Log: August 22, 2025

[welcometohighwater]

A mutual on tumblr clued me into dreamwidth, so I thought I'd give this bad boy a try. At the moment, I think I'm primarily going to be using this as a (weekly-ish) media and project log, but who knows if this will evolve into something different.

READING

• Currently still working my way through a nostalgia-fueled reread of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series--Forever in Blue, at the moment.  About every other summer I want to reread these books so bad, they just speak to the kid I was when I first read them and make that kid happy.  Since I've recently redone my bookshelves, including a plan for rereading all my "keeper" books, hopefully I can finish the series within the next month and then shelve it for the foreseeable summers.  Hopefully.  Especially since the last two books are always such drudgery for me.  Also since I'm such a slow reader.

LISTENING

• Podcasts  It's just Hello from the Magic Tavern 25/8 in my head, baybee.  Obsessed is an understatement.  I'm living and breathing this dumb, delightful show.  Binging as much as I can.  I've had at least two dreams about this show in the past month, one of which was a dream about the liveshow I've got tickets to see in September, but we won't even get into that.  It's kind of ridiculous.  It's kind of unhealthy, too, probably.  Maybe someday I'll have Thoughts, but for now I'm just enjoying the ride.  Besides, I've only managed to keep up weekly with My Brother, My Brother, and Me, The Adventure Zone, and, since it's only two episodes old at this point, Gumshoes & Dragons.  Woe is me.
• Music  Sure, of course, I've got a list of artists and albums to check out, perpetually.  Someday.  Music very often can be extremely (read, dangerously) overstimulating for me.  Biggest thing at the moment is, yes of course, I've done my best to hold out, to try to keep August a summer month, but I've given up and am switching to my fall playlist already.  Sigh.

WATCHING

• Probably always gonna be a pretty light category for me, as I am daily cajoled into watching countless things that I Do Not care about.  As a result, I have very little interest in watching about anything for my own entertainment lately.  I'm trying to catch up on some of my summer slump YouTube backlog, working on catching up on Watcher Entertainment stuff right now.  If (when) I can scrape up the dough again, I'm going to resubscribe to Dropout, and then I'll be back into some content I actively want to watch.

DOING

• Perpetually stuck in that ugly cycle of, if I am not doing something significantly productive in my life, I am undeserving of engaging in hobbies beyond consuming media that bring me joy.  Alas, alack.  Chronically underemployed; too discouraged and frustrated by it all to keep trying pointless avenues; utterly burnt out; too guilty to engage in activities (writing, trying to learn other arts) that might help re-energize me and get me moving forward to find more gainful employment.  Shoot me.
• Also in perpetual cycles of "decluttering" both my physical and digital spaces.  Also always goes poorly.  I like my stuff.  I like collecting my shiny rocks all together more than I actually enjoy them individually, probably.  I like to see all my things in one place until it overwhelms me completely.
• As such, my only creative outlet lately has been putting together outfits.  But god do I love clothes.  An absolute blast for me.  I have been re-energized in that lately, and hopefully I can keep that spirit up.  Is there a platform for outfit/clothes stuff on here?

I'm trying to be better about my relationship with the media I consume; specifically, I'm trying to work on just fucking letting things go if I don't enjoy them.  I'm making strides in some ways--I've gotten to the point that I can unsubscribe from a YouTube channel with basically no guilt, and I'm getting much better about doing the same with podcasts.  My biggest struggle is, unfortunately, still books.  I cannot let the book thing go.  If I start reading a book, I will Have to finish it at some point or it eats away at me, but I'll put it down for literally years before even attempting it again.  If I start a series, I will Have to finish that series.  Even if I despise what I'm reading, I will doggedly keep at it, at least in my head, and ruminate until I finally get it done.  I've got three at the moment picking at my brain: one book I started a year and a half ago, was pretty neutral about, haven't touched since; one series i started like three years ago, was meh, feel the need to finish the series anyway at some point; one book I started last winter, made the conscious choice not to finish after coming across something I just couldn't deal with then, and yet it's still eating at me!  If I can ever figure out how to fix this rotten part of my brain, I'll be free at last.

I'm going to be attempting some digital cleanup with the rest of my day.  Chiefly, I want to focus on moving my podcast to-listen list from Spotify (because, ew) to a personal checklist.  At the moment it'll live in the Notes app, but ultimately I'd love to go analog.  That would just end up so messy, with my penchant for alphabetization.