Americana Exotica

I left my laptop at my parents' house today, so hopefully this will post on mobile.

Last summer, I noticed that my face was disgusting with oil and clogged pores, and being in my thirties, I felt like I had to start taking better care of my skin, to help aging and to feel better. The store I work at had just launched a Korean Beauty section, and I decided to do some research on what we carried, how to use them, and try some things. At least I'd have an idea of how to upsell the new products.

Except that now I'm in love. My skin is glowing. Its soft and clean. I dont get hormonal breakouts anymore. I keep thinking, I wish I had known about this stuff as a teenager, and I just want to gush about it to everyone. 

Not every product I use is Korean, but that section was a good jumping off point. Especially because the whole 10 Step skincare routine really laid out for me what to focus on. I didnt (and dont) go the whole 10 steps, but it did introduce me to the double-cleanse, which I think has been the most important part of my routine. It's the only thing I've done daily, consistently, and it works. You know how your hair squeaks when its clean? Your skin does too, and I didnt know that until I started the double cleanse. Maybe that's gross; I did wash my face before this, of course, but I didnt know it could get cleaner than what soap and water could do.

Beyond the double cleanse, I've been amazed by what simply moisturizing can do. I avoided moisturizers (the same way I avoided oil-based cleansers) because for a long time, I thought I had oily skin. In the process of figuring skincare out, though, someone pointed out to me that sometimes dry skin creates more oil to compensate. So I tried it. And it worked. I'm pretty sure I have normal/combination skin now (though sensitive!), but the dryness and heat of the area I live in, and the fact that I wasn't drinking enough water, created a messy cycle of too dry and too oily. Now I'm just... clean. 

I still dont drink enough water, but I drink more than I was before, and I think that helps too.

I have products that I use 2-3 times a week too. Toner, serum, masks. I have a pore cleaning kit that I use maybe once a month. It all helps. I just started using an eye cream, and a night cream designed to fight the redness that's been plaguing me since I was a kid. My original moisturizer is about out, and I've decided it aggravated my redness and was too heavy, so I bought something new to try. I've returned to using Lush products on the rest of my body too. TMI, but I'm at the point in my menstrual cycle where I usually look the worst - oily, broken out, mottled skin, oily hair, bloating - but I looked in the mirror tonight after my routine and thought I looked great. Even skin tone, tight pores, not too much shine, just healthy. Definitely not my age, lol. 

My routine: 

Every Morning:
Burts Bees cleansing oil
Elisha Coy snail cream foaming cleanser.
(old) Peach Slices citrus honey aqua glow hydrating moisture-gel
(new) Elisha Coy skin refining snail skin lotion 
OleHenriksen banana bright eye cream

2-3 times a week:
Frudia green grape pore control toner
Ariul berry blast brightening serum
Lush Dark Angel face and body cleanser
A myriad of different masks (favorite is Creme Shop Lemon & Charcoal, but I'm flexible based on what I think my skin needs most. Just bought Juice Cleanse spearmint and green apple for toning since my pores have been gross as the weather changes)

Every night:
Burts Bees cleansing oil
Elisha Coy snail cream foaming cleanser
Eucerin redness relief night cream

Other beauty faves: 
Lush lip scrub (currently using bubblegum, but since it's literally sugar, any of them are good)
Lush Salted Coconut hand scrub
Lush Fairly-Traded Honey shampoo
Lush Veganese conditioner
Lush body conditioner (these are AMAZING, I've used Christingle, Buck's Fizz, and American Pie and love them all)
Lush shower gel/cream (again, hard to go wrong, I have a little collection of small bottles and I just choose what I most want to smell like today)
Lush fresh face masks (brazened honey and oatifix were great for redness and exfoliating!)
Pig-nose blackhead clear 3-step kit (time consuming, but worth it)

Also, since I've been learning and experimenting with make-up, I've found having a healthy, moisturized, clean canvas helps a lot. Though it is kind of funny: I get my natural skin so dewy, just to cover it with matte product after matte product. 

Maybe I'll talk my make up routine some other time.

I just got back from my weekend in L.A., seeing Panic! twice with some friends, and I'm super in my feelings about it. I don't even know where to start talking about it, at least partially because I know that once I start, I won't be able to stop. I love Panic! and I love Brendon and I'm so happy with who I choose to stan because they are the best people. I've been a fan for over 10 years, and that won't be changing anytime soon.

I miss the fandom days of olde, where people could ship what they wanted and no one batted an eye.

Incest squicks me out, but I totally get why people ship Wincest. Between ATG and J2's natural chemistry, that was always going to exist. And the existence of it doesn't bother me.

What does bother me is gatekeeping. Ship and let ship. Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That's Okay. Leave other people alone and mind your own damn business. Fandom has always been a place for people to safely explore aspects of their sexuality, and it was supposed to be fairly judgement free. At least, it was when I was younger. I don't recognize it anymore.

I love that Supernatural fandom is one of the last safe spaces for kinky kinks. But I see the puritans gathering armor and they wear masks like they're on my side, but I don't want them on my side. I don't care if people ship Wincest. I don't care if they ship Weecest. It's not hurting anybody. Leave them alone.

There are certain people on Twitter who have decided that they get to be fandom police, and I disagree with that notion completely. Bring back the chaos days where it was fun to admit to your fantasies and have people encourage them. I didn't vote for a fandom sheriff, and those people don't represent me. I don't particularly like the cruelty of certain other people either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go screencap their shit and harass them over it. And I'm certainly not going to be a party to harassing innocent people who ship something I don't like either.

I don't like new fandom. But I'm glad that, at least, most of the people my age, the people I hang out with, see things the way I do. At least I can ignore the fandom police if I so choose.

Anyway. I'm working on a post discussing my currently unwritten fics. It's taking longer than I thought it would, lol.

I can't talk to people who don't watch Michael Schur shows.

My boss was complaining last week that we didn't have enough Valentine's product to cover the whole seasonal area, so I joked about making a Galentine's or Treat Yo Self section to fill space. He's latched onto the Galentine's idea, but from my conversations with him and with a coworker, he has no idea what it actually is. He told my coworker to build a Galentine's section last night, and since she also didn't know what that meant, he told her "Just bring down all of our facial care backstock."

hwat

no

I grabbed some snacks and cute gifts and beauty things that girls can do together like animal-print face masks and manicure tools. And some wine. And that'll have to do. For my joke that my boss didn't understand and took entirely too seriously. Because he's never watched Parks and Rec.

This is just one incident, btw, you should see people's faces when I reference The Good Place.

Theres this article making the rounds, "How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation." I read it and didnt really relate to it at first: I'm a tried and true Millennial-'87 baby, class of '05- but I didnt go to college right after high school, and when I did go, it was to a community college where I paid out of pocket. I already had a fulltime job with benefits when my friends were graduating into a recession with tens of thousands of dollars of debt breathing down their necks. I'm not married, and I dont have kids. All I have is my job, and my fandom, so how could I possibly be burnt out?

Except I recognized myself in some of the things the author talked about anyway. I dont like to run errands either. I'm obsessed with efficiency and being efficient. If I have to go to the store, or to the DMV, or even to the movies, then it needs to either be as early or as late as possible, or I need to already be en route somewhere else, so I can do as much as possible in as little time as possible. I literally go to the movies after a closing shift at work, because I'd rather give up sleeping time to do something fun, than give up day time. 

I hoard day time. I dont know why, because if I have it, I dont really use it. I haven't been writing. I just... read articles, I guess. I read a lot of articles. I don't even really read as much fanfiction as I'd like to, because there just seems to always be some article to read instead. Or Twitter. I do spend a lot of time on Twitter. 

I've talked about my anxiety before, I don't really make a secret of it. I function at a low simmer most days, though every once in a while it jumps up to a boil. Reading that article made me wonder, how much of this situation is anxiety, how much is burnout, and how much are these things the same? 

The article asks what we can do about burnout, and I don't really know the answer. I know that I like quiet, these days. I have more silent car rides than I used to. I like to sit in a quiet house. I used to like to fall asleep with the TV on, but now I fall asleep faster with it off. When I was in Vancouver, I liked to sit on a little chaise next to the window and listen to the quiet of the bay and the ocean nearby. I like the ocean too. It makes me feel small and insignificant and reminds me that if those things are true, then whatever is stressing me out is also small and insignificant. 

I agree with the article that vacations aren't enough to cure burnout or anxiety. But I get to see the ocean next month, and that plus a margarita might lift some of the weight off my shoulders. 

 I've been right on the edge of writing for the last several days, but my anxiety is such a nightmare this time of year. I can't focus on anything.

I got to take care of cleaning and condensing Christmas at work today, and that was pretty relaxing. I like doing things like that, cleaning shelves and organizing product. Very meditative. Just difficult enough to keep me focused, but easy enough that I can lose myself in it. Then I got home and something popped up on my Instagram feed and it triggered my anxiety all over again. I'm not going to have a panic attack or anything, but I'm definitely not going to be focused enough to write either.

I have this idea in my head that I want to update by New Year's Day, but I don't see it happening at this rate. Not if I can't get this back under control. 

I've been thinking about fics besides Young Volcanoes, but I'm so deeply involved in Young Volcanoes, and so close (but so far) from an update that I don't feel like I can work on anything else. This is also my anxiety speaking though.

At the beginning of November, some stuff happened at work that pushed me pretty close to a breaking point, and one of coworkers actually asked if I was on medication (not in a mean way; in a way where he was genuinely concerned about my behavior and I was shocked that anyone paid enough attention to me to notice that something was wrong in the first place). When I said no, he suggested I talk to my doctor about it. I have trouble making myself go to the doctor even for physical problems, but I'm starting to think he may be right. I've been at a constant low simmer (at BEST) since late 2015 and haven't been able to truly course-correct and I think it's affecting my life beyond just my writing. 

I get to do cosmetic resets in a couple weeks. I hate the early mornings, but it's a straight two weeks of nothing but resets, almost exactly like what I did today. Then, a few weeks after that, I'm going to LA to see my favorite band, for my birthday. Then, a few weeks after that, it's time for Vegascon. 

I can get through.