meme & asks

Picture from Pixabay, because cool car is cool.

Answers to today's questions at f.riday.com.

1. This week, when was good enough good enough?

Insomnia has been rearing it's ugly head the last several weeks. This week it's progressed into sleeping only every other day, and doesn't care about what time of day it is when sleep arrives. So, every other day, more often during the day than not, has been good enough because any sleep at all is good enough.

2. What are a few songs you’d include in a middle-of-the-road playlist?

My mind went completely black at this question! Not sure if there's a specific meaning, and can't be arsed to google it and so I'm choosing to answer as if it meant the sort of music you don't much pay attention to and acts more as just background noise, or waiting music... I can't name any music because none of it sticks in my mind after! It's always something so mediocre and boring I can't remember, or a weird, awful rendition of a popular piece of music that I hope to never hear again. All my own music has meaning to me, and I choose what I listen to according to my mood, never to just fill in silence. I have no middle-of-the-road playlist at all!

3. What is the most ordinary thing about you?

This should propably be asked from somebody who knows me... I'm quiet, bookish, nerdish person who prefers to go about her day without attracting undue attention and I think that's pretty ordinary. When I was still working, I was what is (or at least was at the time) considered a typical librarian.

4. What do you like most about an average day?

I guess the freedom I have in doing things at my own space. But there are also bad sides to this freedom because it's brought on by illness, and not having ability to work/hold a job anymore.

5. What do people seem to think is wonderful while you think it’s just okay?

Bright summer sun and heat! The brightness is at "okay" for me, but the warm very easily crosses into "heat" and "horrible".

Answers to yesterday's questions at https://thefridayfive.livejournal.com/202489.html

1. Have you ever felt a generation gap with your friends?

Friends? No, not with them. With my cousins' kids that are now in their 20s? Yes. With how they think of and use social media, and their surprising lack of deeper computer skills. And especially that often they do everything on their smartphones - things I myself only think are comfortable to do on a desktop or laptop, such as making purchases. They also don't seem to build thing online - they don't make personal websites, or fansites, or blogs. They do post maybe on Instagram or TikTok but to me those aren't the same - they're all things to me that feel transitory and like you're not really supposed to find posts a week later. They do quite often bemoan of not find a platform or a website they'd like, but it never seems to occur to them that they could build it themselves. That's what my generation and older did! They know even less about simple things like html than I do! I've forgotten a lot, but I still know how to make text bold or italics, how to include an image and how to make a link. They... don't. I don't know... you're think these basic things are thought in school, but maybe it's all done only WYSIWYG editors?? Or maybe they really don't teach it at all.

On the plus side, my cousins' kids are so much more open and smarter about their feelings and emotions, and I think that's great. My friends and I and my Mom are better about it now, but when we were kids/young we never spoke about our honest deep emotions, not even with friends - if you were depressed or anxious about something, it was weird and weak. At most you you could say that you don't like doing presentations for the whole class, but not that you couldn't sleep the night before because of it, or that your stomach was roiling minutes before it was your turn. Instead you had to play it like it was no big thing.

I was depressed myself for maybe 3 or 4 months in very late 90s- I'd sleep 22 hours a day, every day, wouldn't shower, let all the dishes etc. pile up and then people started to scare me and I started to avoid them. I didn't tell anyone, instead did my damnest to hide it all. But when that avoiding people thing started to happen, I realized that "Nope, I'm doing this - if I let this happen, I'll be a literal hermit soon" (I have hermit tendencies even in normal circumstances and I've always known this). So I made a point to go grocery shopping every other day - it was awful, and nasty, and I felt everyone staring at me (even though I knew and could see nobody in actuality did). At first I did it late at night in the dark (it was winter) and with only a few items because I knew the shop would have only a few customers at that time of night and I'd be in and out quick. It took a couple of week of that to not feel panicky and being around people starting to feel normal again, so then I started to shop earlier with a few more items when there's more people around and again did that until that felt normal, and then started to go when it was light out and even more people about and did that until it felt like nothing. And so on and so on until people didn't scare me anymore and I could be where other people are without feeling anything about it. I still have trouble if there's huge crowds like during Crazy Days at Wiklund where there's so many people packed in you can hardly move around, and I guess I'll just never like crowds - but the main thing is I have no problems in normal times.

But I went through all that alone and only told about it to my Mom and best friend more than a decade later, because these things simply weren't talked about until the last 15 years or so that I've noticed. I actually realized that what I had had was depression when magazines started publishing mental health articles (or at least that's when I started noticing them in magazines) more and more frequently. Until then I'd just thought about it as "that weird time of mine". So I think it's great that the younger generation talk more about sensitive things and are more open and honest about their feelings and emotions, and that they don't hopefully have to go through things all alone and unsupported while they try to make things better.

My cousins' kids also seem to have more body confidence, or maybe it's just that fashion is what it is now but even fat young people are wearing a rather tight, or even skin-tight, clothing now. When I was a kid in the 80s the fashion was so different and looser, but certainly fat kids wore more baggy clothing than not. But fashion was so different in the 80s and 90s - I feel like back then, even looking at old photos and not just going by my memories, that kids dressed more like kids and clearly differed from adults. But now 12 year olds dress the same as 22 year olds it feels like. To middle-aged me it all looks kind of odd and unflattering sometimes (skinny jeans look awful on everybody IMO), but also cool at the same time! Body confidence for the win!

2. At what point in life does the generation gap seem to be the largest?

Not really sure... as far as things like having family, employment and money go, when my generated reached around age 30 that's when the differences started to manifest between my generation and the previous, I think.

3. What role, if any does music play in generation gaps?

Foreign language barrier! And computers! I've noticed it with people of my parents age - so about 70 and up.

They often don't know non-Finnish songs by name, and only know a limited number of certain non-Finnish artists by name because they're big international stars. Because there's a language barrier - they only had Swedish taught them in school, and only some of them learned English later on in life, normally if their work required it. So huge numbers of them only speak Finnish, and maybe little bit of Swedish. They know famous artists by name such as Madonna or Leonard Cohen, but couldn't name a single song by them but do recognize many of their most popular songs when they come on on the radio; they just don't know song names and the lyrics because they don't speak the language. Same thing with other foreign artists such as Celine Dion etc. Whereas my generation learned Swedish and English in school by default, and optionally also could take a third foreign language, usually Germany or French).

Also, Internet and computers came widely into use when my generation were young adults and they were in their middle age. Many of my parents friends didn't either have to use computers in their jobs at all, or they never learned anything except the needed fuctions of the specific programs their employer used - so they never learned Windows and general computer usage (such as copy/paste, or making a new text file etc.), as an example. Several of my Mom's friends have never owned a computer or a smartphone and don't plan to. Some even have landline phones still (those are exceedingly rare and expensive here now).

Luckily I've always been interested in computers and phones, so I've gotten my Mom casually interested in computers, Internet and smartphones half accidentally and half on purpose, and she's doing well! She doesn't really understand all the things such as the difference between e-mail, WhatsApp and text messages but she uses them smoothly and she can do the updates smoothly too. Sometimes she needs to take a photo of some new window and send it to me "What does this mean? What do I do??" but Windows is now so easy that she has no troubles with it, especially now that they have the new laptop which is so much faster and more pleasant to use. Almost everything is now easier done online - scheduling a doctor's appointment, a dentist, banking, paying bills, taxes, library books renewal, pretty much everything and it's so much easier a life if you can do many things online as you can. But my Mom's SO couldn't care less about computers - he never had to learn them for his work, and the only reason he uses a computer now is because my Mom is there to show him how to pay bills online, or book a cruise so he can buy his topacco cheaper on the cruise - and that's also common among my parents generation. But even my Mom isn't interested in things like subscription services - she does watch things from Yle Areena (free streaming service by the national broadcasting company/local TV) if she misses them when they're on TV, but Netflix? Zero interest. Same with music subscriptions - zero interest. She listens to the radio, and buys a CD sometimes, and borrows one from the library sometimes and then listens to them on the computer, but subscription services or reading an e-book? Pfft!

4. Despite your attempts, have you become your parents?

Well, my Mom. Dad's been dead for three decades now.

I'm sure I have in several respects - I've hang around her all my life after all!

5. Do you think your generation's fight is similar to your parents generations fight?

No, it isn't. They're the generation that's had it the easiest when it comes to money and supporting oneself, compared to the generations previous and the generations that have came after. At least here in Finland.

My parent's generation were born in mid-40s, either just before or after the end of the WWII. Socioeconomically things only got better for the next 40 years, the wellfare state was being built, prices were low compared to now and full time employment was easily found and steady even if you had no schooling. They could afford to have families, own homes, have vacations and could save money for bad times. But on the other had, they had much less choice in many things - marriage was assumed for everyone and for a long time you had to pay a tax if one remained single, there was war trauma from our war with Russia, people needed to move to cities from the countryside for work, and just simply had much less choice for products while shopping. Food import from abroad was much less until the 1980s, according to my Mom, so many fruits and vegetables and cheeses that I have always taken for granted, weren't available until they were in their 30s and 40s in the 1980s. And apparently shops had MUCH fewer choices in flavored milk products and cheeses - Mom said there was basically four flavors of yughurt available: strawberry, blueberry and banana, and unflavored. Made by one or two companies. Now there's like 20 flavors, each with several different degrees of fats, by a dozen different companies.

Personally, for me and my family, the biggest difference is employment and money. My parents and cousins' and friend's parents all had steady employment (if they wanted it - one or two of my Mom's friends were stay-at-home moms by choice), often staying with one employer from start of their career to the end, with frequent and regular paychecks and good benefits such as minimum four weeks of summer leave. A lot of them earned only low wages, but housing prices etc. all were such that even with low wages they were able to buy homes, a summer cottage if they wanted one and were able have a vacation abroad every year if desired, were able to put their kids through school as well as save for bad times. They weren't rich, but far from poor even when just working class. And now that they're retired, most of them have good enough pensions that cover their daily needs, own their homes and most have savings for bad days.

My generation? Some of us have a high paying job and are over worked (a few of my friends/acquintances). But mostly in my circle of friends/acquintances of my age, we've never had steady employment, only have temp jobs and no benefits because of that. Most of us have had at least 10 different employers, some over 30. The jobs last from a few days to a year and usually when one job ends, we don't know when the next one starts. We never have actual, official summer leave because either we're unemployed or working a temp job for the summer. If we own our home, it's because we inherited it when our parents or grand-parents died, or our parents gave us money as pre-inheritment so we could buy one. But mostly we rent. We've don't own summer cottages except again, unless it was inherited. And a few of my friends who did inherit a summer cottage, they couldn't afford to keep it (the yearly maintenance) and had to sell it instead. Our income is haphazardly strung together from low paychecks and unemployment and other benefits because either we don't get enough hours, or our pay is so low. We often have to fight withe the bureaucracy required by getting benefits and jobs simultaneously monthly or at least several times a year. We're poor, or one or two steps away from being poor and a thing like broken fridge can mess up for budgets for months. We'll be lucky if we'll have pensions at all, the way politics are going. I know mine will be below poverty line, just as I've been all my adult life.

It seems that either the members of my generation do really well in higher-paying jobs (often something to do with computers and IT, or doctors), or really badly with low/middle paying jobs usually (often in the creative or service industry or nursing) and there's very little middle ground.

Answers to this week's questions at TheFridayFive@Dreamwidth.

1. Do you like children?

I suppose they're okay in very small doses if needs must, but I don't really like children.

2. How many children would you like to have in the future?

I'm child-free so zero.

3. What if you were expecting sextuplets?

This is unlikely to happen because I'd be on birth control. But if it did, abortion most likely. The thought of one child is unattractive, sextuplets go right into nightmare realm.

4. If TLC offered to share your life on TV, would you accept the offer?

I don't know what TLC is, but I don't want my life on TV, so the answer is no, I would not.

5. What would you name the sextuplets?

If for some reason I was forced to carry the pregnancy to term and birth them, I'd give them out for adoption. I doubt I'd give them names.

Answers to this week's questions at https://thefridayfive.livejournal.com/201437.html

1. What does the outside of your house look like?

It's a four story apartment building, in a circle with 3 row/terraced houses, of the type where the hallways are open and unheated, and the front doors opens directly to outside. It's red and white and there's a tower housing the lift and stairs to stories 2-4.

2. Which room do you spend the least time in?

Technically: the sauna (I only go there to vacuum).

3. Which room do you spend the most time in?

But I guess these two questions mean "living space" in which case my answer is I spend roughly 50% in the bedroom and 50% in the kitchen/living room. I have a small apartment with only the bedroom, bathroom and the sauna as their own rooms (they have doors). The kitchen and the living room are one continuous space with the entry to the apartment along with a tiny foyer/hallway with just enough for shoes and outdoor clothes rack and two tall cabinets to the side. My kitchen table is a meter from from my living room couch. So I don't have choice where to spend time in, especially since I try to dedicate the bedroom only for sleeping (and reading real books).

4. Is your home in a convenient location?

Yes, very.

It's only 15 minutes (25 minutes during rush hour) to the city center by a bus that goes by every 7 minutes during work days for most of the entire day, and in addition there's also three other useful-to-me bus lines going past my building every hour - one of which is a service line directed especially to older people and those the sick or have challenges in moving, but everyone is welcome to use it. It's just slow. It goes to a on hospital on top of a big hill, a couple of different department stores at opposite sites of the city and goes through many smaller streets that normal bus lines don't, and it also picks up and lets out people between stops unlike the normal busses. It takes an hour to get to the city center using this bus, versus the 15-25 minutes on the normal bus. It's usually less crowded than normal busses, and drivers drive much more gently and smoothly, and are more quick to help if you need help getting say, a wheelchair inside or off.  And also there's also a school bus line for those who have young children that goes by my building but not having kids I obviously don't have experience about that. And the bus stops going both directions are literally in front of my building!

There's a small shopping center a 5 minute bus ride away (15 minute walking distance for me) with a good shop for everyday groceries and such, as well as a post office and pharmacy which I'm real happy about because I have to get things from the pharmacy several times a month, and my packages arrive to that post office so it's easy for me to pick them up whenever I'm doing my regular shopping. I mainly use this small shopping center for all my needs.

There's two big department stores by different chains 5-8 minute car or bus drive away, and the only negative thing is that the big department store I prefer (because it's cheaper than the other one) isn't reachable by one bus but needs three and takes half an hour one way even though by car it's only 8 minutes away. Back when I had a car I shopped there 2-3 times a month  - it was nice to do the big weekly shop there, and then do small additional shops/pharmacy runs in the small shopping center near me. Now that I don't have a car and depend on the busses I use the other more expensive one, but luckily it's in a bigger shopping centre with a satellite library, pharmacy, SpecSavers and other eye glass shops, many shoes and clothing shops, and shops like Clas Olsson, and smaller specialty shops like a shoemaker who fixes old shoes and bags and things and cafes and restaurants so usually if I'm shopping for those things, that's where I go.

The city library has two mobile libraries which drive around all around the city every day. One of them stops 2 minutes away from me on Thursdays. The only down side of the mobile library is that if you have books on-hold waiting to be picked you can only do it on Thursdays for 30 minutes, so at some point I switched mostly using the main library in the city centre where I can pick them up at any day and which is open from 9am to 8pm on work days, and less but still 6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. But I could get by only by using the mobile library if I wanted to!

It's also convenient that my GP and laboratory and one of the hospitals (there's two hospitals I need to go to both of which are easy to get to without needing to go through the city center) are on the route to the city centre, along with my hair dresser and the art supplies store where I buy acrylic paints etc.

My Mom also lives fairly close to me - when I was healthy, I'd always walk to her place and that'd take me about 35 minutes. I've always walked rather slow, and when my Mom, whose always walked fast (except those years when her Beagle was still alive when she walked her pace and that was slow because you, Beagle and her nose), walks over to my place, she takes about 20 minutes. So at a normal walking pace it'd probably take somewhere between those times. Maybe someday I can go back to walking to Mom's again. Now I take the bus, and so have to go through the city center.

So yes, my home is located very conveniently! Everything I need frequently is at most 30 minutes away by bus. It's such a good location that every time I've thought of moving, none of the apartments I've looked at have come to even close to being as conveniently located as this. I'm really spoiled as far as access to busses and convenient shopping/pharmacy/post office goes! And I didn't even plan this when I moved - I only checked that a bus went by three times an hour and that there was a shop close by, and that this was close enough but not too close to my Mom's. It's been very pleasing to realize once I got ill and need for all the hospitals and labs and doctors came into the picture, that I could get to them easily and quickly.

All this and I don't even live in the city center, but in one of the suburbs with greenery around me, and even a couple of working fields.

5. What is the color of your front door?

It's white.

Today's questions over at f.riday5.com. Image from Pixabay.

1. When did you most recently swing on a swing?

A few years ago, before my Mom and her SO sold their summer place. Before they sold it, they had a three-seater swing and Mom and me would sit in it swinging for hours and talk about anything and everything. But they're both getting old and don't want to have as much things that need moving/putting together/big storage space anymore, and that swing was cumbersome to move and store so they sold it with their summer place because it was an easy way to get rid of it. I've personally never had a backyard big enough for any kind of swing, and even if I did, there's nowhere to store it for winter in an apartment building.

2. On what issue have you teeter-tottered?

Whether we (Finland) should join NATO or remain neutral. Especially since Russia's war on Ukraine but also before the war. (I'm not sure... Did I understand teeter-tottering correctly?)

3. How close is your residence to a park, and when did you last visit?

Parks are not really a thing in our family. So much so that I don't actually know which park is the closest - there aren't any that I can think of within walking distance even though I've lived here 20+ years. We have smaller and bigger woodsy areas all around with smaller as well as bigger walking/running/skiing paths and glades, just not parks that I can think of. I also can't think of when I last visited a park - probably when I was a kid? I've gone through while walking or cycling, but we've never really gone for parks for outdoor activities/to spend time in my family. Our trips have been usually to beach, or to the castle ruins, or back when I was a kid, to our camping area. Some of them might be in a park/adjacent to a park, I guess, or the trip there takes us a through a park, but it never really registers as such for me because the park isn't the destination. It's just grass and green and maybe some flowerbeds and benches somewhere.

4. How capable are you with a charcoal grill?

Not at all. I've never used a grill - have never owned one, charcoal or otherwise. It's not allowed in my apartment complex.

5. With what are you playing hide-and-seek?

Hmm, I'm going to say creative energy... some days it's just gone, while other days I'm happy to play in Photoshop or physical drawing/painting for hours. Really, just energy in general...

Image from Pixabay. Because I love Beagles and there's very few things sweeter than a sleeping Beagle.

Answers today's The Friday Five questions over at Dreamwidth.

1. How many hours a day/night do you usually sleep?

This wildly varies... 0-18 hours. I have waves of insomnia when I don't sleep at all for up to four days, and then when I can sleep, I'll sleep for close to 20 hours straight only getting up to take my meds and use the toilet. My sleep quality is bad; a lot of the time I have trouble falling asleep. And in any case, whether I do have trouble or not, I keep waking up at least every few hours, sometimes even twice an hour. I don't ever wake up refreshed and rested. Sometimes it's all due to Crohn's Disease symptoms, other times due to migraine/head pain, and yet other times there doesn't seem to be any reason that I can tell. I'm always exhausted.

I do know that I need 12 hours of okay sleep to feel somewhat rested and human. If I get less, I feel like a corpse. Also, when I sleep very poorly, I see lots of dreams and feel like I've lived another life in my dreams instead of rested. The dreams are always the kind I like to watch as tv shows and movies: action, adventure, scifi so at leas they're fun to have.

I was tested for sleep apnea and I don't have it, although the test was done during my worst time of insomnia and I felt like I maybe sort of slept for three hours that night, so I'm not sure how they could tell. But that's what they told me.

I so miss the years (before I got sick) when I had no trouble sleeping, and always slept well! It's been bad for more than a decade now. I've read that iron deficiency can cause sleeping problems, so I'm cautiously hoping the the infusion next week will help with this!

2. What do you do when you can't sleep?

Depends - is it my first night? I might read or watch tv, maybe write thought dumps in my journal or paint with watercolors, or color in coloring books. If it's been going on for a while already, I lay in my bed in the dark and quiet, and just rest. I've found if I do this, even if I can't actually sleep, I'll feel better the next day.

3. How often do you devote time to just thinking about something?

I suppose this happens naturally at some point every week. I don't usually have to plan it since I'm just at home and can do whatever I want whenever I want to/need to. If it's something with external pressure, like filling in a complex application for rehabilitation or something else that requires thinking of all the reasons why I should be approved, and how to word them most effectively, and how to show my motivation... those are the times I devote special times to think about and plan, to make a draft. I always try to do it with time to spare, so I don't have to rush and because these days, due to the exhaustion, I often can concentrate on intense thinking only for a short time, like 30 min, before I'm wiped out. So I do it over several sittings.

4. If you had to choose one person to never talk to again, who would you choose?

There's no one I know I'd be okay never talking to again without a reason for a break-up in the relationship. So it'd have to be someone I talk casually to but don't know personally. Maybe a cashier in the shop?

5. If you had to choose one person, NOT your significant other, who you would speak to every day for the rest of your life, who would you choose?

My Mom!

Answers to yesterday's questions at https://thefridayfive.livejournal.com/200499.html

1. Do you have Spring or Fall allergies?

I have some sort of food allergies and an atopic skin condition but nothing that is only seasonal. It's always been year around thing.

2. Do you have something in particular that you are allergic to or is it just general?

My allergies used to triggered/worsened by certain foods (citrus fruit, chocolate etc.) but even when I avoided them, I always had rashes on my arms and legs year round. The rash would get better during summer as long as I got to swim in the ocean a lot. Then since I reached my 20s, it's been just general allergy instead of specific foods and very mild and mostly only on my fingers. I still have to treat my skin with hydrocortisone creams fairly regularly when it flares up (only a few times a year instead of daily like when I was under 20), but still daily with emollient cream to keep my skin moisturized.

3. What do you take, if anything, to help?

I don't need oral supplements for my allergies, luckily. Looking back, as a kid, I could have used something that reduced itching but I was never given anything orally - I don't if such meds existed then in the 70s/80s? In any case, I've never been treated orally for my allergies. Only various creams, and this blue tincture which was used to "paint" the rash bits and which I loved because it eased the itching and made my rash skin feel cool (it always felt hot) :D

4. Do you seem to be saying, “It’s just allergies” a lot more than usual these days (i.e. because of Covid)?

Nope.

5. What do you hope to get out and do this spring, allergies and pandemic willing?

Not so much "to get out and do something", but I'd love to not have to wear a mask while grocery shopping/in the library. I hope it's possible this spring/summer again like last year, and I'm looking forward to it so much! I hate wearing a mask - it fogs up my eye glasses and that messes up my depth vision (a problem going up and down stairs/getting on and out of the bus), makes my face sweat like crazy and my nose run. And if I'm having a bad headache day, it'll start a migraine attack or makes it worse if I already have one on. So not having to mask up in the spring/summer is one my wish for the near future.

Answers to f.riday5.com today's questions.

1. Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?

In the mid-80s when I was a kid, I asked Anneli Saaristo, a Finnish singer, for her autograph.

2. What do you think happens when we die?

Nothing at all. We just cease to exist.

3. What’s your favorite action movie?

I can't decide between The Terminator and The Last Of The Mohicans. One of those two!

4. What’s your favorite smell?

Fresh, still hot from the oven home baked bread/rolls/buns.

5. Exercise: worth it?

Not in my experience. Nope.

Image from Pixabay.

I can't believe it's Friday already! Where did the week go?! Answers to today's questions The Friday Five @ Dreamwidth.

1. What's your favorite candle scent?

Unscented. I don't burn candles myself so I don't have much experience with them, but my Mom likes to burn them during December and she likes unscented ones. Sometimes she burns scented ones she was gifted, and I think maybe vanilla or citrus were okay if I remember right (as long as the smell isn't overpowering). But usually when I'm around she burns unscented ones because many artificial smells are too strong/smelly for me and she's not a fan either.

2. Do you have an artistic or crafty hobby? What is it?

Yes! Many! I play around in Photoshop making fandom wallpapers but also digital papers and textures. I used to make icons too but haven't made those in years now. I used to make WinAmp skins, and still make FocusWriter themes. I write fanfic and original fic, I do fluid art with acrylic paints (acrylic pouring) and alcohol inks. I paint with watercolors, both drawings I've done myself and color-ins I've printed from the internet. I also occasionally do some adult coloring book coloring. I make (simple) notebooks with Tomoe River paper for my fountain pen use, and also do some playing/painting/drawing with fountain pen inks on them. I still bake some, sometimes once a week other times once a month but it's something I enjoy so I try to do it more often than less. I also keep a log of my illnesses' symptoms to track them and that's so boring to do, that I love to pretty every page of that diary with stickers, washi tape and doodles.

3. What's one weird way you save money on food?

I guess: not eating. I have a lot of trouble with appetite, have been for a decade now... namely I don't have an appetite, even when I feel hunger. I'm trying to be better about eating (eating regularly, having a proper meal instead of a cookies etc.) but yeah, when I'm even more exhausted than normally and that happens a lot, I tend to skip meals without really noticing it because I just never feel like eating. Everything tastes right, I just never have an appetite. And when I have a proper meal, I usually lose interest in it about halfway through and eating it feels like work. Apparently not having an appetite is a usual feature of Crohn's Disease, judging from my peer's experiences. I don't know that it truly saves money though - the last 14 months I've been mainly buying ready-to-heat meals because I'm too exhausted to cook, or don't feel like cooking. Candies and chocolate, and salty things like potato chips go down easier than proper food and they don't feel like work because I love the taste, so between those ready meals and the sweets, I propably don't actually save at all compared to the kind of foods I used to eat before I got sick. Back then I rarely bought ready meals and used to cook my own food. I used to do meal planning and prep for the week ahead, and I miss those times. Now I rarely have spoons enough to that, but when I do I LOVE it that I have something home cooked to eat for the entire week. Because home cooked food so so much better than store-bought ready meals.

4. Do you collect anything weird or unusual?

I've always been considered kind of weird since I was a kid just because I have always collected something, although thinking on it I'm not sure if it was actually because what I collected was considered a boy thing. As a kid, it was X-Men, Star Trek and John Carter comics. I also collected sticks and pebbles.

These days I collect fanfic, fountain pens and inks (I actively use them though), and I'm somewhat into paper - I have several notebooks I haven't yet started using, and several of LotusBluBookArt's drawing/writing journals that I haven't started yet. I intend to use them all though! I'm just slow and it might take a decade or two. I also love pretty handmade art journals/books that are for watercoloring and/or mixed media (they're expensive 50-300 euros or more), but I don't really own any of those except for one or two thin ones that I'm already using. About a year ago I discevered (MU print-on) stickers and that and washi tape are something I easily could end up buying LOADS of unless I'm careful. I keep pen and stationery things purchases sensible and well within my budget, no matter how much I might want to buy ALL THE THINGS.

5. Do you fear the deep ocean, or does its unknown depths excite you?

I don't fear the deep ocean itself but when I was a kid, whenever I swam in not!swimming pool and something (a weed under water where I couldn't see it) would brush against me, I would freak out - as in, fly out of the water to the beach/pier freak out. I haven't swam in an ocean since I became an adult and I'm 100% sure I would still freak out if a weed touched me under water where I can't see it. I never thought it was anything other than a seaweed but for some reason it touching me freaks me out, and to tell you the truth, I'd propably freak out even if it was a weed brushing against me in a damn swimming pool. So that's what I fear, but not the ocean itself. The unknown depths theoretically excite me, in books/movies etc., but in real life I'm not interested in exploring myself.

Answers to The Friday Five @ Dreamwidth

1) Read any good books lately?

Nothing that stands out. Day before yesterday I finally finished (took me nearly two months) Minette Walters' Fox Evil and it was only okay. Everything else has also been kind of meh the last couple of months... I've been working on these three novels but can't seem to get going, and nothing else (except fanfic) really appeals me either.

The other book I'm trying to finish Ukkoshuilu by Johanna Sinisalo which is based on myths and has scifi/speculative fiction elements along with various social criticism, and descriptions of exploitation of workers and the unemployed, apparently Russian oligarchs involved with the main character's ridiculous new job that's taking advantage of her and the unemployment system by not having paying her for her work and treating her as "biomass" which is easily replaceable... which I have personally experience as well so that part feels like at least someone sees me and other people like me. I'm half way through, and it's been at least a month and a half that I've been working on it; not sure I'll finish it. I don't like any of the characters (except the little daughter but she's not focused on), feels like the plot started only in at exactly the mid-point of the book, and I don't care what happens to anybody or even what's the plot. But Johanna Sinisalo's books are usually good, so I keep feeling like it'll get going, and be exciting and good if I can just persevere with it.

I'm also working on Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds since mid-December, the synopses I've read of it sound really interesting and I kind of feel it too when reading it, but I'm still feeling mostly meh.

I'm actually starting to think the problem might lie with me actually - maybe I'm in a reading slump again! And also I'm impatiently waiting for the last The Expanse book from the library, so that could be a factor as far as scifi reading goes - maybe I just can't muster interest in other scifi until I've read that book!

I'm just happy that I have no problems reading fanfic.

2) Taken any good baths lately?

I haven't lived anywhere with a bathtub since 1993. It's showers for me!

3) Do you read paper books, or do you prefer another format?

I prefer paper books, hard cover first then soft cover. But if I can't get my hands on it as a physical book, I'm also happy to read ebooks on my laptop and/or tablet: epub is my preferred format there, but mobi's fine too, and other formats if those too aren't available.

4) Where's the most comfortable place in your home?

My bed! I love to read in my bed. For tv watching and work on my laptop, it's my couch. For writing with pen and paper, I like my writing desk even though my neck can't stand it for long, looking down like that.

5) What's the most relaxing sound you can put on?

I prefer silence - I'm sensitive to sounds/noise, my constant headache is easily worsened, or triggered into a migraine. My it's a good head day, I like to listen to my music: the last long while it's been The Last Of The Mohicans and The Leftovers soundtracks. I can lose myself in the music for hours at a time and do nothing but listen to it for like four or five hours. But I have to be careful not to over-do it because of the before mentioned headache/migraine, so such long stretches of sounds/noise are rare these days, usually more like 30 mins or an hour.