Laghail

Here for the WIlly nonsense n stuff!

Hey @Heidi, been a minute but I'm happy to see you on the far side of things! Okay to ask what grad program you're doing?

I'm here, i resent you, get used to it.

It's been a minute, and the world has changed quite a bit in 2020. I'm here and I'm well. Numbtongue's Language Lessons I'm in an odd place with linguistics, between covid stealing some of my spoons and me being happy in an unprecedented way, language study fell in my priority list over the last 4 months. This challenge is part of finishing 2020 with a daily German news and duolingo habit. 2021 has me adding French again, and slowly working on my Icelandic vocab, but for now this challenge is about daily success with my old workhorse friend, Deutsch. Grimalkin's Cruel Tutelage This project is to set end of year targets for the big four lifts, and hit my mid quarter goals by end of challenge. Garden of Sanctuary This project is to track minutes per day spent in sitting practice. For this challenge, I'm only counting minutes spent in seated meditation or prostrate in seid-work; sleepily drifting while I'm in bed at night doesn't count, nor does sneakily counting yoga time. The larger goal is to grow my practice, but I'm not setting target metrics yet, just tracking. Octavia's Workbench I have a few backlogged orders for mediation beads and percussion instruments I'm behind on. This goal is to log what projects I have outstanding, get them all completed and mailed before holiday shipping craziness locks everything down. Olesm's Chess Journal I'm playing a few tabletops via video call during covid. A dear friend is running a small forgotten realms 5e heroic tier, and I'm running a Dresden RPG campaign set in milwaukee. Expect to hear nonsense about either campaigns in this section.

Lovely pair of weeks processing and enjoying my chosen family. My bench is finally growing after a decent stagnant period, and I nailed 325 for two reps yesterday. I have a pipedream of hitting 350 in time for a May open, and I'll be happy if I hit 1300lb total for the event. Music fell off a bit with a series of overnights at Milwaukee boyfriends' new place. Many Pokémon were hatched from all the lovely walks in the spring weather, but I'll be back on practice sessions tonight. Is anyone still playing Go?

Sleep hygiene was good but that's not surprising for an introvert night. German and meditation happened after lunch gym session, and I noticed how I tend to miscue on heavier deadlift attempts, leaning farther forward in my sumo stance, in a way that often causes a rep failure. I think my brain has been telling me to get more over the heavier bar and it have to fight myself to force me to sit back in my stance to keep the bar traveling on my shins. Baby steps. Bitches Brew and trumpet practice kept my morning entertaining, and Kenosha boyfriend and I are making dinner tonight. Should be some crafts and cuddles; not the worst way to spend a windy Tuesday just before lent. Late to the party, but is anyone reading the Wandering Inn?

+1 vote for Father-of-Grimble

Miles Davis and "Kind of Blue" are keeping me company today. More practice and theory after work today and I'm very grateful for a high quality mute. Makes my beginners mistakes more of a private sin, and not a neighborhood wide concern. Duoling war heute gut, und ich hat die Nachrichten lessen. Am nachstes Wochenende, Duolingo veransteltet einen Brettspielbrunch fur Deutschstudenten. Das klingt gut, aber es ist um 10 uhr. Am fucking Samstag. Fuck. Sleep and mediation were good over the weekend, despite the roommate breaking up with her boy and needing an emergency flight and airport pickup late on Saturday. I always tend to stay up super late when the Milwaukee boyfriend spends the weekend over, but I actually kept good sleep hygiene with him this time. And he is non-trash, along with the Kenosha boyfriend; but I appreciate that one can't take it for granted @Harriet! Terrible sleep last night, but that was more me forgetting that I usually need a sleep aid on Sunday nights, dur. Also, concerning my own RL pokemon, this happened - https://www.instagram.com/p/B897u9cJ1kQ/?igshid=1pia8e7s75g2d

Jazz theory and embouchure practice happened and I, as NF's Chief Maturity Officer, bestow on @Mike Wazowski 30 internet maturity points. Also restocked my library of jazz standards, I'd been stuck on Till Brönner but my book is having me get through an expansive playlist; today, Porgie & Bess. @Harriet Duolingo ist einfach und ich meine täglich Ziel gemacht. Ich bin motaviert sehr vorbei monatlich Deutchsprache Versamlungen, heißt "Stamtische", herum Milwaukee. Die Mitglieder sind meistens Deutschauswanderer, und Amerikanisch Deutcheleheren. Sleeping was good, had the Kenosha boyfriend over for the evening, which makes for a quiet evening of cooking, crafts, TV, and commiserating with my roommate that all men are trash. Kenosha boyfriend always gets sleepy early and I end up getting 8-9 hours of sleep. Not the worst. Meditating is easy in the new job, they have quiet rooms set aside that're great for working through a mala. I strung a leopardskin jasper and obsidian piece around a carved obsidian focus bead Kenosha boyfriend gave me for Christmas. I love it, but I made a matched set of knotting mistakes on the 1st and 7th pause beads, and I'll restring it one of these days. Still, I'm a little spoiled. https://www.instagram.com/p/B81xReVpxX8/?igshid=1dlh280qjerew

Hey, maybe back after some life changes, enjoy pink pokemon n such. Make art like Wigglytuff! This means getting up early enough to practice trumpet on the daily, and keep a daily word count of 200 for writing. This also means keep my fucking german up, on duolingo for now. Make healthy like Blissey! This means getting 7 hours of sleep every night, and meditating on the daily. Shitpost like Clefable!

Fascinating question and it's weird to talk about meditating; talking about the process of noticing the self below our talking self. You know those brief moments where there's no thoughts, those 30 second blips where the first thought you have is that you must now be enlightened but that thought itself wrecks things? Sometimes my fingers pause during those moments, and I think that's a good thing. Other times the beads pace my breathing and keep my body in a good posture with good breath, and those things push my brain into another 30 second blip before I need a refractory monkey mind break. I'm not used to mantra/prayer work, where you recite with each bead; I've been playing with the discipline, and it's more parts distracting than helpful at this point. I respect that usually you need to be bad at something before you can be mediocre.

No but literally yes.

Don't tell my nerd fitness friends, but sometimes I need goals that are more exploration oriented than results oriented.

Same. Not headspace, but calm, same difference. You ever try a mala? The kinesthetic cues of passing beads through my fingers while deep breathing, it helps me interrupt the anxiety squirrels, kinda like playing with a fidget spinner while meditating so that anxiety itself doesn't sabotage the meditating. Lots of waking up in the morning to find the beads on the ground or in the covers where I dropped them as I fell asleep.

I'm new to the cheering section of team scalyfreak; whats your background on meditation? It helps my insomnia from anxiety brain a solid 66% of the time, but its a terrible discipline to start learning while you're trying to fall asleep.

I love this concept.

Same. I was just mocking well-meaning friends and family that have useless suggestions.

Its hard man, there's all this expectation and historical record around what a faith community needs to look like; similar beliefs, similar practices, similar lifestyles; but there are other ways to do spiritual life with other humans. Like disjointed mystics that honor the longing for god in each other, even while they don't share a lot of specific practices in common. Like massive marriage contracts where everyone is each others spouse, and you make really good silverware. Like the unitarian church where you only agree on social justice and human kindness. What about dating a religious community, like going out with one or several to see if they flip some important switches? Even being polyamorous with a few religious communities at once, like witch friends that love both their synagogue, and love the feminine divine with their coven? Some dear catholic friends interact with their faith community in a way that my baptist upbringing would disparage; the Catholics practicing the rituals faithfully, but not sharing Monday through Saturday secular life with their faith community. My old baptist perspective would term those Catholics as weekend cohabitors. But damnit, have you met some couples that work in different cities and really only get together to fuck each-others brains out over the weekend, spend perfect lazy afternoons at the farmers markets, then go back to work sore and smiling on Monday? It werks for some folks, and those folks are some of the most grounded and deeply spiritual humans I know.

Post poetry - Love is the path and road of our Prophet We were born from Love and Love was our mother. O you who are our mother, you are hidden within veils, Concealed from our disbelieving natures Log calories - Yep. Calorie logging made possible by - eating the same damn 4 meals over and over. Post Art - Can we talk about how much better tattoo B is than tattoo A? Get seven hours of sleep - 6.5 is fine for a Sunday night, but no other day. I actually skipped an upper power day to get even that much sleep dang it.

But have you tried (obvious suggestion that you tried and are still trying)?

The only thing I'd change would be to give it a pretentious name like "The Glory of Human Industry!" Actually, speaking of engineering art, turns out the MSOE art museum is p much free and it's not many hundred feet away from my desk. I've been visiting their Carl Spitzweg gallery a few times a week and the piece below has me feeling personally attacked.

Literally a selfie of me in early april.