By David Futrelle
I hope you all are having a nice lazy New Year’s Day as we all prepare ourselves for whatever horrors (and possible good things?) that 2019 is going to bring us.
Here’s an open thread. Post your resolutions, if you have any that you want to share; your thoughts on the coming year or the previous one; or just whatever the hell you want to talk about.
Elizabeth Warren is making a tilt for the Presidency. Wonder if Trump will find something other than racist slurs to call her? Of course, there are other contenders for the Dem nomination…
In other news, after battling alcoholism, I’m now 198 days sober. NYE and Xmas were tough, but I made it through. Next challenge please, 2019!
Just finished watching the 2019 NHL Winter Classic.
Just finished watching the 2019 NHL Winter Classic.
I’d told myself that I’d give up on a writing career if I didn’t receive some sort of editorial encouragement by December. A sale would be good. A personal rejection would qualify, depending on the phrasing.
Well, I don’t think I got the second, and I didn’t get the first, but I sent out a new submission today anyway.
I officially came out
Congratulations Lucrece! First major drinking holiday is a total bastard – so you got this good. 🙂
And well done Bakunin. Better to be you, no?
I want to say thank you for this website, even though I’m in no position to be able to donate right now. It’s inspired me to create my own website, which I doubt will be at the same level as this website, but nevertheless, I appreciate your efforts in highlighting the evil that conservatism brings about.
Let’s hope this year and future years will all be liberal for the world. Not just America, but places like particularly Russia, Turkey, Italy, Brazil and India need to quit their misogynistic, pro-bourgeois, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, racist and anti-atheist bullshit that conservatism is designed from its roots to perpetuate.
I want to say thank you for this website, even though I’m in no position to be able to donate right now. It’s inspired me to create my own website, which I doubt will be at the same level as this website, but nevertheless, I appreciate your efforts in highlighting the evil that conservatism brings about.
Let’s hope this year and future years will all be liberal for the world. Not just America, but places like particularly Russia, Turkey, Italy, Brazil and India need to quit their misogynistic, pro-bourgeois, anti-environmental, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, racist and anti-atheist bullshit that conservatism is designed from its roots to perpetuate.
Anyone interested if I re-open my Minecraft realm? Nothing was lost in the time it been closed so those of you who took part last time can continue any projects they were working one from where they left off and new players are always welcome
Lucrece and Bakunin–well done!
Another year, another attempt to get my plans for getting hrt off the ground. Watched cool anime, got a new pc, and am soon ready to get a speaker for my pc set so I can stop using my laptop and phone as speakers.
Bought a bunch of stuff so that, weather permitting, I can strip and refinish some toolboxes of my dad’s.
Husband spent NYE weekend with what we first thought was a cold, then the flu– and which turned out to be a tooth abcess. He’s gotten it somewhat cleaned out and acquired meds, but he needs a root canal and the root canal specialist is booked until the 23rd.
Got together with friends that I haven’t seen in a while and started a new Necromunda campaign. It’s a tabletop wargame about futuristic gang warfare.
I got to see some friends that I hadn’t seen in a while, which was really nice. I also explained incels to a few people who hadn’t heard of them and I feel kind of bad about it.
Bolsonaro got inaugurated today. I’ve heard the state there has already gotten really violent. The worst part is American publications don’t seem to care. In fact, they seem to approve of this president. It almost makes the shenanigans going on in Ontario seem quaint in comparison.
As for me, independence seems finally within reach, but barely. Every year I hope to be out on my own by the end of the year, but perhaps this year it can actually happen. It’s been on my mind so much in the past two months and especially the past two weeks with really nobody to talk to about this stuff. I just feel like I have so much catching up to do now that I’m 30. I don’t want to be 31 and still in this miserable situation. I’m still not really sure how much I can really stretch out my budget to help fund this exit.
I suppose there are some things to look forward to in the near future. I’ll probably get replies to my emails starting tomorrow. I’m also nearing the end of my probationary period for my job, so maybe my pay will go up.
@Shadowplay
Thanking you kindly! I hope that’s true. It makes life a lot less terrible in so many ways, but it’s still a daily struggle. I often turn down invitations to social things if I’m worried about being around alcohol. Good friends, my current DnD campaign, and my favourite fandoms are keeping me sane.
This reminds me of an Oscar Wilde quote that’s always resonated for me:
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
2018 was OK. It wasn’t all bad. I found work at two places, and even though I eventually left them, I feel that the experience left me off more knowledgeable and prepared for the future. On the downside I did start self-harming again after 8 years of not doing it. I know I should seek therapy, but it’s weird I’d rather cut myself then talk openly about my emotions. ATM I’m not too concerned about it and I’m OK with it as a coping mechanism. I’ve also been floating the idea of going back to school, I’m 28 and doing unskilled work and I’m not sure if I want to spend the rest of my life doing that. Hopefully I can find some answers in the coming year. I’d also like to travel more and find someone. I doubt both those things will happen but who knows.
Wishing everyone here a wonderful and spectacular 2019 😁😁😁
@Lucrece:
Staying out of drinking situations if you’re not sure you are on top of things is VERY wise! You also find out who your real mates are pretty quickly. 🙂
Bearing in mind everyone is different, the worst time for me were about year 4. The cravings were infrequent, but that dumbarse voice that says “Go ahead, it won’t hurt. You’re cured.” got kinda loud and insistant.
2018 was a very hard year for me, and I struggled a lot to see the positive messages from my friends in social media. I am frustrated by their obviousness and how they seem to find happiness so easy and appear to have no problems. I know that is what social media is like, to show only the good parts, but it annoyed me anyway. There was not *one* person who admitted that they were glad 2018 was finished.
For me new year is basically meaningless anyway, because time is a construct, and there is nothing new today which is specially just because it is 1 Jan 2019 and not 31 Dec 2018. I enjoy new year and Christmas celebrations when I am with my family but I am rarely at home. Last time was 2015 and time before that was 2012, every other time I was at sea. Which I usually tell myself I don’t mind, but it is not what I really want to chose if I can.
I got my promotion, which should made me happy, but it did not. My mental health suffers a lot basically very bad in August and September, but because of that I finally decided to see a therapist which helped very much, but also reminded me that I need medical help which I can’t get and I don’t know how to get. I am better than I was in September but I am not better generally. I hope 2019 will be better, but that is the same hope I had for the last 9 or 10 years and really things just seem to get worse each year, so I am not very optimistic.
Sorry if I ruined your mood with this post, but I needed to share it. That new year is not positive for every one and it should also be okay.
@Valentin-Emigrantski Ragamuffin:
I’m glad 2018 is finished. Feel any more validated? (Also, I offer you hugs or whatever gesture of affirmation is within your comfort zone.)
(You say that you’ve spent the holidays at sea; out of curiosity, is this metaphoric or are you in fact a sailor?)
@Full metal ox
thank you for hugs and validation. Yes I’m at sea, I’m in the merchant navy. I was sailing now for almost 8 years and I usually spend new year, Christmas and my birthday at sea every year! my last birthday at home was when I was 21. I’m now 26! and I celebrated my 19, 20 and from 22 to 26 at sea also.
@silly-bollocks:
I don’t know if that’s a very good idea TBH. It used to be. But now they are keeping most of the good skilled jobs (white-collar, salaried, full time full benefits) within a narrowing club of mostly people who know people who know people. Lots of people graduate postsecondary institutions with supposedly in-demand STEM credentials and still can’t find anything but unskilled, part-time, gig etc. work. And now they have massive student loan debt.
The economy needs to be fixed first. And that in turn requires fixing politics so a few super-rich CEOs are no longer able to keep the game rigged, both in the labor market and in politics.
Silly,
It is possible to get a skilled job with apprenticeship. that is how I got my job. There are lots of opportunities out there and it is always good to look. You don’t always have to go to university, local colleagues have apprentice programs and in some countries companies are required to give apprentice ship positions, or they have encouragement like tax breaks. I think the best thing you can do is start looking and I really hope you can find something which interests you. Lots of my friends parents and older siblings “went back to school” or did additional trainings when they were 30-40 years old, so it is possible. Obviously I am speaking from my perspective, but if it is possible here then it is possible in America too! Good luck)))
also I am very sorry you started self harming again((( it can be hard to reach out, I waited a long time before I went to a therapist but when I started in October I thought “I wish I did this year’s ago!”
I have made the New Years Resolution to avoid palm fat. I know that this will not save any orangutans, but I don’t want to be buying the product destroying their habitat.
Also need to pull my socks up with my vegetarianism, been slack the past year – working for a meat eating family now.
Still realistic about veganism – might be vegan one or 2 days a week, beyond me full time!
@Lucrece: While it’s a nice quote, I remain unconvinced that it’s Oscar Wilde. This is the fellow, after all, who in his essay “The Decay of Lying”, said
To a man like that, being yourself would no doubt show a tragic lack of ambition and imagination.
I guess I should pick up weight training again as part of my new years resolution. Oh and getting a job to help pay for hrt and my own insurance as steps towards self reliance.
More of a reason to have conservatives eliminated from power as soon as possible, forever.
Happy New Year to everyone !
A l’an qué ven, as we say here.
I haven’t been on here for two years, mostly because since late 2016 the toxic peoples have been boiling out of the crevices, or occasionally revealing they were in plain sight all along… and I decided it wasn’t great for my mental health to be even thinking about them all the time. So, aside from keeping some track of the political trashfire on news sites, I made sure to avoid it as much as reasonable.
So mostly just stopping by for a rhetorical complaint: Why in Kakrafoon Kappa has the Wizard of Orange not hot-air-ballooned his way off to Ultima Thule already??! Or been removed from the White House in chains, either is good.
2018 has been a year of strong personal change for me. I’m definitely much different to the person I was this time last year. My favourite part is how I’m so much less nervous around people now, MUCH less likely to jump to thoughts of “OMG they hate me!” if I make a minor fuck up, much more at peace with how friendships actually work (I finally accepted that if they aren’t in contact with me all the time it *doesn’t* mean they’ve abandoned me, just that they’re busy people) and as of now, slightly more prone to thoughts of “I’m a likeable person” than “I’m such an outcast 😭”. I also finally healed enough to develop the strength to start telling my demons to fuck off and that I’m going to leave the past behind now.
My emotions kinda need to catch up though. I still sense all this stuff brooding beneath the surface of my soul, but my plan is to keep looking forward, keep getting therapy if necessary and hopefully they’ll just fade into nothing, in time. I’m done dwelling on pain and negativity, and I’m glad I finally have the ability to escape them both, after about a decade of struggling.
ETA: oh hey Snowberry! I remember you.
@occasional reader, a l’an que ven, que se siam pas mai que siguem pas mens – I like it!
Wishing mammotheers all the best – both for the things going well to go from strength to strength, and for the things hurting you to ease up, dammit. I’ve got a bit of both going on, like trying to walk a slack-rope :-s, so here’s wishing strength, resilience and good luck to all of us and any loved ones we may have.
Happy new year everyone. For those of you struggling, I hope 2019 will be less of a battle. Hugs to anyone who wants them.
FWIW, I have more hope about US politics now that the Dems will have the House and its committees in a couple of days, and the Mueller investigation seems to be coming to a head.
Anyway, 2018 is gone.
…and I hope the orange nightmare will be gone by the summer. I’m even cautiously hopeful that Mueller will solve the Mike Pence problem too. We don’t know why Paul Manafort was so keen for Pence to be vice president, but I’m sure that it’s not a noble reason! The question is whether it’s criminal and/or impeachable.
Meanwhile, remember to enjoy the little things as best you can. I’m enjoying posting the first cat photos of the year on WHTM.
(They’re not my photos. I wish! they’re from https://www.boredpanda.com/maine-coon-cat-photography-felis-gallery-robert-sijka/)
@sunnysombrera
I really connect with your thoughts about feeling like that with friends and I am so glad you made improvements. I am also currently working on that, it is such a difference to feel that your brain can actually support you and not always say negative thing! I hope you can continue with your progress.
@shiela
so cute))) even if they are not your fotos we always need more picture of cats in the world.🐅
Here’s some good news to start the year off: several more works have entered the public domain!
2018 was the best year of my life so far. I wrote and published two books, made several awesome art pieces, dropped 35 pounds, got promoted, made several new friends, perfected my cooking skills and patched things up with dad a little (mom is a lost cause). I also turned thirty in December. All I have to do now is to stay the course and not fark it up. Wish me luck. I do the same for you 💜🐱
Teabug, I hope 2019 is even better.
@ Lucrece:
Congrats on your clean time!
“… mama said ‘You better be careful, son, what you wish for…. God has a funny way of turning the page!’ “
Ah, 2018… the year that was personally pretty good, but politically, culturally and environmentally hellish. I finally managed to lose not just some weight, but enough to positively impact my liver function tests. If I can maintain it, it might reverse some of the damage, but I’ll take the status quo such as it is.
I also managed to accomplish a lot of the rebranding tasks I had, getting a new online handle, new logo, kept the art stuff going and did some creative photography out in Newfoundland.
I suppose if I had resolutions to make in 2019, it’d be:
1. Keep up with the weight loss. My goal is 70kg, which I had back in first year university when I was on a meal plan and walked two kilometers to the campus and back every day. I’m currently at ~80kg.
2. Get back to colouring artwork. I invested a lot in improving my lineart technique over the past couple of years that it’s been a while since I finished a piece completely. So I need to get back in the swing of that.
3. Complete any outstanding short stories I’ve written. With idle hands being the devil’s playthings, I’m usually writing some scene or other featuring my characters, so I’d like to at least get the ones I have done so that I can decide which ones are worth editing. From there, I can revisit the longer works.
4. Take a weekend trip or two around Ontario when I get the chance. Best remember it before Doug Ford turns it into the blasted Mad Max hellscape he inevitably will.
5. (maybe) Volunteer for the NDP during the federal election. I’m hesitant to do so given the risk of vote-splitting in Toronto and my dissatisfaction with Jagmeet Singh, but I’d like to at least convince some people who ordinarily don’t think about politics to consider a progressive cause or two.
So yeah, that’s my thoughts on this post-New Years Day. Hope errybody enjoys what they can in the New Year!
@ Valentin
Sheila, his eyes are the Ukrainian colours!💙💛
Wishing all mammotheers a better year than last time.
@ Lucrece and Bakunin – congratulations both.
@ Victorious Parasol – good for you! I hope you’ll keep writing more and sending it out. Nobody else can write your stuff like you can.
My New Year – well, so far, so good!
Biting the bullet and taking acting classes this year.
Thanks, Bluecat!
K. – How exciting!
Not vegan myself, but I have some cousins who are, a brother who can’t have gluten, and a family party coming up at the start of February (we were all too busy to get together over xmas). The friend whose New Year’s party I attended made those vegan meringues out of the water you drain off of canned chick-peas, and they did in fact have the taste and texture of egg-white meringues, so I guess I now have an alternative to bringing avocado chocolate pudding yet again (or maybe I could make the pudding and serve it in or with the meringues).
@Valentin
It gets a lot harder to get an apprenticeship over time as most of them have an age cap at 29/30 or even two years after graduation. I’m garbage at finding these things and so I’d only find them after I’d exhausted all other options, and now I’m just too old.
@Teabug
That’s awesome! I tried writing something long myself this past November. I managed about 9000 words.
Which reminds me, I’m trying to be happier for others this year. It’s hard for me especially when checking up on people I used to know from school, as well as anyone else around my age, and seeing how far they’ve come, as well as anyone else who’s around my age. I have my low moments where I try to spread my misery around to try to make myself feel better, and I know that’s not really a healthy way to deal with it. At the same time, I know I do need to talk about my feelings every once in a while, and that’s easier to do when I feel them particularly strongly.
My own New Year has gotten off to a less than auspicious start: yesterday I went up to the apartment office to pay my rent and do my laundry–and found the police investigating a burglary, the second in less than half a year; the washing machines were also ransacked and damaged beyond repair and will need to await replacement.
On top of that, I’ve also drapidly developed an oozing sinus infection; Mammotheers, I’d love to hear your decongestant soup recipes (ideally not involving rice or potatoes, which do my diabetes no good.)
Today, I’d like to wish Brazilian mammotheers good luck. Please stay safe.
Here’s a recent video from German lefttuber Three Arrows, “Bolsonaro and Brazil’s Struggle for Truth and Memory”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrUXs-5Ins4
If anyone can recommend videos on the current political situation there by Brazilian lefties – either in English or with decent subtitles – please share!
@Bakunin
Hugs!
@Full Metal Ox, if you don’t mind ginger and/or “hot” spices like chilli or pepper of one kind or another, you may find cooking with a fair bit of these gives you some relief from a stuffed-up nose. Otherwise I’d just say maybe some pseudoephedrine hydrochloride if you can get it (don’t know what brands of decongestant might be marketed where you are, but that’s one of my favourite ingredients :-s)
Happy New Year, everyone!
@Bakunin, Lucrece, Teabug, and everyone who reached or is reaching difficult milestones – congratulations!!
@An Impish Pepper
Same here. I’m 30 and I want to move out of my parents’ house this year. I rented a room when I was doing my MA out of town, but this would be a more major move. I have enough money now, luckily, but my problems are a) getting organized and b) dealing with the stress of new things.
@Victorious Parasol – my advice would be to both keep on writing and to hold on to other paid work if possible. That’s where I am right now, at least. What kind of writing do you do? Do you have a link to any of your work and/or to where it can be bought? Thanks!