The Fluffbucket Diaries

Props to the guy on LaGrange Road wearing a beanie and driving his Miata with the top down in 30-degree weather #MidwestLiving

I hate that I missed this in McSweeney’s: “Is it Perimenopause or the Fascist Death Knell of Late-Stage Capitalism?”

I’ve had various personal sites and blogs with the Gratuitous Web Presence brand over the past 30 years. I may bring it back at some point, but I’m having so much fun with the Fluffbucket moniker that I’m renaming this place.

Why “Fluffbucket” in the first place? Chris coined the name for our Bichon/Shih tzu mix, Winslow, years ago. Winslow has left this world, but the name remains, and I opted a few months ago to scrub my name from any public-facing social media I have left. (I’ve deactivated Facebook and LinkedIn, and I’ve taken Instagram private; Threads and Bluesky remain public, as does Micro.blog, though I don’t consider that major social media.) I started playing with the Fluffbucket name on a lark, and it’s stuck.

I’ve riffed on beloved pet names before for my online identity; I’ve operated online ventures as The Weederman Group and Small Goofy Dog Productions. But this is different. Rather than use a name to develop a personal or business brand, I’m doing this strictly to (a) operate under the radar and take my name entirely out of the online space (though I’m stuck with the “garciabuxton” username here), and (b) entertain myself.

So, I’m Fluffbucketing for the forseeable future. It’s going to be a long and painful 1 to 4 years; I might as well have fun along the way.

After Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to dump fact-checkers and loosen restrictions on Meta user posts, I’m less enthused about remaining on Threads. I’ll stick around, but I’m back to being leery of the place. The Zuck is obeying in advance, and that’s kind of scary.

Meanwhile, the Fluffbucket Variations continue on Bluesky.

Quietly being judged in the comfort of my own home office.

Been making an actual effort to emerge from my months of sluggishness, at least at work and with my journaling and health. The effort is up and down. Baby steps.

(On the health front, I’m focusing on standing up, hydrating, and sleeping when the new Apple Watch tells me to. It’s not much, but it’s something.)

I actually told a colleague yesterday, “I really don’t want another lost year like 2024. That’s what a lot of it felt like.”

Onward. That may well be my word for 2025. Onward.

I just mowed down an entire bag of Doritos. I mean, a 9-ounce bag. So much for the health resolutions I wrote out this afternoon. 😐

Well, crap. This is the kind of thing I’m trying to overcome in 2025.

I spent way too much time during a dull meeting today riffing on name variations for my Bluesky handle. This replaced Fa-la-la-la Fluffbucket and Auld Lang Fluffbucket this afternoon. More to come.

In my happy place tonight, on J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday, with “The Two Towers.”

I just made peanut butter and strawberry preserve sandwiches using leftover pancakes. And they were good. Please clap.

I think I finally get it. This is overgeneralizing, I know, but here goes.

Bluesky informs me and makes me laugh. Threads makes me contemplate and feel.

Yes, they switch roles periodically. But there’s a complementary yin/yang thing going on for me. No need to pick one over the other. I like that.

Social media: Without downloading new pics, what’s your energy going into 2025?

Honestly, I couldn’t decide between this and two other options (see below). I’m not so much mad at God as I am at elements of the Church, fundamentalists, and other right-wing religious absolutists.

I tend to fluctuate between anger, stress eating, and generic seething.

The Changing of the Planner is complete; 2025 looms in all its charcoal gray glory. Looking forward to leaving 2024 behind.

Trying to decide if I want to take a chance on the game News Tower. My nostalgia for the news business has largely dissipated in the nearly 15 years since I left it, but I’m intrigued by the idea of a video game where I play the editor of a 1930s-era New York newspaper.

Muting all terms on social media involving the sport and team I love as my team’s GM continues to sit tight while other teams make blockbuster moves.

I don’t need to be more depressed about the state of the world than I already am.

I got an Apple Watch for Christmas and am trying to breathe and hydrate when it tells me to every hour. It kind of helps, but then I worry about how my life is so far gone that it takes an electronic doodad to get me to inhale and drink water.

Took the day off w/post-Christmas slowness. I could spend this early weekend start cleaning out my office, but that means spending more time in my office than I’d like.

It was a good day for an impromptu Indian lunch with the husband and the best masala chai I’ve had in ages. It’s the small things.

A colleague just turned me on to “A.P. Bio.” I need the laughs. It had me at Paula Pell flashing a photo before a classroom of students and screaming, “This is my cervix! Who can tell me the five things wrong with it?”

Funny how I watch much more TV since cutting the cable cord years ago.

Working on this Boxing Day. I do have random Grateful Dead sets keeping me company, and at least I can wear the blanket hoodie and slippers that F picked out me for Christmas.

My brain feels as foggy and drizzly as the weather. But that’s honestly nothing new these days.

On my second viewing of “Fellowship of the Ring” with the family on this Christmas Day. Extended version this time.

I very much want to be a hobbit when I grow up.

So much lack of seasonal joy this year on social media. Not quite despair. Much grief, sadness, ennui. This is perhaps nothing new, really, but people seem much more open about it this year. And so many face the New Year with dread, myself among them.

All that said, I’m still wishing us all peace.

Just watched the Kennedy Center Honors tribute to the Grateful Dead wind down. Will never get used to Bob Weir looking like he should be on a box of frozen fish sticks.

Starting my second viewing of “Somebody Somewhere.” I know I keep going on about it, but I’ve really needed this show.

Grief, loneliness, feeling like an outsider, finding one’s tribe. There’s a lot there. And I love it all.

Linking this here for my own reference as we as a family dive deep into the “Lord of the Rings” universe: “How to Watch the Lord of the Rings Movies and TV Show in Order: A Guide to Middle-earth’s Epic Saga” (People).