chat

I feel a bit stuck looking for a job, and it's hard to resist cultural programming to blame myself. I left a cushy MIC job because my moral compass couldn't take it anymore. I tried part time employment, gig work, even starting my own business, but I've run out of time and money.

I have until February to find a job, which is a lot longer than most say when they're out of time. I'm stuck in [Midwest Suburb], and am thinking of dropping everything to find a job in Chicago. Well, not thinking, feeling.

I feel like I'm being called to Chicago, but I've never been, and I'm only going on a short trip there sometime soon. I have been socially isolated for my whole life, and I'm looking for a hub of people that I can call my own. Maybe I can find that there, if I want to increase my chances for finding community. Everybody wants to feel like they belong, and maybe it's futile to keep seeking it, when I could build it where I am, even if it isn't ideal.

I've changed a lot in the past 8 years, and I still don't know what I'm doing. I do know how to take single steps forward, and I think that's all I need, but... it's scary.

thinking about ways in my head to cook with tofu more. thinking about making some type of vegan lunch meat substitute by brining tofu slices in something and using that instead of turkey for my sandwiches, but the only thing that comes to my mind to use is chicken bouillon but that's not vegan...

Sometimes the soup that pilots your corporeal form sloshes around in a weird way and the "fight or flight" switch gets bumped on by accident. Only there's nothing to fight and nothing to run away from so the switch just gets stuck. Hope it gets unstuck soon!

I'm playing Dave the Diver and commenting on here as a way of procrastinating on cleaning the bathroom and going for a run.

Been feeking all kinds of anxiety and restlessness. I think we know some shit is coming down the line.

Lamented to a chud co worker about the trans stuff which I calmly explained that we didn't need to go down this but because the Dems absolute failure to educate the population and letting the Republicans run wild exploiting that ignorance and fearvwith laws criminalizing queer people and their allies...even putting bounties on it. What's coming now is a lot of needless pain and some deaths unfortunately and 20 years of building legal cases outside of the Democrats of people who have been harmed until it reaches the supreme court.

I'm married to a Muslim immigrant which might get caught up in all this shit too. He's legal and from Indonesia not the Middle East but still all the same. The anti China / Mexico rhetoric also gives a bit of scare because it inflames racism and who don't know anything but mayo land thinks all brown people are the same will still be targets of hate crimes and profiling on the perception. He's noticed it too. Cops profiling him, tailing him because he's not white.

I went out and therapy shopped some ofthe most expensive and I don't even know if it tastes good limited edition D&D themed high ass 100 proof mead and 20% beer. Bit of a sticker shock after that one. But fuck it.

Went out on a date with the hubby to see the new Venom since he has been poking at wanting to see it only for him to not really enjoy the movie. I mean it was ok. Not terrible, but they really teased this big baddie and nothing really happened with that so who knows if they are setting up a 4th. Then went to Panda Express so he could have some reserves for today.

Been running a little sideproject on here. I used to be a peer worker and I've worked in mental health and stuff. So I decided to find a game with a live chat option and a setting that would suit a a drop-in space except online, essentially to offer freebies to the community. Or to volunteer/to contribute to the site and its culture. However you want to slice it.

If you've ever seen my effortposts on mental illness and especially ADHD or autism around the place here I guess it gives the impression that I am pretty knowledgeable on these things. What you don't get to see is that this stuff is the hard facts that I draw on, the "theory" if you will. I'm also decent at application side of things, where this "theory" is turned into "praxis", but you don't get to see much of that at all in a forum because it's much more like writing letters than it is a real-time conversation. And generally speaking it's those critical conversations that often lead to improvements, not just reading a wall of text. Otherwise mental health services would supply you with books and call it good, y'know?

Also it's just fucked trying to find the holy grail of a therapist who is in your region, whose books are open, who doesn't charge an arm and a leg, who actually does a good job, whose approach fits with your needs. Throw in the radical politics or, at least, not wanting a therapist who is steeped in liberal cultural hegemony and then maybe one who specialises in ADHD or autism or trauma. Maybe all three. Good luck finding that particular unicorn.

Not that I'm a therapist. But I can cover a lot of bases that are currently grossly underserved. And I can do it for free because I'm a bit of a veteran at this stuff and I don't really require practice development or a supervisor who I can go to for guidance or to process difficult things that might come up. Not saying that I've arrived at the end point and I have no learning to do but I am very seasoned when it comes to this. It's never going to be a replacement for therapy but if people cannot access therapy, especially due to cost or disability, or they cannot access appropriate therapy then the peer work that I can do is hopefully a way to bridge that gap.

Anyway it's been exceeding my wildest expectations. Turnout has been great. It's definitely challenging doing this in a live chat context because I'm flying blind in many respects and I can't rely on observations through stuff like tone of voice or body language. But you work within the confines that you find yourself in. It's against my own project's rules to go into any depth on this I feel as though I've been able to achieve some good outcomes in conversation so far, so I am satisfied with my performance and overall the game I chose seems pretty well fit for purpose. There has been a lot of demand, an overwhelming amount of support, and people have been so encouraging of me. It reinforces to me that I made the right decision to try this project out with the community here.

Just ran my third session earlier today. You can read about the whole damn thing here if you want to know more.

I guess it's nice that I'm in a position to provide something which is uncommon but high in demand for free. You know how libs ask "What kind of job do you think you'd do after the revolution? Do you think you'd be a poet or something?" Well, here's my answer.

Moving again. It'll be my 17th move, changing cities for the 7th time. I got my boxes a few weeks ahead of time and had one really productive day packing and was congratulating myself for a pace that was going to allow for a really well-planned move without any miscellaneous boxes that I tell myself I'll sort through at the new place. Then, even though I have no intention of hiring anyone to do this, I looked up how long it would take professional movers to pack up my stuff and the answer was around 4 hours. That ended the productivity and feeling good about my handling of this task -- I had already taken that long and could realistically finish the whole job on the last night, so I stopped. If I don't manage to start again until the last night, it will be another messy move.

Played FFXI all day and made some progress, so yay video games.

I have a few books on the waiting list (by Polanyi, Unamuno and Yuk Hui) but I keep getting distracted distrohopping to KDE plasma distros. I've already tried Kubuntu 24.10 and had some compatibility issues. The more I use Ubuntu, the more I understand why the glorious Linux Mint exists. I've also installed another partition with Fedora KDE just to play a little with non Debian based distros. Only time will tell if I go back to the always loyal Cinnamon Mint.

If you don't have anything to bloom about just post that always makes me smile

Not well, but I'm making progress on multiple songs I'm covering, including one that's been close to my heart since Myspace was a thing.

Thanks everyone for sharing what's going on. Honestly it helped.

I went on a first date with someone I didn't really click with. Pretty glad the week is winding down. Gonna play some Mario Party with relatively new friends tomorrow. can't really complain