ramblings journal, please ignore me.

hi, I'm ginn. she/her, mid-30s. i'm here because i keep leaving this site which is probably the healthiest relationship i've had with a social media platform, so i might as well stick around. PFP: Little Guy Maker on picrew: https://picrew.me/share?cd=sE5GYGX2cN

[arctic-hands]

A year ago my roommate's dad insisted on taking us to a proper furniture store to buy us a "real couch instead of Ikea crap". Which like, fine as long as he's paying. We didn't want to take too much advantage so we just bought a loveseat instead of a full sofa, even tho we could have gotten a full sofa from Ikea for less than the cost of the loveseat

Anyway it's a year later and the "proper couch" is already broken lmao

[candycoatedcrimes]

Meanwhile I own two Ikea couches, one has been with us for 4 years and other than cat claw marks into the leather, it still looks in perfect shape and is the comfiest couch I've ever owned.

The other one we got last year since we now have a place with enough space to keep the TV away from the living room. I'm not sure if it'll outlive its 10 year warranty, but that'll be from our toddler being very toddler-ish about it.

In both cases, I'd much rather live through those life lessons with ikea-priced couches than pay 2, 3, 4x the price and still end up with a claw-marked, toddler-jumped couch that will need replacing down the line.

[candycoatedcrimes]

I knew I was neurospicy but I think I might be more than I expected.

Like. The ADHD? Came as a shock at first, but I've had nearly a decade to get used to that now, figure out treatment and self-accommodations and kinda manage that specific weirdness.

But I was looking into AuDHD because my toddler-mom friend got diagnosed recently and came to me for advice on the ADHD part since I look (ha) like I have it together and I didn't want to mislead her with strategies that wouldn't jive with the contradictions of having both...

And, err... I think I need to talk to a doctor again.

Because this explains things that neither the ADHD or having a chaotic childhood with an emotional tornado mom could. Things I don't think I ever brought up to the neuropsych because they weren't relevant to the line of questioning.

I don't have any energy left to look into this and start digging into my brain structure again. I'm tired of going through the cycle of "okay, I think I've got a handle on this" and "HAHAHA NOPE TIME TO GET MORE LABELS AND TRIAL-AND-ERROR MORE LIFE-CHANGING THINGS". It's getting old and so am I.

[slowpokegamer]

*looking at myself in the mirror*

Fanfiction is supposed to be cringy. You're allowed to write bad. You're allowed to be cringe. Fanfiction is supposed to be self indulgent. You're allowed to be cringe. Let yourself be cringe. Fanfiction is supposed to be fun. Stop putting arbitrary rules on yourself and be free.

[hoidmadeittoearth]

old websites

quirky

eater eggs

fun

colorful

times new roman

squares

klunky

charming

new websites

corporate

white

simplified

rounded corners

slick

arial light

unnecessary animations

lifeless

[cowpoke-by-association]

People who hate on cassettes for being bad quality, clearly have never gotten to experience the greatness that is a badly recorded copy of Styx’s boat on the River as it fades in an out, and goes back forth from your right ear to your left ear, it is the shittieness that give it it’s charm, I also truly believe that is how Styx songs were meant to be listened to.

[candycoatedcrimes]

People who hate on cassettes for being bad quality have also never experienced the glorious joy of listening to the radio on your cassette recorder waiting for that one song you enjoy by a band you don't so you can record it to your current mixtape, gritty signal noise and fade-out radio guy voice included.

I collected low-quality radio recordings like one collects shiny rocks.

[candycoatedcrimes]

I really should have bought the one (1) album per quarter I'd put on repeat for months instead of massively over-paying Spotify for the privilege of playing it (and the same old playlist it'd fade into after the hyperfixation) ad-free.

Live and learn, I guess.

[whatthehelloh]

> If corporate greed creates enshittification.

> And enshittification creates "purchasing isn't owning"

> Then piracy isn't stealing.

[candycoatedcrimes]

Day 31+4 of the Reddit break: Lessons learned

We're now in the Great Beyond! Challenge completed, now in the "realistic implementation of lessons learned" phase. I lasted a month, and then a bit more, and finally yesterday I decided to look up info I'd been looking for weeks ago.

I got the answer I wanted then closed the page like I do when I look up a recipe and don't care to keep the random blog post tab, so that's a new kind of success: I am now able to use Reddit as a hobby search engine and feel no additional pull towards it. Neat.

So... What did I find out this January?

I accidentally did a low-buy month, and didn't overthink as much the things I did buy. Guess it makes sense with how much pseudo-organic engagement marketing there is on the platform.

I don't need to consume what isn't even news but strangers' opinions on news all day every day. I now get my news from a newspaper and get depressed for 15 min a day instead of 24 hrs.

My phone feels more like a digital swiss army knife than an entertainment device and I've been less annoyed with it.

I've been paying more attention to my surroundings. I took more pictures than usual, and I'm moving furniture around and trying to bring in some color into my home, which I don't usually care much about.

Taking one coping mechanism out doesn't magically fix my lack of drive. Getting into action when you've been at a standstill for a while is hard, I just became more aware of it and didn't have something to hide behind.

It's been a strangely introspective month. I'm keeping my site blockers on, and only deactivating them when I actually have time and for specific purposes.

Life without the noise is kinda nice, even though it takes a while to really get into the groove.

[wowbright]

I really hate how people will trust grifters over experts, because grifters speak utter bullshit with absolute confidence, while experts speak facts with caveats about when those facts might not apply, and people interpret that as lack of confidence. And they will trust a confident person over someone who isn't confident any day, regardless of what is true or wise.

[candycoatedcrimes]

Day 22 of the Reddit break thing.

And ah, there's the restlessness.

I thought it was way too easy. And frankly, what I'm feeling has nothing to do with the platform itself.

It's the doomscrolling. It's having something easy at hand to fall into and blame when I haven't done what I was supposed to do. It's a good look in the mirror and it sucks.

So does the creative itch that's so rusty I can't get out of "need to create" and onto "OKAY, WHAT MEDIUM AND WHAT ARE WE MAKING".

I've been writing. Ish. Half-baked ideas, scenes that might someday fit in a bigger picture but probably won't. Things that suck. I'm rusty.

I've been wanting to knit but not picking up the needles. I've been wanting to buy a gallon of paint in a random color and just... change up the all the doorways in the house. For shits and giggles.

I'm at the weird junction between apathy and the call of the real-world, where I want nothing more but to fold up and dive back into the simple world of consuming empty content as a hobby. Because it's comfortable. I don't have to make decisions, or get into action. Or risk having my guests think I'm crazy for painting my doorways blue or whatever.

It's easy being bland and buying stuff recommended by the hive-mind instead of... I dunno. Doing stuff that will likely be cringe. That doesn't have the trending seal of approval. That's not a recommended pattern or a color I've seen someone else using or a trope someone else said was their favorite.

Ah. There's stuff to unpack here.

[candycoatedcrimes]

Reddit break - day 19 ramblings.

Wow, am I this close to 3 weeks? You'd think I'd be feeling withdrawal or something. It's pretty much out of sight, out of mind. Guess it's just force of habit that I get caught with the typing in the morning before coffee kicks in. (Autopilot is dangerous.)

So, yeah, I think the site blocker will stay in place (with a schedule) after this is over. So I don't end up looking at Oops, It's All Toxic Comment Sections!: The Website on work hours.

The writing bug bit me this weekend. Haven't felt that in ages, I've been in perpetual writers block at such a scale it affected my ability to do my job. Hence my suspicion that it's not unrelated to this.

It still MIGHT not be related (sample size: 1 doesn't even count as anecdata), but... that's what being bored does, isn't it?

Truly bored. Staring-at-the-wall bored. Willing to do annoying shit just so you're not doing nothing bored. And because I am severely impaired in the executive department, continuing to stare at the wall until the buzzing at the back of your brain turns into a migraine.

I went through the "put on my headphones and dance in front of the mirror" phase of boredom last week.

Now I'm at the "getting reacquainted with good old fanfic tropes" phase.

Ah wait, maybe this is withdrawal.

Nevermind.

[candycoatedcrimes]

Day 15 of not being on Reddit (aka my final boss of doomscrolling)

I went into this expecting that the most challenging part would be early mornings & late nights, because there's something about laying in bed that invites the infinity scroll.

I'm shocked at how easy it's been to switch to something else in those times. I can read, I can catch up on the news, even something as simple as checking the weather first thing in the morning gets me in a different mindset.

I find myself not caring as much how much time I've spent on my phone, because what I use it for doesn't make me feel worse, or like I can't turn it off.

Who cares if I spent 3h reading last night? It's a book. It's not trying to harvest my attention data. (Well, the phone is, but what's it gonna do, tell me to read more?)

It's a weird shift. I can't say I hate it.

[candycoatedcrimes]

I dropped Reddit for January. (I do month-long resolutions instead of year-long because I need small victories. I have the attention span of a carrot, so I take whatever works.)

Anyway. 12 days in, I'm getting really annoyed at the muscle memory of typing in r-e-enter every time I open a new browser tab. (Thank goodness for site blockers.)

Looks like this is the actual reason I haven't been able to fix my screen time. It's been mostly reddit, and clearly, it's likely mostly unintentional use. So that's gonna be fun at the end of the month. Yay.

That said, so far so good. I do miss being able to look up info about niche hobbies or answer tech questions without having to play the "is this AI slop or ad-pocalypse" game. Of all the old tech to miss, I've been thinking of setting up an RSS feed to keep up with whatever decent sources I'm finding along the way.

Curating my online experience like it's 2009? Sure, why not?

I really don't miss the constant drip of headlines sprinkled in between escapism. I still check in with the news in the morning, but then I... go about my day instead of letting it swallow me. I might not need the play-by-play with live audience commentary of the world going insane, turns out. Who'd have thought.