contingency plan

[bestfrenjun]

in the event that the bird app sinks like the titanic, i want to have a back-up plan. what better time to hash that out than the night we get an extra hour of sleep?

with the state of things right now, there is truly no app i want to hop onto. twt is perfect as it is with text as the primary media for communication that’s voluntarily supplemented with pics, vids, etc. but despite relying on written language it is instantaneous and relaxed enough to Speak Into The Void without fear of overposting, which is the best part of twt. while tumblr can check most of those boxes, it lacks the casualness that twt has. i’d feel awkward making multiple text posts in a row to say a couple of sentences—the blog format of tumblr invites longer thoughts and usually justifies posts with intention and/or length. i haven’t looked into other microblogging platforms (apparently mastodon is quite similar to twt?). discord is too chatroom/forum-like for me, other social media are too visual heavy.

so it sounds like i’ll be parking my ass right here!

i barely use dreamwidth as it is (sorry to my audience of one *waves*) but i want to change that! i do! the issues i have with writing for dreamwidth now are:

• the textpost editor is annoying to use. truly no upgrade from livejournal
• long-form emotions or memory summaries currently get dumped in my bullet journal sporadically
• i compartmentalize my thoughts across several social media accounts

this can change. one of the resolutions i had for myself in the new (fiscal) year was to get better at articulating myself, mostly applicable to work, but extra practice in writing by regularly posting here wouldn’t hurt.

 

after discussing it with nat a bit, i had a few ideas of what i could post here:

newsletter

i.e. a weekly update of the goings-on of my life. everything and anything, but largely a summary for my own reference alongside any notable feelings/reflections that came out of those events. i do this with my own bullet journal but that is a place for stream-of-consciousness, no withholding. it gets very emotional and spontaneous there… it’s different here with more than one set of eyes (potentially) looking at my words. providing myself with the structure and space to look back at my week might be a good exercise of practicing gratitude (another thing i need to work on!).

reading thoughts

primarily books and my magazine subscriptions. i’ve read more this year than in 2021—less poetry unfortunately, but more reading overall. i was gifted a national geographic subscription that i intend on renewing into 2023, and with the back-to-premises commands from work i’m breezing through each month’s edition during my work commutes. my reading stops on the subway which i want to change. as for my poetry magazine, i am just… neglecting those entirely. horrible! why did i renew for three years! 90% of each poetry edition is available online and many of the articles of natgeo are as well, so i’m thinking of structuring my reading thoughts with summaries of my faves for the week (or month, depending on the cadence) + links to read if available. books would be lumped alongside the magazine posts or on their own if there’s a lot. the last time i was asked to think critically about reading was early in university—it’s an important skill that i want to improve. on the practical side, it would be easier for me to remember the good articles/poems/essays if i kept them listed somewhere.

fandom and hobbies

my 2 baddies first-listen is rotting in my notes because i forgot to finish it lmao my bad! i like what i’m currently doing here with my infrequent fandom thoughts, mainly music and ships. I imagine that the few other interests i have can be posted about here. i’m thinking of keeping a masterpost for every perfume i test to keep track of the notes and figuring out what scents i do and don’t like. possibly at the end of my discovery kit testing? recipe notes too, to keep track of what to change in a recipe and the adjustments i made while cooking.

spending all day at my work laptop makes the idea of opening up my laptop to write be very unappealing during my free time—one of the biggest contributors to my abandonment of fic, among many, many other factors. we’ll see how this month goes, i guess.