Started my first week of work since I got addicted to heroin and fell into a crisis a few years ago, finally back on track in a major and definitive way, and work is going very well, just wrapped up my second day!

Had a busy weekend, my brother was in town with his family so spent the last 48 hours with them. Love them, but they are pretty exhausting lol. This week at work is looking to be pretty chill, so all in all, not bad. Hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead!

I love seeing your weekly readings. Always found interesting topics through your posts!

I’m currently embarking on Matthew B. Crawford’s “The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction”…super interesting ideas here.

Just came back from my parents to cuddle our family dog one last time before she'll be euthanised this Friday. It was rough. I love her so much and she's been there for such an essential part of my life (12-27). I'm going to miss her so much. I'm happy she got to have a long and happy life, but I'm also glad she won't have to live in pain anymore - her back joints are completely worn out. Combined with the reduced vision and hearing and incontinence, I'm sure it's her time to go. It's just hard :(

I remember having to unsub from r/dogpictures back when I was on reddit because 80% was just pics of 'this is my dog who just died' - it's just too much. So I won't do the same to you by posting pics here, but anyone who wants a cute doggo pic is welcome to dm me 🐕

loki (australian shepherd) ran four courses at an agility trial. and by that i mean he got in the ring, did a few obstacles, and rolled around on the turf every.single.time. silly boy. i guess this explains why he's gotten most of his qualifying scores on the dirt courses, hah.

echo (border collie) passed her CGC evaluation! she'll get her certificate and ribbon on thursday. she also came with me to the agility trial and waited quietly ringside. i'm planning to get her CGCA (canine good citizen advanced) title next, and i've also got her set up to start agility lessons with a different trainer next month. i love my current trainer, but i think she lacks teaching foundational skills, and we really need that.

i may be pet sitting for a well-known author's brother in may, so that's neat!

in non-dog news, i've got an appointment with a new primary care doc today to hopefully sort out whatever has been going on with my knee these past few years. it's usually fine, but i biked ~30 miles last weekend and it flared up again.

Busy weekend, a Michelin star chef friend of ours dropped off a great little pig to add to our amazing decor, another couple from Ireland dropped off some rhubarb so Im making a conserve for sunday to go with the Southern biscuits. We finish up tomorrow with Taco Tuesday & a couple days off. Have a pork belly & skin in dry cure with toasted spices & brown sugar, got the piglet coming on Wednesday & start prepping for the Frogmore Stew & Pig Pick'n Sunday... gonna be damn good

My roommates keep leaving all the dishes in the sink. Like why can't you keep them in your bed like a normal person.

Chugging through the week, but work is looking pretty chill so far and the phones aren't too loud, so I'm grateful. My garden is looking good so far, really pleased with my kale. I keep grabbing my wife and going "look, it's taking off!" at least every day, lol. Some of my other seed trays are doing their own thing too, and it's giving me something to look forward to this summer. It's usually so fucking hot here, but that should make for spicier peppers >:D

Went to the farmer's market on Saturday, which was great. We usually try to sleep in, but waking up early let us take back our weekend a little bit and we came home with some locally grown teas and other goodies.

Dreamed about mom the other night. It didn't ruin my day the way the first dream did though. It actually became lucid because I knew it couldn't possibly be real, so it was kind of neat. I woke up and wrote a poem about it.

when I knew

that it was a dream

I stepped out into the night

and flew away

Upgraded my network to Wi-Fi 7, upgraded my NAS to 2.5gbe, reconfigured my torrent setup. This was all to distract me from the new girl who called and tried to break up with me on Sunday 😔 poly woes. I think I've figured out what I want to tell her next weekend but this really sucks because she said she wanted something serious and seemed interested but then I was maybe too enthusiastic? I dunno I'm really confused on this one

I finished my new^2 NAS last week (for the most part). Everything has been gracefully moved over, and now I just need to tear the entire thing apart again so I can dremel out a PCI slot so it'll fit a graphics card. I'm great at planning ahead. :D

I'm a little disappointed at myself, to be honest. I was supposed to have a hematologist appointment on Wednesday, but I rescheduled it for early next month. For the last few years, I've been fighting to get my chronic fatigued treated because its generating a whole tree of issues (its preventing me from progressing my life forward, I'm pretty sure its the cause of my depression, etc) - however no one has been able to figure it out because no one actually wants to take an in-depth look as to what it might be. They just run a simple CBC on my blood and say "Nope, looks all fine".

Well, to be quite frank, I'm just not ready to organize leaving the house on Wednesday (I don't have a car, so I have to get transportation scheduled from my insurance company) and expend all that energy, just to then be disappointed when the hematologist is 99% likely to say "There's nothing wrong that I can see", then I have to organize a trip to actually get back home. It turns what is a 15 minute appointment into a whole 3-4 hour ordeal. They don't offer telehealth appointments, sadly, or else I wouldn't mind at least talking to the doctor.

I only pushed it back a little bit till early next month, but I'm just not ready for the disappointment this week, it was causing me a ton of anxiety just even thinking about it over the weekend.

I know that I shouldn't be disappointed in myself because at the end of the day its my choice and that I shouldn't feel ashamed for it, but that doesn't change the fact that its how I feel regardless - so in reality, I traded anxiety for more grief and disappointment in myself rather than disappointment in the doctors.

Built a new PC for my wife and I, first I've done in over a decade. Mini ITX boards are wicked cute but it did start feeling a little cramped by the end. I also built a little egg washing station to hopefully save me some time cleaning eggs this year.

That title takes me back to The X-Files, I never watched past the fourth episode but man, that episode is so good. It's the one when we first understand where "I want to believe" comes from for Moulder.

My week is still going, Wednesday today. Mon and Tues sucked cuz I live in an underdeveloped country and the town transformer died so no electricity for two days. It's back now and I have started Rise of the Tomb Raider on my potato PC while listening to A Short History of Nearly Everything!

Uni started this week as well, mediocre so far.

Mostly ok! I'm just officially grads, so trying to get used to new routine and stuff. Fighting with myself during both my high and low but I think I'm doing alright and it should improve soon.

Mine has been going alright. I learned that I need to work on my conversational skills. I just don't know how because when discussing topics in my head it flows easily, but when trying to say my thoughts out loud, I just blank out.

I know I wasn't all like this when I was younger, but now I need to pause after each word to come up with this sentence.

So, I'll try being more active in commenting instead of lurking to help my words flow.

Everything is going really downhill tbh. I'm trying to do some stuff to fix it. Hopefully it helps. I'm kinda close to a yet another depression now

Very tired still due to my overexertion, but I feel like I'm finally back in the headspace where I can hopefully pay more attention to the spoons I've got.

Already feel better than I did earlier, so horizon looks good right now.

It's been an emotional rollercoaster... My friend group has been together and all talking again for the first time in a long time. It was soft and cozy at first, but now I remember how goddamn dysfunctional this group is.

A woman irl invited me to her D&D group, and I was elated because I really need a more grounded, offline social life. But they can't work with my schedule.

I've tried to meet other people, but my neighbor is too needy and only talks about himself, and my coworker almost immediately joked about me being a pedophile because I talked about watching my niece and nephew.

I really want offline friends. Maybe I'm the problem?

Got a new router. Frustrated. I hate networking shit.

~~I live in a shitty part of the world where it's not uncommon for power to go out, so I have a backup UPS/power bank for my current router.~~

~~When new one is plugged into power bank, it powers on fine, but for some reason won't register the WAN cable as connected. Plugged directly into socket? Suddenly the cable is connected.~~

~~I legitimately don't fucking understand this. Even tried another power bank with more juice, and same result.~~

~~It's very annoying. I've needed a new router for years because the one I've been using is like a decade old, has zero firmware updates, and feels insecure all round. It's also really low on features and I can't even change the fucking username for logging into the device.~~

~~So this has been a fun two days of troubleshooting.~~

Sometimes I hate technology, if I'm being honest.

Edit: Lol, fuck all that shit. Turns out it had trouble keeping a stable connection with the cable regardless of power source, so seems I was just "lucky" the first time I switched them.

Weird that the cable works fine and is locked in on my other router, though. Finicky on this one. Return it, I shall. Still, technology has been having a lot of fun fucking with me over the last two years. At this point I'm afraid to buy any new tech.

On the work front, I absolutely had no motivation to do anything on Thursday or Friday. Like I just sat in my chair all at home, sitting on social media/news/games. I really try not to play games during the workday, but I was just completely sapped of all motivation. Idk what the deal was with that. Not like the first half of last week was a hard work, either. At least, I was able to find some motivation and work on some things today.

I finally bought a UPS for my homelab server. Only 3-4yrs after first getting the server and like 6mo since a momentary voltage sag from the wall/mains power caused the server to shutdown unexpected and corrupt one of my VMs (at least, that's what I think happened). And this UPS even interfaces with ESXi to automatically -- and ideally, gracefully -- shutdown in case of a loss of power. I think I'll test that this weekend.

Also did and filed my taxes yesterday (Sunday). At like 5am. Because what else is there to do at 5am on a Sunday, other than taxes? 🤷🏽‍♂️

Not too bad.

I do have to be physically in the office two consecutive days this week, where usually I only have to be in for one day total, so thinking about that makes me feel pretty tired.

BUT, I like my job, so it could be worse.

Thursday was a busy, exhausting day, that ended in misery for me. I still feel pretty miserable. I at least think more than usual. I'm trying to use the weekend to recover somewhat. Maybe like most weekends. What a life. Maybe I'm very pessimistic right now.

Before Thursday I at least had a routine where the misery was not so active and pronounced but only subliminal.

I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about how much I don't want to be alive while the whole world falls apart around me. I've been trying to get an appointment set up with a psychologist who can maybe diagnose me and get me medicated, but every single one I've called has said they're either booked up or not prescibing meds at this time. If I lose my job, I will be waiting until the money runs out to kill myself.