Beth's Journal

I keep fussing with my journal layout and style, trying to get it just right - and right when I think I've got it settled, then something catches my eye and I go "oh god what's that font doing there" or "aaaaugh all my most popular tags are over a decade old at this point and don't match where I am in life at all right now" and have to go back into the journal style customization options to fix it.

🤦‍♀️

I also can't seem to find a layout that gives me the "omg that's perfect feeling I used to get when I'd find a good journal layout back in the day - maybe I need to learn how to make my own DW layouts. I know enough HTML and CSS to figure it out eventually, I bet.

I should honestly be working, though - that one Photoshop course I'm working on isn't going to style itself.

I miss LiveJournal.

Or, more specifically, I think I miss the social aspect of semi-public journaling on the internet, and the catharsis I'd feel after writing out my feelings and releasing them into the world, knowing others might see them, and feeling a little less alone in the world for that fact.

I thought about resurrecting my old Dreamwidth journal to post in. I may still do that, I dunno. Currently writing this up on an Alphasmart Neo that I bought on eBay the other day, and it has zero internet capabilities, and I haven't decided yet where this'll ultimately end up. My old Dreamwidth journal certainly has a lot of history attached to it - I managed to get almost all of my LiveJournal accounts backed up to it before I jumped ship there - but... ugh. Some of that history is embarrassing. Some of it is rough to remember. Still, I kept more regular entries in those journals than I did in a paper journal for quite some time, so maybe I should just keep on writing in the Dreamwidth journal. I don't know.

I do know I need to get back into journaling again. Whether that's in my paper journal, or in some strange combination of typing entries on the Neo and feeding them into an online journaling service, I dunno yet, but I'll figure it out.

I'm not even sure what the point of this entry is. It's mostly just tired ADHD-brained rambling nonsense, I guess. Still, it felt good to write, and it's nice to be able to write on something that's not constantly pinging me with notifications. (And the keyboard on the Neo is oddly satisfying to type on - much nicer than the Alphasmart 3000 I bought late last year. It's okay, but I like this better, so the 3000 is going up on eBay shortly.) I'll figure out where this is ultimately going to go at some point tomorrow.

Edit: well, clearly this ended up on Dreamwidth, since it's here and all. And for those curious, behind the cut there's a picture of my trusty little Alphasmart Neo, with this entry all typed up on it:

( A little bit of old tech )

(also, don't panic, this is the writer formerly known as purpleparadox - haven't actually used that username for anything regularly in a damn long time, so I changed my username to dreamingpixels.)

Sitting at home, watching the leaves fall off the trees, digging out all my warm clothes because now I'm freezing cold all the time, pondering whether or not to throw myself at NaNoWriMo this year after a few years off...

Yep. It actually feels like fall today.

Thankfully, today was pretty quiet. I kept getting distracted by coming back here every so often to poke around my old entries or change my journal theme, so not having anything too brain-draining to worry about at work was nice. Aside from the pleasant distraction of rediscovering Dreamwidth, today was a pretty standard "work at home because we're in a pandemic" day. I did some laundry, watched the kittens do ridiculous things, and thought of a million things I wanted to talk about here but made myself wait to post because this isn't Twitter and I don't really need to make a million posts a day, now, do I?

I took a walk for the first time in ages today. For a while I was pretty good about going for a walk as soon as I finished work for the day, but the the weather got ridiculously hot - and by the time it cooled back down, I'd fallen out of the habit. My back started doing that weird muscle twinge it usually does if I haven't been too active lately, though, and usually that means a day or two of nasty back spasms isn't far behind - and since I really don't want to have to go to urgent care right now, I went for a walk in hopes the extra movement would get my back to shut up. (so far, it seems to have worked) Hopefully I can get back in the habit of walking after work again - it really helped separate my work day from the rest of the day, which can be really hard to do when you're working from home every freaking day.

While walking, I thought about maybe doing NaNoWriMo again this year - it's been quite a while since I last participated, and it used to be a huge thing for me, but with life being the way it has over the past few years, I just couldn't drum up the energy for it. Now, though? Well, I'm still not sure I have the energy for it, but dang, the NaNoWriMo nostalgia is hitting hard right now, just like the LJ/DW nostalgia. I do have four more days to plan, if I do decide I want to do this. I think I won one year with just one day of planning. I'll think about it, that's for sure.

Meanwhile: dang it's obnoxious to try to write an entry on my phone. Even with the new phone I have with the gigantic screen. I wonder if I can find a small Bluetooth keyboard of some sort that I could use when typing up entries on my phone... I've got a Bluetooth keyboard to use with a table, but dang that thing is large and clunky. Technology has to have advanced enough in the past few years to have small light Bluetooth keyboards be a thing, right?

I will say, it's weird posting on my phone. It's not something I did much back in the day - I usually spent all my time in front of the computer, so why post using the tiny phone screen? Now, though, the only place I can leave a computer set up long term is occupied by my work computer, and it's such a hassle to drag out my laptop and find a flat surface to park it on. I suppose I could use my tablet... I dunno. I'm rambling. XD

Today was a good day, though. Which I'm happy about - I need more good days.