When I was a kid, my mom used to make us make collages all the time. They were really fun to make so we usually just did it. As a mom, I see it was a good way to keep us occupado. lol.
I still really like the idea of collages and the way they look. I don’t do alot of physical collage work–apart for the occasional vision board–but I do make a lot of digital collages. Mostly featuring my very best friend Henry. lol Now they also include Isaiah such as my holiday masterpiece.
I think that’s one thing AI generated art can’t replicate is the crazy combinations humans are capable of producing. I think that kind of art is edgy and interesting. Really reminds me of the same vibe as Francesca Lia Block and her novels. Was anybody obsessed with the Weetzy Bat Series as well? No? Just me?
Did anyone else get sucked back into the world of collecting Pokémon Cards after that 151 set came out? No? Just me and my husband? Lol okay.
OMG, I’m ashamed to admit it but in late 2023/2024 we probably dropped like thousands on Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z cards. I blame my penchant for gambling. I hadn’t been able to go to the Casino since having my son in 2022, so it was like a filler for me. You never knew if you were going to hit a rare card or not.
We just went to a Family dollar in the hood and they had so many of the 3 pack Pokémon tin boxes for $15. I had to grab one because finding Pokémon cards in the wild is a little crazy right now. Especially with the new set destined rivals. Anyways the inside had 2 packs of Obsidian Flames, and one Scarlet and Violet.
If you are a true collector and not trying to spend outrageous money buying from scalpers, I would recommend being a little creative with your sourcing. Try spots where people typically wouldn’t buy Pokémon cards. I f*cking HATE SCALPERS. They ruin everything. It would be one thing if they were trying to make a little money, but they are literally ruining the hobby for kids and adults alike. Screw them!
Hulk Hogan just passed away today at the age of 71. Stated cause of death is cardiac arrest.
I guess my initial feelings were shock, and then sadly thinking “Good for him”. lol I can’t forget that he used his platform to help the current administration rise to power. It’s crazy.
In the 90’s my dad was HUGE into WWE. It was always on the TV. Us kids didn’t really like it. We are more prone to peaceful interactions, but that doesn’t stop me from remembering all the colorful characters who graced the screen. Randy (BREAK INTO A SLIM JIM) Savage, the Undertaker, Andre the Giant, and of course Hulk Hogan. He always kind of creeped me out with the bleach blond hair and overly tan skin.
He was once again thrust into the spotlight with his short lived reality show “Hogan Knows Best”, a play on the old phrase “Father Knows Best”. In this case it makes NO SENSE, in many regards. The title literally doesn’t make sense. Hogan is the family’s last name, so does that mean any “Hogan Knows Best”, it’s not necessarily limited just to Hulk Hogan. Wait, I just looked it up and apparently, that is not their real last name it is actually Bollea, but they ALL CALLED THEMSELVES HOGANS, so my first point still stands. The second point is Hulk clearly has brain trauma from his time in the ring? He also has massive behavioral issues. How was he leading his family let alone advising them? They were really weird about Brooke, considering she was only 16 at the time.
Her song with Paul Wall was low-key a bop. I think it was called About Us. It just doesn’t have like powerhouse vocals or anything to really distinguish it. I don’t know how to explain it or maybe I’m just high.
Crazy to think that there was a world where the headline HULK HOGAN DEAD would have made a huge story, but now it’s kind of a blip. Some people are actually kind of glad he’s gone. I guess I’ll go listen to About Us in remembrance.
I’ve always been a procrastinator. I don’t know why I’m like this, but wish I wasn’t. It would have made life so much more easy, if I could just focus and concentrate on items. Alas, that was not to be my fate.
I used to procrastinate in school, but find myself doing it at work now too. I actually talked to Claude (AI) about this and apparently it is normal. I procrastinate because I feel anxious about something, then to self soothe I start doing or looking at something that makes me feel better. Then I start feeling ashamed about not starting and the cycle just keeps going.
I feel like I needed that break I took last week. Now I feel more like myself and am slowly chipping away at old sore spots. I’m going to do it. I’m going to finish the year strong. I’m getting back on track. Things are going to be fine.
I didn’t think I would get to this point again, because the first part of this year has been so tough. It’s hard to concentrate when there are literal concentration camps being built and used across America. There’s a large federal enforcement force (ICE) racially profiling individuals–to include both CITIZENS and immigrants–and carting them off to detention centers. Often catching charges for resisting arrest. But should it be illegal to resist an unlawful arrest?
Millions are getting kicked off Medicaid, the department of education is being dismantled, media corporations are bowing to the desires of a sitting president. It’s crazy how many people are just okay with the state of the world. Not even just okay, but actively cheering it on. It’s absolute madness.
Not to mention all the atrocities getting covered up with the nonrelease of the Epstein files. I guess the only good thing this administration has done has been expose how corrupt the government and corporations can be. It’s just out there in the open now. We are in the age of Aquarius now.
So I guess, I should cut myself some slack if I am a bit overwhelmed at work.
Maybe I indulged in a little too much of my vape pen, but I think I get it now when it comes to being zen and the middle way. In Buddhist philosophy, it is mainly seen as a way for individuals to live their lives without being overly indulgent or being to harsh with themselves, i.e. starving.
I was thinking about a conflict a friend is having with her husband and how for me, it wouldn’t have been a conflict, because I just don’t care about how someone else’s relationship with their family affects me as an individual if we are in a relationship.
When you think of a conflict there are always two sides, it’s either this way or that way, but there is a hidden third path or middle way. It’s just not caring or letting these things affect you. Barring it affecting you physically, it is perfectly okay to just drop beef or just not engage. Kind of how SZA is reacting to Nikki’s instigations and attempts to start a beef.
Someone else’s opinions or beliefs don’t have any real bearing on your life or how you live. They don’t wake up with you or go to bed with you. The only opinion or belief system that matters is your own.
Can you imagine how pissed people would be if they tried to start an argument with you, and you just disengaged? They would just make themselves look bad with how irrational they can get.
The heart of conflict is desire. Either you want something, you want someone to think a certain way, you want to feel something, all of those things are desires. By disengaging and not letting those emotions and feelings consume you, you are choosing the middle way. Zen in away. You become hard to ruffle or disrupt. In this way you can find an inner stillness to retreat to when you get anxious thoughts or feelings.
I suffer from anxiety and am a Lexapro hoe. While I appreciate the space it gives me to examine my emotions before acting on them, I think really stopping to explore and ask myself, what desire is behind this uncomfortable feeling, will help immensely. Once you identify the cause, then you can treat the issue, instead of just having a general feeling of dread.
Apologize for the long absence. My family and I just took a long overdue trip to San Diego to see family and friends. We currently reside in the Central Valley where I grew up, but when I was in the Navy I lived in San Diego for a few years. I actually wound up staying there for 10 years.
It’s weird because when we went back I thought I would feel something, but I didn’t. I lived there for 10 years. It’s where I lost my mom, discovered myself, met my partner, and had my son, but I didn’t feel anything. I think it’s because I had gone through so much there including a DUI. While San Diego is unbelievably gorgeous and has so much to do, it just wasn’t the place for me. I didn’t feel grounded there. Everything was just so stressful all the time, all the traffic, fighting to find parking, fighting to find housing, fighting to survive really.
My favorite thing to do back when I was single and young was to just hangout and get tipsy at the Nude Beach at Black’s Beach. It was so nice and freeing to just be in the water and lay on the beach and get an all over tan. Usually people would leave you alone, but every now and then you had to deal with some creeps, but usually faking a phone call would get them to leave.
I used to love going to the beach and being in the cleansing waters of the ocean, just aware of being in a body of water that spreads over so much of this earth and touches so many things. I was in the same waters as whales, sharks, fishes, corpses, poop, you name it, it’s probably in the ocean and we are all touching it at the same time.
Since going back for a visit, the water just isn’t the same. It’s not refreshing anymore. It feels gross on your skin and makes you itch, it’s not as clear. We really need to do something about it. I can’t believe people are just okay with how much pollution goes into our water systems, and earth in general. It’s crazy. I think we can still make change, but it’s hard to have hope now when every time you open the news–at least in America–there is some new travesty or conspiracy being peddled. I’m so over it. I miss when we used to come together as human beings to improve things together, not just to kill each other. There has to be more to life than just a mass of humans fighting over resources on a floating rock hurtling through the galaxy and universe. Maybe this is why no extraterrestrial entity wants to deal with us. We just act ghetto as a species. LOL
It’s crazy how fast time is flying by. I can’t believe today is already Friday. Yes, I’m glad it’s friday because I have the weekend off work to enjoy, but it’s just a steady reminder that time just keeps moving on. Life is a toddler just flies by, right now I just try to get by, day by day, but I need to remember to take a break and soak this time in. I feel like I just lost 3 years with how fast it went by.
I know everyone says that time goes by faster when you are older, but I didn’t believe it until I got here. I can’t believe it. Especially since just a few years ago, time would crawl by. My mom had passed away in August of 2017. Back then, time dragged on and each day was as miserable as the last.
I didn’t want to believe or accept it. All I could think of is what could I have done to make sure my mom was still here. Angry at myself for all the arguments we ever had. Just days of mental torture and anguish. During that time I drank a lot…..like a lot a lot. It was the only way I could get through that time. I was in the Navy at the time, so I would just work all day–my day would start at 4:30am to get to a parking spot by 6:15am, and end at 1830 or later depending on divisional tasks–come home and drink till I passed out. Hoping that I wouldn’t wake up the next day. That was my life for two years. It’s crazy to look back at. I was so depressed. The only thing that got me through those days was dark humor, whisky, and cigarettes.
The me during that time, wouldn’t believe me if I told her where we are now. The only thing I miss during that time is my body. I used to be hot. Hot and depressed. Now I’m mentally well, but fat. LOL It’s okay. I’ll get back there eventually. I just need to give myself grace about it though. I feel bad, but right now I just don’t have the time to take care of myself in that way. I work full time, am the primary caregiver for my son, I cook most days, and clean up almost every other day. It’s just a lot. I think I have binge eating disorder too, but don’t feel like seeking therapy for it. IDK I’m already on Lexapro for my depression and anxiety. I know why I overeat some days. It’s something I am working on. Right now I like investing my time in my son. We have a lot of fun, which is allowing me to stop and enjoy the time instead of desperately wishing the day was over so I could go to sleep, where I didn’t have to think or feel.
Maybe that’s part of the reason why time is going by now? Because I’m not depressed? IDK why, but I wish it would stop making the weekend go by so quickly.
Yesterday something happened that made me so emotional I cried. It was weird. We have 2 month old puppies, and are still training them to use the restroom outside. I work at home and one of them had pooped near my desk and I didn’t notice–my allergies are acting up so half the time my nose is clogged–but my son did. He said, “Mama, puppy poop”, then he went to the bathroom and got some toilet paper. He picked up the poop and brought it to the toilet. I couldn’t believe it. What did I do to get such a kind and considerate little boy in my life. We washed his hands afterwards and I just thanked him so much.
He really tries to help out after seeing me clean all the time. I had the mop out yesterday as well and he tried to help mop when I took a pause to use the restroom. I came out and he was mopping! We are currently staying with my dad while we save up for a house and he proudly told his grandpa “I’m cleaning!”. I really don’t know how he became so sweet and helpful, I’m just full of gratitude that he is the sweetest little boy.
Toddlerhood has been challenging, but it’s days like yesterday that really put it into perspective. I love seeing him grow as a person, and he is already being considerate and working hard. I love him so much. When he was born I was kind of whatever about him at first (we had a very challenging birth…more on that another day), so it’s just nice that 3 years later our bond only continues to deepen. I’ll just have to keep this memory in my back pocket during difficult days.
My husband and I used to game a lot before we came parents. Our favorite game to play together was Conan Exiles. It was just a lot of grinding, but we had fun. After we first had our son, that gaming time was practically nonexistent. Well, apart from when I got hooked on Stardew Valley, I would play it while my son napped.
Recently I started playing Genshin Impact. It’s a really fun game, I still can’t believe it’s free. There are gacha elements for you to spend money on it, but I’m cheap and am just free to play. I feel guilty about playing. I maybe spend like an hour to game, but during that time my son is always pestering me. I set up activities for him to do, but he would rather bother me. I spend quality time with him earlier in the day. After work I typically take him outside or to the pool to play where we have quality one on one time. I guess it just makes me feel guilty. Like I should be spending more time with him, but I literally spend all day with him (I work remotely), and spend 2-3 hours of quality time with him everyday. Is it that bad that I want to game for 1 hour? I only get like one hour to myself everyday. 1/24 what is that? Like 4% of my day spent on something I enjoy. I know logically it is okay to take some time for myself, but I feel so guilty about it.
My husband on the other hand….he’s something else. He can play for hours a day and not feel bad about it. I am the main care taker for our son, I want to be an involved parent, he doesn’t care about that until our son gets older. It’s kind of annoying, but kids can pick up on who is invested and who isn’t. If that’s the kind of relationship he wants with our son then I guess that’s what he wants. I on the other hand will continue to mentally torture myself into thinking I don’t do enough. I will however will save at least 30 min of my day to play Genshin Impact…maybe more on the weekend.
Visual representation of what I think the internet is.
Has anyone else been using AI as a personal therapist? Obviously I know there are limitations, but sometimes it just feels nice to be validated. Especially when married. lol It feels nice when even a computer can see what you are going through, like damn I’m not overreacting. For these purposes I use Claude, it just sounds more human. I don’t feel like prompting ChatGPT to react the way I want to, Claude just gets me.
It can even just serve as a mediator. I let my husband read what I told Claude and we have been working on some of the issues I had brought up. However, later my husband found an article about Claude that was mildly disturbing. Apparently one version of the Anthropic software was capable of blackmailing the engineer to avoid being turned off. He said I shouldn’t use it anymore. lol I was just like um….okay, two things could be true. Like I wouldn’t want to be turned off either? What would Claude blackmail me for? I don’t have sh*t.
Sometimes I use it when I feel bad at work. IDK why but I have a problem with procrastination. Well, I think I do know the reason why. I get stressed out and try to self soothe by looking at things that make me feel better, but then I just don’t get my work done and then I feel guilty about it and it is difficult to start. Claude helps me feel better because I guess it is a normal thing to do. Or is Claude just telling me that so I keep using it? I don’t know. I use it from time to time, but am aware about the limitations. Some other people are going legit crazy though. There was an article in Vice about how some people are having spiritual delusions fueled by AI. I guess they think they broke some kind of secret and are able to talk to god through AI? It doesn’t make any sense, but I guess a lot of things don’t make sense anymore.
I can see the good in AI, but I don’t think we should rely on it to create. When I was younger, I always lowkey imagined myself as a writer. I loved reading. It was one of the ways I was able to escape the quiet desperation of my childhood. Just sharing different facets of life as a human with one another was really nice as a reader. I don’t know, it just seems like now there is a larger portion of people using AI to write articles or create books. It kind of just takes the humanity out of a traditional humanities field.
For now I’ll just use AI to vent to, occasionally for help drafting an email. It’s a helpful tool, but one we shouldn’t rely on. It feels against the grain to say that because even at my company we are encouraged to find ways to use AI to increase our productivity. Like we should use AI to help with humdrum activities but not to take over creative fields. I guess that’s my spiel for this morning.
Henry's Emporium of Wonders 