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State of the Hiatus: Week One
It's been about a week, so I suppose it is time for a life update. The hiatus has been good so far, even if I feel like my overall mental state is (wobbly hand gesture) and still a bit of a mess.
It feels a little melodramatic to compare my twitter use to an addiction, but that's the easiest way to summarize how I start to get about twitter. Whenever I reach the point of THINKING in tweets, and feeling like I need to grab my phone to share literally any thought my brain composes that fits into that format, I know that I need to step back and... Recalibrate, basically.
Forcing myself to step away from twitter in its entirety forces me to realize when I've had one of these thoughts which really, honestly is not worth sharing with social media, and to instead keep it to myself. It's a process. It makes me really aware of how I'm thinking and what I'm prioritizing. Some things actually are worth sharing, and since I'm still talking to people through text and on discord, if a thought ends up being something I really do want to talk about I can strike up a conversation with someone and share it with them. Nevertheless, I feel like taking a break pushes me to engage with people actively, instead of being lulled into this weird complacency by the passive nature of social media and how it makes you feel that you're engaging with people when what you're actually doing is observing.
So that's been happening. Everyone who's been keeping me company has been really great. And I've made some excellent poor decisions, left unsupervised by the internet.
I dove into the wilds of used old tennis doujinshi from the early 2000s and sure did make a terrifyingly large order of books because like... How is anyone supposed to resist 100 yen a book, I can buy? So many?? I can't wait until my new hoard of old fucky tennis porn shows up to my house.
I also got allergy shots on Friday! And went driving with my mother! That was an adventure because I conscripted dad into finding a neighborhood near the allergist that seemed like it would be good for a very new driver to explore but the problem is, literally none of us had been there before. So mom and I show up and despite all the driveways I'd seen on the map, there are tons of cars parked along the street and more through traffic than we anticipated. It was fine, I really was not uncomfortable with feeling like I was navigating an obstacle course, but my mother sure did lose her mind every time I took us around a parked car because EVERY TIME she was convinced I was going to hit them.
In related news, I should really only drive with my dad even though he is far less accessible. I always knew driving with my mother would send me up the goddamn wall and like... I was calm about it this time but her histrionics will progressively wear on me if I keep voluntarily submitting myself to them.
I also visited with dad Friday night, we had dinner and it was nice, and in the morning I left with Psiten to see a play! We got AYCE sushi for lunch and saw Aubergine at the Olney Theater. It was... So good... It's a play about family, food, and memory and how those things are interrelated, exploring a Korean-American man's relationship with his dying father. It made me cry, which should surprise no one. Content about communicating through food is very, very for me and I'm so happy Psiten and I could see this play together.
Also, I broke a tooth at katsucon?? I hadn't had dental insurance for a bit and never found a new dentist once I did so I guess that was the universe going, HEY ASSHOLE, FIND A DENTIST. I have an appointment tomorrow for emergency dental work to get it? Repaired I guess??
This is horrible but sort of hilarious because breaking a tooth (especially in a context like katsucon where I'm around a lot of people and can't leave) is the purest nightmare fuel for me, I've had SO many awful dreams about it, and then it actually happens and like... This sucks shit and I hope it's really fix-able in one visit because I'm tired of putting dental wax over the sharp edge of my tooth so I stop cutting my fucking TONGUE ON IT, but on the other hand. It's cool in a way to face one of my biggest fears and just kinda deal with it, I guess?
So I'm at work on a Monday when I usually don't come to the office on Mondays because my dentist appointment is tomorrow morning and I just do not want to have to come to the office afterward. My mouth will probably be super numbed up and I'll be tired, let me go home to sulk and die.
And that's how life is going!
It's been kind of strange because I never did crash after Katsucon, I've continued to feel pretty calm and arguably happy, but I'm also... So unmotivated? I'm starting to feel bad about asking Yrin and Damien to RP with me because I just can't summon the correct state of mind to write posts. I don't feel especially despairing or sad and I want to be busy, but I don't want to DO ANYTHING in my usual repertoire of "things to do."
I'm continuing to read an alarming amount of tennis fic but I'm really only doing it because it's the lowest common denominator of effort to do a thing that will keep me busy and not feel like a waste.
It's kind of frustrating, but also just straight up fascinating because it's like... Probably a mixed episode, honestly, isn't bipolar fucking great? It's like you mix mania and depression and get "roughly functioning like a normal person except all your motivation cancels out too." I dunno, brains are bullshit.
I really actively do want to write but I don't want to write anything I have PLANS for and it's killing me. I have a document of "tennis fic concepts I'm never going to write" and prompts from both Yrin's tenipuri shipname fest and Caeslin's rec of the new porn battle anon meme and I have a couple original story concepts I meant to write before I got back into tennis... But none of it is what I want. I want to either write really plotless soft domestic fluff as a balm to my tired soul (but I have no ideas for that and don't know what characters I would choose to write about) or I want to write the purest of nasty id-fic, but I can't tell what sort of disgusting porn concept would satisfy my id. I'd take a combination of the two, even, I just... Can't get as far as an actual story concept and it's maddening.
Maybe I'll sort my shit before my hiatus is done. Maybe my attention span will even out enough to let me keep reading Death's End and not just tennis fic. Maybe I'll actually do work at work for a fucking change, but our internet was out most of the day so I've just been sitting around pretending to be busy. (coincidentally, it just came back, so I guess I really actually do have to work again, woe is me.)
Thanks for reading, friendos.
It feels a little melodramatic to compare my twitter use to an addiction, but that's the easiest way to summarize how I start to get about twitter. Whenever I reach the point of THINKING in tweets, and feeling like I need to grab my phone to share literally any thought my brain composes that fits into that format, I know that I need to step back and... Recalibrate, basically.
Forcing myself to step away from twitter in its entirety forces me to realize when I've had one of these thoughts which really, honestly is not worth sharing with social media, and to instead keep it to myself. It's a process. It makes me really aware of how I'm thinking and what I'm prioritizing. Some things actually are worth sharing, and since I'm still talking to people through text and on discord, if a thought ends up being something I really do want to talk about I can strike up a conversation with someone and share it with them. Nevertheless, I feel like taking a break pushes me to engage with people actively, instead of being lulled into this weird complacency by the passive nature of social media and how it makes you feel that you're engaging with people when what you're actually doing is observing.
So that's been happening. Everyone who's been keeping me company has been really great. And I've made some excellent poor decisions, left unsupervised by the internet.
I dove into the wilds of used old tennis doujinshi from the early 2000s and sure did make a terrifyingly large order of books because like... How is anyone supposed to resist 100 yen a book, I can buy? So many?? I can't wait until my new hoard of old fucky tennis porn shows up to my house.
I also got allergy shots on Friday! And went driving with my mother! That was an adventure because I conscripted dad into finding a neighborhood near the allergist that seemed like it would be good for a very new driver to explore but the problem is, literally none of us had been there before. So mom and I show up and despite all the driveways I'd seen on the map, there are tons of cars parked along the street and more through traffic than we anticipated. It was fine, I really was not uncomfortable with feeling like I was navigating an obstacle course, but my mother sure did lose her mind every time I took us around a parked car because EVERY TIME she was convinced I was going to hit them.
In related news, I should really only drive with my dad even though he is far less accessible. I always knew driving with my mother would send me up the goddamn wall and like... I was calm about it this time but her histrionics will progressively wear on me if I keep voluntarily submitting myself to them.
I also visited with dad Friday night, we had dinner and it was nice, and in the morning I left with Psiten to see a play! We got AYCE sushi for lunch and saw Aubergine at the Olney Theater. It was... So good... It's a play about family, food, and memory and how those things are interrelated, exploring a Korean-American man's relationship with his dying father. It made me cry, which should surprise no one. Content about communicating through food is very, very for me and I'm so happy Psiten and I could see this play together.
Also, I broke a tooth at katsucon?? I hadn't had dental insurance for a bit and never found a new dentist once I did so I guess that was the universe going, HEY ASSHOLE, FIND A DENTIST. I have an appointment tomorrow for emergency dental work to get it? Repaired I guess??
This is horrible but sort of hilarious because breaking a tooth (especially in a context like katsucon where I'm around a lot of people and can't leave) is the purest nightmare fuel for me, I've had SO many awful dreams about it, and then it actually happens and like... This sucks shit and I hope it's really fix-able in one visit because I'm tired of putting dental wax over the sharp edge of my tooth so I stop cutting my fucking TONGUE ON IT, but on the other hand. It's cool in a way to face one of my biggest fears and just kinda deal with it, I guess?
So I'm at work on a Monday when I usually don't come to the office on Mondays because my dentist appointment is tomorrow morning and I just do not want to have to come to the office afterward. My mouth will probably be super numbed up and I'll be tired, let me go home to sulk and die.
And that's how life is going!
It's been kind of strange because I never did crash after Katsucon, I've continued to feel pretty calm and arguably happy, but I'm also... So unmotivated? I'm starting to feel bad about asking Yrin and Damien to RP with me because I just can't summon the correct state of mind to write posts. I don't feel especially despairing or sad and I want to be busy, but I don't want to DO ANYTHING in my usual repertoire of "things to do."
I'm continuing to read an alarming amount of tennis fic but I'm really only doing it because it's the lowest common denominator of effort to do a thing that will keep me busy and not feel like a waste.
It's kind of frustrating, but also just straight up fascinating because it's like... Probably a mixed episode, honestly, isn't bipolar fucking great? It's like you mix mania and depression and get "roughly functioning like a normal person except all your motivation cancels out too." I dunno, brains are bullshit.
I really actively do want to write but I don't want to write anything I have PLANS for and it's killing me. I have a document of "tennis fic concepts I'm never going to write" and prompts from both Yrin's tenipuri shipname fest and Caeslin's rec of the new porn battle anon meme and I have a couple original story concepts I meant to write before I got back into tennis... But none of it is what I want. I want to either write really plotless soft domestic fluff as a balm to my tired soul (but I have no ideas for that and don't know what characters I would choose to write about) or I want to write the purest of nasty id-fic, but I can't tell what sort of disgusting porn concept would satisfy my id. I'd take a combination of the two, even, I just... Can't get as far as an actual story concept and it's maddening.
Maybe I'll sort my shit before my hiatus is done. Maybe my attention span will even out enough to let me keep reading Death's End and not just tennis fic. Maybe I'll actually do work at work for a fucking change, but our internet was out most of the day so I've just been sitting around pretending to be busy. (coincidentally, it just came back, so I guess I really actually do have to work again, woe is me.)
Thanks for reading, friendos.
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i actually have a dental appointment tomorrow morning too, though mine's just a cleaning (i went through my dental hell this summer, which was similarly a wake-up call because i hadn't gone to the dentist in a few years...) good luck with your appointment! i hope there will be no need for a follow-up
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Yay driving! I don't know if you find it stressful to learn like I did (aside from driving with stressful passengers), but now that I'm more practiced I actually love driving, so if the learning process sucks just know that it won't always be so scary! (This is a really long sentence and I apologize but at this point you know me well enough to translate this. :B)
Ahh, I hope the tooth issue is solved quickly and inexpensively. It's cool that you kind of had a silver lining to it, at least. Or maybe just a silver trashbag lining on something that basically just sucks, hah.
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And augh, broken teeth! Good luck with the repair appointment -- or rather, I hope it went well, since I assume it's already over.
Good luck with the writer's block, too; it's so frustrating when you want to WANT to write but the actual motivation is missing. I know in my own case it's sometimes a sign that I need a break, and it's sometimes a sign that I need to push through and write anyway, and it's often hard to tell which one it is. I'm sure you're the best judge of what you need, but whether it's the right prompts or a spark of inspiration or just taking a pause for a while, I hope life is good to you and gives you that thing.
(Meanwhile, I just saw your message -- thank you for saying hi! I'm at work right now, but when I'm home and able to use youtube I'm going to have to refresh myself on the musical catalogue of Tachibana and Chitose and then send you a reply with my thoughts -- my vague memory is that neither of them have very many songs but I could very well have missed/forgotten something. Also, SIGN ME UP for that particular mafia AU, what a good idea.)
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I'm very happy the housing stuff is sorted too. ;;
And I hope your cleaning went well! It sounds like I'm behind your curve with dental hell but I'm hoping after my follow-up appointment (which includes a cleaning) I'll be back on track to not fucking up my teeth, lol.
(the follow-up is fine tbh because I knew I needed a cleaning on top of the repair thing so like... Soon I will be free for a while.)
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I'm kind of a hypocrite because even if I can cold turkey quit twitter for two weeks, I wouldn't be able to do no-tech. My phone is my ereader and my one other (previously) no-tech hobby besides reading is crochet, but crochet is boring without either a podcast to listen to or something on the TV. I can only manage no-tech if it's with another person and I use human company as a substitute for technology but honestly... I think even just being aware of your technology use and being mindful of how you're spending your time can be helpful? We live in the information age and short of going to live on some sort of primitive commune, we're not going to avoid technology entirely. But I think it is! Really good! To be aware of when and how we use it.
I actually don't really find driving to be stressful, somewhat to my own surprise? I've only driven three times at this point but even with mom, I find driving to be really fun. The problem is that my brain overloads easily and I can tell that like... I literally do not have the bandwidth to take in all the information a good driver is meant to be paying attention to, right now. It feels like a muscle I'll have to develop by practicing, and this means I'll probably spend longer driving in neighborhoods and on small roads than someone my age usually would, but... It is what it is and I hope my bandwidth DOES continue to improve and I can ~graduate to highways~ and ~master this new skill.~ It's satisfying working on it as a skill, I just wish I could do it more often.
This feels long but THANK U FOR KIND WORDS, ilu Maggie.
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(tbh I tend not to reply to comments until I come back to DW to make another entry, this is just the routine I've fallen into.)
I HOPE THEY TREAT ME WELL, TOO, I definitely bought... Too many tennis books. My browsing technique was to go by "character I like" rather than "ship I like" because deciding to care about Rikkai was a mistake and I sure am ready to ship them in a kaleidoscope of combinations which, funnily enough, even jp fandom seems to agree with? I'm used to jp fandom being a lot more "party line, these are The Canon Ships" but I found a lot of pairs I wasn't super expecting, besides the Yukimura/Sanada and Niou/Yagyuu.
I have gotten progressively more and more fucked about Niou/Yagyuu while reading fic, but looking at doujinshi, they don't seem to interest me as much there? I can't really say why but I suspect part of it is that: I can't read. I hoard doujinshi for pretty art and for what I can work out from context clues and the images alone, or the occasional assistance of google translate. Niou/Yagyuu requires nuance to interest me and maybe I'd find some books that can give me that from the art alone, but browsing, I wasn't getting that feeling.
Instead I ended up getting excited for like, literally anything with Yukimura in it, which is new. I bought a handful of sanayuki and a handful more of various less common Yukimura ships. I also bought a bunch... Of Shiraishi/Kintarou books... Because I've given up and will accept that I Go Here, even though art runs the risk of making me feel like a dirty old man because like, please... just... make Kintarou look older than five. Please I am begging you. (I found several top!Kintarou books so I am hopeful.)
But anyway! I can let you know how my choices treat me when they arrive. :'D
(I also bought a book in which Sanada's teeth are brushed, probably by Yukimura, and it's such a weird niche thing and the book is SFW but it's *my* niche thing and considering your tezuryo dentistry opinions, I figure you ought to know.)
Dental repair appointment did go well, thank you!
I've now gotten your email (I love this ridiculous parallel communication we're doing) and am excited by song recs and am still feeling fond about your enthusiasm for Chitose + Tachibana mafia AU. I've been slowly chewing on it again since talking to (at) you this morning and tbh even if I never write like, A Proper Fic, I would like to figure out what happens in my hypothetical yakuza AU, and I do hope I can just... Figure out a thing to write that will satisfy me. ♥
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And it makes my day to know that there exists a SFW Sanada-centric teeth brushing doujinshi. Is it lovingly depicted? Does Sanada enjoy it?
I've been enjoying your continued mafia AU thoughts on twitter, and now the mental image of Chitose and Tachibana with full-body (full-back?) wing-themed tattoos won't leave my brain. Best of luck finding a fun and satisfying writing project!