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.