November

November 29, 2024 ;

Turkeys & being a Peon

Thanksgiving was super chill. It was just my mom, my brother, and me! No shitty aunt or shitty cousin this year, woooo. Although my mom tells me that my cousin is less shitty now. Apparently he grew his hair out (literally can't imagine this at all) and teaches special ed so... who knows. I'm still skeptical but I'm willing to believe he may not be an asshole anymore. Anyway, I'm very excited to eat leftovers today lol. I'm also glad I brought my ipad to my mom's house yesterday because there was a lot of waiting around when I was cooking the mashed potatoes, so I got to draw a bunch. Specifically a persimmon that my mom had lol. I want to try drawing from real life more and not only use pictures and stuff. Anyway, we watched a bit of football (I don't really give two shits about football but at this point I find it really comforting to have on in the background) and also I just had the Great British Baking Show on in the background.

When I got home last night I maaaaay have purchased a bunch of procreate brushes from Gumroad lol... As a treat because I spent a lot of time helping my mom and brother yesterday and today!! It was such a great decision! I got a bundle and one of them was a bunch of oil brushes, and now I'm obsessed with them. I also think it'll be good for me with my art in general? Basically I want to get better at using less detail/color to convey the same thing. Right now I spend a million minutes/hours blending and trying to get things juuuuuust right and idk. It's probably because I don't know how to use the brushes properly yet lol, but I feel like they are forcing me to really consider the types of lines and choices I'm making and I think it's really helping me think about things differently. I'm also in the process of redoing my website mascot. Firstly I need to think of a good name for him. Secondly I actually don't think what's there now is actually a milkfish lol? I searched up milkfish on pinterest and found that fish, but now that I'm looking at real pictures of milkfish I'm like oh.... who is that on my page then!??!?!?! lolol. But yeah! It's really fun so far and I'm really excited to use my oil brushes for it. I even started redrawing this apple that I drew previously and it just feels like ten thousand times more fun lol. Now I must resist the part of me that's like hehe.... one oil brush pack made you this happy??? maybe we should buy EVEN MORE oil brush packs!!!!!

Today I did more peon work and I helped my mom pick out her christmas tree, moved her ten million boxes of Christmas decorations upstairs, moved the tree upstairs, and helped her hang the lights on the outside of her house. It definitely wasn't fun, but I listened to music for much of it and that made it more peaceful. I also just kept thinking to myself, I'm a lesbian! I can do this! Lesbians do this stuff all the time! LOL and it felt very motivating (I have a bunch of sapphic songs on the playlist I was listening to so this is probably why those thoughts kept running through my head lol). Though I can already feel my body giving up on me. I'm sure I will be very sore later today and tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm supposed to call one of my best french fries today. I hope she answers! I haven't talked to her in a couple weeks and I'm sure it'll be really nice to catch up.

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November 26, 2024 ;

Propranolol Woes

Yesterday was my first day off propranolol since starting to take it daily, and wow did it suck ass lol. I had such bad anxiety all day, and my congestion, sinus pain, and light sensitivity issues were even worse. I even took excedrin and it did absolutely nothing to help with the pain. Tbh I probably should have done a nasal decongestant spray yesterday and taken a clonazepam, but I didn't feel like it. But today is a different day! I already took half of a clonazepam and I'll probably do a nasal spray soon. My anxiety is so high that I wake up wide awake every morning, no matter what time it is. 3am? 4am? 5am? who cares! We're fucking awake now!! (it should be probably noted though that I consider 7am sleeping in, so like... lol). I've also been getting nightmares more often now, so... that also really sucks. Oh, and I've been waking up feeling like my entire body is vibrating lately too. Luckily it goes away pretty quickly. I've also just learned to live with it, and idk I felt a ton of relief when I read that feeling vibrating/internal tremors is actually pretty common with vestibular migraines. I felt significantly less crazy and it made them feel a lot less scary. Anyway, I'm hoping that things equalize sooner rather than later. I was taking 10mg for the last 5 days so hopefully it shouldn't be tooooooooooo bad.

In happier news, I'm off of work for the rest of the week after today! Though I actually have a lot going on so I may have to log on for a little bit tomorrow. But idk, it's such low pressure to log on when I've called out sick or am taking a vacation. I just really like the idea that there are zero expectations of me actually talking to anyone, and I can get work done at a leisurely pace whilst doing other things. I still log it as time worked too, so yeah. It's nice sometimes! Definitely not something I want to do consistently, nor do I ever want it to be an expectation. But thankfully I'm overtime eligible, so any time I'm on the clock is time that I get paid for, hehe.

In website news, I spent a good chunk of today trying to figure out boxes. I really want to make a list page where I just track random lists. And I thought I could make a bunch of small boxes and just make a bunch of mini lists. But I also wanted to keep my navigation bar, and idk the sizing and everything just seemed way too complicated. SO I have just made the executive decision to just do a bunch of expandable accordion things. Basically what I do on my book report page and my art pages. And I'll probably keep chugging away at it. I should probably actually focus more on learning more html and css. I've been relying on google and also asking chatgpt and it'd be nice if I like knew exactly what everything did and how to fix my many problems, instead of just trying random things out and seeing if they do what I want them to do. I know that's also part of learning but... still lol. Anyway! I've also just been browsing around other people's websites to see if I can get inspiration. So many interesting websites and layouts out there! I don't know if anything particularly feels doable + inspiring right now (it's either one or the other usually) but yeah. I will keep chugging along.

Oh, I'm making some pretty good progress on The Wizard's Butler by Nathan Lowell. It's getting a bit stressful where I'm at though and hope it just goes back to being cozy. Or I might just have to read the last few pages so I don't feel so anxious about it lol.

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November 24, 2024 ;

All day boxing

I want to scream!!!!!!!!!!!! So I learned about flex boxes earlier today, and I thought, wow!! Perfect! The solution to all of my problems! And I started daydreaming about changing my entire website and making everything a flexbox. You get a flexbox! You get a flexbox!! Well, apparently not. Because holy fuck this is so annoying? Every time I think I've solved the issue, it presents another problem. Currently the issue is that every time I have something that I've used strong, em, or a link, etc etc it just... makes a new line. I don't know why??? I'm sure I will have to consult chatgpt again but my god this is so fucking annoying. I wish that it just... worked normally. All i want is all my stuff to be in nice little boxes on my page!! Why must this be so difficult?? Anyway, I've been working on my website like... almost all day today. It's actually been really fun. I maaay or may not just completely change everything even if I can't figure out the boxes LOL. We shall see. I can't decide if I want to keep all the pages slightly different like they are now, or make it more cohesive. I'm leaning toward cohesive because that's just way less CSS sheets to keep track of and update. I also want to figure out how to make my site mobile friendly, but that's definitely something that's a long term goal and hopefully more once I figure out wtf I'm doing.

My dizziness has definitely been on a rampage. I got super dizzy at the end of the day yesterday when I was still hanging out with my friend. Luckily it was toward the end of our hangout, but man. I'm sure it's because I was just really exhausted by then, but it's still off-putting when it happens out of the blue. I've been having more vertigo feelings than usual lately too, but I'm hoping that's just a result of going off of propranolol and I'm hoping that it'll disappear shortly. I'm also watching more videos on The Steady Coach's youtube again just to remind myself that I am going to survive and it's okay and it's possible to recover.

In super great news, my new therapist told me that she is willing to try out EMDR online with me, so hooray for that! I'm so glad that I don't have to find a new therapist now. It's a really huge relief, beacuse this was weighing on me a ton. Every single time I got a notification for my email I was so so disappointed it wasn't her. I'm glad I waited to follow up though lol. But yeah.. I only have two more appointments with my current therapist and I'm so sad that I won't see her anymore. It feels heartbreaking knowing that I'll most likely never see or talk to her again. She's been such a stable figure in my life this year and I really grew to adore her and rely on her and trust her. She reminded me that it's possible to find therapists who tick all my boxes and are a good match for me. The one I had before her was... really not a good fit.

Anyway, that's all for now! It's back to boxing... T_T or maybe I should just get ready for bed so I have time to watch more art restoration videos lol.

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November 22, 2024 ;

Numb numb numb

Well well well. Not much has changed in the last two days, but it feels like it has. I still haven't heard from my new therapist about whether or not she's willing to try doing EMDR online, so I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. I'm not sure how long I want to wait to follow up. I may just wait until it's been a week and then follow up with her. I feel less aprehensive about it though than I did initially.

Going off propranolol has been... interesting, so far. Mostly it means a lot of anxiety and a lot of chest pain, and some tingly/almost numb feelings in my legs. It's that sort of feeling you get when your limbs feel like they're about to fall asleep. It's really uncomfortable, so I hope that it goes away soon. The chest pain is bearable, as I used to get it literally all the time. The anxiety is much worse to deal with, but I suppose that's also nothing new. Just shitty, lol. I feel like my dizziness levels are about the same as before I tarted tapering off, so I suppose that's a plus. I'm supposed to stay on this dose for 5-7 days and then I am allowed to just go off it completely.

I've been sleeping great for the last two days, which has been much needed. My period finally ended and thus the super-insomnia has disappeared and I'm back to feeling cozy and comfortable in my bed. Unfortunately, I've been feeling quite numb overall. Just a huge loss of interest in doing anything, learning anything, or engaging in any hobby. When I'm done with work I just kind of... lay around and rot. I suppose I could try to read more often. Lately what I've ended up doing is just putting on some random shitty Christmas movie and then drawing random objects from photos I find on pinterest. I did come up with an idea for my next Unmaking zine so that's something at least. With what I've come up with so far, I think it's going to involve drawing a lot of flowers, lol.

I've also been struggling with my appetite a little. Mostly with breakfast and sometimes lunch. Dinner is usually okay. I have no idea what I'm going to cook next week though (I do all my grocery shopping on Saturdays). Literally nothing seems appealing or appetizing. Though this might be a neat thing to keep a record of on my website. Just recipes that I collect and make fairly often.

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November 20, 2024 ;

Congested & powerless

Powerless

Welp, we had a "bomb cyclone" last night. How exciting! Not. I was so anxious lol, and even more so because I didn't find out about it until yesterday morning. I had therapy and a doctor's appointment and I was so worried that my power was going to go out. But luckily I attended all my appointments, showered, charged up all my devices, and heated up my food before the power went out. It actually went out whilst I was in the middle of eating. I ordered some rechargeable lamps and an emergency radio and thankfully they came before the power went out too! I felt very old-timey listening to my radio while drawing before bed yesterday. Unfortunately though I slept like absolute shit. I am used to having a lot of white noise in my apartment and it was too much to have everything be eerily silent. At some point in the night I ended up moving to the couch and opening my window a bit so I could fall asleep to the rain, and that ended up being a great choice for me lol. But yeah my power was out for a little over 12 hours. Luckily everything in my freezer stayed frozen. My fridge.. I haven't yet decided how much I'm going to throw away. I'll probably just toss the salad leftovers I had and then do the good ol sniff test on the rest of my food.

Congested

This part did not go so well. So firstly I found out that the new therapist I planned to see doesn't do EMDR via telehealth. I only found out because my current therapist did a transfer of care appointment and told me that she found that out when they were talking. It wasn't something that was brought up during my initial consultation with her, so I assumed it would be fine. Needless to say, I freaked the fuck out during my thearpy appointment. I feel kinda proud of myself though. My initial reaction when she told me was feeling this huge dropping feeling in my chest, but then I impulsively wanted to stay silent and not cry and not say anything. Then I remembered, shit I am in therapy right now! and I just... let myself cry and told her how scared I was. It was really interesting to notice my initial reaction in real time. I don't think I had ever really seen it that clearly before yesterday. Anyway, I sent my new therapist an email asking if it's possible she could do EMDR online. I told her I'm willing to be her guniea pig or wait until she does extra training if she wants, but that I just need to know it's a possibility. I sent it last night and she hasn't responded yet. So... here's to hoping that she actually is open to the possibility. I'm a bit skeptical but my current therapist was basically like, "I don't know why she wouldn't just do the training. It's an hour long and she can just do it on a Saturday since we have to do training anyway." I just really don't have the energy to go through finding an entirely new therapist again.

My doctor's appointment went well! Especially since my doctor actually listens to me, unlike my neurologist T_T I'm going to go off my propranolol and try taking riboflavin (vit b2) and CoQ10 for my migraines and see how that goes. Basically I've been congested for about a month now and it feels like it's getting worse. I've been getting a ton of sinus pain daily, and the only thing that really helps it is using a nasal decongestant spray, which I can't use every day. It's getting to the point where I have an almost constant pressure behind my eyes, I have periods where it feels like I can't even open my eyes all the way as if I'm squinting by looking at something really bright. And I also just feel high almost. It feels like I'm floating or like there's a cloud in my head when I walk. And it's tough because some of these symptoms are also vestibular migraine symptoms, so it's hard to discern what is contributing to what. But I found a reddit thread today on r/sinusitis that was talking about getting some DPDR symptoms because of it, so that's why I'm attributing those to this. Because while vestibular migraines also give me DPDR symptoms, these feel totally new. Anyway, congestion is a possible side effect of propranolol, though it doesn't seem common? I found a couple of anecdotal posts of people saying that propranolol made them more sensitive to allergies, or made them more congested, and it also coincides with me starting to take it every day. So yeah! I guess I have to wean off propranolol so I am going to take half my current dose for a week before I stop.

Anyway... There are even mores stressors and things to talk about but I guess I'll leave it there for now. If I have more to say later I suppose I'll just update this post. If I don't... well, I'm sure I'll write again! lol.

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November 17, 2024 ;

The longest day on earth

I usually spend Saturdays with my best friend, but he went and visited Las Vegas, so I had the entire day to myself. Time has been really weird for me lately, and a lot of days have felt twice as long. Which is both a good thing and also an aggravating thing sometimes. Yesterday felt much more neutral though, which I suppose is a good thing. Thinking about it, I think my days are also passing much slower than usual because I've deleted tiktok and instagram off my phone. It's pretty alarming thinking about just how addicted I was to tiktok. Every time I experience the smallest hint of boredom or wanting a distraction, I find myself automatically reaching for my phone to open tiktok.

I pretty much spent yesterday working on this website, catching up on new anime episodes, doing a few HTML and CSS lessons, playing World of Warcraft, reading, and watching tv. I'm actually pretty proud of myself! Not like I figured out the code for myself, but I found stuff on stack overflow that said how to do a box in the center of your page, so woo! The possibilities are endless!

World of Warcraft

I finally got my 20th anniversary mount! I guess all that I really have left to do is finish collecting the T2 armor sets that I want, as well as the corehound mount and the molten corgi. I'm not sure if there's anything else I want to bother getting. I'm actually in a WoW slump right now. I was doing so well at playing consistently, but lately I've just not felt the urge to play at all. I'm trying to pace myself and also trying not to force it. I don't want to get burnt out and quit for months at a time like usual.

Anime & Light Novels

I finally caught up in DAN DA DAN and what the fuck was episode 7? I cried like a baby. I really hope there's more of this in the future! It kinda reminded me of Demon Slayer a bit in that regard (I've only seen the first season of Demon Slayer though). Anyway, I was a bit skeptical that I would like this anime when I started watching. It felt a bit more action heavy than what I generally like, but I really liked the art and animation style, and idk. It just felt really unique and interesting. I'm glad I stuck with it!!

The last two episodes of 365 Days to the Wedding were kind of... aggravating. I hate waiting on characters to actually do something and it's just frustrating to watch characters who clearly like each other have miscommunication after miscommunication. I think there are times where it's done well, and where it's warranted. But here it just feels exhausting at times.

Negative Positive Angler is getting so cute! I really like seeing Sasaki slowly become more interested in fishing and become a little bit more hopeful about life. I'm really curious if he's going to tell Takaaki, or anyone else, about his health.

Expedition Cooking with the Enoch Royal Knights is going well! I almost put it down temporarily, but decided to just power through. I'm glad that I did because I really like this volume and now I'm almost done with it. I just checked Anilist, and apparently it's complete? Which makes me very sad. There are two more volumes apparently after this one, and ugh. I guess it's nice to have a shorter series out there instead of the mega long ones, but I'm really going to miss this series when it's finished.

Whatever the fuck my body is doing rn

Not sure what's wrong with my stupid body. I've been having some major sinus issues for the past couple weeks. I still mask everywhere I go so I don't think it's covid? I also just have some days where it's totally fine, and then other days like yesterday and today where my head feels so fucking congested and I can feel my sinuses being shitty. In my desperation a couple weeks ago, I found this very useful youtube video on how to drain your sinuses. It works great! I mean it's not necessarily solving my issues, but it really helps sometimes. Anyway, I'm not sure what else I can do other than sit in front of a humidifier all day, take allergy medication, and whatever else. I vacuumed my apartment yesterday and probably should clean my bathroom and dust a bit. I think I might need to be more aggressive with dusting and vacuuming more often? Theoretically that should help me, lol. I'm fairly convinced that a lot of my sinus issues are just my dust allergies getting worse and worse, and probably also the weather changes?

Website stuff

You know, after writing all that about the different anime and light novels I'm reading... I think I might make a separate page with thoughts and stuff about them? I just have to decide how I'm going to divide it up. I could just chuck all reading related things under book reports, but idk that doesn't feel as fun? I could also just have an anime/manga/light novel section? I'm not sure. I'm also not even sure how I want to write about everything - do I only want to write about things when I'm completely finished with them and give my thoughts? or do i want to write about them as I go? I think for anime, manga, and light novels, it'll probably be a mix of both. For books I probably will just stick with doing it all at once when I'm finished, with some exceptions. I guess I do want the option to do both though. Hmm. I'm going to have to think about how I want this laid out lol.

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November 14, 2024 ;

Why is everything so heavy?

These days I'm so overwhelmingly tired, no matter how much sleep I get. Sometimes it feels like it's hard to physically keep my eyes open. I can only assume it's because of *gestures at everything.*

To be honest, I'm not sure why I'm writing. I don't feel like anything substantial happened between yesterday and today. No new groundbreaking thoughts. I finished my first two zines though, so that was exciting. The first issue of Unmaking was... raw. I still don't feel like I conveyed what I was trying to convey, but I think I came close. It has to do with CSA and my father.

I don't know. I was so confident in my abilities a few days ago. I kept thinking, "yeah! a zine is supposed to be ugly! so I can make ugly art and not worry about it looking polished and it'll still be okay!" But I think I've found that because it feels like such a representation of me, I find myself agonizing over details and worrying about how it'll be perceived. Will people understand this? What if they don't like it? What if what I'm making is actually ~bad~? Instead of just... making, and sharing pieces of me with other people even if those pieces are ugly. Because there are pieces of me that are ugly, and that's normal.

So where does that leave me? I'm not sure. I am feeling awful today. Just tired and beat down and maybe a bit emotionally raw. Maybe part of it just from politics. But probably also because I allowed myself to sit in my trauma yesterday to make that zine.

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November 13, 2024 ;

Would I run off the world someday?

I finally managed to cry yesterday, thanks to Nina the Starry Bride. I've been watching the anime and the last episode ended on a cliffhanger, so I decided to finally read the manga. It's wonderful! I'm definitely a huge fan of Sett. There's something about the loneliness in the manga, the yearning to be saved, the heartache, feeling like your existence hurts people and wanting to distance yourself from everyone, while also desperately wanting someone to fight for you and love you... I couldn't help but cry. And I feel like it broke through the dam I had been building since the election, and now the tears have been flowing freely and it's felt so liberating again. I just want to cry away all the stress and anxiety. My tears are the most welcome and comforting thing to me. They prove to me that I'm feeling something, that something has moved me emotionally, that I am alive.

I made the mistake of watching a video last night of T man talking about upending the entire higher education system, and it terrified me. I work at a public university in a blue state, and I became so fearful that he would change things so much that there would be layoffs and I could lose my job. But! So the dean of my department sent out an email last week, detailing his fears and anxieties after the election. It was so vulnerable that it inspired me to share with him some of my fears too. I also asked him about the validity of my anxiety - would there be mass layoffs since T man vowed to go after higher ed? And my dean assuaged my fears so much that I just started crying out of relief.

So, I guess we'll see how things go. In another bout of depressing news, my boss is probably going to retire next year. I don't know what that means for me. I feel like my future at my department will heavily depend on what kind of supervisor I end up with.

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November 11, 2024 ;

post-election dread & hope

The Dread

I've been feeling quite numb since election day. I occasionally get hints of how horrible I'm feeling. They creep up in different ways. Feeling inexplicably sleepy. Getting dizzy more often. Not crying at all over things that would normally make me sob. Experiencing more moments of derealization when I go on walks. I have therapy tomorrow so I hope that telling my therapist gets some tears out. I hope there are some targets we can use for EMDR. Not that I want to erase the anxiety completely, because I think it's 100% justified. But because I just can't keep going on like this.

The Hope

I'm feeling consumed by my zine and website obsession, in the best possible way. I'm also using this as an excuse to learn more HTML and actually learn CSS. I resurrected my very old codecademy account so I can learn with some structure. I of course learned the basics of HTML back in the myspace days. I loved editing my page and getting everything just right, only to decide that I wanted an entirely new format and colors and change it all over again. I think it'll be a lot of fun to do that here too. I feel like I'm already learning a bunch. It's nice to have a sort of "real world" application to the things I wanat to learn. I feel like that makes it stick in my mind better.

I also just have so many ideas for zines I want to make. I want to incorporate all the things! Art! Diary entries! Book reviews! Random silly thoughts! How to guides for random things that I know how to do! Diary entries! Experiences and feelings! There is so much that I can do and I'm very excited.

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