notanotherblackbird

[notanotherblackbird]

Fall vibes 🧡🍂 🐱 🍂🧡

[notanotherblackbird]

My successes rarely feel successful and I always dwell in imposter syndrome. No matter how aware I always feel like I’m not doing quite enough. I’m always making the wrong choices even while trying, desperately, to navigate without breaking or crashing into anything.

I watch those with bright and sparkling confidence, and feel nothing but terror as they calmly walk through the same trials and tribulations. If they have fear it is not in the same all encompassing way and it makes me feel like I am slowly, slowly withering into nothing.

The drastic change from when I am on my own vs when I am with my partner is too much. I was made to live in a communal setting and this very very individual world is so difficult to navigate.

[notanotherblackbird]

The evacuation prep poster is done! This poster is designed primarily with wildfires in mind, but the tips can apply to preparing for any much any disaster.

If you share this image outside of tumblr, please link back to my website: www.Katy-L-Wood.com

[[Image ID: A poster including a layered graphic showing what items to have ready to prepare for evacuating your home based on how much warning you have that you need to evacuate. The inner, red, level is labeled “No Warning.” The next, orange, level is labeled “Less Than an Hour.” The next, yellow, level is labeled “More Than an Hour.” The final, green, level is labeled “General Preparedness.” The items associated with each level and the text are included below. /end ID.]]

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Evacuation Prep:

As the world changes, it is important to be prepared to safely and efficiently evacuate your home, potentially with little or no warning. Preparing ahead of time can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and help you evacuate safely if the time comes.

Red Level (No Warning): People | Pets | Keys. Human life matters most. If you can’t rescue your pets, let them out to give them their best chance. If evacuating by car, don’t forget your keys.

Orange Level (Less Than an Hour): Crucial Meds | Important Papers | Money | Paper Map | Pet Vaccination Records. Crucial meds and medical equipment. Papers including passports, birth certificates, medical records, etc.. Multiple forms of payment. Paper map with marked evac routes in case of signal loss. Phone. Most evac centers require vaccine records for pets to be allowed in.

Yellow Level (More Than an Hour): Photos | Hard Drives | Computers | Chargers | Irreplaceable Items | OTC Meds | Pet Supplies | Pet Food | Clothes | Weather Gear. Family photos. Hard drives and computers. Make digital backups ahead of time. Charging cords. Irreplaceable items such as collectibles and mementos. Over the counter medical supplies such as Aspirin and tampons. Pet supplies such as bowls, crates, toys, and litter. Pet food and treats. Clothes. If you are running out of time grab your laundry basket. Weather gear if needed.

Green Level (General Preparedness): Food | Water | Radio | N95 Masks | Multitool | Power Pack | Gas | Stove + Fuel | Flashlight | Toiletries | Emergency Contact Info | Bedding | First Aid | Can Opener. Easy prep, shelf-stable food. Water. Battery powered/rechargeable NOAA weather radio. N95 masks for smoke. A multitool. Rechargeable power pack for phones. Keep your car at least partially fueled at all times. Portable stove and fuel for cooking food without power. Flashlight and spare batteries. Toiletries including hair products, toothbrush and paste, etc.. Emergency contact info for friends and loved ones. Spare pillows and blankets. Dedicated first aid kit. Can opener.

Save yourself time and stress by preparing an evacuation bag ahead of time and keep it in an easy to access place. At the end of every season rotate out the perishable items within such as food, water, and medications. The more you can keep in the bag, the more time you’ll have to grab everything else. Remember, it is okay if you can’t do everything. Some preparation is better than no preparation.

If you are in the U.S.A. and experiencing disaster related anxiety call the Disaster Distress Hotline at 1-800-985-5990 for support and resources.

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If you share this image outside of tumblr, please link back to my website: www.Katy-L-Wood.comf

[notanotherblackbird]

"I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together."

-Lisa Kleypas

[notanotherblackbird]

[notanotherblackbird]

I’m absolutely drowning in Joji’s new song. Like playing on repeat for hours. Not because I can apply it to my own life, I am truly in the best relationship of my life with no desire to look backward. But instead because I can slide into that role the same way I can when reading a book or watching a movie.

I always wonder if it’s just empathy to a large extent or if there’s something more. Is it a memory from another time? I tend to be too afraid of seeming illogical to think too intently about past lives or reincarnation at large.

It could also just be that deep deep groove in my brain that is comfortable being sad. This kind of angst and longing feels, well, a little like wallowing in an old wound. Both in a good and bad way. Good in that it is definitely firing off that sweet dopamine and giving me the good chemicals, but bad in that it feels almost like an addictive hit in a way.

I dunno I’m just over here rolling in the deep, you know? Like waxing philosophical for funzies but also, again, too afraid of being taken as illogical to like really go for it.

I think that happens to me a lot. Not being taken seriously really prevents me from saying so much out loud even if I find it interesting.

Well I accidentally attached the song twice and in the wrong spots so lol guess it’s just a super intense pushing of it. I’d redo the post but, I don’t think I care enough to do that. (Jk I fixed it in post-edit)

If you enjoy getting into the sads, big recommend. But be ready if the feels can really creep up on you like they can me. Good luck out there.

[notanotherblackbird]

It’s been so long since last I was here that I opted to just make a new account. If I can muster the energy to figure out the old one, I’ll probably use it again, but for now I’m happier just to talk into the void.

It’s what I’ve always used tumblr for anyway. The only journaling that’s ever stuck, that’s ever felt like I was talking rather than “journaling.” That word doesn’t look right but even that can’t be helped in the summer of 2022.

Not only have I felt so poor mentally recently I actually physically think something might be wrong with me. All things considered I’m not in pain or suffering for the time being so if there *is* something wrong with me, I’ll be fine for now. I have money saved but not for a medical fiasco, so until it gets worse I suppose I stay the course.

The heat is terrible though. The heat makes me want to yeet myself from this mortal coil, but I also worry that I’m going to get heat stroke just from it being so hot. I know it gets hotter elsewhere but I’ll be damned if it’s not just too hot to cope some days.

I feel like my emotions have like, scabbed over. That’s the best way I can describe it. Everything happening in the world is terrible. I miss my LDR partner. I fight too much with my roommate. I don’t have any friends that are girls and I’m honestly too scared to try to make new ones. My guy friends are fine and all but I miss having people to confide in. I just, miss girls in general. Reading that back sounds like I’m a dude which is, funny in a bitter way I guess.

One of my old friend group married a past coworker of mine who I actually despised. He was truly an awful human being. I had to work with him during the election the awful orange was elected and listening to his smug attitude about it was the worst. Even though I just wanted to work he would go out of his way to pester me and talk *at* me about it. He is one of very few people I’ve sincerely used the word hate for and meant it. I’ve not said anything to her about it, if she’s happy she’s happy. Our friendship had been tenuous at best as she had pulled some pretty shitty stunts in the past that led to us not being friends for some years.

Another friend I reconnected with the year before the pandemic, only to swiftly distance myself because she was like “lol yeah now that I make money I kind of get why people become conservative.” She and I grew up in very different financial circumstances but had been friends since early grade school. Lost touch in college only to reconnect after I moved states. And then…to hear that, just, icked me so much.

Money? Of all things to make you think ahh yeah let’s forget all of the trampling of human rights just for the sake of money. No thanks. I grew up surrounded by people with money. None of it is worth the atrocities.

For the record, though I deeply do not expect to get even a bot’s interaction with this, I’m not interested in debate. This is literally just for me to type unfiltered thoughts and I’m not trying to speak in nuance or change minds or have mine changed.

My other two old school friends dipped out of my life completely, one long before I moved, one long after. One because I wouldn’t conform to her desire to go out or socialize with other people who lived in our hometown. One for, as I was told by another friend entirely, “crossing lines I knew were there even though she’d never specifically mentioned them.” No not physically, literally for giving advice. Advice she didn’t want but did ask, specifically, for. Like, “What should I do in situation X?” “If I were you, I’d do this in situation X.” “Yeahhhhh, it’s so hard though…”

I’m still bitter about that last one. Mostly because when I talked to the friend who clued me in on *why* I was ghosted in the first place, it truly just felt like she hadn’t actually liked being my friend in the first place and just, was anyway. I’ve been hurt and confused since it happened and the best closure I’ve had was literally just accepting she didn’t like me at all.

If my heart was shaped like a classic love heart and broken into four pieces from those friendships alone, the first would have just been a chip off the bottom, broken from our fight long long ago. The second and third, the two bumps along the top, my oldest friendships and sad for different reasons.

But the last took everything that was left. And now, though I deeply wish I knew how to talk to other women I have actually no clue. I get nervous and clumsy and say too much and not enough. I don’t have “traditionally feminine” hobbies but I’m afraid of getting to know even the women I run into through them.

I have joined so many discords to try and branch out but I’m too nervous to talk in them. I’m so awkward at this point it’s so so…dumb honestly. I’m being dumb. I don’t know how to be less dumb about it either.

I super wish this was an “I’m not like other girls” problem because at least then I’d be doing it on purpose. But I think at least part of the issue is that while I’m in a committed relationship at present and have no intention on changing that, I’m bi but have no experience with women. I didn’t come out even to myself until the last few years and by then I was already in a relationship. 

The more I’ve really come into accepting myself though, the worse it’s gotten trying to talk to other women. It’s like being a stereotype of a teen boy who just can’t help but put their foot in their mouth with every word they say.

One of the friends I hang out with has brought one of their female friends around to hang out and play a game with us and despite even knowing this person previously, I could barely get a sentence together and when I did it was, cringe? At best? Again not in an “I’m hitting on you way” more like an “ah yes I’m definitely a human and not an alien trying to communicate” way. I still feel like such an idiot even though no one said anything about it.

I think it’s like, I’m trying too hard. I want to be accepted so so badly that I’m like trying to build a house of cards but I kick the table full force every time I need to get another card. I go from talking too much about myself, to trying to start conversations at the wrong time, or asking weird? maybe? questions? until I eventually just stop talking and sit there paralyzed thinking about every dumb thing I’ve said or done in the last however long.

Why do I not have this problem with talking to men? I have no idea. Sometimes I say dumb stuff when talking to guys, but I can just brush it off. My partner and I can absolutely rib each other for hours while playing games and we just laugh about the dumb stuff we say and carry on.

If I could attribute any labels to it it’s like, men will activate my fight response more than anything else. I’m ready to spar with words at the drop of a hat. With women? It’s like flight and fawn and freeze are all tangled up and I can’t navigate my way through a single one of those responses without making an absolute fool out of myself.

I don’t know how to fix it other than just, continuing to try. But it really is *physically* painful trying to not drag myself after doing so.

Well not to end this unceremoniously, but I’m tired finally and it’s nearly 6am. I hope literally no one reads this all the way through, and if you did, well I’d apologize but this isn’t exactly content for other people. I don’t remember how to add a read more on mobile either.

Good night, sweet void