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A Peaceful Yom Kippur

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(Not my art! Made with AI) The Day of Atonement is a Jewish holiday in which religious people participate in various pagan atonement rituals that look like medieval witchcraft (seriously, look up the rooster one) and, since it's tradition not to drive at all, the secular crowd made it into bicycle day to make use of the empty roads. It's a very quiet day; when we only had one channel on TV here, that, too, would broadcast nothing - so the holiday was also the 'raid the movies rental' holiday. Nowadays we have internet so being bored with no TV isn't an issue, but the roads still empty, there's no music or any loud noises outside, and it lasts for a blissful period of 24 hours. I love it. Having spent seven years living alone, I now really enjoy having people in the same house as me; the sounds of life  happening so close, life I can dip into if I want, feels safe and helps me not get stuck in my own head. On the other hand, it also means constant interruptions w...
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September

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September in this country is full of holidays, which makes keeping a routine near impossible; with two kids in the house, it's been more social and family-like than I had in years. It's going to get far more social, because there's the Geek Festival in two weeks, and I'm going for the first time in 15 years. It's a bit daunting - I'm very fat, and I used to be a minor celebrity in these circles; what will they think of me? Will I feel confident and happy as I used to, when I was the outgoing game-master of tabletop game, the person who enjoys making LARP props and making friends with new people? It's so easy to retreat into my shell, but I miss people, and roleplaying, and real-life socializing. So September has been distinctly lacking in daily routine, but had more nice family interactions than I had in a decade. There was time with the boyfriend's kids, enjoyable time with my brother (!), loads Office Days In Person here in my study with Quazi - it ser...
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Scrapbooking irl

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Last night I wrote a long entry, then immediately chickened out and removed it, due to a combination of not wanting to jinx it, and a learnt-tendency to be wary of what I share in public. So it's time to do my best to sum it up and see if that helps.  Most of the realistic things in my life are as good as can be. There's no world peace and I'm not in a healthy weight, but the realistic things that can make one's daily life either a misery or a smooth, lovely joy, are all on the good side and have been for a while. This is when, were I the type, I'd knock on wood.  It's been almost a year of having this new love, and his kids, and his derpy cat, and all of those make me happy and relaxed, and give me meaning. A toxic presence that's been in my life for a few decades is gone - probably the biggest, deepest negative influence on my life. It being gone feels like both winning the lottery and being on a relaxing vacation; there's nothing to fear. I've bee...
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Rabbit holes upon rabbit holes in the Egypto-Victorian suit

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Work - or whatever one would call this 3D hobby - is the exciting thing I look forward to when I get out of bed in the morning, mood willing. Managed to get back to it a couple of weeks ago thanks to streaming - the people there energize me - and currently am working on a suit. The not-commission is a take on an fantasy Egyptian prince, with a Victorian aspect - that sounds like a hot mess, but 'fantasy', 'ancient Egypt' and 'Victorian' have been my GMed tabletop roleplaying campaign themes for 30 years, so it's my comfort zone. The Egyptian outfit is finished, and I've been working on the Victorian one for a while and am having a blast, because it requires learning a plethora of new tools.  Whatever little I learnt of Substance Painter was mostly wiped during my two months off, so that needs re-learning. The outfit design is currently benign - bland Victorian, nothing Egyptian about the silhouette, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to change that; ...
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Post-stream energy keeps giving!

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It was my plan to go back to sleep once the boyfriend left for his board game night; but somehow, still buoyed on yesterday's stream sense of energy and normality, I ended up editing the first episode of Dracula (the 2020 Netflix one) so I can share it with ET. The show is excellent but rather gory, and I'm not sure the story interests ET at all - he's less into Gothic Victorian horror than me - so I edited out all the gore and abbreviated the story into something that would upset Stoker; it's the video equivalent of this: Jonathan Harker: So the castle was creepy, I got sicker every day, the count looked younger and had better English every night, I forgot Mina's face, found some zombies and a dead baby, and escaped. Sister Agatha: Rocks. It happened that I even cropped out most of Dracula himself, which is a shame because it's a wonderful rendition of the character; He's the scariest Dracula I've seen, as exquisite as only Steven Moffat can write, but ...
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Grief and External Strength

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It was my intention to use this diary - 'blog' always feels like it's intended for other people to read, while the stuff I write is usually just a thought-dump, so 'diary' fits better, even if it's open for others to read - my intention was to blabber about Blender and 3D when I'm excited, but there's more right now. This is a positive post, despite the coming paragraph. My father died five weeks ago. It was a complicated relationship, with lots of love and care, but also lots of other stuff - stuff that means this loss is not as unbearably painful as losing a parent usually is. It is, however, still grief; it's confusing, to find oneself crying, or unable to function, while not feeling the loss as keenly as I felt mum's when she passed away.  How is this a positive post, then? Because of several things. The boyfriend and his children, for a start; we've lived together for a few months now, and it's... well, it's wonderful. This kids ...
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Blender in Persia, hair cards and fire

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  Could be I've been too hasty to call this diary gone; Unexpectedly, there's suddenly stuff I can, and want, to share - that isn't as private as thoughts and emotions. Incoming explanation.  For six or seven years I taught Blender for Warcraft art, and made Warcraft art with Blender, mostly commissions. I suck at commissions; diving into polishing the models can be a bottomless pit, and I happily fall in because I enjoy it, but it meant that even with charging around 60 euro per commission, I would be paid something like one euro per hour. That was disheartening, but when I managed to put that aside it was pure fun. More than that; it was the thing that got me out of bed in the morning.  Not the depressed kind of 'I've nothing else to get out of bed for', but the enthusiastic, passionate kind of being hyper-focused on something both challenging and rewarding; and Blender's been managing to keep me hyper-focused since 2015. Even when bad things happened - di...
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