To 2024

 Sometimes, as I'm browsing the internet, I come across someone saying something that is just plain wrong. I don't mean I disagree with them, I mean they are saying false things. Things they could look up and be set right in just moments, but they're not doing that. I'm talking something like identifying Art Nouveau as Art Deco. This is something that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter, but there's a world of difference between the two styles, and it's something that's just so easy to learn!

I want to learn how to not get so frustrated when something is wrong about something, for the sake of my mental well-being.

But I also want to learn how to correct people when they're wrong without seeming smug or combative. Like, how do I do this? How do I be the change, etc.?

Nails

In my unending quest to be Different From How I Am[1], one of the things I've been focused on lately is the health of my fingernails. Mine are weak and delaminate at the ends, soaking up water at abnormal rates[2] and breaking their tenuous bonds with themselves.

Anyway, I've gotten much better at caring for my nails in general but still find them weak, so now I am looking at whether I indeed should try a strengthener. I hop on the ol' internet and read some product reviews, as one does.

One review-- and this is the entire reason for this entry -- mentioned initial gains but said it quit working for them. The writer then went on to say that instead they now take collagen powder once a day instead and within TEN DAYS their nails were stronger. Now, I'm no fingernail scientist, but that seems not possible. Unless they have fingernails that grown supernaturally fast, ten days doesn't give them time to make a difference. Ten days is only (on average) about a millimeter of growth, right?[3]

If the reviewer has indeed had their nails grown out long enough in ten days to notice how much stronger they are from using collagen, they really buried the lede. I think lots of people would love to know their secret to this kind of growth!

The reason I am griping about this here instead of just to my family (I still might) is just that they're currently hunkered down due to a hurricane and this seems a little too trivial.

Journal

I woke up early this morning and spent time just petting and holding Hope. She loves to knead on me. I want to find a nice way to keep her from perforating my exposed skin when she does it on my neck or face. Shorts season approacheth, so I think this problem is going to get better before it gets worse.

I ended up just getting up around 6:30 because I had a telehealth appointment scheduled for 8:00* and I know myself well enough that I can't pretend I'll be able to wake up by 8 if I go back to sleep at 6:30. 

As much as I'm a fan of technology and as much as paper sometimes triggers a fight-or-flight response in my brain, I've found that I can keep up with tracking symptoms best in a paper journal. It's not something I planned at all. I started with this hideous sewage-colored Moleskine Chapters journal I bought on clearance several years ago. I think the fact that it was cheap and ugly made the stakes really low. It didn't need to be perfect and well thought out. I started simple, just the date and then the symptoms. Since that time I've added some stamps that show front and back views of the body and I color in areas or mark specific points of concern. I write down in green ink any medications I take in addition to my regular daily drugs and supplements (I'm not going to waste time writing every day that I took my lyrica, for example.) Negative factors get put down in pink or orange, like the time I accidentally ate gluten-full pizza.

It still irks me that I can't just immediately generate a report of the data collected, but right now I find it more important to just get it down there. And as small a step as this is, I've been able to keep up the habit for several months. I used up the Moleskine and moved on to a Pokémon journal I'd been holding onto. It's got Snorlax on the front and says "Do It Tomorrow." I've almost used that one up, too.

I remember first learning about Bullet Journals and trying to get started with that, but being overwhelmed and intimidated by the Pinterest crowd with all their fancy-ass layouts and ~*design*~ elements. The scrapbooking crew kinda killed my ability to make use of something that was initially supposed to be a great help to people like me. Well, actually, my own perfectionism did that. After all, you can't mess up if you don't make an attempt. It's such a wrong way of thinking about things, and my conscious mind knows that, but the entire rest of me can't just ignore it.

I've always had a fear of doing something wrong. Of being something wrong. I think that having an anxiety disorder and an absence of much I needed to be anxious about as a child made my subconscious extremely good at inventing reasons to worry.

Lurker

I've been posting on this blog for a few years, all in the form of embedded Instagram posts via ifttt. However, now it looks like every last image is broken.

It's defeating. I mean, I'm easily defeated, so maybe this isn't a big issue.

Anyway, I've resolved to actually write in here. It's a long time since I actually did anything akin to journaling. Or, indeed, making my presence known in the universe. I've been lurking online and, to the best of my ability, in the meat world as well. Any time I am perceived at all I'm ripped out of my comfort zone.

Well, that looks like a perfectly formed loaf to me.

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I’m sure this picture looks like countless other pictures I’ve posted, but goodness is she pretty. And oh, to be a cat napping on a sunny cat tree.

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☀️ Summer sun reveals The subtle colors within A little black cat 🐈‍⬛

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