We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

One of my few superstitions is that I don't want to talk about anything good until it has already happened, in case I jinx it, but today was my first day at work and everything is good, so I think I can say: DW, I have a job! A full time job! With benefits! Yay!

Apart from that, I have been liveblogging and writing various meta about Dimension 20: The Ravening War on Tumblr: Calorum, Amangeaux, Karna

I also wrote a poem which contains massive spoilers for A Court of Fey and Flowers.

I was going to post a link to quilt pictures here and then I thought I should post pictures of the other quilts I've done and then I realized I didn't really have any good pictures of them and then it was two months later.

So here are pictures of a quilt I finished in March! (Tumblr) (Twitter)

And here are some of the other things I did in the past two months that didn't make it here:

Learned more programming

A bunch of unrelated thoughts about The Old Guard on Tumblr: one, two, three

Listened to some French podcasts

Signed up for my local city councillor's mailing list, which I recommend if you are that kind of person and have a decent city councillor

Had meta-thoughts on omegaverse (Tumblr) (Twitter)

Provided a blood sample for the Ontario Health Study's COVID antibody study (Tumblr) (Twitter)

Was moderately snide about "accessible design" by non-disabled people (Tumblr) (Twitter)

So james was commenting that they weren't doing any New Year's post things because it didn't actually feel like a change to them, because they didn't get a break or any time off after Christmas. This year, despite having much less Christmas than usual (usually I have four or five Christmases) I have much more of a break than usual, as I'm under mandatory quarantine until the 11th (not a cause for concern, everyone's healthy so far). Which is also the first day of online classes, the schedule having been delayed a week.

So I could use this time for ... I don't know, something, but on the other hand lots of empty time does not in fact lend itself to productivity. I have now done most of my standard New Year's bookkeeping - end-of-month budget file, end-of-term things, shifting work schedules, book list statistics. I'm just thinking that I could use this time for snowflake_challenge or something.

I love you all, and I enjoy having online friendships, but in my head they need a level of continued interaction to remain "active" that I don't usually have the energy for unless I have basically no other social outlet.

So I will go read the snowflake_challenge guidelines and then think about it while I go walk around the backyard, that being the maximum exercise I am permitted at this time. (I am enormously grateful for the privilege of having a backyard right now, I have to say.)

So.

My college is switching to online classes, except they haven't done this before in the middle of a semester and also half of my classes have really important lab components which can't be done from home. They're saying the semester will end when scheduled; I kind of doubt that. They're supposed to have figured out how this works by Monday, and until then I get to review and be anxious.

All of my work's clients are cancelling their inventory counts, obviously. I am not seriously financially affected by this.

My 79-year-old father decided to fly to Texas last weekend. He's back now where we have free healthcare and my stepmother is in an AirBnB so that's resolved, ish, but wow, Monday night was not fun.

Unfortunately being stuck at home with my mother all day is not ideal for my mental health, but ... there's nowhere else to go and if there was I'd have to go on public transit. And it's still too cold to spend much time writing in parks. But I'm generally doing okay. Lots of knitting.

The problem with saying "use the time to write!" is that this is a major disruption of routine, with bonus anxiety, which does not actually lend itself to increased creativity. I don't have that much focus for reading, either, including my DW list, which come to think of it is probably a warning sign (so, now I know). There has nevertheless been some writing. Kate Bornstein is a treasure.

I am sort of doing more on twitter, but I would not really recommend going on twitter if you don't want ALL CURRENT EVENTS ALL THE TIME.

Recommendations for podcasts accepted, no horror or true crime, without frequent interviews or changing guests every episode. Basically I want to listen to a small fixed group of people talking about things they are interested in that will not give me nightmares. Examples are Jay and Miles XPlain the XMen, Lingthusiasm, and usually Sawbones.

Okay, Christmas was good in the "too busy to actually post about it" kind of way. Mostly because I had Pixies for two weeks and <3<3<3. I technically had time for a yearly wrap-up post on the first, but I would have had to do it on my phone, so no. I got in Saturday night and spent most of yesterday knitting and catching up on Dreamwidth, because the next while is going to be busy.

I start class tomorrow. I was not actually intending to start college in January. I was intending to start in May, and then they were like "you can still sign up for January!" and I was like "...okay." (Not doing Yuletide this year was a very good idea. Oof.) So that's happening. In a month or so I will have a better idea of how this is going to work and whether I will have any writing time.

(Also, I am keeping an eye on my spelling but I am rather drunk at the moment, because warehouse shift today. So.)

The problem with thinking about writing at work is that if I figure out how to finish a chapter I don't want to have to count another box of brand name hoodies, I want to go home and finish the chapter. Oh well.

In the last couple weeks I finished This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which is spectacular and amazing and omg, the language, omg. And also Proper English by K. J. Charles (normally I can't get into her books, but this one worked, so maybe they just start slow for me. Or maybe I like lesbians better.) (also breathedout if you ever feel the need for a light romance/murder mystery, this one is set at a hilariously terrible house party and I feel you will appreciate that) and Hither Page by Cat Sebastian, who I usually mostly like and did here as well. I am all for this thing where queer romance authors are doing Agatha Christie, that is great and can keep going forever.

Who knows if I will have reading time in the near future, but I do have You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane, which looks good.

What else? I have a new piercing (because the one Pixies got me several years ago grew into the one next to it, so I needed to get it redone), yay new piercing!

Onwards!

After a working a full time week from Thursday to Monday, I have now caught up with my reading page up to yesterday. They told us December would be really quiet and now they keep giving me last-minute shifts.

But I had the last two days off and Knumpify is back from Mexico and I have seen him. I have also applied for college.

Title: So Foul and Fair a Day
Rating: T
Universe: Marvel
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes, Steve's around here somewhere
Summary: Badly injured on a mission, Clint is rescued by the local laird. But other people are looking for him, and Clint isn’t the only one with secrets.
Warnings/Enticements: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Concussions, Secrets, Spies, Canon-Typical Violent Backstories
Word Count: Probably over 7000
Author's Note: For mandatoryfunday two months ago.

On AO3

So my medium-term plan is to go to college to become an electrical technician (we're calling this Project Tesla). In order to do this I need to take grade 12 math, since I skipped it the first time round because it was optional and I was really into literature and also for reasons we won't go into I missed a lot of junior high math so I didn't have the necessary background to do well in math in high school.

I started doing that in an online course last week. I was worried about this because I do not trust my ability to self-motivate, but so far I've done at least an hour of math every single day for over a week now.

And earlier today I had a lot of free-floating anxiety and then I went, "Okay, I'm going to do my math homework." And I did. And then I felt better.

It's reasonable: I focused on something specific with no emotions attached for a fixed length of time--but it's so far from what I expect of myself.

And Mom's in Italy right now and I have been calmly cooking and doing the laundry and picking up the mail and so on. While working and also seeing people. For that matter, I have a medium-term life plan right now.

It's not perfect--the next two weeks are going to be busy and work keeps changing my schedule on me and it's concerning. But I can look at the pros and cons of, say, going to the climate protest tomorrow morning, and be reasonably confident in what effect it will have on me and that I can deal with that effect.

This is because I am properly medicated and had useful therapy earlier this year. But it's so weird.

So consultingpiskies and I have been having financial/employment difficulties and we are moving. She is going back to her parents' and I am going back to my mother's in Toronto. (We are not breaking up, as I have had to explain to all of my relatives (though none of hers). My god the relationship escalator model is pervasive.)

This is not ideal. But I will be in Toronto and in a generally more comfortable milieu.

I am also planning on going to college to study electronics next year, for which I would have moved back to Ontario anyway, so. (Obviously my background level of stress is pretty high at the moment, so I am not really capable of summoning tonal enthusiasm even though I am actually looking forward to that.)

So much packing.

Jean Claude is coming to Toronto with me and we have put his collar on him so he gets used to it, and he is jingling disgruntledly around the apartment.