Scaly Freak

12 hours ago, Mistr said:

Good for you and H taking a much-needed evening off. That sounds lovely. 💓

It was. I still need more sleep, but I feel a lot less stressed.

3 hours ago, Kishi said:

I really admire that you and H are able to be solitary with each other like that. I can see myself needing something like time away but I wouldn't know how to ask for it or even to trust that I could. That's really cool to me and something to strive for.

We call it "alone-time". We've unintentionally developed a rule through the years that if one of us asks for alone-time, they immediately get it, no questions asked.  And to be able to go off and have that solitude and know that it won't be taken as a negative, or misunderstood, is something I am grateful for. Any introvert who needs this in their life, deserves to have it.  

7 hours ago, Sovalis said:

Non-scale victory: My jellyfish shirt fits again!!

That is an awesome and badass shirt. (Also, those frames look great on you.)

1 hour ago, Laghail said:

Kristen Schaal is a goddess. A strange goddess of strange humors, voice to some of our favorite characters, and a wild muse. I could list her many accomplishments but I am only one man, and her accolades are so heavy. The clips below of her stand-up, they're fucking weird . Fair warning.

I was so excited when I saw her in Bill & Ted Face the Music.  George Carlin is not an easy act to follow, and she not only fully owned that role, she killed it. 🤘🏻

1 hour ago, Laghail said:

• Going on a FB diet for a month or so because Weltschmerz isn't useful when I'm upset and impotent to affect change. Writing letters to elected officials (likely a useless gesture), and volunteering in local queer groups, but sobbing over news and social media isn't helping anything.

One of the reasons I enjoy volunteering is the special kind of comfort that can only ever be felt when in the company of people who understand why a certain piece of political news is devastating, without needing it explained to them. That they also are devastated is secondary. The important thing is that they get it. 

On 4/22/2024 at 11:13 AM, Mistr said:

We realized after we got home that it was our anniversary (42 years !?!?!?!?!)

That is genuinely impressive. That length of time requires a level of stubbornness, restraint, and sheer endurance that I can only hope to aspire to. 

I hope you had more good days than bad and that you have many, many more good days together from here on.

8 hours ago, Sovalis said:

I remembered to put the garbage on the curb yesterday in my fit of Adulting and got to listen as it got picked up a moment ago. Victory! I had a very productive and affirming day yesterday. Appointment went very well, errands were completed with no overspend on things I didn’t need, housework was accomplished (even more than I had originally intended to do! I can now see the floor in the laundry room!), and then I spent the late afternoon and evening trying to work with World Anvil to get my gaming stuff sorted out. That was slow going and honestly a bit frustrating at times, but I started to make more progress when I moved off my tablet and went up to the desktop in my office. The format on each machine is slightly different and the desktop is a bit easier for me to navigate. Having a mouse also helps. I don’t use a mouse with my iPad, just a keyboard. Right now I see getting the world into World Anvil as a massive uphill task, but I think it will be good for me if I can commit to getting it done. 

My Genesys GM uses World Anvil to document the campaign setting and all the worldbuilding (and it is awesome - I've encountered fantasy writers who could learn from this) and I have noticed that trying to access some of the pages on my phone or chrome book is painful. My working theory is that the world anvil site is horrifically bad at adapting to mobile devices, and that might be what you're running into on the iPad. If that's the case, you might be able to save yourself some headaches by sticking to the computer?  

8 hours ago, Sovalis said:

I feel like I am pretty unburdened but I think I might be too close to the trees to see the forest?

While it generally is a bad idea to completely ignore most of one's surroundings, there's a peaceful kind of stillness in focusing on that one single metaphorical tree that is standing so close it blocks out everything else. Scrutinize the imaginary bark, touch the non-existing leaves and enjoy the fact that you have a moment to really look closely at something for once. The moment will end, eventually at some point, but until it does, there's nothing wrong with embracing it. 

2 hours ago, Heidi said:

I have a lot of sympathy for Spinoza who turned down the offer of being a professor and chose to remain a lens-grinder and counted that as freedom. 

We'll add this to the list of indicators that Spinoza was a genius.

Overall feeling considerably better about everything today, despite not sleeping as much as I should have. Good quality sleep, just not enough of it, which is my standard these days. I had a surprisingly good day at work. Had a brief encounter with the Drama Llama in an early afternoon meeting, and handled it much better than last time (admittedly not difficult to do), and genuinely shrugged it off immediately after. Last week, after my little meltdown, H. patiently reminded me that since Drama Llama isn't actually above me in the hierarchy, I don't actually have to do what she wants, or even respond in kind when she pushes back against what I want to do. I can simply do what I'm supposed to do and leave it to her to figure out how to deal with it. So I'm testing that approach now.

I'm also deliberately skipping the gym visit this evening to save energy and to do other mental-health things. Right as I left work, H mentioned that he really wants to have a quiet evening by himself, with as few interruptions as possible, since he also feels drained and needs to recover after the large amounts of socializing this weekend. So now he's sitting with his gaming PC in his room and I'm sitting with mine in my room, and he will let me know when our dinner gets here, and we will both have as much solitude as we can for the rest of the evening.

Rivendell, here I come! 

8 hours ago, Ahyar Dreamspark said:

I will be spending the next 10 days driving and chilling in a place that looks like the Shire from LotR and I will want nothing to do with this Real Life bullshit while I'm there. In other words, it's going to be an actual vacation.

This sounds amazing and wonderful. Disconnect from everything, as much as you can, and enjoy the break! We'll be here when you get back  

11 hours ago, Sovalis said:

The "like" is a solidarity heart, not liking that you're feeling so troubled. 

13 hours ago, Heidi said:

Thank you for this! ❤️ 

This is the clip I actually wanted to find for you. Took me a while, but here it is.

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

That's really polite of your coworkers, mine would opt for spooking me instead. Or shoot me. Or my boss would sneak up behind my monitor and slooowly creep up on me.  

The third of fourth time someone approached me unnoticed and tapped me on the shoulder, I accidentally shoved my chair backwards, hard, from being startled. Pure coincidence. Absolutely unintentional. I was startled and embarrassed at how close I came to cause someone injury.

That's how the IM habit got started.

😇

Mana (mindfulness/mental health)

Meditated while drinking morning tea, before heading over to family event.

Stamina (emotional energy)

Colored a couple of pictures and did breathing exercises through the day.

19 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Let's hope for the latter, it sounds like a draining weekend. Hope the family time will be nice even if a lot.  

It was definitely in the latter. My hair stylist's scalp massage skills might be a big factor there. 😇

The family time was nice and fun, since this is family that we like. It was energy draining none the less, but not in a bad way, just in a tiring one.

16 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

And they're not the best for voices anyway.

Noise canceling headphones plus this, set to Speech Blocker, was very effective for blocking out human voices and conversations when I worked in an office. My  co-workers learned to send me an IM saying "I'm coming to your desk" before coming over, as I often didn't hear them talking while standing next to me.  

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

 

Is this in the draining or recharging category?

I am not sure yet. 

16 minutes ago, Heidi said:

Agreed. One of the reasons this series has taken so long to launch is because I don’t have clips for everything yet, and it always feels like I don’t have enough pieces-and-parts together to make it work.

From the last trial of the episode. Fan favorite, because Picard speech. 

And the last scene of the episode, with the line about villains who clothe themselves in good deeds.

You need clips from the Drumhead and Wrath of Khan.  

Dracula Daily starts in two weeks. The project describes itself like this, on their website:

Quote

 

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel - it’s made up of letters, diaries, telegrams, newspaper clippings - and every part of it has a date. The whole story happens between May 3 and November 7. So: Dracula Daily will post a newsletter each day that something happens to the characters, in the same timeline that it happens to them.

 

Now you can read the book via email, in small digestible chunks - as it happens to the characters.

 

Sign-up available here: https://draculadaily.substack.com/about

On 4/18/2024 at 9:05 PM, Elastigirl said:

I've talked before at how I sorta feel guilty for having an appearance goal. I know weighing less is healthier, but that seems so abstract. Fitting in my shorts for summer feel like a nice goal.

Hatter already said what I was going to say -- there is nothing wrong with setting a goal that involves your appearance as long as you're doing it in a healthy way, and as far as I can tell you're doing that. I have used "lose inches so my pants fit better and feel better" as a goal multiple times, and I really like how easy it is to assess progress for a goal like that.  

2 hours ago, Sovalis said:

I am finding that while I am definitely having my magpie moments (omg, I want so many sets of dice right now, it’s a little absurd) I am doing really well with my no spend. It is actually helping to remind myself that the debt reduction is more permanent than the stuff I want (or at least I am telling myself it is) and that I can have it later. In the nature of capitalism, maybe the exact things I want won’t be available, but other things that I will like will be.

Not to mention... the stress from having debt will go away when  the debt does and that quality of life improvement is impossible to put a monetary value on. It's worth the effort. Plus, the other things you will like are bound to be more shiny when they becomes available in the future, because that is also in the nature of capitalism  

Crossing my fingers and wishing you all the good fortune and success you need to get money from the application forms. A permanent tax credit would be incredible and so helpful! 

21 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

The murder-y-ness of my neighbours doesn't seem out of the ordinary. 😅

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Entirely unbiased I'm sure 😛 😄

Please define what constitutes "ordinary" murder-y-ness in your neighborhood....

On 4/19/2024 at 10:44 AM, Mistr said:

Aiieeee, that sounds  painfully familiar. Although I mostly relied on chocolate, not ice cream or whiskey. I feel like I am only a few steps on the path to healthier strategies. There is less chocolate.

Well, I've recently graduated from whiskey to chocolate... which I firmly believe is a step in a healthy direction. I refuse to give up the ice cream though. I have however made efforts to eat less of it, and less often. This became surprisingly easy once I realized that I can simply opt not purchase ice cream when we place our grocery orders. 

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I think I need to repeat this mistake a few 100 times more, then maaaaybe I'll be able to learn. 

That would make you human then.  

HP (physical health)

Preparing for gym later today... chest and upper back day today. There will be bench pressing and there will be barbell rowing, and possibly some accessories if there is time and energy for them.

Mana (mindfulness/mental health)

Finished meditating before coming here to check challenges.

Stamina (emotional energy)

Attended the weekly musical event again last night. Also did lots of breathing exercises and lots of coloring. Colored before meditating today, and will do more meditation later, because we have a busy weekend this weekend. This evening there is a family dinner for someone's birthday. Tomorrow there is brunch with family visiting from out-of-town, and after brunch I have a hair appointment. 

My cousin's funeral service was yesterday, and emotional margins and resilience reman gone. Gym will be helpful.

7 hours ago, Heidi said:

I scheduled the Parrot Meeting Room (in which there are, sadly, no parrots) for mid-May to officially relaunch SOPHIA Roanoke. Our topic will be "Our Duty to the Truth," and will be the first in the Philosophy & Star Trek offerings. It's built around the lecture that Picard gives Wesley.

One of the best TNG Episodes, and also one of the most frustrating ones. We could have had this Wesley all along? 🤦🏻‍♀️

What other offerings are you planning? 

7 hours ago, Heidi said:

I'm planning on using the iconic "engage" photo of Picard, with a big, bold Star Trek & Philosophy: Our Duty to the Truth banner at the top (suggestions are welcome and actively solicited!!)

Suggestion: Grab a frame from the episode, one from the lecture above if you can. Casual fans won't notice and the hardcore fans will love it.   

On 4/17/2024 at 2:29 AM, Mad Hatter said:

What book are you reading?

I'm re-reading a fantasy romance series by Rena Marks.  

On 4/17/2024 at 9:15 AM, Mistr said:

Good job on finding another pleasant place to walk and going to the gym. I am glad that H is supporting you on dealing with the family challenges and frustrations of your job.

The job frustrations have faded considerably, which support the theory I formed back on Tuesday, that the frustrating incident on Tuesday was actually very minor. It just became that famous very last drop that cause the water glass to spill over.

On 4/17/2024 at 9:33 AM, Harriet said:

Very understandable that your tolerance for drama llama is reduced. I'm so happy that the lifting helped you feel better. That's awesome.

I'm trying to learn from mistakes I've made in the past, when I "managed" stress by hiding from it, and self-medicated with ice cream and whiskey. shockingly, this doesn't actually make the stress go away.  

Gym again tonight. I is leg day!

8 hours ago, Sovalis said:

Today is the last day of Houseguest! I am so excited to have my house back!

8 hours ago, Sovalis said:

an undead dragon whose bones are made of glass and filled with some kind of smoke

😍

With diamond teeth? Toxic fumes breath weapon? I want in on this boss fight!