I went for a walk today. In a clump of bamboo near the lawn, someone had hung up one of those pre-made birds' nests handwoven from coir fibre. And there was a baby bird in it! It looked like a fluff of cotton with two legs attached, and it was yet to grow feathers anywhere other than its tail. It visibly pulsed when it breathed, and when it cheeped, it pulsed extra hard, like a musical instrument. It was so darling.

I stood there and watched it, and a passersby, a woman, asked what I was looking at. I pointed out the bird to her and she was surprised. She wondered aloud whether the nest had been built by a bird or a human, and then replied to herself by saying it looked like a human-made one someone had put there. I agreed with her, and she went on her way.

Another passersby, a little boy carrying a bag with schoolbooks, asked me the same question, what I was looking at, and I told him. He was overjoyed, but it all went downhill from there. He said he'd tear the nest apart and take the bird, and I told him it would die. He said he'd take it home, nest and all, and I said he wouldn't know what to feed it. It was one of those tiny birds that drink nectar. He said, "I'll feed it grains of rice and if it vomits, it vomits." I said it would die if he couldn't feed it properly, and it needed to grow right here in its nest, taught to feed and fly by its parents, for it to leave the nest and survive. He said that if it was allowed to do that it would leave, that he'd take it home and close all the windows so it wouldn't leave. I'm summarising, but he was a little boy of nine or ten years old, yet the language he was using was violent. He could see that the bird was little more than fluff, so so fragile. And it ruined everything to hear that his first desire on seeing something so vulnerable and soft was a desire for ownership and control. Why is masculinity. And so young?!

My first thought after that was that my joys shouldn't be shared, after all, that my joys should be protected. I don't know how far that's true, but it feels true right now 🤷🏻‍♀️ perhaps Dreamwidth is the place to share my joys because people can be so disappointing IRL. Anyway, I told him that if he even touched the bird, its parents would push it out and it would die, because birds think humans touching their babies will give their babies disease. I told him even touching an egg will make them abandon it. He was shocked by that, and it was strange seeing him shocked by that when he wasn't shocked by the shocking things he was saying. Anyhow, I think that made enough of an impression on him that he won't try any of the things he threatened. I didn't feel entirely at ease leaving the nest unguarded to come home, but I can't practically spend all day there. I'd also stopped enjoying my walk and wanted to come home. So here I am, home, writing about it.

Well, none of this changes the fact that the little baby bird is the tiniest fluffy bundle of joy!

It was raining outside, a slanting shower, and when I stood out on the balcony to watch, I saw a frog hopping around. It was an ambitious one. It wanted to hop over the bricked ledge that hems in the bushes. It couldn't jump high enough, but after hopping along for a bit, it would try again. Until it came to some plants in individual pots and disappeared behind them, finally getting the cover of green I suppose it wanted.

I finished drafting Chapter One of Fangs Out for Blood, the sequel to Bloodhunt Academy (and book two of the duology). I'm enjoying the... slow drip of dopamine? That comes of hitting a writing milestone, and I'm remembering that I enjoy writing!

Moontime is due on the 17th and I'm not PMSing this time around. It's amazing. I've been seed cycling regularly since my last period (I have the time now that I'm technically jobless) and this is the result. No constant rage. No nightmares. No remembering every single time anyone has ever done me wrong. No hot flushes. No cramps. None of the symptoms I suffered a week, sometimes two weeks in advance of my period. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my flow is lighter this time.

A DW friend has been sending me memes on Discord and it's the second thing that made me grin today (the first thing being every attempt the frog made, undaunted, to leap over the Great Wall).

My book has only been out for a day and I've already had an epiphany: that it's not just being employed that makes me depressed, it's also thinking about the prospect of earning money, or I should say, the prospect of doing something to earn money on purpose. If I earn money by accident, I'll be happy.

But how do I Survive if trying to earn money (rather than money coming as a consequence albeit not the main intended consequence) makes me depressed?? Like??? I asked Vara on our walk today after trying not to relapse ALL DAY and Vara said, "Maybe you're finding that what you thought to be truth might have been an assumption." Like!!!

THE LAST TIME I WROTE A BOOK, I DID NOT HAVE A WHOLE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS, SO WHY NOW. As soon as I think about whether this book will profit, or earn out, or earn at all, I'm very blue, as blue as the bottom of the ocean where the sun doesn't reach. I thought it's because of a lack of hope at first, but really it's about everything above. Whenever I'm doing something, whatever it is, I don't want to have to think about money. I don't want to feel anxiety about spending. I don't want to feel anxiety about earning. Spending five years in the formal workforce didn't help my anxiety about either. Having been laid off from the workforce and existing as I am now isn't helping my anxiety about either.

Also early readers have been telling me that the book reads like fanfiction and I'm heartily saying, "Then I have accomplished what I have set out to," that is, prioritise pleasure; but when getting these reactions I remembered this tumblr post about fanfiction. Especially this bit:

fandom exists in a completely different environment—an unacademic one—a rare non-monetary one—so the metrics for value are completely different. And if you stuff fanworks into containers of capitalistic consumption, you're gonna be very frustrated. "But was that journal entry good?" "But was that meal among friends good?" "Was that time we spent in the idea that I shared good?"

I am aware that I should be compensated for the labour of writing this book, and that I need money to live, but
I Also Wish The Metrics For Value Were Completely Different.

I have been feeling strangely isolated as of late, despite actually socialising. Usually this feeling would go away if I went to my Reading page, but it hasn't.

I've gone on a walk with Vara. That was last week, but it was nice, and usually I can go longer without getting lonely. Especially as I have done other social things since!

After X-pole started selling poles in India, someone I know from the pole studio I had to quit bought her own pole and started classes. I've been going to her to train, and that's a roughly weekly thing where I talk to her as well. She has just the one pole so she doesn't do group classes yet (group classes were one avenue where I'd meet new people, possible future friends). However, my instructor organised a get-together of pole girls, including her students, and I met a new friend, Nikki. We went and got cheesecake together and talked for two hours! It was lovely.

I also had a real-time discord typechat with a DW friend recently. So the data says I am connected, but I feel disconnected and I don't know why.

It feels different from the loneliness I used to struggle with before, because back then it felt like, life-threatening. Like an animal fear. But now it just feels like vaguely melancholic discomfort. I decided to write about it here because I've also had weeks of isolation without feeling any discomfot at all, especially when I was editing Bloodhunt Academy and doing little else. There are periods of writing that feel like Hermit mode and also feel comfortable. My theory is that I might feel differently once I'm deep into writing Book Two.

Sometimes it feels like the only way I'll know I'm not stuck in a timefreeze is by measuring the progress in my writing. I don't know if it's my brain, my circumstances, or the state of Everything, but thinking about a future is making me anxious instead of hopeful right now. I think it's definitely partly because tomorrow I'm launching the book and will have to reckon with how it does on the market, but it's also Everything in General. Like, TikTok kind of intimidates me, but is supposed to pair well with KU. I did a tarot reading asking about whether I should venture onto Booktok and drew Justice. At first I didn't know what to make of it, then cursory YouTube research enlightened me. About the new ownership it's going to pass into and associated legal agreements and political implications and... yeah. Now I know exactly why the Justice card showed up.

I don't even know how to explain what this anxiety is. It's not even my country and yet it's affecting Everybody. There's a certain amount of dread that I can't seem to disconnect from, unless I don't think about anything in practical terms at all, unless I stick to escapism, not even once in a while but All the Time. I've been meaning to post about k-dramas and CIX, and I haven't been able to, and I think it's because these feelings were in the bottleneck.

Well, tomorrow I'll do a launch post for Bloodhunt Academy and then I'll do the posts for all the fun escapisms I've been escaping into, now that this post has cleared the way, or something.

There's so many 'I think' and 'it feels like' in this post because nothing feels... certain or like it makes sense? I'm not sure. I don't know. How did my understanding of myself and my inner life fall apart like this when I'm literally spending more time with myself and my own thoughts than I have in years? I'm struggling to articulate anything going on within me. I'm also struggling to think about anything going on outside of me, except for random spurts of rage, which also aren't very logical or articulate. For example, someone has an opinion that is so harmful to people, that I don't even think about how to counter it or fight it with words, I just want to rip their tongue out and shove it down their throat until they choke and take their dangerous self out of this world. I don't want to have a moral high ground, I'm just angry and fantasising about violence feels like justice.

EDIT: That was not the note I wanted to end on, so. One thing about being in what feels like a timefreeze is that I'm trying to notice the things that seem unchanging? Mostly that's the critters I see on my walk in the apartment complex. The squirrels and cats and birds.