How are you doing? - Kiwi Farms Wellness Check

I should probably be sleeping, but told google to set an alarm for seven but realized I'm not taking the train tomorrow so I told it to change my alarm to 7:30 but it refused to understand so I had to cancel the alarm and set a new one and then I wanted to turn on gentle wake up so it would slowly raise the brightness of the lights until the alarm goes off but the I remembered it refused to work everytime I tried so I wanted to set a custom routine to change the lights manually but since my wake time changes from day to day I wanted to be able to set the time the routine starts manually each time by yelling at Google but I couldn't see how so I googled it and found that was a wanted feature that Google has not implemented and I found that annoying so I browsed the help threads for a little bit and considered bitching because Google cancels products all the time and Google home seems to be getting neglected but I'd figure id see if there was a workaround and there's sorta one as I can set a routine to trigger when a device is turned on or off so I could have a random smart plug that I tell to turn on in the morning and it turning on would trigger the routine but that's kinda dumb and I don't have any spare smart plugs well one but it's a double plug that loses connection all the time and has to be unplugged and replugged and that's no go for an alarm but I'd figure I'd draft the routine anyways and discovered that Google took out the ability to add delays to routines and that annoyed me so I figure I'd check Alexa as amazon seems more committed to its projects and seems it handles gentle wake up better and setting custom names would help as the google homes on different rooms interfere with each other all the time and turns out gentle wake up only works for Phillips hue lights on google I didn't know that until I looked up the Alexa equivalent which seems to work with any light so I figure I'd try an echo but by God they are expensive now so I checked local stores and same price as Amazon though Walmart had an old one for a very very expensive price so I checked the local classifieds and they did have cheaper ones but not super cheap and a really long drive in a direction I don't travel despite tomorrow making a trip to the other side to get some proper plates from Ikea as we got square plates that my partners sister passed on when we moved in but they are horrible heavy and weirdly shaped so we were looking to find better ones and it looked like the cheapest good ones wre Ikea oftast despite them doubling in price since last year but they are good and like corelle and turns out corelle and oftast is just coloured and layered glass which is neat and I realized when I saw literal clear glass plates on Walmart online which I wanted but they ate expensive and hard to get as I guess they all cone from France anyways I couldn't get a cheap amazon echo locally so I checked ebay and restricted search to local countries as I don't want to wait for it go come from China or from a country where I'll need to buy a compatible wall plug and I saw a second gen for cheap with shipping but I didn't know if it was supported or if it was too old so I tried to find out but found nothing not even in the Amazon support pages so I guess it is but I closed the tab and had to search again and filter by region refused to show up on the search filters so I tried to get it to show up a few times then gave up and sorted by price+shipping and found a 4th gen echo dot that looked nicer and was nearly as cheap and is in my country with fast shipping and the description didn't have any red flags so I bought it and then I browsed the internet a bit as I was on my phone anyways and now my alarm goes off in four hours so I should probably try to sleep.
 
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Some degree of powerleveling, but this thread is full of it so who cares, I've got a medical condition that actively impacts my daily life and its fucking annoying. Can't do shit I usually would be, need to dedicate hours to doing nothing but treating it. Can't even see a doctor about it getting worse for another ten days or so because healthcare in this country is too slow. It's better than it was a bit ago, but it's dragging on so long. Shit sucks.
 
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Today I watched a short film by Jack Stauber. As surprising as it may be, I've never seen his works before. This film, OPAL, had me in tears after the second viewing.

This film is something I could only compare to Alfred's Playhouse by Emily Youcis. Don't be fooled, this film is incredibly dark. It gave me the same feeling as watching Alfred's Playhouse. Below is a more in-depth review I wrote, which does contain spoilers. See the film yourself first.


OPAL, on the first viewing, didn't make much sense to me. After watching it again, it struck me like a fucking train. It's about this girl, Claire, who tries to escape her neglectful home by spending all day in an attic room. She stares at a billboard of a burger restaurant, seeing a happy family on there. Picturing herself living in that family, with people who can see her. The ending really got me, as the camera zoomed out of the home to reveal that there was no "house across the street". It was just a sign.

Another little detail, among the tons of others that contribute to the pure genius of this film, is that when Claire is with her imaginary family, you can see the reflection of four lights in her eyes. Those four lights, I presume, are the billboard lights that she sees when staring at the sign. Just something interesting, I thought.

Also, the music in this film is fucking phenomenal. Jack Stauber is a very talented musician, as weird as the songs sound, they're real catchy, and, well, real. My favorite from this film is the song "So Easy to Breathe", about this sick, blind man who escapes by listening to the television. It's really saddening, and I can relate to some points from it. "Mirror Man" is an incredibly catchy song, which covers the rejection of a man by society for his looks. Again, it's too real. The last one, "Virtuous Cycle" is a short and extremely depressing song. At first I thought it was creepy, but it's just really sad. It's about a mother who wants a daughter, just to take care of her. Instead, she drowns in alcohol and drugs - which is something I can relate to on a damn near spiritual level, as I lost my mother to an overdose when I was young.

In short, this is one of the best things I've seen. It covers the neglect of children in a refreshingly clear way. It doesn't try to mask it behind metaphors, you just have to pay attention and it all comes together. I can watch Don't Hug Me I'm Scared or whatever scary/weird show you want to throw at me all day long. But this is a real issue in the world. There's no avoiding it, and tons of people have to live this life every single day. They all have an escape, just like Claire. They all want to be Opal, and it makes me want to cry, because you can never fool yourself. You are forced to wake up when you don't want to.

This is all coming from a 12 minute short by some fucking guy, and it's pure psychological horror. No jumpscares, just pure sadness.

"The best films don't make you ready to go the the next one; the best films linger in your head for weeks."
 
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Mesh Gear Fox said:
I feel your pain. I hate how all these people make OCD sound like some quirky thing, but it fucking sucks. It gets so bad sometimes its debilitating. Nothing quirky or fun about that.
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I suffer from chronic, "permanent" muscular tension in my body from being so used to contorting/straining myself to resist the OCD tics. its so irritating mate, people take peace of mind for granted, they couldnt imagine constantly struggling to do things that they want to do
 
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Stan said:
My grandma is in this same position; we talk about her health and I’m always getting news like “don’t be alarmed, but she has symptoms of vertigo and the doctors think she could have a heart attack if they don’t keep her for observation over the weekend and change her meds.” She used to love to sew, but between macular degeneration and the vertigo she can’t.

She’s 85 but it still feels too soon for this to be the end of her story. Her own mom made it past 100 dammit! Sometimes I feel scared to talk to her because it reminds me of the impending loss… what dysfunctional anticipatory grief that is, avoiding her because I’m afraid she will die soon. I’m sure I’ll regret it in years to come.
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I'm sorry if this is unwelcome, but the first paragraph really resonated with me because I heard the same about my own grandma for a long time and she also found it super hard to knit and sew but still focused on it as much as she was able to.

Mine was in her early 80s when she died, but she was ill for about 15 years before that happened and I remember leaning into the fear of her eventually dying upon finding out about her health issues and using it to get closer to her in a way- knowing that she was getting older, I spent more time with her, skyped her more, asked her more questions, and we actually got even closer through it. In my opinion, the pain of a loved family member dying is always initially unbearable, but the memories you've made with them are healing in a certain capacity. We got closer, so I learnt a bunch about her side of the family, and thus my own family history- silly things such as the kind of meals they'd sit down to, but also things like the way my great-grandpa used to laugh, and the family dog's name, as well as the tips her mother gave her about childbirth and raising children. I learnt silly stories about how some middle names were chosen, I learnt the secret to her pastry dough for our Christmas meal- just a bunch of things I'd have wondered about if I hadn't spent those privileged last years actively learning about her life, her memories, and her experience of the world. I even have a handwritten cookbook of her recipes that she worked through for me over a whole year when I mentioned wanting to know how she made her butter tarts, when her hands weren't so fucked up anyway. It's in her own handwriting and with her own drawings in them, and I cherish it so much.

We're different people so this might confirm that you definitely shouldn't talk to her, but I am so so so thankful I chose to enjoy and celebrate her life and knowledge with her whilst she was able to.
 
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I could be better. Been rather unwell for the past few days. I think a mixture of work stress, court case stress, and the idiocy of fancying my best friend (who does not, and probably never will fancy or love me back). Spent most of the past two days sleeping on and off with hardly any energy.
 
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I finally got my pot rack on the wall and hung all my pans from it and spent part of the day reorganizing my cupboards. it is a lot better, but mu spice cabinet is still a mess as I haven't found a good spice organization system yet. I want to get a set of tupperware spice shakers but they're hard to get and expensive, and i haven't found any particularly good alternatives.
 
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I've been thinking a lot about my friend that cut contact with me a while back. For the first while I've been blaming myself a lot, thinking things like, "what did I do wrong?" or "what's wrong with me?", but now I think I've moved on to the next stage which is accepting that not everything was my fault. Were there things I could have done better? Absolutely, but punishing myself over things that were out of my control or were not on my end is retarded. Looking back there were definitely grievances against them that I had that I kept quiet about for a long time.

In a lot of adult cartoons and other media these days it seems like self deprecation is a popular personality trait among a lot of characters. In it of itself I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but when it's only showing one side of the coin it can turn really toxic. Learning to stop blaming yourself is another important side to recognize. Friendship is a two way street, if the other side isn't willing to acknowledge your grievances it's time to reassess the situation.

I guess the takeaway from my experience don't be too critical about yourself, because more often than not, it's not all your fault. Once you get over the fear of being alone it gets a lot better.
 
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