The Musings of a Wandering Soul

Content Warning: non-detailed allusions to my shitty abusive ex and the shitty relationship we had

I have been working on the Inbox0 project, which sorta has two modalities:

First, the banality of daily life. Unsubscribing from things I don't care about, and mass deleting the bulks they have sent in the past. Meeting notes and invitations and preperatory emails that can safely be labeled ("highland ball" got a workout today, from when I ran it in 2017) and archived. Going through the 50 most recent emails in the inbox and trying to at least first pass all of what's happened lately.

Second, the weight of history. I have had the same email address since 2005, so that sure is, uh, twenty years since January 15th. It's not everything I've ever gotten (see above about bulk-deleting bullshit) and I do have like, a more professionally wallet-named account, but even that sends its email into the main box.

And the weight of history can be _exhausting_. That's part of what makes this game difficult, trying to motivate myself to be exposed fully to some of my worst ADHD sins, or the parts of my personal history where the Big D went on the word depression. Have I mentioned lately I went through an abusive relationship for most of the year 2007? Yeah, uh. That still has bits and pieces lying around it sure does.

But mannnnn one of the benefits of hindsight and being an actual friggin' grown-up and stuff is the ability to look at some of those bits and pieces and see just how much I have grown and improved and gotten better. I can have a lot of grace for myself (I do genuinely like myself, regardless of how much I whine I am a really spectacularly awesome person) and part of the reason is that recognition of the work I have done to reach better and better heights as time goes on.

Or, like, to read an email in which this guy I was totally into was basically breaking up with me, in part because he was not interested in being in a polycule with my shitty boyfriend. Boo hiss, this should be real sad. But it's _not_ because it's been twenty freaking years, that guy I was totally into has developed a lovely sounding life for himself on the other side of the world and I've made a polycule that has an absolute dearth of shitty boyfriends anywhere in it. And so I can read stuff like this...

However, I talked to ksatyr....he is *way* over-reacting. You think you're not ready for a relationship? I'm sorry, but this is a demonstration of not being ready for a relationship.

...and scream lovely modern "YASS QUEEN SLAY¹" because BOY HOWDY it is good to remember that there were people who were willing to say to my face "yeah, your boyfriend ain't shit because shit at least provides fertilizer and causes growth²". I mean, I didn't listen sufficiently at the time, but it turns out it never gets old to listen to folks drag my shitty partners, even if I didn't necessarily realize it at the time.

So yeah. The history is rough but it's also nice to see the growth that goes alongside it. And it's nice to get reminders that however fucked up current-right-now Kat is, they're not (correctly) getting dragged by a twenty year old for acting like a sixteen year old³.

~Sor

MOOP!

1: This is almost certainly ironic as it's not language that has actually gotten into my lexicon yet.

2: Okay sure, I suppose you could argue that kSatyr caused growth _in me_. As a different shitty ex once said "-99 points for everything, +1 for making a better Kat for the rest of us". But just because it causes growth doesn't mean I particularly want to be covered in shit. :P

3: September party! I will finally be the age my abusive ex was when he dated me! WOOO!

I have a cold or allergies or something and it is making me cranky.

(I don't normally have allergies, but because I did so much cleaning on Saturday, I did stir up a fair chunk of dust. So like...maybe that's some of the problem? I did take a covid test Sunmorn, I should probably take another one in a day or two. Wastewater data is pretty low right now, so I'd be surprised if it was covid (I am still masking everywhere as per usual))

But yeah, my nose is either congested or runny, which is very annoying. Probably one of the solutions is to drink more water, sigh. My current main water bottle is full of flowers from the brunch last weekend. Which is very nice, but probably I should've gotten a vase in the first place.

Sidebar: I have seen the writing on the wall and begun writing on the new/current version of 750words, as the old version becomes increasingly deprecated and buggy. I hate it, so much, because interacting with things that are different is Wrong And Bad and also I am unthrilled with how excited Buster is about the concept of using AI as a cool assistant who will give you lovely reports about your writing. Honestly gross, if I want to go through my writing and see how things are different, I am perfectly happy to just literally do that. I do not need robots to tell me how to feel about the changes that have happened or to find the patterns that are occurring. Anyways, there's a nonzero chance I might abandon the site entirely and just start tracking my writing in .txt files on my laptop, which would be annoying in different ways.

Anyways, all this most recent complaint is because apparently the new site does not respond to ctrl-z. What, I say as heartily as I possibly can, the fuck. Like I know some of my crankiness is just your classic neurospice "things are different [and that's bad]" but I'm going to legitimately flag this as a Poor UX Choice.

At least he did make it so that you could type in plaintext instead of horrible automatic markdown bullshit that thinks it knows what you mean when you type *emphasis* _like this_ and quite probably thinks those two things are the _same fucking thing_ which I assure you they are *not*. Also, both of them are different from italicising or bolding, those are additional *different* forms of emphasis. The fastest way to make me stop using a website is to assume you know how I wanted to say the things I said.

(It's a fun game to take a chunk of text that has auto-formatted, like in Discord, and to attempt to put back in the proper emphatic markers. The best part is that I am frequently --I'd say between two-thirds and seventy-five percent-- correct if I later go through and edit in a way that shows me the original. No one else can probably tell the way my voice is supposed to be, but I usually can, and I like that fact about myself.)

Everything in the world is cranky because it is the end of the school year and I am burnt out, and I'm not actually a fan of this way of being. So how about this: There are these flowers that grow in big weird purple balls and they're extremely keen. Aliums, I think? Anyways, I've been seeing those pretty frequently out and about in the world and I like them quite a bit.

(it is a well established fact that I like things that are round, known also as "the strongest I've ever been fuckored". I also like flowers and bright colours! So these are very good. I will try and take a picture sometime soon.)

Okay, I am in the library for extra math help (and I have a kiddo! even if it's not my kiddos who I was expecting but some strange lovely kiddo from another class, that's still quite good!) and while I'm not actively helping kids, I am either going to play Balatro or try and work on the Endless Email Project. Wish me luck, it's been a while!

~Sor
MOOP!

Tuesday visited this weekend!

I've been deeply burnt out (have I mentioned that here? Have I mentioned that thirty times here? I'm really not sure!) and so I was upfront when we started talking about a potential hang this weekend, and straight-up said "the most useful thing for me would be if you came over and hung out in my room while I got things done (nagging optional)". And so late late Friday night (when I was dead-to-the-world asleep, because I forgot my ADHD meds on Friday and crashed _hard_, like, nine PM out cold on the couch) Tuesday showed up and kissed my head and we went upstairs where I made the bed vaguely livable.

Saturday was really quite productive, and I'm pleased with what I got done! Sunday was much lessso productive, but it was a nice chance to hang out with Tues and kinda do nothing. Here's some highlights, in no particular order:

*Saturmorn I made eggs. They turned out pretty well! We ate them with toast and it was a very satisfying breakfast.

*Satureve, Ezri decreed it their annual birthday-sushi night, and so Tues and I walked to Davis to pick up a pah-tee-plah-tah¹ with approximately eight hundred sushi on it. It was too much for the four of us to eat in one go, so I had a bit of leftover sushi this evening which was pretty great. All of it was great!

*I did three entire loads of laundry, which is, uh. Yeah. It's apparently been a hot second since I last did laundry. I had been observing that I was starting to run out of underwear, which like, because it's me means I only had like six clean pairs left or something. But they weren't the _optimal_ pairs anymore, that's the problem!

(the related problem is that I don't know where I will get more underwear when I need, because last I checked, Target is still being bootlicking fuckasses, and I have no interest in giving them my business until they make it right. So I will have to like, find a new company that sells fairly basic cotton boxer briefs in good colours, and I hate this.)

*I had done a rough clean of my desk on Tuesday night when Austin visited, but today I gave it another shakedown, and made some better progress. I found so many gift cards! Things still feel dire, but less so, and I found a box to put all the ADHD games and scrap paper, which seems good.

*Tuesday helped me hang up all the hanging laundry, and that was really _really_ nice of her. It's one of the parts I hate by far the most, and am worst at. So I really did finish all the laundry.

*I wrote heaps, including figuring out my spreadsheets for dance (where I got all the data I was posting about) and writing a bit of "?!" for having a thousand days of words.

*We started to do some LEGO, and then stopped, so I have some partially finished models that I will hopefully work on over the next few days. They're bugs!

*Today involved a long walk and some errands. I picked up a copy of Overgrowth from PSB, and we got Panera Bread (because aforementioned gift cards). It was fun!

*I showed Tuesday a little bit of Rogue Legacy, because my brain has been _very_ video game lately. This is a problem with being burnt out, I think, that I want to wrap myself in high dopamine low-effort things.

*And lots of snuggling and holding hands and basking in each other and stuff like that. This is my favourite part of kem visiting!

~Sor

MOOP!

1: If you're not reading this like a clone high reference, you're not doing it right!

Okay, went a bit sideways from room cleaning into data collation for my GenderFree SCD class. I now know that the class has made a profit of: $137 after 16 classes. That is *not counting* the fact that I've still committed to putting myself 1k into the hole for this project, so like, the fact that we have actually made money is _great_ and means we're still well above the threshold for "should I consider shutting this down".

tbf, we don't pay me when I MC, and like, that's fine, that's part of what this project is, but it does mean I can't consider ourselves fully self-sufficient until we can't afford to regularly pay MCs. But I think as things currently stand, I still feel a lot more strongly about "I want people to come dance regardless of paying (AND STUDENTS SHOULD NOT GIVE ME MONEY)" than reaching a form of self-sufficiency that doesn't rely on a lot of unpaid labour from *me specifically*, because like, I am _so happy_ to deliver this labour.

I am actually being paid for my role in this class, and the way I am being paid is in "holy shit, I like my hobby and feel positive about it again". This is especially evident in the fact that this month I'm back teaching at Cambridge Class for the first time in over two years, and man, the vibes are not the same. I like teaching at Cambridge, I can have real good feelings and moments there. But I've been saying for a while "I love my hobby but it doesn't love me back".

Some of it is covid bullshit. It was _exhausting_ trying to be the only person to remind an entire group of adults that actually this dangerous communicable disease exists and we should try to protect each other from it. With my class, I could actually set a rule! And then I could set an example and say "look, masks are always recommended" and honestly, mostly people wear masks most of the time even when the wastewater levels are low enough that they're not required. Fuuuuck yes!

And so much of it is gender bullshit. Both Monday's I've taught, one person has specifically come up to me to complain about the use of "bird terms". Like. I can't deal with this. I can't deal with the clear vitriol at me using the gender-neutral terminology that seemingly every other dance form has been comfortable in for years. I really am tired of dealing with all the casual transphobia that comes alongside callers who are trying to call neutrally but not actually thinking about it¹. And I just fucking can't handle being a polite little "good trans" when someone loudly asks if I'm dancing on the wrong side of the dance and then gets mad at _me_ for being confused by what they were asking.

It's not just that my hobby doesn't love me back. It's that parts of my hobby, some people in my hobby, are _loudly_ making it clear that I don't belong inside it. And I didn't realize how much I missed just easy enjoyable Scottish dancing until I started my own class, where that...doesn't happen. Coming back to Cambridge Class occasionally this spring has made me realize just how close I was to leaving the dance form entirely^1.5. I can sustain being only kinda welcome in the main spaces when I know I also have my safer space to retreat to.

And my safer space is WORKING. I have 13² people who have attended at least 4/16 classes so far. I have 37 more people who have attended any classes at all. I'm averaging about 9 people a week, which is a full set plus a caller. I've had two weeks with only six of us present (both of which genuinely kicked ass) but never fewer, which means I've never had to horribly cancel, embarrassed as hell towards the four people there or whatever. I'm horrible at advertising and reminding people to come, but it's still happening anyways and that's really cool.

I start every Thursday morning internally screaming, because oh god, in addition to everything else I have to set a damn program and prepare some extra dances for if we have a weird number of dancers and aaah. And then I come home every Thursday floating, because people came and danced and tried things and learned things and seemed to have fun. And sometimes they even come back for more. It's the best thing I've done this year, and that's not even close. I mean, okay, fine, MGH emails me when they use my blood to save someone's life and that is also extremely satisfying³, but seriously. Creating a community feels very very good and makes me very happy to have done.

So yay, glad to have run some data and seen that it looks like I'll be able to keep going. Maybe for a while even!

~Sor
MOOP!

(odd Thursdays, either 7pm-9 or 7:30pm-9:30, 504 Medford St in Somerville (the NESFA clubhouse). Come join anytime!)

1: I got a comment after the welcome dance by someone thanking me for being one of two callers they've ever heard call both with gender-neutral terms *and* pronouns. If you say "first robin cast to her left, while her partner casts to his right" you are not actually accomplishing what you set out to do, and may actually be making things worse.

1.5: Yes, I am arrogant enough to point out that any member of RSCDS reading that should've gotten a chill down their spine. Not to be egotistical on main, but I am a huge boon to this branch. I am a good teacher, I am a regular member serving various committees and co-chairing various events, and I am a joyous and enthusiastic participant who loves dancing with newer dancers and enthusiastically trying to drag other people in. The hobby dies if you lose the people who make things happen and who bring in others. Just. Fucking. Saying.

2: And 7 of those have attended at least half the classes so far. No one has attended all 16, myself included (I'm at 15, which should really be "14.5" but I don't differentiate how long people were at class, Alex is also 15, Keira's 14.)

3: THIS IS A REAL THING AND IT IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST EMAIL YOU CAN EVER GET. I'm just fucking around going about my day and glance at my phone and it's a subject line "you just saved lives!" and because it's literally from the blood donor center, I know they actually mean it. So fucking cool. Cannot overstate how great that feels to get.