I am a recovering insomniac, a converted believer in the joys of sleep. From when I was just a little kid well into my twenties, I slept terribly – didn’t want to go to bed, couldn’t sleep once I was there, and I always seemed to have trouble either waking up when I was supposed to or not waking up when I wasn’t.
Then at some point my therapist convinced me to try taking melatonin before bedtime, and to be honest, it scared the heck out of me. I had never before experienced the sensation of sleepiness, and I had no idea what was happening. My mind was quieting down, my body felt like it was sinking into the bed. What if I suddenly needed to freak out about something and I couldn’t find the energy? What if I fell into a sleep so deep I never woke back up???
(Spoilers: I woke back up just fine.)
Anyway, to answer your question, I sleep pretty awesomely these days. I drift off soon after going to bed, and although I occasionally over- or undersleep, going to bed doesn’t feel like playing an obscure variant of roulette where sleep deprivation and missed appointments are both on the wheel. It’s amazing.
I’m doing this meme now after 1000000 years, so I forgot that I wanted to ask - you make chain mail? That’s so cool! :D
So first of all, I’m delighted that you’re working on the meme!
But secondly, thank you, omg! :D It’s a pretty recent thing for me, and so far I’ve only done pretty simple stuff -- here you can see a couple of my first attempts, with an extremely loose and lacy Byzantine weave on the left, and on the right a Persian weave that’s better suited to the aspect ratio of the rings I got from the store.
These little guys are extremely fiddly to work with -- I ended up moving on to a bigger size I ordered online, and even though that turned out to slightly kill my hands because the thicker wire is just that much harder to manipulate, I still found the process of working with something a little easier to see to be much more manageable.
It’s also pretty fun and meditative once I get into the swing of it. I kind of want to get ambitious and try making a necklace next!
stunt-muppet said: I KNOW WHY DOES THIS SHOW HURT SO MUCH I DON’T LIKE IT. like the whole reason i drifted away from watching it live was because carter’s death hurt too much and then i had to come back because the show was ending only for it to *stomp on all my feelings again*, and like you said it’s all written really well and going in a hard-sf direction that i really like so i can’t even be mad about it.
I had this moment after I replied where I was like “so this show hasn’t hurt you like this since S3, what a surprise, they took a whole season and a half off from killing major characters, of course that was easier!” Except the thing is that after losing Carter I honestly didn’t think I’d ever care enough for it to get to me like that again. HAHA, WHOOPS.
And yeah, like -- I kind of want to be mad, and I’m still not ruling that out as an option, but it was just so... It was such a brilliant episode for her, and I don’t know if I can bring myself to reject that.
It might end up coming down to my feelings, not about her dying (as she lived, faithful in the service of her god), but about Finch surviving her. I mean I love him and Reese both, I love them so much, but twice now this show has given us women who sacrifice themselves to save white men, and I’m. Just feeling kind of aware of that fact.
stunt-muppet said: haha the text prompter in the Reply box is telling me to “add something wonderful”. NOTHING IS WONDERFUL.
stunt-muppet said: I am super hoping for the Machine Afterlife. Like, even if they all die the Machine keeps them alive, and it knows them well enough that it can really be them, and they juST GET TO BE HAPPY FOR ONCE GOD
I know right??? LITERALLY, FOR ONCE. THROUGH VIRTUALLY DIVINE INTERVENTION IF NECESSARY. JUST LET THEM BE A LITTLE BIT HAPPY SHOW, I DON’T THINK THAT’S TOO MUCH TO ASK
And like, if I sidle off far enough from the part of my brain that’s just keening, there’s another part that can still manage to be thrilled that Root got her big beautiful terrible speech about how we’re all just information and the Machine’s gonna keep them all backed up somewhere safe. Like, even as this show has gotten increasingly more hardcore SF, I don’t think I ever expected that? And it was so desperately, agonizingly in character for Root, it was amazing.
It’s just that at the exact same time, I don’t think I’ve been this messed up about this show since season three. /o\
stunt-muppet said: She might still be alive! Amy’s been shooting other scenes that haven’t shown yet! Everything maybe might not be terrible!
stunt-muppet said: No, sorry, false hope, apparently she confirmed that it was real. :( Not sure what’s going on with the filming, then.
Aagh, maybe it’s like when they killed off Joss and they filmed other scenes too so the crew wouldn’t know which way they were going? Or, idk, flashbacks?
OR MAYBE WE’RE GONNA SEE THEM ALL TOGETHER AGAIN IN THE MACHINE AFTERLIFE, WHO KNOWS. Agh this fuckin’ show.
Thank you so much for trying to share a glimmer of hope though, I really appreciate it!
Rules: Tag 10 people you want to get to know better!
Tagged by: stunt-muppet
Name: What, you don't believe it says enemyofperfect on my legal ID?
Nickname: It amuses and delights me to answer to enemy, but E also fits very well. Or you could make something up, that's worked well before.
Birthday: Deep in the cruel, lightless depths of northern hemispheran winter. (I'm nowhere near the arctic circle, I just get really dramatic about seasons, okay.)
Star sign: Capricorn, I'm told.
Gender: I'm sort of conflictedly male-leaning while feeling happiest in female-majority spaces and presenting mainly as socially awkward. Reply hazy, try again later?
Height: 5'9", give or take an inch. But I tend to slouch.
Sexuality: If I could pin myself down to a binary gender, I figure I'd be about one point off from whichever end of the Kinsey scale meant I was mostly into women.
Romantic orientation: Same as above, but maybe make it two points.
Favorite color: IDK, do I have to pick just one? Green or black or gray is what I usually go with, but there is no slice of the color wheel I would willingly part with. There are beautiful colors all over that thing.
Time and date at the current moment: Oh shit, if I admit that it's 3:32 AM April 12th as I write this, that's going to reveal the fact that a) I never sleep and b) I take, like, forever to finish writing any post. False alarm, I went to bed and came back to this later on! My secrets are totally safe.
Average hours of sleep: I seem to need nine or ten to function decently, but I don't always get it.
Lucky number: I don't really have one? But 2, 3, and 7 are all pretty.
The last thing I googled: Assuming that DuckDuckGo counts, I just looked up "kinsey scale" to check my spelling. Excluding the influence of this meme, "tracker c j cherryh" to see if it was out yet (and it is!).
One place that makes me happy: Any kind of vaguely grungy but not unhappy-looking parking lot, street corner, or patch of grass -- maybe with some puddles drying after a recent rain.
How many blankets do I sleep under: A blanket and a sheet in winter, a sheet in summer. (Even if I kick most of it off, it's important to have a token sheet.)
Favorite fictional character: That's like asking me to pick a favorite limb, except worse, why would you even? I'm going to make like a politician and answer a different question, which is what is a fictional character I have really liked recently, and then I'm going to say DJ Torres from Lia Silver's Werewolf Marines series, because he's such a complete sweetheart. (Except for the whole cheerfully goes on black ops thing, but I've been marinating in John Reese feels for a few years now, I have no shame.)
Favorite famous person: But like, there are a lot of famous people in the world, and a bunch of them also appear to be awesome? I don't know, Terry Crews or Michael Emerson or J K Rowling or somebody. I don't know any of them personally, I don't feel like I should be playing favorites!
Favorite books: Thank you for that mercifully plural noun, meme. Um, let's see, some really excellent books I've read lately that have become instant classics in my head include Ancillary Justice, Full Fathom Five, and The Summer Prince (by Ann Leckie, Max Gladstone, and Alaya Dawn Johnson, respectively).
Favorite shows: Well, Person of Interest still owns my soul, and I want to love Elementary with my whole heart, and Sleepy Hollow managed to pull itself back from the brink, and Empire and How to Get Away with Murder are amazing, if stressful. But just to make things difficult I'm going to say Fairly Legal, and not even just because it introduced me to Sarah Shahi.
Favorite musician/band: I'm on a huge Carbon Leaf kick at the moment; I've also been thinking that I need to listen to more Vienna Teng. Also more Psapp. I'm just kind of saying names at random here, how do you pick?
Favorite games: City of Secrets by Emily Short and Ultra Business Tycoon III by Porpentine are definitely on the list. Oh, and you know what else? When I was a kid, I loved these two related games -- The Tower and Sultan's Palace, by Louise Hope. In hindsight, they might have had some orientalism going on, but I remember them so fondly I'm tempted to play them again, since it turns out they're online....
Favorite movie I've seen in the cinema: You know, I honestly can't remember what the last one was. Like, the last one I remember was Disney's Beauty and the Beast, but I'm pretty sure there was at least one after that. Since that was more than twenty years ago.
Dream holiday: I'm in a comfortable hotel room and all I have to do lie around reading books. Maybe once or twice a day, I check my email. Complete decadence, basically.
Dream job: I can't decide between some kind of writer or some kind of therapist. Or on the other hand, maybe the ideal would be to do something else and save writing and psychology for hobbies? Really my actual dream is to live in a world where there aren't "jobs" per se, there's just people doing different stuff and it all works out somehow.
Wearing right now: Jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt. Oh, and flip-flops. And glasses. And, I mean, underwear.
I tag: beenworkingonacocktail, asherescher, amovingtarget, lightscavenger, sparksel... and then I’m just going to cheat and say anyone else who’s read this far, okay. If there’s even anyone! Surprise me.
