#top ten scary experiences of jumping down the well and a family member is already down there waiting for you

[lambf4rm]

i love your tcm art so much TwT have you ever considered drawing connie and sissy together…

like a lamb to slaughter

[cosmosogler]

hi guys.

i woke up on time but i didn’t get out of bed for a little bit. just felt really meh i guess! i got to class about three minutes late, which is Not Bad all things considered. 

also, spaghetti day.

class was rough... i didn’t feel up to taking notes. i tried to pay attention but my mind kept wandering. just to random stuff. 

my dream last night was about all my classmates. i wanted to go to the beach to swim in the ocean. i asked them to come along. but i kept getting mind-screw sorts of tricks played on me. like at one point i walked into a room and suddenly we all had levels and were fighting goblins and i took it in stride until i realized that this wasn’t the beach and that was where i wanted to go. i said “hey!! this is a computer game!” and luis was like “haha fooled you” and i realized i was sitting at a desk with a computer and he was at a desk behind me. i got up and kept trying to get to the beach. i think suzanne talked me into wandering into an aerobics class. and another one of them got me into an ocean-themed museum. i ended up in a shipyard at one point. 

then i got to the beach!!! my classmates laid out their towels under a sidewalk-canopy-style construction over the sand. i kept getting the salty air in my pillow and i was real unhappy about that because i don’t like the smell of brine very much. also my mother was there and i was unhappy about that. i was determined to get into the water so i could turn into a dolphin and swim away i guess? or just... enjoy swimming for a while, ideally. 

the ocean wasn’t looking so good though. the waves were getting rough and kept pulling out too far and then coming in too far and too hard. also there were sharp rocks along the beach and it was too crowded. i ended up not getting to the water, though i did get wet in the next few minutes.

i saw the water pull allllllll the way out and was like “aw hell no” and walked with my classmates out to the sidewalk and building area. the beach was extremely steep, like the ocean had been at least a hundred feet below where we had been at the edge of the sand. it wasn’t pretty sand. driftwood poked out of it everywhere. we thought we had enough distance but when the wave came it washed everything away. i was in the water looking at the washed-out buildings under and around me when i woke up.

it is an interesting parallel to a dream i had many years ago, where when i was crossing a river a wave came down the river. i turned into a tree and my roots kept me stuck to the ground while the water calmed down. but this time i got swept away, and also was minding my own business beforehand.

considering my somewhat antagonistic relationship with water (and yet great need to be around it i guess) in my dreams i’m thinking the ocean was probably the secrets of the universe or something. physics. answers. reality. i knew if i got there i would be happy. but all those distractions along the way, and the horrible beach, and getting my clothes and stuff ruined by the air... i dunno. and at the end it basically destroyed everything.

i wasn’t... scared? i mean it was scary. but it was more like, disappointment and hopeless acceptance than terror. 

water has always been kinda weird in my dreams. my therapist suggested they represent answers to the problems my dreams present. and it’s usually at least around. sometimes i’m wading in knee-deep water, not always while being chased by a monster. sometimes i’m running but there is water coating the floor and walls which makes everything slippery. sometimes i’m sitting on an iceberg stranded out in the ocean. one time i was in a war and i stumbled across a quiet stream under a tree and i looked into the water hoping for some kind of resolution and a piece of lined paper floated to the top. it had a note that said i am stupid.

anyway after class we went to get spaghetti. i managed to avoid complaining too much. then i went to group therapy. we got into some heavy stuff... i started feeling exhausted and disoriented about 30 minutes in and the feeling never really went away. when i walked back to the physics department i started feeling a little better from the fresh air and getting to listen to some music.

i skipped e&m... still... my drop request hasn’t gone through yet. i think i had things i wanted to do but i forgot about them until literally right now because i was checking out some online articles and some stuff about sonic forces. it looks like the sort of game i’d have really loved as a kid, even if looking at the dialogue now it’s like “this is designed to make kids feel like they are Important and part of the experience and this is how the writing is getting that across.”

i dunno. people say it’s “cringey” or whatever, and i think the story could have used another draft or two to pull things together better, but like... when i was thirteen that would have been really cool. it would have been COOL to put my own fan character into the story. there’s a lot of games that do that but none that seem to be so based on spectacle.

anyway!!! i spent my free class period doing not anything especially productive. i did start working on my quantum homework... i got one problem done while i talked to harrison and suzanne about our students and trends in our teaching experiences. then suzanne and jennica and i went out for dinner, to a mexican place. it was actually really acceptable. the burritos could use work but the salsa was on point. jennica and suzanne found out that i think really stupid jokes are hilarious. jennica was reading them off her sunday paper archive. they were at about the same level as the jokes you find on used popsicle sticks. i was laughing so hard i was crying though and that made suzanne laugh which made me laugh harder. she took a picture of me weeping at one of jennica’s jokes.

like “what’s a gorilla’s favorite fruit?” 

it’s “ape-ricot.” NO EFFORT WENT INTO THESE JOKES!!! I GUESSED THE PUNCH LINE TO HALF OF THEM!!!!!!!!!

then we got serenaded by a real live mariachi band. suzanne asked them to play their favorite song and they played “despacito,” which has over 4 billion views on youtube apparently. we all had a great time. i gave them a huge tip.

since i hadn’t heard the song, jennica played it on the way back to the office. honestly i like the mariachi one better.

after that i biked home and got here around 8 and poked around on the internet all night. AND THAT WAS MY DAY!!!

going out for dinner was a good idea, i think. i felt a lot better with TWO filling meals today and the bad jokes were just transcendent. i think i phrased it to jennica as “the lack of effort that goes into these jokes is exquisite” and that made her laugh pretty good too. 

i don’t feel like 100% complete garbage tonight but i am still lethargic? maybe it’s an “at home” thing. 

i’m worried... waiting for some out of left field tragedy to break this little bubble of “a single peaceful moment” i have experienced. i hope my siblings are ok. my sister’s theater production opened either today or yesterday. facebook’s post ordering and time zone differences get a little tough to parse. and... i hope my dogs are ok. 

i did have a good time. genuinely. i guess it’s hard to break the habit though. if you’re always in a horrible mood, then horrible news or experiences won’t make you have to fall all the way down from “pretty good actually” to “awful.” i’m tired of random accidents taking the wind right out of my sails. if i put the sails down and just paddle the whole way at least i have some... control over the situation i guess. about where i’m going.

it’s exhausting to feel that way all the time, sure, but like... at least there’s some stability, you know? that way, it’s not like i was having a good day before mom came in and slapped me, at least. 

but that happened a long time ago. the attitude’s only marginally helping me now. it helps me more when i’m at home even today though so it’s like... do i really want to get out of the habit?

well i guess when i was real young i literally did not have a single reason to be happy ever. bullied at school, bullied at home... not allowed to go anywhere else........... happiness always came interrupted at random intervals. you start associating happiness with random things going horribly wrong. like you’re relaxing outside for the first time in weeks and enjoying yourself and then you learn over the phone that your family member killed herself. or you jump up in celebration and crack your head open on the bottom of a shelf that you happened to be under. or... a million other things, really.

so like, on the one hand, it’s a habit to be on edge when good things happen. but on the other, it’s some level of “i know better than that.” 

i dunno i feel like all my unhealthy behaviors and thinking patterns have solid reasons for being that way!!! and when people ask me to change them, my brain is all like “but i NEED them. every SINGLE time i’ve put them down i’ve regretted it.” so like, why the hell wouldn’t i have trust issues? boundary issues? every time i say “no” i get steamrolled anyway. it’s less painful to say nothing and hope the problem goes away on its own. and even when i do get all riled up and ready to stick up for myself, the problem goes away on its own about a single sentence before i gotta actually stick up for myself! 

why the hell wouldn’t i have a low self esteem? getting called retarded by your mother kinda does that to you! getting called a bad kid by your father kinda does that to you! you can say “their words don’t matter” ALLLLLLLL YOU WANT, but they DO matter. you’re literally ten, eight, six, four years old. of COURSE what your mom says to you matters when she’s the only adult in your life and you don’t know anything. 

by the time you even start to realize that their words don’t have to matter, they’ve already had like 18 years to sink in. that’s a long time to feel like you’re garbage. and that’s a real long time to feel frustrated that you don’t have to feel like garbage and yet you still do. so it must be your fault somehow for not having the *~willpower~* to just shrug off parental comments and be a normal person a few seconds after realizing they weren’t telling the truth. 

i’m still really struggling with the idea that i NEED to rest. i can’t work all day every day or else i get sick. and also reality looks weird, and it’s scary. and then nothing means anything and why should i be working anyway. 

but if i juuuuuuussssssstttttttt triiiiiieeeeeeeeedddddddd harddddddeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr, i could work all day every day. i could climb a mountain. i could go without sleep. i could just not eat. so i gotta keep trying or else i’m lazy and people will figure out how retarded i am.

i feel like that might be a cultural problem on top of a parental one though. so mom’s only 80% to blame for that one!!!

ok, that was an exaggeration. she’s 95% to blame. the chorus of “just try harder” is like hell’s bells to me.

oh man i almost accidentally clicked “x” on this tab when i went to switch to a different one. i should cut it off here before i accidentally delete the whole entry. also it’s after 11 so i should sleep... i haven’t gotten enough sleep in a very long time.