The (not-so) Weekly P.U.L.S.A.R.

Welcome to the Weekly P.U.L.S.A.R.

It’s been a minute…from taking a break from social media to coping with the election and whatnot, things have been different. I’ve missed y’all though.

Perusing

I’ve been leaning heavily on media in these trying times, as I usually do. I look to it for help in both distracting from my emotions and feeling them and regulating them. Here’s what I’ve been consuming.

Books

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu - Incredible lyrical science fiction book about a pandemic told over many generations.

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong - Cozy fantasy about a fortune teller who accumulates a group of ragtag friends. Absolutely lovely.

Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim - Literary historical fiction about early 20th century Korea. I don’t usually gravitate towards litfic but I pushed myself for the Diverse Baseline Challenge prompt and so far (80% complete) it’s been worth it.

TV Shows

Jaylon and I finally finished Rings of Power Season 2 (I’m into it, he’s not). I just had a really nice time with it. Every single person is serving cunt in every single scene for literally no reason, I love it. Like damn. Also everyone (including Sauron!!!) is in love with Galadriel? I’m like a week away from seeking out Sauron/Galadriel fanfic and I hope it gets freaky given that sometimes he’s a man, sometimes an elf, sometimes black goo, and sometimes a disembodied eye. My friend who’s into the lore (hi, Sienna) says Rings of Power is not at all lore-aligned, but I’m just here to have a nice time.

I finished up Ghosts Season 4 - to be clear, the UK version NOT the American version which sucks. The British version absolutely slaps. I highly highly recommend it. It’s about a woman who can see all the ghosts from various points in history that live in her house (her husband, hilariously, cannot).

Movies

I’m a Venomhead. It’s true. I love the Venom movies. Are they examples of the stupendous craft of filmmaking? No. Are they a fucking GREAT time? Absolutely. The Eddie Brock-Venom relationship is everything. And the last in the trilogy, Venom: The Last Dance is no exception.

I finally watched the little film Aftersun. And now I’m a big Paul Mescal film. The movie is a home movie-style record of a young, troubled father and his daughter’s last vacation together. It’s beautiful and implies future tragedy in way that makes the beauty more poignant.

A few movies we saw that kind of sucked: Red One and Gladiator II. Not really worth going into it.

Other

I love sports. Since coming out as agender, I’ve felt freer to bro it up. Before that, I felt beholden to forcing myself into the feminine stereotype to overcompensate for not feeling it. I love professional football (yikes) and I watch it with my full focus. Baseball, basketball, and hockey are cool too. So Jaylon and I went to a football game! LA Rams and Philly Eagles (Jaylon’s team) if you’re curious. It was rough on my physical form but fun as hell.

Unburdening

I cut back on Instagram a few weeks ago. I realized that I’d been caught up in the culture of shame and have been so afraid of other people’s judgments that I didn’t actually know what I felt or believed. For years I have felt like I was always being watched and judged by some invisible crowd, ready to deem me an outcast. In social justice circles, yes, but also in my own life. And over time I lost touch with what I believe, with what is authentic to me, true to me. I parroted what I thought was the ‘right’ answer and made what I thought was the ‘right’ decision. I really had myself fooled into believe that finally, finally, I was doing it right, I was being good. But it was another round of ‘pick-a-personality’ that is so common among trauma survivors. I am trying to be compassionate to myself (thanks, Therapist Dan) and I am also trying to find my own truth, without looking to others first. I’m trying to figure out how to engage with both the app and the social justice movement in a way that works for me.

Learning

The above is going to take a lot of re-learning. I read this substack, which really resonated with me. My therapist and I plan to go in the direction of Somatic Therapy. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reorienting towards my inner compass. I even made a Letterboxd list of movies that are my praxis lol because that’s who I am. I’m too embarrassed to link that one today. Baby steps and all that haha.

Shimmering

The day after the election, a group facilitator asked me to name 3 glimmers I experienced. Here they are:

1. The feeling of water on my skin during water aerobics.

2. Bug getting excited to see me when I woke up from my nap.

3. The track “Test Drive” by John Powell from How to Train Your Dragon.

Aspiring

I felt regulated recently in a way I almost never feel and it was AMAZING. I felt so energized and powerful. Is this how some folks feel all the time? Incredible. So I’m aspiring to feeling that more, though it will take a lot of effort

Recommending

This time I’m recommending attuning to your values. You cannot act in a way that is authentic to yourself if you don’t know what you’re about. So take a moment and figure it out, write it down, and revisit from time to time. You can take a values inventory here or here.

I’m also recommending getting involved in your community. As a social worker and student, I talk and think a lot about community but it’s clear from my classes that a lot of people don’t know what community actually is (this is white supremacy’s goal, btw). I could go on about it but loosely, community can be anyone from your inner circle to your mailperson or the cashier you exchange pleasantries with every Saturday when you grocery shop. Getting involved can look like many different things, here are some examples. And if you’re looking to build community, find your people, or strengthen your ties, try this resource.

That’s all from my little region of our shared galaxy for now. Please, please, please comment if you have a thought or question. I love to hear from you.

Keep on keepin’ on ❤️‍🔥

1  This is a way to share what I’ve been reading, watching, exploring, pondering, and more. It’s like a R.E.P.O.R.T., if you’re familiar with that. I just didn’t resonate with that acronym, so I made my own. It stands for Perusing, Unburdening, Learning, Shimmering, Aspiring, and Recommending. You’ll see. For the non-space nerds, a pulsar is a type of star that emits regular pulses of radiation. It’s the pulsar from the pulsar map that locates our sun’s position in our known corner of the universe. This map is floating beyond our solar system on the Voyager 1 and 2 probes (favorite spacecrafts of mine; check out the documentary The Farthest) so that if any sentient life comes across the probes, they can find us.