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Category: spinning

Friday, March 12, 2021
switchknitter
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What the hell am I doing?

Posted in books, magick, programming, random updates, School, and spinning

I never updated the site about it, but I had to drop my fall 2020 classes because of mental health fun. I’m trying again in summer. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to apply for a full-time job, and did. Didn’t get it because I wasn’t willing to move, but I looked at jobs on LinkedIn and Glassdoor. Talked to my therapist and realized I’d be happier freelancing. So I set myself up an account on Fiverr — contact me if you want the link — for doing WordPress stuff. I’m thinking about adding some automation stuff, as I’ve been writing Python scripts lately to manipulate images and PDF files. So I could offer file processing. I might do that.

Meanwhile, I did a huge spinning commission, almost three pounds of yarn. I just finished it Tuesday, and shipped it off today.

So: freelance coding, spinning, and a trigonometry class. Should be enough to keep me busy.

While I spin, I read books. I have a Bluetooth foot pedal that turns pages in ebooks. It was designed for musicians, but it’s wonderful for hands-free reading. I do spinning purely by muscle memory in my hands; watching myself spin makes me screw up. So I have one foot on my treadle and the other turns the pages on my tablet.

I should start blogging about what I’m reading. During this last commission, I read:

  • Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult — Richard Metzger, editor. A really mixed bag. I didn’t enjoy most of the pieces in it, and there were few ideas that intrigued me. I enjoyed the biographies of women occultists, though.
  • Life After Death — Damien Echols. Echols was one of the West Memphis Three, innocent men who were railroaded into prison for being “Satanists” in 1993. He was in jail for 18 years. His story is depressing but ends with him being freed. Good biography.
  • The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry — Rupert Sheldrake. This book blew my mind. That said, I didn’t agree with everything in it. But some of the problems he has with traditional materialist thinking raised a lot of questions for me. I’ll write more about that a future post.
  • The Elements of Spellcrafting: 21 Keys to Successful Sorcery — Jason Miller. Interesting thoughts about the nuts and bolts of magick. I liked it, and plan to read it again.
  • Don’t Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan’s Greatest Zen Master — Brad Warner. I don’t have a lot of experience with Buddhism of any type, despite my dad and sister both following it. This book blew my mind a little too. I plan to write about it in future as well.

What can I say, it was a big commission.

I got all of those books except the DisInfo one as recommendations from the Adventures in WooWoo Discord server. I’ve been talking to AIWW’s creator, Tommie Kelly, quite a bit lately. I built him a Discord bot for his Forty Servants divination deck. (I then modified it into a tarot bot, if you’re interested in such things.) He’s pretty cool. I haven’t actually read much of his blog (I should fix that) but I’ve been binge-listening to his podcast. I like people who freely admit they don’t know everything. (Especially occultists. There’s a lot of big egos out there.) I need to read his comics, too….

Speaking of occult podcasts, my other favorites are Anti-Fragile Tarot and SassafrasCast. I’ve been talking to the hosts of those as well; they’re friends (of each other; I barely know them yet), and Rorie Kelly (the Sassafras host) is a fantastic musician. I’m a goth and normally don’t listen to singer/songwriters. She’s different though.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. Life’s been strange but I like it.

Saturday, April 4, 2020
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Busy day!

Posted in music, random updates, and spinning

I chatted with an online acquaintance last night before going to bed, about spiritual stuff. As I was falling asleep I had some ideas related to that, so wrote them down before trying to sleep again. Woke up at 6:30 this morning, fed the cat, back to bed until 7:30.

Paid my bills online, went to Walmart for grocery pickup (just a few things), then picked up a yarn purchase from the driveway of my local yarn shop’s owner. (She’s doing orders over the phone, putting the purchases in sealed bags, and then leaving them in her driveway. Contactless way to support a small business I go to regularly, yay!) Came home, put away food, ate some lunch, had a nap, then did another virtual knit meetup — this time with women from the weaving guild I’m a member of.

After that I read tarot for some people in my fave Discord server, caught up with my brother-in-law online, did therapy over Zoom (didn’t talk about anything serious — my head hurt and I wanted the human contact more than digging into my issues. She says she’s getting that a lot right now), did some more tarot. Someone I know is struggling and needed an in-depth reading. Which helped them, I think. The cards told them something they knew already but needed a kick in the butt over. I like those kinds of readings.

I am so proud of today’s cello practice. For a few notes there I actually sounded like I was playing and not sawing, and I was so happy! And then I got so into that that I messed up my fingering. Ha! So my bowing was good but my notes were off key. This is why I practice! Still doing etude #1 and Minuet in C, using the tuner app to tell me how my fingering is.

Did more tarot (it was one of those days), and now I’m ready for bed even though it’s not bedtime yet.

By the way: I love paying bills. Not the fact that I owe money, and I don’t like not having money after, but there were a number of years I couldn’t pay my bills, and there’s a satisfaction to be able to do it now. Gives me “responsible adult” feels. Heh.

I am almost done with singles #3 of my current spinning commission. Yay!

Okay, my head hurts. Bedtime.

Friday, April 3, 2020
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Sinus infection, socializing, cello

Posted in health, random updates, and spinning

Titling blog posts can be freaking hard. Sorry.

Last night I was up until almost 3:00, and woke up at 6:30 when a cat begged me for breakfast. I took my early-morning pills and tried to go back to sleep. Failed, but when I rolled over in bed the right side of my face started hurting like hell. I called the doctor’s office at 9:30, got a Zoom appointment for 11:00, and it turns out I have a sinus infection. Doc recommended Mucinex and Sudafed-D on top of the antibiotic she prescribed. After lunch I got everything at the pharmacy. I had to go inside because of the Sudafed, so while I was in there I grabbed some Easter candy. Couldn’t help it.

Doc said I can take 2000mg of Tylenol a day, but only for 2-3 days. So between those and the sinus OTC stuff, I’ve been in much less pain. My face still feels bad pressure, but it’s not full-on pain. I can’t read books because I still have the wrong glasses, but at least I can do everything else. Which is awesome. I’m glad I called the doctor.

The weather was lovely this afternoon, in the mid-70s, so Mom and I opened up the house. I spun for a while (finally, yay!) while we watched Law & Order reruns. And then it was time for cello practice (after I closed the windows; I didn’t want to hurt the ears of the neighborhood dogs).

I had looked up bow holds last night, and it helped a lot. Bowing felt more natural today, and more comfortable too. And I sounded a lot better. Still terrible, but better. I did the long, broad bows, the etude #1, and worked on the Bach minuet. I listened to the piece on YouTube first, because I play better when I know what I’m supposed to sound like. And then I had an idea. I have a tuning app on my phone. I turned it on and set it on the music stand, and played slowly while trying to match my fingering to the exact pitch. It helped a lot. I haven’t made it through the whole piece yet — bowing hand tired out again — but it was actually sounding like music (if terrible) after a bit. I was actually on pitch thanks to the app, and doing it over and over helped lock in the finger positions.

So much more to do with it, but I’m glad I thought of the app.

And then I did something unusual — I joined a virtual Knit Night over Zoom. It was my old local knitting group. I haven’t been in person for ages, despite being on the invite list, and they were surprised (pleasantly, I hope) I turned up tonight. I only stayed an hour but it was fun. I plan to join them online next week too.

Someone in the meetup told me there’s a well-organized group making masks for the local hospitals, at doctors’ request. I don’t sew but have a sewing machine. I contacted the group to loan them my machine, if they want it. No word yet, but it was just this evening.

More spinning with Law & Order, then 9:30pm dinner, and now it’s nearly bedtime.

I really am feeling better. It’s nice. I’ve been too chatty on Facebook today, probably, but I get verbose when I feel good…

Wednesday, December 5, 2018
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Sleep and I are not friends.

Posted in Mental Illness, spinning, and writing

One of the shitty things about mental illness is that it fucks with your ability to sleep like a neurotypical person. For me, this means I either sleep for twenty hours, or for two.  Last night, for example, I slept from 11:30pm until 2am, then again from 3:30-4:45am.  It’s now 1am and I’m not even tired.  It’s annoying as fuck.

But at least I’m being productive.  I’m writing fiction for the first time in almost 20 years.  It’s fanfic, but it’s still fiction.  A few of my favorite writers in the fandom have left positive comments on the story I posted today, which felt amazing considering how many years it’s been since I successfully penned a story.  I got very positive comments in general, and I love every last one of them.  I’m saving all the notification emails to read when I get depressed.  :)

I’m also working on a spinning commission.  Someone asked me to make a sweater quantity of handspun.  After a false start, it’s been going pretty well.  (The dyer used the wrong base for some of it, so I’ve had to get her to ship me the right stuff.  I’ve spun some of the wrong stuff, and it’s going to make great sock yarn.)

So yeah.  Going to try and read a little and get some sleep.  Soon.  Don’t think I can yet, though…