Author: Alyxander James

Small Smiles

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Hello, dear readers – I’m back! I took the last two weeks off because of some weirdness with the site that still isn’t resolved, really, but if I take any more time off I’ll be thoroughly out of the habit of blogging, so here we are.

I haven’t had a particularly eventful few weeks, either, so I haven’t felt like I have a lot to write about. This weekend is going to involve a solo road trip, so details on that will follow next week, I’m sure.

In the absence of profound thoughts, here are some things that have made me smile recently:

  • I’ve gotten a fair bit of knitting done lately, and only about a third of it has been for me, which is unusual. I’m working on a hat for a friend, and I knit a little vest and a stuffed spider for our friends’ baby. (The adults all agreed the spider was cute, but it scared the baby…oops!) I had so much fun making the spider that I made another one for my arachnophobic self:

I think she looks like Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.

  • The details of my first ever work trip out of state are being finalized, and I’m more excited than I thought I’d be. I’ll be in DC in mid-May for a few days. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to get away from the conference and see the city, but I haven’t been to DC since I was in high school, so I’m looking forward to it.
  • The D&D group I’ve been in for a bit over a year now just had our last big session over the weekend – one of our players is moving out of the country. It’s sad to know that we’re not continuing with these characters we’ve gotten to know and love (although we’ll still have the occasional one-shot game, I’m sure), but the whole experience of this game has been so great. We all meshed really well and could play off each other and consistently took the story in interesting directions. I love nerds.

Like I said, solo road trip this weekend (for reasons I’ll explain next week), so I’m sure next week I’ll have stories to tell. Meanwhile, what’s been making you smile lately, friends?

Tired All the Time

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Hello, dear readers, and apologies for the slightly late blog today.

I called off sick today. It feels like I’ve been doing this a lot lately, although usually when I don’t go into the office, I’m working from home. But today I decided I needed a day to just not worry about work and catch up on some rest. So here I am, at home, listening to the most recent episode of the Gender Reveal podcast, and writing a blog post.

I have felt so tired so constantly lately. I know some of it has been pain-related (chronic pain is exhausting, y’all), and some of it is just that I’ve been busy, and some of it has been the weird weather. It’s made it hard to get myself into the office, and hard to do work once I’m there. It’s been hard to find the energy to get things done around the house. The shift to Daylight Savings Time was rough – while I enjoy the longer daylight in the evening, mornings have been really hard to handle now that they’re darker again. But I’m trudging through, hoping my internal equilibrium levels off again soon.

In addition to being tired all the time, here are some other things that I have on my mind right now:

  • I’m encouraged by the fact that spring officially arrived yesterday. Spring means allergies, which is not my favorite thing, but I love watching the return to green every year. I’ve seen a few green shoots poking through the ground, and I’ve seen robins hopping around the neighborhood, and it feels like I can breath deeply for the first time in a while (at least until the allergies start up).
  • One of the things I’m learning in therapy right now is that I need to celebrate the things that are going right in my life, and the things I’m doing well. I’m not great at this – I’m really good at looking at where I fall short, even in the moments that are largely successful. So I’ve been trying to celebrate little things, whether it’s with a glass of wine or reaching out to friends or something else, and it feels weird, but it’s good.
  • I got a letter from my grandmother yesterday, and I’m thinking a lot about my relationship with her and what I want to do about it. I haven’t seen her in almost seven years, and she’s 91. There are a lot of feelings there that I’m still parsing out.

Doing the Scary Things

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It’s Thursday and it feels like it’s already been a long week.

Over the weekend, my partner and I moved 16 bags of donations out of our apartment. We also went to IKEA and got a new bookshelf. It was an overwhelming weekend, but it feels so much nicer in our apartment now.

I don’t want to go into details just yet, but I did a hard, scary thing at work on Monday and Tuesday. It went better than I expected it to, and if things continue to work out, it’ll mean some positive change in my work life.

One of the things that made this hard was that I am not great at advocating for myself. I’m also not great at admitting to myself or anyone else when I need help/need to be advocated for.

I feel very lucky to have a partner and many friends who have my back and gently but firmly nudge me toward doing the things that will make my life better. Special thanks this week to friend K for pointing me in the direction of good resources and for helping me clarify what I needed.

This also just happens to be a really packed week outside of work: therapy, volunteering, hanging out with friends, playing D&D. It would have been even busier, but a couple of things were canceled last-minute. It’s a lot, and while it’s pretty much all good things, they’re still things that take energy. I’m tired.

Tired, but grateful. Grateful for good friends and a patient partner. Grateful for the slow but hopefully real turn toward spring. And grateful for that new IKEA bookcase, which has expanded our library into something really beautiful.

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I’m sitting on the bus on my way to work Thursday morning, and I am not really sure what to write about. It hasn’t been a terribly eventful week. Truthfully, I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain and trying to navigate that reality. But there have been some bright spots, too. For example:

  • Friday night we had a chance to knit with a couple of friends for the first time in a while. I finished a pair of socks that I’d started two years ago, so that felt like an accomplishment.
  • Sunday night was the class showcase for the songwriting class I was in in January and February. I am always so impressed by the work that comes out of those songwriting classes, and that community is something truly special. I am grateful to be a part of it.
  • Last night I started taking a banjo class, and I am very excited about it. The instructor is a friend and an excellent teacher, and the class promises to be a lot of fun.

February Reflections

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It’s the final day of February, and I’m tired. But it’s been an interesting month. Here are some highlights:

  • FAWM, obviously. Unless I miraculously get something done tonight, I’m ending the month with sixteen new songs, plus two that I co-wrote with my partner. I’m pleased with the majority of my songs, and I’m really happy with how our co-writes came out. Collaborating was a new experience for us, and neither of us was sure how it would go.
  • I started seeing a new therapist. It’s going really well.
  • I had some really good times hanging out with friends – I didn’t let FAWM completely take over my life. We had a visit from a Minnesota friend, a birthday party, and I got to play D&D. I am frequently reminded how great my people are. I’m a very lucky queer.

I’m looking forward to getting our apartment back under control in March, and hopefully sleeping more.

14 Songs

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I hit my goal of 14 songs for FAWM on Monday. Fourteen songs in eighteen days – I’m pretty pleased with those numbers. There’s still about a week left in February, so we’ll see how many more I can get done before the month is out.

Things I’ve learned or relearned so far this month:

  • Showing up is the hardest (and most important) part. I learned this last year during FAWM, and while I haven’t put it as much into practice as I’d like, I’m getting there. I think creative folks can easily fall into the trap of waiting around for inspiration to hit and avoid doing creative work because it just doesn’t feel like the right time, but the thing is…if you want inspiration to show up, you need to show up first. The times I have been most prolific have been the ones where I set aside an hour specifically for writing, and then just wrote. Sometimes I hit dead ends, yes – but not as often as I expected to. More often I found that inspiration caught up with me and I was able to write some interesting and unexpected things.
  • FAWM is fun on its own, but it’s way more fun if you know people from outside the internet who are doing it. My partner has been participating this year, as well as some other friends, and it’s so great to have a little community of people I can run into in my day-to-day life and gush with about this bonkers thing we’re doing.
  • One of the best ways to get unstuck if I feel like I can’t write is to experiment. This month I have written in a total of three guitar tunings, used a slide for the first time, and written a song on the mandolin (or, well, on the ‘ukulele, but it’s currently tuned like a mandolin…). Switching to something that’s outside of my comfort zone is a great way to let a song go to unexpected places.

And now, here’s song number 14, which is one of my favorites from this month:

Progress

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Sometimes, progress is obvious and happens quickly. Other times, it can feel like it’s not happening at all. This week has largely been one of those other times.

FAWM marches on, and I have been writing – I’m up to 12 songs and it’s the 14th of the month. This week it’s been harder, though. I’ve had trouble waking up early to write. Still, I’ve written some keepers, and that’s exciting. Here are a few of the songs I’m proudest of so far:

Work has been frustrating, not because of anything specific to my job, but because my brain has been extremely foggy this week. I haven’t gotten much done, because I can’t keep my train of thought on the rails long enough to see things through. I feel stuck, and it’s not a pleasant feeling.

I am looking forward to the weekend. A friend of ours is coming down from Minnesota to hang out for a couple of days. I’m looking forward to some low-key hangouts and pizza.

February Madness

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FAWM is in full swing, and I might be losing my mind.

I’ve written 8 songs so far. Yes, it is February 7. I don’t know if this pace is sustainable, but I’m riding the wave while it’s here.

It’s been fun so far. My partner is also participating this year, which is great, because it’s always nice to have someone who gets what’s going on. On the other hand, we live in a one-bedroom apartment and are both a little shy about writing near each other. So we’ve had to negotiate terms and territory – we’re both getting up early in the mornings, and then he goes in the living room and I stay holed up in the bedroom and we work in our respective bubbles until he needs to leave for work (which is earlier than I need to leave but signals that I should also start getting ready). It’s a solid system so far.

I’m not writing gems every time, but I have to say I am pretty happy with how things are turning out overall. It feels good to be writing, and it’s nice to feel good about what I’m writing, too.

Work is stressful right now – last Friday I had a particularly bad day which I’m still mentally recovering from. But I’m reminding myself that I am a capable human who’s good at my job, and things are going to work out.

Snow Days

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In case you haven’t heard: it is COLD in the Midwest this week. It is so cold that, here in Chicago, several businesses have chosen to close rather than make their employees go outside. Both my partner’s workplace and mine decided to do this yesterday and today. The actual temperature has been in the teens BELOW ZERO Fahrenheit, with the wind chill dipping as low as -50. That’s cold enough that exposed skin can wind up frost bitten in just five minutes.

All that to say, we’ve been hibernating the past couple of days. I’ve mostly been knitting and not getting much else done.

Mitten in progress

I knit about half a mitten on Wednesday.

I’m grateful for the extra days off, the working heat in our apartment, and the technology we have at our fingertips that allows us to check in on our people without going outside.

Running Late

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I am, generally speaking, a person who is chronically early. I show up to appointments half an hour early. I give myself more than the recommended two hour buffer to get through security at the airport before I fly. It helps to mitigate my anxiety – I’d always rather be early than late.

This week, though, has been an off one for me. While I’ve been early for anything I have going on in the evenings, getting to work on time has been a major struggle. Today, although I was not technically late for work, I was late by my own standards. And this blog post should have been ready to post at 9am, but here I am writing it at 10. I’m tired, I’m fighting some upper-respiratory bullshit that’s been going on for a month, it’s cold…all I want to do is stay curled up in my apartment with a book.

I was really planning to use January to get used to getting up early again, so I’d be ready to write in the mornings during FAWM. That has…definitely not happened. I’m excited for FAWM to start, but also really worried that I won’t be able to pull it off this year, because I’m so damn tired all the time. Thankfully, my February evenings this year are less packed than they were last year, so I’ll have more time in the evenings if I can’t get myself out of bed in the mornings.

In happier news, here are some things I’m glad about this week:

  • I started seeing a new therapist on Monday, and I am really optimistic about this.
  • I managed to write a song for class this week that I actually rather like, even if it still needs some work.
  • I was able to take the day off yesterday when I woke up feeling especially under the weather, and used the day to finish reading a Terry Pratchett book, which made everything feel less awful.