Black Coffee and Misty Nights

• In the spirit of the new year, I'm cleaning shit out, and I'm trying new things. One of those new things is this book I got two years ago, that's like... a classical paganism thing. It leads you through a kind of reconstruction of the Roman religious year. I, being directionless (religiously speaking) am gravitating towards using it more and more heavily.
• I really like integrating my religious practice with my daily life, so I'm using the book as a base for my daily behavior, too. The book tells me January is the time to clean shit out, and so, I'm cleaning shit out. The book tells me to set goals for the new year, so I set goals for the new year. The book tells me to honor my doorway and to appease the dark spirits- you get the idea. I have no idea if it's actually accurate to what the Romans practiced, but I am not an ancient Roman, so I really don't mind if it isn't.
• I actually really like the way the book's laid out. It's not very deity-centric, and it focuses on the changing seasons a lot (which is fantastic, because most of my practice has, in the past, centered around the cycles of the seasons/moon/sun), and again- it's super easy to integrate it with my daily, semi-secular life.

The book in question is called "Classical Living", by Frances Bernstein, and I kind of adore it.

Some thoughts before I go to bed (possible new year changes that I've been debating making):

1. I know everyone hates them, but I deeply admire vegans. I've never an annoying vegan; I have, however, met a lot of people that were annoying to vegans, which never fails to bother me. Like, sure, veganism can be problematic, but it's hardly as bad as it's made out to be. Ya'll are just salty cause vegans make you feel guilty, and because you're desperate for there to be a Bad Guy.

I kind of want to be vegetarian one day, because the meat industry repels me. But I've tried (and failed) to be vegetarian before, so... maybe I'll try again this year, but slower. I mean, even cutting a little meat out helps, right?

2. I wanna volunteer again. I used to volunteer for LGBT and Democrat organizations; I had to stop after I came out as trans. It was too overwhelming to focus on anything but me at the time.

Nowadays, the places I want to volunteer are different now; I'm much more radical politically than most people (Democrats included) can tolerate, and I'm too close to stealth to be comfortable outing myself as trans, so I'm looking into clothing/food drives & cleanups. Ideally, it'd be something I could do 2-4 times a month; I'm not looking to overwhelm myself again.

3. Kinda want to try making small (itsy-bitsy) donations to either a trans organization (like Lambda) or a green organization. I'm still debating that, tho; funds be tight, and I'm not looking to accidentally hurt myself financially.

Some highlights from my life right now:

1. Guess who's the maid of honor at her best friend's wedding? I've known for several months, but it still makes me so excited that I want to scream. I'm her maid of honor; I get to help plan her wedding; I get to plan the bachelorette party. It's so stressful and so exciting guys.
2. The boi and I have been dating for two months. It's so dumb to say, and it's almost certainly because of how new everything is, but I can't stop thinking about him; I bring him up all the time to everyone, and I'm surprised no one's called me out for being annoying. I've never been in a serious romantic relationship before, and it's almost overwhelming sometimes.
3. I'm trying to relearn how to read as a hobby. When I was a teenager, I could read for hours at a time; nowadays, it's hard to read for more than fifteen minutes. I still read a lot; it's just much more sporadic.
4. The same goes for writing. I just didn't have a lot of creative energy when I was working in kitchens, and now that I no longer am, I just feel so much more... energy.
5. I also kind of want to volunteer? I don't know if I actually will, but I'm collecting a list of places I could give an hour or two a week at, and I'll probably start following up on them Wednesday. (Not tomorrow, though; tomorrow the Boi's coming over, and the day's going to be all about us learning to make tacos)
6. The sun's out today, and I've had a pot or two of coffee, and I'm avoiding doing laundry, and I feel so *good*. It's going to be a good day.

Content warning: I talk about transphobia and reference the use of slurs, which could be harmful or unpleasant for some of ya'll. Use your own judgment before diving into this.

Also: it's important to note that I have a very happy, very healthy life. I have a stable job, I have a good apartment, and I have several close friends (far and near) and a boyfriend I adore, and who adores me. I think it's important that you go into this knowing that, because so often, people assume that trans people suffer constantly.

But I am trans, and I am thriving, and I am growing. What you're about to read is a very, very small part of my life, and only worth talking about because I'm thinking about it tonight and need to vent.

( read more )

1. I'm still deciding what to do with my Dreamwidth account, but I'm really considering using it to encourage me to write fanfiction. I used to be super into writing, and while I doubt I'll be able to go back to writing full-scale novels (like I did as a teen), I like the idea of writing short, thousand word romance pieces. I think it'd be fun, guys.

If I do, I'd probably focus on Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Sherlock; I'm into a whole bunch of other shows, but I think those three have characters I'd be super interested in writing about.

2. I feel like I've written this before, but heck, this is my dreamwidth account, so I'll go ahead and talk about it again. It's so wild to no longer be moving; to have a job and apartment and friends, and to be settled to some extent. I really want to keep moving forwards, but I'm not sure what, exactly, I want to move towards.

I kind of want to finish getting a Bachelor's, but I also kind of... don't. Going to college burned me out; I was working 25 hours a week and taking full time classes almost the entire time I was going, and low key? That sort of grind kills any desire you have to make it to the end.

Part of me thinks maybe I just can't afford college right now. And while I could, theoretically, work to get through it, I just don't think I can.

3. I have a lot more free time now that I'm no longer going to college. I kind of want to try learning German or Danish, and I kind of want to get back into tarot, and I kind of want to write more. I just want to explore myself and my interests more, because I never had time when I was going to school. It's like, I had all these interests when I was a teenager, and I lost interest in them as I grew busy. And... I want to get back into them now.

One thing that I think I adore about dreamwidth is how the style really, really looks like something I'd use to write a personal post about my relationship with Christmas at 2:00AM, before deleting it at 12PM the next day. And with that in mind, I thought I'd try doing just that, minus writing it at 2:00AM, minus deleting it (maybe).

1. My apartment's been *super* cold, because the radiators weren't working. And like a fool, I completely avoided trying to get it fixed, because I *hate* having strangers in my apartment. ~Which also brings me to how *quickly* my radiators were fixed once I got the nerve to, you know, request maintenance. It surprised me, actually- I really expected it to take *forever* to fix.

And truthfully, between you and me? The only reason I could even do that was because my boyfriend's coming over, and he'd be super confused why I don't just... get the heat fixed. (Plus he reacts worse to the cold than I do, so just letting the apartment freeze isn't... really an option.)

2. I'm weirdly, weirdly stable right now, which is... an unusual position to be in. This last summer, I've spent my entire transition out of the school system looking for work, an apartment, and *dating* (which isn't something that I used to *do*, you know?). And after applying for job after job, and apartment hunting for *forever*, and then having to find a *new* job (because my first job was ridiculously awful), *and* being accepted into a new school for next year, the stability is... new. It's new, and it feels good.

3. I don't have a lot of money to spend right now, which is pretty normal for me- but I also have *more* than enough stuff at the moment. Which is also new. When I first started living on my own, I could expect to move about once every six months (which was stressful and bad). Because of this, I never really bothered picking things up. What was the point of buying new furniture if I was gonna have to throw it all away?

But living in my current place, I got the chance to buy Things. Chairs, and a couple tables, and obnoxious figurines. And guys, it's really, really nice- I love having Stuff.

And actually, my current situation is something that I could only *dream* of being in at one point- independent, and safely housed, and making money (but still having enough time to focus on my personal projects). It's weird, because part of me would be really happy just to let things... stay like this.

And I might! I'm tired of college, guys, and I'm tired of moving. And- and- and! I've had *just* the same amount of luck, if not *more*, in finding jobs as my peers with Bachelor degrees have. It's a tired truth, but I really feel that most degrees are just... pointless. And I wonder if I might do better just to focus on building my presence in the work force.

Okay, so I've wandered around Dreamwidth for a bit, and I think I understand it enough to make my first introductory post.

Hi ya'll! I'm a refugee from the Tumblr Purge, though in truth, I've been looking for an excuse to leave the platform for a long time. Now that staff is trying to kill the platform, I think this is the perfect excuse to just... up and leave.

I have a tendency to try to make my blogs and platforms themed, and usually that falls apart pretty quickly. I think that for Dreamwidth, I'll just do what I always end up doing, and posting about what I want to at any given moment. My interests tend to focus around languages, lgbt conversations, and ancient cultures, and that's probably what I'll end up posting here (though in truth, that's likely to change depending on what I'm interested in at any moment).