Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: New Year

An eye to the future

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I’m writing this on Christmas Day, and I’m contemplative. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but everyone else in my life does. It’s another thing where I don’t mind that I’m different from everyone else, and I’m not bothered by people wishing me a Merry Christmas. it’s taken me many decades to be truly neutral about Christmas, and I still have a reflexive instinct to wish people a Merry Christmas.

I went through a period of time where I wished people Happy Holidays, but that never felt natural to me. We all know that it’s Christmas today–and, indeed, the month leading up to this day. No one thinks about Hanukkah, let alone Kwanzaa (interesting note, Hanukkah started on December 25th this year). I had to roll my eyes when some Christians got so upset about salespeople saying ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’ because ‘They’re taking the Christ out of Christmas!’.

Um.

I hate to break it to them, but if Jesus really did exist, he probably would have been on the side of the people salespeople who were working their asses off for peanuts during the holiday season and dealing with entitled assholes screaming at them because they could not find a PlayStation5 anywhere and little Timmy would be sooooo disappointed when he did not get one under the tree. The only thing that Christmas really celebrated these days was crass commercialism and capitalism.

Hm. Maybe I’m not as neutral about Christmas as I thought I was. But the idea of gathering with friends and/or families and/or other loved ones is a lovely one. Winter is fmy favorite season so I see nothing wrong with letting people know that I love them–even if it’s on an overly saccharinely sweet holiday.

See, I may be against traditions for the most part, but I believe in love. Love is what got me through dying (twice) and me fumbling back to some semblance of normal afterwards.

There is one holiday song duo that I like, one Christmas carol that I love, and two other Christmas-related (sort of) songs that are quite lovely, indeed. The first one is Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. It’s just really beautiful.

The rest of them, though, can mostly get in the bin. Not because they’re necessarily bad songs, but because they have been so overplayed. Christmas music starts being played in the stores any time after Halloween (and one horrible yer, it started in early October). I hated that year, let me tell you what.

Note: I didn’t feel like finishng the post on Christmas, so I wrote the rest of it the next day.

I still hate the commercialization of Christmas (which started when I was in high school. I wrote an op-ed in 9th grade about how Christmas had become one month-long, overpriced commercial. That was over thirty years ago!) , and I get so tired of the forced cheer.

I don’t hate it the way I used to, but I don’t understand why people are so into it, either. Here’s Jennifer Hudson singing, O Holy Night. I actually sang that for church one Christmas. A solo. This is the only traditional Christmas carol that I love with all my heart. I get chills every time I hear it.


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Calling a do-over on the new year

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It’s been one hell of a new year so far. I’ve had so many little things go wrong, I feel off my stride. Yesterday, when I went to the mechanic, I did not even do my weapons practice because I had to get up at ‘what the fuck?’ o’clock in order to drop my car off. 7:30 a.m. I know that’s not early for many people, but that’s the middle of the night for me.

Then, I had to walk back home after, so I reasoned that not doing the weapon forms was fine. For once. Last night, I was logy by 9 p.m.–which is unusual for me. I kinda drifted in and out of sleep, but I was fighting it. This is just me. I cannot go to bed before midnight. In fact, I didn’t get to bed for real until late. Then I got up at nearly noon.

I did my whole Taiji/Bagua routine–shit. I remembered that I did not do one part of it. Wait. Did I? I think I did. At any rate. I did almost all of it if not all, and I feel somewhat back in the groove. But I also had a few other fiddly things I needed to do like set up my new laptop. Which is my brother’s old laptop. Mostly, I had to access all my usual websites and make sure I had my passwords so I could get in.

Actually, once I got into Google, the rest were cake because they’re all linked. Not sure if that’s a good thing, but it did make things easier. The laptop is the same age as my old one, but my brother buys pro laptops that are built to last. It has 2TB of storage and room for four times that. Actually, even more than that, but we’ll go with that. It has 32GB memory and can run anything I need smoothly and quickly. 2 SSD as well! It’s also built to withstand being dropped. The thing I have to do is make sure taht I don’t get food on it as I did on my last one (food and beverages).

He also gave me his old video camera because, yes, he got the new model of that as well. I had to order a few cables for it, but it’ll be great to try it out once I have it all set up. Again, my brother buys quality products, so I know it’s going to work for me as I need much less than he does from my tech. By the way, I am on my desktop, and I’m shocked by the fact that all the lettering/numbering on my keyboard have all been rubbed off. I should not be shocked by it, but I am. It doesn’t matter because I’m a touch typist, but there are a few keys that are troublesome because I type in Dvorak and don’t use some of them that often. Like the brackets. If I need one of the lesser-used keys, then I just hit around where it should be until I actually get it.


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Goals–I got them

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Let’s talk more about goal-setting and the reason I don’t call them resolutions. I have a weird brain. I have to work around my own flaws. One thing is that my brain will not accept certain things. It just won’t. Once it has barriers to something, it might as well be a brick wall.

When I realized that resolutions were meaningless and that most people broke them so what’s the purpose?, I just could not take the concept seriously again. Also, I don’t necessarily believe in new year, either. I don’t mean I don’t think they happen because of course I do.

Side note: one reason I don’t like putting undue emphasis on traditions is because there is no reason for it. And it makes something that should be joyful like Thanksgiving into something that’s stressful. So many people ferak out about making sure it’s perfect, and then they don’t enjoy it at all when it actually happens. Even if it’s pulled off perfectly.

Side note to the side note: This is why weddings are often terrible. People (mostly women) put so much emphasis on the one day and want it to be perfect. They pour all this meaning into it, and there is no way for the day to actually live up to the expectations. And, from what I’ve heard, no one actually remembers their wedding day because it goes by in a blur.

Back to New Year’s Day resolutions. I don’t believe in them becuase while there is a psychological implication of a new year, there is nothing that actually differentiates it from the day before. I’ve mentioned that it’s like birthdays. People like to act like it’s a big thing, but it really isn’t. They ask how it feels to be a year older, but you’re not! You’re only one day older. Just like every other day. A year is the aggregate of 364 days. This is not me being nitpicky, either. This is how my brain works. Once I realize that something is bullshit, I just can’t take it seriously any longer. I can’t even pretend to take it seriously. the best I can do is keep my mouth shut if others are talking about it.

Here is how I trick my brain in a different matter. I am really bad at deadlines. Not meeting them, but working to the back of them. I’ve come to accept that is my way and have stopped freaking out about it. The only thing I’ve adjusted is that I give myself more time rather than cram it to the absolute back of the deadline, and that’s enough to make a difference. Also, I no longer fret about it during the time I’m not doing it.


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Rigid routine–until Saturday

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So I have a daily martial arts routine. I used to call it my Taiji routine, but I have added Bagua to it so ‘martial arts’ routine or ‘internal martial arts’ routine is more apt.

I have evolved it to the point where it’s an hour long (if I don’t stop and scroll on my phone, which I actually do). If I get caught up browsing online, it can stretch to two hours.

Anyway, it goes like this. As Shadow begrudgingly eats his breakfast (or scarfs it down. Never anywhere in the middle), I start doing the arm stretches. It can take Shadow up to a half hour to eat a meal, so I can do all the stretches during that time. Arm, leg, waist, and more. Then, after Shadow finishes his brekkie, I can do the rest of the routine–which is the weapons. Oh, I also do the Bagua while he’s eating unless I’m walking the circle with the DeerHorn Knives. That takes a lot of space, which my kitchen does not have.

My weapons forms schedule is a bit more elaborate. It goes like this. Every day, I do the Fan Form, the Sword Wu-Li (dancing) Form, a row or two of the Cane Form (both sides), staff/spear drills, and the Double Saber Form. Then, on Monday, I do the Saber Form (both sides). Sword Form (right) on Tuesday. Wednesday used to be the day I did the whole Cane Form (both sides), but I’m trying to break it down a bit more to polish it. Thursday is the /egn side of the Sword Form , and Friday is the Karambit Form. The what? The Karambit Form, which is not either Taiji nor Bagua. I’ll get to Saturday in a second.

I also do the weight set on Tuesday and Friday. It’s three simple movements of a freeweight on each side. My teacher said that I only needed to use an eight-pound weight, but I’ve moved up to ten-pound weights. I have a twelve-pound, fifteen-pound, and twenty-pound, too. I gave one of each to my brother’s ex-wife (back when they were married), so I only have one of each left.

Let’s talk Saturday. That is the day I have a class. I want to add another one this year. I would like to go in person, but I’m not sure my body can handle it. My immune system is shitty, and I do not want to get walking (non-Covid-related) pneumonia again.

Anyway. Saturday. It’s the day I’ve decided I can do whatever I want with my weapons. Here’s the thing. I am very rigid in my sechduling. I like to do things in the same order at the same time, etc. But there’s another part of me that just wants to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it. That’s the part of me that I indulge on Saturday. It’s because I have class so I’ll be doing all the warmups/stretches I do on the regular. So on Saturday, I don’t do the stretches and just groove withthe weapons. It’s a nice release, honestly.


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New year is much like the old one

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I’ve been musing about the end of the year and the beginning of the next. In the last post I wrote about it, I was just more musing about life and movies. Now, as I’m writing this, it’s the actual first of the new year. There has been snow, which makes my cold heart happy. And it’s appreciable enough to be shoveled.

There is nothing like freshly-fallen snow to make it so wintery. It makes everything seem possible (ignoring the fact that it’ll be gray, slushy, and dirty within a few months), and it just makes me so happy.

I don’t make resolutions because I find them artificial and pressure-inducing. I do goals instead because while it may just be semantics, it’s more open-ended to me. Also, I see resolutions more as things you HAVE to do on the regular (like going to the gym three times a week*)

Part of the reason, I assume is because even though it’s a new year, we’re still the same people we were the day before. And the new year doesn’t mean circumstances change. It’s like when people ask how I feel on my birthday. Uh, the same? It’s just one day. I’m aging by the minute–not by the year.

I like to set goals because you work towards them and it’s not immediate. I don’t like gamefying things that aren’t actually games. I know other people do it (like visiting Duolingo every day), but it just stresses me out. It taps into my OCD traits in a very nasty way.

I have a perfectionism streak that tells me that if I don’t do something perfectly, I might as well not do it at all. That is from my mother, honestly. She is a Tiger Mom in some ways. If I do something with a ‘I have to do it every day’ mentality, then I can go to a very dark place.

It’s different with my Taiji/Bagua routine–which, by the way, I went back to doing it strictly today. For the last week, I’d been doing the stretches, but then freestyling it with my weapons. So I’m a bit achy getting back to the actual forms. It’s astounding how quickly the body goes, “NOPE.” But it’s also just as quick to get it back again. Yes, I was achy after doing the full routine, but I’m fine now.


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The end of the year as we know it

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We are rolling along to the end of 2023. This was my second bonus year, which means the end of my terrible twos. I’m going to be three, which means it’s time to pull myself up by my bootstraps. No more lolling around for me!

I have an idea floating in my brain about pop culture. See, I don’t really like much of pop culture. It’s trash, let’s be honest. I don’t think that’s controversial to say. It’s been that way for all of time, so we might as well just be truthful. I remember watching Knives Out right after it came out because I love Hercule Poirot. The novels (though they are problematic now) are some of my favorites and David Suchet is sublime.

Side Note: Can we stop with Poirot portrayals now? Please? I have not even watched the Branagh ones because I hated the trailers. I thought they were too slick and missed the whole point of the character. I really hate the overacting Branagh does as Poirot.

The only new Poirot I would countenance would be one who was actually playedh by a Belgian actor and was from his days on the Belgian Police Force. In other words, save for one story, completely new material. I would be all up for that. But, again, only if it’s an actual Belgian and not a Brit pretending to be a Belgian.

Seriously. Suchet is the end-all, be-all for that portrayal, and we can shut that shit down now. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Anyway.

I really wanted to like Knives Out. I went into it hoping in my heart of hearts that I would like it. I wanted it to be like Poirot. I knew it wasn’t going to be from the trailer, but I still hoped. I hated it within five minutes, and I knew that I was in for a grim time. I also knew who the killer was from the first time I saw them, and even though the movie tried its best to have twists and turns, I was right. And it was for the most mundane and boring reason in the world.

There was nothing original about the movie, and I hated the hyper-cuts. I hated the characters, and I only loved Jamie Lee Curtis chewing up the scenery. I thought it was a terrible movie, and that was when I gave up on movies. I had tried for so long to like them, but I just did not.


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Musings at the end of the year

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It’s Christmas Day as I’m writing this. Night, really. It’s 5:45 p.m. I ‘m not doing much of anything, but I got two wonderful prezzies. A minifig of Vyke from Elden Ring from Ian and a worry (crystal) stone from Kathleen.

The latter fits perfectly in my hand and feels really good. It has a few cracks on it, which is just the way it should be. The former is a small, but important character in the game. He is integral to my favorite ending, and there is something you can do with his spear that helps in a very fiddly area.

My nibling sent me a sweet Christmas message from their trip to Taiwan, and it’s been a day filled with holiday cheer. Well, remotely, anyway. I don’t decorate and I’m not a holiday person, but the two forums I follow (one as an active member and the other more casually), are filled with holiday cheer. Especially the RKG Discord. Everyone is posting pictures of the food they are eating, and I’m drooling.

I think that I’m going to change things up for 2024. I have talked about moving to video because blogging is dead. This is for me, basically.

It’s the day after Christmas and I’m back. This is the time of year to think about the year that had passed and the year to come. I don’t do resolutions any longer, but I do like to set goals.

As I was saying, blogging is mostly dead. I accept that people don’t read any longer. To be honest, I don’t read much either. It’s the hazard of being online so much, I think. And giving into the impulse to jump from website to website. It’s too easy to be distracted if you don’t have good discipline–which I don’t more often than not.

For the next few days, I’m going to outline what I want to do in the new year. Again, not resolutions, but goals. The last two years have just been me adjusting to being alive. Again. Still? Still alive. There is the video for the post.

The first month after my medical crisis, my mother started pestering about what I was going to do with my life. I was still battling the drugs in my veins (which were SO NICE) and with the fact that I had died twice. i was not thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I had no idea why she was pushing me on it when she should have just been grateful I was still on this earth. When my brother and I took them to the airport, I was sitting as they walkejd around because I was exhausted. My brother told me later that they pushed him about what I was going to do with my life. Why the hell they asked him, I do not know.


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Feel jolly, but not holly

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More on Christmas. Here was yesterday’s post, and I’m going to continue my musing. I have hated Christmas and I have been studiedly indifferent to Christmas, but now, I’m feeling warmly about the holiday time. Not Christmas itself, but community. Atnd being alive.

As I said in the last post, it’s been a long road to get where I am now. This year, I’m feeling warm and cozy about, not Christmas, but about the holiday season and how much I love the people who are meaninngful to me. My two besties, my Taiji teacher, my brother, my nibling and their brothers, my cat–of course!!–and people on the periphery.

I love the forums to which I belong. Well, one forum. The RKG Discord. However, I am starting to feel a bit…

Here’s the thing. I get to the end of things and then I am done. With websites, if they don’t evolve, then I get bored. The same thing with the same comments by the same people…what’s the point in that? I used to follow politics back when Obama was president. And I would get tired of people being so limited in their points of view. I am sure they would say the same things about me, by the way. That’s the nature of people. They don’t hugely change on the daily. It would be a wild and woolly time if they did. But it’s frustrating when I constantly butt up against the limits of each person.

That’s what I’m starting to feel about the RKG Discord. I like the people very much. Most of them are really kind and caring. But. (You knew there was going to be a but, right?) The limits to the understanding of life outside their own experiences are very restrictive.  Here’s the thing. RKG are three cis het white Western dudes. They’re great guys, yes, but they’re still very much in the mainstream themselves.

To that point, their commenters are much like them. The vast majority are cis het white dudes–which is othering at times. Not on purpsoe, obviously, but just because that’s what they know. There is a channel for the grot, and it’s interesting when certain topics come up. Someone brought up polyamory and asked where all his poly people were at. The three of us who responded were all queer people (of varying alternate gender identities). The white straight dudes (which the guy asking was) were all quick to say NO WAY NUH UH HELL NO! Well, one was not, but that was a more complicated response. He wasn’t pro-poly, per se.


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Goals, my future, life

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In the last post, I talked about how difficult it was for me to make buying decisions at a certain price point. Under twenty bucks, not a problem. Buying for my cat, well, it’s a problem because he’s become incredibly picky about food, but I have no problem spending money on him. I just have a hard time finding something he will eat. He was sick about two months ago and since then, he’s been extremely picky about food. I think it’s that he can’t smell as well as he used to, but I’m not sure. What I do know is that he used to eat Solid Gold tuna pate for all his meals.

Now, however, he will or won’t touch it, depending. He’ll eat it every three or four days, maybe, but not every meal as he used to. It’s frustrating beacuse he won’t eat any shredded food. He’ll eat the gravy that it’s in, but not the shreds themselves. Flakes? Yes. Pate? Yes. Morsels? Yes. But, and this is the important part, not more than a certain amount. I’ve been trying to figure out what he will and won’t eat, and it changes meal-to-meal. There are some foods he won’t eat at all. Tiki Cate Pate is one. Oh, and he will not eat broths.

Today, he is having a ‘I don’t want to eat anything day’, and I’m frustrated. I know that the standard bit of advice is to just leave out the wet food for twenty minutes and then take it away. It wouldn’t be feasible or ethical to put out the same food for the next meal, but that would be what you do with dry food. Even the food that he loves, he’s only deigned to nibble at. To be fair, he ate a decent amount at breakfast. Not a lot, but decent.

Side note: I learned when I took him to the vet that he had lost several pounds since the last time I took him in. Meaning, he wasn’t eating enough. Well, to be fair, he was considered plump back at the last check-in when he was nearly fifteen pounds. He was ten pounds this time, which was on the thinner side. He is getting older so that’s part of it, but I’m trying to feed him more. So, in general, he is eating more than he did before he got sick. I used to feed him one small can a day of wet food plus free-feeding dry food, and giving him treats during the day. Now, I’m upping it to one big can or two small cans a day, but he won’t eat all of it at a time. Realistically, we’re probably at a small can and a half total during the day with a lot of food wasted.

If he were younger, I would try to change his feeding so that I didn’t have to go through this stress every day. Given that he’s nearly 17, though, it’s pretty much any food I can get into him that I accept as edible that will do. He is eating. I take comfort in that. It’s jsut a  matter of him getting something down him.

I think another thing that I have to come to terms with is that there are things I  won’t change about myself. Back when I was younger, I bought into the notion that you had to change everything wrong with you. If you were aware of a flaw, then it behooved you to do something about it. The problem is that I wsa well-aware of my issues. I knew of the many things that I should fix. One prominent one was that I worked to the back of a deadline. If something was due on, say, February 1st, I would get it done ournd 11:59 p.m. on the night of January 31st.


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New year–let it snow!

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It’s snowing. We are supposed to get 4-7 inches. It’s the best kind of snow, too. Large, fulffy flakes gently wafting to the ground. I got Thai carryout yesterday so I’m set for the next few days. I am so lucky that I don’t HAVE to drive anywhere and have a guy to plow. Therefore, I can enjoy the snow from the safety of inside my house.

It’s white and cheery outside my window. Well, white is a fact and cheery is how I feel. I love snow. I will say that in the RKG Discord, there is a channel for grot called #slug-love. It’s also the channel in which we support each other, and it’s my favorite channel. It’s the last channel (they’re alpha within the category), which is fitting.

I have a running gag of reporting how much snow we are supposed to get, but with no context so it sounds like I’m talking about sex. I did this yesterday, and someone gave a treatise on the average size of the male penis and how me looking for half of what is expected is unrealistic. At the end, he said, “Unless you’re talking about rain or snow. I can’t tell.”

I could have kept going, but I took pity on him and said that I was actually takling about snow. But it’s fun to be able to riff on that with like-minded people. And it’s contained in one channel so you don’t have to dip in it if you don’t want. There are a half-dozen of us who are regulars, and then there are probably a dozen people who drop in semi-regularly. Then another half-dozen or so who say hey infrequently. It’s always fun to see new faces, though! One person came in to tell us that we were all really inventive, which was a nice boost.

It’s funny. I used to be very dirty when I was in my twenties. It was in reaction to being raised in a very fundie, restrictive, Evangelical Christian household. I’ve written about how I was taught that having premarital sex would send me to hell, which was such bullshit. Once I went to college, I let my imagination run wild, and it was so much fucking fun. I talked about sex all the time (way too much), and I felt so free.


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