Lots of people are worried right now. Worried that the world is out to get them. Grieving about the safety they’ve lost. Anxious that they can’t do the things that keep them human. Afraid that no one will help. Or for people like me, a typical Tuesday. https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/fk9ago From this side of the fence it’s actually nice to know that everyone else can finally see the threats that others live. Nothing made the government less competent or capable, nothing made the food or energy supply less reliable, nothing made our health care system less well prepared, nothing made housing less available. This is the usual state of the world, just…

Prototyped a motorized guillotine earring today, with tape and paper clips and solder and a hijacked gamepad emulator [vid 1]. I’m pretty happy with it as a proof of concept – it’s ugly but it does what I want and works even in the current full jank mode. I did sacrifice parts of the wood framework 1There was a medium amount of destruction in today’s build. Beside the broken wood there was a point at which the action was less guillotine and more catapult – it launched the blade a couple of feet when you pressed the button. Hence the plastic safety blade, at least while I’m testing. but that…

Very exciting news today. Gave me many smiles, and hope for a whole slew of future joy. But I’m going to try keeping it to myself for just a minute, at least until we’ve been able to celebrate together. I’m not great at keeping anything, and I’ve never been able to see how secrets are anything but expensive, but I’m going to give it a try. I am hoping maybe it lets me feel a different kind of connection, and to define a boundary I’m actually inside. I sent boxes last week, braving the post office (but not the bus). I’ve been behind on my mailing schedule, particularly with the…

My stairs broke, but I got them patched. It’s not worth calling the landlord again until they fall off (again). We’ve had both the front and back stairs collapse since we’ve lived here. They’ve both been replaced, but only the front ones with any competence, and I’m not confident doing it again would make things better. My closet rod broke, leaving me with no clothes storage for a while. It’s been broken since we moved in – it’s a 10′ span with no support – but I’ve never had enough clothes for it to matter. So I’m glad to have visible changes in my life, even if they don’t always…

Too meetings. Many early. Much regret. The all day training is a bit difficult for me to tolerate. But I’m half done, and it will make my boss less nervous if I get the checkbox done. He’s actually in this class with me, but luckily not in my group. I’m gonna have to plan for like 0 day job the rest of the week, to balance this out. Stress is high in the household. Shanda is having a hard time with the global death, which seems normal. But we have to find a less taxing way to cope with it; I can’t deal with 2 months of hopeless, breath-holding tension.…

Did only minimal day job Thursday and Friday. Not none, but not enough to make my SR count 0 either. I did use the time though for HA4H and for an away mission to the grocery store, both of which went well. On Friday I got dressed in layers of warm clothes and walked down to the grocery store. It’s easy for me to forget how, when I did have the right gear and I wasn’t in a survival situation, I do like being out in the cold and just being able to wander around with moment to moment goals or responsibilities. It’s easy to forget because there were many,…

Rimworld is an overhead 2D colony simulation game where you build infrastructure and control Pawns to manage their emotional and physical survival [fig 1,2]. There are many ways to play this game, but it is designed to appeal to people who a) want to plan and build for efficient living and b) people who want to think about what survival demands 1The Sims is a 3D orthogonal family simulation where you build infrastructure and control Sims to manage their emotional and physical survival, and at least in part is defined to appeal to people who want to build for efficient living. The mechanics are in many ways similar. But The…

Lots of you worry about being “taken seriously”. Which is easy to understand – when someone with power is dismissive of you it’s often very bad, and if sustained can feel hopeless. Being taken seriously is often a way to gain power and hope and control. @BPS was recently reading The Queer Art of Failure (Jack Halberstam) 1near the end of https://youtu.be/REd2dmkbL9w, which I read on your recommendation last year, and which has lots of things to say about being taken seriously. For example: “The desire to be taken seriously is precisely what compels people to follow the tried and true paths of knowledge production, around which I would like…

I love Killjoys because it gives me this from imagined-daddy-as-internal-critic: “Could I really have convinced you to kill all those people if you were a normal child with normal feelings? Didn’t you ever wonder why you always said yes?” I know some of you worry about being a normal child with normal feelings. I was lucky enough to imagine that my feelings were perfectly normal, if incompatible with real humans like all other aspects of my life. But the general sentiment applies – the idea that the pain in your life is merely the rational outcome of your flawed existence. Did many day job things today, but not what I…

I finished an arts today. There are videos below, which you should watch now for context. I tried to do a pretty thing, which is new for me, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It’s full of my usual reactive style too.In the Blue mode you can “charge” it by pointing it at another light source, or it’s own reflection, to make it slowly get brighter. If you leave it in the dark it slowly fades down to a twinkling ember. And if you touch the back of it you can charge it with your finger. In the Starburst mode you can touch it to expand the…