plan is to get through all of his plays in the next couple of months, and today was my first time joining them. I had a really great time!
Discovered the Everything Changes in the End album by the Vistas and the humidity is down so I don't even feel gross dancing to it in my room. Today is pretty good
That's a tough situation to be in -- I'm a total rando, but if I can help you vent, give me a DM at @isaac_fellman? Strangers (some of whom are no longer strangers!) did so much to help me get top surgery. It sounds like this has been your desire for a very long time, and you deserve to feel comfortable with your chest! It's the whole upper half of your body we're talking about.
Yesterday's group-egging to donate to the Minneapolis Bail Fund was really moving and exciting -- you can see the thread here: https://twitter.com/daniel_m_lavery/status/1266015008686817283
Yes! Not much of a twitter person but I matched you privately
Yes, same!
A story in three acts:
Me, 3:40 PM: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my boss just texted me and asked if we could "connect for a few minutes" in an hour or so
Me, 4:04 PM:
cool cool cool I managed to focus enough to finish up what I was working on but once I hit send, my brain was like LET'S JUST BE NERVOUS FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR so I guess that's what I'm doing
Me, 5:10 PM
LOL ALL THAT WORRYING AND I'M GETTING A $500 BONUS
Bosses, man.
I feel your pain deeply. Boss: do you have a minute? Me: nice working with you all, I'll see you on the breadlines.
Why anyone in the year of our lord 2k20 still thinks it's ok to ask for "a quick chat" with no context...
One time a boss told me, the day before my vacation, she had scheduled us a meeting for the day I got back. :/
Congrats on the stress-bonus!
hahahaha oh nooooooooo whyyyyyy
I don't want to turn this into Danny's Pet Projects Hour, but if any of you are able to donate money to the West Brooklyn Waterfront Mutual aid, you can do so here (https://opencollective.com/westbrooklynwaterfrontmutualaid/donate), or if you're interested in volunteering, you can do so here (https://www.wbwmutualaid.org/volunteer). We've been expanding our range because we get a lot of out-of-network requests for other neighborhoods that have been harder-hit in Brooklyn, so any help contributing to our grocery fund or offering to help run errands/make deliveries would be immensely useful. Thank you!!
Do you know if I can donate as an Australian?
I can't see why not!
I've given up trying to logic myself out of anxiety and have made an appointment with a mental health provider.
Hooray!!
congratulations!
tryin to feel blessed that my job is still paying me to work from home, functionally paying for me to have an extremely private, extremely long term coming out about being non-binary to family i'm isolating with. the cat being out of the bag is a good feeling........but not having a lot of control over material changes i can make to my physicality right now ofte have me feeling like everyone is kind-heartedly playing along with a very polite farce--my wife included ;-;
I can really relate to that inability to relax into/accept any sort of peace or openness around transition/gender. It's TOUGH.
thanks so much :) means the world to me to read you say that!
I have a serious autoimmune disease so I haven't been out of the one bedroom apt I share with my dying mom and my dad who is still working. My aunt and uncle have been hit with covid; my uncle is on a ventilator and his wife, my aunt, doesn't know. Nobody can come see them, and they took care of my disabled (MH/MR) uncle when he had cancer. It's very, very sad. My mom is dying from congestive heart failure. My dad's heart is broken. I try to get through every day with little things; tea, cannabis tea, lemon tea (wow that's alot of tea). I look forward to your posts, Danny, and admire your writing. I do have a book of my own coming out in August, and I am trying and failing to be excited for that as the world burns.
I'll be excited for your book with you. That's so much for you to be dealing with all at once.
I'm so sorry for all of this.
There is incredible confusion of too much at once that makes it very hard to hold the excitement parts that are there. Soothing pleasures are so wonderful. I'm excited for you to publish your book based on this comment where you expertly wove where your life is at now.
Somewhere between 'Meh, Not too Shabby' and 'Could be Better I Suppose, but Pandemic?' Two of my pet tarantulas moulted last night, including one of my much-beloved Fire Red Bird-Eaters (I told her she was a good spider, and a pretty spider). Unsnarled a complex admin issue at work. My breakfast wrap was nice and crispy with not too much sauce. Remained crushed beneath the psychic weight of the knowledge that the human condition is soaked in misery that could easily be prevented if it humans were capable of possessing power and empathy at the same time. So, a solid C+ / B- all around.
out of curiosity what do you do with old tarantula skins???
I put them in a zip-lock bag, carefully mark them with species, date, and size, and then save them in a big plastic tub. If it's large enough, I might use it to sex the tarantula first. If I wind up selling one, I'll offer the old moults with it.
this is easily the most goth thing I have read today
I always suspected the goths were more into arthropod taxonomy than they let on.
That’s so cool, I want to do something with my snake’s skins but I don’t know what yet
Tarantulas said fuck the sex binary! I didn't realise they could be so difficult to sex. I'm an arachnaphobe who had a Traumatic Encounter with a regular old house spider this morning but this is still super interesting.
In Wales someone found a tarantula moult in a building site? Abandoned building? Somewhere that asbestos was being removed from that had apparently landed on a passing stray tarantula who understandably moulted tf out of there, leaving behind a random asbestos-y moult. I cannot handle pictures of spiders at all but weirdly fine with that mental image.
I just finished my last exam! Technically I have a bachelor's degree now! (Well, not technically for a number of reasons, some of them pandemic-related, but in my heart, I guess.) The news is horrifying and I am on the wrong side of the Atlantic and relatively helpless; it's at times like these I wish I could believe in prayer. Hope you and Grace are well and have recovered. I finished your latest book a few days ago and adored it- thank you so much for your work.
Congratulations, and thank you!! I'm so glad you liked the book.
Congratulations!
I got laid off for being insufficiently productive. during *gestures* all this. It sucks. It wasn't a job I liked and it didn't pay well but now I don't have a job and I'm anxious and angry and just, all the feels.
I feel you. I just got my two weeks notice yesterday for a job I moved states for in February. Apparently they decided I'm not a good fit for their industry, even before lockdown, but I think it's just their company culture sucks. I was already fed up at the lack of support and was just trying to get through this. I'm also anxious and angry, currently about the fact that the CEO thinks I can get a job offer in my previous design industry in two weeks.....
I am terrified of NYC reopening. You guys, quarantine is not being grounded. I feel like the folx with disabilities and compromised immune systems are just being thrown to the curb. Since quarantine started, my career is honestly not bad at all, and people have been communicating with me with such a degree of respect that I have never experienced before. I guess it was too good to last.
I'm so scared of it too. It feels like it should be September, MINIMUM. My roommate is pretty sure he got COVID so my hope is that I am asymptomatic but I'm immunosupressed and if that's not the case and I go back to work in-person and then get it??????? I cannot deal at all.
I could not agree with you more. I feel like everyone is just tired of being thoughtful and conscientious and they're lashing out, whether it's racism or ableism or ageism or homophobia or all of the above. And De Blasio is like, "Yeah, it's not safe to take the subway really, so IMPROVISE!" Fucking crazy. Stay well, stay safe!
IMPROVISE, like that's a thing everyone can afford or is able to do lol. god, i'm sick of him. you too!! thank you <3
I'm in Saint Paul, so it's both heart-breaking, frightening and beautiful. The community has come together in amazing ways to support advocacy for the arrest of George Floyd's murderers, but it's horrible to watch it come to this after so many years of repetitive police violence against black Twin Cities citizens.
I'm a St. Paul native, now living in Boston. My parents said Midway was burning last night, and I feel so sick and helpless stuck on the other side of the country knowing things are so bad in my hometown. I've donated what I can to the Floyd family and the bail fund, but I feel so impotent. I keep tipping myself over into news spirals, but what else can I do?
I'm glad the community is coming together, and I'm beyond heartbroken that it's come to this. None of this should have happened, George Floyd should be alive and with his family.
Fully shit! Turns out breaking up during a pandemic sucks a lot, messes with my sleep schedule and my motivation to do pretty much anything. Although the weather's good and I got to go outside AND I saw some baby chicks so I should count my blessings (she said begrudgingly).
That sounds very shitty and if you want to feel bad about it I’d say that’s incredibly fair, you don’t have to measure your bad time agains a standard of every bad time possible to feel them
On the plus side: it's a therapy day, plus I have kefir and sourdough a-fermentin' on the counter and the weather is perfect for it. I'm about to give up trying to work for the day and just ferment things and watch Home Fires and drink diet soda.
On the minus side: Eightish weeks in and telehealth therapy still feels awkward and less helpful, so every week I just feel anxious all day up until my appointment, and then after my appointment I feel frustrated.
i cry EVERY WEEK in telehealth therapy! it's so embarrassing!!! (it's also fine but you know)
Weirdly, I manage to cry every week in couples therapy … but in individual I'm like "Surely it's been 50 minutes" and it's only been like 15 and then I tell a story about my cats to fill the time.
I think my 'perhaps you should consider not paying for this any more' comment got deleted? But generally, that.
I kind of ended up ghosting my therapist after a few weeks of doing telehealth because it didn't feel like it was at all helpful. Also I really wanted to do phone-only and he was pressuring me to do video and I kind of hated it.
Accidentally deleted comment was accidentally deleted because pandemic brain Grr. Sending good mental health vibes.
But yeah, this whole thing is so rough! I hope you're able to find something/someone helpful for you. :-/
My therapist asked whether I wanted to do therapy via Skype or on the phone, and I chose over the phone (even though I hate talking on the phone). Apparently all her clients chose the same, it must be a weird uncanny experience! Also you have to put a shirt on.
My wife’s uncle died yesterday of coronavirus, and her mom is putting the Catholic guilt full court press on her siblings to attend the funeral. It’s so unfair that he was a good man who should get to be memorialized by his family but it feels like watching her mom put them all at risk and it’s very upsetting.
Trying not to chicken out of breaking up with my therapist before I just default to going to my next session! I hate disappointing people! Trying to talk more about blackness last session helped me realize how things really weren't working...
I'm so glad you've found clarity on what's not working for you. It's hard to end things with a therapist, and I hope you find peace and strength around letting them know. Good luck.
Today is one of those days I miss the old internet where people were anonymous and we didn’t have to be social to interact with others. Then this link appeared and reminded me of the old forums and I’m glad for that.
Also my antidepressant medicines aren’t working and I’m wondering why I expected them to, when the world itself does not lend itself to such stability.
"it's chemicals! but don't forget, it's also not-chemicals."
Recommending "Nearly Roadkill" for internet nostalgia.
Thank you!
I have been on testosterone for a month now and it is Interesting, by which I mean I am so, so horny and also hungry and right now eating some store brand Coco Pops as my second dinner of the night, but not that much is changing externally yet. Which is surprising me as my bloodwork showed that I had low estrogen and I've always been hairier etc than the cis women I know, so I sort of imagined things happening more quickly. But I'm using the gel which is a lot less common in the UK, so maybe it's because all the UK based transmasc support groups have a different experience based on sustanon being by far the most common option here because it's cheaper. Also literally nobody warned me about the hot flashes!!! I don't know anyone else who got them! All of this is to say that it's all a rich tapestry, and living alone and also avoiding social media right now means that it's just A Lot and this comment has no actual purpose or structure to it sorry! (FYI I finished my NHS allowance of therapy a couple of weeks ago and it really helped and I'm not feeling *bad*, but I can't afford anything private)
Also I watched Julie & Julia while eating my first dinner (Keralan seafood curry and lemon rice) and now extremely committed to (like Julia) thoroughly enjoying life and spending it cooking with lots of butter and having lots of sex, but also wondering how food bloggers have mostly not become any less irritating in the years since Julie's day!
I'm so sorry about the hot flashes!! I've never gotten them but a few friends of mine have and it's just awful!
Wow I'm very sorry for the essay! I have not had a lot of human contact beyond my discord groups since March.
Seconding the C+/B- from a previous comment. Just ordered from a Black-owned restaurant and donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Feeling impotent and sad. Trying to focus on the good while also trying not to feel bad about trying to focus on the good. Weird day!!! Sincerely hope you and Grace are as well as possible.
The news is breaking my heart. In personal news, I would really fucking love it if these plumbers coming over to my apartment multiple times this week could rub two brain cells together between them and stop my bedroom ceiling from becoming a fucking waterfall.
relevant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIUfKabYy2Q
Thank you for this kooky thing! X-D
I know I’m not being charitable, but if one more dude comes over and says, “Oh I’m not here to *fix* it, I’m here to look at it...”
...do you need to be charitable? You don't need voyeurs, for pete's sake. You need a human of action.
My landlord sends out dudes to “look” every time I put in a maintenance request and I’m just like ???? every time. “Okay I’ve seen it now I’ll get permission to buy the parts and be back tomorrow, probably.”
I just gave myself a steam burn ironing mask fabric :/ but it's much less severe than the last time I burned myself, so that's good
Time has no meaning and we're getting increasingly feral. My hair is two colors because I haven't bothered to dye it.
Minor fretting over video-tours (this is not an ideal time to need a new apartment). I'm a nice person!! but do I SEEM nice on video?? Is hissing "DO NOT PERCEIVE ME" an acceptable response to questions. Should I put on a costume...
Answer to all questions: yes.
I'm applying for jobs today because my current one has told me I might not have mine next year - it's been many months now, exacerbated by pandemic, of "maybe", "not sure", and "we can't say yet" and my contract ends soon so the only thing I can do is wait and shore up backup plans which is emotionally exhausting.
That sounds really hard. Job searching is exhausting under the best of times. I hope you find something good!
Thank you!
It’s days like today when I wish I hadn’t been deposed in a popular uprising.
STMSADY kicked off a real crisis for me back in February, where I finally faced my life not being "different and that's okay :)" but in fact deeply experientially impoverished. I only had a month's worth of baby steps before the lockdown hit. While that's given me a unique space to explore some things I couldn't before, it's mostly just left me with way too much time in my own head. Life's gone back to being about 'getting through' each day as passively as possible, and I feel like even When Things Open Back Up™, I'll still be the same person who just opts out of everything life has to offer while living vicariously through other people.
Huge huge huge mood right there. For me it's mostly been a case of missing out and failing to complete stuff due to trauma, which has been helped by therapy but....it's hard to do anything but sink back into passivity even as lockdown starts to ease here in the UK (things are reopening far too early here so I am still going to be self-isolating). I'm hoping to go back to university by September '21 but who knows what universities will look like by then.
I'm staring down "my life is just going to be different and that's ok" right now and it is scary af. I know things will come out alright in the end but it's still upsetting! to have my career just explode in my face.
I'm doing OK. Things are moving ahead regarding my transition; I got my readiness letter for hormones this week, I came out to a few co-workers, and am being referred to an endocrinologist. Watching the news from the States in horror, though.
Well, a bit down from reading Twitter and the news, but a bit optimistic because I'm about to have a consultation call with a new therapist. Fingers crossed!
having on of those days where everything feels extremely surreal and if my wrist didn't hurt and my sports bra wasn't too tight I might be worried I was actually still asleep
put a new mattress on the bed. idk if it's a great mattress but it's 1000% less gross and misshapen than the old one so it's like 61% less bleak in my bedroom. those are solid numbers.
This day is more afraid of me than I am of it!
I live in NYC (Harlem) and I am petrified of the city reopening. I understand the whole "economy" argument, but I feel like people with disabilities and compromised immune systems are just going to be thrown to the curb. Since quarantine started, my career actually has been pretty great and people have been interacting with me with so much respect and grace. It was too good to last.
Bored with the pandemic reason I can’t see my girlfriend, so writing her a letter from the universe where I’m going on an interstellar survey instead.
This is such a lovely idea!
that's what I'm doing, after procrastinating all morning!
Pretty good, for me - I just finished a Zoom reading of a Shakespeare play with some friends and friends of friends - the plan is to get through all of his plays in the next couple of months, and today was my first time joining them. I had a really great time!
After being defeated by some bureaucratic hurdles and generally dismayed at any bit of news that comes my way, I'm at about #2 on the Kate Bush scale:
https://undergradhist.tumblr.com/post/619406829339934721/post-semester-quarantine-ennui-led-to-this-how
Discovered the Everything Changes in the End album by the Vistas and the humidity is down so I don't even feel gross dancing to it in my room. Today is pretty good
This is incredibly insignificant compared to (gestures) but I have the worst UTI of my life
oh noooo. Those are a nightmare! I am so sorry
That movie is so formative for me, it’s why to this day I think that floppy haired men is the height of attraction!
it’s been the worst time to start watching the Wire
oh god!! can you bail and start watching something else??
probably will go back to columbo. at least in that one it’s mainly millionaires getting fucked
HELL YES!!
I've been watching Antiques Road show because it makes me feel like I'm thrift store shopping with a bunch of weird uncles and aunties.
Have you ever seen the show bargain hunt because that makes me feel the same way
Ooh thanks, I will check it out! :-)
Today is... Okay! Been in work for the second day this week, but had homemade pizza and watched Normal People with the missus. Good and bad.
I'm admitting that insomnia isn't something I can just "power through" and I am contacting my doctor for medication. Also my cat is being very cute.
Today is... apparently asking random internet people for resources/groups to help my transmasc partner deal with body dysmorphia?
Anyone? xo
I'm not so sure about resources on dysmorphia in particular, but hopefully someone else knows of some?
That's a tough situation to be in -- I'm a total rando, but if I can help you vent, give me a DM at @isaac_fellman? Strangers (some of whom are no longer strangers!) did so much to help me get top surgery. It sounds like this has been your desire for a very long time, and you deserve to feel comfortable with your chest! It's the whole upper half of your body we're talking about.
Similar to Issac - ig's xoqueermagic