it was my birthday weekend!

• had a slumber/pajama/movie party
• my partner got me new boots to replace my old ones
• saw petey at a sold-out show; he was great!
• found an excellent deal on a used salsa journeyer bike, and the seller even swapped out the stem for me and gave me a birthday discount ($1 for each year)
• a friend gave me an awesome new hat
• had the most amazing ramen i’ve ever tasted

and i kept up with my word count for nanowrimo! 🙌

Work is stressful; the news is stressful; parenting is stressful; trying to stay healthy is stressful…

Ugh.

At least one thing is bringing me joy right now: listening to the audiobooks of The Lord of the Rings on my daily walks with my dog.

Well, it has just started, but I cannot complain. I think my depression and my anxiety both seem to be somewhat stable; it feels like my nervous system is finally getting used to my new circumstances. I also haven’t had any thoughts about self-harm in 3-4 days, which I think is a major accomplishment, so I’m proud of myself.

It’ll be my birthday soon. Hopefully I will be happy on that day :)

Started the week with kidney stones so it’s probably only getting better from there. Looking forward to ditching the ureteral stent.

Great start into the week, got a new personal best for my morning run, 6.8 km. And my wife is going to start a B2 German course + employment course (whatever that means) paid for by the unemployment agency.

On the negative sides, money continues to be tight, and it’s another month I’ll postpone buying that Sesotho course I want. The Christmas bonus in December should help there. I also gained weight, 2kg. I guess the now regular exercise is making me hungrier.

Seeing my new car to buy an older one and have no car payment. Feels like a step backwards.

I have decided that I really need to get better at networking if I’m gonna get anywhere in life. Problem is I have social anxiety and zero clue how to talk to people.

I bench tested my van Diesel heater two nights ago, providing minimal interaction ahead of deconstruction due to available space and installation last night in preparation for today’s cold front. Thankfully, after drilling holes through the wheel box, everything just worked when tested. With the knowledge that project was out of the way, I slept better than in several days.

Here’s probably where I also mention I gave my two weeks’ notice Friday. I could put up with the tedious unrewarding duties for pay so low 22 years into my career that I’m homeless by choice, but my boss’ communication is atrocious in ways I’ve never run into, like having to know what unrelated word she meant when using another one and then getting yelled at for answering the question as asked. She’s married to the owner, putting the kibosh on coming to a reasonable agreement.

I had to do this for two reasons that are probably related: I was starting to feel crazy since I couldn’t actually turn to a coworker and say anything when they were in the room, and I was starting to justify reasons to drink. That’s a hard limit after 18 months of sobriety.

The somewhat better news is “threatening sobriety” is the magic phrase, as I met the owner … 18 months ago … in detox. Upshot is I’m getting a parting bonus of nearly a month since the holidays are slow for hiring. My job was the only thing tying me to Austin now that I’m leaseless, so I will have far more options than I did when lockdown hit two months after leaving my last job.

I like my little home on wheels. It’s a plenty-big stepvan that I can walk around in, it’s well insulated, and it’s been as a project the only reason I started having a social life for the first time this decade. I park in a light industrial area that shutters for the night but is well lit, and I parked there for two months before the conversion even started, so I’m an expected part of the area and haven’t been bothered yet, three weeks in.

But if this transition was major on its own, adding a likely move and total change of field will put it at the most sudden shift measured in months since moving off to college in the '90s.

Other than that, not much.

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This is my first post. I lost my apartment key, so OK week so far.

I’m feeling so burnt out at work. I work for a religious org and sometimes I really hate it. I would like a career change but starting out somewhere else looks like I’d have to take a pay cut at first and I live in a very expensive city and am barely getting by as it is. I see some other great jobs I’m qualified for but they’d require relocation and my kid is going to a special high school related to their career choice so I don’t think we should move.

I’ve been pretty depressed by the current political atmosphere in the US, lately, and living in a more conservative area of my state makes it even more alienating. Today, I went to a left wing book fair at a city I’m considering moving to, and it was an amazing change of scenery.

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Eh, could be better. Just today I saw that the bakery I often go to won’t open on Saturday due to some tragic loss. I haven’t seen one of the usual staff there in a while. I don’t want to ask about it and she is/was(?) somewhat young so it could just be a coincidence and she found a different/better job and that PSA wasn’t about her.