Slowly treading water

Just some random musings and stuff

[slowlytreadingwater]

Is it anxiety or is it the 25 energy drinks I consumed today?

[notbecauseofvictories]

A customer contacted our team with questions, and then finished their email with: "I am daunted by the complexities and unknowns." I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

[cameoappearance]

Reblog if you are daunted by the complexities and unknowns

[whyenn-reader]

as good of a time as any to share my list of activities I do during what i like to call Scheduled Soul Maintenence to avoid burnout

go on an aimless bike/ride/walk - move your body, do it for as long as you feel like it, discover new places near you weather that is a frog or a cafe

watch a new movie/read a new book/listen to a new album - get inspired, excercise having opinions and longer attention span, break out of consuming content and make a choice about what you want to expirience

create something in a medium i haven't used in a while - get out of a habit, rekindle a flame you haven't been upkeeping, making a friendship bracelet counts

go have a fun new drink/snack - arguably most important, have a little treat without rush, slow down and focus on physical sensations, treat yourself in a way that isn't landfillcore

meet with friends and/or go to a place where you meet strangers - human connection is good for you, (maybe some casual sex if you like that/try something new with your partner)

make some bad art - create for the sake of creating without any expectations

play an instrument - this can be anything that makes you reach a kind of flow state

go see something you haven't yet - get to know the cultural/geographical map of your area, this includes events, places, or just anything that makes you go out of your way to expirience something new, can be like a viewpoint or it can be a museum exhibit, anything you find cool

cook/bake something new - nurish your body, break out of cooking habits and routine, make it an event, plate it nicely too and i would like to point out that none of these have to cost more money than your usual lifestyle.

[hachisenshi]

Reminder to myself

[orcposts]

do not go gentle into that good night

[orcposts]

be a bit of a bitch about it

[transbian-uprising]

can't in good conscience leave this out

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

not my circus however the monkeys appear to be holding me hostage

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

not my circus but i bought a ticket and now the monkeys are holding the audience members at gunpoint???

[waterandsilver]

crazy how the printer is the only piece of tech that acts up like that almost every day of its life. and we just accept it

[waterandsilver]

i don't think i've ever met a printer that actually wanted to be a printer. i think most printers have dreams of being on the stage

[in-the-drowning-deep]

I met a printer early in my IT career that did not want to be a printer. it sat in a school reprographics room, sullenly chewing any job it was fed - if it deigned to notice them at all.

then one day, a miracle occurred. an exhausted physics teacher, instead of punching in 12 for the number of copies she wanted of the 30-page booklet she had made for her A-level physics class, punched in 1200.

and that printer came to life. this print job was its moment, its magnum opus! it WOULD NOT be parted from it, no matter what we did, until we physically unplugged it from the wall, by which time it had printed almost 200 copies.

moral of the story: no printer wants to be a printer, unless you also do not want it to be a printer for a bit.

[netherworldpost]

printers do not want to be printers because they want to be problems

[bonivers]

pushing back against oldest child stereotypes by making unwise choices and not being dependable

[trickstarbrave]

[penandinkprincess]

parenting commitment level 3000

[penandinkprincess]

apparently a requirement for working at poison control is a talent for stand-up comedy

[omgthatdress]

Having thought about it, "Cloud dancer" is really the perfect bullshit color for the bullshit year of 2026. It's gonna be the year of the tech billionaire, so of course the color of the year is tech white, AKA the landlord special.

Welcome to the technofascist future, bitches. It's white.

[bane-of-technology]

the jokes write themselves

[omgthatdress]

I love this addition

[knit-braid]

Pantone can't miss

oooop wait I guess they can

[omgthatdress]

STOP BEING FUNNIER THAN ME

[caffeinatedopossum]

"I'm still kicking" is such a funny way to say "I'm still alive". Like lol. I'm still thrashing. Flailing. Writhing even. The violence remains.

[draconym]

I think it sucks that you have to go to so many different kinds of doctor to take care of yourself. It's the 21st century. I should be able to go to a single office where they scan me with a big xerox machine and tell me what I'm allergic to and why my tummy hurts and if I have any cancer or cavities or if my glasses prescription has changed. And then I should get a sticker.

[slowlytreadingwater]

I’m sad. No reason. Just sad. Actually, I have all the reasons to be sad. The world is a fucking dumpster fire. Every time I pick up my phone or turn on the news I’m force fed negative things. Children dying. Corruption. Murder. Rape. Human rights being decimated.

But I have no personal reasons to be sad. Just general ones.

[slowlytreadingwater]

The white sauce incident

It was such a stupid thing. He asked me to make the white sauce for the pasta. “I don’t know how” I told him. “Yes you do” he replied. “You have always made it before”. “Nope, I’ve always fucked it up and had to add loads of cheese” I replied. “Besides, we don’t have all the ingredients”. I thought the conversation was over.

Later he told me that the pasta was almost ready, I just had to make the sauce. I reminded him of our earlier conversation, he still didn’t believe that I couldn’t make an edible white sauce. So I gave up, I asked him to shred some cheese “I don’t want a cheese sauce” he said. I attempted the fucking white sauce. Of course it didn’t work, no butter or baking margarine, just the cheapest spreading margarine imaginable (the stuff is basically plastic but it is what he likes), the kids have broken the whisk and spatula, and we only have skim milk.

He couldn’t understand why I was crying into the chunky mess in the pan. He offered to throw it out so I could try again. The second batch was even worse. Both undercooked and strangely singed at the same time. That’s when the fight started. He kept on trying to get me to stop making sauce, I couldn’t. My brain got stuck in a loop, make the fucking sauce, make the fucking sauce and watch him choke on it.

Not the healthiest of mental healths, I know. But it’s frustrating being ignored. It’s frustrating that I remember every little thing about him but he can’t remember all the times that I’ve cried over fucking white sauce before. All the times we’ve had this same fight, him insisting that I can do something and me attempting and failing to do it. And then all the fights and tears that follow. Must be nice to forget your failures and disappointments like that. To not wallow in self pity and recrimination for days.

Must be nice to be able to make a white sauce.

[slowlytreadingwater]

I was in the anxiety house again last night. I have never actually stepped foot into the anxiety house, at least not in the real world. The anxiety house has lived in my dreams for as long as I can remember. It is a perfectly normal house but it fills me with existential dread every time I’m in it.

When I was younger, the house was a lot smaller. There was only 1 entrance and 1 exit. There was a dog (we never had dogs when I was a kid) and it had an upstairs (I have never lived in a double story house). I would dream about the house where the real world became too much, too overwhelming, too stimulating. In my dreams I would roam the halls, always looking, never finding. I would wake up in a cold sweat, dizzy with fear and never quite sure which house was real.

As I’ve grown older the house has gotten bigger, maybe because my anxieties and fears have grown. Sometimes my kids are in the house with me, I can never warn them. When I open my mouth to scream, I have no voice, when I reach for them, they are always just slightly too far away.

The frequency of my visits have varied over the years, when I was overmedicated I never had any dreams, not even nightmares. When my medication stopped working the house returned. During the Covid lockdowns I didn’t have to dream about the anxiety house, the real world was the anxiety house. I know why I visited last night, I have been feeling burnt out, the pressures of work, parenting, and the absolute hellscape which is 2025 drove me there. The house will be there tonight again, it will not let me go easily this time.

[catchymemes]

[enki2]

My autistic ass whenever my manager says "let's be honest in your feedback" in a sprint retrospective

[jerseyclown]

i have poetry in me but mostly it rolls around in me like a marble at the bottom of a glass

[jerseyclown]

not much to be done about it

[sewerfight-deactivated20250114]

Imagine a bee rn in a hive muttering "the beekeeper is not real because he is not intervening or helping me at all with this disastrous relationship I have with another bee". now imagine that's you talking about the good lord. now imagine a dog with a propeller hat on

[xenobotanist]

[61below]

Filing this in my memory right next to this thread: