rewrite

 Yesterday I posted after months of not posting and it was so weak. Just as I started to write, a friend stopped by. Never happens. Twice a week friends stop by. Once in a while one of them stops by but usually later in the day. Then another friend called. Never happens. I don't focus that well so that much distraction shattered the little focus I had. I'm going to try a rewrite, 

Years ago, I saw Justin Hall on MSNBC talking about personal blogging. He was going around the country at the time trying to convince average people to have a blog and write about their life.

About that time a friend of mine sent me an article about Willa. Willa kept a journal online and a blog separately. I always thought that was so clear. I loved the journal. It was like a letter from an old friend. And she found the coolest things on her blog. 

They both did their own coding. I tried to learn code, but I just wasn't into it. I bought WYSIWYG software and started writing. Not at all sure what I was doing or even why. And I did stop once I started working at EA. 

I think some of the urge to put my life online comes from being lonely. I have made friends online. I may not have met them, but I love them as if I've always known them. 

But blogging is about writing. Which I wish I would do. 

This is a tiny bit better than yesterday, but I need to do this a lot more often. 

TicTok

 Two Years ago, I started posting on TikTok. I had been lurking and wasn't really connecting. I don't know why I jumped in. 

Before that there was Facebook, which is never really completely satisfying. Twitter. Shrug. Instagram, which I used to post pictures of soup. Before all of that was blogging. I loved blogging. Blogging is writing. I sometimes love writing. Heh. 

Blogging was also community. I had a blog roll of other people who I followed. I craved comments. And I built some muscle tone with writing. 

When I started working at EA I stopped writing. Partly because I didn't feel comfortable writing about the job or the people on the job and partly because of the commute, which was long and exhausting. I've tried to get back to some kind of regular writing, but I just don't get it done. 

My posts on TikTok are one to three minutes long. I do think before I post, and I do some editing. There are many ways it reminds me of blogging. There is community. 

But TicTok might get banned. I've been posting on Instagram, but it doesn't have the same feel.

I'm not sure what this urge to post on social media is but I am hooked. 

Resolutions

 I guess I could make a resolution about writing but that hasn't worked. I have a list of reasons about why I don't write. None of them seem solid. I'm just not. 

I don't really make resolutions. 

Which makes me wonder about myself. Do I have any goals? Intentions? Desires? 

There was something about reformatting my book. 

Reading Proust. 

There must be something. 

Ageism

 I started a conversation about agism on TikTok. I'm on old lady TikTok. Which is to say that most of the people who hang out with me are older women. I have a few men and surprisingly a few of them are quite young. Very sincere. But mostly older women. Response to the conversation was moving. Women tend to equate aging with erasure. I understand but I've been on my own and living (more or less) in isolation so I both feel erased from the world and don't notice a difference. 

I am aware of the ways in which I weaponize my own internalized ageism. I say "I'm old" a lot. Usually as a way of explaining some failure of ability. But also, when I'm feeling irreparably damaged. 

The conversation is still going on but I'm tired. Constantly explaining, clarifying. It's been mostly good. I'm also at a loss for a way to continue it. Of the isms it doesn't feel like it gets attention. Last month was disability pride month. I learned a lot. There is an intersection of disability and ageism, obviously. 

This is what I do for fun. 

Sigh

 So that whole I'm going to write every day even if it's bad thing didn't work out. I'm not sure why I stopped. I know I was tired of having nothing to say. I don't remember the first day that I skipped it. And then another day and another day and another day...

My - I'm better - post was premature. I am better. But there are days when things are just bad. And I don't have energy for much of anything. But there are also days when I can get a few things done. 

Mandy helped me rearrange the furniture in my library. I wanted to be able to get to the books. Moving furniture has always been a happy thing for me. I just can't do it myself. There was a lot of dust. We still need to move the books themselves. I've been able to do a little bit of that. I spend so much time just looking at the shelves and feeling happy. 

I recently finished reading Elena Ferrante's - In the Margins. She writes about those red lines on the paper we wrote on in school. I got terrible grades on my handwriting, which will surprise no one who has seen my handwriting. It gets worse every day.  

She says she has two kinds of writing. Compliant and impetuous. Compliant being more like the writing required by the academy. Impetuous being writing that comes from a place she cannot summon or control. She aspires to writing that is strong and her own. I aspire to writing that ... happens. 

Heh. 

 

Better

 This weekend I did some (very small) projects. I cleaned up my files and the bag with all the bags. Really. Small things. 

But I haven't been able to do things since last year. The bare minimum to get through a day is almost too much. There's been a T-shirt on the counter across from the washer and dryer for weeks. Not folded. I just can't. Well. Actually, I folded it today.  

There's been this achy tiredness that keeps me down. It feels like it's in my bones. It's not as bad as it has been. 

My knees still hurt. Standing at the sink trying to clean things up I can feel the pain building. There's almost always something in the sink that I gave up on. 

But. I am better. The shoulder is better. The wrist is better. the stomach is better. And. I was able to put away the shirts that were on the bed today. I'd be happier about it if I trusted it. I'm still cautious. 

Decolonizng

 I've been trying to understand the mechanics of decolonizing in a psychological way.  

There are obvious things like decentralizing whiteness. In my current world that doesn't mean a lot. I'm alone most of the time. Hood River is very white. So, I live in white space on a micro and a macro way. But I've lived and worked in less white space for years. Restaurant kitchens are multi-cultural, generally.

I'm thinking more about the smaller and more subtle things, which are really hard to explain. Mostly because I don't understand them yet. 

Also. Cleaning out my file cabinet. Which is way easier.