So, y’may have noticed that I’ve been kinda quiet on here. That’s because I’ve been rambling a lot on mastodon (@pyoor@lgbtquia.space) and I’ve also been chatting on the Dorley discord (for the Alyson Greaves novels, although I love all her novels), but mainly I’ve been doing my singing (what I rambled about yesterday) and I’ve been working on my novel. Huh, interesting. I think I’ve always called it a “book” or “story” before, but in this moment I chose to write “novel”, which is… uh, novel ;) So that’s taken up a lot of my writing space. All of it, really. It’s interesting because I know myself and I tend to have periods of near hyperfocus on one hobby or another interest, and then that’s done for a while and I’m on to the next thing. And I know that happens, and I don’t know why.
It can be frustrating because I’ll get up to a level of skill or understanding in something (like I was pretty comfortable with my EV conversion stuff), and then boom – that interest is suddenly secondary to something else and I find myself concentrating on, say, cheese fondling or gnome collecting, and then when I do finally circle back to whatever other interest it was I feel way out of my depth for a while. Ah, brains. How they do their thing is a mystery to me.
Anyhow. Oh, and then I logged into the site today and promptly broke it (I let it run an upgrade and it’s not happy – the editor is broken, which seems to be a known bug – but not one I know how to fix – I do have a work around for the moment though). Anyhow, so, little life update. We finally got around to building our media stand. It still needs a bit of paint because weirdly on two of the boxes we managed to get a chunk left unpainted. I have no idea how.
I’m pretty pleased with it, even though it was a ridiculous amount of work. And – actually – hasn’t got as much space as we hoped (at least in part because we decided to put the speakers in there. Which is tricky because I’ve been being bad about buying music. Or good. Depends on your position on buying music I suppose. I’ve also been bad buying books – but in our last “pull” which is what we euphemistically are now calling ‘getting rid of books’ (to new homes! They don’t go to a farm in the countryside), we removed about 60 books…and still don’t have space for all the ones we’ve bought over the past few months on the shelves. Augh.
I’ve also spent a chunk of time gradually working on the garage. It’s a slow job because I’m actually trying to not just throw things in random boxes and pretend like it’s tidy. I’m trying to work out what makes it a more functional space – one I can actually work in. It’s such a tricky space because it’s trying to be multiple things – and that’s something I’ve never found a good solution to. Our library/studio/spare-bedroom in Bristol always felt precisely like that – a mish-mash of things all trying to do multiple jobs. The spare bedroom in Slough, which was my study, that too felt like it lacked coherency. And the garage is trying to be a garage, an electronics space, and a store room and it feels it. I mean, it’s less of a problem because it’s a workspace. And it’s definitely vastly better than it was. But it remains a work in progress.
Aren’t we all a work in progress?
Anyhow. So that’s been occupying some time – along with trying to get the studioshed somewhat towards finished. Kathryn’s doing some classes and it would be nice for that space to be functional (now it’s not full of media stand), and I’d like to get some trim onto it (although she’s not that bothered ;) ). But I promised a studio and I’d like it to be done nicely, or at least, moderately nicely. So. Unfortunately it’s trying to rain again today – we really need to get the trim painted, but adoption stuff has occupied a lot of the summer and now we’re moving into a damp and drizzly season (much needed), and much of the wood isn’t painted at all. So. Need to fix that. Plan was to do some of that today, or at the weekend, but it looks like it’s going to try and rain. Although maybe not today? It’s hard – one app says it’s going to rain, another says it’s not. The sky’s overcast…
Feh, I guess we’ll see, and as Kathryn suggested I’ll go poke the wood with the moisture meter and see if it’s dry enough to paint – because it rained this morning, and it might just be too wet anyway.
So yeah. That and my TE job – which took me to Vancouver and put me on stage talking to people about things – it’s always weird doing that; in a good way. I mean, I know I know stuff, but it’s odd to have people actually pay attention to what I’m saying about technology, or food, or what have you. Like normally I’m this weird girl on a YT channel, and now I get to play in the big tent in front of people as part of a panel having a serious discussion; not me by myself on camera harping on about we should make the world more equitable at the same time as making it greener. Especially if we actually want to fucking survive on this rock.
So yeah, that’s been pretty cool.
There’s also been a whole bunch of stuff going on in my head about – well – basically presentation. How my presentation has shifted over the past few years as I’ve thought more about the harm my abusive ex did, and actually realized that some of her opinions had snuck in disguised as my own. That if I enjoy wearing make up and skirts and shit like that I should just fucking do it when I want. Part of that is about me and my introverted self playing a part for the camera – and for when I’m out doing “being not-really-but-slightly-famous-in-a-very-limited-set-of-circumstances” – where I need to fake being way more social than I really am (which is usually at the level naturally of: is that a rock? can I crawl under it? in these circumstances). So for that I started playing the part of a way more outgoing version of myself, someone who’s happy to smile, chat, and make small-talk (although I’m still remarkably bad at that), and that person presents way more geeky-femme than I typically do. That character also puts way more effort into their appearance than I am naturally inclined to do (although I’ve realised a chunk of that is that I’m forever working on projects. It’s hard to care how cute / cool I look when I’m knee deep in cutting lumber.
Anyhow, that character has bled into my non-character self because – stunner – I actually like the way I look in those clothes. I like the way I do my makeup. I mean, a chunk of it is that I like my body more now I’ve lost some weight and actually have a shape that isn’t weetabix. And examining why I’ve not done any of that for the past twenty odd years I ran into my ex stating at length how all that stuff is reinforcing the patriarchy, and how my expressions of femininity were unnecessary, and blah and blah and blah. And to an extent I do have hesitancy around the fact that I shouldn’t have to do makeup for YT. Technically I don’t, but I think I look better (which is absolutely societal expectations, and should I reinforce that? Probably not. Am I going to? Probably, because I enjoy it).
I do have a ton of hesitancy around the fact that male YTers in our space can present wearing dirty jeans and a scabby tee and be taken seriously, but we get mansplained – sorry, that’s not PC – episodes of correctile dysfunction in the comments whatever we wear – about how we are wearing definitely the wrong thing for whatever message we’re trying to send. But also:
So yeah.
That’s where I’m at. I’m at – I enjoy this. Fuck anyone who says I shouldn’t, and more specifically and individually fuck the person who put these brainworms in my head anyway. And I’m going to try and explore me being me more as time goes on.
That said, my exercise regime has been fucked by the fact that I seem to have injured my heel in some nebulous and confusing way (as in – it was fine – it’s now not – I don’t quite know why). I have not been able to go running for two days and the day before that was a really short run because putting my heel down hurts. Which is very upsetting.
I don’t like it. Not at all.
