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The local universal unitarian church has a combo online/outdoor service (with good weather) and I am going to check it out this morning. I've known about the online option but don't have much interest in skype/zoom church. 1) perhaps I have played on roll20 too much but videoconferencing is simply not as good and weirdly draining - I think I would just feel more lonely - and 2) our hamster powered internet might make it an exercise in frustration anyway. So I've been waiting for an in person option. Maybe zoom church works better if you're already a known member. Not so good for noobs.
I found out there is a UU congregation even in backwater wyoming where we might land, and I figure that's a pretty good sign. If we can connect with a UU community even in hard red hat territory we can meet some tolerant people and hopefully make friends. The whole past 18 months I've been thinking we need to connect more in person and abandon social media online faux community, and this is how we're going to do it. Hippie church.
I've never been to a universal unitarian service. I did live in a quaker intentional community for a year, even though I wasn't quaker. I got real fond of the quakers though and if I were forced to participate in a particular religion, I'd go quaker without hesitation. Quakers have a long history of promoting sanity in the world. The meeting I was associated with was super tolerant and they didn't even care if people believed in god or not. I really liked the quakers. So I'm hoping I might get a similar vibe from the UUs. If a quaker meeting is available I might check that out too, but one way or another, I am gonna find the community minded hippies and latch on like a tick. Spouse and I need friends. We need to have direct involvement in the community where we land. I'm hoping a UU group is a good start.
I got a rebound headache on thursday. Sometimes if I get a bad headache on my right side I'll get a less severe headache on my left a week later or so. I was still able to draw with it, just slowed me down. Discouraging. I've started to wonder if my hormones are going out of whack because I am approaching the big M word stage of life and that's why the headaches have been more intense. Like, I just figured out this crazy rollercoaster ride and now it's changing on me? You've got to be fucking kidding. Like it's this unspoken taboo thing. Well we get periods but we're all properly ashamed of having because they're gross and then eventually the periods stop and we REALLY don't talk about that because then it means we're old and barren. Hooray. And as someone who spent a lot of money to be barren, the fact that I've still internalized the "first rule of the big M is you don't talk about the big M" attitude is perplexing. Anyway yesterday I went to whole foods and got some so called "hormone balancing" herbal supplements and we'll give those a try in the next month or two. Honestly I just want to get some decent sleep. I got some valerian and some evening primrose and some black cohosh. Between the hormones and Cat being an obnoxious random alarm clock I just don't seem to be sleeping well and it sucks. Melatonin has not worked for me in the past, but valerian has helped. So here we go again playing supplement roulette. Wheeeee. (I do think the thiamine and other B vitamins have real benefit, and the potassium most definitely helps, but obvs it's not a silver bullet so I continue to experiment.)
I got our thanksgiving and christmas turkeys. I like to get a smaller turkey that has the wings and legs removed so it fits in the instant pot, and only a particular store has them reliably. Spouse says they will let him leave Hogwarts for the holidays so I want to make sure I can make us a delicious feast. I try to buy our turkey and supplies early anyway, because the grocery store is always a war zone on thanksgiving week, but this year there is definitely a "musical chairs" vibe in the air. Someone may be too slow and miss out. Contrariwise, if CNN is banging the drum about shortages I wonder if they're just trying to pied piper us into early mass consumption to boost the economy. Oh no there will be no christmas presents left! Buy now! By the time things filter to CNN you know it's only stuff the corporate powers want the herd beasts to know ("CNN: if you're reading it here first, you're probably oblivious"). But regardless if there are real shortages or stimulated ones, the end result is someone may end up with no turkey and I would prefer it not be us. I almost made a tactical blunder because I forgot I have all those walnut hulls taking up space in the freezer, ha ha, but I was able to tetris the two small turkeys in there somehow.
We're not going to talk about inktober today because it's not going well. I need to buckle down and make some serious catch up effort and so far all my catch up efforts have been sad failures. So the odds are not good and I know they're not good and that sure doesn't help. I kinda got borked right out of the gate. My idiot optimistic side chirps that this is an extra beneficial challenge to really make sure I really understand the lessons of overcoming discouragement and I kinda want to pitch that side of myself off the balcony. Go fuck yourself, self. We're halfway through the challenge and it's buckle down or give up time. Sigh.
Last night spouse said that the more time he spends around other people the more he likes me. :-) Which makes me super happy because I have certainly not been at my best the past couple of years. We have had an excess of time together during this pandemic so it's pretty great to still want to be around each other and not be like "thank god I finally got a break from that person". I figured we'd be fine being separate for 5 months, especially since we both have goals we are working on, but it's good to feel like the relationship is strengthening with distance.
Gotta go, gonna be late for hippie church.