journaling

[lotesse]

It's February and it's too cold to go outside.

I've been depressed for a few days, coinciding with period onset, but am pushing back for an upswing. Trying hard to balance retro/introspection with outward-facing activity. Went on a date last week, texting with another this week, nothing much to report on that front either way but the activity is healthy I think.

Work has wobbled a little bit this last week and it's making me anxious, tho I think again everything is all right. Thinking about adding a third wheel when the season turns, picking up some sort of gig-economy thing around the city. Meaning to ask my cousin J about that dog-walking app she worked with in the city a few years ago, would that be good use of odd hours? Animals + outside historically = good, for me.

I can't quite seem to find a groove to drive myself in. Fannishly, I'm still mostly engaging with women's children's novels from the 60s and 70s, ie my most comfort of comfort fandoms, Le Guin and Cooper and L'Engle. It's not a bad place to be, but it leaves me a little culturally isolated :( I wish I could figure out how to watch ST DISCO without subscribing to CBS :(

Personally, I'm keeping on keeping on, but I also don't quite know why I get up every day. Seems suboptimal, somehow. I don't know if I'm hoping to fall in love again, and find purpose that way, and if that's healthy or not? Dating is mostly hard for me bc I do often find people rather boring, when I don't click well with them. I missed feminist book club yesterday bc of aforementioned period, and also bc the book was a contemporary stripper memoir and I just wasn't feeling up for Sex Wars discourse potential like that. Last month, the book club harvested some phone numbers I need to maybe make use of. The people at the library writing group vocally love and want to keep me, but are very dispossesed on the whole.

Comments

[ilthit]

I feel you on the cultural isolation; sadly my comfort reading is not any of those you listed. I'm thinking more the Wells & Wong Detective Agency, Kate Shackleton Investigates, Lesbian Career Girls.

I do not feel you on the seasonal blues because I'm happy as a little pig when the air is bright and crisp. I am truly sorry you're feeling low. I hope you can find something to be enthusiastic about soon.

(Dating is awful, getting to know people by hanging out playing video games is fun.)

Hey, if you like, we could RP? If you're into that? It's a thing to do. I have a bunch of OCs for DW/Tumblr RP but I could also run a private little dice-and-paper game for you.

[lotesse]

I miss being in the country, where you can go play in the snow. In the city, things are either too wet or too icy. But! the weather is better today, so I'm off for a ramble in the cemetery as soon as a finish my morning work, yay!

I've not RPed before -- how does one start?

[ilthit]

Aww that sounds lovely--the ramble, I mean. :)

RP is kinda like round-robin, but you control your own viewpoint character and not your partner's. People generally somehow figure out other characters and surroundings as they go. Here's an example of an online-type RP thread, though it's not very typical. Most don't have that much plot going on. Maybe this is better. But you pick a character, or make one, and we set a scene and let our characters interact. The beauty is that you don't really have to know the other persons fandom.

[starshipfox]

Not being able to go outside sounds really bleak. I have extremely limited energy, but I still do a bit of dog-walking, one extremely elderly setter most days, and a collie occasionally. It really helps me to get out, and it's steady money.

I'm very introverted, and I feel like I hugely value romantic relationships because it's a way of being with someone without needing to go out into the world. Dating is truly exhausting though.

<3

[lotesse]

I'm trying to like dating. I haven't done much of the "spin the wheel" type, I was partnered all through school and then lived in a rural area with a very limited selection. Now I'm here in the big city, where at least you don't have to dodge the hicks quite so actively. I'm trying to just be in it for the ego-boosting, and not take things too seriously. We'll see how that works out!

In the past, I've gone for walks with my cats -- but they're adjusting to being city girls, too, and haven't come out of the apartment as of yet. I'm debating taking the one out on a leash in the spring; if she likes it enough, I will, but I don't know if it will really satisfy her desire to skulk.

[starshipfox]

Not taking dating too seriously and enjoying an ego boost sounds like a really good approach!

I've never tried walking cats! I used to walk my ferret though from time to time, which she enjoyed, but it was different from walking a dog, because I had to follow her, rather than her following me. I imagine it would be like that with cats -- or at least my cats, lol.