Best posts made by Auspice

@Ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I hate this. I hate how even finding a method of working out I like.....and my body is rejecting it. I hate how I WANT to get in shape.... I mean an hour may have been the issue and once I recover I should prob do less but I was having fun! I should be able to have fun and enjoy myself and not pay for it for days on end.

Unsolicited advice: don't give up.

Maybe you should do less. Maybe you should do more. As long as you're doing and loving it, you will hit your goal, even it is "just have a bit more fun."

Also, maybe stretch.

I don't plan to give up.
I'm just... grouchy. Grouchy that I enjoyed it. Grouchy that I'm struggling to even walk and everything hurts and I feel like I'm moving through mud today even tho I slept half the day yesterday.
I wish I could go home and do more because I enjoyed it, but instead I'll go home and sit on my ass.

So I've been reflecting a lot lately on self-care: the easy parts and the hard parts.
I've also been reflecting a lot on self-love (no not that kind you perv).

I thought on the whole 'someone else can't love you until you love yourself' and how much I revolted against that when it came up recently because it came up in a thread on attraction because some of those who brought it up brought it up in regards to physical attraction and I think that's where it got to me.

I hate my physical appearance.
I know others who do as well.

And it is okay to hate your physical appearance. You can hate your physical appearance and still love yourself.
You can hate your physical appearance, still love yourself, and still be open to being loved by another. And I think that's why it made me so angry. I shouldn't have anyone telling me 'you have to love the way you look to ever be loved by another person.' Because I found myself thinking of all the people with various forms of body dysphoria and feeling for them.

I hate the way I look. I probably always will to some extent (I have some scarring in a couple places that, even if I lose the weight that has me especially depressed, will always be an issue). But I don't hate everything about myself. I'm not consumed by self-hatred. I just hate the way I look. So when I'm told things like 'oh no one will love you until you love yourself (aka your appearance)' (which, in the context of that thread being about appearance is how it came across and is also what my mother has told me my entire life)..... it's infuriating. People have loved me despite my hatred of my looks.

I dunno where this is going, but. I guess I wanted to share since I know there's others on the board who struggle with acceptance of their appearance and I don't want them to feel the same: that they can't be loved/accepted by others unless they manage to accept/love their appearance and I just don't think that's true. I think you can still be loved even if you hate parts of yourself.

We just had a going away happy hour for someone who quit (better opportunity) a couple weeks ago (mine is tomorrow).
Spent three hours hanging out at a bar.
Decided we're gonna make it a weekly event. Yes even those of us who don't work at the company any more.

I really love these guys. Convo went from work to just....all the things. I will really miss this place.

@Auspice said in The Crafting Thread:

@tek said in The Crafting Thread:

@JinShei all I can see are my mistakes. I made fewer on the first hat. But thank you!

I hate that feeling and know it well. It's something that all makers feel. I have a few stitches on my current piece that are pinching each other and the fabric and I know they will ease out, but I am fighting myself not to rip hours and hours of work out to fix just these 4 stitches.

And I know, when it's done, I will wash and iron it and they will disappear and no one will ever know buuuuuuuuuuut......

I lied.

I'm tearing out about a cumulative 8 hours worth of work rn.

This one is actual embarrassment. This one is 'if I am ever a writer on a television show, it is being written in.'

One of my brothers is 8 years and 2 days younger than I am. This means that the last birthday party I ever had was my 8th. After that, every birthday as a kid/teen was 'we'll sing happy birthday to both of you, but as the elder sibling...'

Anyway, for my... I think it was 12th birthday and his 4th, we had my grandparents and my dad's friend and my dad's friend's kids over. Said friend's kids were a group of boys around my age. I guess my parents thought I'd appreciate this. I guess my parents thought 'teenage girl will like having some teenage boys around.' Mostly they just liked that it was free food, cake, ice cream, and access to the basketball hoop we had in our backyard.

Now, when the cake came out, there were very stern words to KEEP THAT BALL AWAY FROM THE CAKE and I, being the very anxious sort I was, just had a feeling and I'd been stood in the general area between table and where the hoop was. I happened to turn just at the time the ball winged off the hoop and went flying towards the table. I jumped up to try to catch it and there I was... hands in the air just as everyone standing around the cake, now splattered in cake, looks up to see me with a horrified look on my face.

Imagine what it would be in a sitcom and it was exactly like that. Teenage boys scattered.
Me with hands in the air looking like I'd thrown the ball directly into the cake.
My brother in tears.
My other brother (8 at the time) already pointing at me and blaming me for it despite having seen nothing.
My grandfather, parents, father's friend all covered in cake and FURIOUS, all yelling at me at once.

Trust me, it didn't help when the 'hot one' of the teenage boys snuck up to sit outside my door an hour later and thank me for taking the fall. I even told him that, y'know, he COULD try coming clean instead. No Disney Channel ending for me.

That moment of standing there, my hands in the air, as the worst possible outcome was laid out before me will be forever etched into my memory, but goddamn if as an adult it isn't just hilarious how picture perfect it is.

I just spent 5 minutes trying to spell corduroy. My initial attempts were so bad even spellcheck was like 'bitch i got no idea'.

As a 'going away' gift, coworker got me a couple of his favorite foods. One is one he introduced me to during my first week here: Grillo's Pickles.

The other is Treeline Cheese (specifically the herb-garlic french style soft cheese) because I'd asked him recently what his favorite vegan cheeses are (he keeps a dairy-free kosher).

I already Grillo's a lot but don't often indulge because they are pricey and I am excited to try the cheese.

@Quinn
So this one reminds me that I lost both my front teeth by hitting myself (or I guess allowing myself to be hit?) in the face. And, btw, one of these was roughly 2nd grade. I was a slow tooth-loser, so don't feel bad, Quinn!

Tooth 1:
I shared a room with my brother. We had a bunk bed. I had one of those clip-on lamps. The tooth had been loose for a while already.
I dropped something between the bed and the wall and after leaning down to grope around for a while to grab it, I finally lean back up, turn, and WHAM hit my face right on the lamp. Minute later, feel something (lot of something) in my mouth, go in the bathroom, and promptly spit out the tooth and some blood into the sink.

Tooth 2:
Some months later, at a park. Running around a playground, during the twilight hour. I go to clamber under a section of the play area. I hit my face on it instead because it was that perfect layer of not-quite-dark that my depth perception was fucked. Just full on WHANG and I've got a face full of wood chips. Except when I go to spit out what I thought was a wood chip, it was my tooth.

No wiggling front teeth out for me, nope. I WHACKED 'em out.

It is known that I am not the most coherent person before 10am. My speech center, especially, tends to be jumbled. I usually train coworkers into this.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeell.

I left my first 'adult' job for another job. Year and a half later, I got laid off, and went back to the first job. Instead of full training, I got sat with someone for a refresher. One of the first days back, I'm riding the elevator up with some of my old buddies. I'm leaned up against the wall, completely out of it.

"So, <Auspice>, who did they sit you with this week?"

Me, mumbling: "Ryan Seacrest."

The whole of the elevator breaks out in laughter.

Me, eyes still barely open: "What?"

"Do you mean Ryan <guy's actual name>?"

Me: "Isn't that what I said?"

Cue more laughter.

It became a game to talk to me first thing in the morning after that.

@Ganymede said in The Hockey Thread:

@Ghost

It is an awesome name and will sell itself.

and is a million times better than Greenville's ECHL's team the Swamp Rabbits.

ugh.
Still mad about that name and to this day don't know how it won the vote since I didn't meet anyone who voted for it and I was actually pretty fucking socially active when I lived there,

I'll spread your rifts

If you're someone who likes to regularly remind people that you like to be open about mental health issues and want it to be something people can have a conversation about...

...don't snap at the person who says 'Thank you for the offer, but I'm not able to work a job like that due to my anxiety' when you offer to try to get them a referral somewhere. Esp. not with a 'Well since soandso doesn't appreciate what I'm willing to do for them, is anyone else interested?'

like thanks a million now I've had to mute one of my favorite Discord servers for the day because being chewed out for being unappreciative 'in front of' everyone when I a) thanked you for the offer, b) explained why I can't accept it due to my anxiety (to someone who likes to go on at length about THEIR anxiety) set me off on an anxiety attack.

I'm trying not to judge and maybe they're having a bad day too but sometimes I feel like it's more performative for people like that. Like it's a 'I'm gonna tell everyone all the time about my anxiety except I don't really have it I just want people to think I do so I have an excuse to behave in shitty ways and get away with it' but I know that's just how bad/frustrated I'm feeling right now and maybe we just clashed and muting the server for a day is the best option. Breathing room.

Though tearing out 8-10 hours of stitching sucked...... today I finally got past where I'd been and it looks so much better.
I think I'll be done with the fucking castle tomorrow and able to move on. Halle-fuckin-lujah.

@Rinel

Stress, anxiety, panic, etc. manifest as severe chest pains for me often. The way one doctor described it is I get muscle spasms in my chest right around my heart (which is why I have landed in the ER, blacked out, etc etc etc...). It sucks. Finding the right meds, right balance of 'how do I manage this' - it sucks. Atypical shit sucks. I hope you can figure it out.

So, @Ganymede has the right of it. She's alienating him. And it might look right on the outside but...

@Testament you know me.
You also know the marriage I went through.

For the first few years I was 'happy.'
I was also alone.
I was alone because my ex-husband alienated me from everyone that wasn't his friend. And shit, if I became good friends with any of his friends, that got shut down too. Everyone was an asshole or a bitch or he just didn't like them. He'd be shitty to them when we were around them. He'd bad mouth them to me when we weren't. If I saw my friends without him he'd call me nonstop to come home and he missed me and...

It took me years to realize it wasn't healthy. I thought I just had bad taste in friends. I thought he just loved me and spending time with me that much.

I kind of wish someone had sat down with me and said they missed seeing me or they were worried about how he treated me or.... Instead, post-divorce, I got friends back and everyone going 'thank God we were so sick of that guy.'

And I mean. I get it. It's awkward. But at the same time no one was there before we got married and it could've been stopped. No one was there in the years he was doing the most damage. If this girlfriend of your buddy's is isolating him in a similar way? You could be saving him now by sitting him down and going hey, look, I know you like her and I know this is a big deal....but remember that friendships outside of a relationship are important and if she's not letting you have those / is making those difficult, you might want to think about things.

Dating in my 30s has been nonexistent

@Wizz said in Dating in the 2020's:

I've gone from being painfully lonely to not really giving a shit.

People kept telling me this is the secret first step to finding someone so...maybe there's hope yet???

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I went from lonely to not giving a shit right back around to lonely.
Those people are liars.

@Ganymede said in Dating in the 2020's:

@Auspice

I'm so fucking old.

What does "negging" mean? And "demisexual"?

Negging is basically using backhanded 'compliments' to try to manipulate the other person into striving for your approval. 'I'd find you so much hotter if you....'
Like they have that HINT that the person thinks you're attractive, but they're also an insult, while trying to force you to improve yourself for them.

I may have terrible self-esteem, but I'm also a bitch, so they don't work on me.

demisexual means that I don't find someone physically attractive until/unless I have an emotional connection with them. Tho this only goes for men. Women I can find hot and be willing to jump their bones right off the bat.

@Ghost said in The Work Thread:

You make a good point about lack of snow infrastructure. Not a lot of people think about dried-then-moist roads here, nor do they consider that cities that dont expect X dont invest in Y.
A legit tornado would royally fuck my town.

(interesting. the board crashed and lost my reply)

Regions/states/cities build for what they got.

The buildings in SoCal are built for earthquakes.
Look at the houses in coastal Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, etc: they're made for hurricanes.
The roads in the southwest look different than the roads in, say, New England because they are built for the hot, dry weather.

Climate change has fucked a lot of this up, but for a long ass time, what we've had has worked save for those weird years. My first winter in Austin, it snowed 3 times. Each time was a 'dusting' (one time it was about an inch) compared to up north, but people who had been here 10+ years told me it was the most snow they'd seen here. It hasn't snowed at all this winter. In fact, save for a fair bit of rain, it's been mostly 60+ during the day (a lot of sub-40 mornings, but) and from what I can tell, that's more the norm for Austin. So that's what the roads, the infrastructure (infrastructure being more than just the physical build) are setup for. Because up north, y'all would be a big ol' struggle bus in the 115'F summers. But Austin is just like whatever, c'mon down to Barton Springs for the day.

The US is a big country. We gotta structure different regionally for whatever that region deals with seasonally.

My mom is sending me her standing frame.

She hasn't used it in at least a decade, so I'd asked her to price out sending it to me. I didn't have high hopes because that woman is a lost cause of getting shit done (not ADHD; she's just lazy and puts shit off endlessly). And I was figuring she'd expect me to send the money so I wanted to know and figured 'hey if my tax return is big enough maybe it can be a small nice thing for myself even tho I'm out of work' or a thing I did for myself when I had a job again.

But no, she's shipped it! I'll have it Friday!

I feel even better about having bought a pattern to stitch for her for mothers day.