Got what I wanted but not in the way I wanted it (story hour)
This week I journaled a lot on my wish of spending less time on my phone.
Specifically my wish is to spend my day with my day, aka with my projects and incoming selves, with zero desire to interact with my phone.
Such a beautiful wish, so luscious and enticing. I love the idea of being so immersed in something I’m passionate about that it doesn’t even occur to me to check my phone for updates, like a rat in an experiment who can’t stop pushing the button in an attempt to win attention-pellets and affection-treats.
And guess what, I got my wish but in the most annoying way!
One day I opened phone earlier than usual to see what time [person I love smiling at] was able to meet up for smiling and walking.
Except instead of warmth and sweetness, their text said “I’m beginning to feel concerned that [redacted really really great aspect of our connection, though not what you’re probably thinking because we are definitely not doing that!] might be unhealthy”, and wow, yeah, wow, that, as my friend K said, is certainly a word choice someone could make.
That might be one of the worst texts I’ve ever gotten, possibly the most boring thing a man has ever said to me, and men have been boring me to death for my entire life, though obviously the prize for worst text I’ve ever gotten still goes to “Happy Turkey Day!” from the person I thought was my boyfriend of eight months or so, after ghosting me, so let’s say this new terrible text can be second place, tied only with “Sorry for vanishing and hope you’re well”.
Anyway, I don’t want to ever see a text like that again, and so I lost all interest in looking at my phone, and haven’t been opening it at all until I need to drive somewhere.
Next time I will ask for my wish to come true in a way that is fun and joyful please, but in the meantime, hey I’m not looking at my phone! So that’s something. A start. Maybe.
Weekend Check-in, we made it.
Reviewing the week aka Chicken/Check-in is not only a reassuring ritual and fun to say, but another form of remembering, turning inward with attentiveness.
We can name what was difficult and name what worked, I find naming therapeutic. What am I experiencing and how am I experiencing it? All intel is useful.
Mainly we’re here to take a breath for having made it here. High fives all around and hand-to-heart appreciation.
If I neglect to name something big in the world, could be ADHD but also I’m on an extended news break after spiraling hard.
Breathing for what was hard, challenging, uncomfortable, not fun…
THING ZERO and THING ONE remain the combination of the pandemic and the dissonance, no shared reality, no shared context, and not just regarding the coronavirus, but in so many ways, it’s kind of all blurring together to me, and so now I miss people and also I kind of hate pretty much everyone (not you), and when I’m not hating, I just don’t trust. That’s the best I can arrive at: not-trusting.
So part of that is my stuff, and part of it is structural, but a lot of it is just that I have lost so many friends to misinformation/disinformation, and it’s just sad. So much grief, so much loss, such a long year-and-change. Here’s to and-change, multiple meanings.
Meanwhile, my dad keeps asking me when I’m getting the vaccine, and I did not know there could be a more frustrating, irritating, guaranteed to get me to lose my patience question than his (and my monsters) other favorites aka “where will you live, what’s happening with your business, what are you doing with your life???”
But that’s the worst question and I hate it, mainly because not only do I not have an answer, I don’t know how to get an answer. The county in Arizona where I’m currently hiding is full of retired people, they aren’t even vaccinating people in their fifties yet, and my county in New Mexico has my number and is welcome to call me any time, but there’s no way to know when that will be. Or how I can get there.
It’s a waiting game, and it’s been a very long more-than-a-year of Unknowns & The Cards Said Wait.
Not just that, it’s been a very long more-than-a-year for me of no one to talk to and no one to touch, and sometimes the loneliness is so complete and all-encompassing in its agony, so utterly unbearable that I cannot do anything except be wrecked by it. It washes over me. All I can do is breathe and hope things will be different.
Very weepy this week, in general, which could be hormones or it could be the not-knowing, or it could be that while I am finally sleeping more hours, my dreams are so exhausting and stressful that I wake up more tired than I was when I went to bed. IT IS RUDE OF SLEEP TO MAKE ME MORE TIRED, and I emphatically rebuke this entire situation.
Or it could be because I read the news which was a terrible mistake and reminded me that I am not able to read the news and be a functioning human who remembers how to breathe. So now I know about Atlanta and about Sarah Everard, and other painful things, and when I am immersed in the collective grief, I am mostly useless. That’s a clue for me about something, about many things.
After a solitary month, I was looking forward to a walk with [the person I love smiling at], and that fell apart in the most ludicrous, boring way imaginable, the terrible text resulted in a falling out that I can only describe as inane.
I dislike being the one doing 95% of the conciliatory work to untangle the misunderstanding, but not as much as I dislike knowing someone would let me go over some crossed wires. I guess that’s also a clue, but why are all the clues terrible right now, who knows.
It kind of feels right now as if I am in the worst part of the slow-motion montage. That is, I know things are shifting and getting better but I’m still very much in the slog of it.
Breathing for what was good, reassuring, joyful, sweet
I feel incredibly fortunate to be in good health right now, a breath for this amazing good fortune.
My dad got his first dose of the vaccine this week, and I truly had not realized the extent of the worry-stress I’d been carrying about this until it happened. Joyful reassurance, exhaling again.
Four other friends got vaccinated this week as well. I feel delighted for them and hopeful for the rest of us, may we all be vaccinated speedily and in the best possible circumstances.
I am in a safe space for an entire month, for the first time since last June, and it feels amazing.
Oh and I bought a book, which is huge. My brain broke last spring, and other than my own writing, I haven’t read anything longer than a tweet in at least a year. The book is The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty, someone I only know from Twitter but am very fond of. I am excited to even be in a hopeful enough place that I can imagine being someone who reads again.
Slow motion montage might be frustrating but also it is working, having some breakthroughs, both in my physical practice and in some other things I’m working on/through.
Equinox rituals were beautiful (happy vernal equinox!), and I did some writing about my wishes and had some useful epiphanies many of which were also very, very funny. Here’s to Agility, Frivolity & Vengeance!
Fancy hot tub night under the most beautiful crescent moon and surrounded by the most loving saguaro cacti.
I am welcoming solutions that hold me in High Regard. I am inviting in new and better, in all forms, may all misunderstandings be dissolved in love and may new playmates come into my life who are more fun and less work and only send texts of Wild Adoration (but I’m still able to not check my phone until the evening!).
Made really incredible lemonade this week, and next up is a grapefruit shrub, going to pick some grapefruits from a friend’s garden. And a friend delivered a birthday present of my favorite dark chocolate covered ginger, along with some extremely delicious bonbons which I absolutely had for breakfast, superpowers of that.
Might have a good place to stay for the summer, please blow some kisses in the air for this or light a candle, or whatever your preferred form or celebratory supportive magic. May it be so or something even better.
And my other wish is to stop fighting/dreading/hating this part of the slow motion montage and the glow-up ops, and figure out how to channel some EXCITEMENT for them.
Otherwise, just remembering that I’m a powerful sorceress and that leveling up is a process with ups and downs, and maybe I can have more fun with that, like a rollercoaster I decided to ride for fun, and less like something bewildering that is happening to me.
The other thing that has really been working for me is magical numbers. Setting a bell for one hour, eleven minutes and eleven seconds gets me to roll around on the floor and be a bobcat or do some yoga, and it’s also a good amount of time for me to play with a writing project or knock things off my list. LET’S SLAY OUR SHIT is the battlecry/slogan, and that plus the right container of time is magic.
I’m learning new words in Arabic, trying out new recipes, my mental map of Tucson filled in a bunch of gaps, like the last few puzzle pieces all clicking into place. My brain is sad but my brain is working again, and along with it my desire to learn, play and experience is back on! I really missed caring about things.
Thank you again so much to everyone who sent me surprise Appreciation Money this week via Barrington’s Discretionary, it is always welcome and received with love, and if I can land in a place, which is the wish-goal of wish-goals, I can share more writing here, that’s my preferred way to fill time; writing and hopeful thoughts.
Play with me in the comments! You know the drill…
I love company! You can always use a made-up name in the comments whether in service of safety or playfulness.
We are all going through what we are going through. So we make this a sanctuary by not care-taking or problem—solving for other people, we can leave each other warmth or hearts of love or pebbles of witnessing. I still have not figured out how to get emoji to work in the comments, sorry!!
How are we holding up? Anything hard and/or good in your week that you want to name here? Sometimes naming helps. I have found for me that taking breaths while I name things helps a lot.
And if that’s not your thing, you can say hi or name something you’d like more of for the coming week.
Love ya,
Havi
Follow
Echoes ‘a very long year of no talk and no touch.’
I’m so sorry about your experience sleep, that sucks. I’ve (weirdly) had the opposite; I go to sleep and I’m surrounded by friends and family—I even taught a tiny relative to fly in one dream! *swoons* Then I wake and the crushing Aloneness (unlike blissful Solitude) is ever-present.
THIS, “I dislike being the one doing 95% of the conciliatory work to untangle the misunderstanding, but not as much as I dislike knowing someone would let me go over some crossed wires,” SO names something I’d not understood! *resolves/reloves to notice by 50% that the other would so easily let me go/isn’t Investing*
*light a candle AND sends celebratory supportive magic for a Just Right Magical Summertime-and-Beyond Haven*
The Hard
~ reliving [internalised abuse] from long, long ago
~ being rendered even more vulnerable than I already felt
~ Exhausting, Draining, Depleting, and Diminishing
~ doing so much Hard and having to just Fend for Myself (hello, Another Pattern)
The Magic
~ external sources that inadvertently reflect my Glow when I’m stranded in [Pattern]
~ whilst tis not the same as tweaking my own perception, tis a welcome floaty thing whilst drowning!
~ eating healthily even when I’m so far under I can barely shop
The Wish
~ Ease and Sacred Havens where truly needed
Resolves/Reloves!!!
Breathing for you, for me, and the collective, for all the hard things.
I’m sorry to hear about the awful dreams. I have been working on remembering my dreams more consistently (usually they are neither blissful nor terrible, just intriguing). Recently I woke and was lying in bed trying to recall the dream I’d just had, when I suddenly dozed back off and had a quick dream-image of a winter solstice tree all lit up in my living room, and the image completely displaced my previous dream. Did my unconscious *literally* distract me with a shiny object?! Fascinating.
Oh, here is a wish that I would love to have come true: now that I have become better at falling asleep without getting tangled in anxiety, I would like to feel more happy and hopeful when I first wake up in the mornings. What can I do to support my waking-up self? Hmmm.
Shiny object wake up call! That’s such a beautiful image. And yes waking up hopeful is an amazing wish, I support this.
Hi to all, and belated but GLOWING THANK YOUs to Havi for these check-in posts!
I have been unable to slay the Imaginary Ideal Schedule for reading and replying to these, because it is Imaginary and thus undslayable, but I am here now and full of gratitude for your presence and acknowledgement of the terrible and reminders about Ways to Play. <3 <3 <3
I think I might play a little, here, by trying to re-figure a way of comment emoji ninja-ing. Hope that's OK!
Virtual hugs!
Karensu
Comment Emoji Ninja-ing Experiments:
Here is what happens if I just type a red heart emoji on my phone keyboard: ?
Here is what happens if I copy-paste a red heart emoji using the Copy button on this emoji’s page at emojipedia.org: ??
Emojipedia says the codepoints for the red heart emoji are U+2764 and U+FE0F . But what does U stand for? And why are there two different codes?
Let’s try replacing U+ with ampersand number-sign-aka-hashmark, then the numbers, then a semi-colon:
ૌ becomes ૌ
&#FE0F; becomes &#FE0F;
shortcodes:
:heart: becomes :heart:
:red_heart: becomes :red_heart:
Also, let’s check putting links in comments, while I’m here:
plain url: https://emojipedia.org
>a href="url"<url>/a<: https://emojipedia.org
OK, let’s see where that gets us.
Comment Emoji Ninja-ing Experiments, part 2:
Well, looks like the only thing that worked well in part 1 was typing in a plain url. *sadface*
Also; I messed up the a href link test code; should be:
<a href="url">url</a>: https://emojipedia.org
but that’s redundant since entering the plain url works.
So, OK, I seem to remember something about having to add a 1 to the codepoints. Unfortunately, I dont recall where. Let’s try:
1 before everything:
1ૌ becomes 1ૌ
1&#FE0F; becomes 1&#FE0F;
1 between &# and rest of codepoint:
㇜ becomes ㇜
&#FE0F; becomes FE0F;
OK, let’s see where THAT gets us.
Comment Emoji Ninja-ing Experiments, part 3:
And part 2 was also WILDLY unsuccessful!
I’m going to go over to the residual forum and look for my old notes about what worked for forum entries. I think comments are Different, but maybe there will be Clues.
yay experiments! I asked Richard to help too so he has opened a support ticket with the hosting company so who knows, here’s to trying things!
Comment Emoji Ninja-ing Experiments, part 4:
Aha, what worked on the forums was putting an x between &# and the rest of the codepoint, not a 1. Let’s try that:
&#num;x2764; becomes ❤
&#num;xFE0F; becomes ️
Go!
Comment Emoji Ninja-ing Experiments, part 5:
So, code typos in part 4, but progress! One more time:
❤ produces ૌ
️ produces &#FE0F;
Argh, regression! What did I do wrong?
❤
️
Apparently, I left out the x on 2764, and FEOF never worked. Let’s try FEOF without #:
&xFE0F;
How to Put Emojis in Fluent Self Comments:
1. Find the emoji you want at https://emojipedia.org .
2. If the emoji is in a list of search results, clickbthe emoji name to display its detailed info page. (This the one that shows how different browsers display the same emoji.)
3. On the detailed page, scroll down or search until you find the emoji’s Codepoint value. Make a note of it. For example, you would note U+2764 as the Codepoint value for ❤.
2. At FluentSelf, put yoir cursor where you want the emoji to go, and enter &#x followed immediately by the numerical part of the emoji’s codepoint value and a semicolon ;
If emojipedia gives two different codepoint values for a given emoji, either try them one at a time or try both at once.
For example:
enter ❤ for ❤
enter 💖 for 💖
enter ✨ for ✨
enter 👍 for 👍
enter 🌵 for 🌵
Enjoy!
Here’s a hopefully cleaner copy, with typos removed and a bit more explanation added:
How to Put Emojis in Fluent Self Comments:
1. Find the emoji you want at https://emojipedia.org .
2. If the emoji is in a list of search results, click the emoji name to display its detailed info page. (This the page that shows how different browsers display the same emoji.)
3. On the detailed page, scroll down or search until you find the emoji’s Codepoint value. Make a note of it. For example, you would note U+2764 as the Codepoint value for ❤.
2. At FluentSelf, put your cursor where you want the emoji to go, and enter &#x followed immediately by the 4- or 5-digit alphanumerical part of the emoji’s codepoint value and a semicolon ; . Do NOT enter the U+ part of the Codepoint value.
Note: If emojipedia gives two different Codepoint values for a single emoji, either try them one at a time, or try both at once, each preceded by &#x and followed by ; (one Codepoint value may not display an emoji, for reasons I don’t currently understand).
Some examples:
enter ❤ for ❤
enter 💖 for 💖
enter ✨ for ✨
enter 👍 for 👍
enter 🌵 for 🌵
Enjoy!
There’s still one missing word in the comment above— I doubt I’ll get an error-free copy. I’m calling the one error a spirit door and saying I’m done.
*snorts with laughter* I love it! 💖
🙂
I’m glad to know you’re OK with me doing these emoji experiments, Havi. 😌
*waves to Richard, too, with appreciation*
For whatever it may be worth, it looks like Comments and Forums have the same behavior re emojis.
I hope opening the support ticket leads to an easier way to do these!
Argh, did I forget the semi-colon? Let’s see:
😌
Looks like Reply may not be nesting correctly for non-admin accounts. I think we’ve reported that in the past. I wonder if system updates are undoing the fixes, or something like that…
Oh, well! At least these malfunctions are relatively minor.
…So, to clarify, looks like Replying to one’s own non-admin, bottom-of-the-column comment can keep the two comments together, without a whitespace break, but Replying to an admin’s Reply, higher up in the column, puts the new Reply at the bottom of the column, with a whitespace break.
<3 <3 <3
With you on the how-long-until-vaccine uncertainty. All the rest of my immediate family except my youngest brother have had at least their first dose (actually I'd rather my brother gets it before me; he works in a supermarket) and at present the best guess for the rest of us seems to be maybe September.
The hard
– I always forget that this time of year is difficult; I think because my body and brain haven't quite caught up with the increase in light and warmth; and I'm feeling so slow and tired
The good
– mail order tights! I haven't tried them on yet, but they look very exciting
– daffodils daffodils daffodils
What's working
– remembering that this is normal and not something to reproach myself about
Love to everybody xx
A big breath for what was hard:
Clarity on a hard thing that is going to require *letting go* with love and sorrow and work.
Feelings of sorrow and loneliness despite having both joy and company, sometimes, at least.
The bag of groceries in my fridge that have been there for almost 2 weeks, and I should go through them and get rid of whatever is old, but UGH, it’s related to hard thing of letting go.
Going back into work in person one day a week feels pointless and hard and I got very little done this week, and I HATE that I need to keep reminding my co-workers to *wear their masks properly*, seriously, why?
Neck pain that is very literally a pain in the neck. I have been very gentle with myself around this, lots of good self care, but it is getting worse, so time to find a doctor.
Another breath for the Good
I’m getting better at listening to the self that treasures me.
Used tools to have an excellent and very productive conversation with beloved.
MADE THINGS, many things, with my hands, this is good.
Got my first vaccine shot, scheduled my second.
What Worked:
Working the process. Even when the process did not work 100% (neck pain, I see you), following the process of care and healing helped.
Asking for support with hard things.
Getting outside is important, and the days I did so were better.
Wishes for the next round:
Ease and graceful resolution of *the thing that needs to end*
A way to make office days less scary and more productive.
Less neck pain and more ease.
💖 💖 💖
and sparklepoints:
✨ ✨ ✨
for the emoji-ninja-ing.
I’m iconically dyslexic, so unlikely to ever use emoji again — but I love that it mattered enough to you to go through the hassle of figuring it out and posting it here for the community. Love, love love.
The hard:
Week 6 (or 7?) with a herniated disc
All the pain and immobility that goes with it
The slooooow progress
Missing the energy and endorphine boost from a run or a good yoga or pilates class, wondering if I will ever get there again
My colleague‘s most bizarre (non-) communication
The tiredness
The corona situation, the divide it creates, the helplessness of the governments, the consequences of the lockdowns of which we are not yet fully aware but that will probably emerge with force
Planning anything for the summer seems unwise and impossible
The good:
Also sloooow progress is progress
Working on why my body said no, tingling eye opening moments and secret visions waiting to manifest
Courage to do serious weeding is growing, getting clearer ideas which new seeds need to be planted and tended to with self love and self care
My amazing support net, friends go out of their way to do shopping, to cheer me up, to walk with me in my slow pace, to tie my shoe laces
Healing first
Having a friend around approx. every other day. We hug as we have done all year, we just do it and indulge in immune system-uplifting togetherness.
My osteopath fairy
Quantum Energy Coaching, QEC
Spring is in the air
First chicken in years
Sending weekend sun!
Posting again as a) I really needed *some* sense of connection in this current phase of (erroneous but pernicious) Unwantability, and b) I re-read the page and comments and just feel grateful for the sense of community (even to the point of wondering if I should figure out how to put a photo up! *boggle*)
Thankyou all x
TEST ??
TEST2 ??
test ?
wpetest ?
test ?
Test before conversion: ?
Test after conversion: 🔥