spindizzy | Entries tagged with rl: panic! at the pandemic

It's the first real exam season back at work since the covid restrictions were lifted, and it's A Lot. This time last year, we could have a maximum of maybe 300 people in the building; today we hit 1500 people before I left, most of whom weren't masked. And all of the exams are in the last two weeks of May, so the students are STRESSED. And some of them are in person, so yay for spreader events! *flaming elmo gif intensifies*

The midday crowd is basically the "Mufasa looking for Simba in the stampede" scene from Lion King on an hour-long loop at the best of times. Normally I'd avoid the rush by doing fiddly admin shit that no one but me likes, but Best Manager has gently suggested that we need to be a ~visible presence~ in the library this month. So, I'm doing my actual job! No hiding under the furniture and hissing for me! I'm trying to look at is as character development. No one tell me that isn't how character development works, I want to show willing as best I can so that if I DO need to go and hiss under the furniture, I've got proof that I tried!

... What I'm saying is that I've basically spent this week playing nu:carnival and Pokémon Shining Pearl, and reading the most brainless f/f manga I can find. ASK ME ANYTHING.

LexGarrett and I both had our first covid jabs! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! It ended up shaking out that Lex got his before I got mine, despite getting his text about it after I did, but mine was through the doctor's surgery and his was a general NHS one. I had the Pfizer one, and the main thing I noticed afterwards was that my arm ached when I raised it until like Saturday. I think it was intramuscular? So it makes sense. MORE IMPORTANTLY THOUGH: I got a sticker!

sithe and I watched a movie called Agency of Vengeance: Darkness Rising, and I think it was meant to be a parody? Or at least it makes more sense if it's a deliberately bad parody than it does if it's an actual movie that involves at least three fights where the female characters are in lingerie and chains.

APPARENTLY what it takes for me to be able to do things is starting them in the morning when I still have action points. Inconvenient.

I have a new mindless project at work, because they need people to reformat all of the reading lists! I've had my first session and it seems to be straightforward so far, which is INCREDIBLY suspicious. As far as I can tell, they're using two versions of the same software, but they only want to do the maintenance for one, so mindless busy-work for meeeeeeeeeeeee. ... Plus, I now have access to a shitload of course materials on moodle, and all my brain is doing is playing the anti-piracy ads like "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL AN EDUCATION."

The Second Grand Unfuckening is still ongoing. There are still books everywhere while I get things wrapped to send out, but once that's done, I should have enough space to actually start moving my crafting supplies out of the living room and into the bedroom!

... I might need to smuggle a couple of the boxes into work to weigh them on the post scales here, because I'm not sure how I'm going to balance them on my bitty kitchen scales.

(I have a piles of like four parcels that just need taping closed and stamping. That's it. Come on executive function, work with me here.)

Listen, I'm not saying that the building where the architecture and engineering departments are based is the worst building on campus to make your way around. I AM saying that I'd rather pay someone to print out patterns in A0 size and post them to me than figure out that maze AND whether I can do enough light fraud to actually print off all of these patterns. ... Also that's apparently just a thing! That you can do! No trekking out to a print-shop required! The one I tried out is Netprinter, and it is expensive but honestly worth it to not have to tape a shitload of A4 pieces of paper together.

Current work drama: one of the managers noticed that someone had started disassembling one of the customer bathrooms on... Saturday? And it is still in pieces today. And Estates haven't mentioned that they're coming out to do anything with the bathrooms, so... Whose tools are these and why are there doors and sinks disconnected from the wall?

On the brain weasel front... You know the scene in Inside Out where Joy is flopping around on the floor pretending to be Sadness? That's basically the stage I'm at! I feel better enough that when the depression kicks off I can do the "mentally repeating everything it says in a silly voice while swooning melodramatically" and make myself laugh! But the depression is still kicking off, so fuck me I guess.

... I'm being unfair. We had ACTUAL SUN recently, and oh god I could feel myself powering up! It was amazing! Unfortunately, I live in England, so there was maybe three days of being amazing and now we've hit our sunlight cap until April.

Somehow managed to misplace every single headphone wire I own, which is slightly hampering my attempts to finish Hades. It's INCREDIBLY Misplacer Beast; I know I definitely had them at the bottom of the stairs, but I didn't have them when I got to the top. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Going to do surgery on one of my bras, because I've snapped one of the underwires while stretching, but I might be able to buy a replacement if the actual size number of the wire hasn't worn off! ... Listen, it was one of the most comfortable bras I've owned. I could NAP while wearing that bra. And I don't want to do the "order -> check what bastard sizing this manufacturer is doing -> return" dance in a pandemic. Surgery it is!

THEORETICALLY, Kobo is going to be giving out the points per book read in February things tomorrow, so I am keeping an impatient eye on my inbox. GIVE ME MY FUTURE BOOKS, KOBO, I AM READY. ... Okay, I'm not ready, I haven't figured out what I'm spending them on because I don't understand the points to pounds conversion rate, but I still want to be validated.

I've started knitting a blanket and oh god I forgot how quickly super chunky wool knits up. *__* I'm using a Lion Brand "I wanna make a blankie" ball, so it's 800g of yarn in one enormous package.

Okay, I need to hang out laundry and work myself down this scale of overstimulated so that I can actually sleep. No bad decisions book club today! I'm determined!

Narrator voice: She lied, like a liar.

You know there's good news on the horizon when your manager says that if there's a walkout, they're in.

By which I mean Management's Management have decided that we need to reopen spaces for more students. Management have spent this week stonewalling them, refusing, and having very angry meetings with all of the higher levels of library management, aaaaaaaaaand they lost. We're opening up capacity for another 87 students, raising our total to 263. Their argument is that there's demand, and this is still a tiny fraction of how many spaces we COULD open – our max capacity before the quarantimes was was 1616. Our argument is that they told us they were dropping the capacity for the sake of staff comfort and anxiety levels, and that was clearly a right fucking lie!

Management's Management sent an email that contained the line "I recognise than an increase in study spaces may cause some anxiety, and I would like to reassure you that the health and safety measures that we have in place do enable us to work safely" and just. YOU WORK FROM HOME. YOUR OPINION IS MEANINGLESS.

... I wonder what happens if we just say no.

First one next Thursday, second one in May, and holy crap I got the text and sobbed hysterically at work. I don't know what I was feeling, but it did all come out through my tear ducts! But I booked it, it's there, I had a panic because I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to slope out of work to head to the appointment but management said yes, fuck it, getting vaccinated is the priority.

(My line manager also told me to be careful who I told, because some of the older staff would be salty. But I let it slip to the coworker I thought would be annoyed, and she was delighted for me! And the coworker who I thought wouldn't give a fuck seemed frustrated because she's nearly retirement age and still hasn't had an appointment.

Her: How old are you?
Me: 31, but I am also fat and crazy.

I don't know if this is specifically why my doctor asked me to go and get my BMI recorded, but thank fuck he did.)

So yeah, I have a date! It doesn't feel real!

Hey lovelies! Today is still not the day I remember how to post in anything but bullet points, so here we go.

My mum has her appointment for the covid vaccine! She's not happy about it, but she's promised that she's going and I will take that.
For valentine's day Lex got me adorable Umbreon and Espeon plushies, and I love them! I just haven't come up with a good name for either of them yet. I got LexGarrett snacks, which included dark chocolate mini-eggs with peanut butter in! ... 100% cocoa dark chocolate... With unsweetened peanut butter. I have been reliably informed that these Did Not taste good, whoops.
I had the "brilliant" idea of rearranging our bedroom. Pro: all of the stuff that I dumped on the floor to deal with later are now between me and the bed so I HAVE to deal with them! Con: ... all of the stuff that I dumped on the floor to deal with later are now between me and the bed so I have to deal with them.
- Right now, my current mission is to go through my books and get rid of the ones that I don't want, and LexGarrett is doing the same with his. I don't know if this will meaningfully affect the level of clutter in our room, but it's probably a good start.
- Does anyone have any recommendations for places to sell manga and/or floppies? I've used Ziffit before, but it doesn't do that well with manga. I know rationally that the 10p is a bonus and the actual reward is having space in my room again, but... What if I could have both...? My only other idea is seeing if anyone still uses BookMooch, but that requires a little more executive function than I usually have.
- Also, like, if anyone wants me to send them a rough list of what's going so they can call dibs, lemme know. Y'all know the kind of stuff that's likely to be in this pile.
- I want, irrationally, those cube bookcases that you can get from Ikea, the ones you can put shelf-dividers or cupboard doors in. I just think they'd be great for storing Lex's 40k minis, okay, and I could have little boxes for my crafting things to live in and it would all be very cute. >_> I'm 97% sure we don't have space for another shelving unit! AND YET I YEARN.
- ... Where the fuck do I put the rockets so I don't break them. Um.
- In theory, part of this rearranging is going to be making a little crafting nest in mine and Lex's bedroom. Hopefully, it'll make life easier for the entire household, because more of my mess will be contained in one place! Instead of haphazardly scattered across the living room because as soon as something leaves my field of vision it ceases to exist, I mean. But this might ALSO mean that I can snoop at ways that people have stored their patterns and crafting bits for inspiration! Fun AND dangerous, the best kind of snooping!
- Speaking of fun, the pull cord for the light in the bathroom has broken in such a way that we've managed to turn the light ON, but we can't turn it OFF. I think this might be the first issue we've had with the house that hasn't been because the people who had this house before us were muppets who weren't as good at DIY as they thought, I'm impressed!
Excuse me a minute, I don't know what my housemate is cooking, but the air is chilli oil, what the fuck.
Right, ANYWAY. Realised last week that I seem to have a meltdown this time of year every year, and that I have a dreamwidth, I can fucking check. Lo and behold, every year: some variation of "I'm sorry I'm flaking on everyone," "the new year has kicked my legs out from under me," "everything is terrible but I'll be okay!" ... What I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure that this is seasonal depression teaming up with my regular mental health bullshit, which I never looked into further because mental health bullshit takes up a lot of bandwidth. But I'm taking a bunch of vitamin D supplements and Lex has bought me a SAD lamp, and I've got a doctor's appointment in a fortnight, so doing what I can. Just... Equally annoyed by and laughing at this? "There is a reason why everything feels impossible, it's my brain, good talk."
(I AM FINE.)
Don't know if I mentioned, but coworker did not have covid! Or at least she's back at work, so if she DOES have covid then we have bigger problems.
I want to start playing Final Fantasy games again, and I don't know... Where to start...? I've been doing most of my gaming on the switch right now, which means that I have access to FFVII-X, XII, and XV (pocket edition), but I kinda want to play FFI and just dunk myself in nostalgia and cooing over elves and mermaids. Hmmmmmm.

So yeah, everything is fine and moving along, I have a very cool bruise on my toe where I dropped a stack of books on it, I am trying this "going to bed before 23:00" thing people keep recommending to me, wish me luck!

I don't have covid! Asymptomatic test came back negative, so I'll take it. Haven't heard anything about the coworker who had a positive results, but I'm hoping she's okay!

Scuttlebutt is that Terrible Manager has covid and went into work while symptomatic, which would explain the very passive-aggressive all-staff emails we got about NOT DOING THAT a couple of weeks ago.

Work have set up a process for staff to collect and drop off tests in the building... But are banning the cleaners from using it. Because – and I quote – "they'll take twenty of them and share them with the rest of the cleaners." I DON'T SEE A PROBLEM HERE. I DEFINITELY WOULD BE OKAY WITH MORE PEOPLE GETTING TESTED. LINE MANAGER, WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.

This week's massive fidget has been untangling all of my sashiko threads, because I went "I will definitely remember to untangle these before they completely knot together!" while throwing them into a box, and also sit on a throne of lies. I've only had to cut through like four gordion knots, it's fine!

Started tidying my room, and strongly considering moving house as an alternative. But at least I've accepted that I'll never be able to vacuum the whole floor at once! So my revised goal is to be able to clear big enough spaces that I can vacuum a bit and just shuffle the piles of crap around the room so that I can vacuum bits of it at a time. The theoretical goal is to rearrange the furniture so that I stop automatically dumping everything on the bed as soon as I walk through the door, but as there's technically more stuff in this room than it can actually hold, moving the furniture might turn into a logic puzzle. =_=

(I drew DIAGRAMS for how I was going to have to lay out the furniture to get things to fit logically. That's how bad it got.)

I bought a pattern for a cute and fancy skirt, and for my fucking sins it's forty pages of A4 that need taping together. I do not live in a house with space for forty sheets of A4 to be laid out together, so I might be taking this into work and assembling it there on my break.

Progress of sewing adventures: spent most of this week window shopping for cheap fabric that I can use for muslins. I'm considering just grabbing cheap duvets from the supermarket, because that's a decent amount of fabric for like four quid? And also letting my heart beat for notions and cute labels that I can sew onto things, because I'm that flavour of nerd. ... But seriously FORTY PAGES.

Pretty sure I need to fuck about with my sleep cycle some more, because I'm far enough off a routine and good amount of sleep that my meds aren't compensating for it. It's fine! I know what will solve the problem, I just need to convince myself to stop doing the thing where I go "But I can't sleep because I haven't done x," where x is a task that would be MUCH easier after I've had some sleep. ... ONE DAY I will actually learn all of these lessons and have it stick, just not this day!

Although, soothing activity suggestion: KonMari-ing my Kobo library. If I looked at an ebook cover and couldn't remember what it was about or think of a reason to read it, I just... Archived the book. Suddenly my library is manageable, this is very suspicious and I wish it was that easy with my physical collection.

... No but seriously what the fuck do I do with smutty manga that I can't sell to Ziffit. I used to dump it on one of my old housemates, but it's the apocalypse and I can't exactly message her out of the blue like "Hey I know we don't talk anymore because I can't be doing with your husband, but do you want some free smut?"

Had an ECG, can confirm that I have a heart and it appears to be doing recognisable things! I am not the tin man, good job me.

Plans for the rest of the evening: aggressively sticker the shit out of my diary, try not to panic, be all wrapped up and ready for bed by 22:30. Good night!

Hey sweetpeas! I accidentally took a nap and 4tw deleted the post I was originally writing, so here is a somewhat scattered update!

This is your reminder that you can just unsubscribe from the mailing lists that you're not reading instead of deleting them and being surprised when another one shows up. I'M JUST SAYING. IN CASE ANYONE NEEDS THAT. DEFINITELY NOT BECAUSE MY SOOTHING ACTIVITY TODAY HAS BEEN UNSUBSCRIBING AND MASS DELETING EMAILS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Work: Highest Management did come and visit us like they said they would! And they also held a town hall where they theoretically answered our questions! But so far that has looked like telling us that there is no number of cases/deaths that will make them close libraries (someone asked), and that the university is putting a lot of importance on blended learning and keeping services open so that they don't have to refund any more accomodation fees. Sure do feel valued!

Had a first aid training course yesterday that I was a bit nervous about, but it was great because there was NO PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH OTHER PEOPLE. Yes, perfect, just what I always wanted. The guy running the session was very... Energetic? Lots of actions and jumping about, which works for me because I learned first aid in brownies/guides and lots of actions is just taking me back to my roots.

APPARENTLY the reason why I've been spacey and unmotivated is chronic sleep deprivation! *shocked pikachu face* I am reluctantly solving this by napping, sometimes even intentionally, but I very much look forward to not getting out of bed before 6am anymore.

New stickers have arrived! Currently using the dot stickers to mark 444 words, because it's the amount I need to complete my 4tw streak, and the social media icons for responding to stuff on each platform. Replying to comments also gets me a sticker, so I apologise to everyone who's gonna get a shit ton of replies in the future.

(The shop that I got them from takes requests for social media icons, and I'm VERY tempted to ask for tiny Dreamwidth icons, but I might possibly be the only person who would buy them. Do I make the request anyway, on the grounds that I will buy a shit ton of them? And if so, should I wait until she's made the Discord, Slack, and WhatsApp stickers from the last time I asked?)

So I have some hand-embroidery left to do for for belated xmas presents, and sithe very sensibly suggested it might go easier if I got an embroidery hoop. But I'm embroidering on fleece, so the obvious solution is getting a quilting hoop! Because those are DESIGNED to take chunky fabric! ... Guess who didn't actually parse the size of this hoop into meaningful numbers and now has a twelve inch quilting hoop to help me with three specific projects. WHOOPS.

My brain has looped back around to "But what if I make clothes for my me!" and this is a dangerous road. I'm trying to fend off the urge to learn how to make underwired bras by looking up other people failing at it, and my heart is still whispering that it's just following instructions! Following instructions is fine, I can do that! NO, THIS IS A VERY FIDDLY SKILL THAT REQUIRES SEWING WITH VERY SMALL SEAM ALLOWANCES, STOP THAT. But it turns out that the idea of BEING PERCEIVED while making things for myself is mortifying? Even though I know that LexGarrett and sithe don't care? Fun with being fat, yay!

Verrrrrrrry slooooooooowly going through my book stacks and getting rid of ones I don't want, because Ziffit have lowered their weight limit for free collections. ... And then of course Page 45 sent me three new manga volumes. Whoops.

Sneaking suspicion that I'm falling back into the bad habit of "I can't go to bed, I haven't done [thing I don't have the energy to do because I'm not going to bed]" so I guess I'm gonna have to try this going to bed early malarkey. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! BUT I hope that everyone is okay, and US friends all stay safe tomorrow. <3

Okay, I have finally sent my INCREDIBLY long complaint email to work, after rewriting it about eighteen times, so I can come back and complain about work!

WE ARE STILL OPEN AND THERE ARE NO PLANS TO REDUCE OUR LEVEL OF SERVICE.

( Read more... )

The thing that I'm churning over is what counts as a library service. If you asked me, I'd say that we haven't provided a library service since we reopened – we've been open as a space, but specifically restricted from functioning as a service. Most of our job right now is queue management and asking people to put their masks back on, and we're specifically advised not to answer in-person enquiries. Highest Management wants us to prioritise being a space for the students to study in! Neither of us are particularly wrong in general, but in this apocalypse I think I'm a little more right.

I did bitch to my doctor about this because he is a very kind soul, and he's actually gone "Oh, that all sounds like reasonable things to be anxious about" and I genuinely had a record scratch moment of "Wait, really?!"

So yeah, that's the current situation at work. I am very tired, but I'm coping! Current plan is "See if I can get my writing sorted out" followed by "Maybe reach out to the people who have offered me work before" so that I'm not panicking if this does end in redundancies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hey, so, I am underslept and thus overly emotional, because brute forcing your sleep cycle has Consequences, but apparently university libraries come under a lockdown loophole because we're "educational support" so we have to stay open! I have written two draft emails and a draft of an entirely different post trying to work out my feelings, and the closest I've got is "This is bullshit." Management's Management want us to stay open so that the students can have study spaces, this sounds to me like unnecessarily endangering staff for the sake of access to chairs and wifi, you see why there were two draft emails and no real emails sent.

And I'm fine – spleen has vented like it's the Imposter! I'm just frustrated and there's no where I can put that frustration that can actually make a change. I've asked my managers if I can chat with them tomorrow about this email from their manager and the bullshit it contains! I am considering whether I can revise my second draft email in such a way that I can send it to the university chancellor and not get fired! I have eaten crumpets, because crumpets are delicious! I just... Don't want to resent my job or the customers. And I genuinely feel like that's a hazard right now.

ANYWAY, sleep deprivation and the anxiety disorder to one side, I have a review to finish! And then I have to make decisions about whether I really want to keep the phrase "all of the characters have invisible vulvas, presumably as the distaff counterpart to invisible cocks" in a review for a site archived by the Library of Congress. See you tomorrow, everything is fine, don't let me forget to show off my Story Engine box that arrived in the post today. ♥

Ey up loves! <3 I go back to work tomorrow, which is going to be... Interesting? Like. I have completely failed at unfucking my sleep cycle, so I'll be brute forcing it for a few days, and also: the pandemic is ongoing!

( Read more... )

So yeah, I'm planning to just... Sleep through all of next week, fair warning. Until then though: music!

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Annie Lennox — OKAY I KNOW THE SEASON HAS PASSED but I remembered Annie Lennox being a minstrel-leader and I had to.

Ode to Joy flashmob by the Orquestra Simfònica Del Vallès — Twitter reminded me that my favourite flashmob is still online, so if you want to watch people slowly realising that there an entire orchestra hidden in an alleyway, this is a good one! (the Carol of the Bells one loses out because if someone had tried that at my uni while they were prepping for exams, there would be a murder, and the airport one that t-mobile did loses because it's an advert and involves audience participation. ... But also it fucking makes me cry, which is just rude.)

Wolf Totem by The HU — Apparently there are just like five official videos for this song, and I kinda love this one because it just looks like your biker gang uncles heard someone was talking shit.

Pure Morning by Placebo — I don't know what set off this nostalgia bomb, but HERE I AM.

In semi-related news, DRAMAtical Murder is getting an official English release, so god help me when that comes out. But also now I need to find that one specific techno mind-control song from the soundtrack, because I have a craving.

Hey sweetpeas! I have actually slept, hurray! (And then got up, stayed awake for like an hour, and dozed off on Lex's shoulder while he was playing Stellaris. Adulting!) We survived Christmas Without The Family, and it was pretty nice????

MVP goes to sithe, who cooked this amazing beercan chicken with oyster sauce? And this brownie recipe that had to be started five days before you wanted to eat it, because it needed to spend best of a week in the fridge/freezer until it was done? It was all so good! Like, I don't know what he did to the carrots beyond "oyster sauce" but they were fantastic.

We watched so much Disney stuff as background noise. Seems appropriate! And sithe got new Red Dragon Inn characters, so we cracked that out for the first time in... Quarantime...? (Wrench the Kobold Inventor and Wizgille the Gnomish Tinkerer are BFFs and I refuse to be convinced otherwise.)

I made things for people! LexGarrett's mum got a squirrel, Favourite Nibling got some fabric letters because I'm pretty sure they're up to spelling now, and jilliferium got a constellation shark! The patterns for the stuffed animals came from FunkyFriendsFactory, although I don't know if I recommend them because some of the instructions were mystifying.

I only made one

(Yes I still have half-finished projects that I need to do, shush, it's the apocalypse.)

My present haul was SO GOOD. I got so many books! ... And just realised that I accidentally crossed my christmas twitter thread with my crafting twitter thread, oh no. ANYWAY, book haul! Mum got me The Dark Fantastic (Exploring race through fandom and blockbuster specfic canons), Georgian London: Into the Streets (Georgian history, useful for my romance reading ways???), Gentleman Jack (Because historical lesbians), and The Ghost Map (Uhhhhhhh it's about the 1850s cholera epidemic in London, clearly I thought this present through.)

Frustratingly, Kobo don't let you buy ebooks for other people (why???????), but does let you give giftcards, so I got to inform Lex that he succesfully gave me eight books! A Hope Divided (Black spies vs the confederacy), A Tropical Fish Yearns For Snow Vol 1 (Awkward schoolgirl lesbians), First Test (KELADRY!), Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san Vol 1 (Selling books is WILD), The Girl From the Well (HORROR GIRL), Wotakoi Vol 4 (nerds in love), and a couple of volumes of BL manga to take me back to my roots. :D :D :D
... Also got an ungodly amount of chocolate, because it's christmas and that's what you do!

LexGarrett got 40k rulebooks because that's what he wanted! Pretty sure they're the ones that he wanted, yay! And him and sithe got so much booze and non-chocolate snacks, because our friends love them. CONVENIENTLY(???) The People Who Had The House Before Us didn't install any insulattion or heating in the extension they built onto the house, so at this time of year it works pretty well an expanded fridge space, so we have don't have to worry about fitting it in the fridge.

I was expecting to feel weirder about not going to my mum's for christmas, because this is the first one I've been away from home for, but... I was fine? Like, possibly I got all of my overthinking it out of the way at the start of the month, but it was just... Nice? Got to cuddle Lex and open presents and have delicious food and read and play boardgames and not have to do any emotional work regarding my siblings, and... It was restful! It was very different, but in a good way! Apparently not seeing anyone is more peaceful than I thought. ALTHOUGH I've not called my mum yet, because I don't want her to tell me how many of my siblings broke lockdown restrictions to go and see her, so there is still time for sibling-induced headaches!

Oh no, Yuletide happened, didn't it? Do I dare go rooting around to see which of my fandoms actually got nominated AND had fic?

So... Yeah, it's been good! Quiet, but in a good way. And now I'm tentatively roughing out plans for next year, so I'll see you when I'm done! ♥

THIS WAS THE POST I WAS WRITING WHEN I HEARD THE NEWS ABOUT THE US ELECTIONS. LIKE. I WAS PASTING SOME LINKS IN AND THEN THERE WAS A NOTIFICATION SAYING THAT IT HAD BEEN CALLED.

Wolf Totem by The HU and Jacoby Shaddix — Okay, I am the person who went "Oh hey, a Mongolian metal band? I should DEFINITELY check that out!" and then forgot about it until youtube brought me a Fate AMV about Archer being sad. THIS IS WHO I AM, I CAN'T APOLOGISE BECAUSE I HAVE NO INTENTION OF CHANGING. But they are so fucking metal, and I am low-key in love with how deep their voices are, holy fuck.

She's Electric by Oasis — I think my family is still messier than the one in this song, and yet.

Worried About Ray by The Hoosiers — The 2020 mood: "Truth be told / the truth be told / I'm worried what the future holds / the future holds / I'm so tired / of being worried ~~/ about Ray~~"

Goddamn I'm Dead Again by Sum 41 — I've still not played Hades yet, but this is my understanding of the plot. (Also, I'm not saying that "It's off with his head, and on with the show / The old king is dead, gone in one fatal blow / And I don't believe he'll be coming back for more" joined my victory playlist at any point this weekend, BUT.)

Without Me by Eminem — sithe's current reality tv show is about up-and-coming british rappers competing for a contract, and there is one fucking white dude who is Sure There As Well and this is all I get every time he starts kvetching.

Prison Song by System of a Down — Do you ever think about how System of a Down have a song that is like 75% someone reading off statistics about the US prison system? (Also they're raising money for relief efforts in Armenia, if you missed it.)

What's Up Danger by Blackway and Black Caviar — Housemate put Into the Spiderverse on this afternoon, and how did I forget that this scene was perfect?

In other news, I read books today! Prose books! That I deliberately and specifically sat down to read! And promptly burst into tears over, because it has been so long since I read a book! I have been in a maybe-depression, maybe-insuffient sleep, maybe-whatever slump for... A while...? And all I've had the energy to do is read tropey Scum Villain fic for that delicious artificial burst of feeling. But no! I chose books that I'd been excited about at the start of lockdown and actually read them!

... I feel like me again. Between this and the week of slowly plunking away at writing again, I feel – I feel again! ;_______;

Mate I made the rookie fucking error of looking at twitter on my break and then had to spend the entire rest of my shift pretending I wasn't about to lose my fucking shit because there is no way to explain to your very nice middle-aged coworkers who aren't in fandom that somehow a bunch of us are finding out that Putin is resigning through fucking Destiel memes and it's relieving some of the inescapable tension of not knowing what the fuck is going on in politics! It felt like I was going through a Hyperbole and a Half Corn Kernel moment while being expected to poker face, and I just. I can't. 2020 is officially stranger than fiction.

(I don't even collect these Pokémon; I watched the first series of Supernatural and that's it! But something about this fucking speedrun of homophobic tropes combined with this apocalypse has just fucking destroyed me and I am weirdly almost grateful for it, because what the actual buggering fuck.)

... Oh and you remember I mentioned that the plant room at work had been TOTALLY DEFINITELY, 100% FIXED THIS TIME FOR REAL, but today we came into work and were informed that the plant room had somehow leaked all over the most manager-y manager's office again, but also done it in such a way that most of the plant room was bone dry. I give up! I tap! I can't even anymore!

Hello my darlings! I hope you're all okay! I'm fine, incredibly tired, but that's not new. Currently I'm proceeding as though it's just regular tired instead of depression tired, but we'll see how long that lasts!

Current state of the dayjob: the biggest drama at work is that we apparently can't convince the customers they need to keep their masks on while they're in the building. I think the most common reason seems to be that they think they're bubbled so it's fine, which... Is not how this works! If you were properly bubbled, we wouldn't be having this conversation! I ended up with a security guard gossiping at me yesterday though, and the scuttlebutt I got from that is that the uni has officially told security that they're not to try to disperse any gatherings themselves, they're just to call the police. The police, who fined students in Nottingham £40,000 for gathering in the last month. HUH. Also if we have to tell someone more than three times to keep their mask on, the student gets put through the disciplinary board for their school, AND potentially fined £250. THINGS I WAS NOT EXPECTING FROM THE UNI: THAT.

(I am torn between whether I think this is a good plan or whether I think this is the university deflecting responsibility onto the student body to excuse the university re-opening for in-person classes, etc. ... ASK ME ABOUT MY COMPLICATED FEELINGS RE: STUDENTS WHO NEED TO LEAVE THEIR ORIGINAL HOMES VS THE SAFETY OF THE PEOPLE WITH DUTY OF CARE RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THEM.)

I have started keeping a list of things I want to buy on Google Keep (like... Just straight pasting the links in whenever I see something I want) and I'm enjoying the way it temporarily solves my desire to spend money. Lists make the dopamine ping, and having it written down means that my brain doesn't have as much of a chance to hyperfixate on "WHAT IF I FORGET THAT I WANT TO BUY THIS THING?!" As that's what usually stops me following the advice of "wait twenty-four hours before you buy a thing so you can be sure you really want it," I'm cool with it!

... That said, I have bought myself new work shoes, because I'm very consistent in going on the Doc Martens website for cute shitkicker boots to wear with short skirts and coming back with ugly but practical shoes instead. orz

I love my mum, but I spent yesterday morning trying to explain how I love her but don't want her leaving Manchester (in Tier 3 lockdown) to come to Nottingham (about to be in tier 3 lockdown) just to deliver my birthday presents, because that is not a good plan.

Favourite Nibling somehow convinced jilliferium to video call me on Friday, so we could play hide-and-seek from different countries????? The future is weird, and hiding in cupboards via phone is fun.

I... Want to play Final Fantasy games. All of them. At the same time. I straight up do not have time to do that, but I want to anyway.

There's a genfic week for MXTX fandoms in November, and I don't think I've ever been targetted so specifically by a fandom challenge?

In positive brain news, I realised today that it's been over a year since the last time I did that thing where I worked so many shifts for so many days in a row that I just collapsed at the end of it!

Did I already tell you that I'm trying to get back into the habit of using a diary again? Because it turns out that I am still not magically able to remember to do things if I don't write them down? I've stripped everything back to basics to make it easier to take it to work with me, and it's been kinda fun to figure out which parts of my old system I actually miss. Like, turns out that the most important thing for me is having at least one mildliner with my diary for crossing things out! Because my brain doesn't process crossings out! Good to know.

I am going to capslock about my sewing adventures in a different post, but I sewed myself a notebook cover! If I'd been thinking, I would have put an interfacing layer in it so that it wasn't quite as wrinkled as it is, or at least assembled an underlayer of felt or something that I could sew all of my fabric bits to instead of running off prayer and insufficient pins. BUT it looks cool! And it was super easy apart from the insufficient pins thing! (It was basically layering various sizes of charm packs from Japan Crafts until I was happy, then sewing it all together. Oh! And not being able to find my ruler, so folding the spine pieces a bunch of times so that I had a grid to work out the diamond shapes on.)

I'm bringing Don't Be So Hard on Yourself back, even though this isn't a music post, because we need the reminder.

Hey sweetpeas! I live! I am very tired in my emotions, so my ability to do things and talk to people has just... Stopped? But I live! It was my birthday last week, I am officially an even older fandom auntie than I was! I had to go to work in the morning, but Lex baked me a birthday cake and bought me a copy of Promare! A+++ afternoon and evening, got to nest and cuddle. (Theoretically my mum is going to drop off my presents from the family over half-term, but there's a really high chance that Greater Manchester is going to be locked down by then, so... Mum no?)

I saw a thing going around twitter positing that people aren't getting the deadline stress that motivates them through their ADHD anymore because the apocalypse, which makes sense! Definitely matches how I've been experiencing it! I haven't written much of anything since July, probably between the apocalypse and basically lighting my entire diary structure on fire, so I've cracked out the 600 page notebook as the obvious solution. If nothing else, it'll give me an idea of scale!

But yeah, nothing much has really been going on for me! I made a bunch of tiny bag-of-rice handwarmers for people at work because the heating is broken and we have to stand outside for at least half an hour each day, and we found out that the reason the plant room in the (multi-million pound) (award-winning) (toured by architects for ?reasons?) library floods the back offices is literally just that the drain is in the highest part of the room and the doors are in the lowest! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And someone apparently left the automated "mark books as missing after sixty days" process running during lockdown, so I've been going through those! There is something incredibly satisfying about waiving off £400+ replacement fees, okay, it's great. Halls of residence being locked down on campus because of covid exposure: less great.

Apart from that, I've been playing Legend of the Phoenix and Arknights and reading a lot of dubious Scum Villain fic because apparently eight different smut/kink/??? challenges are going on this month. Hope you're all okay! ♥

GUESS WHICH DUMBASS REALISED THAT SHE'S NOT LOOKED AT HER DIARY ALL WEEK BECAUSE SHE 100% KNOWS WHAT SHE'S GOT GOING ON. I did not, that was 100% the ADHD demon whispering to me and I should not have listened.

Today has been a day of discovering incredibly soothing activities!
- butnotdegeneres recommended Picross Luna, which is a pastel witchy looking nonogram thing that has eaten hours of my day.
- I installed the kudosed/seen/unseen script for AO3 and it turns out that going through a fandom tag and clicking "skip" on anything in a language that I can't read or that's a crossover into something I don't care about is INCREDIBLY PEACEFUL. 10/10, would recommend, at least if you're like me and you only truck with small-ish fandoms. ... I just find clearly defined end points soothing! Being able to tick things off makes me happy!
- Twitter rolled out the scheduled posts thing for non-business accounts and I didn't notice! So now I can queue a shit-ton of links to cute soothing art and not a power in the verse can stop me.

Scum Villain's Self-Saving System has latched onto me, I was right right. ... Or I latched onto it, I guess, because my brain goes "Oooh, id fic that hits all of the delicious tropes? Yes, you may have happy chemicals for this." I am strongly considering reading the other (more sweary) translation, just to see if I can match up which bits of the fandom read which translation.

It's been disgustingly warm this week, even for me.

A group of us got together and had a socially-distanced picnic, and it was really nice! The anxiety was high, but my theory was "All involved parties have been as locked down as possible, and there's no way for any of us to isolate due to the house layout, so if one of us goes we might as well all go." We got to see our friends and gently roast each other and laugh at each other's quarantine haircuts! I nearly ate a wasp sandwich while looking for the wasp that had been harrassing Lex! I continue to be confused by the neurotypicals, because when I'm at home not interacting with people, I'm like "Yes, this is how life has always been," and when I'm sitting in a park with my friends I'm like "Yes, this is how life has always been," and basically what I'm saying is that I love my friends but also forget that I've not seen them in a while once I actually see them.

Monday marked... Twelve years since my dad died? I think? 2008-2020, what is maths. Didn't drink to him this year, but that's because treating my mental health issues, which I feel is a better tribute considering he didn't or couldn't.

I accidentally fell into a pit of fandom nostalgia this week and god I miss fandom newsletters. Like ff_press was GREAT and I loved it. It wouldn't work now, because fandoms are spread too far across the internet, but weirdly having a feed reader bring me AO3 updates for my fandom makes me feel more involved? I dunno, feelings are weird, nostalgia is weirder, I don't have object permanence and my memory's awful so nostalgia as a CONCEPT is fucking weird.

I really need to figure out a better solution for my keyboard and stuff. When I have access to my desk, it works great! Got my laptop on top of a box so there's space for me to use the desk as well, and it's probably better for me through ergonomics or something. But I don't have access to my desk 9-5, when I'm trying to do things, so... Not perfect yet. I'll think of something.

Good morning everyone! Hope you're all okay!

I'm APPALLED that I'm someone who gets things done as long as I get out of bed before 6:30. I thought I was free of that when I got furloughed! Why is this still a thing! ... Okay it's probably still a thing because if I get up before 6:30 I'm the only one rummaging around and my inner brownie can come out and let me do housework before anyone else is awake to see me. Today I cleaned the kitchen counters and the stovetop, and scrubbed all of the congealed fat out of the grill tray! And I took my meds, got dressed, and managed to play Animal Crossing and Pokémon Café Mix without being sucked in for hours! Is this an upswing?!

Watched the How to ADHD video about clutter and... I feel like this might have helpful stuff in! Clutter in motion and clutter in stasis certainly bears out with how I turn the entire house into a mess in five minutes flat. I don't know if I'm going to do the whole worksheet they link to, but I think the third step (looking at your clutter, breaking it down, and brainstorming ideas for how to fix it) would be really useful. ... Is skipping straight to the part that involves DOING THINGS instead of THINKING ABOUT THINGS an ADHD thing? Because I feel like that's an exceptionally ADHD thing to do.

I spent a fair chunk of Tuesday unpeeling most of the stickers I'd put in my diary and rearranging it from a day on two pages to a week on one page with notes. I know this is one of the reasons that I use stickers, but also... Brain. Why. Could we not have done literally anything else.

Please assume that I'm spending the entire week lurking creepily by front door waiting to ambush the postie because I... Apparently soothe my frustration about one online order not arriving by making MORE ORDERS. (LexGarrett is definitely not getting back into Warhammer as his quarantimes hobby. Definitely not. But I am absolutely getting jealous at his parcels arriving before mine.)

The advantage of this is that I had another crack at weeding the front yard, and I defeated most of the plants that were growing out into the street! Before I realised exactly how many weird bugs had been living in there and had to strategically retreat before I wigged out.

Utterly fucking bamboozled a couple of doorsteppers yesterday because they were like "Hi, we put a letter about [service] through your door a while ago —" and I immediately went "Oh good, because I tried to sign up for it and the website said you didn't serve my area! So I can sign up now, right?" Of all the reactions, they were expecting, I don't think that was one of them!

Have actually downloaded the Netgalley app and I'm slightly in love?
- IT DOES INFINITE SCROLL. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I EVER ASK OF EREADERS. I FOUND THAT OUT AND NEARLY HAD TO TELL LEX THAT I WAS LEAVING HIM FOR AN APP. Listen, if I want to turn pages I will read a hardcopy book. I have spent long enough reading fanfic that I expect digital text to just let me scroll!
- The only other app I have that does that is MoonReader, and it has EVERY SINGLE POINT OF THE SCREEN mapped to a function, okay, which is terrible for me and my constantly wiggling the screen up and down. Yes I've tried to turn them off, yes I have broken things by doing it.
- It only seems to give me the option to download books with actual DRM rather than social DRM, but apart from that it's doing what I want? It's INCREDIBLY bare-bones, but I am easily distracted and/or confused so that's a positive for me! And it also shows my progress in percentages AND page counts, which fewer ereader apps do than you'd think. Good work Netgalley, thank you for this meal.
- (Is it luring me back into reading by being a new shiny thing? IF IT WORKS I DON'T CARE.)

LOUNGE KITTENS RELEASED A LIVE ALBUM! I love how so much of the commentary is "Okay, we're doing our normal set list IN A CHURCH, it has Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo AND Gloryhole, we're definitely going to hell." ... Yes I found this while digging up a link for Gloryhole, Canada knows what it did.

I am playing a Very Enthusiastic 9'1" Minotaur barbarian in a 5th ed campaign (she is literally made of beef!), who tends to call upon her ancestor spirits like she's giving a pep talk at a sports event. This week her summoning call was "Hey ancestors, WE GET TO FIGHT A TREE AND THE SUN! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!"
- She is starting to get offended that people keep hiding next to the party's camp and then running away when she asks if they want to come sit by the fire and have a sandwich instead.
- The person hiding in the bushes this time was Definitely A Satyr, and his panicked excuse for hiding in the bushes was "I was just! Fastening my shoelaces!" which led to me asking very confused questions about whether fae sold shoes for people with hooves, and then being THOROUGHLY WEIRDED OUT by the concept of toes.

Current video game circuit is Animal Crossing, Pokémon Café Mix, and Paper Mario: The Origami King! I'm up to the fourth boss out of five in Paper Mario, which isn't bad going considering I only bought it a week ago today. ... But seriously please be my Switch friend so I can give you bells, I need to get rid of this turnip money. (Code: SW-7705-1297-3990)

Currently reading: Cinderella is Dead by Kaylinn Bayron — Queer YA fantasy romance that is basically "What if Cinderella was used as the model for a fantasy dystopia?" I've managed to guess every twist so far, but not in a frustrating way? Just in a "Cool, this is a walkthrough of misogyny-based dystopias and structural oppression, I can just let this wash over me" way. No I don't know why I can do that either, I assume because I'm still excited about people taking stories that have been done a lot and rubbing queer little mitts over them to make them ours.

I have a lap desk now! Lex is using my regular desk for work and painting minis, and I need space to lay out all of my stationery while I'm faffing with it, so this seemed like a good idea! It is absolutely going to get covered in paint and stickers, this is going to be great.

Apart from that... I've not really done much! Mostly been rolling around on the sofa playing on the Switch. Hope you're all okay!

I'm stargazing in Animal Crossing, so hi internet! Keep me company while I listen for the chimes.

Non-fannish stuff! ( Read more... )

Fannish stuff! ( Read more... )

Okay! Thank you for this company, I am heading to bed now. Good night sweetpeas, be well and be safe! <3

I've been having a dilemma with myself about whether or not to cancel my summer dentist appointment, because on the one hand: I am grinding my teeth at night because med side-effects are fun! And on the other hand, I am staying locked down as much as possible because that's better for my anxiety regardless of what the official guidelines are. But fortunately, procrastination has solved this dilemma, in that the dentist office phoned me and asked if I'd be okay to reschedule my appointment for September. Yes, thank you, I will take that, that sounds great. ... Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do about the whole teeth thing. I'm on muscle relaxants already (which I THINK is the only thing that lets me get to sleep at night), so the next step might be a mouthguard or something?

So my interests have cycled back around to stationery, which is simultaneously fun and dangerous. Currently it's manifesting in the form of stickers, which I'm okay with, at the point where it starts being "What if I buy shiny new notebooks that I've no plans for using?" I'm gonna start worrying. ... Also I've discovered that fine-nibbed paint pens are a thing and now I'm seriously considering throwing myself into an internet rabbit hole to see if they're a thing that I would actually use.

I know it's cycled back around because I have used up two (A6) notebooks already this month, and have got another six on the go. No really, I wish I was joking about that. I guess on the plus side, I'm actually using the older bits of kit I bought! I bought a leather traveller's notebook last year and never used it because filofax and also my brain has flagged up B6 as a non-standard size, but I figured that now was the perfect time to try out all of the weird stationery ideas I never used, because it's not like my diary needs to be able to leave the house right now. And I'm trying to burn through all of the sticker sheets that I didn't get around to using, so this is turning out very colourful.

I finished my first cross stitch! I accidentally skipped a row and didn't notice until it was too late, because I was doing it one colour at a time instead of one row at a time, but I think I pulled it off! It just doesn't fit as nicely into the square.

I haven't started a new cross stitch or the tiny crochet project I decided on (see also: brain has cycled back to stationery as an interest), but I've got a few to choose between! I just need to decided whether I feel like I'm ready for splitting threads yet, or if this is going to end in disaster.

We finally! Have a new cover for the sofa! The fake leather had split, and throwing a blanket over it could not stand up to the might of my inability to sit still, even while medicated.

I officially break up from work on Tuesday, which feels UNBELIEVABLY soon. Like, I thought it was still a few months away, but nope, June. What a concept. Work still don't have a concrete plan for reopening yet, although word from on high is that term dates are being changed and exams are being cancelled, which is definitely going to get a reaction from the students and academics. Honestly, I'm glad that they're taking it slow and delaying the opening until they're sure, because there are a lot of carers/parents/people in high risk groups working in libraries! And the longer we can keep people from needing to take public transport or have contact with people longer than it takes to go "Here is the order you're collecting" the better.

... On the topic of work, you know how I'm forever complaining about the building leaking? Apparently it flooded. Not like, "Books floating across the library" levels of flooded (Although that was a thing that happened before I started working at the uni!), just... "The carpets on two of these floors are going to need replacing" levels of flooded. Whoops!

All I want to read right now is webnovels. Like, specifically the sort of tropey queer fantasy romances that were around circa 2004. In fact, I could probably FIND some of the tropey queer fantasy webnovels that I was reading circa 2004 and see how many of them still exist. ... I say "queer" like anyone was promoting any romance that wasn't m/f or m/m back then, but the point is that I'm pretty sure most of them will exist somewhere.

THE 23RD OF JUNE IS TOMORROW. WHAT. NO. GO BACK A MINUTE AND EXPLAIN HOW THAT HAPPENED.

Hey loves, how are you all doing? I'm on my fifth attempt at writing a general update and I've not really made progress. Not much has been happening! Everything continues to be fine! I am very lethargic and trying to pull myself out of it, it's... Going.

I did fail another will save against stationery; this time I bought shiny new pens, because obviously fiction is blue and I can't use my blue fineliners for this fic triage project because I've worn down the nibs. I have fancy pens now, we are going to be very happy together.

... Did I mention that I started with 297 drafts? Because that was a thing that I did.

SHOULD I ADMIT TO HOW MANY OF THESE ARE KISSING FICS.

It turns out that one of my tiny adorable notebooks will last me about two weeks as a diary. ... They're like forty pages long and I talk a lot. NO ONE IS SURPRISED.

I need to find icons for my current fandoms, so if you've not turned that notification off I guess brace yourselves for the inevitable Untamed/Animal Crossing/My Next Life as a Villainess icon spam coming your way.

SPEAKING OF MY CURRENT FANDOMS: I ended up doing my capslock about My Next Life as a Villainess in like two days, and I'm trying to work out whether it would be better to post one a week like I'm doing now, or post them all over about a week so it's finishing up within living memory of me watching the show. Which do you think would be less... I don't know, intrusive? Repetitive?

LexGarrett found a game called Heart of Crowns, which is basically Dominion with anime-style princesses, and I'm here for it. I'm very bad at it so far, but that's because I'm playing the PC version and it will just let me sit there and build a deck almost entirely of cards that let me more draw cards, which is all I ask for in a card game. See also: my Blue's Clues Magic deck, which is 75% "I want to draw cards that let me draw more cards" and 25% "sometimes those cards are 10/10 cosmic horrors instead."

Still hard to get my brain to focus on reading, but I am very tentatively trying to get back into crochet. I don't know if it's going to work, but I'm trying! And I theoretically have some cross-stitch kits coming in the post, so that might keep me out of trouble during RPG sessions if the crochet doesn't.

I've lost any ability I had to count stitches and follow a subtitled show. Whoops.

It rained today! I think that means Nottingham's had it's three mandated sunny days of the year and now we're back to business as usual. On the plus side, everything smells like wet tarmac and plants, which are the best smells.

... Yeah, as far as I can recall that's what I've been up to since the last time I posted. It's mostly been capslocked about My Next Life As a Villainess, having intense feelings about The Untamed, and... Kinda gazing into the void. Sometimes the void has stationery videos, sometimes it's zoning out while either LexGarrett is watching One Piece or sithe is playing the new One Piece/Dynasty Warriors fusion AU game. On the plus side, now I know that sithe can't play Dynasty Warriors clones at the same time as answering perfectly reasonably questions like "Is there a Fruit-Fruit Fruit?"

Susan

Sometimes I wonder if I hallucinated an entire damn pandemic

... I don't even know what I would pick as my ADHD icon tbh

They were SO CLOSE to not being arseholes. SO CLOSE.

I HAVE MY VACCINE APPOINTMENTS BOOKED!

Sliding puzzles with furniture are the best! No, wait, the other thing

Scuttlebutt is such a great word though

"it me but tired" was a very sensible icon tag

I'm not kidding about how many times I rewrote that email

GROANS IN LIBRARIES SUDDENLY BEING DESIGNATED ESSENTIAL

Maybe if I hide well enough 5:45am won't find me

I cannot stress enough how good the food and my book haul were

"It's off with his head and on with the show!" is a mood as well though!

I have ceased to be, I have gone to meet my maker, I'm an ex-parrot —

But I haven't TOLD any students to fuck off out of the library though!

Older and louder, I guess!

I'm going to bed, I just wanna finish this fic first!

(no subject)

I think it was the first time I saw stars on my island!

I DIDN'T start capslocking about stationery though!

It's important to know these things, okay

Profile

About

May 2025

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Syndicate