Literally the hardest period of my life, but I am equipped with the best mental equipment I can so it’s all in - or, in this specific case of mine, i hope it’s all out (edit: luckily no life threatening situations, dw)
The past days have been a mixed bag. I’ve achieved dember’s objective to get everything at work and at home done before the holidays, but failed 2023’s objective to go on vacation at least once this year without getting sick within the first few days. I’m feeling better now but my voice is gone, so no video message or chat with my family or godchild. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with the latter this year and feel like I’ve sort of failed her. This winter and spring I need to think of some things to do together.
Wanting to spread the holiday cheer (as an unbeliever, Christmas more or less means a break to enjoy time with yourself and your beloved ones), but lack of time and energy means I’ve done the bare minimum this year. Oh well, it’s just one year.
Still, we’re in a very nice and warm place with family, and as Don Hector Salamanca has accurately stated on behalf of apparently pretty much the entire country we’re currently visiting, la familia es todo. And it’s good to see my younger stepdaughter so happy and carefree for a change - she’s had a stressful year, too.
Tomorrow her friend (our fourth, inofficially adopted child) arrives, and in three days we’re on our way to Playa del Carmen where we can introduce the young 'uns to the nice crew at Señor Frog’s and then disappear before embarrassing them any further for being the uncool old farts in the place.
Other than that I expect to spend (and enjoy!) a few weeks without a lot of plans or appointments for a change. Let’s see how that goes.
Stressful but that’s normal? Less stressful than some other years. Family likes their gifts so much they’re arguing about them. No work today though so win there. I need a break from the break…
had a solstice bonfire on friday with friends which was really nice. hanging out with my partner’s family for the weekend, then heading to the country to decompress before new years. i always do a bike ride new year’s day, so i’m looking forward to that!
Much better than expect. This has been the first year where we’ve had someone outside of our immediate family join us (my brother’s girlfriend) and it’s been very pleasant.
Going to start working my way through the Christmas ales I’ve been saving now!
Processional: “She’s the One” by World Party for groom and family, “Book of Love” by Peter Gabriel for bride. It ended up being perfectly timed, because I was able to sing the last verse to my favorite person when I got to him (which is about wanting to give each other wedding rings)
lol I wish I’d seen this before now. You’re right, but luckily Hallmark has also been growing over the last few years so that I’ve even recently joked that I can’t wait for 10 years from now when people’s idea of their movies update for the jokes. Cause they’re still formulaic movies made on a budget. Tons of fun jokes to make.
I’ve spent the last few weeks basically just watching Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies with my wife cause subscriptions are expensive and that’s what we picked for December. I used to say, “you can tell the difference between a Hallmark and Lifetime movie based on if they drink wine.” That’s not true anymore.
Yep, Hallmark movies used to be even worse than you brought up cause they had a ton of emotional cheating (and sometimes physical with a kiss). And don’t get me started on the military propaganda movies they still do too. lol.
But the latest crop are quite likely to have the heroine have a job she can do remotely or fall in love with a smallish town that’s close to a big city so she can commute instead of quitting her job. Or, like one I watched last night, where the Hero quits his high-powered job to become part of the Heroine’s family business so she can focus on her dreams.
And no emotional cheating! She’s either single from the start or breaks up before going back home/traveling to the small town/suburb.
It still comes from small town “oh what about a simple life” thinking. But, honestly, a lot of the gross, damaging things people associate with those movies are changing. And I think that’s a good thing.
Heck, I got to watch my wife light up cause we watched one recently about a Puerto Rican baker. Getting to see a “stupid TV movie” that had a wonderful Puerto Rican heroine and brought up how good Puerto Rican food is meant the world to her.
I finally have a chance to breathe from my chaotic semester. At the same time, I worry that I won’t have enough time to recover because certain responsibilities are time sensitive. And my family environment isn’t the best…
There’s one task that really bugs me: future roommates want to move out of the dorms before the next semester starts, and this was ‘decided’ on around finals week. Plus we apartment hunted for like… less than a week, around finals week.
The old plan was to move around the end of the school year, which would’ve given us time to research everything we need to know, search for places, and plan move in. (And the old idea was that I only had one roommate, not two.)
This rushing is all due to a shitty dorm situation my second roommate is in, but… It’s so rushed that I don’t even know what to say. I don’t want to risk something worse happening. I feel like there are so many unknown variables. We’re planning a discussion with each other and each other’s parents at some point this break, so I’m honestly hoping we don’t move out soon unless we’re mostly sure things will work out.
…Overall though, I’m just trying not to think. My body is exhausted; my brain is drained. I just wanna relax, and I haven’t registered that Christmas is soon. I’m not in the holiday mood at all.
At least I get to pet my dog. He’s so fluffy and floofy.
I mean, it’s a fantasy. It’s going to tend to be transgressive or unrealistic, or else it would just be reality. Yes, it is sort of sending an anti feminist message that women can’t have it all. But you pretty much have to make holiday movies where the whole point is to stop being greedy and pay attention to what matters (family).
So you aren’t the target audience, combined with the movies being poorly written, combined with the very real situation where modern feminism has achieved its pyhrric victory of everyone getting to head towards equal participation in capitalism…
I think most storytelling in most entertainment is pretty fucked up. Another comment mentioned torture scenes in kids animated movies, I might want to add rape scenes in pretty much every episode of every TV series (often excused as historical realism).
Lately I got ultra-annoyed at how propaganda-y every police series is. Even the ones where police is depicted as corrupt, like for example The Wire. The criminals are always shown as a little more evil than even the most rotten cop. I can’t stand that anymore.
There is not a single show or movie I’ve seen recently that didn’t have this shit in it. I’m so tired at being sold this cheap, stupid, uncreative, misogynistic, always-the-same crap. Please tell me what to watch anymore.
I went through a period of frequent breakups that made me think I was never going to have a well adjusted partner, or even a stable friend group. That my life would be a series of fights.
And now I have a swarm. I literally share my thoughts with a group of people who are wonderful and love me unconditionally on romantic, platonic, and sexual levels. And I used to think I was asexual, so that’s a trip. All I had to do was find the right kind of queer people. Swarmgender people.
grandma is hospitalized, yet I’m more stressed about the relatives I’m staying with. yeah, they’ve been taking care of her for years now, but they mostly talk shit about her. it clashes with the sweet perception i have.
did i really get to know her?
we’re all suffering, but I don’t know how to help. I tried cleaning a bit, but my uncle got angry about moving his dirty dishes. the least i want rn is to be a burden.
I’ve been mentally preparing to be a little down for winter, but this is a smack down.
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