I have asthma. I am allergic to dust, and to cats. I have 3 cats. My allergies are so bad that I have to get allergy shots every week, otherwise I have very frequent asthma attacks. I have been pretty good about getting my weekly injections and I no longer let my cats in my room (I used to, and that was an awful idea) but I never got in the habit of dusting or vacuuming my room. That changes now. I have declared war on dust. I have begun vacuuming my floor and mattress every morning. I'm dusting multiple times a week. So far I've dusted 3 times. That's more than I had done in the past year. The first time, there was so much dust. It was horrifying. It filled the air (and my lungs) and covered every surface again the next day. It's quite disheartening to see your hard work undone so quickly, but I have not lost hope. I am dusting it over and over again in hopes that I eventually defeat this vile enemy once and for all. My hope is that the dust my duster is not able to collect eventually makes its way to the floor to be vacuumed up and disposed of into the trash, to be taken away to its eternal grave. Every time I vacuum my carpet, the collection area of the vacuum becomes packed full of compressed dust. It's a truly disturbing sight. It's the inevitable horror that my neglect brought. Thankfully this horror seems to lessen with each successive vacuuming. I doubt the war on dust will ever truly be won, but it seems like it will get easier over time. I am optimistic for the future of my ability to breathe. My lungs are already having a much easier time.
Reflections on Dusting
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After dusting today, I have some thoughts on it. Dusting has been a very positive experience for me. It's very hard work, but it's very worth it. There is an honor in cleaning. A respect for the things around you. A deeper connection to your belongings. As I was dusting off my Spirit/Opportunity Mars rover model I thought about how they died from Martian dust covering the solar panels. They didn't have anyone to dust them off. The thought of the same thing happening to my model saddened me and I made sure to dust it off and make it shiny again. I feel I have been failing my things. I have an emotional connection to my belongings that I have not been a good steward of. I have been neglectful. Going forward I am going to make a stronger effort to care for my things better and to appreciate how lucky I am to have them.
It had been a year and a half since I last dusted out my PC. A PC that I spent a lot of time saving up for and that my brother helped me with, a PC that I use every day for so many different tasks. I thought I loved my PC, but when I opened it to dust it today it was absolutely filthy with dust. I clearly did not actually love it, or I would have treated it better. I was merely using it, not caring for it. That's not love. As I was blowing out and vacuuming up the dust, wiping the fan blades off, I could feel my appreciation and love for my PC coming back. I remembered putting it together, routing the cables, driving in the screws. I remember how exciting it was to finally have such a nice PC. I'm excited to have such a clean PC again.
I know it's not the cleanest, but it's cleaner than it has been in years
Creative Block (Depression?)
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Lately I've been struggling with some pretty bad creative block. My last blog post was excruciatingly hard to write, despite the fact that there's almost nothing creative about it. Even just getting words out at all was a struggle, let alone arranging them in a pleasing way. Some difficult stuff was happening in my life recently and I resorted to some old bad habits to get by. Before this silly little slip up, I had been self harm free for around five years, which was hard fought but very worth it. It feels kind of stupid to have broken that five year achievement, but I've been clean for two days and I proud of that. It's been hard as hell but I'm keeping myself distracted and I'm starting to feel creative again; hence this blogpost. I'm coming up with cool ideas to add to this site. I'd like to improve the layout, and I've got some ideas on how to do that. I've even been considering making YouTube videos again (cringe) but I'll probably just stick to this. I'm also feeling inspired to start gaming again. I was a little bit too depressed to enjoy games for a while there, but I think it would be pretty good to lift my spirits a bit more. It's honestly kind of crazy how addictive self harm can get for me. It haunts every waking thought, even when I'm having a good time. It takes constant distraction to keep me clean. My partner has been amazing in helping me with that and motivating me to take care of myself. They make me feel so loved and supported, and I love them so much. They mean everything to me.
This feels like a very rambling vent-post, so I might delete it later, but for now it's been a very helpful distraction. I feel better about myself already.
Unrelated picture of a very pretty flower
The Meaning of Life
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The other day I experienced a feeling which reminded me of why I keep living my life and why I enjoy being alive. It's not that I'm not reminded of this often, in fact I'm reminded of it quite often, like when I'm spending time in a park with my partner, or when I'm going someplace new and exciting or meeting with people and having a pleasant social time, but this one stood out because of how rare it has been lately.
It was a cool summer day and the air was fresh, I had my windows open and I could hear the birds singing from outside. The occasional breeze flowed through my open windows, gently reminding my of how comfortable I felt. I was hand stitching a pocket onto the hip of my shorts while listening to Sum 41's All Killer No Filler through my computer's speakers. The energetic pop-punk sound mixed perfectly with the repetitive precision of my backstitch and I was in a perfect flow state.
I hadn't experienced such a flow state in a long time. I haven't been spending much time on such enjoyable and rewarding hobbies, and when I am being creative it tends to be filled more with stress because of how out of practice I am, or because I'm trying something new, like making this website. I used to experience it pretty often while sewing, or playing creative videogames. I vividly remember being in a very nice flow while building a space elevator in Space Engineers. Piloting my heavy welding ship between my base and the tower I was working on, while listening to some of my favorite music brought me more enjoyment than a videogame reasonably should. It somehow made me feel alive. I'm happy to have experienced that feeling again.
I Have a Camera
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My wish came true! I finally have a camera! While looking for envelopes in my mom's office I found our old digital camera, a Canon PowerShot A1100 IS, in the bottom of some drawers. It has 12.1 Megapixels and a 4x optical zoom. I used to love taking pictures with it when I was a kid. I put in some fresh batteries and a 32GB SD card and turned it on. To my surprise it works just fine, but unsurprisingly it's pretty busted and turns off if you touch the battery cover too much. It isn't a great camera, but I'm so happy to have it. I think it's pretty much perfect for what I want to use it for. I should be able to take some better pictures for my website.
Dead Frogs
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Yesterday it finally got warm enough that my partner and I were able to go for our first walk of the season. It had been getting pretty depressing being stuck inside all winter. Walking and being in nature are pretty important for my mental health and one of my favorite things to do with my partner. We always go right to a little pond I like to call the frog pond. It's usually full of cute frogs hopping around and sometimes other wildlife like a turtle or heron. This time it was full of dead frogs and tadpoles. It was pretty cool to see. The entire bottom of the pond was swarming with schools of cute little tadpoles swimming around.
It was warm out, but chilly in the shade. The ice on the still water hadn't fully melted and the trees hadn't grown their leaves back. It had the atmosphere of a still winter day with the warmth of spring. I felt at home and comfortable.
I Wish I Had A Camera
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Taking pictures of things is something that I quite enjoy. I especially love taking pictures of things related to my hobbies. I enjoy documenting my work. However, I find that my camera's phone really lets me down with the quality of the pictures its able to take. It's not the image quality itself that i have a problem with, but the inabilty to zoom without losing quality of the image. Most of the time I'm not able to get the photo composition that I want. The pictures I take of my models or pens always look wrong. I would be much happier with the pictures if I was able to zoom in, as to not distort the subject of the photograph. I'm obviously not a a photographer by any means, and perhaps this is just a skill issue but I wish I had a camera.
