I am casually hosting at my little L.A. apartment today for anyone who wants to come visit. Contact me for address or ask @curtiscchen or @Annalee who are also coming today :)
I am in reasonably good health, all things considered, and there will be snacks. No booze, alas. Ample street parking + driveway.
One of the saddest side effects of 2010s politics is that I now instinctively distrust any organization with "Truth" or some derivative in the name.
I paradoxically expect anyone who self identifies as a "truth seeker" to be someone who will be caught up in one or more dangerous delusions or conspiracy theories perpetrated by some random individual for their own personal gain.
My husband's theory is that what these people want is not truth, but status. If the truth is something that is agreed upon and easily confirmed by most people, there is nothing special or elite in knowing it. So they have to invent secret, hidden "truths" so they can be the only ones who know them.
Just a little reminder to any #Nebulas2024 attendees who would like to see me: I'm not up for travel/public events just now but I am still ambulatory and functional (if tired) and will be taking visitors at my L.A. home this weekend. Not to put too fine a point on it, but statistically this is likely the last time I can do that.
Contact me at this handle at the goog mail if you want my address.
It's been interesting watching the absolute chaos of my attempted planter boxes. Things thriving I thought would die. Things dying I was sure would thrive. So many mushrooms popping up. ?????
In particular I am baffled by two indoor-started seedlings that were mostly dead when I transplanted them but I couldn't bear to just throw them away, and here they are defiantly alive and getting bigger a month later. Weird-shaped, but alive and growing.
And the mushrooms! Soil from two different sources, but same mushrooms popping up all over it despite my watering only when the plants start looking visibly dry.
My Little Pony is my binge watch of choice during this chemo cycle and I had forgotten how much this silly little song means to me, especially the moment at 1:35 which is so brief but was such an epiphany gut-punch to me the first time I saw it. That moment of vulnerability in the middle of an otherwise relentlessly perky song, and most especially the way she resolved it.
It me, trying to find enough happy in myself, even on dark days, to lift up my friends too.
@mishellbaker While I don't watch the show, I did listen to this while searching for an appropriate song for the only playtest group of Dresden Accelerated that had one session set at a My Little Pony convention. For Reasons.
The "pursuit" of happiness isn't about chasing things you're sure will make you happier. It's less a pursuit, really, at all, than it is the recognition of potential sources of happiness that are already in your grasp.
@mishellbaker this is something i've had so much problem conveying to therapists (physical and MH). Don't make me waste precious energy chasing something i can't manage. Help me figure out something i CAN do/you can help me with in your remit.
The quality I admire most in humans is integrity, because without that the other qualities don't matter too much. What do I mean by integrity?
Your beliefs about equity/inclusion are the same whether you are the under- or over-represented group in the current context.
Your beliefs about free competition/consumer-driven economics w/o government interference are the same whether your industry is currently competing well or not.
And on a more personal level, a person with integrity says, thinks, and acts in concert. Does not compartmentalize or live a double life. Is always who they are, regardless of the context.
Without that, I don't really know how to evaluate someone's character at all.
I don't show you flowers and galaxies and amazing human inventions to distract you from the bad things. I show you flowers and galaxies and amazing human inventions to remind you that alongside the bad things are good things that continue to exist. There is nothing stopping you from being aware of ALL of it.