#jaime rambles

[violetcarlin]

Happy 2026, Tumblr. The last week or two of the year was kind of wild, and I'm ready to hibernate for a while. But my holiday season included:

Out of town family guests

A lot of cleaning and furniture building before said guests

A big holiday dinner

A new kitten!

... and getting married? Yeah, that happened too.

The last is mostly a legal formality. We've had a joint mortgage for several years, that's honestly a bigger commitment, lol. But it's weird to think of myself as legally married, all the same.

The goal for 2026 is to ask myself the following questions on a consistent, regular basis.

How do I feel?

What could I do right now to make myself feel better?

What am I doing that makes me feel good?

What can I do right now to make sure I feel better in the near future?

I have a Very Large Numbered birthday coming up this year, and I've been in a multi-year midlife crisis leading up to it. So I want to keep the goals simple, in the hopes of entering yet another decade feeling a little less of my own mortality, and more possibility for the future.

May 2026 be at least a slightly better year on a larger level than the last. Please, whoever is listening. I think we all deserve it.

[pitchblackkoi]

@justinmclachlan turn on your location I just wanna talk about the entire after credits segment

[violetcarlin]

do you ever get into a mood where you're like "I need to do a creative or I might explode," but every type of creativity feels like too much for your brain to handle? And you know the answer is "just push through and it'll get easier" because you've done it before, but, oh god, the INERTIA. Perhaps with a side of expectations and not wanting to let someone down?

Yeah. It's like that right now.

[violetcarlin]

@the12thnightproject asked for the cat tax, so I must obey. Meet Leila, our newest resident. She was originally thought to be feral, and assigned to a farm as part of a working cat program, but she proceeded to go "nope, I would like a house and a lap please," so now she lives with us. She's probably around 6 months old, give or take, and she is the sweetest girl alive. She's currently living in my office/the basement while we get Raz, our very set in her ways 10-year-old cat, vaguely used to the idea of sharing her house again. So I've been giving her cat TV as some stimulation while she has no windows to look out of. Maybe I'm creating a fuzzy iPad kid. Who knows?

[violetcarlin]

The stupidest trend on the internet these days is the "why are you surprised???" response. No, most of us are not fucking surprised by shitty things happening. That doesn't stop us from still being horrified and dismayed. And if someone IS surprised by the shittiness of the world, it's not shameful, it's evidence of one more person understanding what we're up against. It's just the shitty version of "you're one of today's 10k."

You're not morally superior because you're nihilistic. There's no up side to "everything is fucked and I know it" responses to people who are processing their own feelings about a thing.

"Why are you surprised?" I am continually surprised by the depths of human depravity. You're not impressive because you aren't. Stop wasting your precious seconds with this dumbass answer and maybe spend those seconds thinking of something useful to do.

[violetcarlin]

I just saw a video where the person was saying that people who try to tell ADHD people to stop interrupting others are trying to ... dim your shine? Quell your superpowers? Something like that? And I say this as someone who counts "knowing what you're going to say before you finish the sentence" as one of their primary ADHD things, but ... absolutely fucking NOT, stop that. Interrupting people because I think I know what they're going to say is one of my biggest weaknesses, and it IS a weakness, because:

Maybe you're right 95% of the time, but 95 is not 100.

You might be right, but also lacking a bit of nuance that that person is going to impart in the rest of their sentence.

That person could be processing the problem as they talk and the rest of the sentence is helpful for them, even if it's not for you.

But most importantly, above all those things: INTERRUPTING IS RUDE AND YOU SHOULD TRY NOT TO DO IT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

Again, I say this as someone who has this problem and still hasn't entirely solved it even at my relatively advanced age. I'm still rude a LOT. I wish I wasn't, I actively try not to be, but it still happens. And I know there are going to be people who want to argue "but what if X situation is happening and I need to be quick?" And you know perfectly well that I'm not talking about "someone's health is on the line" types of situations. I'm talking about you feeling impatient because you think you know the whole conversation and want to skip it like video game dialogue. Letting a person finish their whole thought is basic relationship maintenance. It's a signal that you care about their thoughts and feelings. The point is not that you understand early, the point is learning the ability to listen all the way through so you can confirm your ideas and make the other person feel fully heard.

This isn't easy if your brain works a certain way. I still find myself interrupting and immediately going "oh fuck not again" in my head. So I keep working on it, and hopefully get better every time. But it is not a superpower, and other people aren't wasting your time by speaking full and complete sentences to you. Listening is a very valuable skill, even when it's hard.

[violetcarlin]

The project manager at work who has a pathological aversion to asking any of her peers for information or help learning things has apparently discovered the great hallucination machine and now has something to ask questions of that lets her avoid asking anyone anything ever again.

... please, for the love of god people, I don't care what kind of anxiety or problems you have, just fucking learn how to talk to other human beings. I'm begging you. You can admit you don't know something, and take advice from other people. You have to. It's better than this bullshit. I promise.

[violetcarlin]

You know one of the things I love about the weird Tumblr version of an algorithm? When you like something a mutual posted that features a ship you don't normally think about, and then suddenly you get the wide world of awesome stuff people make about that ship randomly on your dashboard. It's like, I don't go here, but I love seeing the things people make when they're besotted with fictional characters. It's like sitting in a restaurant and watching a table full of friends being weird and happy on the other side of the room. Their good time has nothing to do with me, but it makes the world better anyway.