i'm back on neocities. i'm less intoxicated but just as floundering! it's been a little longer than a week, i think. maybe it's been two, i don't know and i like that it's just a little bit of a pain to check. i had a long week. my own substance habits concern me, but only mildly -- i've been way, way worse before, and the only really problematic thing right now is how irritable i've been, which, honestly, is par for the course this time of year. i'm bad with holidays, bad with winter, bad with the dark wet freezing cold, bad with being trapped inside, just... seasonally depressed, i guess.

i've been buying music on bandcamp. mostly compilation albums -- which a younger, snobbier me would absolutely hate, but there's so many labels that will put out pwyw collections that i have a hard time saying no to. i mean, it's a dollar, right? but here's some normal albums i've really enjoyed: Hedonic Setpoint X, Lovesick Desire, Oh Uncertainty!

i've been knitting. finished a pair of ribbed fingerless gloves, a cowl, a hat. made more progress on my freehand shawl thing. tried two-color brioche in the round about a half dozen times and kept just getting sick of it not quite working. i still haven't totally figured out what i'm doing wrong. i learned about the history of merino wool yesterday, specifically in the context of new england 19th century deforestation (i think part of this amazing series by tom wessels), and now i keep thinking about it all when i knit. history is the glue that ties every discipline to every other discipline inextricably. and i love learning about most things, particularly how different fields intersect and overlap and entertwine, but history is a bit of a challenge for me. i want to get a better handle on it.

i downloaded rednote because i'm going ano again. i say that with a weird mixture of feelings -- i don't know how i feel about the fact that i occasionally severely restrict my food intake in order to lose weight. i know it's deeply unhealthy for me, although i do try to "do it the healthy way" and take lots of supplements, avoid outright fasting, etc. i know it comes from a place of insecurity with my body, and i wish i wasn't insecure, and i wish i was immune to the social pressure to look very thin. it's not even something i find attractive in others! but i would be lying if i said that i didn't notice how differently people treat me when i'm thinner -- a quirky eccentric vs a weirdo freak. it's my body anyways, so there's some kind of autonomy-transhumanism argument to be made, i think. all of this is to say that while on rednote, i saw a lot of videos of people organizing their things nicely, which despite being some of the more ridiculous for-the-camera behavior did inspire me to organize my own space a bit better, which feels really nice.

i've been unfairly angry at two people. one, my coworker s, who is a bit of a bootlicker and company guy, and who recently made a decision to extend my time doing a particularly painful activity by about 20 minutes. i don't think they wanted to hurt me, i just think that they are Like That about rules. i was very cold to them the rest of the day because i knew if i tried to talk about it i would have lost my temper. i feel a little bad, but i also don't really at all. ahaha. oh well. i'll apologize to them tomorrow. the second person is my roommate -- i've told them many, many times since i moved in how much the general level of messiness negatively impacts my mental health, and while they've gotten better about leaving literal garbage on the kitchen counters, basically nothing else has changed. i hesitate to call my shutting down 'giving them the silent treatment' because i feel like that implies a certain level of deliberate punishment -- i simply know sometimes that i will not be able to communicate without being irrationally, unproductively angry, and i try to give myself space to calm down when that happens. they called it 'ghosting' which i also don't think is really applicable. it was one evening where i didn't respond to their texts. i guess they have every right to be upset about it, but i also just... wish i could leave my room without sensory disgust/overload. wish i could make food without having to scrape mold off of anything. i don't know.

i guess at some point i'm going to have to figure out how to make an actual site out of this. a couple of barest-bones html pages does not a website make. maybe i'll do that next. maybe i'll go make dinner. either way, goodnight for now. if you're reading this, i love you.