Been on Twitter longer than my daughter has been alive. But I’m gonna have to find new sources for breaking baseball news, which for me is the only thing it’s been good for.
Between here and Mastodon (@garciabuxton@home.social), I’m getting as far from Space Karen as I can get.
My initial introduction post on Mastodon. Even with 500 characters to play with, I still didn’t have enough room. Tweaking it periodically.
Welp, I’ve only been on Mastodon for 2 days, and it didn’t take long to have my home server (or “instance”) to stall and crash a while. I’m neither surprised nor terribly upset, given the recent stampede of Twitter users to the platform.
As I said in my initial post there (I refuse to use the Mastodon term “toot”), I really don’t need another social media platform. But I liked the idea of a larger alternative online community.
As much as I’ve appreciated Micro.blog over the years—and I have no intention of leaving it—I never felt I clicked much with the community or truly found a tribe there. It’s a friendly bunch, for the most part, but (a) I never quite found enough commonality to click deeply with others, and (b) even for all its self-satisfied sense of civility, I still ran into some judginess (my speculation about my own neurodivergent state comes to mind) and twee political correctness that increasingly annoyed me. Plus it still hasn’t widened much beyond the primarily affluent White middle-aged Apple fanboy male demographic it started with, which—literally and otherwise—can get kind of old after a while. (That group butted heads with the equally outspoken PC users at the forefront of the whole pronouns-and-social-consciousness-on-your-sleeve thing, and the civility dwindled down to hurt feelings and stomping away.) So, I only post very occasionally to the timeline there.
Twitter, of course, wasn’t that great with social connections beyond the people I knew in real life, either. But I came to expect that, even at its most cordial during its early years.
So far, Mastodon beats M.b in sheer numbers and potential for genial conversation and sharing of common interests. I’m holding out hope that I can connect with even a small handful of fellow travelers, if not an outright tribe.
My only other hope, shared by many Masto users I’ve found, is that the influx of Twitter exiles doesn’t turn the place into the festering hellhole of shitposting and screaming that we all are leaving behind.
Okay, I caved and became part of the Great Twitter Migration of 2022. You can now find me at Mastodon, but so far I haven’t done much with that account yet. Will probably broadcast from here and post directly on Mastodon. Maybe. Dunno.
Still not scrapping my Twitter account yet.
So much Mastodon talk. I’m glad it’s there as a Twitter alternative, but it seems like more work than I’m willing to do when Micro.blog suffices as an online platform — even when I don’t post to the M.b timeline, which is most of the time.
F and I both home sick on a snowy day: F with flulike symptoms (but negative COVID test) and me with post-COVID booster ickiness.
Watching “Steven Universe” with F and can’t decide yet if I like it.
One nice thing about Twitter these days: The apparent exodus of advertisers means the timeline is blissfully ad-free.
After a very long but grueling week off to help family on the West Coast, it’s odd to look at a day off tomorrow back here at home and think, “Oooh, I can go to bed early tonight. Woo-hoo!”
Ironic to look up the address for a parking garage and have Google Maps tell me “Parking is usually not easy near this destination.”
Finally, a meme I can relate to.
Spending the week in the Old Birthplace to help out my sister with house upkeep and binging on junk food. Been here two days and already got lots of material for journaling and bad index card haiku.
I don’t think this is what the Church had in mind for the season of Advent.
Got a copy of this in my mailbox today; I didn’t order a subscription or anything.
Haven’t seen one of these since I picked one up at a Latin Mass church a couple of years ago. It seems a lot more political than I remember it; I almost thought it was one of those weaselly right-wing rags posing as a local newspaper.
From the folks at Autism Consecrated on this All Souls Day.
This year for Halloween, F dressed as Luz from “The Owl House.” That cloak from last year’s Ren Faire came in handy.
Gratuitous cat photo.
Overall, the world is annoying me today. More than usual. And that’s saying something.
Today may be the first day of the rest of my life. Again. Fingers crossed.
Had my somewhat-quarterly fat doctor visit Monday. I’ve gained 15 pounds since my last visit in June. Not surprising, as I’ve neither logged my food intake nor have I religiously counted my carbs in the past three months. Also, averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night doesn’t help.
I don’t do nearly as much stress eating as I used to, but I do casually reach for the periodic piece of bread, tortilla chips, popcorn, and sweets a lot more these days. And I made it clear to the doctor that the past several months have been tough, between work and other demands, sleep deprivation, and unresolved struggles with grief (plus internalized anger and sometimes severe anxiety, which I didn’t mention).
He took me off topiramate after I noted the hit that my already-suffering mood seem to take after I began to use it; now I’m back on escitalopram (the generic version of Lexapro), at least through the end of the year to carry me through the holidays and winter months. Hopefully it can get me through the wait for a new therapist, too. One side benefit: It also curbs appetite and food cravings, so there’s that.
(It helps that I do have a history with Lexapro, as I mentioned to the doctor; I only went off it when I got pregnant. I neglected to mention that I went back on it once or twice after F was born, but I don’t think I was on it long enough for it to help. But before the pregnancy, it was by far the most effective antidepressant I had ever been on.)
Got a salad from Chick fil A on the way back from the doctor; it probably had more carbs than I needed, but at least it was healthier than the open-faced Double Quarter Pounder With Cheese I had for dinner.
Clearly, I’ve got a lot of work to do.
Oh, look. My new T-shirt arrived just in time for the World Series. #wompwomp
I spent more time venting online about baseball on Twitter than anyplace else, including this site. It’s a little embarrassing to look back and realize how much baseball has consumed me the past several weeks.
Anyway, I’ve spent more online time elsewhere generally than I have on this site. I probably should change that. The compulsion toward memoir, or at least to record fleeting thoughts and journal as a means of self-care, has been strong lately, so it seems much more appropriate to be here. But I have been so spent physically, emotionally, and mentally over the past year and a half – and yet not really realizing that until recently – that a vague sense of inertia overshadows everything.
(It doesn’t help that I can’t seem to successfully nail down a therapist who doesn’t have a waiting list or is willing to meet in person rather than over Zoom.)
It’s probably best I figure out a way to pour myself into analog means of recollection and self-care; I have piles of notebooks and bundles of pens that I’m eager to spend afternoons with. But how to find time? It’s easier somehow to use a keyboard, since I’m at a keyboard so much for work and parish reasons. And yet it feels so unhealthy, and perhaps unsafe, to work out my fears and loathing for all of the interwebs to see.
And all the while, I’m spiritually numb. I feel torn between the driven, demanding orthodoxy of Opus Dei and more moderate influences that I’m nonetheless not fully comfortable with. I’m not completely home at either part of the spectrum. I’m truly home in the Catholic Church, but – even at a parish I love, an unusually traditional place where I know I am supposed to be – I have yet to find a home within the Church. That said, I could at least pray regularly, and I can barely get myself to do that.
So, this is where I am right now: desperate for restoration of body, mind, and soul – and unable to find a way to even start getting there.
Between the Phillies defeating my Padres and Houston winning the ALCS, I’m still surprised by how dead I feel inside.
CCD student wisdom of the day: “Adultery is when a kid tries too hard to be an adult.”
Becoming incredibly tired of having to use the mute button every time one of those irritating “Citizens for Sanity” ads pops up during the NLCS coverage.
I do, however, appreciate it when a Spanish-language ad follows.
Went to H Mart and became completely overwhelmed by the selection of Korean instant coffees. Also learned that gift shops attached to Korean grocery stores also sell pet accessories.
