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 |   A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
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Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
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I blog for things like
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
Artist: Brand New Song: Gasoline [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "JAFBG"  prompt: Well, that's easy to say. Tell us about something that sounds easy but you find incredibly difficult.Yeah, I had it all together for five minutes, I swear. I got a call at 6 in the morning like 10 days ago. My grandfather had fallen and was in the emergency room with major brain bleeding. I drove down to the hospital immediately and spent the next week at his bedside, holding his hand and talking to him. He was in a light coma, but would acknowledge me when I talked to him and could answer basic questions before falling back asleep. On the third day or so he developed pneumonia. On the final day they could keep his oxygen saturation up no matter what they did; they told us he wasn’t going to be able to pull through. My brother and I made the call to let him go so as not to prolong his suffering any further. It has been a very difficult time for me. Anyone here who has known me over the years knows that I viewed my grandparents more like parents as they were the stable adults in my life growing up and we lived next door to each other so I saw them many times per day and spent most of my time with them. When my grandmother passed in 2015, it was so shocking to us because she had no known health conditions. It was just completely sudden and out of the blue. I was so shocked I didn’t even really sit down and write about here until January of the following year: "Invalid Entry" This time around, I tried to do everything I possibly could do that I wasn’t able to do with my grandmother due to the shock. This time I wrote the obituary, designed the funeral program, built photo boards to have around the casket, called family members so my mom wouldn’t have to, etc. I’m still having an incredibly rough time with it. People keep telling me that we can’t live forever. I get that. Logically I know that people aren’t immortal. I know that my grandparents were obviously much older than me so this was inevitable at some point. It doesn’t help. For 7 of these 10 days, I wasn’t sleeping more than an hour at a time. I was sleeping maybe 2-3 hours a day. I wasn’t eating. One of the days my hands were just violently shaking and I thought I would pass out in the hospital. I mean, it’s as good a place as any if you’ve gotta do it. I was hallucinating here and there. Just small things, like hearing a distant conversation that wasn’t happening, seeing my cat from back home in my peripheral. I was taking loads of xanax to try to keep myself calm. So much, in fact, that I went through an entire month’s worth in a week. Every time I thought it was wearing off, I took more so that I wasn’t bringing a nervous energy to the situation and to stave off panic attacks. Now I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with a psychiatrist at my therapist’s office to try to explain why I need a refill 3 weeks early. In other words, having an overall difficult time. I know I don’t react well to these kinds of things. It’s the finality of it that bothers me. When my grandmother passed, my life got worse. Permanently. One less person in my support system, in my corner. One less person who I felt understood me. One less person I enjoyed knowing and felt comfortable spending time with. It’s the same with my grandfather. There aren’t many people or things that I hold dear to me, so life is just worse now forever. People tell me things like “oh it’ll get better with time” “ah, everyone loses their grandparents”. I disagree with the former; hard to disagree with the latter. But the former is just simply not true in my experience. Yes, the initial devastation improves- most likely you just get used to it. But it doesn’t really get better. My grandmother passed almost 8 years ago and it hasn’t gotten better. Every time something good or bad happens in my life, my first thought is that I can’t wait to tell her. My second is, oh wait, I can’t. Every family gathering, I’m thinking the whole time about how she isn’t there. Every time her birthday or the anniversary of her death comes around, the whole day I’m just thinking about her. Because my grandparents were the only people who consistently thought highly of me through all of my ups and downs. They were the only people who showed me patience and reassurance when others had given up on me. I wish it could be as easy as just waiting, giving things time. Maybe if my thoughts on death were different, I would grieve differently. So many people I know are comforted by the idea of an afterlife. Being with family who passed before you kind of thing. Because I don’t have that faith, I can’t lean on those thoughts for comfort. It’s one of the only times I actively wish I could be religious. It’s very bleak without it, but what can ya do. It’s not something you can fake. Anyway, my bereavement time was a couple days and that’s over so I’m back to working now, sitting in meetings all day like nothing’s happened. I’ll go back down to clean out his place later this week. I dunno. I did everything I could do. Now I’m just like, okay, obviously this has been a setback. I just don’t know how much of a setback yet. I swear it's like dying to catch a ghost It feels like I'm trying to hold smoke |
My blood was itchy so I haunted the geometric stairwell all night, vertigo pirouetted me at every level up up up down down I could only picture you standing in front of stained glass, abstract, a silhouette; you had problems of your own. Dust collected on your skin, a fingertip dragged through, you breathed a cloud on the free edge, body contorted, your bones grew until they couldn't fit inside. |
Well, I'm writing again, I suppose.  Cinn  and I said we were going to try to write 5 poems in a row and we did. Here are mine:"Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" Not sure how I feel about any of them, although the last one is probably my favorite of the bunch which may not be saying much. You can check out Ky's too in her poetry blog - "Invalid Item" .Honestly, I can't get over how different the site feels coming back to it after six months. I mean I'd noticed activity declining for a while before that, but it seems like there's a very big lull right now. I'm going to try reviewing more because I'm hoping I'm just missing the active people because a lot of my old friends aren't super active here anymore. But right now it seems, um, dead? Also, I have fucking bronchitis now. I've been sick literally since the 3rd week of January. The doctor was like yeah, it's viral, nothing we can do. I went back this week and he said it's probably bacterial now and gave me an antibiotic.  I had so many plans this weekend. I was going to visit family today because one of the kids is having a birthday party and then I had lunch plans with Logan and our friends tomorrow. Can't really do that because, even though there's no way I'm still contagious, it's too awkward to be out in public when you're hacking up a long... especially post covid. Instead we had our friends over for lunch today and he made some mediterranean pasta thing. I haven't been able to get my appetite back since I got sick. For a while I was pretty much just eating ice cream.  Which is how you know I'm really sick because it's the only time I would touch ice cream willingly.I'm not sure if I want to keep pushing through with new poems or if I want to spend some time reviewing and maybe editing some of my old stuff. It is nice to be writing in some capacity again though. I'd like to help get "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" back up and running. I think it's doable; we'd need like 5 people onboard for judging. I'm just also not sure how active the site is in general right now so I wouldn't want to waste anyone's time either, my own included.Where are y'all most active on the site right now? |
| I’ve cleaned up my portfolio for the first time in years. Or more accurately I just moved all my old shit into an old shit folder and created a couple folders for any new writing. They're totally empty. Hopefully I’ll be able to actually put the folders to use at some point. Other than journaling, I haven’t written anything new in quite literally years so… Anyway, in my last entry I promised a more personal life update so here we are. If you read my few entries last year you know I was having a lot of issues with cognitive functioning, dissociation, etc. last summer before I went on hiatus for a while. I’m still having a fair amount of that, but I’ve found some things that have helped so I’m not longer wondering if I’m making sense or not. I don’t need to reread my writing several times before sending it off with fingers crossed that my message is coming across coherently. So that’s a big improvement over last year. For a closer look at some of things I’ve identified/things that have helped me: Migraines. A big part of this was me understanding/accepting that having migraines is a major trigger for slowing down cognitively. So when I’m in a bad episode of migraines, you know, having them every day or nearly ever day for weeks, I’m just not going to feel like I’m functioning at 100%. Words aren’t going to come to me as easily or naturally. I might need to read something a couple times to wrap my head around it. While I always knew this to be the case, it has taken some time for me to stop getting frustrated and anxious in those moments because my brain wants to tell itself that there must be something <I>more</I> going on. After meeting with many doctors and getting testing done, I understand that these things are a normal part of having chronic migraines and I need to just mitigate the effects the best I can and also to give myself a little bit of slack when needed. The news cycle. I’ve stopped intaking news outside of international news. I don’t hang around on social media sites where people are discussing inaccurate or half truth headlines without bothering to read the accompanying article. The only news I read now comes from the Associated Press, Reuters, or BBC. I specifically only have notifications on for world news events, so if something major happens in the U.S. I will see it; but I won’t be inundated with endless U.S. political infighting stories that are completely irrelevant. I think this has done wonders for helping my brain not get bogged down in the mindless minutia of daily life in the U.S. right now. I really don’t care who said what about who and I have a better understanding of world politics and economies now which will serve me better in the long run. Socializing. Like most people I think, during covid I got a lot more isolated. I’ve been working from home since March of 2020. Bars and restaurants were closed here for a good while at a time where my social group had just recently graduated college so naturally my friend groups grew apart during that time. One thing that has helped me keep grounded or “reconnect” myself in the past few months is going on day trips. Nowhere super far, but if I have a day off we’ll go somewhere and just hang out for a while, grab lunch and walk around or whatever. I think it’s good after being inside at a desk all week to get away from electronics and just change your environment for a while. It has helped me out of some of dissociative episodes anyway. Other than that, I got a work promotion at the start of the year to a senior level position so that was cool. The raise at least helps me keep above inflation which isn’t the easiest thing to do right now as we’re all aware I’m sure. I’ve settled well into the role and I’m comfortable for the most part at my job at the moment. I don’t work super long hours and I never work weekends unlike my previous job. We’re getting over being sick. We got some kind of virus a few weeks ago that really took us out. I’m mostly down to just a bit of congestion and a shitload of coughing now so big improvement on that front. I actually went to the doctor last week and they were like, yeah, there’s nothing we can do for a virus so it doesn’t even really matter which one it is. They still did a rapid test for flu, strep, and covid. All of those were negative, but I’d been sick for a decent amount of time before even testing so who knows. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I actually had a fever dream while sick where I actually wrote a poem. Of course I was too ill to write it down at the time and I ended up forgetting it, but the point is that if my sick subconscious can come up with a poem there’s something left inside of me that can still write. I just have to tap into it. Anyway, what’s everyone been up to? Any fun activities or anything I should check out on the site? |
| Knock, knock. It's meeee. Six months hiatus seems like about enough, I suppose. I don't know. WDC is difficult for me, man. Like, I've been here on and off for 9 years now... which is wild, by the way. I'm pretty much never even remotely consistently a part of anything for that long. But it feels weird to be here now. When I wrote here a lot, I was incredibly vulnerable and open about pretty much everything I was doing and everything I felt. I was in my early 20s when I joined the site and I was still working through or coming to terms with a lot of things from my past. I wrote a lot about my personal experiences, and I don't regret that because I met so many cool people here who I felt genuinely comfortable with. So you know, through my writing and through the years I met a lot of people who I talked with privately- both onsite and offsite. There were a lot of people I talked to pretty much every day or several times a week at the very least. A lot of them for literally years. Coming back into WDC now feels kind of like walking into a room full of your exes. Not romantically, obviously. But there are a lot of people here who I was at one time super close to and really divulged kind of every thought to. It's a hazard of never shutting up. Some of those people just hard dropped out of my life rather abruptly. As in, one day we were talking for hours and the next they were just... gone. Just not responsive, not dissimilar from being ghosted. There are others who have mostly left the site at this point or left the site at one point and we didn't keep in touch. Others who have probably naturally grown apart from me because of my own stretches of absence here. Regardless, what I'm saying is that I've struggled for a while with trying to come back to WDC and quickly leaving again. I've not been writing much for years now so part of me is like, oh I should just get rid of the account and move on. Other parts of me know that I would benefit a lot from getting back into the habit of writing, so I should start with reviewing like I did when I first arrived on the site and see where it takes me. It's kind of like is this the ghost of a good thing type of thing, or should I try to just make new friends with whoever is active on the site now? I know people cycle in and out of the site. I just feel uncomfortable in some way having been like an emotional waterfall, knowing that people I used to be close to could still be reading anything that I write. I can't describe it; it's just a weird feeling somehow. Anyway, I owe a thank you to NW who upgraded my account for the next year. I'm planning to give coming back to the site and writing again an honest try. My thought is to start with cleaning up my portfolio and writing some reviews just to feel things out for a while before I even attempt to write for myself again. I hope you're all doing well. Feel free to send a review request if you've written anything that you'd like me to read. I'll update with actual life stuff later.  |
Actually made it to a couple appointments this week after continuously cancelling. I've only made it to 1 therapy appointment of the last 4 that were scheduled. A couple of them I just completely spaced out on going to and a couple I was too busy with work to get away for an hour. Visited a new dentist and got a treatment plan started for my TMJ dysfunction. After feeling the muscle there, the doctor said it's likely a large factor in my increase in migraines as the muscle is tight and the joint is swollen. I've got a follow up in a few weeks to get fitted for a splint which I'm hopeful will start to ease the pain and migraines that are keeping me in a daze. I also made it to my therapy appointment and had an interesting session there. We discussed my brain fog and pain issues I've been having. I told her one of the biggest changes I've noticed is that I get frustrated/overwhelmed really easily now. Not only recently, but within the past couple years I've found it increasingly difficult to express or feel empathy which is odd for me. It's something that used to come naturally to me. My brain sees people's issues, whatever they may be, as another task on the neverending to-do list in my brain. I hope this makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that when people vent to me about things, I start to get frustrated easily in my brain rather than being able to actively listen and offer helpful feedback. I know this sounds dismissive, but so many of the problems that are brought to my attention feel like such non-issues to me. I know that sounds bad. But it's like my brain sees every new thing someone says as a brand new piece of information to take in and try to process. And it's really difficult for me right now. I just want to scream, "Please keep me on a need to know basis with this stuff" because it clutters my brain more than it already is. My therapist of course told me that I can't pour from an empty cup and that I need to work through my issues before trying to help others with their issues. That's easier said than done, I think, especially because I've always been a good listener that people tend to talk to when an issue comes up for them. But just a few examples of the types of things I'm talking about. These are things (more or less, can't remember full details) that people have vented to me about this week... "I'm waiting at the restaurant for my friend and they're 15 minutes late" followed by 10 ranting paragraphs about how rude it it is to not be punctual. Like, yes, totally valid to be frustrated about, but can you just play a game on your phone or check out the news or something instead of singling me out as the person to send a million messages to about it? "My friend's brother's wife just found out she has X illness." Again, that sucks and I wish her only the very best in her recovery. Sending good vibes and positive thoughts and all of that. But to continue to rant about it in a way that implies that your week is going horribly because of that... I just... I know I sound like just the worst. But I don't have the mental space. I've never met this person. I don't believe that your life is truly upended by this news and I don't know what to say except I'm wishing her well. "I just cut my hair short and I miss it being long. Ugh why does this always have to happen to ME?!" Sorry about your haircut. It'll grow back soon enough. Like I get that these are minor things to have to 'shoulder' on my part, but it's the fact that people never just... stop? Like, I acknowledge their issue, confirm that it sucks, and then they just... keep ranting about it... And I get that it's ironic for me to be venting about this now, but at least I'm just yelling into the void of my blog. I'm not picking one of you out specifically and unloading all of my stress onto you with the expectation that you're going to take on my issues. Like you could read half of the entry and then just close out and there's no issue there. It's different when someone singles you out and starts manically messaging you about things that aren't *that* big of a deal. I don't know where I was going with this except to say that it was something we discussed in therapy. My therapist said that it's perfectly okay to just tell people that I don't have the emotional capacity right now to take on other people's day-to-day issues. I think that's again easier said that done. Trying to tell someone who's venting to you that you don't have the capacity to respond to their issue right now, but that has not worked in my experience. Even if they do take it well when I say that I'm having issues with migraines and I can't really respond well to their situation right now, they just message me the next day with similar stuff. It's like how do you tell someone to only vent about things that are actually serious for the foreseeable future, which has been months and will likely continue to be months, because you're focused on yourself? I just want to be like, damn, please self soothe until I can hold an actual conversation. In other news, thanks for the comments on my previous post. I'm feeling more confident that I could at the very least start reviewing some here because it seems that I'm making enough sense for the most part to do that. I hope you've all had a good week and a relaxing weekend ahead.  |
*insert noises of suffering here* I hope everyone's well. I know my updates every 2 months are very exciting and not at all a major drag. I went to look at what I wrote about in my prior post because I don't remember it at all, and surprise surprise, it was about brain fog and how I can't remember or process anything. Perfect. I had this conversation at work today in the small talk minutes before a meeting started– Coworker: I think it's supposed to rain here in Florida today. Me: What? Coworker: I'm pretty sure it's supposed to rain here in Florida today. Me: What does that mean? Coworker: ................................... the weather? Where I live in Florida, we're supposed to get a little bit of rain today. My brain, finally understanding basic words: Ooooh, in Florida you're supposed to get some rain today. Coworker: Yes... This is pretty much how all of my communication goes these days. When someone texts me, I read the message probably 10-15 times to make sure I understood it correctly and then I take 20 minutes to reply because I'm not sure if what I'm saying makes any sense. I have to keep rereading my words because they make no sense to me, but when I have someone else read the message they're like, "yes, this makes perfect sense, what are you talking about?" I ended up going to my doctor to be like ahhh help. She asked a bunch of questions and we went through my migraines, how often I'm getting them, how long they last, etc. I've been getting more frequent migraines this summer. AT this point for example I've had a migraine every day this week. She said she doesn't think I'm really getting a break at all between migraines because the second one stops, the next one is already starting. Because brain fog from one migraine can last 24-48 hours, but by then I have another migraine and it's just repeating endlessly. So she gave me another abortive medication to try. It obviously isn't working well because I've had migraines every day this week despite that. And then she referred me out to a neurologist to look into a preventative migraine medication, but he has like terrible reviews. I'm talking 1 out of 5 stars "I would not recommend this doctor for my worst enemy" kind of reviews. So I'm looking into finding a new neurologist myself with better reviews because these specialists are not cheap and the last thing I need is to waste time and money on bad treatment. I can't remember what else I was going to say. Oh also, I'm really frustrated because I feel like no one understands what I'm saying. I don't know if my communication is just so bad or what but when I vent about this I keep having people say, "Oh but you're so smart, you got this." and I'm like you don't understand, like I have a job where I have to critically thing ALL.OF.THE.TIME. I can't at all be "off" because my entire job is to be a critical thinker who is capable of complex problem solving on the spot. I'm constantly stressed out because I'm sitting in meetings feeling like I'm not even there. My brain can't keep up with anything that's going on. The room is spinning. I'm nauseous as hell and losing weight because who can eat when they're nauseous? I get asked questions all day and I'm just like a deer in headlights because I can't remember what I've just heard or follow the conversation at all. And it's really hard when people are like, "Oh it's fine because you're smart" when smart has nothing to do with it. It doesn't matter how smart I could potentially be when my brain feels like it's literally melting and I can't keep up with what's happening in real time. Even writing this entry has taken forever. I started it days ago and keep rewriting things that don't make sense. Or may make sense, I have no idea. Either way, even with the written words in front of me I have to continuously reread and rewrite which is why I haven't written at all in years. Like this has been a problem for me for years, but has gotten significantly worse this summer with the increase in migraines. I just wish I had a job that wasn't so intensely analytical right now. Anyway, work in progress on trying to get something figured out with that. I've also started working a lot of hours at this job, which isn't helping at all. They keep telling me it's "temporary" but it's not like I haven't heard that before. I'll definitely be looking for a new job within a couple months if the workload doesn't lighten up. Okay, I think I'm done complaining. I'm trying to think of a way to get back into writing, but I really just cannot write. Even trying to write just for myself on my own makes me feel incredibly frustrated. I've not had any luck with reading lately either. I think I have probably 5 books I'm in progress on and have been for months. I would love to get some sort of plan of action together, but I just don't have the energy. When I first joined the site I mostly started by reviewing other people's writing and then I was able to warm up to my own writing. Now I don't even know if that's feasible. I'll be out here sending people nonsensical reviews and they'll be like, "Wow, thanks so much for that."  But how are you all doing? Catch me up on what's going on with you. |
"JAFBG" Prompt: Society trains us not to burden others with a litany of our health issues, but sometimes it does you good to vent. So this is your opportunity - complain about all the major and minor health issues you're dealing with. Whether it's Covid19, chronic pain, terminal illness or a hang nail, this is your moment.JFC... I am so exhausted. I have had brain fog now for about 5 years straight. It is exceedingly rare at this point for me to approach any situation with a clear, alert mind. From what I can gather, it's some combination of migraines, prior trauma, burnout, and iron deficiency. An unfortunate part of migraines is that there are 3 stages to them: prodrome, migraine attack, and postdrome. For me, each stage typically lasts 1-3 days and all three stages involve fatigue, brain fog, and an inability to concentrate. For the math fans, that means even just 2 migraines a month can put my brain into a state of disarray for 6 to 18 days. My neurologist and general doctor are super happy that the amount of migraine attacks I get has reduced over the years, but I still get 3-5 migraines a month so my brain is quite literally always hazy. It feels like I'm trying to move through molasses. I can't write at all. I feel like nothing I say makes any sense. When I'm speaking, I lose words all the time and the other person has to help me finish my sentences. My job as an analyst requires a high level of cognitive functioning, which I just don't really possess. I typically fall asleep as soon as I finish working for the day and I wake up a couple hours later confused. MRI scans of my brain are completely normal. Blood tests are normal except for iron deficient anemia, which I'm taking supplements for and I've increased the iron in my diet as well. They've basically just said, "Yeah, migraines suck, but a handful per month is normal in migraineurs." I have other family members who get migraines and aren't as foggy as me, which brings me back to a psychological perspective. I've got a therapist and I've been diagnosed since many years ago with depersonalization/derealization disorder. The therapist is trying to work with me on grounding techniques to make me feel more present, but it's like nothing seems to break through the glass. I don't feel depressed at all, but I also don't feel any other things either. It's just kind of very disconnected feeling. But everything around me does seem to be falling apart. Many of the people I know who have never struggled with mental health issues have begun to struggle with those issues in the past few years. I don't really know how to help because I have absolutely zero grip on my own bearings. I also have a difficult time processing things because of the brain fog. So I'm trying to show empathy and understanding while simultaneously feeling confused and like I can't track the conversation properly. It's the same with all the news happening around me. Each new piece of information I get takes time to process. I feel incredibly pessimistic about the direction of the country. I'm absolutely baffled by people who do not feel that way. But because of the intense brain fog, I'm also just angry that I have to try to understand what's going on. Which laws are being overturned, how that affects my family and friends depending on where they live. It's difficult to keep up with everything that's happening, but I also think it's important for people to not stick their heads in the sand. We have a lot of moving pieces underway that will absolutely detrimental for the democracy of the country and I want a heads up on what's next. It will take me that long to process it anyway. |
"JAFBG" Prompt: What do you consider the hardest thing about adulting?[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Hello again, I guess. Two months later and the world having only gotten worse, it's a great time to catch up. I mean, what to even say? The hardest thing about "adulting" is that this is the society I've adulted into. I grew up under the U.S. brainwashing that we were in the most free, most forward moving country in the world. Ha, that was a good one. I'm almost having a dissociated experience where I'm just wondering things out of curiosity. Here is the question rolling around in my mind now: What is the conservative end goal here? I have a fun game for conservatives to play, so humor me. If you voted for Trump, you voted for these things because these are the things that the conservative party preach. You can't say now, "Oopsie, didn't want that part of the conservative party." So we've established that you've voted for these things. Now... You want abortions banned because you "care" about fetuses (until they're born). Okay, got that.  Next on the docket per Justice Thomas is: Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Here's a refresher: Griswold: Established the right for married couples to purchase contraceptives without government intervention or restriction Lawrence: Established that criminal punishments for sodomy are unconstitutional Obergefell: Same-sex couples are guaranteed the right to marriage Are you ready to play CONSERVATIVES – WHAT THE FUCK???  You want contraceptives banned because..?A. You want to punish women for having sex B. You want to force women to have children to increase the "domestic supply of babies" C. You want to control women's bodies, even those who need contraceptives for medical reasons that have nothing to do with pregnancy D. You voted for a party that is against human rights and the rest of us must now suffer You want to ban sodomy because..?A. You're a creepy pervert who's overly interested in your neighbors' sex lives B. You want to punish gay people for being gay C. You want to punish straight people who engage in oral or anal sex because you're a creepy pervert who is a destroyer of all things fun D. You voted for a party that is against human rights and the rest of us must now suffer You want to ban same-sex marriage because..?A. Your shitty relationship history/divorces are a better example for children to see than loving, committed same-sex relationships B. You think a made up fairytale book says it's wrong and you don't believe in a separation between church and state C. You want to control other people's lives because you are a destroyer of all things loving and good D. You voted for a party that is against human rights and the rest of us must now suffer Feel free to give me your answers at your leisure. I just want to understand why you're so awful. Because, at the end of the day, if conservatives think that they're going to tell us that we no longer have bodily autonomy and free will and that we must play under the thumb of their sky fairy, I need to seriously look for ways out of this country. You better hope that your conservative bubble is enough to sustain you because I'm cutting conservatives out of my life left and right. I'm not going to be friendly with anyone who thinks they should have a right to control women's bodies or to be involved in people's private relationships. And from the circles I'm in, I would expect your life to become very hostile very quickly. I disagree with the way you keep preaching insanity I disagree with all of the reasons you're mad at me |
Artist: Sufjan Stevens Song: The Only Thing [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "JAFBG" Prompt: There are many moments when we have to bite our tongues and refrain from speaking our minds. Tell us about a time when you refrained, and what you wish you'd been able to say.Biting my tongue has gotten considerably easier in recent months as I am just so incredibly exhausted with the world that I hardly even care to speak. It just feels... pointless? Honestly, I'm just tired. In the US, we went through years of divisive political rhetoric that turned our neighbors and families against each other. I can't even look at people who identify with the current republican party anymore. It immediately and permanently changes my opinion of someone. There isn't even anything I can say about it expect... what the fuck. I'm so disillusioned by this. I don't see any way I'll ever get over it. Having people I thought I knew suddenly feel comfortable to show this horrible underbelly to my country that I did not even know existed has been a difficult pill to swallow. There are a lot of Trump supporters at my work and I bite my tongue regularly. My boss has gone on homophobic rants to me, not even realizing that I am the person he's talking about. It hurts. But I'm getting used to it- realizing that all along these people held hateful views of their fellow countrymen. They were only waiting for permission to speak. Then we went straight into a pandemic that, quite frankly, still hasn't ended. I feel mostly okay now, being vaxxed and having numbers that are relatively low right now. Of course, no idea what the future holds there in terms of variants and future spikes, but I feel generally alright there although the time was very isolating and probably not great for my life outlook. I'm acutely aware of how different people handled the worst of the pandemic. Again, I bite my tongue against people comparing wearing a mask in a doctor's office to nazi Germany. I mean, you're obviously incredibly disrespectful, but okay. It's just not surprising anymore. Then as soon as the pandemic starts to look like it's easing up on us, we're promptly thrown into this global conflict where we're basically in a proxy war with Russia. Having to witness massive war crimes. Constantly being threatened with nuclear war. Helplessly watching things escalate. Contending with insanely high cost of living and inflation rates. It's all a big oof for me. There are a lot of things I could say about the past 5-7 years and I'm sure there's a lot I could say about the next 5-7 years, but I almost see no point in connecting with other people at this time. I've gotten too disillusioned with the world and I just don't care to try now. I spend all of my time working, reading, sleeping, drawing, and being otherwise reclusive because I can't relate to the world I'm living in. So as far as things I wish I could've said in various circumstances? Nothing. Because there is no arrangement of any collection of words that can make people actually step back and just think. It's futile. We could have so much and we actively choose to have so little just to prove a point. Should I tear my eyes out now before I see too much? |
"JAFBG" Prompt: Choose a current war or armed conflict and tell us what steps you believe should be taken to resolve the conflict.Hello again, WDC friends. My account was locked up for a while, but it's free again in all its glory... Hope you're all doing well. I'm doing okay. I've been exceptionally fatigued and feeling unwell lately. Got some lab tests done and found out I'm super anaemic (again). Trying to get my diet figured out now so I can raise my iron levels, but it's not super easy because I don't eat meat and I don't eat a lot of literally anything. So even things like vegetables and fruit are good for iron, but I just don't eat that much food in general to get a big dose of iron. I take supplements, but the doctor said they often don't absorb well. Anyway, just very fatigued. So... Ukraine - Russia, right? Crazy, and don't worry, I'm not going to pretend like I know how to resolve an international military conflict. I do stay in my lane sometimes, believe it or not. I do think what's happening is terribly sad though. I've felt so depressed and hopeless reading news stories and firsthand accounts from Ukrainians who are having their land invaded. I'm extremely privileged to be living in a country where something like this is unfathomable. A ground invasion in the United States? Try never. I'm fairly engaged in history as an adult and I know the history of the world wars, as I'm sure most of you do as well. There are only a few different things the West can do, as far as I can see. Do nothing Continuing to do business with Russia. Ignoring the conflict in Ukraine outside of maybe condemning the action. Wait it out and hope for the best either with Ukraine quickly capitulating and minimizing losses on both sides or Ukrainians holding out long enough to bleed Russia's military and economy dry on their own. Sanctions + aid This is what the West is currently doing, of course. Aiding Ukraine with weapons and humanitarian aid. Precariously balancing a deranged dictator with a huge nuclear arsenal, hoping to bleed the economy so dry that war is no longer financially viable and certainly invasion of further countries is off the table. Stronger sanctions + more risky aid That would be things like sanctioning more Russian companies and oligarchs or even a full financial embargo which would prevent all imports and exports. A no fly zone has been a big question. Fighter jets. Maybe supporting or orchestrating cyberattacks against Russia. All of these things are obviously escalations and put all of us into a riskier position. Full on war Just a straight up declaration of war. Ground troops in Ukraine. World War 3, basically. I think full on war has to be avoided for obvious reasons. The West entering a conflict like this would be unlike any conflict in the past and just way too dangerous for literally all life on earth. At the same time, it's completely devastating to sit by and more than nerve-racking. Knowing that there is that possibility that we could be dragged into a war anyway if Russia doesn't stop with Ukraine is scary. Thinking back to WW2, we did sit by while countries were invaded one by one and it didn't stop with just Czechoslovakia. There's certainly a precedence that makes people understandably weary. I would speculate that this situation is considerably different. I don't think Russia has the capacity or the means to launch full scale invasions of several countries and I think their ability to do that is going to disintegrate more and more as sanctions take hold. None of that helps Ukraine right now, but I think the West is probably doing the best they can right now. It's not like they've been put in an easy position when anything and everything can potentially escalate into nuclear war. We can only hope that this ends sooner rather than later with Russia's full withdrawal because I think everyone is in a tightrope walking situation until then. |
"JAFBG" Prompt: Tell us something about yourself that you've had to learn to accept as just part of who you are.Happy 2022. Hopefully the JAFBG prompts will serve you well in the new year if you want to rant blog. I'm doing... okay-ish. Had a major depressive episode just before Christmas that landed me in crisis care, but trying to handle it outpatient now. It's difficult to get psychiatric care right now because, who would've guessed, the pandemic makes people anxious and depressed. But because of my medical history I was fortunately able to get outpatient care quickly and I'm working on getting viable treatment plan set up. For me, I've recently started to accept the idea that I'm just difficult. Like, I'm just a difficult person. Difficult to care about, difficult to be friends with, difficult to love. I've been told a lot here that I'm so open in my blog with how I feel about various things, but I actually struggle considerably to explain how I'm feeling to people. I certainly make an attempt to explain, but it usually falls flat. It's pretty much impossible for me to maintain a consistent friend group. I've heard a lot that I'm the brooding type. All of my friend groups have the exact same cycle: 1. I'm introduced to the friend group, I get to know everyone and we all get along super well. 2. I perceive some kind of slight (i.e. new people join the group who are disinterested in getting to know me, I get overwhelmed by all the different personality types, I'm too quiet and get continuously talked over or talked around). 3. I isolate myself from the group because I'm overstimulated and feel anxious/depressed/unwelcome. 4. I apologize and try to re-integrate myself with the friend group; they happily welcome me back into the group. 5. Number 2 and 3 happen again. 6. I try to do Number 4 again, but this time I explain the things that made me isolate in the first place and I suggest small things they could do to be more inclusive. 7. They either say they understand why I feel how I feel and then make zero effort to help me OR they get angry and say they did nothing wrong. 8. I try Number 6 again in different ways, repeatedly. 9. They continuously tell me that my feelings aren't real and that it's just my mental illness. 10. I do Number 3 until we no longer know each other. As the common denominator, I'm actually fine with the general concept of it being my fault. What gets my goat though is that every single time, whether it's an online community or a real life friendship group, there are several people in the group who privately agree with me. They'll even come to me and be like, "Jesus, this new guy who's been hanging out is so obnoxious. I literally can't get a word in without him interrupting me and pretending I wasn't even talking." Or, "Yeah, this community was so much better when we focused on X, it sucks now that we're only focused on Y." But when I try to actually pursue the issue, I'm basically met with, "I agree with what you're saying, but just stop being difficult." I'll give a couple recent examples just to give my perspective. First example: For the holidays this year, I asked the hosts of two different holiday parties to require unvaccinated people to wear masks. Now, if you're anti-vax/anti-mask, you're gonna hate that. I don't actually care. I'm fully vaxxed, I have family members who are fully vaxxed but have serious underlying health conditions. I don't want to be around people who have had covid THREE times in a year and a half. I shouldn't have to be around people who continuously get covid and refuse to do anything to protect themselves or their communities. Both hosts of the holiday parties agreed with me that they didn't want unvaccinated people there. Buuuut, they said they couldn't exclude them from their parties. I agreed that I didn't want to exclude them, but I said I wanted them to wear masks so that the kids who are too young to get vaxxed and the elderly people with underlying conditions aren't at as much of a risk. Well, the hosts said they couldn't do that because the unvaccinated parties would be offended. I told them that I'm offended that they think it's such an unreasonable request that they'd be willing to put people at risk instead of making the request. But, regardless, I then suggested maybe doing two separate "parts" of the parties. Make the first half for vaccinated family members and friends, make the second half for unvaccinated family members and friends. The vaccinated people were totally on board with this. They agreed they'd bring their own food so the hosts wouldn't have to cook twice and agreed that they'd only stay for a couple hours so that the hosts didn't didn't have to entertain for a prolonged period of time. Both of the hosts refused. They said it would be too awkward to tell the unvaccinated guests to come at a separate time than the vaccinated guests. Here's where it gets annoying though. I told the vaccinated guests, hey, maybe we should do our own holiday thing and then we'll just invite the hosts to that so that they're not left out and they can still have their event with the unvaccinated guests. All of the vaccinated people were like, "Omg no way. We can't refuse to go to the hosts' events." I expressed that I felt super annoyed that my basic attempts to compromise were being shot down and that I felt like the feelings of the unvaccinated people were holding more weight than my own. They told me to just stop being difficult. Second example: I've been a part of an online book club community for about a year now. We actually separated from another book club and created our own group with a small, closeknit community. We would read books together every month and discuss them. It was actually a super fun, relaxing hobby for me and I looked forward to talking to people about the books we were reading. Recently, the owner of the group started inviting way more people to the group. She said she wanted it to be active and she hated when the chat wasn't active, even for a short period of time. Unfortunately, as typically happens when you get too many people in a group, we got some very gregarious people who joined. It became more and more common to be overlooked when you were trying to talk in chat. The small groups of new people would quite literally ignore what you were saying and just talk around it like you weren't there. I expressed multiple times to the group owner and a small group of the original book club members that it was super overstimulating for me to try to use the chat because of the big, social media-type personalities who had joined. I would often open up the group chat to discuss something, and then just close out because I felt overwhelmed. Everyone, including the group owner, agreed with me... and then did nothing. She actually just continued to invite even more people. As a result, I've basically gone through the friend group cycle outlined above. I've tried to suggest that we stop adding new people to the group for a while. I've suggested that we stop encouraging some of the less inclusive behaviors in the group. At the end of the day, I've basically been told, "You're not wrong, but just stop being difficult." This is something that doesn't sit well with me at all. I would actually rather someone say that they have no idea what I'm talking about than to validate what I'm saying, but tell me that I need to just shut up and be steamrolled anyway because it would make me an easier person if I did. I don't understand why the people who are the least pliable, the least willing to compromise, are the ones who should be allowed to run rampant unchecked all the time. I don't understand why the things that they want are more important than the things that I want. Or why the things they say are more important than the things that I say. I've become so jaded about social groups because of this. It doesn't seem to matter how long I'm in a group or what I contribute to it when there's always going to be someone obnoxious and loud who comes along and changes the dynamics to fit what they want. And it doesn't feel like you have a true "friendship" with people when they refuse to acknowledge what you're saying as legitimate and instead choose to label you as a difficult person. But I have come to accept that part of who I fundamentally am doesn't allow me to not be difficult. I'm not able to just say, "Well, that's completely wrong and shitty, but as long as everyone else accepts it, I'll just accept it too." My personality doesn't allow me to backdown easily so I just float in and out of different social circles feeling like I don't actually belong anywhere. Seriously, am I the only person who's like this? |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Things have progressed well in your town/city with the Pandemic. So well that you've been allowed to return to the office instead of working from home. Your co-worker Karly, is sneezing and coughing and refuses to wear a mask. Who do you call, or do you let it slide. Tell us why you would act that way.First of all, happy belated T-day to those in the U.S. who celebrated. I intended to write for yesterday’s prompt, but the day was just too hectic and stressful. Secondly, “you’ve been allowed to return to the office” is a statement that directly conflicts with the fact that I specifically quit my job when they forced me to go back to the office.  So I don't even gotta get imaginative to answer this question because I was actually in this scenario in real life over the summer. I'll paint the picture... 15 months into the pandemic, my whole office has been working from home except for a few people who couldn't give up the cubicle life for reasons. I get a call randomly one afternoon from my boss and he's like, "so, yeah, the execs want everyone back in the office full time starting next week." I discussed it with him and he agreed to give some flexibility and allow me to work remotely a few days a week and be in the office the rest of the days. Obviously, that didn't work because once the execs got everyone back in the office, they started literally walking around taking attendance in the morning to see who was still trying to work remotely and who was back full time. How they managed to have time to do this with their busy schedules and heavy workload for which they're heavily compensated, we may never know. Regardless... When we returned to the office, there were no rules about vaccines or masks. There were some rules that no one followed, of course, like only X amount of people allowed in a conference room at once. If you went into our office over the summer, you would have no idea that there was ever a pandemic or that covid was even A Thing. I’m talking no masks, 6 people crammed into a tiny office huddled around one computer monitor, huge group conversations blocking the halls, and yes, A LOT of coughing, sneezing, sniffling, etc. You might be wondering if we had any covid outbreaks during this time. Good question. The answer is unsurprisingly yes. We had several outbreaks where 6 people would test positive within a couple days of each other and then they’d be trying to contact trace like, “hey, you apparently talked to someone briefly who later found out they had covid.” Awesome. There’s not much you can do when there are no rules enforced in the office and you have no flexibility to continue working remotely. I did 3 things to protect myself the best I could (along with getting fully vaxxed): 1. Wore a mask any time I wasn’t in my office. I was wearing an n95 in all the common spaces and during any conference room meetings or when I entered someone else’s office. 2. Implemented a “not in my office” rule. After dealing with one too many people coming into my office maskless and coughing all over my airspace, I made my own rule which was stay tf out of my office unless you’re wearing a mask. I just told people they could either wear a mask in my office or they could stay in their own office and send me an email or give me a call if they needed something. What usually ended up happening is that someone would try to roll in without a mask and I’d be like, “Nuh uh, not in my office” and they’d pull a mask out of their back pocket, put it on and say sheepishly, “Sorry, I forgot.” 3. Found another job. I was looking for another job this entire time because after working remotely for so long, the commute, the antivaxxers, the covid outbreaks were all just too much for me. And that’s without even mentioning the absurd hours I was working. The one thing this pandemic has taught me repeatedly is that I can’t control what other people are doing. I just have to look out for my best interests and hope that others choose to do the same. There’s really nothing more that you can do. I don’t foresee covid going anywhere and it seems like there’s an endless amount of new variations to present further challenges. My coworkers would come to work sick and say, “It’s just allergies” while sneezing/coughing all over everything. Then 2 days later they’d be out with a positive covid test and the whole contact tracing effort would begin again. I lost a lot of faith in people’s willingness to do the right thing. I’m not a perfect person. I’m far from it. But I would never ever do the things I’ve seen people do during this pandemic. It has opened my eyes up a lot. I take care of myself and I encourage those I care about to do the same. If they choose not to, I don’t see them because of the whole ‘taking care of myself’ part. As for everyone else, I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to care anymore. As wild as it sounds, I’m almost just bored? I mean, if you’re taking up valuable resources because you refused to take care of yourself, I think that’s pretty lame. I feel for people who are forced to expose themselves but are otherwise taking all precautions. I feel for people who are exposed to people who refuse to take precautions. But outside of that? I can’t be bothered. I see people all the time saying, “Go get vaccinated, it’s super serious now that I/my spouse/parent/child/sibling/friend died or almost died.” All I can do is roll my eyes. How embarrassing. This is now a snoozefest. I’m numb to it. |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: An easy prompt for tonight. I'm tired, don't want to think much, so an easy one. What did you do during the 'Great Shutdown For The Upgrade' of WDC today? Tell us all the 'gory' details! Well, I was super fortunate in that I'm in the middle of a horrifyingly bad existential crisis and so dissociated/busy with work that I didn't even notice the site was down (although I knew the changeover was happening today). I'm just feeling bad. First issue being that I'm still sick. Made it all the way through my antibiotics while managing to not feel better at all. Contacted my doctor like... what now? And he just said that it's probably viral and not bacterial, so I should just wait it out a couple more weeks because viral sinus infections can last for like a month. Dope. The bigger issue I'm having is that I'm struggling with my new job. I’ve only been in the role for a month and of course I’m struggling with all of the expected things that one struggles with when entering a new company. But I’m struggling with more than that. A top 3 summary of what I’m struggling with would be: 1. Already being overburdened by the work. Super disappointing to leave my old job due to being overworked and almost immediately have the new company start stacking me up on way more than one person could accomplish in a 40-hour week. It doesn’t help that they treat this as though it’s something you should feel proud of, like, “Oh, people have already noticed that you’re a competent person through your communications with them, so take it as a compliment that they want you to do X, Y, Z.” That’s cool. Another great compliment (if you really thought you were recognizing talent) would be to ease the employee into their role, allowing them adequate space and time to learn the company before filling their plate with a million seemingly unrelated projects. 2. Have no idea what the point is anyway. I keep having these intrusive thoughts like, okay, so let’s just say I work my ass off and learn the ins and outs of this new company while balancing hours of meetings a day and executing all the current processes flawlessly (which would require probably 60-70 hours of work per week)… what is the point? Like I went to school and did all of this, I have the career path that’s ideal for my education. But, everything I do somehow feels simultaneously stressful as fuck and entirely meaningless. My big end goal is to make a company more money through tireless labor to improve their processes so that I can… what? Rent an apartment (because I still can’t afford a house)? Have food so that I won’t starve to death in the immediate term? What about the long term? My generation isn’t even going to be able to retire in the same fashion as previous generations. And even if we did have that ability, I’m supposed to just work my ass off for my entire life so that when I’m elderly I can have like 10-15 years of steadily declining health and then I just die? I get that that’s pessimistic, but I see no flaws in the logic because that’s exactly what happens. There’s nothing about this that’s fulfilling for me. I don’t want to labor endlessly on someone else’s behalf so that I can survive so that I can, ya know, die. When I say capitalistic corporate America is soul-sucking… I’ve been in this for a couple years and I want to tap out. And I’m more than aware that I’m fortunate. But is that not sad? Is it not sad that it’s a blessing to have tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, work 60 hours a week in a capitalistic hellhole, still not be able to afford a house, and just kind of eke out an existence for your entire life? I mean, the end goal for them is for me to provide the maximum output of labor possible as quickly as possible. Like if I could just have the knowledge of the people who have worked at the company for 30 years with the skilled expertise of someone who has worked an entire lifetime as a subject matter expert in whatever the topic at hand is for every given project, that would be a "meets expectations" on annual evals. I want a refund on this whole work to live model that we got going on. 3. Because of 1 & 2, I have zero motivation. I’m trying super hard to just keep doing what I’m doing. I’m fully convinced that there’s no job in existence that I want to do for more than 40 hours a week. I try to pursue my own passions outside of work, but that's super difficult when you start work before the sun rises and go at it for 9-10 hours with maybe a 20 minute break in there for lunch. I'm absolutely mentally fatigued at the end of the day. I don't have the brain power left to do anything else. And it's not just this company or just my last company... It's companies in general. They want to drain the absolute maximum out of you each and every day. I've had wall-to-wall meetings for 4-5 hours straight several times in the past month here. Wall-to-wall meaning one meeting ends at 10:59am and the next meeting starts at 11am. Just that back to back from 9am until 2pm and then half hour meetings here and there the rest of the day. There's no way to not be exhausted. I'm also coming into this burned out from my previous job so that's probably a compounding issue. Not to mention the whole being sick for two weeks now thing. Just in case anyone is wondering yet, I don't approach work with this attitude at all. I'm super friendly and genuinely enjoy taking on challenges at work. But when I get overwhelmed with different projects and I have little to no guidance on any of them, my brain starts to rebel. My thoughts start to wander and I'm just like why am I doing this again? Oh because I'll starve and be homeless if I don't? That's fun. A lot of people I think get their fulfillment and motivation from having a family. You know, working to support your kids and raising them is probably enough for people to be like yeah, cool, here's my legacy. Here's my mark on the world. Here's my reason for getting up every morning and working so hard. But I don't have that. And I don't want that. I have too many issues to subject a child to them and I'm not going to continue a cycle of intergenerational trauma. So what I'm left with is... working super hard so that I can prove that I can work super hard? Not sure. I don't know what the conclusion is there. Maybe I'm expecting too much from life in general. It's hard for me to deal with the corporate egos, the greed, the toxicity. From my experiences with nonprofits and smaller companies, they're usually not much better. Nonprofit work tends to feed on the employees' kindness and their want to help others. Long hours, low pay. Then small businesses really just wanna be big businesses. So we're all a family, but the benefits suck and the pay is iffy too. The real problem is that I don't think humans are meant to live like this in the 21st century: I mean, sure, there was a point in time where physically laboring from dawn until dusk was a necessity to survive. But we've progressed immensely. What we're left with is everyone being needlessly squeezed for every ounce of juice, but like with cool electronics and fun new climate change weather patterns. It has created a huge amount of despondency and apathy in everyone and I think that's reflected in, well, everything. |
| yawn. What's up? I know I'm doing a terrible job keeping up with 30dbc this month. Remember when I was going to write something consistently and then I did one day and noped out? Neither do I. Anyway, the creative writing/fantasy type prompts weren't working for me. I tend to keep my blog for nonfiction, more realistic/straightforward purging writing. And then I enter fiction poetry/short story contests when that mood strikes. All good either way, just not my cup of whatever. Oh, and then I got a sinus infection which they thought would go away on its own, but then it turned out to be bacterial and not viral so it actually just got increasingly worse. I'm on antibiotics now so hopefully will be on the upswing soon? In the meantime, I've been trying to concentrate at work which is like an impossible task when my entire head is malfunctioning. That's one of the many benefits of remote work though, by the way. I've been sick for most of this month, had appointments, etc. and no one at work even knows I have anything wrong with me because I can still get everything done and I don't have to worry about being sick around other people. My new job is going fairly well. My hours are much better. I haven't been working more than 8 hours a day, no weekends, and half days on Fridays which actually adds a lot to my weekend even though it's only a few extra hours. They're always keeping in mind that I left my last job due to being overworked and they check on me a lot to make sure that I'm not working a bunch of hours. Of course, every job has its challenges. My biggest challenge at my new job is learning the company as a whole while simultaneously getting super in the weeds with a major project that they decided they wanted me to take over next month. It makes me super anxious because I'm not sure that I'm ready to take on such a vital part of the organization so soon, but I don't super have a choice. I just need to spend the next 4 weeks hardcore focused on work so that when it gets handed off to me, I don't screw it up.  Anyway, hope you're all well. I'll try to hop back into 30DBC at some point. Or at least try to comment on other people's, but to be honest, I read some of the entries and didn't even know what to comment. *stress noises* I'm also going to update the prompts for "JAFBG" when I get a few minutes because I know I can blog for a jafbg prompt.  |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: We all have possessions of some type. Tell us five possessions you can’t live without, and why they are on this list.I’m so tired this morning so we should all rest assured that this will be my worst entry of the month.  Halloween on a Sunday night just ain’t it.I had an interesting opportunity, we’ll call it, to redeem myself this Halloween. On Halloween night 3 years ago, I had a major alcohol/pill-driven and quite public breakdown that landed me in the hospital for the next few weeks. If you were friends with me here back then, you may remember. Or you may not. No big deal either way. The point is, I was invited by ex to attend his Halloween party last night, which was really just kind of a semi-uptight social gathering with dry martinis and finger foods. Or hors d’oeuvres or whatever they’re called. No costumes. No decorations. Like, I hesitate to even call it a Halloween party because it was just a regular party that happened to take place on Halloween night. I hadn’t seen most of the attendees since that big meltdown and I did in fact get the whole, “Ah, you’re alive!” And “You look much better than the last time I saw you!” comment a number of times. Overall impressions, just off the top? Fun party that I didn’t really get to participate in. I didn’t have a chance to redeem myself the way I intended to because I simply wasn’t allowed to do anything. (As in, not even ONE drink the entire night.) It really became a practice in small talk, catching up with people. Explaining what my job is (more than once). Listening to people talk about whatever’s been going on in their world. Looking at pictures of someone’s new puppy. Discussing the cost of cars. That sort of thing that I’m undeniably great at. …Right? Right?? Followed by the inevitable mothering of someone who had drank too much, listening to each person in a couple rant individually about each other after a fight… I’m supposed to be the one who gets mothered— not the one who does the mothering. Meh, whatever. It went fine, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped for. I was wanting the opportunity to prove that I can handle a few drinks without it becoming A Thing. Instead I got like a stale evening of La Croix and avocado cream cheese pinwheels. But, I didn’t make a total ass of myself so I’ve gotta be leaving a better impression than the last time they all saw me, so I’ll count it as a personal win and move on with my week. Go me. What was I supposed to be talking about? Oh, possessions. Hmm. Possessions aren’t people, right? I don’t care about a lot of things, but I guess my top 5 would be: 1. My Kindle. I started renting ebooks and reading them on my kindle and I gotta say, it’s pretty dope. There was a point in time where I read ebooks occasionally, but I preferred books. Not anymore, honestly. It’s way too convenient to read 3 books at a time and have them all on one device to easily switch back and forth between depending on my mood. I’m not a voracious reader, really, but I think I’m on my 19th book for the year which is actually pretty good for me. 2. My journals. Lots of memories that I would forget if I didn’t have them written down in my journals. There’s nothing I love more than having someone give me a false recollection of how something went down and then fact checking it in one of my journals to prove to myself that I’m remembering correctly. 3. My iPad. I like drawing and it’s super convenient to take all of my art supplies with me wherever I go. It takes a while to get used to basically drawing with plastic on glass, but once you get the hang of it, it’s awesome to be able to switch between different writing tools without actually changing writing tools. It’s also a lot cheaper than buying art supplies all the time. 4. My bed.. Clearly running out of ideas here, but you never realize how comfortable a bed is until you don’t have one. I still sometimes fall asleep in amazement at how nice my bed is. 5. Uh… my water bottles? I have a pretty dope collection of water bottles for different occasions. I have one that self-tracks how much water I’ve drank and flashes lights when I’m not drinking enough. I have a couple stainless steel ones that keep water cold forever. Water is sick. |
Artist: Conan Gray Song: Maniac [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Sup? My energy is frenetic tonight, but I'll try to be coherent. The negative energy is coming from inside the house. I'm a couple weeks into my new job now. It's actually going really well, I think. No late hours or anything so far, just like 25 hours of meetings a week which is hectic but it is what it is. I'm not going to really complain coming out of the toxic work situation I got myself into before. My coworkers are pretty chill so far. Super hard for me to tell because I'm wildly self-absorbed and pay almost no attention to other people. I usually need someone else to tell me if a coworker sucks. And even then… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't really believe in "knowing" people anymore. Like, what even is that? I've been away from my old company for like 2 weeks and I'm already forgetting people's names. It’s unlikely that I’ll keep in touch with anyone despite working there for a couple years just because we only knew each other through circumstances. It’s not like they’re people I’d volunteer myself to hang out with in my free time. I’ve seen people here talk about having the same friends for like 30 years and I’m just like what the fuck. I swear, everyone I know just kinda… leaves? Or I leave? I don’t even know at this point, but I do know that the concept of friendships is totally foreign to me. I try to be a good friend to people, but I admittedly have toxic behaviors I’m sure. I get those episodes where I just don’t want to talk to anyone, sometimes for weeks. Then I have a desperate need for attention from someone because I’m working through Things and I think I need help. Even the appeal of a trainwreck wears off after a while. That’s probably not fair. That’s how it feels at times though. Like I just get to be too much and then the other person is just, ya know, gone. And I don’t really have any explanation as to why except that I’m too much. Over the years I’ve had a ton of friends here. I’ve really only kept in touch with Minja and Darleen this year, and that’s owed to their persistence in making our friendship work regardless of my episodes or my work schedule or anything else. Those regular check-ins meant a lot to me, even if I didn’t show it, when I was completely burnt out and dissociated for weeks at a time, just kind of in survival mode. I don’t have a grasp on where this is coming from or what I’m actually trying to say. Except that getting my shit somewhat together and going to college narrowed my friend group and the pandemic basically killed my friend group from university because we all graduated at the start of it and then just worked from home and didn’t go anywhere or communicate well thereafter. I do still keep up with my friends from school. We check in like once every month or two, but I don’t actually feel like I remember them well? Which is odd. I haven’t slept in a while so my vibe is just kind of weird right now. Tired but just jittery. My vibes are literally vibrating. I’ve been in a bit of an episode because I had a triggering thing happen the weekend before starting this job and it was really just the worst timing. I already only had a few days off between jobs and it was supposed to be a relaxing “reset” time, but it decidedly was not. It had me questioning things. Myself, other people. And I'm still just in it, like really going through it. All my nerves feel sensitized, physically and emotionally. And also just tired in the most generic sense of the word. I've done everything I was supposed to do. I got married, I cleaned up, went to school, doubled majored, graduated, got a really good job straight out of school, and now I've moved up into a higher role at another company within a couple years. Sooo... what the fuck? Not really computing why I don't feel okay. I went from being homeless to being completely financially stable. Surely I should feel at least mildly accomplished or at least just comfortable? I dunno. It's mad frustrating. I keep going back to this idea that I'm just too much, or like I'm carrying too much baggage that I don't know how to get rid of. I'm completely done with all of the negative things that have happened in the past and held me down. I'm beyond ready to move on. I don't even care anymore. I don't care about understanding anyone's motives. I don't care about hearing anyone take ownership. I don't want or expect anything resembling an apology. I certainly don't want any kind of revenge. I feel like I'm past all of this. I'm more tired of it than anyone else could begin to fathom. So why doesn't that happen? Why is there still an issue? People like you always want back what they can't have But I'm past that and you know that |
Artist: LCD Soundsystem Song: I Can Change [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I'm feeling better today. I've had a lot of quiet time this weekend to just read, journal, and kind of meditate on the bigger picture of recent events. It's always really difficult for me at first to be alone with my thoughts. I think my natural instinct is to get agitated/anxious with the silence and fight against it, but it usually ends up being the best thing for me when I'm overwhelmed. I've realized that the reason I'm so bothered with my company's reaction to me resigning is that this is my first job out of college and I really desperately wanted to succeed in my first "serious" job role. But the harder I worked, the more work was put on me until I was wearing so many hats that it was nearly impossible to even stay afloat. I've spent the last 8 months probably just barely managing the workload and slowly realizing that there was never really an endgame here. It was always going to be a game of "how much work can you endure while staying semi-sane?" It goes without saying that companies don't care if they burn you out quickly because they'll just grab someone new for your role and forget you ever existed. But I struggled to find that balance between being seen as successful in my role and also setting hard boundaries for what I was willing or unwilling to do. Now I'm going into a new company and I'm trying to understand what I can do differently from Day 1 that will set me up to be both successful in the role but also will allow me to maintain a good work-life balance. I think my issues at my current company started with me just not saying no enough. I should have said no when: 1. I was expected to work on weekends. I'm not exactly sure how to say no to working on weekends when everyone else on the team, including my boss, were doing so. It was just kind of a known thing that everyone had to do and I didn't know how to say, "Hold up, I'm not working on Saturdays and Sundays." Because in the world of accounting/finance, you do have crunch times where you're busier than other times and you kind of need to work more hours in order to get everything finished on time. I've realized that my issue here was not finding ways to make up that time at other times though. Either by saying, "Okay, I'll work Saturday and Sunday while we close the books, but I want Thursday and Friday off next week to make up for it." Or I dunno, some kind of negotiation to make sure I'm not just working 70 hour weeks all the time because we're busy because that ends up just becoming an every week expectation, even when you're not in a crunch period. 2. I was expected to be available for meetings at all times. This was a big one because I would just have meetings on my calendar back-to-back from 10:30am until 3pm and I'd be like... am I not supposed to eat lunch? People I work with would just grab a protein bar and bring it to the next meeting with them. My boss and I skip lunch frequently. The same with evening meetings. It would be 3pm and someone would put a 6pm-7pm meeting on my calendar without even asking me. But because everyone was expected to do these things, I didn't know how to say, um, hey, I don't want to be in meetings until seven o'clock in the evening..? It's also hard because I don't have children so they just expected me to be available all the time because it's not like I had to go pick my kids up from daycare or anything. I do think a lot of this stuff has to do with corporate culture. The culture of the company was pretty toxic in terms of expectations from all of the teams and there were a lot of "lifers" hanging around to tell you that it has always been this way. So even if I did say something about having to work a lot of evenings/weekends they would basically just brush me off and tell me that we have a lot of work to get done and we've always had the expectation to work more hours when we need to. The problem, of course, is that the company took advantage of that and cut the teams down to the bare minimum skeleton crew with the expectation that those people would just work more hours to make up for the team members they'd lost. All of this happened just before I joined the company, so I didn't see it firsthand, but I do know my job role used to be done by two people and I definitely am not getting the salary of two people. So, at the end of the day, I don't feel bad at all that I've essentially used this company as training material right out of school and now I'm going to go take that knowledge and training and apply it to a new company. But I do feel guilty that I'm leaving my already overworked team with even more work to do. But I do recognize that it's on them to find another company to work for if they have a problem with being so overworked (which they should have a problem with). I can't just stick around forever to make sure that I carry a bunch of weight to lift some of the burden off of my team. I'm just going into my new position knowing that I'm going to need to be more assertive and not set myself up to be overworked by putting in more than my agreed upon hours. My plan right now is to just say, "I can't." with no explanation whatsoever if I'm asked to work evenings or weekends or on my lunch break. I'm also hoping that the new company just has a less toxic work culture though. I told them in the interviewing process that the reason I'm leaving my company is because of the lack of work-life balance, so if I am expected to be overworked again, I'll simply start looking for a new job ASAP because I know now that those things aren't going to change. Like, there is no end date or "light at the end of the tunnel" for being overworked because there is always going to be a million little fires to put out. I'm just glad I learned that within a couple years of graduating and I was able to pivot at a time that allowed me to advance my career in terms of job title and pay grade. Oh, this is the time The very best time So give me a line and take me home Take me over |
Artist: Conan Gray Song: Maniac [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Feeling rather agitated at the moment. I have multiple sources of agitation happening. First of all, my manager and coworkers took my resignation as me cosigning them treating me like a trash can for some reason. I kind of half expected them to be standoffish with me or maybe even give me the silent treatment— wasn’t super expecting them to essentially revolt against me and act like I’m ruining their lives. I get that we’re way stretched thin as is (kind of part of why I found another job), but they’ve spent the last week and a half essentially reminding me at every waking moment that I don’t give a fuck about them and I’m leaving them with a ton of work to do. Various things I’ve heard in the past couple weeks: “I’m not talking to you. I’m done with you.” “Your boss is devastated. How could you do that?” “What, so you were just looking for another job this whole time? Pretty sneaky.” “Why are you even in this meeting? You’re not even going to be here so it’s not like you care.” “I’m extremely pissed off at you. Seriously.” “What’s so amazing about this other company? Is this about money? “You should have given more notice. Maybe you’ll learn to do that in that future.” (Despite that fact that I gave the required notice as stated in the employee handbook) “Charlie’s moving on to bigger and better things. He doesn’t care about us.” Sooo, essentially just… toxicity? I dealt with it fine the first 4 or 5 days but this past week it has really been wearing on my patience. It doesn’t help that all of this is interspersed with those same people saying things like: “I’m going to miss you so much.” “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I’m going to be lost without you.” “I miss you already and you’re still here.” “You’ve done so much in only a couple years here.” “How are we supposed to try to replace you?” It’s given me quite a bit of whiplash. It’s like anger but it’s anger because I work my ass off at my job and they’re angry that they have to find someone new to take the time to train to replace me. But none of this is my fault. I didn’t want any of this to happen the way it did. The company has stripped their teams down so small that you literally have to work 50-70 hours a week to even stay afloat. Everyone is stressed out at all times and it’s a bad environment to be in. But they have this mentality of like, “it’s a mess, but it’s OUR mess.” So that take it super personally when you’re like, yeaaaah, so actually I’m out because fuck this. It’s like abandoning your dysfunctional family. It makes sense to do, but the mentality is still but we’re family. Regardless. All of this just triggered a lot of feelings of guilt that I cope with in general. I feel horrible that I’m leaving them to deal with a huge workload. I know it’s going to take a while to interview, find a good fit, train them, etc. I get that people leave their jobs every day, but after working under such stress for a couple years, I feel like my boss and I are trauma bonded together. Naturally, I didn’t cope with it well because, despite the fact that my coping mechanisms have improved greatly (in my opinion), they’re still not perfect. What I don’t like about setbacks is that they seem to erase any progress you’ve made. They shouldn’t really, but they do. Because people just see you as “the same person” making “the same mistakes” no matter what the previous year has looked like for you. A lot of my poor coping mechanisms ended with the start of the pandemic because being around other people just wasn’t a thing for a while there and then a lot of people became accustomed to staying away from each other so it was just like a natural end to a lot of bad habits that I had. But even that, I feel, undermines progress that I’ve made. Because it’s like, well, you didn’t really make any progress. You were forced out of certain behaviors by the fact that people were isolating away from you. It confuses my brain like yeah, I’m not sure if I actually changed or if it was a combination of work and the pandemic that just didn’t allow time for those behaviors. Either way, I had a setback this week. Now I’m dealing with the people who care about me essentially being like, “Dude, wtf was that.” And no matter how much I explain that I was stressed out because of work or I was just feeling self-destructive, it’s not something that’s understandable. I don’t even understand it. I don’t understand why, if I’m already feeling bad, I would do things to make everything worse. I think it’s just one of those things where it’s like things feel so bad that I might as well do whatever else because… why not? Then I realize immediately that it was a mistake and then I have to deal with people telling me it was a mistake as though I’m not acknowledging it before they even get a chance to. Dunno. Just super frustrated because I don’t want to go into my new job carrying the negativity of my old job with me. I wish I had more time between jobs, like at least a week or two off just to kind of reset and go into it with a clear mind. I’m trying to stay positive though because I know I have a habit of catastrophizing things. Courtesy of anxiety, of course. The new job seems like it should be a lot more chill and a better fit for me. We'll see though. While documenting things for my successor this week I've realized all the knowledge I've gained in the past couple years and I'm trying to hold onto that. Tell all of your friends that I'm crazy and drive you mad. |
Artist: Renjun (Covering Troye Sivan) Song: FOOLS [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I was going to just post in the newsfeed to thank the anon members who have upgraded my account here (twice), but I thought it would be better to update my blog instead… …starting with a thank you to the people who have upgraded my WDC account. My upgraded membership was supposed to expire in August, but I’m good until February now.I’ve been debating coming back to the site and using just the parts of it that are still enjoyable for me. I think if I do come back around, I need to primarily focus on writing creatively and not venting in my blog all the time. At the very least I would need to focus on just reviewing and using activity prompts to write privately at first. It has been so long since I’ve written anything, I doubt I’d be up to publicly share for a while. I’m getting a new job, finally. It has been a long time coming with how hard they’ve ridden me. Rode me? Ridden me? I don’t know. Too much work. Too many hours. I’ve tried to reconcile with them to be like, hey, need work-life balance stat. They compromised by forcing all of us back into the office full time, which for me is like 60 hours a week sitting in my office. We got sick af almost immediately after everyone came back into the office. Our covid tests were luckily negative. Once they determined it wasn’t covid, they didn’t really care what it was. They said the flu or RSV or something. Kira was probably the sickest I’ve ever seen her, just bedridden with a fever, body aches, headache, totally congested, sore throat, nauseous, dizzy, etc. for like 3 or 4 days. Mine was much more mild, but lasted way longer. I only just got over the cough I had from it and we got sick back in mid-August. The scary part about it is that we never stopped wearing our masks in public, like in grocery stores and all that. I was wearing one in the office when I was in close contact with people, but hardly anyone else was wearing them. The past couple years have just been super hardcore health-wise, mentally and physically. I just can't believe the people who have prolonged this pandemic, who are still filling up the hospitals and making it impossible for people with other conditions who need treatment or “elective” surgeries to get well. I mean, the actual audacity. I learned that my office has a lot of anti-vaxxers and I’m deadass sick of being around them. I can’t even look at them. After several covid outbreaks in the office, they implemented a mask mandate (but won’t let any of us work remotely), and the anti-vaxxers are forever trying to skirt these mandates— pulling their masks down or letting them fall to their chins without fixing them, “forgetting” their masks in their cars or at their desks, standing in congested public spaces with a cup of coffee in hand so they can say they’re drinking coffee if someone calls them out on not wearing a mask. I’m just… incredibly exhausted and over it. Luckily, my new job will be completely remote so I won’t have to put up with physically being around other people. I can just do my work and cut out for the day. I need the separation between my work life and personal life. I don’t want to have a relationship with my coworkers, especially if my current office is indicative of how society generally is now, which I think it is. My last day is in about 10 days and then I start my new job after that weekend. It’s a great time to switch jobs, by the way. Everyone I know from school has been interviewing and changing jobs this summer. Tons of leverage right now to get work-life balance, salary increases, and better job titles. I fortunately landed a job that I probably wouldn’t have typically been able to get until 5-7 years into my career, pay-wise and title-wise. I’m super stoked. I haven’t told any of my coworkers that I’m leaving yet though because of how gossipy and bitchy my average coworker is. I don’t especially feel like answering the same 20 questions 50 times over the next couple weeks. Why am I leaving? Because I was offered an opportunity that will undeniably advance my career and cannot possibly be more hours than I’m already putting in. Plus those hours will be at home now, away from pro-covid people. What company am I going to? None of your business. Are they a competitor of (current company)? None of your business. What’s the new job title? None of your business. Aren’t you going to miss (boss/coworkers)? Yes/no. Would you have stayed if…? It doesn’t matter. Will you keep in touch? Yes (but more realistically, no) I’m fortunate because the job I got straight out of college was a good job with a well-known company that gave me a lot of opportunities to practice different parts of finance and accounting, but it’s time for me to move on to something else now. The last couple weeks are pretty awkward because it’s clear that my boss is shocked that I’m quitting and not super happy with me, but I think once everyone takes a step back it’ll become clear that it would make no logical sense for me not to make the move. Now how to figure out how to let my direct reports and coworkers know that I’m out. Anyway, as for WDC. I definitely needed a break. I might still need a break. I'm not sure. And I don't even fully know if it was a WDC-specific break that I needed, or a humanity break in general. I think with the election and then the pandemic, I just got super sick of seeing people's bullshit. Grew super tired of the "Well, we can just agree to disagree" mentality. Like, no, right is right and wrong is wrong. It's cool that people wanna be pacifists, I get that, but also no. At the point where people are refusing to get a lifesaving vaccine and clogging up our hospital system when they get sick, we can't really say, "Ah well, everyone has a right to their opinion." Knowingly spreading disease and doing nothing to mitigate risks is not an opinion. It's you being a bad person and it needs to be called out as such, not pushed under a rug as though it's okay. It's not okay. I also just cannot with the religious crowd anymore. If you're going to be religious, I'm down with that, but follow your fucking religion please. Don't just say that you're somehow righteous because you claim to be of a religion and then not follow your own religion in practice. From what I've seen while lurking in some blogs around here and from my experiences in real life, I think some bible verses slipped right past people. Like, for example: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. ~ Philippians 2:3-4. That means don't put your desires above the needs of others. Like, for example, if a bunch of people were dying from a virus and you didn't want to not spread the virus, you would still choose to not spread the virus because it is in the interest of others. For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored? ~ Jeremiah 8:21-22. Like, for example, if there was a working vaccine that was FDA approved, but people were still refusing it and dying for... reasons? And, okay, even if you want to go the metaphorical route, when God gives you a solution, why do you deny him? We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. ~1 John 4:19-20. So, like, for example if you blindly hated all members of an opposing political party, you would not be aligned in any way with your claimed religion, right? Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. ~ Ephesians 4:31-32. So, like, probably no insurrections or insulting/assaulting the underpaid flight attendant or grocery store working for asking you to wear a mask. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.” ~ 2 Corinthians 8:13-15. Okay, okay. I'll stop. But, like, are we sure we're all talking about the same religion here, cuuuuuz...  Straight up, this is just not what people who are claiming to be Christian are following. Maybe they have a different version of the bible than the one I grew up with. I mean, it couldn't have changed that much, right? I just, I can't see people saying that they're super religious, praise the lord. And then turning around and saying, "If YOU don't want to get sick then you just lose your job, stay at home, don't collect unemployment because I don't believe in that. So, basically just... die? because I would rather you be dead than to inconvenience myself in any way. I'll be out here living my best life with no vaccine and no mask and you can't stop me LOL. Oh, and by the way, when I do get sick, I'll be filling the ICU bed that you will need if you get into a car accident because fuck you lmao." Great christian values there. I would love to be surrounded by christians who actually lived these values through their actions. That's not even hyperbolic. I've seen it a ton of times. You can see it too: Here you go. Ope, here you go. And again. But what I see often is people who say, "People should do what they want. People should be allowed to do whatever they want. Stop telling people what to do. We have freedom to do whatever we want. No one is going to tell me what to do. Stop talking about it. Just let people do what they want. No one can make me do anything I don't want to do." Well, first of all, no. Second, how is that valuing the interest of others above yourself? I have family members who are 30 and have convinced elderly family members not to get vaccinated because they claim it will microchip you and that the vaccine was created by Bill Gates. I mean, this is serious shit. My grandfather's sister was on her deathbed being rushed from hospital to hospital looking for an ICU because her grandchildren convinced an 80 year old woman with mild dementia that the vaccine was extremely dangerous. Fuck anyone who does that and fuck anyone who is complicit or flippant about it. And I mean that. We as a society need to get our shit together. This isn't the world I lived in even 15 years ago. Like, this is just balls to the wall insanity and it isn't going to go away, even if covid magically disappeared. I dread to even think about what the next 10 years hold. It’s really just too much of the things we don’t need and too little of the things we do need. I went through a few phases with all of this. The first was like ah, I’ll just let people do or say whatever they want because I don’t wanna mess up our friendship. Then it became like, well, I’ll try to explain why what they’re saying isn’t cool or okay. I went back and forth between those two for most of like 2016-2019. Then it got super old and I went through that phase of like I’m just not going to be friends with or talk to people who act like this. I went with that for a lot of 2019 and 2020. Now I’m back where I’m like, believe what you want, say what you want, but you are going to get called out as you deserve to be. I’m not going to stay quiet to protect your feelings or our relationship. This isn’t the time to be quiet. So I’ve mostly stayed away from WDC because of that, combined with other reasons I’ve discussed previously. It’s very difficult to see the things people say here sometimes and people are either too afraid or don’t care enough to be like, uh, hey, wait a minute… when something absurd is said. Yeah, it’s easier to just be quiet and pretend it doesn’t exist. But it does and it’s a sickness in our society that is hurting people. With all of that being said, my plan right now is to transition into my new job. Maybe lurk around the site a little bit and find places where I can see myself engaging. Just take a general temperature check on the site since I haven’t really been here much at all this entire year. See how I feel about things and go from there. Most importantly, I hope you’re all doing well and that your families and friends are all well. I definitely miss keeping up with people and reading the day-to-day stuff that’s going on with y’all. I desperately miss expressing myself through creative writing. I just need to figure out how to pivot and do that without all the people I used to write with being around to provide feedback and encouragement the way I had things before. I know there are still great people around, but it’s just not the atmosphere or vibe I had back in like 2014/2015 and it’s on me to figure out how to make the site work for me as it is in 2021. Anyway, a bit of a ramble, a bit of a rant. The point is that I’m going to probably be around lurking a bit and we’ll see where things go. Thanks for the check-ins, membership upgrades, and other emails I haven’t actually checked yet. I am tired of this place. I hope people change. |
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