Well, my finger is still healing. The immediate hurt and swelling slowly reduced in exchange for color. That color is now centering around what appears to be the source of the injury and fading away elsewhere. I still don’t really know what happened, but it certainly looks like it hurts. And yes, to the touch, it does. Add a general ache and stiffness for the ambiance. You always hope these things heal fast but it seems I’ve got a while to go.

I finished reorganizing my closet, though. Since I moved here it’s been 100% used for storage and hasn’t been adequately functional as a closet. While there’s still a lot going on, I can finally use a good portion of it as an actual closet. Ironically I’m in the season where using it as a closet isn’t as needed – warmer weather clothes are in drawers – but I’m sure I’ll appreciate the change for a while regardless. It feels more flowy, like I have more space even though the space itself hasn’t changed.

I can’t make promises because of my finger and need for a truck, but the next major related step here is to take what I pulled out of there plus what else I pulled aside to a donation place. I did, however, transfer enough items around so I’ve reduced the cardboard boxes to just a few necessary ones and recycled the rest. That really helped for morale. After last year’s issues with bugs (not in my closet or anywhere near it, thankfully) I had it in the back of my mind that I needed to put my stuff into plastic bins wherever possible and get rid of the cardboard just in case the bug issue spread. I had a few empty plastic bins, so that was the obvious solution. And now most of the cardboard is out of there and the closet is cleaner and functional and what joy to be had.

I also have a “hall” closet, probably meant for things like jackets and brooms but it’s in an awkward spot so it’s just general bulky storage for things I only need a couple times a year. That, too, could be gone through. With my finger situation, probably that’s a bad idea right now. Perhaps after it heals.

In going through everything, I pulled out photo albums and that led to a partial bookshelf reorganization. I skimmed over what was there and felt all levels of weird about what I was looking at. All these people and situations and places that don’t exist anymore. For what isn’t just in my head now (because they died) the situations changed in a negative way. It reminded me that when I was around 22 years old I decided it was time to distance myself from toxic people even if it meant being alone all of the time. And so it goes, that’s what happened. A few years later I was trying to find my people again as I realized the more recent batch didn’t seem to give two shits what I said or did even if they weren’t actively toxic, and for a bit there I thought I was doing okay, but these days I wonder how successful I actually was. A lot of those newer people who I thought were close to the same page as I was or were otherwise interesting turned out to be, in short, incorrect choices. Lately I’m wondering often how much gender plays into that, of how even for what about me is neutral or unrelated to gender or disinterested in playing along with gender shit, I still come across as femme, which seems to be a persistent issue of not being taken seriously or altogether ignored. In instances where I’ve approached friendship or just simply talked to people, the vibe is “oh, a girl” and here comes a bunch of shit I don’t want, whether it’s roping me off to a zone where my input and experience and even self knowledge lacks value, or turning me into a cartoon character going on in their head about women. Really don’t want to carry that feeling into the future. But, for now, I’m stalled, staring at photos of old lives wondering how that can be true but this life can also be true, wishing I had parts of those lives again while knowing what awful shit was going on around them.

In all of this cleaning I continued to keep up with the lunar flyby. That was an incredible experience of joy I completely forgot was a thing that could happen. Been so much mud and slog and persistent disappointment and yet more terrible “unprecedented” news for so long. The war going on in the middle east (omg which one when) has me concerned, especially as it’s becoming a global issue. Counterbalancing that with ten days of persistent joy, wonder, hope for the future… I wish I could bottle those days up and take a drink anytime I need it. I lost count in a hurry how many times I cried. I wish it had been the stand-out news everyone was seeing, but based on social media and headlines those few days, the world is largely concentrated on a bunch of dickhead egos. Here’s hoping this “moon joy” grows into the future, continues to inspire, and we manifest destiny science on schedule.

Meanwhile I’m in a mental space of mild experimentation, trying to inject more color into my life again. I bought more plants over the last couple of months. I haven’t seen bugs near my plants in a while and that’s a concern but so far so good. A $1 strawberry starter currently just bloomed – yay – and my new coleus plants are doing fine. Most of the seeds/bulbs I planted aren’t doing anything yet, but one pot that I think I planted bell peppers in sprouted and is growing. I think the rest should be sprouting in the next week or two if the internet didn’t lie to me, though perhaps it’s still a little too cold. I also got some pothos starters and those seem fine so far. I’ve been told over and over those are good low light “easy” plants, so here’s hoping. I’ve run out of space for everything so I may need to move a pot or two elsewhere, but for now with everything new on the smaller side, they’re fine.

I also pulled out posters and put them on the wall. And I rearranged decor. And I, in lieu of just going to the thrift store and buying one of two dozen choices of blue jeans, bought some cheaper colorful jeans. I wore a pair of plaid jeans for a while ten years ago that were great, so hopefully my precious ego that can barely handle being perceived can handle the switch-up in the event that I actually wear them outside. It’s also a change from the constant choice of soft pants and/or no pants, but it’s a lot harder to find soft pants at the thrift store and the internet choices are largely polyester or polyester blends that feel too thin for the public much of the time. Could go the way of fancy, flowing summer pants but baby steps. I’m still coming from sweatpants and bike shorts most of the time.

The next logical thing for me would normally be dying my hair, but I need my finger to work for that.

Next on the menu should be spacing out to video games, but same. Finger. I can type reasonably okay but it’s not cool with that much intention. So perhaps getting back to watching movies again. Last year’s overdose of movies smacking into awards season seems to have burnt me out on the idea a bit. What do you mean sit still for two whole hours? I know once I get to watching something it’s fine but the idea of being trapped in a story that long beforehand is a difficult concept to wrestle with. So maybe I watch two hours of shorts, or five 25 minute youtube videos… because that totally makes sense.

Music is there. I’ll be typing about it soon enough. To be fair, I already did a lot of that typing, but life happened and then my finger was like lol viva la chaos *randomly explodes*.