pulling myself out of the vortex
for the past few nights i've been getting sucked into bingeing bad tv shows, well, a really bad tv show. i would come home from work, make dinner, and once my food was ready, just sit down on the couch to watch one episode, that would gradually turn into just one more, and so on. i don't mind watching tv, i just want to have better boundaries over how much i watch. when it gets to the point that i put down my knitting because i just want to get sucked into the vortex of whatever show i'm watching, i may as well just download instagram again and go back to doomscrolling.
tonight, i watched two episodes, realized i had had enough, and turned it off. it was only 8:30. i cleaned the kitchen, put away the leftovers, and sat down and played guitar for a little bit. i'm currently waiting for a iso to download on my other computer so i can try running ubuntu on my other laptop, as a virtual machine, just to see how it would run on a newer computer. i have more than half of the patti smith book i've been reading finished, and i wanted to take a little bit of time to write on this blog before turning my computers off for the night and turning in with a book (or two, maybe i'll get some outlander time in too).
these are all things that have been on my radar of relaxing things to do after work, but i've been unable to even get to them because its so easy to just sit down on the couch and rot, get up to make pop corn, go back, watch until midnight, and then pick kernels out of my teeth before brushing and crawling into bed. i told myself i couldn't do another night of that. i had to hold myself accountable to do something healthier with my night, so here i am.
today was the first day back at work since the winter storm brought us some snow and even more, thicker, ice. the whole city of richmond is just now waking up from being closed. i'm thankful that we're back to work, as i was getting a little stir crazy, even though these next few days will most likely be spent catching up, only to go into another expected storm next weekend. oh well, that's january. i'd rather have winter storms and snow and ice and having to actually slow down, if i want to stay upright, then 60 degree winter days. i like winter to feel like winter.
it was just me today at work though, for the most part. my coworker couldn't get her car unstuck from the ice this morning, and couldn't make it in. it was okay though, its the kind of job that really goes better with both of us there, but is totally doable if one of us is out.
i recently became a member of subvert, an artist founded and led music streaming platform, in hopes of finding a better path towards streaming music and discovering music that better supports the artist. i'm excited to explore this platform more, even though its still very new, and only has a select few artists on it who are essentially helping to test it. its still in alpha phase. i have high hopes for it though, and i would like to use it to share my own music in the future.
i can't believe we're almost at the end of january of 2026 already, and i'm glad that i have spent the beginning of this year using bear blog and discovering different ways to use and exist on the internet, and interact with technology. this will be for another post, i think, but something i've been wondering is if i want to switch to a dumbphone, or if i just want to continue to have a smart phone that i use less frequently, and more intentionally. i know myself and how much i like technology, and i've found that since spending the better part of december only having the essentials on my iphone, that i do really benefit from having a few other apps available to me, primarily discord, which i use to keep in touch and stay active with many people from the photography group i've been a part of for exactly a year now. do i want to switch to android? i'm not sure yet. i do know that i've been getting more into open source software, and would like my phone to reflect that more too. i like to customize things, and really make everything my own. apple may market themselves to creatives, and work that i enjoy doing, but they are very closed source, manipulating us with their idea of planned obsolescence.
well, i got sucked into writing that too much, but i really do want to go into that more in a separate post. so for now i will sign off.