I'm thinking about using French knots to fill the roundels under the wave crests. I have no good ideas for the hearts. The triskelion in the center will remain as is. I believe that the white space between the design elements will remain as is. That, however, is not a fixed decision.
I've completely changed my wardrobe around. I still have color but the primary feature is black because I've always wanted to wear goth styles. Again, I didn't do it because of fear of parental retribution. Shortly after I got home after getting errands done and such, yesterday, I could almost hear my father scornfully saying that I looked like a 'bull dyke.' This has been his position on women with haircuts like this and his opinion of people who don't dress 'normally' is that we're all freaks and on the 'outside' of society.
The collar is where he'd really lose it. But I have hit a point in my life where wearing this thing is a comfort item. It helps calm my anxiety and increases my sense of safety. It's why I have two now. Beloved spoiled me and purchased that one I'm wearing that incorporated my favorite color with my goth aesthetic. Mom would lose her crap over the septum ring, regardless of the fact that it is a faux one. She repeatedly threatened me that if I had gotten my nose pierced that she'd rip it out. So, it took me a long while before I felt safe enough to even wear a faux one.
One may wonder why I'm bringing this stuff up. Well, my brain hasn't been that great over the last two months. I've been having problems sleeping. Then I put my back out picking up a damn scrap of paper. The same day, I had an epic fight with my eldest son, who said some stuff that seriously triggered my c-ptsd. That was three weeks ago. My sleep problems have gotten worse and I've been pretty regularly having emotional and vivid flashbacks where I just sit and stare but I'm not here.
All of this stuff is making it hard to write or do much of anything. I'm working with my doctor to get a better handle on the c-ptsd stuff. He's got a plan and I'm hoping it works. He thinks that if we can get the c-ptsd symptoms under control, my sleep will settle back into a correct cycle. And maybe, just maybe, I can get stuff done again. I just want this shit out of my head. I've been journaling but it's not going so great. But, my brain's decided that it's safe enough for me to do what I've wanted to and it's time for me to start processing things. We just have to get the flashbacks under control so I can do that more effectively.
Born unwanted
Beaten but unbroken
Orphan by choice
Survivor by fate
The past casts long shadows
The wounds still bleed
Grimly, I move forward
The attacks that happened twenty years ago are still fresh in my memory and in the memories of many other people. They remain a horrendous tragedy. At the same time, the war in Afghanistan should never have happened. It was entered into in a fit of collective rage. The way the issue of Al-Queda should have been handled was the way campaigns against unsavory people or people who are out of favor with the government have been traditionally handled. Putting money out there for the mercenaries to clean up the mess.
I was against the war in Afghanistan from the day it was declared. I had people spit on me. I had people tell me that I was a traitor. I had people tell me that I was a terrorist sympathizer. I had people tell me that I hated America. My position has always been we never should have gone to war with Afghanistan, regardless of the fact that Al-Queda was hiding in their mountains. It would be like a country declaring war on us because of the Proud Boys or the KKK are tolerated by people in our country.
The few thousand who died this day does not justify the many more who have died over the last twenty years. Don't tell me that the dead wanted this. They wanted to just go about their day and go home to their families. The dead on both sides of the conflict were human beings with simple desires. And now they're corpses.
People accuse President Biden of 'failing' in Afghanistan when he was following up on what President Trump negotiated. The fault of the unfurling fiasco lies on the shoulders of multiple presidents. Al-Queda was trained by the United States to carry out terrorist activities against the Russian forces in Afghanistan and the immediate region. They eventually drove the Russians out. At which point they turned on the United States because they wanted autonomy. They had a taste of it after driving the Russians out of Afghanistan and they wanted more.
So, Al-Queda did what they were trained to do. They carried out a terrorist attack against a larger opponent. As for the Taliban, we should have stayed the hell away from them as well. I'm not sure if the Taliban developed under the same influences as Al-Queda. I suspect that is the case. Now that Afghanistan is back in their hands, I presume their regime will be especially punitive in an effort to force the people back into the state they were in prior to the war's beginning and the complete upheaval of that nation.
All we did was make things worse. Why? Because we were mad and decided that somebody had to pay. It's the mentality of immature people that speak with their fists, if I'm going to call a spade a spade. We punished an entire nation for the actions of a few. And established a dangerous precedent. I'm watching and waiting for that to come back on us. There's a reason I and my family don't live in a major metropolitan center known for some national significance. The closest one is barely a shadow of what it was and only film and photography nerds would be able to identify the significance of it.
And we made things worse in this country. All y'all act like Donald Trump's presidency unmasked the ugliness in this nation. No, it was the zealous behavior in the time after the terrorist attacks that did it. And that level of zealotry is encouraged, even today. I know people who practice Islam and they have to hide their practices as to remain safe. I don't practice Islam but I do wear a head covering. The Islamophobia has spread and grown such that anyone who does so is assumed to be a 'towel head' and are harassed with relative impunity. President Trump's open support of racists, white supremacists, and literal neo-Nazis only made the situation more blatant and ugly. But this attitude has always been here.
The attitude that you're not really an American unless your white, Christian, and live in the right neighborhood. Don't believe me, go ask your black neighbors. Go ask your Asian neighbors. Oh, wait, if you're white you probably don't have neighbors of different ethnicity. Self-segregation is a thing that's only gotten worse as time goes on and economic disparity due to systemic racism and religious persecution persists. What religious persecution? Oh, any religion that isn't nominally Christian.
But, that's all in the past, right? We're mourning the dead again, as we do every so many years, in a form of ritualistic masturbation to justify the horrid deeds that this nation has committed. People die every day. But we don't mourn them. We don't build monuments to them. Not even the ones who've died due to Covid-19. (Which is still a fire raging out of control but everyone wants to desperately to go back to life before Covid-19 that they're willing to sacrifice children for their 'liberty'.)
Long story short, it was a tragedy. All of it. It still is a tragedy. It was also one of the most horrific failures of the modern United States that I have ever witnessed. The other being how all y'all are handling Covid-19. I don't think the Covid-19 situation will take 20 years to resolve itself, though.
I didn't fall or anything injurious like the last time. I bent over and picked up a stupid piece of paper. One single sheet of loose leaf paper was all it took for me to put my back out. I had a telehealth appointment yesterday with one of the doctors in the practice that my family doctor is part of. (He was out of the office yesterday.) She was a lovely person and the student who sat in for the conference was pleasant as well. I described what happened. She asked me a few questions and then prescribed a muscle relaxant and told me to continue the pain reliever that I had taken at the time. She recommended that I alternate between the Aleve and Tylenol to help with the pain.
The pain with out the Aleve is a 9. I don't hit that number typically. The last time that I was in pain that rated a 9 out of a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being damn near incapacitating pain, I was in labor with my son and my husband cracked a joke during a contraction. The time before that was when I was carrying said son and he kicked me in the spine. So, this was serious business discomfort that is dialed down to about a 5 with out the muscle relaxer. Sleeping Wednesday night was tricky. Sleeping last night was a lot easier because the medication stopped the spasm from cramping down so hard.
This morning, I could feel everything wearing off around 6 am. So, I took all my morning pills and the muscle relaxer before I ate breakfast. The end result was I wasn't just about crying in pain when ever I moved my back. It aches but it's not enough to put me out of commission, mostly. Standing up is uncomfortable. Walking is uncomfortable, so I've been using my cane for both. I've been spending most of my time sitting here in front of the computer bored half to death.
I have a solid half dozen writing projects sitting around me in various stages of completion but focusing on them is difficult. Because the muscle relaxer kinda has my brain a bit spaced out. I'm not to the point where I couldn't hold a conversation but doing serious writing is an entirely different story. Pardon the pun.
Multiple studies show that people who have bipolar disorder have problems with changes in the weather. Extreme shifts in the weather can bring on manic or depressive episodes. Minor shifts in the weather can effect the sensitive and bring on hypomania or mild depression. When it's raining, snowing, or just really cloudy, I get into a low mood. Throw on top of that the fact that I am in a low mood makes me more prone to having flashbacks (thanks ptsd) and it makes for a shitty day.
I just want to cry. But I can't because if I do that makes me 'weak' and subhuman, as per how I was raised. Now, that doesn't make other people weak or subhuman, just li'l ol' me. I've been having emotional flashbacks to being called a useless waste of flesh and a pathetic excuse for a human being during depressive episodes in the past. The verbal abuse heaped upon me by my parents when I was depressed was atrocious. And they didn't think/believe I was depressed. They were of the opinion that I was seeking attention and/or lazy.
Loki dropped a truth bomb last night as I was cuddling with Beloved and feeling bad. I've been having trouble wrapping my head around it. That truth bomb was that I've always had bipolar disorder. I was living with it untreated for about 32 years because I thought everyone had this happen. I was living with it untreated because I thought that it was my trauma that was the primary problem and the depression was symptomatic of that. I was living with it untreated because I never had the opportunity for legitimate care when I was a child.
I guess my bad brain day started with running out of spoons the day before trying to get everything done around here. Put that together with the exhausted fall out from being social on Sunday and a day of low spoons and high anxiety on Monday, the week has sucked. I haven't slept well in almost a month. It has me starting the day at a spoon deficit. I was literally stumbling over my feet after I woke up and almost face planted into the doorway, again.
I'm just past the middle of my day and I have absolutely zero chores done and only part of my morning routine complete. At least I remembered to take my medications as I needed. But, I'm not doing well. I'm really, really sad that I never got the help I needed because my fucking parents decided I was a drama queen.
I am exhausted because I haven't been sleeping well. I keep waking up at 2am and then I have to take melatonin to get back to sleep. Most of the time, I wake up at 5am when my alarm is set for 5:45. I just am frustrated because being tired makes my brain run slower. I don't do so great in the brain department anyways because of the bipolar and the ptsd. So any detriment becomes a real hinderance.
So, I'm sitting here with two pots of coffee in me, blinking owlishly as I try to update my blogs. I'm behind schedule but getting things done. I started working on my writing tasks at 7:30 instead of the scheduled 9am just because I had so much to get done. I've rebooted my therapy writing and I'm seriously considering taking some of that to digital. I've been keeping a time-log to check on how I'm doing about this whole 'losing time' thing.
It's creepy as fuck. I go through the whole day doing stuff and when I get to the end of the day, I can't remember about half of what I did. It's just as bad as when I have a conversation with someone and they are referencing something I said that I have zero recollection of saying. I still feel like my sense of self has some serious fault lines in it and I can't tell if they're getting worse or not.
I've suspected for a long time that there might be more than one 'me' in my head. When things got bad as a kid, I dissociated and let another part of myself handle the shit that went down. Now, I am safe but those different parts of me are still vocal. I'm not literally hallucinating but it's like having a random thought that doesn't belong to you go through your head. I've had therapists question this and suggest that I am just interpreting things wrong because I'm not dressing in different clothes, making rapid hairstyle changes, or doing things like switching from needing glasses to not needing glasses.
I'm sorry, but if you grow up in a household where mental illness is cause for a beating, you learn to stuff as much of that shit into a box and don't talk about it. The shifts that happen between these parts of me are subtle. But they're starting to happen again because of the long term stress of Covid-19 and the isolation of being in my home 98% of the time to avoid getting it. So, I've started that journaling exercise that the one therapist who found what I described curious and it basically doubles my time for journal work.
Blog posting is supposed to take an hour but because of other factors, I'm now a half hour into my book work time for the day. I just keep having little things come up to put me off schedule despite the fact I started early and I am getting frustrated. My hormones being all over the place doesn't help matters any. I just want to get stuff done so I can move on to other things, more pleasant things. But each task I complete, it seems like three more pop up that need done.
I'm going to try to blog on this one more frequently. I'm going to try to be more social on social media. I need to interact with people. It's part of the reason why I am doing tarot readings on Keen again. It's because I need to talk to people. It's like exposure therapy for social phobia from my own home. The social phobia has gotten pretty bad and has been running the show for the last few months. It's why on social media I have practically zero activity going on. So, I'm trying to force myself to be active. And I'm terrified to do it.
We're in the home stretch of summer break. Breakfasts have been pretty regularly things like mini-muffins, fruit, and donuts. Lunches have been their favorite sandwiches and chips. As such the menu just features dinner items this week. My breakfasts remain the boring low carb yogurt with low carb granola. Lunch is either a salad or a peanut butter wrap on a diet flat bread with a bit of fruit to round out my carb load.
At some point, I'll get the schedule tweaked so that I actually can get back into batch making food that is more diabetic friendly. It's been hard to do that with everything that goes on over the weekend. Fridays don't seem to work for that, which has me leaning towards doing it Monday mornings after I send the kids off to school. I can't believe that school is a little over a week away. We're pretty much all looking forward to it.
Here's the menu for this week.
| Day | Menu Item |
|---|---|
| Sun | hot dogs & salad |
| Mon | Hamburgers |
| Tues | chicken fajitas |
| Wed | meatloaf |
| Thurs | meatball subs |
| Fri | pork chops w/ salad |
| Sat | take out |
I've gotten quiet again. I have stopped talking about things like my spirituality even with Beloved. I'm terrified of being judged. I know that he won't judge me. I know I can talk to him about anything. At the same time, this creeping terror gnaws at me and tells me that no one wants to hear what I have to say, not even the man I love the most.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in our region, I've functionally been housebound. I haven't gone grocery shopping in over a year. After I got the vaccine, I bought some clothes and struggled with this mishmash of feelings. I felt guilt over buying new clothes. I felt excitement about buying them and transitioning my wardrobe to something more authentically me. I felt gratitude that I was out of the house doing something 'normal' for the first time in a long time. And I felt creeping terror that the vaccine wasn't enough and I was still going to catch Covid-19 and die.
My anxiety keeps ramping up and when it does that it gets harder to be social. I find myself reliving the emotional trauma of the bullying I endured in school as a kid. (Including and not limited to people trying to light me on fire and spreading rumors that I was a whore so extensively that I had students from the local college ask me at 16 what the cost of a blow job was in public. It was awful.) I find myself reliving the emotional trauma of how my parents raised me and the scorn that they heaped upon me when I was in a depressive episode. I find myself reliving the mockery they made of my desire to become a professional author.
All of that together, I find I just scroll through social media platforms and struggle to reach out and even post stupid memes. I just lurk and feel left out. I know that no one is excluding me. I just have to post something, even if it's a few words. At the same time, I can't bear the thought of being utterly ridiculed and harassed. I've carefully curated my social media accounts to keep people who are kind in them and yet I am terrified that they'll prove as bad as the harpies that I had to deal with as a kid.
I don't know what to say. I feel lost and afraid. And I hurt very deeply. I should probably be working on this stuff with a therapist but none of the therapists in my area take my health insurance. And I'll be damned if I go back to the county mental health clinic for any reason. They made my life a thousand times worse with their bungling, ham handed, ill spirited bullshit. I'll not go back there even if I was paid to do it. So, I just write in my notebooks and feel awful. I'm going to try to be social, but it is very hard. And I feel like I am somehow defective because I can't bring myself to do it when it comes so easily to virtually everyone else.
The kids are officially on break until the 7th of September, when school starts again. Breakfasts have been things like muffins, french toast sticks, and fruit this past week. I presume the same for this week. Lunches have been their favorite sandwiches and chips. I've been having bagged salads and peanut butter wraps for lunches because I haven't had time to do batch cooking of better meals for myself. Breakfast has been yogurt with granola and an occasional bit of fruit when my blood sugar isn't too high in the morning. So, the menu is just dinners right now.
| Day | Menu Item |
|---|---|
| Sun | pizza |
| Mon | Hamburgers |
| Tues | Tacos |
| Wed | raspberry chicken w/ quinoa |
| Thurs | pork chops w/ salad |
| Fri | chicken stir-fry w/ 'rice' |
| Sat | pasta w/ meatballs |
There's a lot going on right now. I'm not sure if I have enough spoons to do everything. As a result, I'm not blogging across any of my platforms right now. I'm barely keeping up with my daily journal work. Actually, I'm not doing too great at that, to be honest.
My brother-in-law is in the hospital. He had a kidney transplant recently. He started out looking ok and then everything went sideways. My sister-in-law is just this side of having kittens because she doesn't know what to do. Beloved is doing his best to be supportive and the voice of reason. Things were looking really grim for a little while. Now, my brother-in-law is doing a bit better but his cognitive state isn't the best. The going theory is his problem is sleep deprivation. He's at the best hospital in the area and getting the best care that can be given. It's still a very stressful thing for the family.
The kids are not aware of the ongoing matter. They've been a handful all on their own since summer school ended two weeks ago. That ended on a contentious note due to a massive communication failure, which got resolved (?) the day before school finished. The kids got their first shot for the Covid-19 vaccine at the beginning of the month. Next week is when they get their next shot. Amazingly, my needle phobic boys didn't freak out. One of them actually high-fived the pharmacist who gave him the shot. I'm hoping that the second round goes just as well.
Cuddle Bear is currently doing talk therapy once a week to develop some behavior interventions for his tendency to perseverate on his imaginary world to the exclusion of things he needs to do. We got started on this path because of a teacher thinking he was suffering from psychosis. This lead to a full psychological evaluation back in April (I think, time's a blur). The result was the psychologist said that he is showing classic autistic behaviors and that he is perseverating on his imagination. The experts have consistently said this through out the entire business. We've made a point of keeping all of his care team in the loop and making sure that the school shares information with them.
But, at the time of the teacher's panic, I called the autism center and got set up with their behavioral intervention program. I then forgot all about that until the behavior intervention program people called me to apologize for the wait and schedule his assessment. That was at the beginning of the month. We've hit the point now that the child psychologist that we're working with has developed a treatment plan and we're getting ready to implement it.
Less damn fights about what's real and what's not would be fantastic. Less fantastic stories about how his imaginary friends are causing trouble would be helpful too when the situation is that he is actually the one up to mischief. I don't want to snuff out his imagination and I don't have a problem with imaginary friends. But he has to learn when and where to let his imagination to run wild. I am hoping that the treatment plan is going to work and he learns what we've been desperately trying to teach him on our own - discretion in his imaginary play and better focus on reality.
If we're lucky, some of the skills and interventions that we learn from this process will be helpful with Snuggle Bug, who is beginning to demonstrate some of the same perseveration behaviors (obviously on different topics). I just want my kids to be able to navigate the world with some measure of success, I don't really care about their approach because everyone does it differently regardless of how neurotypical they are. The perseveration, unfortunately, is turning into a hinderance and I don't want them to struggle because of it.
I'm just still kinda burned on how we got started on this path. The teacher who thought that Cuddle Bear was psychotic is going to be Snuggle Bug's teacher next year. I'm rather dreading it. Because I have a bad feeling that she's going to find something else to complain/fuss over. Beloved and I are fairly sure her education in Autism is lacking. But, I know what I'm going to do if we go down that road again because of Snuggle Bug's fascination with robots and his occasional insistence that he is one.
It's been a rough couple of months.
This is the kids' last week of summer school. As such, this is going to be the last week of the summer where the menu is only dinners. The boys have taken to refusing what the school's offered for lunches over the course of the last week and been eating their favorite sandwiches for lunch at home. I don't know if the trend is going to continue this week or not. But I'm going to be prepared and make sure I have plenty of bologna, raspberry jelly, and bread on hand. We have enough peanut butter on hand to kill a horse, and that's before you count the dried stuff I picked up to try doing some recipes with.
My breakfasts are still just yogurt and granola. I'm getting bored of it, but I haven't had the time or energy to batch cook on the weekends right now. I'm sure I'll figure something out that's different. Probably refrigerator overnight oats if Beloved can find me some relatively low carb fruit to put in it. But, it's all a juggling game because we've had fruit go bad before we can use it when it's been picked up recently. I'm seriously considering going with frozen fruit, even though the sugar content for a number of the selection is higher. The menu is below.
| Day | Menu Item |
|---|---|
| Sun | hot dogs & salad |
| Mon | Hamburgers |
| Tues | Tacos |
| Wed | grilled cheese & gazpacho |
| Thurs | pulled pork & broccoli slaw |
| Fri | raspberry chicken w/ quinoa |
| Sat | Take Out |
I have a love of wearing collars. Partly because of kink and partly because I really like how it looks. I am still throwing in pops of color to break up the black on black look. I'm doing the goth thing on my terms. It's made for some interesting reactions from people around town.
The ladies at the post office think it's fantastic that I am going with a clothing style I've always wanted to do since I was a teen. They've given me some suggestions and have asked me about what accessories I am going to pick up next. It's been fun stopping over there.
The rando sales person who stopped at the door got uncomfortable. Part of it, I know, was the collar and the fact that I'm not some 20 year old thing bebopping around trying to impress people with how edgy I am. Part of it was the fact that I made very clear that I wasn't a push over, which some people would think because of the collar. I got a subtle 'y'all need Jesus' out of one of the guys and they haven't been back since, despite my making an appointment to discuss what they were offering. If they can't handle the fact that I'm 42 and wearing whatever the hell I want in my own home, they need to get a life.
I haven't worn the bdsm collars out to doctor appointments because the established relationship there would be a bit upended by the stylistic change. I see that they're getting used to the all black garment and the ribbon choker with the big glass heart on it. I figure give it a year and they'll be ok with it. Easing people into the concept that you're not as 'normal' as they assumed you were seems to be the process of getting them to accept that you're not going through a midlife crisis.
I've been contemplating picking up a third style of collar. I adore the two I have. I finally figured out how to clean the tarnish off of the steel on the one I'm wearing (cleaning vinegar and a soft cloth). The pink and black one is super comfy. I'm hoping to possibly locate one similar to something I saw on Etsy that had flowers on it. There was an absolutely gorgeous painted leather one with a bright pink wild briar rose design on it. It was also super expensive compared to some of the others I've been looking at. But, it has stainless steel hardware (which I need so I don't react to the metal) and it was really lovely.
I find myself thinking about using some of the money from Keen to buy it for myself. I know that is set aside for book promotion, but it's been at the back of my mind since I saw that thing a few months back when Beloved and I started looking into getting me a new collar because I was reacting to the one I'm wearing now. It was pure luck that I learned about the vinegar to clean up steel.
I was super happy yesterday when I realized that those knee high sneakers that I had from when I was LARPing still fit. I had to adjust the lacing a bit, but I can wear them with my dresses and look nifty. I also found the fingerless gloves and with a bit of adjustment, I think I can make them work. So, the question now is what style of goth am I going for. I do kinda want a spikey collar for fun but I think my kids would put out an eye when they came running at me for a hug. That was the whole reason why we didn't get one. Because there were some really cool looking ones.
I'm also thinking about dying my hair. Well, to be more precise, I'm thinking about bleaching my hair out and then dying it some unnatural color. It's not very long yet. I haven't decided how long I want to get my hair. I already of white streaks showing up. I thought it was grey and my hair was thinning until I got a close look in the mirror and realized that it was white. Stress, it's a hell of a drug. But, if my hair is going white, I might just bleach it out to white and dye it some neon color and go with some interesting partial coverings. Or, I might go with an ombre color so that my dark roots just need a touch up as my hair gets longer. I haven't decided yet.
The hair business is going to have to wait for when the kids are in school and I have more than a few hours free to sit and do so anyways. I last tried royal blue. It didn't take very well because of how dark my hair was a few years ago. I might try a royal blue ombre starting at the top of my head and going to the tips with a cotton candy blue. Then again, I may go with red fading down to neon pink. It's hard to decide.
I found the table generator webpage again. It made this a breeze. As the kids are still doing breakfast and lunch courtesy of summer school, the menu only features dinners right now. My lunches have predominantly been peanut butter wraps or salads. Breakfast has been yogurt with low carb granola. It's boring but easy and not too hot with the weather we've been having.
| Day | Menu Item |
|---|---|
| Sun | hot dogs & salad |
| Mon | Hamburgers |
| Tues | Tacos |
| Wed | steak & peanut noodles |
| Thurs | meatball subs |
| Fri | raspberry chicken w/ quinoa |
| Sat | Take Out |
For the third time since we've lived here, some asshole stole my gardening stuff. It wasn't something small like the first two times. It was a large planter and a strawberry pot (with its terracotta saucer). I've called the landlord who is checking the camera history. I've gone through the cycle of fury, grief, and resignation in record speed. These neighbors who are doing this shit we leave alone. And yet, they've done it.
I am resigning myself to house plants. I can't apparently have nice things outside. I tried to make things a little nicer around here by putting plants at the end of the walk and people rip them up and steal the pots. They rip up the flowers that come up in the beds by the house. I just can't have flowers apparently unless I buy them from the store.
I don't think the landlord is going to do anything about it. I just have a pessimistic feeling that nothing is going to come of the complaint despite the fact that there are cameras out front. As it stands, the state's moratorium on evictions goes until the end of August. So, even if he catches them in the act on his camera system, he can't necessarily boot them out.
I am hurt, angry, and disgusted. I also am deeply saddened because I was planning on planting flowers in those pots this weekend. The first weekend in a while that we were actually going to have time that I could possibly get to that. And now I can't. Fuck people.
So, that little book that I worked on revising and updating the Filianic scriptures pissed off a bunch of people. Now, a video that I've made has pissed off a bunch more. And the video was my discussing my experience and what's going on with me. Like cowards, people are going "a certain someone" is saying bad things about us and proceeding to the no true Scotsman argument about the grief that I've been getting about that book.
I have decided I'm not going to read the comments on my videos anymore. I am probably not going to read the comments on my blogs anymore. And I'm just going to focus on my writing and stop giving a shit about my audience. Because, apparently, there's a pack of cowards out there deciding that it's better to get their asses up in the air and be snide rather than face a problem that I pointed out in their ranks.
I have a problem with people who can't be reasonable when giving criticism. I have a problem with people who decide that passive-aggressive crap is the way to solve a problem. And I have a real big problem with people who are going around rumor mongering. I just don't get why this high school level crap is happening. The only logical answer I can think of is I have pointed out that they are not nice people and they're offended by that. This is what I get for telling the truth, people being snippy and telling me that I am wrong because they're not experiencing what I am.
I fucking hate gaslighting. I fucking hate the no true Scotsman argument. I'm so tempted to say to them, "Well, Cinderella, if the shoe fits, wear it." But, I'm not going to. And I highly doubt that any of them are going to find this particular blog because they're more interested in my more public ones. All seven of you who follow this and read it, thank you for your readership. And if one of the randos who reads this post happens to be Cinderella, wear the damn shoe with pride. Because, if you think I was calling you out then you need to examine your position on a number of things. /rant
I don't fully have the hang of using it, but I like this ring distaff. It's a little awkward to use but my fiber doesn't get clumped up or anything when I'm spinning as it has when I'm just holding it in my hand. 10/10 would recommend.
I'm stalled on the NICU hats right now because I've been so busy with other stuff. I'm trying to get more done this week. I'm not particularly thrilled with the yarn that I'm currently using but I anticipated longer color runs in that variegated yarn. As it is, each stitch is a different color and there's zero color pooling. It makes keeping track of stitches difficult because I get visually confused by it all. Thank goodness for stitch markers.
I have some sewing to do. I bought myself a pair of shorts and realized after I had gotten home with them that they were 'fashionably' torn. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the hole has no stabilization for the fabric around it. It's just torn. So, I'm going to darn the holes in it with some bright color that'll be easy to see and stitch on the black fabric. This is the second time that I've bought something that was 'in fashion' and it needed to be resolved. The last time, I bought a pair of boot cut jeans with no hem. It was super annoying.
I found the html table generator page again. So here's the menu of dinners for the week. The kids are eating breakfast at school and getting packed lunches from the school through Monday thru Friday. Beloved skips breakfast and I make him sandwiches and chips for lunch now that it's summer. My breakfast is low fat, low carb yogurt with a relatively low carb granola plus copious amounts of coffee.
Here's the dinner menu.
| Day | Menu Item |
|---|---|
| Sun | Pizza |
| Mon | Hamburgers |
| Tues | Tacos |
| Wed | Pork roast |
| Thurs | Mongolian Beef |
| Fri | Cashew Chicken |
| Sat | Take Out |
It occurred to me the other day that dressing as I am now and wearing a mask, my parents wouldn't recognize me from anybody else on the street. There's be some muttering about 'face diaper' or something, and possibly some scorn about my being a 'freak' but that'd be all directed under their breath with no idea that it was me. Going goth, I realized, is more than a 180 in my clothing style. It completely changes how I look to the point that people who knew me 20 years ago are not going to recognize me, unless they've been following this blog or the other places on the internet where I've been active.
This feeling that comes with this realization is dizzying and wonderful. I feel like I'm free. Some would comment that my wearing a BDSM collar doesn't exactly go with that concept, but they don't know a damn thing about the dynamic between Beloved and I so their opinion doesn't really matter. My new collar hasn't arrived yet but should be soon. It's a combination of pink and black. It is actually rather understated and elegant. I plan on posting pics when it comes in and I get to wear it.
I worry a little bit that the dye is going to transfer. I also worry about the vanilla people in my life getting into an uproar equivalent to the one that my father did when he saw the bondage bear keychain. As such, I'm thinking about getting a second collar or choker made from stainless steel that I can wear. It'll have the weight similar to the leather one and look like a funky necklace. A part of me wants to say 'fuck it, they just have to deal with it.' But, I can see that there is some mild discomfort on the fact that I've gone all black in my clothing styles.
I haven't really gotten anything fancy yet. I plan on someday having a fancy black dress for special occasions. Right now, the black dresses that I own are really simple. I am waiting and saving money for that special occasion dress. If I'm lucky, I'll find something black with bright pink accents. I've seen some Lolita style stuff that was cute but the Lolita concept kinda doesn't work when you're a bit over weight because most of the people making that stuff are focused on the 20 year olds who haven't had two kids. I have been thinking about the style icons of Morticia Addams (as played by Angelica Huston) and Elvira. The problem there is I'm not as busty as they are. I know I'll figure something out, I'm just having fun window shopping right now. Next year, I'll buy myself something fancy.
Right now, I'm focused on practical and comfortable. I hit that goal. Now I just have to figure out how to make my accent colors work and have fun with it. Also, I need to mend my shorts because I hate the distressed jeans style and hem my jeans because they're about two and a half inches too long. If I were just a little bit taller, they'd fit me perfectly. Or I have to go out and get combat boots. If I am getting boots, I'm going to find glittery ones because they have to exist. Then I can have my stompy boots for looking cool.
As it stands, my kids right now think I look cool. So I must be doing something right.
