lizdamnit

Oh boy I have a whole mess of paid time off (PTO) which I'm taking in a lump. I have not done this in years. YEARS. At various jobs, I have had the occasional holiday, and usually about a week around Christmas...my PTO was so sparse I would "microdose" it by making random three day weekends as opposed to a whole week. I have not had a proper holiday since my honeymoon. Over 10 years ago. I'm in the US so our practices around time off are....well...if you're on the internet you know how we are. That's one of the reasons Americans are *like that*, if you had wondered!

Anyway, I have 5 days with a weekend in between so it's actually a proper long break. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I started off strong by inviting some new-ish friends over for a dinner party so I have been deep cleaning my house for day 1. To be honest, I don't mind doing that...I'm taking care of cleaning/organizing tasks I just haven't had time to do in a while.

I decided to just go nuts and steam clean everything. It's currently 84F/29C and quite humid where I am and I have been steam cleaning. The result is making me overlook the rivers of sweat I'm giving myself. When I shower later, I'm really going to get my money's worth! I'm looking forward to the place being baseline a little better than it was. I've made so many little adjustments to the kitchen, living room (front room), etc. that make a little more sense.

The guests tonight have never been over before, so I'm trying to look at everything through new eyes and it is bracing. Normally we only have friends over that we've known for so long we're family I don't have to make too many arrangements since we've been in and out of each others' spaces for years and years. It's a lot of prep work but I like doing this periodically to keep the place really nice.

Later on, after lunch and a well needed nap, I'll start cooking. Tonight it's a "charcuterie" of salami/prosciutto and mozzarella, some sliced veg, and fancy crackers. Dinner will be red sauce with mushrooms, sausage, peppers, crushed tomatoes, spaghetti. Someone's bringing a light cake for dessert and I have strawberries and whipped cream. Another person is bringing wine so I'm looking forward to some summer silliness. I like to get fancy when people come over! Cooking for others is a lot of work but very fun.

Warning, I am feeling very pessimistic.

I used to love writing, but there is literally no place for long-form anymore. We do not read blogs, we do not visit people's websites, we do not read newsletters. I want to get my hand back in, I have ideas/outlines/etc. for essays, but what the hell do I do with them?  I guess I should just stick stuff here and hope people click my links?

It doesn't help at all that social media is a literal mental health hazard lately. I would love to write a thing, even a serious thing, and share it on bluesky or something, but I cannot take quintuple identical reposts of the same exhortations to be enraged at American fascists. I am enraged. But I can't say in that or I will burn out.

Part of this is that I'm probably autistic AF which makes socializing already very very hard. I hang back, I observe, I learn the rules, and I follow them. I log into Bluesky for instance and it's just a torrent of justified anger and ragebait. I read the room and go, "you know, maybe I should not". Sometimes I override this and post little drabbles of ideas, but those get lost in the sauce. The only thing that seems to get any engagement is salty political observations, which I do enjoy but good god. 

I got the idea to do a newsletter but swiftly threw that away. Everything is so overwhelming: subscriptions, engagement metrics, drops. Jesus Christ, I just want to share something long form and maybe talk about it. Patreon broke me with "schedule drops for your fans!". I tanked the entire idea right then and there. If I was doing this for work, this would be a different story, if I was making one to help a friend it would also be a different story. I'm just looking to blog and have that blog automatically email updates to people that want it. If for some reason those people want to pay me too, I won't say no, but I have neither the energy nor the self esteem to make myself an entire production company.

Guess I'm staying here for the forseeable future!