Thanks everyone for the support yesterday. Despite feeling it was impossible I called in sick today and have spent the day sleeping (proper sleep not depression hiding I think) and on the couch listening to gentle music and journalling. Cleaned the kitchen. Haven’t eaten much but it’s good food. Drinking lots of water. About to go wash my hair.
My brain is exponentially calmer now. I wouldn’t say I am looking forward to work tomorrow but it’s not making me cry. I needed to just…stop.
Hopefully this is the circuit breaker I needed 🤞
Tomorrow - early start, good food at regular times, decent bedtime.
so many hugs
Hot chips might not be the healthiest way to deal with one’s problems and crying all afternoon… but they are A Way. Hooray for the air fryer. Helping me eat something rather than nothing
I find carbs to be a better antidepressant than SSRIs et al, especially with the cold weather. If you’ve Irish DNA you can call it medicinal.
Big interwebbles hugs from here too.
more hugs
Is there anything we can do?
extra late hugs
Ugh it feels like Friday 13th got here 3 days late. Bad medical appointment this morning, bad news at work, bad news on a couple of other fronts as well. Today can just fk off, I want my money back.
That’s the fun bit. No refunds.
Bloody hell. I’m taking this all the way to the Prime Minister!
Albo!
Oi mates! Whats the good word?
500 dollarydoos!?
TOBIAS! Did you accept a 6 hour collect call from the states?!
Mm, I think mine might have been delayed as well. Just overwhelmingly… No, thanks.
Anyone wanna scream into the void with me?! takes a deep breath
Aaaaaaarrrrgh
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Volume warning 🔊🎚️
Just found three $50s on the dog walk.
e: Rang the bell of the house it was in front of but no one answered. I reckon someone dropped it in the dark and didn’t see.
Bonus!
winning
Got a child sick with Covid at home. The RAT test was pretty quick and the line is very very strong.
It’s lempsip and rest time.
Mrs sent ours to care, but I’m pretty convinced he’ll be sent back home shortly. Snot pouring outta him and just in general sulky. Got a sore throat too so sounds like its going around.
I was a bit off last week for a couple of days, but didn’t turn into anything. He was out with his mates on Saturday, so I’m assuming he caught it there. Or school.
Hopefully the wife and I avoid any potential contamination.
Hope Mini break gets well soon, sucks to be sick.
That’s what our tests were like, an immediate strong line and no doubt for days, then it gradually faded. My good wishes for a speedy recovery 🙏🏼
I think I might go to bed shortly. Long, long day.
Nothing bad, just exhausted.
Enjoy your evening everyone ❤️
How dare I want to sleep without brushing Gibson…
I almost accepted the Windows 11 upgrade last night. That was scary
I dont mind 11 on my work PC, but on my gaming machine it drives me bonkers and I have no idea why I can accept it on one and not the other,
I think it’s how resource intensive Windows is. There are things Windows does just as well as my Fedora laptop, but I like it more on linux because it doesn’t take so much of my computer to run
I still haven’t. I held onto 98 and XP for ages too. Vista and ME were solid reasons to be skeptical. I even had to support CE (the old mobile windows) which was literally called WinCE by windows so that support staff knew what was coming.
It’s really every edition of Windows. Xp is held up as a gold standard these days but I remember it wasn’t good until service pack 2
No one ever said anything good about any version of Vista or Me.
That fucking game again. Hayfever or a cold?
I’m playing along with you
Shaved my head last night, my long hair was giving me the absolute shits, even with an undercut. 'Twas just a number 8.
Woke up this morning, and my hair resembled Bart Simpson’s, stuck straight up. Slapped a beanie on to try and flatten it a bit. I forgot just how fluffy my hair is at this length. I have really thick hair, it’s like wearing an unwieldy ushanka 24/7, so summer is just the worst. Hope this helps with the possible warmer days.
My daughter has thick hair. She brushes it at night. Wakes up next morning, looks like she spent a night in the forest.
Literally me as well. I can brush it, use normal shampoo and conditioner, or a 3-1, I can straighten it or curl it, but the next day it’s a fucking nest.
Go with it.
For years I had a “tousled” hairstyle. Loved it and it was easy.
I had a tousled look in 2021 when I shaved it last. It was magnificent and wild in a good way, hope I can get back to that, because this Bart look isn’t it.
Edit: Correction: Back in early 2019 actually
I had mid length tousled and I think I will do it again
Hahaha.
Like a wild animal!
I get tempted to do that, or go really short. But this would happen to me or it would get really oily fast
I get oily roots, there’s a point where the oil is okay and it kinda works to keep the hair where it should be - but then the next day I’ll need to wash it.
I have not found a shampoo/conditioner combo that works for me yet. Even the dry versions are meh. So I just have to wash it every few days, but then it’s super fluffy and looks wack as in the morning. I dislike the feeling of hair gel or hairspray, so I think my options are limited until it grows a bit. I also have a number of mental health issues that make personal hygiene hard sometimes, and honestly short hair is easier to clean and manage than long, for me.
Plus I have psoriasis behind my ears, which I think is caused by stress as most topical meds don’t work against it (had it since I was a kid), and I can’t apply them every day or it damages my skin in other ways. So either I have long unruly hair that hides my psoriasis, or a go short and have people silently judge me for a skin condition that I have little control over.
I’m also a tad sad, as I do like long hair and feel more feminine. I’m non binary, but my mum hated me looking feminine, so no dresses, no jewellery, no makeup, no straightening hair. So I wore baggy boys clothes and had frizzy hair, so I got bullied. Thanks mum. So as an adult I try to indulge myself with nice jewellery and dresses, long hair is a part of that for me. Sorry for the rant :/
Yeah, mine is fine and gets oily quite fast so either I have it long and have to struggle with washing and detangling it all the time or have it short and have the small amount of hair get messy and turn into an oil slick… I’m looking into a compromise of a bob that’s still long enough to tie back or clip up. Constant hygiene routines are hard.
I had to stop using most traditional shampoos and conditioners because of silicones (dimethicone or other ‘cones). Between my natural oil and the buildup of the cones my hair would be oily and sticky creating a vicious cycle of washing.
Now I use Akin, Redwin tea tree oil shampoo or - as bad as it is - a synthetic cleansing bar like Dove, lathering well at my roots to get the grease and letting it rinse out through the lengths to clean without stripping them. Another shampoo and conditioner combo I liked was Garnier Coconut Water as it cleaned the roots really well (sulfates) but the conditioner was a bit heavier for the dry ends. The strong scent is the only reason I don’t still get it.
Going silicone free has a really awkward phase where your hair is really damaged and dry or oily because it’s had moisture sealed out for ages and since it’s no longer being laminated hidden damage now shows. I went Garnier > Akin > Redwin/bar but the upside of the short style is that you can grow it out healthy when you want it long again. I hear biotin helps grow hair faster but can give you skin reactions (never tested it).
Another thing I found really useful was to use a small amount of leave in conditioner on the ends and lengths well away from my scalp. It meant I could really wash my scalp with a clarifying shampoo and then add something that would ease combing and control frizz. Then when dry it would ease brushing. (I’d definitely recommend a silicone free one like Akin or you can end up back in greasy town.)
Bandannas, headbands and pinning the front back in a little pompadour all help with hair being a jerk. You can also lean over the sink and wash only your fringe or the front of your hair.
The psoriasis is tough as it’s an autoimmune condition. But it runs in my family so I’m familiar with Pinetarsol and T Gel. The T Gel unfortunately has silicone and both ranges have a distinct coal tar or pine tar smell but they might help at least with itching.
Research not going well. Its clear I can’t commit the time originally needed so it’s been massively downsized which is eminently sensible but I also feel like I don’t really care about it that much either now, it’s just another job, albeit one I don’t get paid for. I could’ve been more responsible about understanding time frames and my own interests from the start but I didn’t. On top of that, I feel pretty mediocre at work - I’m efficient enough but don’t have any new insight to offer or areas of growth. So I’m pulled in multiple directions and can’t do any of them well.
Think it’s just partly a round of the ol’ black dog making everything look like a failure and feeling like nothing truly interests me any more, I’m glad I’ve got some time off ahead… but I feel like it’s also a sign that maybe I need to finally step back from the industry for real once I’m done in 8 months. Move interstate or whatever like I’d thought I might do this year. in the meantime I’m going to have to just phone everything in to stay afloat. meh. Sad.
So many hugs. It’s just your brain playing tricks on you. You’ll be fine. 😘
There is a new resident in the neighbourhood. It’s a bird. It goes chirp chirp chirp, chirp chirp chirp, chirp chirp chirp, pause. Then repeat. For 20min, staring at 5:30am. I normally like nature but this is testing my tolerance.
noisy mynah
Last night witnessed a car turning right, failing to give way to oncoming traffic.
Honking ensued. It was cops that got cut off, just regular cops, not highway patrol. Nothing else happened.
Regular cops can still hand out tickets, as far as I am aware.
Times like that I wish the offending driver would get pulled over, read the riot act, and slapped with every single fine imaginable.
Continuing my journey through 1001 albums…today’s offering is Beck - Sea Change
Perfect background music and very different from what I know Beck for.
Adding it to my rotation
Counting down till the end of the week then I’m on leave.
Waiting for my payday so I can restock of yummies for this weekend and also I have a couple of days to figure out what sort of yummies I want.
