#and gets very very very stressed out by cleaning stuff so our houses have always been Insanely messy. not that im like blaming my mom ik

[screamingay]

somehow these current roommates we have are the worst that ive known yet and last semester we literally had a girl who smoked cigs IN her bedroom. list of grievances below lol

[nomaishuttle]

this is not just me complaining bc its one of my chores but i truly donot think the kitchen needs 2 be mopped twice aweek

[bangchansgirlsblog]

Broken Headsets PT 2

-Chan

Warning: A lot of Angst.

Pairing: BangChan x reader.

Summary: where he snaps at you while working.

!Not proofread!

**

“Baby I’m so sorry, please open up the door.” Chan’s voice echoes through the door and into the bathroom.

My knees against my chest as I was calming down from a panic attack. The sleeves on my sweater now dump from all the tears it was sucking up.

“G-go away” I cry louder. My body shaking and my salty tears freely running down my hot face.

“I don’t…I don’t want to talk to you right now!”

“Babe I’m sorry okay? I didn’t mean to snap like that. Just let me talk to you. Let me hold you. I’m worried. Your going to have another panic attack”

“BangChan leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.” I throw whatever was in my reach at the wooden door. Making him jump on the other side of the door. Now HE couldn’t hold back his tears. He wanted to be able to sort it out because he genuinely didn’t mean to snap Or cause anyone pain.

“Okay I’ll give you some time my love, please don’t be angry with me. I’m sorry.” His voice now low and quiet. I had no response because I was so angry and so hurt by him.

I wasn’t being dramatic right?

The sound of his footsteps disappear down the hall making me quickly but softly wipe my tears away and get up to wash my face. The cold water making my body shiver. I stare at myself. Hair up in a bun, eyes red and eye bags deep from all the lack of sleep. A fucking mess.

The front door slamming was what made me jump getting me out of the trance I was in. Had he left? I pick up the container that was on the ground due to the fact I threw it and open the bathroom door.

I find Berry sat in-front of it as if waiting for me. I give her a soft smile and pick her up.

Walking through the house looking for any sign of Chan but there was none.

I glance at the clock and it read 12:45. Anger rises up my chest once again because how dare he leave the house at this hour knowing how much anxiety I have when his out late? Such a selfish bastard!

Get home.

I send him a text and switch off my phone to look around. A mess the house was.

“Shall we clean up Berry?” I look at the dog in my hands who didn’t even seem to be bothered by anything. “I swear I talk to you more than I talk to Chan” a chuckle leaves my lips when she starts licking my face.

“Now come on let’s get started.” I place her down and pick up things and put them away. My body needing the distraction but my mind and thoughts running at a speed of lightning.

Emotions running through “my mind and soul”. Cringe lol.

2:30 am.

The sound of the clock ticking was starting to irritate me and craw under my skin.

Worry slowly crawling up my chest. Where was he? Was he safe? Was he okay? Where could he be?

I hated myself for putting my self through this because after the little stunt he pulled causing me to sit in the bathroom crying my heart out for 2 hours begging for someone to come save me. I was still sat in our living at 2:30 am waiting and wondering where he had gone too.

Did he leave me? Surely he hadn’t cause all his stuff was still here.

My feet slowly taps the floor, something I do when I’m nervous. I tag on my sweater which is now stretched out due to the constant pulling. The material laying between my fingers feeling very satisfying.

“Why do you have to do this to me Chan?” I say softly, talking to myself.

The house was quiet once again like I’m used too.

The lights were off except for his studio room led lights that were on and passing through the glass window.

Berry was now sat on my lap cuddling me because I knew she sensed the stress my body was going through. She always just knew and she always tried to cuddle of just play around whenever Chan or I where going through something.

A sigh leaves my lips. I was tired. I needed sleep but I needed to know if he was safe.

I check my phone to see if he had responded but nothing came through and when I was about to set down the phone it stars to buzz making me jolt up. Han’s name pops up with a picture of me and him when we were at an adventure park in Japan.

I quickly pick up the phone hoping that somehow Chan was with him and they were doing some project.

“Hello?” My voice rough but still soft from all the crying.

“Hey baby.” He says softly from the other end of the phone.

“Hey..”

“Are you doing okay?” He asks, I could hear the nervous tone in his voice.

“Mhm” a hum in response.

“Channie Hyung is with us in the dorms okay? He showed up here really upset so we told him to just stay over until everything is calm,”

I feel my heart break into pieces. Was he really that upset that he didn’t want to stay in the same home as me? He knew how I hated when he didn’t sleep at home.

“Oh, okay that’s alright. Thank you for letting me know,” I tell him. A weigh being lifted off my shoulder because now that I knew he was safe I could sleep or so I thought.

After hanging up the phone. I slowly put Berry aside and cleanup the cold plate that’s till say on the table and decide to finish up the dishes.

The scent of soap filling my nostrils and a warm liquid running down my face. Tears.

Who would have thought that I would be here at the age of 25 doing dishes at 2 am while crying.

My vision was blurry and my legs were weak. My heart beating fast as I could hear it in my ears.

My face was hot and my body trembled from the heart aching sobs that left it.

I couldn’t be under this much stress.

It wasn’t good for the baby.

**

Pt 1 ⬇️

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for saying tomy dad he doesn't knows how to use the damn washing machine?

🎣 So I can find it later

Me (transmasc, 25) live with my parents. This is something they suggested me after I had a breakup with someone abusive, before someone jumps at my neck for living with them, immediately voting that I am the asshole. No they don't respect either my name or my pronouns, that's how bad the relationship was. I also pay a fixed amount per month that's about half of my salary+do more complex house chores. This was a while ago when mom had just given birth.

My dad is pretty big at fishing, and gets his fishing clothes pretty dirty. Fishy smell, dirt, grass, dirty water, you know the drill. Fishes a shitton of fishes and sell it for some extra money. I think it's important to mention his salary isn't bad, it's actually about 7 times the minimum wage here, he just spends in a lot of stuff he doesn't needs like getting a lot of toys for the younger sibling, a lot of fishing material he doesn't uses, paying for bills he made back when he exchanged our house for a farm and then got absolutely ridden in debt from farm expenses because he thought everything would be perfect like in those farm movies. And then had to exchange the farm again in a worse house and still pay back some money, getting pets he can't pay for the expenses like about 15-20 native birds (that are illegal btw) and canaries that cost some real money because they eat specialized food and fresh fruit+medicine. I think it's also important to mention that when I was younger my mom and him fought at least one time per month about his fishing habits that were like, leave on Friday and coke back either sunday night or monday morning. Now they're much more tamer usually capping off at one day, but still are frequent, like at least one time per week.

Now to the real deal: mom always washes his clothes, but in this specific time I was doing laundry because she just was cut open with a C-section to have the twins because of an emergency with the babies .Twins weren't home yet but it was not like she could do anything, so I was doing laundry, organizing my siblings chores (15F, 13M, 4F), taking care of the younger one, unfortunately overwhelmed from being the mom. And dad just leaves to fishing every weekend like it's no biggie and leaves their children to just fend for themselves I guess if I wasn't here. So I am making food, making chores and all of that, real mama chores including dealing with the very moody 4yo that isn't happy dad isn't home and mom can't get out of the bed and cried from about anything that mildly inconveniences her.

Then he comes home from fishing and tuck his dirty clothes god knows where, and one week later finds it again and starts bitching about how no one washed his fishing outfit and I, very tired, very overwhelmed and very stressed, say to him "why, don't you know how to use the damn washing machine?" And he gets like, really offended and says he won't even answer me do he won't offend me, and in my tired state I just answer that all he needs to do is to throw it there with soap and turn it on, he could do that and he gets more mad and storms off to fish (again yes, leaving my mom with basically a recovering surgery with the kids.)

Another detail is that a year before he did the same thing but mom had left for some christian stuff for two weeks, and when I asked him if he could load the washing machine so I could finish fixing lunch, he told me he didn't know how to use it and I taught him. He's 45. It's one of those washing machines with literally everything written on them on how to use.

I also should clarify that he's not mentally disabled or physically disabled, if the fishing trips weren't enough clue for his overall wellness. Mom acted as I should bend to his will and just washes the clothes because it's not worth fighting. My 15yo sister is with me because he makes her clean the sink he uses to clean the fishes every time he fishes. Mom is mad at both of us because we're tearing this family apart and we should just accept dad as he is and do what he says.

Tldr: AITA for asking my dad if he doesn't knows how to do the laundry even after I taught him to do so?

What are these acronyms?

[consultingfujoshi]

can you please share a bit more of your thoughts on the spoilers? i haven't seen them anywhere and it would be nice to know them coming from you

hiii tumblr mobile does not give timestamps for asks so idk if this is in regard to the spoilers from the interviews or the screenings but all my thoughts are kinda connected to both so SPOILER WARNING FOR THE FIRST TWO EPISODES OF SEASON 2 UNDER THE CUT LALALALA

I don't even know where to start like. I have been in a state of shock all day because literally everything my friends and I speculated about is real. literally all of it. all of our wildest theories about aziraphale and crowley's first meeting were confirmed by the fans who saw the screening. I have never won this fucking hard and ive won AT GOOD OMENS OF ALL THINGS. 2022 me would be laughing. june 2023 me would be laughing. two days ago me would be LAUGHING. I genuinely think this may be one of the best seasons of tv ever guys

like. do you understand. how much this changes. how our understanding of crowley and aziraphale's dynamic throughout time has been totally flipped on its head. aziraphale approached crowley first. crowley was the one who sheltered aziraphale with his wing. so eden was aziraphale returning the favour. DO YOU UNDERSTAND. AZIRAPHALE FELL FIRST. HE DIDNT TAKE SIX THOUSAND YEARS TO CATCH UP. HE HASN'T BEEN CLUELESS THIS ENTIRE TIME. they've literally been connected this entire time, right from before sides or the concept of evil or hatred or enemies were even invented. of course they'd never buy into the whole "hereditary enemies" thing. AZIRAPHALE KNOWS HIM. HE KNOWS CROWLEY. HE'S ALWAYS KNOWN HIM.

and it doesn't even feel like a retcon. it doesn't feel like we need to ignore a bunch of stuff from season 1 to accept or enjoy the added content this season. it's literally just. more shit to help quantify the depth of their love for each other. their connection over countless millennia. I mean if you go back to the very first scene in season 1, aziraphale literally does a double take when crowley appears next to him. that's him realising who it is. he fucking recognised crowley and freaked out for a second. that's why he didn't hear what crowley said!!! he was processing!!!! AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOW MUCH MORE SHIT FROM SEASON 1 HURTS NOW. AZIRAPHALE PLEADING WITH CROWLEY BECAUSE HE WAS AN ANGEL, ONCE. CROWLEY WANTING TO TAKE AZIRAPHALE AND RUN AWAY TO LIVE IN A GALAXY THEY HELPED BUILD TOGETHER. AZIRAPHALE ALWAYS TELLING CROWLEY NOT TO QUESTION GOD AND BEING SO AFRAID TO DO THE SAME BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT'S EXACTLY WHY CROWLEY FELL IN THE FIRST PLACE. it's not retconning its just making everything worse!!! azcrow is canon and everything is worse now!!!!!!

the biblical minisode. well. I cannot think about that without having to pace around my house like a person going into labour. I literally stress cleaned my entire house earlier to distract myself from thinking about it. crowley has always always ALWAYS protected aziraphale. always. literally the only reason aziraphale has never killed anything is because crowley has protected him from ever having to do that. crowley's dedication to preserving aziraphale's goodness and allowing him to be his own definition of angelic/holy is the greatest act of service he could bestow upon him and it makes me SICK because him pushing aziraphale to kill adam in 1x06 after all that shows just how desperate he was. both of them realising and understanding at the exact same time that the only person in the universe who really understands them or knows what they're going through is the other, the only person they can rely upon is the other, its just. we've been so wrong. about aziraphale. about the extent to which he knows how important crowley is to him. he's always known. he's just been so afraid. him being prepared to fall to keep doing what he believes is right is so fucking heartbreaking and weve done him such a disservice all these years for calling him naive and mocking him for being slow on the uptake. HE'S ALWAYS KNOWN. HE JUST COULDN'T DO ANYTHING WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE. AND THAT'S SO MUCH WORSE

basically I have never been more scared in my entire life because if they packed this much into the first two episodes and it was deemed tame enough to show ahead of release then what the fuck is in the next four. what are we getting ourselves in for . it's really dawning on me the scope of what this experience is going to be and I simply dont think im going to survive it. again I never expected any of this. this was my definitive "high hopes low expectations" season of tv and it's now it's shaping up to be one the best things I've probably ever seen in my life and. it's cognitive dissonance in its crystallised form. how did we fucking get here.

AND GOOD OLD FASHIONED LOVER BOY??????? PLAYING IN CROWLEY'S CAR AS HE GOES TO MAKE UP WITH AZIRAPHALE?????? SAY SIKE RIGHT NOW THIS ISN'T FUNNY

in conclusion

[cephalog0d]

Batfic - "Haunted AF"

HAPPY SPOOKYWEEN here's some silly Batkids! (Shoutout to @dangerousdan-dan for motivating me to finish this even though it's very last minute XD)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Category: Gen Characters/Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake Additional Tags: Humor, Ghosts, Dick Grayson is a Troll, Jason Todd is a Troll, Batkids Being Batsibs

Summary:

“I mean, would you want to spend Halloween in a haunted fucking house?” Jason asked. He received a collection of blank stares and frowns for a second before anyone realized what he meant. “Jason, the Manor is not haunted,” Tim said with a truly impressive eye roll.

“Has Bruce worked out Halloween patrols yet?” Steph asked as she flopped sideways into an arm chair. “I mean I assume there’s going to be some kind of catastrophe to deal with.”

“Last I heard he was still narrowing down leads. I think I’m supposed to review some data scrapes from Babs later,” Tim said, frowning absently into his mug. Either because he was remembering the work he had to do or because he’d just realized his drink was gone, it wasn’t entirely clear.

“Ooh, fun,” Steph said with a smirk.

“Yeah, well. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail and all that.”

“What, did you swallow a motivational calendar?” Jason asked without looking up from his book.

“Too blessed to be stressed,” Tim intoned flatly.

“Hashtag blessed,” Cass corrected him with a grin. Steph made a choking noise and clapped a hand over her mouth to avoid spraying her drink all over herself while Jason shot both of them a look of outright disgust.

“Does the Manor get, like, trick or treaters and stuff?” Duke asked thoughtfully. “I mean it’s way out in the middle of nowhere.”

“I dunno, actually,” Tim said with a frown. “Nobody’s usually home on Halloween anyway, considering…” He gestured vaguely at all of them in a way that was apparently meant to indicate “being a vigilante in Gotham on Halloween”.

“I mean, would you want to spend Halloween in a haunted fucking house?” Jason asked. He received a collection of blank stares and frowns for a second before anyone realized what he meant.

“Jason, the Manor is not haunted,” Tim said with a truly impressive eye roll.

“What, are you kidding me? It’s Gotham. Gotham is hella haunted-”

“Don’t say hella.”

“-just in general and the Manor is definitely included in that. You know how old that place is? How many people used to live there before Bruce turned into the Bat Hermit? How much tragedy those walls have borne witness to?”

“‘Borne witness’?” Cass repeated softly to herself.

“There are no ghosts in Wayne Manor,” Tim said firmly. “I’ve never noticed anything strange. Or, you know, strange compared to our normal level of weird.”

“You barely lived there. I saw all sorts of weird shit when I was a kid. Stuff getting moved around even though no one was home, doors opening and closing on their own, weird shadows that shouldn’t be there moving around. That was the worst. Headed up the stairs in the dark, seeing someone lurking up ahead, assuming it’s Bruce, and then nope, he’s behind you and nobody’s there. Scared the shit out of me when I was little.”

“So a bunch of stuff that’s easily explained as a child’s imagination?” Tim asked, unimpressed.

“There’s also the mirror.”

“The mirror?” Steph repeated in a mockingly serious voice.

“One of the bathroom mirrors back in the back hall would always have handprints up in the top corner no matter how many times we cleaned it. Alfred just thought it was me and Dick messing with him. Eventually he decided it must’ve been stained somehow and just replaced the mirror, but the handprints came back pretty much immediately.”

“You are so full of shit!” Steph laughed loudly. Tim was silent but the hard stare he was directing at Jason was more than eloquent.

“I heard yelling, what’s going on?” Dick said from the hall, poking his head around the doorway.

“Just telling them about the ghosts,” Jason said evenly. Whatever reaction the others expected of Dick (probably either rolling his eyes or sternly telling Jason to knock it off), they didn’t get it. Dick just nodded, entirely unsurprised, as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer, eliciting another round of Looks between the kids as he wandered over to stand by Jason’s chair.

“Oh, yeah,” Dick said matter-of-factly. “The attic one who breaks glass at stupid o’clock in the morning or the one who leaves creepy handprints in the downstairs bathroom mirror?”

“Wait, that’s real?” Tim demanded incredulously.

“Yeah, and that thing in the tiny guest room that blows on your neck if you stay there too long.”

“Ugh, I hate that one,” Dick agreed with a shudder. “So creepy.”

The other four exchanged a complicated series of looks.

“Okay, so you’re both full of shit,” Steph said with less conviction than before.

“Believe what you want,” Jason said levelly. Dick just looked slightly confused at their skepticism.

“I...need to check something,” Tim said as he hurriedly packed up his laptop and phone.

“Oh, yeah, you want some help?” Steph offered.

“Uh, sure, I’m just gonna…” Tim did not actually finish explaining what he was going to do as he left, Steph and Cass trailing along behind him. Duke watched them go, glanced at Dick and Jason, then shrugged and went to follow.

“They’re totally going to spend all night ghost hunting,” Jason said once they were gone.

“Yup,” Dick grinned, holding out a hand in Jason’s direction. Jason rolled his eyes, but fist bumped him anyway.

“Should we make sure they find something?” he suggested with a smirk. Dick blinked at him, looking slightly confused again.

“You don’t think they will?” he asked innocently. Jason narrowed his eyes suspiciously. That was absolutely one of Dick’s “I’m full of shit” voices.

“Of course they won’t, because the Manor’s not haunted,” Jason said slowly. “That was all bullshit.”

“Oh, right! Of course,” Dick agreed with a (fake as hell) easy smile.

“Dick.”

“Do you think Bruce has finished his patrol schedules yet?” Dick asked as he headed out of the room.

“Dick! You said you made it up! Dick!”

[roarsaidthedinosaur]

how are the other items on your todo list going?

i was going to be like A SMASHING SUCCESS I DID IT ALL a little bit tongue in cheek and leave it at that bc it’s been a hard year actually but it turns out i really have intentionally done a lot of these things?? so i got excited and now i want to share!!! thanks pal for asking i appreciate it 💕

the only thing i haven’t done as i intended is the first one, i have been managing ~*~an illness~*~ and it’s not comfortable for me to go out or host folks while under the weather so i will say my IRL friendships have been mostly me texting my friends that i love them and keeping up with my pocket friends but not planning a lot of visits/travel. i DID manage to make it to europe to visit my bff due to some last minute convenient timing and a lucky week of feeling well enough to get on a plane. and when i am feeling mostly alright i do make a point to hang with my brother & my dnd pals in person!! so really i am completing this one in spirit even though it wasn’t how i pictured it when i wrote it (hanging out with friends once a week)

but yeah like - the rest of it i’ve made very distinct choices to do (or not!!!)

i’ve cut back on the time i gave to one extremely old friendship where every conversation became a therapy session and was making ME feel like i needed to go back to therapy just to get the tools to help this person and that was causing me a lot of stress. but instead i was simply like “i don’t have time for this” and so i stopped making time for it and it allowed me to free up so much energy & brainpower to give to my other pals. we still talk but it feels so nice to not have to walk on eggshells with every interaction, or get the feeling of dread in my stomach every time i saw a text from them.

big lady & the boy have become so much more snuggly with me now and i honestly love it lol like i hate the cat hair floating around the house and being in my nose but i love when i’m sitting on the couch and honey picks MY lap to sit in and cooper lets me scoop him up and parade him around the house like he’s my little babydoll

i have been working real hard on setting boundaries with family members and not keeping my mouth shut when my folks say something out of pocket but also in general i’ve been trying to be kind in interactions rather than just placating people. this has kinda been hand & hand with energy vampirism ignoring like this one lady from work kept asking me to hang out outside of work because “you’re the only person who’s nice to me” and i was like “and i will continue to be, but i do not want to hang out outside of work” because she only ever talked about herself lol. and THAT has been super freeing, not doing things that i don’t want to i mean

i recommend everyone gets a humidifier for next to their bed, 10/10 improved my breathing at night especially during the dry season!!!! just make sure you clean it weekly

i dance around my house pretty much once a week if i’m honest, usually while waiting for nuggies to finish in the air fryer

im still obsessed w my girl as i was on day 1 and i can’t wait to marry her someday. i’m gonna be the guy that’s always like ‘MY WIFE—’ lol building a home with her has been so natural and fun over this year and it helps that we have similar taste in things but really i have been declutterring so much of MY stuff to make room for OUR things and it’s been so. rewarding sounds dumb but it’s like there’s no doubt that we are always on the same team and it’s so great. i still very much have the things that in love squirreled away like my edward cullen and katniss everdeen barbies and my digimon figurines but i’m trying to be very intentional about what i keep vs give away vs throw away and it’s such a project but i’m excited about doing it

keeping my inner peace has become weirdly easy since i have a VERY clear picture of what’s important to me in my life since this flare up started. my priorities are: my health, amelia, my family & friends, keeping my house nice/reducing stress in my life, and THEN work. it’s still a priority but like no i’m not missing my gf’s birthday dinner because you suck at planning meetings across timezones. and no i’m not doing 42hours of travel to india because you think it’ll be good for me to have experience on their computer station rather than the one in my home office. figure it out lol

on top of all of it, my new year’s resolutions i wrote down in my actual journal were to open a high yield savings account and start saving (for a house??? an airstream?! who knows not me yet tbh) and also to read one book a month, and i’ve done both of those things so far!! i’m actually up to 11 this year and about halfway thru my next one and it’s only september

so despite this year being a little crappy health-wise i’ve actually done so much work to be happy. thanks for the reminder i didn’t know i needed!! :-)

[mortallyandrogynoussheep]

1/100 days of getting my life back together

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

So I decided to try to do a thing for the first time ever since forever - try to start having a blog(?) again, because, well, the brain rot is real. I've deleted twitter for now to give my brain some rest, because a lot of things were stressing me out.

My life has been a real mess the last few months and I really need to get my shit back together. This semester was the biggest flop so far (which is not to say that much - it's only a second one, but still) and I'm really upset about it.

I've come off one of my meds, that were making me insanely sleepy whenever I tried to focus (still have no idea whether that was a real thing or no, but they either way were not doing anything for me), got back on antidepressants, that are a-okay to me, at least side effects wise, and I was hoping that NOW I will be so much better at school. It got so much worse.

Not my room, but the vibes sum everything up quite perfectly. Everything feels insanely hard to do. I feel like a failure. I'm stressed and lost, but we persevere to the best of our abilities.

Anyway, I am writing this post one day after the 3rd of July, because I figured I should start somewhere, and despite wanting to have the first entry be as perfect as I want to become later, I figured that I have already tried that approach earlier, and it always falls off. Maybe it's better to start bad, slowly trying to build up all the habits and changes.

After all it is 100 days of trying to get my life together, not 100 days of describing my life being together.

Anyway, on 3rd of July I wanted to do some document related work and do some job applications, but because of fucking up my sleep schedule days prior to finish an assignment (which I got 100% for, insanely), I could not resist falling asleep in the day and then waking up late in the evening. That then scaled to 4th of July night, when I could not fall asleep again until 4 am, and the cycle repeated again.

So, yeah. T'was a flop. I didn't do anything good or productive for studying. The only thing I managed to accomplish was tidying up the place a little, but not the dishes. Luckily, my boyfriend helped me with that. It feels so much better to be able to work as a team on tasks that feel this big and unbearable.

2/100 days of getting my life back together

Thursday, July 4, 2024

It is currently 13:44 as I am writing this. Woke up (or more so, thankfully, got woken up by my boyfriend) by about 12:30. Still feel very poopy, but in today's plans are to do some studying for the first out of my two exams, and maybe a little bit for the second one.

DB 2

DB 3

SE2

dishes

DB 4

Probably will keep editing this post for any relevant updates that are not shitposts.

15:08 - 16:02 finished the db2 and 3 bits, 3rd one was way shorter than I expected. it turned out that I already had a set of flashcards on quizzlet there on it, so that was a win. originally was planning to study for one hour, but then finished 6 mins earlier, because my brain was fried and finished the dishes on my break. now back to studying

16:17 - 18:01 finished working on the SE2, but the lecture was kinda short and won't be that important at the exam, so I can't say I studied it properly. i will put more thought into it later (maybe), but not for now, since my ass is BURNING from the heat of upcoming deadline for the exams and there are more complex things i need to learn. started working on DB 4, which was an addition on initially planned to-do list. a little more than 1.5 hours of trying to understand the lecture made my brain feel GONE. i started to feel very irritated at the end, so im gonna be taking a break.

18:36 - 19:52 some minecraft break for mindlessly and quietly doing some things around our base. cleaned up the ground for where i want to build our house, transferred some stuff and organized it in a new chests system. the project will take A LOT of time so yuh. did i spend too much time on it? yes. will i do it again? also yes, probably. then we ate some dinner and now im comming back to some studying and note taking.

21:09 - 22:22

did some more note taking on DB4, not finished with it yet, but I think I'll call it a day for today. I'll probably play some more Minecraft before sleep and reread my notes and flashcards too. overall I feel still kind of unsatisfied with the day and its' results, I think mostly because of this is 1.5 hour game break, but it is what it is for now. overall I guess I did do some stuff done today, so it's still a win, right?

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary453

12/21-22/24

saturday - sunday

up too late again...

long day, i feel spent, totally. sometimes sitting in the back of a car feels like, i don't know, i felt crazy all day i guess, irritable and prickly, which must not have been too much fun, although no one seemed to notice and i think i kept it in check, it's just too much, it felt better after i ate, and over the span of the night it became more fun, when we got back home i was basically feeling okay. i sometimes just get really weird feelings, doing things that make me feel excluded, in some way, being in the kpop store, for instance, i feel so distant from everything there, it makes me feel bad, it's not that i'm missing out by not caring, it's that it makes it hard for me to even be present, i just stare at things, either bewildered or finding it funny or finding something cute, but ultimately it all makes me feel bad, and that feels judgmental of me and that makes me feel worse, but i also feel so distant from it that it makes me feel like i exist less or something crazy like that, i don't think that there, it just feels like the only way to put words to that experience.

here are some photos from inside the kpop store:

me being in the pic of the clock is on purpose... i accidentally called it the "black pink cock" instead of clock. which makes it sound like some sort of colorful dildo. i found that rabbit thing cute, also. and i relate to the weird expression that girl is making in the photo i took.

after kpop store (we also got coffee before (maybe that explains why my being on edge didn't dissipate so much (but i started there (i also woke up later than i thought, i thought i'd be up at 7:30 but i woke up at 10 am and had a dream where my gf was killed in a car accident and i felt the despair and loss so vividly i started killing myself until i received a call and vision that she was pulled safely out of a wreck, i spent the rest of the dream groveling in a hospital i think, thankful. the second dream was looking how i do now around my dad and then trying to pay for food but not having enough money but my dad appreciating i at least tried to pay, and saying i must be dressing like this as a joke or something, or i said that to him to explain it, and he said that was funny)))), we went to a korean market, greenland market. i loved it there, it's fun there, always. here's some photos from there:

while there, everybody bought too much soju, which had ramification into the night.

anyway, before the rest, here's what i looked like today. i just deleted a bunch of photos off my camera roll and started wanting to cry because my hair used to be so perfect and my bangs were so nice and honestly i want to hurt myself or something because i feel really stupid for not having cut my hair right or something i feel dreadfully deeply dumb and i wanna drown myself lol anyway:

i think this dress kind of make me look not good but it's also very cute... i don't know. i know it's not flattering... i know my ribs look weird... whatever... i made myself feel so ugly seeing old pictures... seeing these now i think my bangs are basically the same... i just need to make them straighter across and less choppy and let them grow into my eyes more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's hard to explain how crazy i feel right now. i feel crazy, i feel so like rubbed raw and burned and stuff, no one was mean to me nothing that bad happened, it's just a lot of stress. i wanted to clean more... i didn't get to, i woke up too late, i feel so stupid, i feel like a bad host, blah blah blah.

anyway, we ate at pelicana chicken which is like korean fried chicken, it's really really good... i wish i got to eat more but i ate pie and cookies, which were brought to our party at our house, and that was fun, as our friends filtered in, i love all of them, it just got depressing to me because someone got very drunk, soju sneaks up on people (i wouldn't know... i don't drink anything ever not once #no #way), and it just hit her and she kept saying it was so evil and vomited a couple times and she cleaned up after herself, as best she could, which was very well, it just makes me sad, and it makes everything very intense when somebody is drunk and she seemed a little depressed and parallel to that, enjoying everyone's company and was smiling and happy, it's like neither negate one another, more like they both ride eachother in intensity. an odd state. but like i say, nothing particularly stressful, just cleaning up after others, feeling absent or something, wanting to make sure people feel good, or something, and to entertain them. but i don't know how. everyone seems to like me but i wonder if it's just like, like, do they? it seems so unbelievable. i'm like an ugly frog with no thoughts.

my gf says i seem more depressed lately, but i have no idea what it is, mostly i feel happy, i think it's just this apartment, it's impossible to clean fully because of the floors, and the bugs, and it makes me crazy, i hate it. it makes me really miserable. and i can't go on walks, and seeing people has some kind of scary upsetting thing happening and i guess that's just living, you know, there's something freakish going on always, well freakish is wrong, but, i guess it's part of what has to be embraced for me, i don't know. i suppose i'm just aware of the abject, which means there's poetry happening constantly, i should appreciate that, i do i think, it also just makes you feel on fire or something, and it makes you difficult, coming to terms with things like that, and a bunch of other stuff. i don't know. i don't know. tonight my friend, she went out to smoke, this was the first time she puked, but she said to me, she'd been reading portrait of a lady by henry james, she finished it, actually, i've not read it... i like the james i've read but i've not read any full novel of his, i love beast in the jungle though, anyhow she says to me that there's a bit in the book about being happy or fulfilled, and how different are those, and she opened up about not feeling fulfilled entirely, like she needs to do something great, she asked if i felt like that, i don't know how to answer entirely, but it makes me sad she doesn't feel fulfilled, i hope she can know what it is she must do, that would be great, i think she could do it... she can do anything, i feel like. she left her cigs with us, she says she doesn't want to smoke or vape anymore, or it felt like she communicated that when she left the cigs and the face she made. she also laid on our floor, then crawled to our bedroom, then crawled out and walked to the bathroom, and then i led her to the kitchen, into our kitchen sink where she puked, and then did a very good job cleaning up. she's very kind, we really get along. i just worry so much about people i know and like being sad. it feels like too much. none of them deserve it. i know i can't do anything. feeling useless is probably why i get so prickly, that and not wanting to be touched. i wish i knew why i am in some ways a frustrating and bad person.

i think i must sound totally insane... whatever... i say whatever too much, i don't know too much too, but it all really is whatever and i do not know.

here is a song:

i know this is like about killing yourself or whatever but i think trying to observe why the central metaphor, or the thing people read as being a metaphor for killing yourself quietly and without much attention seeking, silently leaving the room, is so painful, it's less to do with the suicide and more the quiet sadness of leaving a place with no one noticing on purpose, not until 20 minutes is your absence noted or missed, and hardly. it's a self pitying thing to even want that, and this fantasy, of leaving a place where people you know are, without them noticing, and suddenly feeling bad, is just sister to the thoughts of killing yourself and everyone at the funeral being upset, cursing themselves for whatever wrongs they've done to you. it's a curious thing, it's an effort at us becoming judges, without execution or weight following, to condemn everyone else in a fantasy, without outcome. it's a really sad and curious way of thinking. anyway, this is maybe a more depressing and painful and pathetic thing to confront than just wanting to die, but the cruelty of at least some of those feelings. on the other end of wanting to die is total self abuse, wanting to make yourself something like a shock video, maybe. either way, i really don't care about suicide so much as i care about the sociality of the thoughts around it/imagining such things. this song, with its bloody ghost, feels more like an expression of the curiosity of going to parties to feel something odd and sad, or feeling odd and sad at a party, having that beside a good feeling, wanting to leave without ruining it, and halfway by doing so, ruining it, vengeance and impotence simultaneous.

getting a lot more into him, listened to london's saviour this morning... found it great great great. think, like a lot of guys, he might know fucked up people, think he fucks with mowalola... she's a goober, but he's great. i'm growing so quick, like black mold. hard to make a song that opens with "forever alone" but he works it so well. his pitched up voice is so fun, too.

here, before i go, something funny, think i found a guy i met, who helps run a publishing imprint... won't name it... pretty sure he's the guy who added himself to wikipedia, the user page who created that + created the page for the las vegas indie bookstore (only one if you want to discover via google) is so empty, and then looking through all the changes it made, it seems so... connected to all the things he's attached to and stuff. a funny mystery to discover and solve in the course of the night, the wee hours when everyone left... not so wee now that it's freaking 7 am again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gonna kms!!!!!!!!!!!

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dandyshucks]

update on stuff (cw abuse i guess)

hi sorry for serious post but again things keep looking like they're going to get better and then they somehow get Worse instead.

tl;dr my brother will be moving in for a bit, and this disrupts the one space i have in the entire goddamn world where i can relax even a little bit, so I probably will not be around for. a while. unless i figure out how to cope enough to get out of survival mode so i can like... have fun.

brother will be moving in for an undetermined amount of time (hopefully just for a month, but it is hard to find places to rent in town so I feel like it may be longer than just one month). he'll be moving into my section of the basement, and I guess my stress is a little bit my fault because my parents have always told me I should be constantly ready for any siblings to move back home at any moment just in case, but unfortunately I kind of let my guard down on that one so this is hitting me badly.

as scary and unsafe as this hell house is, my section of the basement is literally the One place in the whole fucking world where i've been able to feel like I can just. rest. to some degree. because I do not have to be On and Masking and Hiding Myself from others (because nobody is around when i'm down here usually). so that "safe space" will be taken away from me (this sounds ungrateful and bratty, sorry, i do not know how to word it better and maybe i am being bratty and ungrateful idk) and i will ... have no space to just. let my guard down even a little bit. i can't even go for walks alone like I used to because of wildlife becoming a safety issue around our house.

anyways. sorry this is way more info than i need to give probably but i'm struggling to put any of this into words at all so... shrugs uncomfortably. i am going to step away from here for a bit bc i'm genuinely afraid I'm going to go into some kind of episode and I don't want to freak people out. also I literally cannot do anything Fun rn because i just feel so fucking scared and cut off from reality, so even though the stuff on this blog is literally a coping mechanism, i'm far below the mental ability to engage in that level of coping. the coping we're looking at rn is like... breathing and pacing and huddling and methodical cleaning for the sake of keeping myself from falling apart.

i want to end off with my usual "oh well! life goes on! just gotta keep trucking forward!" type of thing but to be entirely honest i just dont have it in me to do that rn. this also might sound really stupidly dramatic and I am sorry if it comes off that way - there is a lot of abuse and trauma that I do not talk about and will not talk about that is contributing to how this feels for me. i'll do my best to stay safe and all, and again I really do apologize for like. posting any of this. I think part of me wants to reach out somewhere for attention but also I do genuinely just want to sort of ... explain why I'll very likely be disappearing for a while. and as we know i am the rambling rambler and overexplainer :'''')))

[your-greatest-queen]

I know a lot of folks don't like ADHD meds, for a variety of reasons, but oh my god. Oh my motherfucking god. These are a godsend for me.

I've been on concerta for about a year now (lowest dosage) and it's helped improve my focus and has lowered my depression. I thought it was amazing. Recently, I got my dosage upped.

My bedroom was a high level depression pit. It was nasty. I haven't actually slept in my own bed in months because it was covered in stuff. But it was so overwhelming to look at that it triggered executive dysfunction with just a glance, and so I never could clean it. My room is now clean; reorganized, dusted, vacuumed, disinfected, redecorated- it's been YEARS since it looked this nice.

I'm in grade 12.5 because I was so dysfunctional in grade 11 that I dropped out halfway through. I spent grade 12 making up for it; but even then, on my first dosage and doing better, I wasn't doing great. I haven't taken notes in years. I have winged almost every test I've ever taken. I wrote every essay the night before it was due. Rough drafts who? I managed to pull decent grades, sometimes even pretty good ones. But it was never ending stress because of my habits and I was almost always behind.

I'm ahead in my classes now. I'm doing assignments the day they're assigned. I'm writing notes and brainstorming pages of ideas and breaking things down for myself. I'm getting straight 90s. I haven't felt this confident and secure in academics since middle school.

Our house was never totally clean. The basement (my charge) was always a disaster. Having people over was at best a little shameful and at worst downright humiliating. My mother cleans, but the messes she makes outweigh it. It was my job to handle the basics, at least, after school every day. I couldn't. I could do a few things, but I got burnt out or bored too fast to complete a day's work. Small projects were put off for months.

I come home from school now and within a couple of hours, I've vacuumed upstairs and downstairs, I've done the dishes, I've taken out the trash, I've brushed the cats, I've cleaned the living room and the kitchen, I've switched the laundry- yesterday I used the toilet and then just. Reorganized the entire bathroom. Today I came home and immediately untangled the huge knotted ball of my mother's necklaces that she asked me to fix for her weeks ago. On Saturday not only did I brush my cats, I also shampooed them, conditioned them, and clipped their claws.

I used to hoard clothing because going through them was the most tedious, boring task in existence. I've recently donated over six full garbage bags worth of stuff.

I used to have to write down every single task as soon as it was given, even if there were only two, because I'd always forget at least one thing. Now I can remember upwards of five things at once, even better than the person who assigned the task in the first place.

My moods feel more regulated, I'm socializing more, I'm advocating for myself in situations where I'd previously let people walk over me, I'm making goals for the future, I have more real free time, I'm less stressed- it's a little sad that I've spent almost a decade not getting this, but I am BEYOND thrilled that I get to have this now :D

Anyway, lil happy rant because I'm very very excited!! Thanks for reading, byyyye~

[pbandjesse]

Today was long and I am very tired. But I am home and I will hopefully sleep great and tomorrow can be a reset. A redo. And the first day of camp won't leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Last night ended up being kind of a nightmare clean up wise. The 10 or so guys that has set up didn't come back to break down. I was moving carts and stacking chairs until midnight. And they were barely half way done. But Jesse has decided that my hard stop was midnight since I'm not paid by the hour yet.

So I said goodbye and left for the evening. I got home at 1230 and was really happy to see my husband. Who, while half asleep, welcomed me home and we chatted for a bit. I took a shower and got myself ready for sleep.

And while I didnt sleep enough I got good sleep still. And woke up only sort of unhappy at 650.

When I got up I was already dealing with some anxiety that would only get worse. James would try to encourage me. They had moved a bunch of my stuff in and out of the car. The market stuff in the house. The camp stuff in the car. And tired to cheer me up. But I just wanted to go and deal with anything that came up.

I had a good drive in, once I got my phone to stop disconnecting. And I would get to camp at 750.

I went and cleaned up arts and crafts and set up for the day and it went smoothly. I went to the office to print an updated schedule for Callie. And after I chatted with Alexi and got that printed I went and got a little breakfast. Embarrassed myself with the cooks. But they were kind and also said that even if I might not be at different meals they will always make me a special plate. I was worried about wasting food but they assured me that that didn't matter.

I realized I could take a little hammock swing and try to calm down my very strong emotions. And it was working until I texted Avery to make sure she felt like she was prepared to run EAC. But she hits me with that 'i did not know I was running that' and I freak. What do you mean? So I check in with Willa who is covering Homestead. And she at least knew she was covering but there was a lot of confusion beyond that. Very frustrating.

So I ran to the office. Where I was very very very upset. Like this was just like a final straw. And as soon as I got in the office and was asked a different question, a mistake in the schedule question, I lost it. I was hysterical crying. And just went to my desk to do the schedule change while everyone felt weird. Elizabeth shushed people from trying to asking me anything and I was like no I am okay. I am just very very stressed. And I threatened to go home I was so upset. But I calmed down. The cry made me feel like some of the weight lessoned.

I was able to give the two schedules to Elizabeth. And get my question answered. And I would just do with what I had, best I could. And went back to arts to calm myself all the way before my group came in.

And honestly the kids saved the day. Literally all the kids were so sweet and it was just so nice to have returning faces on taller bodies. It made my program back to where it's supposed to be. Where arts and crafts is a dream. It's just everywhere else that's hard as hell.

I would show them the program and we talked about collage and I felt really good about it. And their little houses. Oh they were just so sweet. Lots of creativity and understanding about collage and how to use different techniques. from my very littlest day campers to my woodland boys. It was awesome.

Lunch would come pretty fast. After chatting with Tony about the harbor swim and how I can fit into his pants he has given me to use as a scrap fabric last year. But laughs about that. I would go to lunch.

And it was a very good lunch. Of a baked potato and broccoli. I would check with Callie about specialty staff getting food before the children. Because we have to run to our programs ECT ECT. And her and Hannah said we can serve ourselves if we get gloves. Stellar. So we got our food and went outside to eat together as a little group. Talked about all the confusion and nonsense. How weird and sometimes discombobulated camp has been this year. I just hope that by next week we have a much better handle on everything.

I would depart from the group. Stopping to say hi to Callie. And then you to arts. To spend a few minutes alone. Texting Jess, my very best friend, to wish he many happy birthdays. Especially after the crazy week she just had being in and out of the ER. She deserves a quiet and nice birthday.

My afternoon groups were so sweet. Struggled a bit more to clean up but that's because they didn't want to go. I don't blame them my space is great. But I was also getting a little nervous about leaving for my appointment.

I would let Mirren know and she would let Eva know. But still I was nervous. I got out bracelet string and some other crafts that I thought they would enjoy. And once they got to me I very quickly told them what was available and told them I was sad I couldn't stay and hang out. But I knew I could trust Yukon and said goodbye and headed out.

I would hit some traffic but I still got to my appointment with time to spare. The new girl at the desk remember my name and I would have a fun chat with her later. And my injection went really well. Just bled a little more then normal but it's fine. The medical assistant is really nice and I like talking to her. Though I was left in the room for a half hour with no word. Thought they forgot about me.

But she would eventually come back and the shots went smoothly and I was on my way home.

Which was a half hour because I got stuck in traffic on mulberry. What else is new, that street is always backed up in a stupid way. But I still still home by 5.

I would have to park on the main street because there was no spot. Annoying. But I parked and brought stuff inside. But my ankle a little. Was just really happy to go inside. See James. Take a shower. And go out.

We were going to Charlotte's apartment to check on her cat. But first. Shower. And it made me feel so much better. I would get changed and we would head to the Fulwilers.

Only Tucker was there when we got there. It was nice to see him. They finally donated my bags of clothes. Good. It's good they are gone finally.

We would leave there and go to the apartment. Made sure little boy, her very sweet cat, was fed and happy. Played with him for a bit. And hung out on her couch while we decided on dinner.

I wasn't thrilled with our options. But we land on grano in Hamden.

James loves this place. But we sat outside at first and I took it as long as I could but it was to hot. So we got moved inside. And while the barrata was incredible my pasta was wrong. And I had to send it back twice which I have never done before. I ordered the cheese ravioli. But what came out tasted wrong to me. I ate one and was like maybe it's a weird flavor cheese. But then it hit me. This isn't cheese. It's fish?? Specifically salmon. Our first waitress was not understanding what was wrong. She still took it back and eventually brought me something new. She claimed it was cheese ravioli. No! It was still the fish one?? So we flagged a different waitress. And she was horrified and recognized it right away as their special for the evening.

She would personally go back and cut one open and the bins seemed to have been switched? It was wild. And I'm not like crazy upset I accidently ate a bit of fish. But the texture and bits left jn mouth did upset me for a bit.

Thankfully once the actual cheese ravioli came out it was so wildly good it made up for it. I got a fizzy lemon Italian soda. It was great.

We decided to go to Rita's. But the first one didn't have the flavors I wanted and I got sad. James would offer to take us to a different one. So we would get back in the car and went to Canton crossing. Where we had much better luck.

We stopped in the target bathrooms first. And then walked to Rita's. James got a twist cone and I got a cherry gelato. And we ate at the picnic benches. Just being happy together.

We would come home after that. And I was really glad for it. I felt so tired.

We would gather my print making stuff for my workshop this weekend. And eventually went and took a bath. This was mostly for my pains and agonies. And also because it just felt nice.

But now I am so sleepy. James just went to get me ice water and I'm going to lotion my face and hopefully fall asleep quick.

I am hoping tomorrow is better. More normal. It would make me really happy if this is just are calmer.

I hope you all have a calm day. Stay cool. I love you all. Goodnight!

[pokechbi]

Chapter 2 <3

"What the fuck, Cassidy." Here we go again.. I thought to myself. I can never catch a break. 

Mark gets out of the driver's side and slams the door. Hard. I almost flinch, but the encounter we just had with that Detective had to be the most humbling thing that had happened to Mark. And that pleased me. I was distracted in my own thoughts when Mark yelled at me to help him unload our belongings from the car. 

Well if you're the strong man you claim to be, do it your fucking self. I almost giggled. I was loving my newfound confidence. I was happy that I had something to distract myself mentally. I had some hope for my new start. 

As I get out of the passenger side door, I inhale the cold, crisp, misty air that smelled of grass and dew. I smiled at the freshness of the cold suburban air, glad that I can breathe again. While I missed the sunny, bustling climate of Miami, I won't say that it isn't congested and loud. And very hot. The winter quietness of my new little place was refreshing. 

"You seem to like it here already" Mark says. I didn't ask for his two cents.

"I do love it. It's so fresh and quiet. I'm glad we came." I say. I'd better stay on his good side for now if I actually want to enjoy it here. At least until I'm ready to haul ass away from him. 

"Now that's more like it. See how we have such good times when you're grateful for what I do for us?" He chuckles. He walks away from his side of the car where he's unloading, and approaches me. He puts an arm around my shoulders and kisses my forehead. Don't cringe. Don't cringe. I lean into his shoulder, and smile as we look at our quaint little house. The exterior paint was gray and white, with a rounded exterior window. I couldn't wait to get inside. Hopefully it had more than one bedroom so I can make one of them my space. Somewhere to de-stress and relax. 

While Mark and I were unloading the rest of our things, we saw a run-down RV slowly drive past us. I looked through the driver's side, which had tinted windows and was only cracked a smidge. Hm. With all of these nice houses, who would be driving that kind of RV? The window suddenly rolled down some more, and I got a glance of a kid with messy long hair, and outdated 70s glasses. How weird. I thought to myself. 

"What's an RV like that doing in a neighborhood like this?" I say. 

"I don't know, but it gives me the fuckin creeps. Hopefully he's just drivin' past. We don't need no creeps around here doin' some shady shit." Mark replies. 

"Yeah." Like he'd actually protect me if something happened. I want to chuckle, but I hold it. "Let's just get inside" I sigh. 

...

Unpacking is always an unwanted chore that I hate. I sat on the patio steps, getting as much of that crisp November air that I fell in love with just a few hours ago. The sun was setting, and I wanted to watch it set while sitting on my new, but temporary patio.

I didn't have much, but we planned on shopping for stuff anyway later on in the week. There wasn't much space to fit a lot of things in our Miami apartment, so we didn't bring much. Plus, Mark was too cheap to rent a movers van, and we only had a rinky dink pick up truck to hold us over.

I had lined up an office job before I got here, but wasn't starting until two weeks after today. I had some time to kill while Mark went to work at some office downtown in the bustling part of Conyers. 

"Babe, I start working at that new place downtown tomorrow. You gonna be alright alone here?" Speak of the devil, and he appears. 

"Yeah, I'll be alright. I'll just do some cleaning and setting up the house." I say nonchalantly. 

"Good girl, that's what I like to hear." 

Yeah, whatever, Mark. As if I do everything for him, and only him. I only want peace, tranquility, and my old self back. I couldn't wait for him to go to work, and leave me be. Back in Miami, he barely worked, and baited his parents into giving us money for a house. Mark's parents were filthy rich and provided him with what he needed, but wanted nothing to do with me or their freeloading son. If only they knew. I wasn't the bad guy here.

"Anna!" "Joy!" We heard distant yelling from a street ahead of us. It was a boy and the lady from the family from before, only missing the blonde little girl, and the tall, lumberjack man that was with them.

"I guess their little girl ran off to play somewhere. I hope she's alright. It's getting pretty cold for her to be outside" I say. 

"Whatever, not our problem" What an ass. It was a cold night, and they're calling out for their child. How dense can you be, Mark?  "You comin', or are you gonna sit here all night like a loner. You'll get sick or somethin' and then I'll have to care of you. Come on." He knees me in the shoulder, and that did it for my peaceful sunset watching. 

... 

I walk into the house, reeking of paint and the faint smell of our old Miami apartment floating off of our belongings. 

"I'm goin' to bed. I'll shower before work tomorrow. You comin?" 

"Yeah, I'll be up soon, I'll just sit here on the couch for a while." The house came with a couch from the previous owner, but it was corduroy, my favorite material. The couch looked relatively unused and didn't smell like anything really. Just fabric. 

"I thought you hated that material, Cass. Don't worry, we'll get a new couch soon. Just give your man some time to work for it." 

Was that his attempt at a gesture? What a man. Couldn't even remember that this material is my favorite.

I sigh, and lie my head on the couch's armrest. "I guess so, but I'll be good for now. See you soon." He approaches me and kisses my forehead. 

"Night, Cass"

Hopefully he falls asleep before I manage to get up there.

[whentherewerebicycles]

here is a scruffy little angel! ok I feel pretty fragile inside from a week of bad sleep & an especially terrible insomnia experience last night but I am trying to be brave about it. two of my grad school friends I haven’t seen in forever are in town this weekend and I am v excited about that!!! I always get weird homebody inertia around social stuff but then I have a great time (like last night I really dragged my feet on hanging out with M&A in the park/getting dinner after and then it was so much fun) so I just have to commit to stuff even if I feel like socially hibernating. when it comes to most social things my instincts are not a reliable guide to what will actually make me happy. so tonight I will meet up with them for dinner/drinks and then tomorrow we will hang out at the lake.

here are some things I’d like to do with the day:

finish young mungo which is absolutely gutting ughhh so painful but so good. I kind of want to put up my hammock and read somewhere without distractions but can’t decide if it’s too much effort. mm tbd.

work on writing meme prompts (this has been v good for me it’s forcing me to dig into scene writing/revision which for whatever reason is the thing I’ve built up the most writer’s block anxiety around)

the house is a tip right now it’s not dirty really just super untidy and the clutter is making me feel on edge. I think I need to do a few song-timed bursts of putting stuff in its proper place and ugh I might actually start with that so my brain feels calmer about other stuff

fold laundry

long walk with dogs because I didn’t walk them at all yesterday… I can tell I am avoiding walks partly because it’s a bit hotter out and partly because I’m getting Walk Boredom with our usual route. I think I’ll drive them to the slightly farther-out forest (4 min instead of 2 min haha) because it’ll be cooler and kinda interesting/new. also if I’m feeling really motivated I could do a very short run after I drop them off at home—I’m talking like, 3 min run / 3 min walk times 3 short haha. gotta ease back into it somehow.

pick something to wear well in advance of leaving. otherwise I will get so stressed later on and will end up running way later than I mean to & being way more amped up when I leave. why are clothes so stressful to me literally no one cares and I feel like people care even less in this city than anywhere else I’ve ever lived lol

shower around 3:30/4 so I can be ready to leave between 5-6ish

mm okay that all seems good. I think now it’s time to get up and do my first burst of song cleaning… maybe I will do all too well 10 min version + I can see you.

[skysometric]

2023 Resolutions In Review

it's new year's resolution season, and for me, that means looking back as much as looking forward. yesterday i wrote about all that i accomplished this year, and today, i want to look at the resolutions i wrote for 2023. i got so much done that, surely, i knocked those out of the park… right?

so as the year draws to a close, i’m not making any resolutions about what i’ll accomplish online, because i know that i’ll be drawn to it no matter what happens. no, my resolution for 2023 is to improve my IRL, so that this year is not as miserable as the past two have been.

uh. Shit

okay, so… i definitely neglected my IRL this year, in favor of creativity. i'll freely admit that some of it was escapism, throwing myself into the act of creation so that i could get away from how i felt about my life. but other parts of it were to get something off my plate, so that i could handle my IRL with more grace and less stress. so it wasn't all bad!

but this quote especially hits like a truck:

then, once i’ve bolstered my IRL with stronger foundations, more joy, new inspirations, less stress… online stuff will naturally follow. i will always want to create. resolutions are for putting in the work.

the sad truth is that i did not get the stronger foundations that i wanted; most of my year was spent in survival mode until i could get home and create again. i want to create out of joy, not escapism! to be clear, there's nothing wrong with the latter – but only i have the tools to get out of survival mode, and i did not accomplish that this year.

i did, however, put a dent in the mountain of stress. here's some things i tackled IRL:

my partner and i put a LOT of effort into improving her mental and physical health this year, getting her to new appointments and treatment and professional help that she did not have last year. i consider this our biggest IRL accomplishment of 2023!

with good budgeting, my partner and i were able to upgrade our computers, phones, and consoles. every single device i just listed was 5-10 years old and falling apart at the seams, so these were very necessary upgrades! all of them have contributed to us getting more creative work done this year, like my upgraded computer allowing me to stream more often – as well as getting more rest.

we also got out of the house more, picking random nights to go shopping, go to the park, or just get food. it's nice to be able to do that again, after the pandemic locked us in the house for so long… but we're just natural couch potatoes anyway lol

i have a psychiatrist and a therapist now! i don't get to see them often due to my health insurance, but it's a good start and something i may be able to invest more into in 2024.

speaking of which, i got to try ADHD meds this year. they didn't work out… but i did try, and it was worth the effort of trying. i would like to try again next year, though i am not making it a resolution.

i wouldn't call this an accomplishment… but we lost two cats this year, and while we'll miss them dearly, it does mean a lot less cleaning and chores to take care of our remaining two cats. having four cats was a commitment we did not choose in the first place, and it was a sore spot for many reasons – but we did our best to care for them anyway.

it's a lot for one year! and i did accomplish my goal of being less miserable than last year… it's just not everything i hoped for, resolved for. i've allegorically polished up my house, but the house itself is still built on shaky ground.

i would say something like, "oh well, there's always next year!" and in truth, there are a lot of opportunities on the horizon that could very well bring the stronger foundations i'm looking for. but i am not going to make the same resolution again… because, quite frankly, i don't know what it takes to get out of survival mode! and i can't possibly predict how a year will go, or what the whims of my ADHD will decide to focus on. i'd rather play it by ear, and just… try to be cognizant of how much i'm leaning on escapism.

so here ends this resolution… but 2024 brings new possibilities, and maybe they'll lead me to where i was already headed.

[hollyannewrites]

No Way to Move On...

“Glad to hear you’ve been enjoying the warmer weather, Myra,” Francene said, crossing her ankles. “Now, I know we had an appointment set for next week, but you called to move up our session. Is everything alright?”

I folded my hands in my lap, considering for a few seconds before I replied. “I think I’m in love.”

Francene grinned, brown smile lines creasing her face. “Well, isn’t that lovely.” She picked up her pen and notepad from the table beside her without looking—she always made an effort to make our conversations feel natural, not like she was observing me clinically. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I nodded, picking absently at my nails. I’d thought about how I wanted to explain the situation on the train ride here, but the details still caught in my throat. What if she thought I was crazy? I’d never brought anything like this to her before—usually we focused heavily on managing my anxiety, or the stresses of living far away from my family. This was… not the same.

“Myra?”

My gaze flicked up and caught her expectant gaze. I’d let the silence hang.

            “Right, sorry. Just figuring out where to start.”

            “Don’t worry about getting it exactly right. You can just say what you’re thinking.”

            I took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds, then slowly releasing. No way around it, I just needed to get it out.

“Ok, yeah. So, like I said, I think I’m in love. I’m in love with my roommate, Lucas. I might have mentioned him a few times before. He moved in a few days before me, was subletting from someone I didn’t really know. We were awkward at first, but now we get along fine. When I turn on the TV, he’ll come sit and watch with me, or sometimes we just settle on the couch and talk for hours.

We’re a lot alike, in some ways. His family also lives pretty far away, all the way out in Portland, and he almost never sees them. He works from home, does some sort of computer job, and feels a little isolated because he doesn’t really interact with coworkers much. We like the same genre of music—classic rock—and we both love to put on Led Zeppelin while we clean. We’re both left-handed but neither of us own left-handed scissors so we always rock-paper-scissors whenever something needs cutting out. Our politics are similar, we share similar feelings about faith, or rather, lack thereof, and we’ve always agreed easily about how we want to take care of our space.

It’s not like we’re identical or anything, like, he’s a night owl and I’m a morning person, and he is very introverted and I love meeting new people, but there’s nothing so glaringly different between us that we have tension about it. It’s genuinely nice to come home from the grocery store, or therapy, or a walk in the park, and know that he’ll be around the house, and we can hang out.

He sometimes goes out of his way to do nice things for me—like he’ll clean the apartment while I’m gone or turn off all the lights before he goes to sleep because I always forget. He’s sweet, and polite about it. If I bring up the things he does for me, he’ll just shrug and say it makes him feel good to do things for people, especially stuff that makes their life easier. Once he even said that hard work doesn’t count if it’s for people he really cares about.”

My face flushed at the memory. Lucas, in the kitchen, with a dish towel slung over one shoulder, grinning casually. His stormy gray eyes had twinkled a little, and his smile made my stomach flutter. He’d cleaned the mountain of dirty dishes even though it was my turn to do it and primarily my mess—he never seemed to contribute to the pile of sauced-up plates and coffee-ringed cups. I hadn’t thought anything of it then, but now, knowing that he really didn’t use the kitchen, didn’t need to… Well, it makes sense.

“I’ve really grown close with him in the months that I’ve lived there. He’s helped me get past feeling isolated here, since he so often seeks me out. He makes me feel like a valuable presence at home, which has boosted my confidence. I get this rush of comfort and happiness when I think about spending time with him. That’s new for me. I’m pretty sure that I’m really falling in love with him.”

I couldn’t keep gushing about how lovely he was—or rather, I could, but that wasn’t the reason I’d scheduled this session with Francene.

Her face had its practiced, neutral expression in place, the one she reserved for listening and withholding judgement. That careful detachment was the reason I decided to stick with her as my therapist when I moved out here. Her reactions and feelings didn’t cut me off when I started to open up. The uncreased, slightly-head-tilted look relieved the tension that usually coiled around my shoulders, and the words just flew.

As I watched her, she nodded once, an invitation for me to continue. I squeezed my hands together, tight, then picked up my story.

“There’s basically only one thing that frustrates me about Lucas. He has no interest in the exterior. What I mean is, he never wants to go out anywhere or go do anything. I’ve invited him to parties, restaurants, I asked him to come to a Joan Jett concert with me, but no matter what it is or how much I’m certain he’d enjoy it, he always says no. He’s polite about it, for sure, but he literally always rejects the offer. And he doesn’t like when the exterior becomes the interior. Whenever I have friends over, he always hides away in his room and will not come out. He’s literally never met any of my friends or our neighbors, even if I invite him to hang out with us and no matter how much I emphasize that he’s welcome to join our plans.

Like I said, I’m more of an extrovert, so I guess he’s just a tiny bit anti-social sometimes or easily overwhelmed by new people and situations, but it’s still frustrating to try to share my life and invite him in and to meet with such strong resistance. Like, would it kill him to go to the park just once?”

I winced at my choice of words. Across from me, Francene’s pen was scratching along the lines of her notepad, picking up in pace when she saw clocked my reaction.

“How does it make you feel that he doesn’t agree to these things?” she questioned.

“I mean, I get it now. It’s difficult, yeah, but like I said, I really do like him, so I can usually overlook it.”

If I wanted this to work out, I’d have to overlook it.

Francene cleared her throat softly—I’d let the silence hang for longer than I meant to. “So, you came to see me about your relationship with Lucas?”

Time for the moment of truth. “Sort of. On Monday, something happened…” How was she going to react to this? The thought tightened my throat.

“What happened on Monday, Myra?” A glow of concern colored her brown eyes.

“My landlord came over, with someone looking to sublet. A very nice girl from Seattle.”

“Ah. So you didn’t know Lucas wasn’t going to continue subletting there?”

“Not exactly. I asked Andy—that’s my landlord—about Lucas leaving, since he hadn’t said anything to me. And Andy got a little upset with me. He asked me if I’d been lying, if I’d had another person living there with me even though I’d only paid for my room, not both.”

His face had been rather red, and spittle gathered on the lower bristles of his mustache as he’d blustered about rental agreements and improper use of his property and a dozen other things that were lost on me. The girl who’d come with had stared at me openly, confused and suspicious but not unsympathetic as the tirade dragged on.

“I managed to explain to him that I hadn’t brought Lucas to live there—he’d moved in before me, after all. We’d never met before I arrived here that first day. Andy asked to speak to ‘this Lucas character’, so I led him to Lucas’ room, and knocked on the door. He was almost certainly home—like I said, he never goes out much, but like usual, his bedroom door was shut. I realized while I was knocking that I’d actually never been inside of his room or seen what it looked like inside.”

Francene was frowning at this point, and she flipped to a new page of notes.

“After a minute or so of knocking, Andy just loudly announced that he was coming in, and he opened the door. And…” My breath hitched. “And the room was empty. I don’t just mean he wasn’t there; it was completely empty. Four blank white walls, a hardwood floor, and a thick layer of dust on the single windowsill.”

The pen stopped scratching. I squeezed my eyes shut—it was too late to take it back.

“Andy turned on me, and glared, and said he didn’t appreciate me wasting his time with pranks. He asked me to give him some space to show the apartment and waved me off. I tried to explain but I really couldn’t think of anything to say. What explanation was there? My roommate who was apparently a squatter had moved out all of his things and vanished overnight without me noticing? It just didn’t make sense.

So I went into my room, and sat on my bed, and just sorta spaced out until I heard the front door slam shut behind Andy. I crept out of my room and wandered from room to room, trying to find anything that belonged to Lucas, a note he’d left or a missing sock he’d forgotten or anything at all, but there wasn’t anything. It was like he’d never been there at all.”

I spared Francene the details of how hard I’d been crying as I ended up in his empty room and curled up on the dirty ground for hours—it wouldn’t matter in just a few minutes anyway.

“I was shocked, confused. I couldn’t imagine him disappearing without saying anything—we were closer than that, or at least I had thought so. After a bit, I made up my mind to reach out and ask him what had happened, but then I remembered I didn’t actually have his phone number. We saw each other constantly, so it just somehow never came up. We’d left each other occasional notes on the fridge, although there weren’t any still stuck on there when I looked for them.

So I didn’t know how to get ahold of him. It’s not the dark ages, so I decided to try social media. Who doesn’t have any socials these days, right? I went on my phone, opened Facebook, and typed in his name. Lucas Planck. A small handful of accounts came up, but I felt like I knew enough to figure out which one was his. I clicked through a few until I found one that I thought was his, even though the profile picture was just some sunflowers. It listed the hometown as Portland, showed what college he’d gone to, and had a few liked posts about Metallica and some old articles about developments in computer science. I opened the old profile pictures and found one that had his face in it—and sure enough, it was him.

I sent him a friend request and a quick message asking him if we could talk. I didn’t get a response right away, and I was feeling really anxious, so I just wanted to see if he came up anywhere else online. I typed his name into my browser, and the first few things that popped up were about other Lucas’, but near the bottom of the first page of results, there was an article from a few years ago. It was published in the local paper here, and I opened it in a new tab.”

It was a mistake, bringing this to Francene. I could feel myself shaking as I spoke, and I didn’t want to see her reaction to this. I didn’t want her to know—she’d call me crazy. I’d sound crazy. But there was no way out, now—I couldn’t leave without an explanation, and there was no explanation for everything I’d said so far except the truth.

“Local man’s body discovered in apartment after several days—the smell alerted neighbors. That’s what the article was called.” I swallowed hard. “Just underneath was a picture of Lucas, and a short article about how a neighbor smelled something horrible and called the police, and they discovered a body that had been dead for some time, after a head injury from an accidental fall in the bedroom had caused bleeding in the brain, or something like that. It said—the article claimed—that the dead man was Lucas. My Lucas. My roommate Lucas. And it was his picture on the article.”

My knuckles were white where I squeezed my fingers together.

“I almost threw up, reading the page over and over. And then… And then Lucas walked into the room from the hallway, frowning.”

He’d been paler than usual and sighed heavily as he came into view. With a slow nod, he’d settled down on the far end of the couch, cross-legged as always, and pointed at my screen.

“He apologized that I’d found out like this, that he’d meant to tell me. I was pinching myself to see if I was having a nightmare, but I wasn’t. Lucas stayed very calm as he explained to me that the article was correct, that that was him, and that he’d been drifting around this empty apartment, unseen and unheard, until I’d shown up, and I saw him. He said as far as he could tell no one else had been able to see him, and I seemed nice and it felt so good to just have someone to talk to, and so he’d hidden the truth.”

His eyes—or what looked like eyes to me—had watered, and he’d swiped at them with the back of his sweater. Would his sleeve have felt wet if I touched it? Could I have touched it? I realized that we’d never physically touched, never brushed up against each other, never even come close. He had pushed up his thick curls where they flopped over his left ear, and under it, I could see an angry, inky-purple bruise, swollen and yet obviously indented. Saliva had coated my tongue, and I’d swallowed down the bile that crept up my throat.

“I didn’t know what to do, pinned in place by the surrealness of what was happening. He didn’t seem to know where to go from there either, so we just sat, silently, for what felt like hours. Then he stood, and walked out of the room, and said if I wanted to, we could talk about it in the morning.

I didn’t sleep—I couldn’t. I just kept thinking about how much I cared about him, and then lurching feeling I’d felt when I saw the empty room and thought he’d vanished and I didn’t know how to reconcile that my close friend, the person I’d started to really fall in love with, was dead and had been the whole entire time.”

I was staring into my lap—I didn’t want to know what Francene was doing, and I couldn’t really hear her pen over the roaring blood in my ears.

“I thought I’d have time to figure out what I wanted to do, but my landlord texted me yesterday that the girl from Seattle had agreed to sublet, and she’s moving in next week. She’s moving into Lucas’ room. I can’t tell her we’ll be sharing our home with a ghost that she might not even be able to see, but I also don’t want to stop being able to hang out with Lucas. I’ m not... I’m not afraid of him, of what he is, and somehow, I still want him there. I still feel that connection. But she’s coming, and I’m going to lose that, and I don’t know what to do even do. It’s not like I could move out—Lucas couldn’t come with. And I can’t stop her from coming. But what can I do?” My voice got louder and louder as the questions spilled over.

When I finally paused and looked up, Francene was staring. She was trying hard to keep her face clear of emotion, but underneath, the fear and disappointment and concern were obvious.

“Alright, Myra, why don’t we slow down and talk a little more about this? Is there anything you haven’t mentioned about when you see Lucas, or how he acts toward you?”

She spoke very gently, and even though the word never crossed her lips, I heard it plain as day. Crazy. Francene had decided I was crazy, delusional, insane. This conversation wasn’t going to help me figure out how to stay with Lucas. She’d diagnose me with something or other, ship me off to a facility or drug me into a haze—I couldn’t bear it.

I pushed up from the leather seat, grabbing my purse and quickly going to the door. “Thanks for listening, Francene. That helped, really. I feel better about it. I think I’m good now. I’m gonna go,” I gushed as I opened the door and hurried into the hall.

I heard her footsteps coming after me, but I just called out to the receptionist, asking her to cancel my future appointments, and hustled out the front door as fast as possible, briskly making my way out onto the busy sidewalk towards our apartment.

Lucas and I would just have to come up with our own solution. He’d listened to me all evening yesterday while I rambled, and he’d even suggested I try talking to Francene, since she usually helped me so much when I was upset—he couldn’t have known how she’d react.

We’d figure it out, somehow. We’d figure it out together. It’ll be hard, but that doesn’t matter—I care about him. I might even be in love.