Merrin

Finished The Colorado Kid. It felt like old SK, akin to Green Mile or Different Seasons. Like old SK, ie Tommyknockers or It, I can't say it stuck the landing. I enjoyed it up until the rather lackluster ending. Now I'm reading Monster by A Lee Martinez and it's v v funny so far. Think Christopher Moore without getting gross or over-wrought.

Halfway through The Colorado Kid. Feels like old SK, really enjoying it so far.

Look, you know my style by now. If you don't, here's how it goes. I'm a week late, and I'm about to join five different sidequests at once here, between budgeting, reading more (moar!) books, getting back into the Darebees, and joining the walk to Mordor (probably, it's the winter, I live in the Midwest now). I don't know how to do anything by halves. Iced coffee for me, and keep it coming! (Also also I'm going to therapy next week. I'm very proud of myself.) [It's been forever! Has it really been seven years since I got to be at Camp? Wow. The magic there stayed with me for a long, long time. It saw a lot of good happen for a couple of years. It helped me pick my name.] So, yea. It's good to be back.

Monday: Japanese goal, 1 hr Zelda etc, scrubbed the kitchen walls and mopped, baked, hydrated + used face serum. Slept in 2 hours late. Brainzaps kept me up.

Oh if only the outside were covered in stone! There is a large cemetary only half a mile away.

Hi Nerds! I'm Merrin. I haven't done a proper challenge for over a year at least. It may look like I have a lot of goals, but all of these fall in line with my daily schedule. I was going to Culinary school but had to withdraw last April. I need structure to thrive, so putting my goals down along with writing a daily schedule with my partner is really going to be good for me. We just bought a house! We drove 1100 miles across the country to move into a house built in 1900 (yes it's 120 years old) and used to be a funeral parlor! It's old and spooky and sometimes bats get in. It needs a lot of love and attention. (We spent most of October re-plumbing the entire basement.) I love sewing! I taught a Cosplay 101 class at Nerd Camp 2016. I don't have any LARP plans until January of 22, but that doesn't mean I can't sew a pile of things until then. Mercury: There's always something to be studied, and right now, that's language. 1 chapter Duolingo each day. Learning Japanese in the hopes that Duncan and I can go back in 2023. Venus: all hobbies in moderation! 1 hour social media, 1 hour video games per day. No old games. No Animal Crossing. Moon: Usagi's favorite thing is spending time with Mamoru. Ifrit and I were enjoying a more regular date night. 1x a week for games [Firefly, Lovecraft, Villains] Mars: keeping the home clean is an act of duty and an act of love. 2x weekly, including house painting, hanging art, repairing windows/treatments, laundry, floors. Jupiter: Mako-chan loves being in the kitchen. She shows her love for others by feeding them often. Cooking 3+ times a week, opposite chore days. Baking counts. Saturn: Silence is a necessity. 2 hours downtime daily, reading, stitchwork. Finish pumpkin set, gem poster. Castle poster? Uranus: No time for slacking. Ringfit, 1 section daily. Neptune: Deep Submerge! Daily skincare, hydration goals. [Oops it's like they go together on purpose.] Pluto: Cosplay work, 3x week. If I feel like there are other areas to improve, I'll branch out the challenge to the Starlights.

In for this. 2020 goal is 4 books per month. I've got all of Sandman to read, plus almost a dozen novels to start.

2019 Shows! Natura Obscura, The Illusionists, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Camp Christmas. Nice balance of classic vs immersive.

Unlike a pirate who doesn't do anything, I have now officially been to Boston in the fall. The colors through the mountains were incredible. I hiked across a campsite and walked through the woods at midnight.

The three I've got are a moth, a constellation, and a song lyric. The next few will be a tree, a Shakespeare quote, and maybe a fox.

I've never been to the botanical gardens despite living here my entire life. Check off another item for the Backyard. It was lovely.

Went to Dinosaur Monument this past weekend.

~ Like a fire, always burning, I'll be here for you ~ Time to throw this back to the pre-camp challenge from so long ago. I won't lie, I remain disappointed that the idea of Camp never came to greater fruition, that I might never see some of those folx again, that my cosplay class wouldn't get to see a second run. I worried that I wouldn't find such an uplifting, positive community again. And then, on a whim, I went to a LARP this past Yule season. And I had an amazing, magical, absurd, story-filled time. But! I was not prepared for the emotional/physical/mental toll that it took. (Two days of Disneyland? Easy peasy. Been there. Two days of playing pretend with total strangers? That took some reserves.) So, it's time to get the engines running and prepare my magical story machine for next month. Rough draft follows, rewards to be decided if needed Love is to Eat Anything Fluffy: Cook/assemble food 1x per day. Log all food into phone. Don't Be Clawhauser: Limit sweet snacks to 2 per day. Increase water and tea intake. Go for Walkies: loops on the parking garage for work days; loops at the park on off days. Bees? Complete Darebees when possible, attempt extra credit. Include with daily stretches. +Back Up Tigers: dance party. +Venus: heavy bag, house/yard work. Mirror Mirror: daily skin care + masks. Hush: minimum half hour quiet time before bed. Reading, coloring, meditation, chores. DatDA: class work as needed. +Haruka: weekly free/errand ride. Kissing Town/Boo'ya Moon: once weekly fun times with Ifrit.

I'm honestly depressed today. It's that sort of blues/blasé/gloomy feeling. I want to be convinced that everyone here must hate me, based on just a few people being so consistently disrespectful. It honestly feels just a little bit Triggering, and I know exactly why: this sort of joke-y, 'take it easy', faultless type of caustic attitude reminds me a LOT of my ex-in-laws. They would say horrible things to me and then act like I had no sense of humor for responding defensively. Same thing with my OM just now, and the CD the other day. If I stick up for myself, I'm told my boundaries are wrong or un-enforceable; 'Your chair has wheels' if I need to remove myself from my work space, or my labels to my desk get ignored as it suits others. I'd like to go home and cry at a Disney movie, please.

Potentially Good Thing: my OM tells me that he left me something in the drawer marked 'Personal-Do Not Open' so marked that people don't open it looking for office supplies when my bag/lunch are in there. The something was a bag of chocolates with a nice sticky note. Immediately Not Good Thing: within an hour of my thanking him for the chocolates, he then reaches into that same drawer, y'know, 'Personal Do Not Open' because by now, all my sh*t for the day is in there, to then TAKE one of the chocolates he just??? GAVE ME??? I try to joke it off 'You just gave me chocolates and now you're taking them?' and his response was this weak 'Haha yeah'. If this is the same person trying to encourage me to re/establish boundaries at work with my work space/etc...he's sure fucking up in setting a decent example. So??? I guess? I'll just hide all that chocolate INTO my lunch bag now and ??? See What Happens??? The f*ck???