No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on February 2, 2020

There is a lot jammed into today with groundhogs and their shadows, 49er vs Kansas football for all the marbles, Imbolc which was technically yesterday but I am sure the celebration is ongoing and Candlemas. I know some friends who are celebrating World Ukulele Day the best way possible.

Peter will be blogging the commercials on his website for the Super Bowl. Feel free to stop by and comment on your favorites. We have been trying to avoid the teasers for the commercials so we can look at them without any prejudice. 

Sometime that was pointed out to me from a tech website which is rather smart. This year I am making sure that when I write the date on something like Caroline’s permission slip or a check or a contract, I write 2020 not just 20 since that can be taken and used for any year from 2000-2099 if someone was of a mind to do so.

Also today is a rare palindrome date 02.02.2020.

I have the food planned out for the day considering everyone’s likes and dislike and dietary needs. I am having my onion dip and chips because that is something that I use to eat while watching football with my father.  

This year I don’t really have a team I am cheering for in this game. The 49ers have played well and their quarterback is amazing. Andy Reid has been to the big dance more than once up never won the whole thing. I am hoping for a good game that does not turn into a blowout for either team. And no one gets seriously injured. 

The cats are happy with me because they got their breakfast very early this morning but it has thrown their napping schedule off. 

I can feel my brain coming back online. I was on autopilot for a while this morning but I didn’t want to wake Peter up because I was unable to sleep. He does the same thing for me when he wakes up and can’t sleep. 

I think today I am going to stay offline for the most part. I may try to start making Sundays my electronic free day with the exception of writing on my laptop. I read an interesting article about electronics and how stepping away from the constant stream of information and cat videos can help ones’ brain feel better. 

Another thing I started doing again is writing in cursive. It seems to help activate parts of my brain. They say that a totally different part of the brain is working when you write in cursive rather than printing. The other thing I am doing is working on my cursive so it is readable. Funny thing is when I first learned how to write in script, I wanted to switch back to printing so bad. Now I want to go back. The only reason Caroline can read and write in cursive was a subversive teacher in elementary school who believed every child should be able to read the Constitution and other historical documents for themselves.

Well, off to write other things I need to write and get some stuff done around the house before the other humans wake up.

I am grateful that I learned cursive as part of my early education.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on February 1, 2020

One month down and eleven to go. 

The first month of a year to me feels a little strange. Like I am putting the year on and trying it out. 

Once we get into February, I feel that the year is really here.

It is also when I need to figure out what the rest of the year is going to be in terms of projects. 

I know which conventions we are going to for the most part and from that I can divide down to what I want to get done when. 

I am the artist guest of honor at Heliosphere so I will want some pieces for that to show the range of my work. I am looking forward to that.

But first we have the Farpoint art show where I have a table to show and possible sell my stuff. I have a couple of ideas for lower price point items and there are two puppets I want to show.

I am grateful for the new month.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on January 31, 2020

Each morning when I wake up I go through the day and what I want to do. This gives my body some time to wake up. I stretch various parts to make sure they are in good order and I don’t have something I need to compensate for. 

I woke up this morning and found my brain doing that weird thing where I have no idea what I am going to do next. I have a list but not where to start. I am going to do it by deadline now.

There is a method to my lack of madness. 

Of course as I write that, there is a loud crash as the cats, in chasing each other, have going full speed into a stack of games and I have boxes everywhere. There is the first thing after writing this entry.

Off I go into the fog.

I am grateful for brain power.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on January 30, 2020

There is an episode of Dinosaurs entitled ‘When Food Goes Bad’. In it the parents go out on a date leaving the kids home alone for the first time since Granny went to the casino. These are Dinosaurs so the appetizer is a live mammal looking thing. At one point, Earl puts the appetizer in his mouth and then does a spit take. The appetizer turns to him and say, “I had a hat” and Earl spits out the hat. And that’s not the best part of the episode.

Wednesday night Peter and I have our bowling league and we leave Caroline home alone. We worked toward this over time and now I feel safe leaving her home alone. I am working on making sure she has the life skills she needs so when she goes off into the world, she can take care of herself.

Working out the day. Yesterday was productive and I would like to continue the trend. 

A vocal minority who are either trolls or haters in several fandoms are not giving me happy feelings these days. I keep telling myself this is not all fandom and, for the most part, fandom is more than happy to see more of what they love. Also, the gatekeepers need to go. I really don’t care where you are stepping into the fandom, you are a fan. There is not a litmus test to prove one is a true fan.  And fans don’t have to like everything within a fandom. This all or nothing idea which has permeated some of the longer running fandoms is not a good thing. I believe in the joy of fandom. I believe in the fun of sharing what one loves about a fandom with others. I am tired of watching others stomp on that fun and joy. I can remember as a young fan there were a set of fans that looked down on us as almost an annoyance. I swore I would never do that to another fan. Young blood is the only way a fandom grows. I have watched fandoms fade into almost nothing because the gatekeepers didn’t think anyone else was good enough to join. 

I do like that creating costumes for going to conventions is now considered pretty normal. I like that I can find materials I could not back in the day. I love seeing what others have discovered about what can be done on the cheap. I love learning and teaching others how to make cool stuff. This is a group who shares because they want others to know how they did it and encourages people to join in. Are there bad eggs, yeah but I think that is true for any group. Are there some holier than thou? Yep, but they are in the minority. The community I know goes out of their way to promote costuming for everyone. 

In fact, I love that things I was a fan of when I was a teen are now main-stream. The nerds won and a lot of people are admitting that they were closet fans too. Wearing a Marvel tie to work is no longer frowned on. Talking about going to a convention is becoming normal water cooler talk. It has gone from a majority of straight white males to everyone. I love seeing families strolling around a convention and each one is there because of their love of a fandom. That a woman working at a comic book shop is not a strange occurrence. 

I am grateful for inclusive fandoms.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on January 29, 2020

I would call yesterday a success in my books. By the end of the day I got done what I needed to do and a few other side projects that I have been trying to get to. 

I am hoping to keep the momentum going today. I have a plan and I know what interruptions there will be during the day. Now onto executing it.

I did like Picard. It had enough call backs to attach it to Next Gen but enough new material to keep my interest. 

We also watched our way through “Why Women Kill” which was an amazing show. It is told from three time periods in the same house where there has been a dead body. The tales of the hows and whys were very well done. Solid cast and good writing. And they played fair all the way. What you see at the beginning is explained by the end.

The Dragon Prince is a little gem that is not getting enough attention. The world building in it is top notch and the characters are not one note. Plus the Dragon Prince is really cute.

Yes, we are watching Doctor Who. Yes, I know I have not done a New Who Review for this season. I am hoping to get back to that considering what happened in the last episode. I have some ideas on that.

Prodigal Son has become must see TV in this household. Well acted and a dynamic story, it has our attention.

We have to pick and choose what we want to spend our time on. There are only so many hours in the day and there is a lot of content out there.

We did see Doolittle and could see the patchwork of an edit between the various directors and writers. But it was not a bad film and Antonio Banderas is amazing in it. Not a perfect film but some really good fun.

I have been feeling a sense of clarity that I have been missing for a long time. And it is a good feeling indeed. I know I talk a lot about the depressing parts of depression but I also want to make sure to note when things are better. The phrase ‘it does gets better’ is one that needs to be said but with that phrase there needs to be more ‘how did it get better?’ Saying a phrase over and over and it can become noise to those it is being said to. 

How does it get better? Now that I have a therapist who listens to me, it has gotten better. I feel more like my old self and others have commented on that. I am not tired every minute of every day. My four hour good to do something window has expanded to over 12 hours and I am feeling like I have to nap in the latter half of the day. My focus is back. My brain can keep on track getting from point a to point b without distracting myself by other things. Projects do not seem as overwhelming as they did. I am no longer paralyzed in fear as to where to start and I appreciate what I have gotten done. 

I am grateful for the medications that are helping me become me again.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags: