Athene Numphe

I play in a lot of online indie ttrpgs. If an entire week goes off without a hitch, it might be as many as four. I can't remember the last time it was four, but there is a theoretical outcome that has me playing Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, and then either Friday or Sunday afternoon.

Mondays has been Brindlewood Bay every other Monday, but as of next week, the alternate Mondays will be taken up with Perils and Princesses. I have absolutely no idea how I got so lucky as to find the amazing human who runs both of them on start playing, but she continues to blow me away (and in addition to her regular job, she's a paid GM to save up for her girlfriend's engagement ring) weekly with both her skill and her kindness.

Wednesdays is a brand new game of The Between, by which I am deeply, deeply intimidated by. not to the point of it not being fun, just everyone feels very experienced in general, familiar with the system and some combination of competent and confident. J, who has been coming to Thanksgiving forever and who lives in DC now, said they were excited to play with me, which is both exciting and feels like something I can't possibly live up to.

Thursdays is Wanderhome and I'm absolutely in love with both the system and the human who runs it. I've been lucky enough to play with C for almost a year now, both Yazeba's and Wanderhome, and I think they're just a fantastic human being, and I think talking to him was the first time I really got to bitch about how toxic AA is with someone who was also sober and dealing with lingering feelings about how they fucked up so much of their past.

And sometimes there's a pickup game of Yazeba's, and I'm currently in a short run of Girls of Genziana.

So I'm playing a butch old lady with a marshmellow heart solving local murders and uncovering a cult, a Victorian Dr Frankenstein equivalent who is building a monster because someone told her she couldn't and someone else told her she shouldn't, an emotional damaged porcupine-person who is trying to help everyone else get where they're going, because for the moment she doesn't have anywhere to go, a superstitious maid whose version of being extremely charismatic is being blank enough that everyone just projects what they want on her. And sometimes an old woman who literally sold her heart who is trying to make the safe place for everyone else that she didn't have for herself, but also is too hurt to know how to engage with the people she's trying to help.

All a little bit on the nose, in the end, but even in the depths of the insecurity and anxiety, so much fun and so interesting.

There are a lot of things I want done around the house that I lack the courage or the confidence to do, both big and little and I feel like if I buckled down, watched some youtube videos, realized I'm not going to render the house uninhabitable if I fuck up a cupboard door more than it is already fucked up, and asked Hands to borrow some tools I could actually do, but instead I don't and instead beat myself up on the regular for doing so. I don't work. No one pays me to do anything. I mostly keep the house clean, the pets well attended to and the errands run, and when I'm at least at 60% functioning, the house full of food. I volunteer a couple places every week, but usually no more than 6-8hrs a week, I hang out with Spark once-to-twice a week. So I should be chock full of both time and energy with which to do all the things and yet the list of things I would "like" to do seems to remain constant or ever increasing.

I live in absolute dread of making things worse across the board. My mental health, my relationships, my back yard, the aforementioned cupboard door, and when I pair that with the assumption that I'm probably going to ruin everything I touch (both literally and metaphorically) that makes forward motion somewhat difficult. And I want to know all the things before I tackle anything, but it turns out the internet will provide me with an endless supply of confidently delivered contradictory information, adding to the paralysis.

I want there to be someone to hire to teach me about house-things, or classes to take. I want someone to explain what's happening to the front door (I think the veneer is peeling off and that the only fix is replacing) or supervise me recaulking the bathroom and give me real-time feedback.

But also I don't want it to be anyone I already know, because I can never tell until the actual moment if it's going to be one of those days that not knowing something feels socially dangerous in a way that makes curiosity really hard to access. I spend a lot of energy committed to being cheerful or at least not-super-defensive about gaps in my knowledge, and I genuinely like it when people teach me things, and in general, I feel like no one's judging me when I don't know things. But also spending so much time using every scrap of willpower I had to fake functionality left me with some situationally inappropriate reflexes, I get muddled on what is and isn't okay to know/know how to do. (Or I find myself asking questions not to learn, but as a placating/fawning response even when there's no threat and then I'm not actually learning anything because any information won't go into any sort of long-term storage.)

Eventually I'll commit to calling a handyman, or fucking it up and then calling a handyman, but for now i guess I'll spend a lot of time thinking about the problem without taking any action.

(it kind of counts if I wrote it yesterday then didn't press post, right?) I guess as long as I post twice today, by whatever weird score I'm keeping with myself, it counts.

I'm in Mystic, CT now which, among other things, not one but two ancestral MyMaidenName burial grounds (one of which you have to trespass to get to, I have only seen it once attending a MyMaidenName family reunion and couldn't find it again), between the two spanning back (I think) at least 250 years. The bloodline goes back further, my father in his retirement decided to double down on genealogical research and traced himself back to the Mayflower by five or so different paths.

My father was very committed to enrolling all his children in the Mayflower Society (an organization for people who can do said tracing back). My little brothers acquiesced, one sister-in-laws said he had to wait for her kids to be able to consent, the other just let it happen. I declined, on the basis it was creepy and I did not wish to, and refused to provide him/them with a copy of my marriage license or with something legal stating Light was really truly divorced when he married me. I have gotten letters from the society in the intervening years, indicating I still had an open application. Along the same lines, my great aunt was a member of not just the Daughters of the American Revolution, but also the Colonial Dames of America, the fancy version for people who held some sort of advanced rank during that time. (the myth is up until this generation, a MyMaidenName has always been in a war)

I don't talk to my parents anymore. There's a lot going on there and I've written and deleted three paragraphs about it at this point, so clearly it's a topic to return to to. But even having severed that tie, even knowing all the horrible things my ancestors must have done to acquire and keep land and money in the New England region for that long in the general if not specific ways, I still like this idea of place-based continuity somehow. I don't think I'm especially proud or smug, I didn't _do_ anything, and I'm still trying to figure out if what I like about it can stand up to daylight.

But there's something about not belonging to my parents, but still belonging to this place, like I can skip over the people who birthed me and still have roots. Something animism-adjacent I suspect.

(here we truncate this entry because it is long and circular and bedtime)