#this is what happens when millenials teach gen z

[hooveringthemotherland]

Shout-out to our creative writing tutors at uni who chose THIS header image for our graduation project's moodle page:

Yeah. They get it.

[a-very-tired-jew]

You're not as informed as you think, and age does play a factor.

This is going to ruffle some feathers, but it needs to be said. You're not as informed on the I/P Conflict and the history of the region as you think, and age plays a major factor. Hell, you're not as informed on a lot of topics as you think. I want you to think about what you were doing 5 years ago. Were you still running around on the playground? Were you making dioramas for a science class? Were you in high school worried about being a first year? Were you just starting to pick out colleges or deciding to even go? Did you ever call a teacher by their first name? Now, there is a line that we hear thrown about that people don't fully mature till they're 25. While this is bupkis and misrepresents the research, it is true that the brain does not stop developing till sometime in the mid to late 20s. In fact, the brains of undergraduates age 18-22 and their respective thought patterns more closely resemble high schoolers than they do mid 20s and above. So what does this mean in the course of the I/P conflict? For one thing, this is your first incident. Your first I/P war. Those of us in our 30s and above have seen a good number of them at this point. I even remember when the use of child suicide bombers became a standard method for Hamas and other terrorist groups during the Second Intifada. As such, many of us are used to the manipulation that we see in this particular region. We're used to seeing antisemitism be dismissed and well intentioned people be manipulated. Many of us are just tired because you're going through the same shit we did at your age and we look back and go "oh, we were severely misinformed". Because this is your first, you're super passionate about it, but that passion can be manipulated. Second, you're not as smart or well informed as you think you are. This has to do with the age and maturation thing mentioned above. While 25 is an arbitrary number, there are some milestones that happen by then. By 25 you have had enough life experience to really start piecing together your education, your life experiences, your world experiences, and your respective beliefs into a coherent way of approaching topics. Hopefully by that age you're less likely to have the emotional outburst in response to a subject (think about the stereotypical slamming the door teenager behavior, many of us did that and we cringe thinking about it) and more likely to approach something in a levelheaded and informed manner. Unfortunately there is some research that shows evidence that Gen Z and Millenials are susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, with the former exhibiting behavior akin to Boomers. So keep that in mind that none of us are safe for misinformation, but some generations are worse than others. Now, who am I to say this to you? Some of you are quite mad right at the moment. Some of you have strived to be seen as well informed young adults or to be taken seriously, and in some cases you are. However...

I'm in my 30s and I have been teaching at the college level for a decade and some change now. By no means am I an expert, but I have enough experience to say something. The ages I teach are 18+, meaning I've had students that are typical fresh high school grads and students that are in their 50s. Myself and my colleagues have heard repeatedly from students the "I'm an adult, I know what I'm doing" line to only watch that 18-22 y.o. student fail miserably or come crying to us later. I have personally watched students go through the stages of grief as they realized in my classes that their pet science activism is not what they thought, but they've wrapped so much of their identity around it. You're still learning, and thinking you know more just because you read something online is an issue. You're also still growing and developing as a person. Recognize that you can be manipulated. Recognize that you can be wrong. Recognize your own inherent biases. Then do better.

[queen-mihai]

I wanna talk directly to the members of Gen Z who can hear me for a moment

Because it hit me just now that we have ourselves an opportunity!

The greatest generation. The silent generation. The baby boomers. Generation X, and I'm sad to say Millenials;

Have ALL spent freaking YEARS talking shit about the next generation after them.

"This generation doesn't know how to write with chalk"

"This generation is too obsessed with books"

"This generation watches too much TV and won't read books"

"This generation is killing the TV industry"

"This generation is terminally online"

It's fucking stupid.

But we have a chance. A real chance here.

You're becoming adults. You mostly ARE adults now. And generation Alpha has already been born.

Of course there's gonna be some argument at some point of when Z stopped and when Alpha began, and that's fucking stupid too because honestly generations don't exist like that, strictly speaking.

But in a few years, there's gonna be a temptation to draw some sort of separation between the older teens and young adults of today, and your baby siblings, or your children if you choose to have them.

And that's where we have an opportunity. Millenials I'm talking to you too because you're the ones HAVING these children and you KNOW you want the world to be different for them than it was for you.

So here's what we do:

No matter what new technology comes out in the next few years

No matter how much time gen Alpha spends USING that technology

We won't shit on them for it!

We refuse.

We've seen the cycle. And we can fucking break it.

The new tech is some fucking hivemind protocol that we struggle to use?? And the kids just jump on it immediately?

Then struggle! Work to understand it. Meet them where they are and teach them about life anyway.

When they reach their late teen years, go back and look. Look at you from TODAY. and see how fucking SICK you are of older generations shitting on younger generations for embracing a technology that genuinely has made your life easier and better *and isn't that the fucking point?*

Congratulate them on mastering something that's genuinely hard to do, and USE that technology to teach them about particle physics and chemistry and math and show them what this universe is capable of.

Make life COOL for them instead of a grinding slog.

Oh

And one more thing

Causality is something the universe can't ignore

No matter how weird your math is or how technical your theory. Nobody can ignore.. like... how things happen in a practical sense.

Causality allows us to bypass the annoying and complicated math to just show what the heck the universe is doing and THAT, I think, is a good place to start for kids.

You don't even have to call it that. Big stupid word, what even is that. No. Show them stuff happening under a microscope or through a telescope. Show them a screen on a spectrum analyzer and open up your phone to let them see the line shift when it sees your phone picking up a signal. They don't NEED to know the math to see "when the phone starts a video, the line jumps! That's so cool!"

That's a GREAT place to start and if we meet them there, we might just be able to stay connected with them and never feel the need to say the same dumb shit people have been saying every generation for which we have records.

[wielsonf]

not just math anymore

hi, i am wielson from the internet.

for the longest time, since 2009, i've been studying mathematics for itself, mostly without numbers, just logic and reasoning. i'm a novice graph theorist who never had training in it inside any classroom. i chose this topic because i was able to understand it on my own.

every day, i live in this construction charateristic of any theoretical undertaking in mathematics called axiomatic system that consists of truths we assume to be true without question (axioms, thus the term axiomatic), from which all logical statements (theorems) come through deduction, characterized by consistency, independence, and completeness (which happens to be incompleteness, a story for another day). set theory, calculus (or, more formally, analysis), euclidean geometry - all these are such systems. these are all closed systems in the sense that nothing can bend truth within each of them; in the case of euclidean geomety, bending the parallel postulate did not affect the truth within; it just gave birth to new axiomatic systems. axiomatic systems do not need statistics (not talking about the theory), any experiments, or interviews.

to an extrovert who needs time to recharge sometimes, this realm of mathematics is a great escape from the world's, and mostly life's, problems, one captivating theorem or calculation at a time. as one can tell from the title of this post, my escape has been temporary; like a child in a game of tag running away from an it, sooner or later, they'd be caught.

and i was caught

caught by a system that's never consistent, always dependent, and never complete. my search for an axiomatic system to live by only led me astray, far from what i have been trained all along.

at school, my vocation has always been affected by factors not really my own doing:

a salary that my peers and i don't deserve (we deserve more),

students who are eager to learn but sometimes miss the mark (not really their fault if you think of where they came from - hometown, school, basic education [i said what i said]),

a structure that worked in the past that doesn't any longer,

and just millenial and gen z hopelessness, that's mostly it.

this is not to say that everything i did was to no avail; very far from it. my constant search for truth led me to what i am studying now (doctor of education at the ateneo de manila university); still related to my work and, just as i could, still relate to how we teach math. that feeling of being led astray only transported me to the edge and into the other side of the coin that's teaching whose faces are math, its theory and applications on one side, and education on the other. what made work difficult only made me want to collide with it, head on.

in order to tackle and try to solve any problem, understand it first.

what made us, educators, beg for salary increases when we are the foundation of any thriving society?

what made our students, uh, like this?

why are we keeping traditions when they don't serve us anymore?

why are we sad?

i don't have all the time in my seat at starbucks uplb so let me indulge you with a look at an attempt to understand these questions, at least one of them.

all these questions arise from society, with all its intricacies and faults. as such, following margaret archer's transformational model of social activity, these questions reside within the complex interplay of structures from which they arise, the human agents that act and affect everything everywhere all at once (un)wittingly, and the culture that these humans live by.

definitely, math cannot answer these questions; pen-and-paper is not enough anymore.

[female-malice]

Radblr constantly talks about how woman should raise boys right and teach them to respect women.

Radblr also talks constantly about how women should support and work with other women.

But I never see radblr talking about how women should uplift, encourage, and support girls 🤔

Girls are the most vulnerable group of people on earth, and also the most powerful force of social change.

Millenial girls grew up to embrace liberal choice feminism and spread it through pop culture. Where was radical feminism during 1995-2010 when millenial women were just girls? What were radical feminists doing when we were all playing with bratz dolls and watching totally spies? I’ll always have nostalgia about the 00s pop culture I grew up with. But, that culture was the breeding ground for the choice feminism self exploitation hell we live in now. Spice Girls, Cheetah Girls, Destiny’s Child, Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears were all marketed to millennial girls age 6-10. How is there any doubt about why millenial women are teaching gen-z girls to exploit themselves? It’s tempting to think of libfems as malicious narcissists or shallow idiots, but they aren’t. They were girls groomed for ‘sex positivity’ through 00s pop culture. They were girls radical feminists failed. 

Radical feminism is always defined and organized around the root of subjugation women face–sex and reproduction.

Why not organize radical feminism around the root of female future, power, and success–girls?

Feminism is called a women’s movement. Occasionally, it’s referred to as a movement for women and girls. I think prioritizing women over girls in our concept of feminism is one of the greatest mistakes feminists ever made.

Feminism should be a movement for girls, supported by women. 

If you are 20+, you are no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, a girl. I know girlhood is hell. I know it leaves us scarred and wounded. I know we feel the universe cheated us out of a girlhood brimming with carefree adventure and exploration. But it wasn’t the universe cheating us. It was adult women failing us. Adult women who were too focused on the damage their own girlhood did to them. This cycle of girlhood trauma has left women’s movements chasing their own tails for a century.

Patriarchy is passed through generations by men socializing boys and women socializing girls. If men are initiating boys into the fraternity of sexual subjugators, women are initiating girls into the sorority of victimhood. Radical feminism was built within that sorority, and it shows. 

All feminist writing I’ve read delineates women’s historical trauma and ties it to the subjugation of women in contemporary society. Through feminism, we find other women and discuss our shared past traumas with each other. In the internet age, we do this on a personal level through blogs and forums, or on a societal level through hashtags like #metoo and #yesallwomen. Feminist discourse builds up to a model of women’s universal suffering. And through that we identify males as the bastards behind it all. Radical feminism calls class recognition through shared trauma ‘consciousness raising’. They cite consciousness raising and solidarity between women as the greatest sources of female power. In other words, radical feminism elevates the sorority of victimhood as the key to female liberation. 

But the more I piece this out, the more it looks like a damn crab trap. The shared trauma, the model of women’s universal suffering, it only leads us to perpetuate our subjugation. There’s comfort in thinking what happened to you happened because you’re a woman. There’s comfort in seeing traumatic events as predestined. But predestination is the oldest crab trap in the book. Through predestination, we see victimhood as a right of passage and a key to wisdom. We overlook naive girls until they’ve been victimized enough to trauma bond with women. 

I’m not saying we should throw out radical feminism and start from scratch. Women coming to terms with trauma is a step towards female liberation, but it’s a step that will take a lifetime. That, unfortunately, is the nature of trauma and PTSD. There is no way to resolve past trauma. You can read all the feminist discourse ever written, and you may find some comfort in it, but the trauma will not heal. 

I know a lot of us take comfort in that catchphrase about women not being responsible for our own oppression. We need to start recognizing this as a thought terminating cliche and blackpill feminist idea. Saying we have no hand in our own oppression means women’s liberation depends entirely on men. This, of course, renders women’s liberation impossible.

If we’re looking for more than comfort, we’re going to need more than radical feminism is currently offering. If we’re looking for liberation, we must do the most uncomfortable thing possible. We must dismantle the victimhood sorority. We need to stop saying our trauma happened because we are women. We need to stop being complicit in patriarchy by holding up victimhood as a right of passage to womanhood.

Women do not have to suffer. Women do not have to be victimized. Girlhood does not have to be characterized by neglect. If we use all the power of women’s class solidarity to protect and celebrate girls, we will escape the cycle we are in. We need to stop prioritizing the lives of women over the lives of girls. We need to make girls’ liberation the primary goal of feminism, even if we have to sacrifice personal freedoms to do so. That is the true right of passage. Being an adult doesn’t mean perpetuating the past into the present. It means passing up on your needs in the present to secure a better future for the next generation. 

Your inner girl will never heal until you become the woman that should’ve been there protecting you as a girl. So, become that women, and do everything in your power to lift up girls. Do everything in your power to give them the carefree adventurous girlhood you were denied. Don’t do it because they’re your daughters or surrogate daughters. Do it because they’re the future, and they are more important than we are.

[cottagestrawberries]

I’m writing my masters paper on generation Z and even thought I was born in 1996 (which is somewhere in the middle of gen Z and milenials) I can relate to gen Z MUCH more than to the millenials, which is very apparent to me with a milenial sister.

The part that stuck to me the most is that this gen Z is concerned with stability. Even thought I’m very much a free spirit I value my stability and I don’t take it for granted even for a second. Stability is what I was craving for most of my life and I think it’s is directly connected with seeing my parents lose their jobs, struggling with finances and their mental health. Stability is important as fuck! If you don’t have a stable ground to stand on you will act like a scared animal searching for ANYTHING that makes you feel good and accepted as fast as possible, while having blinders on because you are desperate.

Staying too much for too long in our comfort zone can also be damaging, because you never know when the comfort zone is going to crush. We should never rely on it, never stay in it for too long. Just because a job seems stable in one moment it doesn’t mean it always will; especially in the present climate with a recession every 10 years and who knows what other catastrophe the future will bring. Our parents especially want us to be in our comfort zone because they instinctively want to protect us from any danger; and if we abide them long enough, we too become scared in the comfort zone from the danger out there. But we are not here to be to be scared, we are here to live! To live means to go out of our comfort zone, risk, express ourselves and to GROW. We grow the most especially in danger, not when we are just passively wandering through life.

So what’s my advice in this situation? Write down a list of the things that are stable in your life and things that are not. Cherish the ones that are and nurture them with care, while making an active plan for the ones that are not. The plan doesn’t need to be filled with big actions, start small and do something everyday to add more stability. This is how you will build a standing ground that will catch you always when you reach for the stars. Going out of our comfort zone is a bit trickier since it usually doesn’t happen overnight. For me it was a build up of small actions until I took the leap (even when I was scared) and just did it. It’s also safe to say that the risk you are going to take at first may not seem as big of a deal to other people and maybe not even to you when you look back. But when you realize you have the control, the risk-taking mindset grows on you and the risk kind of become your comfort zone because you know what to expect (and makes you excited). It becomes a beautiful dynamic of stability and chaos, passivity and activity, fear and hope, growth and introspection. Especially introspection is important because we should always gather new knowledge from our experiences. Even if the risk isn’t going smooth, it should serve as new information that you can add to your ‘life toolbox’. Nothing is ever wasted, everything can teach us something and failure doesn’t mean you are doomed. It only means you should change your plan accordingly to new information, while still working on your growth. 

[thewolfmanslayer]

Honestly the amount of people who say artists and writers should do stuff for free, or try to rip them off on comissions still royally piss me off.

I think the worst part of it is the entitlement, I dont want to make this too much about generations but a lot of commissioners are millenial/Gen z's who grew up on the "steal and pirate everything" mentality, take everything that you can because no one else is going to hand it to you. which I can get behind, when you are screwing over MULTI BILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES. NOT THE STRUGGLING ARTISTS AND WRITERS who are trying to keep food on the table as desperately as you probably are!

It's simple, you wouldn't walk into a restaurant, order food and tell the server "sorry I don't have any money, but I've got like a few thousand followers on social media, I can get your name out there, get the restaurant some exposure" NO! They don't need "exposure" they need you to pay the damn bill!

On top of that, most of these artists and writers ALREADY HAVE FOLLOWINGS. They already have thousands of people following them, waiting for the chance to get a commission, who are willing to pay for said commission, they don't need "exposure" when they're already out there! He'll even the artists and writers with a few hundred don't need it, they'll get more followers as time goes by, their skill alone will see to it.

And what is with people trying to get free art and writing? It's not going to work! You can't harass someone until they cave, trust me, you'll be long since blocked before you even have the opportunity. I don't do comissions, online anyways, but my own friends and family, people who actually know me STILL PAY ME whenever they ask for me to do art for them because they KNOW it takes TIME AND EFFORT.

How many times do we need to have this discussion???? Like when is it going to finally click that people who need to pay their bills just as much as you do AREN'T going to do this shit for free!?

Here's the thing about art and writing, that you've heard a billion times but still aren't getting; IT. TAKES. TIME. AND. EFFORT. TO. GET. DONE. the art isn't going to magically appear and the writing isn't going to suddenly write itself, if either were so convenient YOU WOULDNT BE ASKING AN ARTIST OR WRITER IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Look at that, you see that? The first picture I did back in 2012-13, the picture beside it? I did that TWO YEARS AGO. I didn't suddenly know exactly what to do, or had anything close to a god given talent for drawing (I'm not that talented). The first picture WAS THE ABSOLUTE BEST I COULD DO AT THE TIME THAT I MADE IT. In the time between these two drawings I admittedly took a break from art, but then I got back into it four years ago. EVEN STILL that was four YEARS of starting over from the basics, relearning everything, learning new things, wanting to actually improve my art.

Which, guess what, DID NOT HAPPEN OVER NIGHT. It was HOURS UPON HOURS of my limited free time as an adult drawing over and over and over and over again, every single goddamn day to get to the point that I was able to make that redraw look as good as it does in comparison. He'll, my art now puts them both to shame! Because I spent the time improving my quality!!

Now look at these artists doing comissions, they've probably put EVEN MORE of their time to get that good! They've put in LITERAL YEARS of sweat, blood, tears, frustrations and dedicated hardwork. Some did the same as me, self teaching and lots of practice, others probably had to go to school, which definitely wasn't cheap. But all of us put in that time and effort TO REACH THESE POINTS. Of being better artists, developing our styles, getting faster at drawing.

And maybe you think that this is super easy, right? That I or every other artist can just fire some art off and boom its good and done in like an hour?

FUCK. NO.

Even now it takes me several hours a day OVER MANY DAYS to make something exceptionally good! It doesn't matter how good an artist is, it still. Takes. Time.

Maybe the issue is that you don't understand how much actually goes into art, let me break it down for you, the steps that most people follow to finish ONE drawing.

-Rough draft: general character outline, get a feel for what I want to draw.

-Rough sketch: I start doing a bit of pencil to start filling in details like mouth, nose, eyes, hair, clothes. Ect.

-Penciling: I go over the rough sketch and clean everything up, maybe do some editing, this is when you can start making out all the details.

-Ink: I trace over the finished pencil with a pen tool and actually have the line art, everything looks clean, presentable, it actually looks like a character now. I'll spend time editing this and possibly redoing the inking many times over to get to a point where I like it.

-Flat color: I decide on which colors to use for skin tone, clothes accessories. Ect.

-Shading/highlights: I figure out where my light source is and how strong it is, I then apply the correct amount of lighting and shadows to the color to give it depth, I also have determine the texture of skin, clothes and accessories to make everything look real and natural.

-Blending: I smooth out the shading and highlights so that it looks more natural and isn't too hard (noticeable difference between color) so that it looks as natural as possible.

-Finish: I go over last minute details, finish any editing or corrections that need to be done. Once it's good I call it a day.

Each process is longer in length then the previous, with the exception of the final editing (as long as everything looks good) and even the rough draft can take some time. Over all this is SEVERAL HOURS of work for a SINGLE DRAWING.

So is it sinking in yet? How much is put into doing even a single character drawing? God forbid if its done with background. This isn't a "scratch a pen around and be done with it in ten minutes" kinda deal, no, this is SEVERAL HOURS OF SOMEONES LIFE BEING PUT INTO THIS

And if you still have the AUDACITY to try and wrangle free art from an artist then there's no helping you, you're just a selfish piece of shit, no question and I want nothing to do with you.

Someone might say "But I got free art/writing from.-" look I don't give a shit if someone did something for you THAT ONE TIME, these other artists and writers? Totally seperate and different people. You're one freebie experience does not, and should not apply to other artists and writers.

"But what if I really want this commission but don't have the money right now?" Well, that's tough shit. Save up and properly commission them when you can, it's not their problem.

"But what if I'm in a really bad financial situation and really want it?" That sucks, and I'm sorry, but again, not their problem. Chances are this is their only source of income and they need to make money so that they don't end up in a similar situation.

"They have a gift! They should share it!" What kind of cheap ass- LOOK, just because someone is talented or really good at something does not automatically obligate them to do anything for total strangers in anyway shape or form. These are living, breathing people, the same as you. They need to eat, they need to pay rent/mortgages, they need to pay vet bills, send their kids to college, do their taxes and everything else that YOU YOURSELF need to do. Asking anyone to spend their time doing something for free, when that something is how THEY ARE SURVIVING is beyond asinine. Not only that, this obviously isn't a hobby to them, it is very clearly THEIR JOB. Would you want to do a job where you didn't get paid at all? Doing a shit ton of work for absolutely nothing? No? Didn't think so.

"It shouldn't be about the money!" Well unfortunately, as with almost every other job, it is. We live in a world where we desperately need to make money in order to survive. That's the painful fact of the matter. If money never had to be an issue ever again then this would be a very different story. But it's not, plain and simple as can be.

Look, these people are just like you, artists and writers who are just trying to get by in a shitty ass world, using the one thing they have that let's them have an income. Leave them be, don't try and trick them, guilt them, or cuss them out when you don't get your way. Either properly comission or leave them the hell alone, plain and simple.

[gwydionmisha]

Personal: Haunted Village

So I had to go out at too early in the morning to help a friend give a trans talk to young people.  It was very worth it.  There was even good parking and I could sit the whole time.  The audience were late teens and very engaged.  We had lots of audience questions, no hecklers and a small line of folks wanting to talk to us after.  Seriously, screw all that "kids these days" grumpery.  Kids these days are amazing!  So much more open to difference and interested really learning about the world than my generation and those before.  When I was teaching, I was so proud of how progressive and fundamentally decent my millennial students were.  The more I see of Gen Z coming up now, the more stoked I am that my future will one day be in their hands and those of Millenials.  We'll be so much better off.  It was really fun and I hope I can do it again in future.

I had a two hour nap before I went and a two hour nap after I dropped my friend off after a few hours of socializing, and then it was back into clothes and out to pick my friend up so we could go to... get this: A REAL PROPER SPOOK HOUSE! It was for a local no kill animal rescue charity and Amazingly well staffed with what looked like a mix of adults and high school students.  They held it at this park where they have hauled various log cabins and other similar type late 19th Century buildings like a barn and church and filled them with stuff to make a really neat museum that Skye, my Mother, and I liked, though I haven't been in years.  (Costs money.  no one to go with).  So basically they have a whole little village of these 100+ year old wood buildings connected by boardwalk for safety and when the weather is wet.  

The spook house itself was first rate.  They used the modern building associated with the historial park and made a first rate twisty maze that made best use of limited space.  Lots of cool scenes and people in costumes.  Really nice stuff like missing posters for what I assumed were some of the teen actors and an excellent collection of props.  There was a wall of masks and things.  I can startle, but I don't really scare, but I love the Aesthetics.  I'm that person who likes to go through slow and just enjoy the costumes and props and set designs.  It was the best one I've seen on those scores in Decades.  They do have a children's child friendly version earlier in the night tomorrow, but we were late night and that version really did deserve all the warning signs they'd posted.  Terrified young teens were fleeing out the entry end when we arrived.

Bonus?  The whole thing could be navigated in the wheelchair and they gave me a warning before entering about potential issues that might endanger someone with fragile balance.  Wheelchair accessible fright attractions are hens teeth really, so serious props to the folks running this.  On exciting there was the inevitable chain saw guy intended to chaise people out onto the boardwalk, but I literally don't run.  It's not just the not afraid thing, but the best I can manage on a good day is a sort of ground covering shamble across well lit flat terrain and that's still dangerous and painful on those rare occasions that I can manage it.  When they still had the haunted forest walk thing out at the bird sanctuary, we used to time arrival to just before open, which would allow me to approach chainsaw guy before they headed ou to their positions so I could give him a heads up that me running by fairy lights at night across a clearing with broken ground in the forest wasn't going to happen.  It is kinder as chain saw guys standing about waving a power saw and making the occasional darting movement about while I carefully amble feeling for invisible holes with my crutch is just awkward for everyone.  That Chainsaw guy handled it by starting really far back an shambling at me zombie slow so as to maintain a plausible illusion.  Obviously we couldn't give the heads up here, so I yelled "I don't run!" over the sound of the chainsaw while the poor young man stood in a baffled posture with his saw, then turned it ff and stepped back into his niche.  

They had edged the boardwalk through the Pioneer Village with caution tape to funnel people through the museum and decorated the exteriors of the buildings with cool displays.  There was one with clowns and skeletons, a zombie quarantine building, etc..  They had put in a whole wee spooky graveyard next to the church.  Really, the idea is brilliant because of those real weathered buildings from another time looked so perfect with the trappings of hauntings.  It was all extra effective because the moon was nearly full and there was just enough fog up high to turn the moon orange and send picturesque clouds across it's face.  I think if I'd designed it, I would have dressed a couple of kids up as zombies and had them shambled out of the impenetrable shadows between buildings before the exit, but even absent live actors, it was a really pleasant moonlight walk through a ghost town.  Seriously, this is the best haunted anything I've been to in decades.

This was, of course nearly all the spoons and I shall pay for it tomorrows, but it was such a good day and almost like being well.

Unfortunately, I'm back on street parking since Monday, which was fine until I had to leave for the spook house, since there were like a million college kids walking down the street in costume, obviously headed for a massive party in the new complex across the street from us.  There was no parking for at least three city blocks either direction.  (I am using city blocks as a measurement, though the blocks on my street are mostly nothing close to that shape because of things like creeks and rivers, part of the big ridge that is between us and the bay, and things like a small 2 or 3 acre farm that sells fresh organic vegetables that the residential area grew up around.  So like literally only one block on either side of the street for a mile or two is actually normal block sized and the rest is irregular as fuck.)   I can't possibly have managed a four city block length walk from the nearest place I could even theoretically park, since my legs are pretty much done and the serious pain and stiffness from all that shuffling about.  I can't afford to get towed, which would be completely justified for someone to do if I stole their spot.

I did an incredibly obnoxious thing, Gentle Readers.  The shared spot waas free and I parked there even though it isn't or month.  If there had been anything in a three block radius, I'd had lumped it and no saved any legs  for things like feeding and hydrating myself, feeding cats, bathroom trips, getting ready for bed.  After all, crawling is unpleasant and painful, but I've done it before when my legs went out before I cold make it to bed.  Four blocks is pushing it.  It's one thing to crawl around my apartment in an emergency.  It's another thing to do it publicly cross cement and macadam with the bonus of a large audience of young adults.  My hope is that I can stay up long enough that the party will wind down and I can either move the car or get Squirrel to move it in the wee hours before dawn.  It still means that if the poor bastards who were also lied to that they had a parking space will have to find parking somewhere whenever they get home from whatever fun they are having tonight will have to walk four or five blocks, which is why this is a dick maneuver on my park.  II HATE being that asshole.  I just.... No way could I handle a four lock walk complete with a super steep hill that I have trouble managing when I'm not tired and at the end of my legs in daylight.  My lungs could barely do it last time I had to and I just couldn't face it while not being sure my legs could manage it or manage it plus the long walk home.  What happens if they stop working and I fall on pavement and have to crawl all the rest of the way?  What happens if I fuck up a ligament again or break something falling and have to shoot at party goers to get one to summon and ambulance?

So I chose to be asshole instead.  That is on me and I accept that my choice to go out has consequences I should by rights have experienced by hobbling home regardless from distant parking.  I will apologize profusely if they call to complain, but I couldn't see any way around it.  They also either stay out late or are gone for whole weekends fairly frequently, so there actually is a reasonable chance they won't even notice it if I move it say 3ish.  I just hate doing this to someone else and they actually are really decent people.  I can't take the good pain meds nor go back to bed if I'm moving the car later and if it is any consolation that is a punishment all it's own given how bad things already were at not quite 11PM when I wrote this.

Addendum: I just barely made it to the kitchen and back to get water because the weaker leg is pretty much done for the night.  I flat out couldn’t have made it fourish blocks home with a hill.  I am not convinced I can safely move the car myself even if close street parking opens up.  I shall beg Squirrel when he gets back from game.

[csolarstormhealthjournal]

Vent.

So things are the same.  Got into a brief disagreement with my friend - like a lot of people, he wanted to go out to watch trains with his friend and just stay six feet apart.  I told him if they were still handling the same video equipment, it could still spread the virus.  He didn’t like that, so we didn’t talk over the weekend. 

My depersonalization kicked in then, I guess to “save me” from having to feel sad.  It’s the brain’s trick to respond to threats; make it so that everything feels distant, slightly out of place, like I’m watching reality through a VR headset.  It’s almost like reality tastes bad.  My brain feels itchy.

This just makes me realize that my medication was working before.  It’s been a long while since I’ve had one of these episodes.  If I only crack once I’m fighting with my friend during a pandemic quarantine, then I’d say that’s a reasonable standard.  Maybe a higher dose will treat it all the way.  I’m still nervous to try it though.  There’s just so much controversy over antidepressants...same as pain medications, honestly.  The whole contentious environment around them does a disservice to the people who really need them by making it difficult to make a clear judgment.  I’ve got a doctor wanting to put me on something higher like Zoloft, and my parents saying that I just need to find my passion.  Do I look someone who has no passions?  What are all these hobbies then?  Where did all these novellas, poems, and digital art come from?

But that’s...that’s part of the old norm.  I haven’t completely adapted most of the elements of my life into this new, post-pandemic norm.  I think I’m just waiting for it to pass by so I can, I don’t know, go back?  Or maybe I’ve given myself permission to just stop in place.  My dreams last night turned Animal Crossing into a camp that I’m staying at.  It’s pretty accurate.  Animal Crossing is pretty much my place of residence since at least a day or two into the pandemic...or at least, it’s taken up residence in my mind.

*sighs* I’m looking away the past and making little to no effort to bring it forward.  I don’t know what’s going to happen to my classes or my GPA.  I’m stopping in place.  In a way, I’m living in the moment.  I’ve ceased to have normal meals and a sleeping schedule...I just eat when I’m hungry and sleep when I’m tired.  Sometimes I sleep at 7:00 pm, wake up at 3:00 am, do stuff, and then go back to bed at 6:00.  Why not. 

And the future is just hypothetical, an accepted uncertainty.  It’s definitely going to be the worst economy I’ve ever lived in.  If I do fail my classes, I’ll have to make an effort to address that, IF I go back to school at all.  It’s not like I was in a place where I was determined to before.  Not to mention the tone of society may be fundamentally different.  The death toll has tripled that of 9/11, and the economy and unemployment have taken an unprecedented hit.

Go forth, into the workforce!  Have fun, millenials and Gen Z!  Yeah.  If it wasn’t hell before.

On the bright side, it’s probably easier now to teach/tutor online.  I just have to get past this rut.