I’ve been busy! I have a little time right now though and I just finished beading the goose. OMFG those fucking legs nearly killed me, I was so stressed and worried if I pulled too hard the little feet would rip right off. And that beak needs a little glue to be right. BUT overall I am happy with these little beadings. I need to do more, they are little sprites for a video game. So there’s supposed to be a few of them. The good thing is they just need to be photographed and then they don’t have to do anything anymore. I was thinking of sewing them to a backing though and maybe having a piece of art that’s just the sprites.

They look really cool in the game too, like they at first come across as little pixelated sprites, but it’s beads! Surprise! It’s also very meditative to be beading something. I like the attention to something so small and time consuming. It kind of calms me down to be beading and I used to think I wouldn’t like it. I thought no, that’s too much tiny stitch work, I don’t have the patience! I’m too ADHD! But ADHD also involves hyper focusing, so the beading is like a nice hyper focusing session. Similar to my video editing which can be hyper focused too. I had to delay starting my beading until I could get the right colours from the bead store and they took a long time to get my order to me. So yeah it took a bit to begin but now they are going at a pretty good clip. I was working on the goose yesterday and today and now it’s done. If I think about all the other characters I have to do, I might get stressed and overwhelmed. But they are really easy to do and it’s satisfying to see them start gathering.

Besides beading, I also took another break from social media. I was realizing I was spending too much time on Facebook and Instagram. And it wasn’t stressing me out as much as it was before I left the last time. But it was still bothering me, and I was thinking about how nice it was to be off social media and reserve my thoughts for my diary and here (and conversations in real life). And the feeling of not being judged, or being worried about saying the wrong thing and watching all my “friends” pile on me. Plus sometimes I do edibles, or have a drink, and I don’t know, my judgement is not as solid at those times so it’s easier to say something kind of risky that gets taken the wrong way. So not having that going on is nice too. And then also the feeling of relief at not “performing” online is nice.

I read my Lenormand cards about getting off social media again and they described it as the end of a huge burden. And I do feel that. Like, my last break was not very long ago. But taking another one now is just, nice. Besides all the things I just described, it’s also nice not being targeted by Russian propaganda, which is ALL OVER Facebook. I notice a lot of it is about Gaza (and I knew it was Russian because the odd Russian word would be in the posts) which is definitely an issue, but it seems more like “Look at THIS terrible thing that is happening, don’t look at Ukraine.” Because there is very little on Ukraine on Facebook except for my Ukrainian friends talking about it. So it does feel like the propaganda machine. Anyway, I do think what is happening to Gaza is awful, but I also notice what isn’t being spoken of. Besides, Russian propaganda also targets trans and LGBTQ people and I was sick of transphobic and homophobic stuff getting pushed in my feed. I know they seem to think they are keeping people online by making them angry.

But I don’t want to go on the site that makes me angry in my spare time.

ALSO though, it was a time suck. A BIG time suck. I could spend hours a day on social media. And besides all the sucky things it brings, it’s also taking time away from when I could be doing the things that make me happy, like writing, making art, making music. I would rather do all of those things than scroll Facebook.

ALSO I probably talk about my hookups on social media too much (no names) and so probably just not being on talking about my personal life is better.

So yeah here I am!

Life is going well besides all of that. I had a nice Halloween, except the only nice part was friends, the other part was trying to walk down Church Street and it was just VERY packed and pushy and the majority of people came without costumes, so it wasn’t even very interesting either. Straight people will do that, make something fun incredibly boring. I probably won’t go next year. I made it home without peeing my leather pants, so I think in the end it was an ok night.

I had enough money to hire my monthly cleaner again, so the house is in far better shape. It was getting sad and probably a fire hazard too. I really need to Marie Kondo this house because I just keep way too much stuff. Like, I have so many books I have no interest in reading again. There are some I will re-read, like I re-read Slaughterhouse Five again recently and liked it just as much as every other time I read it. I was paying attention this time to length though, and its just around 200 pages. Which is the same length as my first draft of my novel. That made me feel better because it’s a very epic but dense book that goes through things at a fast clip. But yeah, like that tawdry lesbian teen novel from the 80s? I don’t need that! I’m not interested in reading it again. And the paper, I have so much paper.

But yeah. I also need to put my camera bags together again because I want to be able to grab them and go if I want to shoot something.

I think I am disappointing my keyboard teacher. And singing teacher, and guitar teacher. Because I have not been practicing like I should be. It’s too bad, I really do need to at least put in 15 minutes a day on each. Sometimes I get my singing in by singing along with my Youtube music. But yeah I have not been singing much. The other day I had an urge to start a band, but again I felt unprepared to play with others. I know it’s a mental block I should talk about in therapy. I want to make music. But some aspects of being a musician I’m not sure I’m interested in. Like touring, I don’t really want to tour. I could do open mics in the future maybe. But not taking my gear with me everywhere. I was so stressed even just bringing my new guitar on the plane the last time. How could I CONSTANTLY do that? Yikes.

I’m starting to notice I have some star power in certain arty circles and it is very awkward for me. Often people come up to talk to me and I don’t know who they are or don’t remember them. Or I notice eyes following me. It’s not a bad thing so far, like I haven’t had fans stalk me or anything. But it still makes me feel set apart from others and I guess that’s an unusual thing for me. I know my friends treat me like an ordinary person though and I appreciate that. BUT this ties into the music thing because if I did start making music in public, I might be a different kind of star and that is a whole other feeling I’m not sure I will be comfortable with either. Yikes.

I’m not really seriously dating anyone right now, but I have a handful of pretty consistent lovers. Which has been nice. I sometimes wonder though what it would be like to live with someone again, or have someone around more anyway. Like doing nonsexual things, like having dinner together and stuff like that. I don’t know. My therapist is starting to suggest I might be a gay man and not a bisexual man, since I’ve had very little interest in women for a while. And I think she might be right, but I guess I’m not ready to jettison the bisexual label in case I do meet a woman I feel a connection with. I don’t want to be one of those annoying I don’t need a label people though. I mean, Queer also fits fine. But being trans has changed the position of my sexuality so much. So I’m trying to figure that out. I like calling myself a fag, I guess calling myself a gay man makes me think of homonormativity and maybe that’s what I’m pushing back against by hanging on to bisexual or Queer.