Laura's blog

This winter is highly unusual for many of us because of the pandemic. The holidays are often a trauma trigger in any case, beyond the simple stress of preparing the celebrations. For example, some people have bad memories of spending holidays with abusive people, while others have to deal with the grief of experiencing their first holiday without a deceased loved one.  This winter, so many people are spending their holidays sick or without those who have died from COVID-19. One of my friends used to make and boost threads about being kind to yourself around the holidays, geared towards those for whom the season is a grief/trauma anniversary. This year, my grandfather died. Later this year, that friend died. Every time I think of all the people who didn't survive 2020, I think of them and how fucking unfair that feels. In 2020, we weren't able to hold a funeral for my grandfather. The social rituals around death, designed to help us deal with it, have been disrupted. Distance is...

I have fibromyalgia and depression, neither of which lend themselves to keeping my apartment clean or standing up for long enough to do the dishes. I have a tiny kitchenette with no automatic dishwasher. So the dishes tended to pile up.  I looked up portable and countertop dishwashers -- too expensive. I only bought two of each utensil and only one fork, hoping that having fewer utensils would force me to wash them immediately. It turns out depression doesn't work like that. So I got a foam mat to stand on. While that helped a little, it was not nearly enough, and my arms and hands would still hurt from washing dishes. I was spending too much of my limited energy reserves on feeding myself. Dirty dishes meant it was hard to prep food. Washing those dishes was exhausting, so by the time I was done, I couldn't prep food. I could never seem to clear the sink, and the untidy environment took a mental toll because it reminded me of my failure and frustration. I spent a little while ...

 How many posts will I write about quitting this blog, only to come back to this blog and write more posts about not quitting this blog? Will it ever be enough? When will it end? When will I learn? Anyway, I have NO idea what I was thinking when I decided to start publishing blog posts on Ko-fi about stuff I like. The whole POINT of reviewing podcasts, books, etc. is that posting your review on platforms like Amazon, GoodReads, or Stitcher is what helps the thing you like get noticed more! So publishing a review on Ko-fi is basically pointless without putting it somewhere helpful! I don't know where my brain was or what I was doing. I still kind of don't. To be honest, I've had an incredibly difficult time writing for a while now -- years, at this point. It's discouraging. However, I think I've put too many expectations on myself for what that writing or creating should be. I'll just go back to using this blog as an outlet for my diary thoughts. I'll probabl...

 Hi all, it's been a very long time since I published anything here. Life got in the way -- but now I have a master's degree. Two master's degrees, in fact. And a heap of student loans, but let's not talk about that now! I also began a patreon and a ko-fi. The Patreon keeps experiencing technical difficulties, and I don't find it user-friendly. The ko-fi platform is simpler but smoother, and has worked pretty well so far. I think that's what I will use primarily to blog from now on. I would like to maintain this site, but crossposting everything I do on two platforms feels a little overwhelming. I mean, I can barely make it to my paying job on time or remember to vacuum. I am trying to make things easier on myself, not harder! The other thing is that this blog is attached to a name that I'm trying to phase out of using. I don't think that I want to use "Laura" online anymore, for a number of reasons. It's hard to figure out where to change ...