What's one positive/neutral thing that's happened today?

inventor200 · January 11, 2023, 9:27am

Every time I go to bed, the dream tends to pick back up where it left off for about a week, and then it resets. Sometimes time seems to have passed between dreams, but maybe only a day or two.

It’s always the same world, too. I could travel in the same way each time I dream, and be visiting the same locations with the same people as before. Each time I fall asleep somewhere new, I wake up in a different part of the dream world, and have to travel from there.

There’s a train somewhere, and it gets me to the really distant locations, but it hardly ever arrives, which drives me absolutely crazy.

The place I fall asleep now has me entering the dream world in a location that’s admittedly inconvenient to travel through for a variety of reasons. Lots of unfinished bridges, water, stretches of forest, long roads, etc. I find myself driving or biking a lot to get anywhere in that region. There’s a small city nearby, but it’s a full magnitude smaller than the last two cities I could visit, from my previous 2 bedrooms. Unfortunately, fitting the theme of the region, this small city is a bit of distance away from my typical entry point.

Oh, and the weirdest part: Everything is subject to gravity except me. It’s not that I’m flying as much as it is I’m in zero-G, like the people on the International Space Station.

“Well, Jess, why are you traveling with a vehicle at all, then? Just fly there!”

Because, again, it’s not flying; it’s weightless floating. I still gotta use my arms to pull myself around, using street lights, fences, support pillars, door frames, railings, flag poles, trees (which are the best honestly), whatever. If I get going fast enough, the curvature of the planet starts causing the ground to fall away below me. Also, the faster I go, the faster I gotta find stuff to grab onto, and the harder I gotta push or pull to change velocity in time. It’s not like how Superman does it at all. So, even if it’s mundane, it actually simplifies things to use some kind of vehicle as a permanent, mobile, gravity anchor.

sophia · January 11, 2023, 9:31am

Do you know how to use the vehicles in real life? In my dreams, if I don’t think about it too hard, the dream kind of hand waves away my inability to ride a bike without training wheels, or drive, for example. But if I get nervous or scared about the fact I don’t know how, that’s usually when it shifts the scene and I end up crashing it. (Particularly odd because the car crash was not one where I was behind the wheel.) So I try to just close my eyes and ignore the road and it usually works out okay! Weird dream logic, since I imagine that’s terrible advice for real life driving, hahahaa.

inventor200 · January 11, 2023, 9:34am

Yeah, I can use a bike and automobile irl.

I have years of aircraft simulator time since childhood, but I’ve never applied for a flight license. For some reason, I have yet to find a fixed-wing aircraft in my dream world. Sometimes, there’s a helicopter or some kind of jet-powered VTOL, but I don’t have a clue how to fly either of those irl, and I’m certain the latter isn’t really a thing yet, due to engineering difficulties.

rovarsson · January 11, 2023, 9:41am

Oh no! When that sneaks up on me I have to stop reading for a while. I get distracted with that guy reading aloud alongside me in my own head.

Sometimes I take a minute to visualize a particularly striking scene or landscape or I whisper a beautiful sentence a few times, but reading is mostly silent information transfer for me.

sophia · January 11, 2023, 9:41am

My dad (who also has a terrible sleep schedule. Two passing ships in the night basically describes me and him, when he’s up at 3AM in the summer frying himself eggs and he stares at me, still chilling in the blanket fort on my phone all snuggled up in my blankies, before asking if I’d like to eat some too) sent me a??? Tumblr post that I reblogged onto mine (baffling. Does he have a Tumblr? He’s so techno illiterate I doubt it?) and just said that “this is U baby lol…” like thanks pops I hope you’re sleeping soon because it’s a nightmarish hour for us to both be awake.

To clarify the original picture on Tumblr has the text message in it, that’s not from him.

Here’s the cat picture:

ETA: Apparently this was related to his exclaiming “you’ve gotten shorter!” when he saw me again- school is in a different city, so we usually only see each other in person over the breaks. He thinks he’s sooooooooo funny for that one. I was also like a terribly clingy child so apparently he’s never letting me live down the fact I’d fall asleep on top of him and trap him in numb limb hell when we watched movies on the couch.

sophia · January 12, 2023, 2:09am

I got some devastating news first thing when I woke up today- the sort of bad news that makes you cry hysterically until you throw up, and sniffle a bit after, too. But I had a fun time today talking to Hanon and Joey about clothing, and in the immediacy of being really upset, I found Charm’s we, the remainder and it was really nice to have something simple to click on and distract myself with. Sort of like how I play Stardew Valley when I’m stressed out, and apparently some people play Tetris? It was nice. It helped me calm down some. Mary seemed like a very dear little girl.

sophia · January 12, 2023, 9:15am

On a more neutral note, I totally understand my papa’s whole thing about ‘blaring bass heavy club music in his car (which has been modded to have the subwoofers shake the hell out of you basically) while crying and driving slowly around dark backroads’ now. I get it. It’s weirdly cathartic to be shook around like a soda pop can while bawling. It’s also kind of funny, once you’ve stopped crying, to realize the lyrics of the song you’ve been listening to have a crazy dissonance with the actual mood, and that jarring realization is enough to prompt you to laugh a little, which is always nice after a good cry.

Been having a hard time getting and staying asleep as of late. Sleeping on my side sucks, because my shoulder’s killing me. If it gets any worse, I’ll pop open the Tylenol. Not the Ibuprofen- that’s a blood thinner. Keep having bad dreams. It’s sort of calming to just stare at the dark ceiling all the same, though. The lights from the light traffic outside now and then splashing onto the ceiling through the gaps in the black out curtains remind me of how the city lights would blur when I fell asleep in the passenger seat- he used to crank his music to comfort me, and drive super slowly: inching around the block, so that I could feel safe enough to at least be able to enter a car nervously for necessary trips.

He’s a car enthusiast, loves working on them, loves driving them fast- but I still remember being a little girl and feeling safe enough and trusting him enough to sit in that car shortly after the accident. He drives super cautiously when I’m in the car with him, and he’ll hold my hand if I seem particularly nervous. He never complains, even when I’m basically crushing the hell out of his hand from being on the verge of freaking out. He still does the same thing when we’re in crowds in public- he knows I get nervous in them, and I’m a little bit old for that now, maybe, but I don’t really care, just like how I still obnoxiously hug him tight when I see him and when he leaves, and he always gives me a little kiss on the head before going.

Tomorrow I’m going to put my blanket in the dryer before bed, I think. To be extra cozy… And I might pull out a couple of my favourite plushies to snuggle up with, once I’ve got the shoulder under control and I won’t like, bleed all over the poor little meowmeows.

manonamora · January 12, 2023, 2:19pm

I coded a Hangman game in Twine. It’s not pretty yet, but it works

AmandaB · January 12, 2023, 3:30pm

We’ve been trying to teach our dog to GIVE something she shouldn’t have. There are bones all over the place here, as we have tons of foxes and coyotes and even mountain lions (I haven’t seen one, but I’ve seen its tracks and was like, wow, that’s a huge kitty cat), and we constantly have to take bones away from her because they’re all rotten and gross. Not to mention her sock-sucking habit.

Anyway, the dog came skulking out of the woods with something and she had that “I’m not supposed to have this” attitude, and I said, very sternly, “Give it.” And she did. And it was poop.

Negative: I had a handful of wild animal poop for a second.
Positive: the dog did what she was told.
Does it even out? Still not sure.

rovarsson · January 12, 2023, 3:42pm

Did you fizz it?

AmandaB · January 12, 2023, 3:47pm

Alas, no. I threw it and then ran back to the house with my hand held as far away from the rest of me as possible, shouting “Ew!” all the way, and the dog thought this was the funnest game ever.

manonamora · January 12, 2023, 3:48pm

is this like Malicious Compliance?

JoshGrams · January 12, 2023, 5:07pm

Well, I guess that’s one way to reward her for doing what she’s told…

@manonamora traître? I went…wait a minute, is there even a word that fits that…? Oh, not in English.

manonamora · January 12, 2023, 6:12pm

Yes! It’s going to be an Easter Egg for the French IF Comp.

ArdiMaster · January 12, 2023, 6:55pm

I’ve had a meeting with a professor this morning and, assuming no further setbacks, I’ll be starting on my Bachelor’s thesis in earnest in about a month from now. Exciting!

inventor200 · January 12, 2023, 8:25pm

I think I just had a realization.

There’s a common problem a lot of people cite, where someone will keep working on something and never stop, because it will “never be finished”, and/or because they don’t want to stop working on it.

I don’t suffer from that. I always have a set plan, an exact scope, and I rarely deviate from it. Being finished with a project is cause for great celebration.

There’s another problem where people are too anxious about the potential for rejection, so they don’t want to show what they’ve worked so hard for.

I don’t suffer from that (as much). I’m pretty confident that no matter what I make, enough time will pass that someone will find what I’ve created and love it, even if I’m long-dead at that point. I can make my peace with that.

Sometimes, I suffer from just bog-standard ADHD: The happy brain chemicals run out after a project starts, and then all the goals seem unrealistic. I can fix that with better planning, and I’ve actually gotten close to conquering this problem with a few projects here and there.

Here’s my real problem:
I’m afraid that when I’m done working on something, I’ll hate it. I’m afraid that I will fail to meet my own expectations. I’m afraid that once I’m done pouring all this sleepless effort into something, I will look upon the result and feel empty disappointment. I’m afraid that the bigger picture will set in, once I raise my head up from the details, and my big-picture planning failed to realize some unforeseen flaw, borne of the complex interactions of the finer details.

If someone like it, then I will cry tears of happiness, but it’s still crucial to me that I can look upon my own efforts with a sense of pride and satisfaction. I don’t expect perfection from myself, necessarily, but I do hold a high standard.

Here’s the thing, though: I am the critic that I am most scared of. They are me. I have to opportunity to decide to not be so hard on myself. Maybe, after some difficult convincing, I could start to work on that a little bit.

tundish · January 12, 2023, 9:39pm

Every currency in 2023 is worthless.

I think it might be that many people fancy English pounds for the romance and the heritage (by the way, Scottish pounds are similar, but they contain more salt).

The Euro is a very new currency. It’s backed by the US dollar. That might help you to determine whether it’s here for the long term or not.

I never use Euros for money. But when I do, I visit friends in the North of Ireland. Their family in the Republic hook me up with enormous leather satchels of cash. They hang them under donkey bladders filled with marsh gas. Then we get the RAF to spray AlO2 into the stratosphere to create the necessary air streams to float them over pronto.

I sit every afternoon on a bench in my Lower Orchard. By the time I’m into my second Gin and Tonic, the stuff is pitter-pattering down like floaty leaves in autumn.

That’s Autumn. The Fall is something else entirely.

AmandaB · January 12, 2023, 9:48pm

Yep. In fact, I HAVE hated everything at the end and thought, “This is crap.” I have to go through every project so many times, tweaking and fixing and rewriting-- there’s so MUCH wrong with them, and it is this never-ending slog through a mire of my own making to get it working right. The only reason I call anything finished is because I cannot stand to look at it anymore. I STILL haven’t done a postcomp version of Fairest, despite really needing to clean up some areas, because I HATE that game. Hate it. Don’t want to look at it or deal with it.

Oddly, this is helpful. I hate my own things so much that it lessens the fear of other people not liking them.

inventor200 · January 12, 2023, 9:51pm

This is why when I start a project, I set very specific goalposts for myself. I know ahead of time that I might hate it at some point, so once I reach those goalposts, I stop.

I can avoid the potentially-endless tweaking and adjusting if I know I’ve already arrived at the point where past-me would have been perfectly-happy with. I just follow past-me’s outline to the letter, and innovate only when absolutely necessary.

sophia · January 12, 2023, 10:03pm

@rovarsson was really kind to me last night. It’s not the first time he has been- I am still delighted by the silly little kitty picture he sent over to me once, but it’s something I think is worth acknowledging. Thanks for being you, and for extending compassion spontaneously. It really means a lot!

In similarly lighter news, my brother surprisingly made dinner for me. We sat and chatted for a bit about nothing aimlessly, as siblings do- (we both can spiral off into tangents for hours together, recently we’d spoken about tissue matrixes and I explained to him an overview on Hox genes) and then he plodded off to the basement suite to play video games (I can hear him from the balcony upstairs sometimes at night laughing uproariously and being a menace.) I’m still sipping coffee and pondering making an iced coffee for myself after, since I chilled some in the fridge last night.