[Mad Hatter]

Oh my, it appears villainy is quite infectious. All the talk about it made me realize it's time to resume my own villain arc.?

 

Me first

 

A villain always focuses on themselves. I can't fix my grandmother. I can take care of her, but my needs and wants are important and have to come first.

 

- Remember this.

 

Audacious action

 

My life is in limbo and I've fallen into a trap of passivity. I've been choosing passive activities as a form of low quality mental recovery all too often. This goal is about prioritizing action, under the premise that energy breeds energy, action breeds action, ideas breed more ideas.

 

- Physical movement makes it easier to take brain action. Do a movement video M/W/F when my grandma is out of the house. This is in addition to the 3-4 days I go to the gym for handstand training.

 

- When I'm bored or restless try doing something before turning to passive consumption.

 

- Combat the art resistance by doing a lot of bad art. A lot. The aim is to fill an entire sketchbook and having fun making terrible drawings.

 

Daring Desire

 

Figure out what I want. Eventually I'll have to decide what to do with my life, but that's a too big question. This goal is about (re)discovering what I enjoy doing, what's fun, what tickles my brain!

 

- Take note of what I'm consuming and why. Is it for entertainment or for learning or to kill time? Am I having fun? Am I really engaged? Is it interesting? If so what makes it interesting? What are the common threads?

- Expand subject areas, and consume different types of media (too much YT, not enough books lately)

- Bonus: Can I turn passive interest into action in some way? A small project, or trying something new. More on this later, but I'd love your help with this one!

[Yuen]

*waves*

 

Good luck in your challenge Hatter! I'm glad to see a familiar face still around

[sylph]

here for madness.

 

[Everstorm]

Mass production of bad art solidarity!

 

[sarakingdom]

You may use me as peer pressure or discussion partner or whatever for this challenge, because I need to do your challenge, too.

[Mad Hatter]

On 9/4/2024 at 1:33 PM, Yuen said:

*waves*

 

Good luck in your challenge Hatter! I'm glad to see a familiar face still around

Yay glad to see you to! Very pleasant unexpected surprise! ?

 

On 9/4/2024 at 3:01 PM, sylph said:

here for madness.

 

Woohoo!

 

On 9/4/2024 at 4:20 PM, Everstorm said:

Mass production of bad art solidarity!

 

Yes!

 

Except your art is gooooooorgeouuus!

 

21 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

You may use me as peer pressure or discussion partner or whatever for this challenge, because I need to do your challenge, too.

Yay thank you!

[Mad Hatter]

Yesterday I didn't get much done except posting the challenge. In the afternoon I went with grandma and her carer to my other grandma. We haven't had gas, i.e. no hot water and no cooking, for a week now and we really needed to give my grandma a good scrub. And by we I mean my carer because my grandma was pissed. ? Sometimes it's good she has a short memory! In turn I got pissed at my granddad. My grandmas and I were sitting around casually chatting when he barged in and started yelling about the whole gas situation saying that I was wrong, he doesn't believe me, it's impossible that we don't have gas and he's going to come over and check it himself. ? LIKE I MADE IT ALL UP! And he wouldn't shut up about it and he was yelling, clearly making my grandma really uncomfortable, and in the end I was just like DUDE IT'S NOT EVEN YOUR PROBLEM. And then he still wouldn't shut up. That man is so incredibly obnoxious. (The other day he also told me that I never go for walks and all I do at the gym is lie in the machines. What??) I'm not surprised that my dad is the way he is if this is the way he was taught to communicate.

 

In the evening I wasn't in the mood to do anything but I still put on a Kassandra video for the points. It was really, really boring and pointless. She was probably fine, more a case of wrong video/wrong time.

 

Today was a gym day! I did a mini handstand session and then some backbendy stuff. I don't think I mentioned it but last session my wrist sort of, ummm, exploded during the warm up. But then it felt fine-ish, like pressure had been released. So I continued on with my session. Since then it has been a bit fragile when putting pressure on it, but I gave it some extra rest, *checks notes*, umm 3 whole days (I could've sworn it was a week!) and thought I'd give it a try today. Before you say anything - I was really, really careful and set a bunch of strict rules! It went ok, I basically only did wall conditioning stuff and was super careful about wrist placement and always having the weight split equally between both hands.

[Mad Hatter]

Found this dying southern hawker on the sidewalk and got sad. Such a pretty chunky boy. I put it in the grass so it wouldn’t get stomped on.

 

 

Does anybody know what tree this is? The shiny metallic mummy bark is so cool!

[Elastigirl]

I think it is a Madrona tree.  We have tree here that look like that, with  the shiny  red peeling bark

[Mistr]

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

My grandmas and I were sitting around casually chatting when he barged in and started yelling about the whole gas situation saying that I was wrong, he doesn't believe me, it's impossible that we don't have gas and he's going to come over and check it himself. ? LIKE I MADE IT ALL UP! And he wouldn't shut up about it and he was yelling, clearly making my grandma really uncomfortable, and in the end I was just like DUDE IT'S NOT EVEN YOUR PROBLEM. And then he still wouldn't shut up. That man is so incredibly obnoxious. (The other day he also told me that I never go for walks and all I do at the gym is lie in the machines. What??) I'm not surprised that my dad is the way he is if this is the way he was taught to communicate.

 

WTF?!?!?!?! 

 

As if someone would make up a power outage? 

 

Is your grandfather starting to suffer from dementia? It might be hard to tell if he is starting from a baseline of not being well-connected to reality. How is your other grandma's health holding up?

 

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

In the evening I wasn't in the mood to do anything but I still put on a Kassandra video for the points. It was really, really boring and pointless. She was probably fine, more a case of wrong video/wrong time.

 

Today was a gym day! I did a mini handstand session and then some backbendy stuff. I don't think I mentioned it but last session my wrist sort of, ummm, exploded during the warm up. But then it felt fine-ish, like pressure had been released. So I continued on with my session. Since then it has been a bit fragile when putting pressure on it, but I gave it some extra rest, *checks notes*, umm 3 whole days (I could've sworn it was a week!) and thought I'd give it a try today. Before you say anything - I was really, really careful and set a bunch of strict rules! It went ok, I basically only did wall conditioning stuff and was super careful about wrist placement and always having the weight split equally between both hands.

 

Good for you for training when you were not in the mood and being careful of your wrist. Joint things are always tricky. You want to do enough to keep it mobile, but not too much. Who knows what is the right amount?

[Tobbe]

 

 

Sorry for coming here just to drop a boring AI answer ? ?

 

You know how it is though! 

 

https://xkcd.com/386/

[Harriet]

On 9/4/2024 at 1:06 PM, Mad Hatter said:

A villain always focuses on themselves. I can't fix my grandmother. I can take care of her, but my needs and wants are important and have to come first.

 

This is so important. No one is in a better position to advocate for you consistently than yourself. Doesn't mean you cannot help others, too, but you put your own oxygen mask on first. 

 

On 9/4/2024 at 1:06 PM, Mad Hatter said:

My life is in limbo and I've fallen into a trap of passivity. I've been choosing passive activities as a form of low quality mental recovery all too often.

 

Wow, we're twins! Burnout brain rot distraction addiction twins!

 

On 9/4/2024 at 1:06 PM, Mad Hatter said:

This goal is about prioritizing action, under the premise that energy breeds energy, action breeds action, ideas breed more ideas.

 

Great idea but I also wonder if we need to be stricter about adding high quality rest. The thing about consuming entertainment is I'm not sure it's truly restful but I hate just sitting and doing nothing. Or having a nap. But I probably should. How about a villainous stare out the window?

 

On 9/4/2024 at 1:06 PM, Mad Hatter said:

- Combat the art resistance by doing a lot of bad art. A lot. The aim is to fill an entire sketchbook and having fun making terrible drawings.

 

Yay!

 

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Does anybody know what tree this is? The shiny metallic mummy bark is so cool!

Don't know if it's the same, but it looks like some of the cherry trees the garden dude suggested for our Munich garden. Shiny red bark with horizontal strips. 

[Harriet]

12 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

 all I do at the gym is lie in the machines.

 

yeah stop lying around in the gyms you utter gym lingerer. 

But actually, I'm very sorry your dad is a big angry baby who makes caring for your grandmother harder instead of easier. 

[Waanie]

 

The tree is giving me birch-vibes, do you maybe have a picture of a leaf?

 

On 9/6/2024 at 8:49 AM, Harriet said:

Great idea but I also wonder if we need to be stricter about adding high quality rest. The thing about consuming entertainment is I'm not sure it's truly restful but I hate just sitting and doing nothing. Or having a nap. But I probably should. How about a villainous stare out the window?

This would have been my comment as well: being in action all the time is exhausting! I have no idea what high quality rest entails though, other than taking a walk. Low-stimulus activities work best for me to truly relax, but I guess it depends on the person?

[Mad Hatter]

On 9/5/2024 at 11:09 PM, Mistr said:

WTF?!?!?!?! 

 

As if someone would make up a power outage? 

 

Is your grandfather starting to suffer from dementia? It might be hard to tell if he is starting from a baseline of not being well-connected to reality. How is your other grandma's health holding up?

Nope, he's always been obnoxious AF. I've disliked him since I was a child. He'd always tell me what I should do, what job I should have. Instead of taking an interest in me he just made assumptions. And he always knows everything best, despite being out of loop for decades and his "knowledge" being entirely irrelevant to the situation. My grandma says he's getting worse and even she's fed up with him, but I dunno, to me he hasn't changed at all.

 

My other grandma's health is ok. She's always suffering from small random ailments but honestly I think she complains mostly for attention/lack of other interests except cleaning and cooking. I don't want to sound mean, I'm sure it sucks. But she complains about things like how tired she is and much her back hurts when she's literally scrubbed the flat top to bottom, including the balcony and windows, and cooked two meals and baked a cake. Only slightly exaggerating.

 

On 9/6/2024 at 8:41 AM, Tobbe said:

Sorry for coming here just to drop a boring AI answer ? ?

 

You know how it is though! 

 

https://xkcd.com/386/

LOL. Understandable! But you're right, it is a bit boring. ? It robs the plant nerds of their chance to shine, and the less plant nerds a chance to guess and share what they know. It might be wrong, but it can become a starting point for a conversation.

 

On 9/6/2024 at 8:49 AM, Harriet said:

Wow, we're twins! Burnout brain rot distraction addiction twins!

Umm, yay? ? 

 

On 9/6/2024 at 8:49 AM, Harriet said:

Great idea but I also wonder if we need to be stricter about adding high quality rest. The thing about consuming entertainment is I'm not sure it's truly restful but I hate just sitting and doing nothing. Or having a nap. But I probably should. How about a villainous stare out the window?

True, but also if my default has become resting then it's not a helpful mindset to focus on the rest, not at this point in time. And I think the highest quality rest comes naturally after physical activity anyway. For me the non-activity is more habitual than physiological mind! Without external pressure and no big life goal I simply drift...

 

For me sitting around doing nothing doesn't lead to anything except boredom and restlessness and that's not a conducive state to be in. Napping is good though, I wish I weren't terrible at it! My favourite might be listening to music. Like lying on the floor with headphones and listening to a whole album. If I'm very very tired I'll fall asleep, which is good. Or it will make me move once I'm rested enough, which is also good. I don't do it nearly enough though. I could try the villainous stare. But I don't think the pigeons would care and then I would feel like a terrible villain.

 

On 9/6/2024 at 8:52 AM, Harriet said:

yeah stop lying around in the gyms you utter gym lingerer.

Or maybe I should start? ? Sometimes I see people chilling on the machines between sets and it looks like a great place to relax! I usually linger about on the floor, which is fine, but the machines look much comfier. ? 

 

On 9/6/2024 at 8:52 AM, Harriet said:

But actually, I'm very sorry your dad is a big angry baby who makes caring for your grandmother harder instead of easier. 

This is my granddad, or my dad's dad. Admittedly my dad is also a big angry baby but for different reasons. ?

 

Sadly my granddad (of my sick grandma) died first, he was awesome.

 

2 minutes ago, Waanie said:

The tree is giving me birch-vibes, do you maybe have a picture of a leaf?

Definitely not birch, the bark is why too shiny and the three leaves left looked quite different, much pointier. Or are there shiny birches? That'd be neat. But pretty sure that @Harriet and the AI are correct!

 

32 minutes ago, Waanie said:

This would have been my comment as well: being in action all the time is exhausting! I have no idea what high quality rest entails though, other than taking a walk. Low-stimulus activities work best for me to truly relax, but I guess it depends on the person?

I honestly don't find walking that restful. At least not in cities. And not in the summer heat. It just saps my energy. A nice forest walk sure, or maybe by the sea. But then it's more the environment that's relaxing.... Then again, that on its own is not enough to shut up my mind... ? 

 

But that begs the question, what are you trying to rest? The brain or the body? Those require entirely different rests. For example climbing is fantastic for resting the brain, but terrible rest for the body. I wonder if the problems is more due to brain rest and physical rest getting muddled. Scrolling on the internet is feels bad after a full day of brainy office labour, but after a hard climbing session it really doesn't matter how I'm resting, as long as I'm fed and have a sofa to chill on it's all good.

[Waanie]

29 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Definitely not birch, the bark is why too shiny and the three leaves left looked quite different, much pointier. Or are there shiny birches? That'd be neat. But pretty sure that @Harriet and the AI are correct!

Well, the peeling bark was what gave me (and probably the AI) those vibes, and the leaves of a birch are very pointy:

It also seems to be in a residential area, so probably not a fancy tree, and something that is common in Europe?

Some googling makes me thing that the answer of the AI that it is some kind of cherry is also a good option, and that it is probably not a Madrona.

 

29 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

But that begs the question, what are you trying to rest? The brain or the body? Those require entirely different rests. For example climbing is fantastic for resting the brain, but terrible rest for the body. I wonder if the problems is more due to brain rest and physical rest getting muddled. Scrolling on the internet is feels bad after a full day of brainy office labour, but after a hard climbing session it really doesn't matter how I'm resting, as long as I'm fed and have a sofa to chill on it's all good.

For me, it's usually the brain that needs resting, but without taking away physical recovery from training. Climbing has a lot of overhead since the gym is far, I'd have to be social, etc. I live at the edge of a town, so the tree-y area is always close (wouldn't call it a forest though). I agree though that resting the mind requires different activities than resting the body.

[Mad Hatter]

2 minutes ago, Waanie said:

Well, the peeling bark was what gave me those vibes, and the leaves of a birch are very pointy:

Even pointier! And less toothy. The birches here usually have more irregular lenticels and less of that bandagy feel with the super defined stripes. I've never seen a birch that dark though. The ones I've seen are either white or grayish.

 

4 minutes ago, Waanie said:

Climbing has a lot of overhead since the gym is far, I'd have to be social, etc. I live at the edge of a town, so the tree-y area is always close (wouldn't call it a forest though). I

Totally. It was only an example, and it isn't always true for me either. On a bad day it's... bad. The idea was more that intense physical activity can be very restful because it forces you to focus on the activity at hand and lets you quieten the chatter. For some people running does that, for me running is rage-inducing torture. ? 

[Jarric]

Looking forward to seeing your villain arc progress; those are some very good goals you have.

[Scaly Freak]

On 9/8/2024 at 11:58 AM, Mad Hatter said:

But she complains about things like how tired she is and much her back hurts when she's literally scrubbed the flat top to bottom, including the balcony and windows, and cooked two meals and baked a cake.

 

Wow, it's so weird that she's feeling tired. I can't imagine why that is. ?

 

Another vote here for the tree being some kind of birch. The birch trees that grew everywhere in the north of Sweden have bark that behaves exactly like that, and it can sometimes be very shiny, under the right growth-circumstances. Makes them look like silver trees in the right light. 

[Mad Hatter]

This challenge is off to a disaster start. When making it I didn't expect autumn to hit like A TRUCK. It's been cold, windy, miserable and at first it was nice to cozy up with a good book. Then I got antsy and cranky and soooo very bored. On top of that my sleep is terrible because I keep waking up with nightmares. I don't know how to get out of this blah funk. I'm almost ready to get out of it, but then I started playing a Shogun Showdown and it's very fun and very, very addictive! I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a puzzly, tactical roguelike which oozes style and has kickass music.

[Elastigirl]

Our weather has suddenly changed to. It's supposed to be nicer later this week. But when I got up this morning, it was cold, and I decided  against my morning walk.

[Laghail]

Late but following!

[sylph]

7 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

This challenge is off to a disaster start. When making it I didn't expect autumn to hit like A TRUCK. It's been cold, windy, miserable and at first it was nice to cozy up with a good book. Then I got antsy and cranky and soooo very bored. On top of that my sleep is terrible because I keep waking up with nightmares. I don't know how to get out of this blah funk. I'm almost ready to get out of it, but then I started playing a Shogun Showdown and it's very fun and very, very addictive! I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a puzzly, tactical roguelike which oozes style and has kickass music.

You can have some of our leftover summer--we're still in the high 80sF, (so, like 31C) and I am hungrily scanning the forecast for a day which will give us some relief.

 

Poor sleep makes everything worse, too. So sorry you're dealing with that.

[Scaly Freak]

Ooof, nightmares are the worst! I hope they go away soon.

[Harriet]

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

This challenge is off to a disaster start. When making it I didn't expect autumn to hit like A TRUCK. It's been cold, windy, miserable and at first it was nice to cozy up with a good book. Then I got antsy and cranky and soooo very bored. On top of that my sleep is terrible because I keep waking up with nightmares. I don't know how to get out of this blah funk. I'm almost ready to get out of it, but then I started playing a Shogun Showdown and it's very fun and very, very addictive! I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a puzzly, tactical roguelike which oozes style and has kickass music.

 

Sorry about the nightmares. I get them when I'm too hot at night. But given your autumn that seems unlikely?