9 Things Making My Life Better So Far This Year (Jan. – March 2021)

As I’ve mentioned before, the first quarter of the year is my worst quarter. I get sad and listless during during short winter days, we “spring forward” into exhaustion, Winter semester is somehow more difficult than Fall, and, oh, hey, it’s still a pandemic and we’ve been under full lockdown in Toronto. Nevertheless, there are plenty of things that made even January through March a little better. As usual, I’m giving most attention to things that others could also acquire/enjoy/practice rather than things particular to my relationships and situation.

Here they are:

Libby (app, Android/iPhone)

I don’t read books on my tablet or phone, so I resisted this app connected to OverDrive for a long time. But then I started to borrow more e-magazines and graphic-heavy e-books (e.g. cookbooks), and I found that reading them in browser was slow, buggy and frustrating. This app is much simpler to use than the library’s mobile website, and it loads books of all types much faster. It also makes managing my holds/loans a breeze.

The Room (game, Android/iPhone)

This touchscreen game lets you explore a complicated puzzle box, unlocking new component after new component until you’ve finally solved all the mysteries and get sent to the next ~plot point~. The atmosphere is great–eerie but not scary–and the gameplay is a lot of fun, even for impatient folks like me who sometimes get frustrated by puzzle games. I still wish the hint system could read my mind (I ALREADY KNOW THAT, I JUST HAVE ONE SPECIFIC QUESTION I NEED TO ASK SO I KNOW WHETHER I’M MESSING UP THE TOUCHSCREEN CONTROLS OR TRYING TO SOLVE THIS PUZZLE BEFORE I HAVE ALL THE PIECES!!!) (Spoiler: I’m almost always forgetting that this game also uses my device’s tilt sensor.) Anyway, I’ve already picked up the next entries in the series and am super excited to keep playing!

The Locked Tomb Trilogy (books by Tamsyn Muir)

In this pandemic year, I owe both Tamsyn Muir and my friend Amanda big-time: Muir for writing these books, and Amanda for recommending the series to me. Reading them was a kick in the butt out of the not-so-great mental-health place I was in at the start of semester. The jolt of becoming intensely and joyfully emotionally invested in something, even if that “something” is the messed-up relationship of two fictional teenagers in a gothic world of necromancy and swordplay* and wonderfully complicated worldbuilding whose details I ignore because I’m the Worst Kind of Reader, somehow refilled my creative batteries. #TeamGriddlehark5ever

Buying e-books

As much as I like and benefited emotionally from the Locked Tomb Trilogy (above), it may have permanently ruined my budget, because wanting to read the second book right away gave me the disastrous epiphanies that: 1) I am an adult with a full-time, well-paying job who can afford to buy books I want to read; 2) now that I’m reading e-books, I don’t have to worry about not having room on my shelves; and 3) I can afford, in money, time, and space, to buy books I haven’t read and don’t know if I like instead of reading them first and buying only my favourites.

I am 100% still using the library, because libraries are awesome, and also because there are plenty of books I know I want to read but not to own and/or am pretty sure I want to read only once and/or don’t want to read urgently enough to bypass my “let’s see if I like this series first before I buy the whole thing.” But I am definitely spending most of my current budget’s discretionary funds on books.

The Texicalaan series (books by Arkady Martine)

Yup, we’re still here in the “oh wow, I enjoy reading fiction again and ALSO BUYING BOOKS, ALL THE BOOKS” portion of this blog entry. I love the humanism of this space-opera duology even as it explores the effects of human beings’ profoundly inhuman practices toward one another, such as colonialism. And as fascinating as these themes are on the macro plot-scale, I particularly enjoy seeing how they play out on the personal level in the relationship between two main characters, Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass, who are likeable and fallible and each experiencing the impacts of imperialism from different perspectives.

Making pretzels (I use this recipe)

Giant soft pretzels are my favourite, and it turns out that they are pretty easy to make, as long as you have baking soda, patience, and sourdough starter.

I usually have only two of those things (hint: lots of pantry supplies and sourdough starter), but I’ve managed these several times since the start of the new year, and even with just two of us, they’re usually gone in a couple days:

Mental health care

Despite what I mentioned above about falling in love with a new book series helping to improve my mental health, things being better doesn’t mean they’re always okay. I’m very fortunate that my workplace’s health-and-dental package offers mental-health resources such as counselling and includes support for therapy, and I’m glad that I’ve been able to take advantage of them by phone and Zoom during this winter’s lockdown. Last semester was a burn-out nightmare, and I knew that this semester was likely to be worse, so I made myself schedule a counselling appointment before classes started again and keep scheduling them even if I happened to be in a good place right at that moment. The counsellor suggested therapy for particular challenges, so I made a therapy appointment as well. Both have been a very helpful additions to the supports I try to set in place for myself.

I wish everybody had access to affordable mental-health care that’s right for them. On the off-chance that you do but need someone else to give you that extra nudge and tell you to go for it, you deserve it, getting help isn’t bad or weak: go for it. You deserve it. Getting help isn’t bad or weak.

Coming out deliberately

Among the many helpful breakthroughs facilitated by the above mental health care was the realization that, hey, I haven’t made space for myself to be who I am without self-judgment about whether I’m enough that identity to “count.” Part of the result of this was that, although I expect that I’ve mentioned off-hand to various friends and family that I’m bi, I’d explicitly stated this to maybe, like, three people. I figured it didn’t really matter since I already have all the romantic partners I care to (i.e. my lovely husband), so why bother bringing it up, but it turns out that sharing parts of myself doesn’t have to be useful to others to be meaningful to me (… did I mention how helpful it’s been to go to therapy/counselling?)

Honestly, sometimes this (and other counselling breakthroughs) feels like “hey, this is a great thing I’m doing for my mental health!” and sometimes it feels like “I’m uninterested in working on stuff on my mental-health to-do list, I’m much more excited to write/do tae kwon do/read a book right now!” But mental health is more like brushing my teeth: it’s not always going to feel impactful or be a relief to take care of it, but it’s better to develop healthy everyday habits than to run to the dentist in a crisis every few years.

(PS If I haven’t reached out to come out to you yet, it’s not because I don’t value you! It’s because social interaction is a lot for me right now! … OK, social interaction is a lot for me most of the time. Whatever!)

Down Dog (set of apps, Android/iPhone)

In the first weeks of January, a year’s subscription to this family of fitness apps was on sale. I liked how they mix and match exercises to make a routine you can customize in just about every way: detail of instruction, time, areas to focus on, strength level for different muscle groups, etc.

I use mostly the yoga app and the meditation app, but I do also like the HIIT app every once in a while. Although I like many of the YouTube instructors whose videos I’ve watched, I kind of like to work out by myself, and the robot remix of human narration and videos works well for me.

Runners up!

These ones didn’t make the list of nine, but they’ve been pretty awesome too!

Mini-workouts: Instead of guilting myself to do a complete workout every day, I just make sure to do at least one pull-up, push-up, chin-up etc. as I go through my daily routine. If I feel like a “real” workout later, great! If not, at least I’m making slow progress.

She-Ra: Princesses of Power (Netflix series), season 5: Finally finished watching this. The last season was the best!

This letter opener: This is so beautiful and so handy–it’s just the right amount of sharp. I use it to open packages, dig caked-on wax out of candlesticks… pretty much everything.

* Locked Tomb cavaliers and necromancers vowing to each other: ~*~OnE FlEsH, oNe EnD~*~ all I have and am I’ll put on the line for you, all you have and are you ‘ll put on the line for me

Me and my actual spouse:

“Did you bring that large bowl we both own to the table for the chicken wing bones?”
“I brought it for ~my~ chicken wing bones.”
“Well, since you brought only one, can I use it for mine too?”
“… I guess.”