the year that was: 20-I’m-so-done-18

I’m thinking that part of the reason I procrastinated so hard on writing this was – do I really want to relive all the exhausting things that seemed to dominate the past 12 months? Do I really want to look back on a year of: sorrow, outrage, grief, disbelief, apathy, rage, violence?

On the other hand, the answer to that is – probably rooted in the Twitter thread I wrote after Christmas:

I think the main thing I want to understand and carry forward from 2018 is – the feeling of being *alive*. I still had my detached days and the ones where I wanted to stop feeling. But I think I really started to live, again, even if that happened in a very messy year. (original tweet)

Having said that, then, let’s look at the year that was.

Unfortunately it was a year colored with death. So many unexpected things happened, so many people dying because of other people, whether by guns or stupidity or outright ongoing malice. I think the deaths that hit me the hardest this year were Dolores O’Riordan’s, Peter Mayle’s, and of course Anthony Bourdain’s. I only really read a single long regretful profile/obituary of Denis Ten somewhere near my birthday, and felt – I missed the boat on that one right there. 

Dolores’s voice was, is still, massively beautiful – even when the Cranberries sang weird songs and made even weirder music videos, when you got down to the brass tacks of it, you had to listen to her voice and the way she shaped her music, shaped her expression, and then you’d be caught in the spell she was weaving. What a voice, so instantly recognizable, and that it was silenced so suddenly – that hurts a lot.

Peter Mayle – I know I talked about him a little here on this main blog. He was another one of those writers I loved to bits because he made anything and everything sound interesting and vivid and larger than life. He engaged all of his senses and all the breadth and depth of his sense of humor to craft prose about his adopted home of Provence. I did stop in my tracks the day that obit came out and I was like – too soon!

But the death of Anthony Bourdain – well, I’m still in mourning for him, you know? I know, I know, I never did have the chance to meet him even though he found himself coming to the Philippines to eat several times. (My family did get to sort of work with him, that last time.) I was paralyzed with grief the day I heard: I literally said, “I don’t want to wake up to this,” and I still got up and went to work because he would have probably kept going if it had been him. 

After he died I started literally inviting his ghost, his shade, whatever remnant of him is still out here in the world, to come and share my meals with me. Especially if the meals were of comfort food.

I don’t think that there would ever be enough space to mourn all the victims of senseless stupid malice and violence in just this year. I don’t think we should let any of them be forgotten. They need to be the ones we remember, spurring us forward, or we’ll just keep adding and adding to their ranks. (Adding ourselves to their ranks.)

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Quick brush-through of: Thirteenth Doctor (and those standout episodes about Rosa Parks and the Partition of India, oh my gods). The bittersweet series finale of Sense8 (seriously, bring that show back). Black Panther – what a story! I watched my university’s men’s basketball team, which had been so absymally bad for so long I literally never paid attention for all the years I had been going to college classes at all, suddenly make itself into one hell of a contender – from winless seasons, to a season where one single win was cause for celebration – to a season where they made it all the way to the Final Four AND THEN went to the freakin’ FINALS – and sure we lost, we got our asses handed to us, but now, now, oh boy we got next, all because of this miracle run of 2018. 

I got to attend one of the major pop-culture conventions around these parts for the first time, and cosplayed at the con and had a ton of fun with my friends. I won tickets to literally the first fan-concert for things like Final Fantasy, Studio Ghibli works, and Yuri On Ice!!! to be held here in my part of the country. And before both of those – I can’t believe this took place in 2018 – I struck out for Singapore on a solo trip, staying a week and seeing people I’d been interacting with online for years and had never got the opportunity to meet IRL otherwise. 

Because I went to the summer outing my office always puts on, I was able to establish new friendships with an entire bunch of diverse and lovely and kickass ladies – but I also had to leave some of those people behind because I won the privilege of being one of the senior agents on the production floor at a new work site. Meaning, really, I have the chops, I have the drive to keep getting better – I even may have the makings of being a leader of some kind – but I need more time to keep on settling in with the work I’m doing. (I’m about to celebrate my second anniversary with the company, too.)

Personal accomplishments: I taught myself to knit from YouTube tutorials, hahaha, I’m so glad so many other brilliant people had uploaded the reference materials left-handed knitters like me require. I started on a skincare routine (with two variations, even) and accidentally mastered the use of liquid foundation in the process. I kept my obsession with fountain pens and ink, and brought home a bunch of new shades from all over the place, which I used to create simple text-based artwork on a small scale. 

So – no, it wasn’t all that bad, but wow, we sure have a fucking whole lot of lessons to learn from this year – felt like there was no possibility of peace, right? I think that I’m gonna have to keep working to find that peace in 2019.

(And self, don’t get so caught up in planning for 2020 that you don’t live in 2019. Stick to your resolutions including the important one: keep on living anyway.)

ninemoons42:

text in tweets:

#NationalComingOutDay Maybe you *can* come out. Maybe you *can’t*. Maybe you *choose* to come out. Maybe you choose *not to*. Either way: you are valid. You are strong. You are good. Have pride.

If you’re a -phobe or a hater of any kind: go fuck yourself. (And if you out people against their consent, fuck you even more, you piece of scum.)

(This thread includes lgbtqia+ people: hey, wtf are you doing, hurting your own, hurting your fam, hurting your own actual people? Please do better.)

once more with feeling

text in tweets:

#NationalComingOutDay Maybe you *can* come out. Maybe you *can’t*. Maybe you *choose* to come out. Maybe you choose *not to*. Either way: you are valid. You are strong. You are good. Have pride.

If you’re a -phobe or a hater of any kind: go fuck yourself. (And if you out people against their consent, fuck you even more, you piece of scum.)

(This thread includes lgbtqia+ people: hey, wtf are you doing, hurting your own, hurting your fam, hurting your own actual people? Please do better.)

(Originally posted to Twitter starting here) 

#MentalHealthAwareness a couple of years ago, I self-diagnosed as a depressive person and was able to place a phone call to a hotline in PHL, and they put me on to an MD who confirmed not just the diagnosis but its severity. (1)

And she wasn’t just thorough in the diagnosis, she was also smart in her choice of therapy method+medication. I credit her entirely with saving my life. (She was pretty reasonable with the affordability issue with the meds, too.) (2)

She got me off the meds after less than a year, and said I seemed to have improved, and that I could phone for an appointment should I need it (if she was in-country).

Again, let me emphasize: I got a formal diagnosis and I was prescribed treatment, and that means I’m alive today to even be tweeting this. Please take good care of yourself and of your mind. Please remember, mental health matters. (end)

Addendum, here:

#MentalHealthAwareness Anyone who tells you there’s an instant cure for mental illness is either trying to make a profit off of you or simply does not give a shit about your mental health. Yes, that includes family and friends. Please steer clear.

I listened to the April #hamildrop, which is called First Burn, and this is what I felt about it.

Thank you, @linmanuel.

I think I was a disaster bi today. Girl on the floor whom I think is really cute offered me a bite of her lunch and I, I brushed her off very distractedly because I was busy on THIS VERY SITE (I posted this to Twitter first but I was also checking my dash, so, still accurate, and I am still a total failboat *headdesk*) 😂😂😂😂😂🐥😲🙅👎💀

ninemoons42:

Martial Law apologist? BBM supporter? Then understand this.

why is this so hard to understand?

martial law in the Philippines: the government cracked down on free speech. journalists were arrested and detained for doing their jobs. the press was gagged and muzzled. propaganda everywhere.

if we allow martial law to happen again WE WILL LOSE ALL OUR ACCESS TO SOCIAL MEDIA. WE WILL BE ARRESTED FOR POSTING COMMENTS TPTB DON’T LIKE OR UNDERSTAND. WE WILL LOSE ALL OUR ACCESS TO ACTUAL FACTS AND NEWS AND INFORMATION. (that last bit is happening already, ffs.)

you want to keep using social media? THEN FIGHT THE GOVERNMENT FIGURES THAT WANT TO KILL YOUR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.

ninemoons42-lestallumhaven:

(screenshot of a tweet: text runs as follows

(However I met you, through fandoms or some other happy-making way, I wanted to let you know that I love you and I am grateful for you, today and every day. #diadelamorylaamistad *emoji hearts*)

Feb 14 message. :)

Looking back at 2017. Didn’t want to look at the outrage and the tears because I still gotta keep fighting those things every day. So I’m looking back at the good things.

Last tweet especially, because that’s something that bears repeating:

Last but not the least, and of course I’ll repeat myself: for being my friend this year, for helping me get back on my feet this year, for giving me the gift of your time and your love this year, thank you, dear friends at home and overseas. Thank you.

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Please watch Smaller and Smaller Circles if you happen to have the chance to do so. Don’t wait till tomorrow since it may not be there tomorrow, if it doesn’t get support today. Don’t let a good movie vanish.

@sascmovie

Music to go with this post: Wolfgang, Mata ng Diyos (Eyes of God)

Super short Rogue One rebelcaptain fic, from this morning at the office when I was struggling to stay awake. This was originally written as a series of tweets, and was requested by @favomancer.

ninemoons42 writes: a breath away from where you are
Too many scents on the breeze, enough to make him stumble, lost in the thought of the colors scattered at his feet – but he blinked and he was alone on the ground, and he looked around, searching for her.
“Up here.” Ragged from the last set of missions, from barking out orders and reassurance: there she was in the tree, bare feet swinging like the little he’d never seen her as, and her hands were working in her lap, green tendrils overflowing.
He was about to climb up, but she just shook her laden hand at him, and then – let the thing go. Reflexively he caught the – circle of flowers? Glance at her, where she was smiling sweetly, tapping her temple. “Let me see how it looks on you.”
He put it on his head and – oh, a flower crown? Purple and blue and white flowers and their soft sweet scents. But still her eyes were full of a better light, a brighter light, as she gazed down on him from on high. (end)

Haynaku Philippines. What have we done to ourselves, really.

a Twitter story, 2

I kind of do a lot of thinking on my Twitter because I can take my mobile phone to my bedroom, and send out tweets on the fly. (Not sure I can always do that with my laptop, you see.)

But here’s the thing I was thinking of, a few nights ago, while trying to get some damn sleep.

Twitter thoughts again, about medications and sleeping and self-care.

a Twitter story, 1

Thoughts from Friday night.

The Ann Leckie referred to in screenshot 3 is the writer of the Imperial Radch series of novels (Ancillary Justice / Ancillary Sword / Ancillary Mercy).

The statement “The point is, there is no point” continues with a declaration: “Choose your own!”

So this is a thread in which I am trying to look for a point of my own, considering what my starting position at present is.