First of all, let me be clear that Funko Pop action figures haven’t done all that much to change my life for the better, but they are a great little inexpensive present to myself every now and then. I added Jam Master Jay to my collection yesterday. All three members of Run DMC are currently available, but Jam Master Jay was the DJ and I don’t have any DJ’s yet. I couldn’t resist the mini turntables.
The others in the photo are Lil Wayne, Notorious BIG, and Tupac. I have other Funko Pops, but this is my hip hop collection. I have Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Joey Ramone, Bob Ross, Basquiat, Mr. Rogers, Batman, and Rainbow Brite too.
I am a nerd, what can I say? Speaking of which, I’m gonna talk a little about technology, which actually isn’t one of my nerd topics at all. I really don’t know much about technology, but I use it, and there have been some apps that have helped change my life for the better. I’m curious what apps have been helpful to you as well, and why. Please let me know in the comments, but here are a few for me. Most of them are probably well known.
Starting with the old days, beyond the Ani Difranco email list I was part of, which was kind of like a pre-social media version of social media, we had LiveJournal which I used for years and had a very popular blog, but then MySpace popped up which was kind of awesome in some ways and I was able to get back in touch with a lot of friends from high school who I hadn’t talked to in a decade. That had its pros and cons. A lot of my high school friends weren’t people I wanted back in my life, but some of them absolutely were, and I even became close with a few people I wasn’t even friends with in high school! In fact, I’d say the few people I feel closest to from high school now are about 50/50 people I was close with back then, and people I hardly knew then.
Today was the birthday of one of my most special friends from alternative school. We had our first reunion for students and teachers about five years ago in October, which was twenty years since I graduated high school and the same month my sister got married. That reunion was something my soul needed badly because my alternative school friends are my soul family… at least how I see it. I’ll always feel connected to them at my core. We’ve gathered every year since, including this year on Zoom, which is another app I will mention, but it was MySpace that first got me back in touch with my old friends, where LiveJournal was mostly all people I only knew through the internet, although a few of my depressed, emo friends I met in psych wards had LiveJournals, and I kept in touch with several of them through there, for better or worse. One of them is still a best friend and soulmate. I also visited some of my LiveJournal friends in 2001, flying across country to Olympia Washington to meet them. Some of them are family to me to this day as well… people who’ve truly saved me.
Eventually Facebook came along. It definitely offers the best and worst of things. It ended MySpace, and LiveJournal is now owned by conservative Russian spies or something. Until I recently started blogging on WordPress again, I used my Facebook for everything and still do. I treat it like my own pirate radio station, like Hard Harry from Pump Up the Volume, my most influential movie hero. I try to use my blog in the same way. I’ve always treated social media like that. I share news, art, photos, music, humor, inspiration, thoughts on what’s going on in the world or my life… I use it to share my own creative expressions as well as that of others I love, and yes, I even share my opinions on politics…not politicians so much. Fuck most of them, but the issues are still important and I use social media as a way of better understanding the world around me. I do try to avoid negative people, and artists are my favorite to follow. I love seeing art and music. I love that about Instagram too. I don’t go into as much details in what I write on Instagram because mine is public, and I also don’t really read what others write on there either. I mostly just like looking at the art. I follow all kinds of artists and share my art there too. I wouldn’t say Instagram has offered me anything I can’t get elsewhere, other than an easy way to view art and support other artists, which IS important, but I can pretty much do that on Facebook too. I still like Instagram though. For me, it is better than Snapchat which I don’t have and don’t like, and TikTok which I do have and am starting to like things about it, especially doing duets on people’s beats, but I just recently got invited to a rap battle group on Facebook which would probably be more worth my time. Facebook, by far has won for the most addictive and most helpful. There are definitely down sides, and I see those and would love to see a new site replace Facebook with similar features but more freedom. I love social media in most ways, and Facebook has almost everything I’d want, it’s free, and it’s where all my friends are. I’m an extroverted introvert who lives alone and has a bit of agoraphobia, so Facebook is the perfect way to get the interaction I need without it overwhelming me. Messenger on the other hand I could mostly do without. Sure, I use it to talk to many people I love, but I’d be okay with most of those people texting me on my phone. On messenger, I get a lot of bullshit and people who call me on there like it’s a phone annoy me, other than the woman I work with through the gallery who calls me on it for stuff relating to my art and the gallery, which is fine.
I do not like Twitter either. I just don’t get the appeal.
Beyond social media though, there are other apps that have helped me…
MyFitnessPal – I use this to track my food and calories and set goals for eating and stuff like that. It came recommended by my nutritionist and helped me lose over 100 pounds. Of course, when I stopped using it, I gained a lot of that back, but that was also because I quit smoking AND had a psychosis breakdown, so gaining 50 pounds back was kind of expected, but I’ve been using the app again and lost over 30 of those 50 pounds I’d gained back.
Habitica – When I was thinking about quitting smoking several years ago, and also wanting to START doing some positive shit more often, I started doing Habitica as recommended by a friend who said it helped him to take a shower every day. I was having trouble remembering to brush my teeth back then. I’ve brushed every day since starting Habitica, which I don’t actually even really use anymore, but it did wonders for training me to do lots of different activities. For many years with my severe PTSD, I would just sit on the couch and smoke cigarettes or vape while listening to music or watching TV all day. I hardly moved and it was very difficult to motivate myself, even to do things I wanted to do like art, writing, reading, etc. I just couldn’t get myself to do anything, but Habitica turns it into a game where you get points for everything you do that you wanna do, and lose points for doing things you’re trying to do less. You can sort of set it up any way you want. I put each individual thing I wanted to do, and would get points for when I did them, and would take away points for things like smoking on the days I smoked, but not every cigarette. In order to make it worth doing, you wanna set it up to give yourself more positive rewards than punishments. I had all sorts of shit listed… brush teeth, shower, go outside, take out trash, do dishes, make phone calls, clean litter box, read, practice songs, dance, write, do art, play bass, vacuum, do my self help apps, drink water, stretch, go to a social event, organize web sites, lift weights, walk, cook, make gratitude list, etc. It got me going and helped me to figure out how to do many things a day for small periods so I don’t get overwhelmed and I get so much more done now because of it.
DBT Diary Card is also a great app for retraining yourself. I can’t say for sure how well it works for people who haven’t been exposed to DBT as a form of therapy, but for someone like me, who had DBT as the main therapy used in the public mental health system because it was designed by a woman with mental illness, and it works, especially on people with PTSD, addictions, and OCD. Technically it is designed for Borderline Personality Disorder, but I think that is misdiagnosed when at least 50% of the time, it’s not a personality disorder but learned behavior from trauma. I don’t believe DBT really helps people with BPD. I mean, I don’t know, I’m not an expert but from what I’ve seen, I believe it helps those with C-PTSD who’ve been misdiagnosed with BPD, but are capable of unlearning their learned toxic behaviors. DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and it combines meditation and mindfullness with coping skills and assertiveness and all kinds of useful stuff that I credit as being the #1 thing that helped me figure out how to get my life together… not just the app, but the group therapy that came before the app. After leaving a few years of DBT groups, I got an iPhone because that was the only phone with an available DBT app which was a one time $5 payment. I still use it on occasion and have it customized to work on all my issues, only some of which are built into it. I track my feelings, thoughts, actions, and coping skills to get a better understanding of how I am affected by things and what needs working on. It’s great.
InsightTimer is another that has helped with my mental health. When I was having a lot of rage a couple years ago, using this app for guided meditations helped me calm down immediately. I only had to do it once before I was feeling better, and it also actually helped me stop grinding my teeth. I wish I’d used it a bit earlier, but it’s a free app with guided meditations as well as calming music and stuff to help you sleep.
Speaking of sleep, it’s getting late, so I’m gonna make this into a 2 part piece.
I did wanna share some music though, and I guess I should mention that I love YouTube for music. Sure, I collect vinyl and I also have AmazonMusic Unlimited, but Youtube is free and has so much cool shit. If I wanna send someone a playlist or a song to listen to, I almost always do it through Youtube if it’s available, which almost everything is.
Here’s a song that came on that had me all excited tonight. I’ve always loved this Moby album, Play.
and here’s a fun one too. RIP PM Dawn
another awesome one…
and one more for the win. gotta love this 90’s shit…
