February 2017 – the void

in the mirror

what a pointless holdover. it’s not meaningful or #deep or useful or anything, it’s… a twitch of muscle. endlessly self-perpetuating since i let it.

i’m still strapped to the grshr train. tonight i learned that ziyal and garak are apparently canon and i just…. made a lot of vomiting noises. their on-screen kiss shortly after this was really uncomfortable to watch. partly because of my own shipping preferences, for sure, but also… when she first came on the show, i thought she was basically a teenager. and garak is what, 40 or 50? i know age gaps aren’t inherently bad if both ppl are adults and freely consenting and all that, but in this case… they seem like a terrible romantic match. for one thing, none of their interactions look like cardassian flirting (okay, they’re both social rejects, with no hope of assimilating into cardassian society, it doesn’t have to be the point–but then why garak’s loyalty and insistence on maintaining form?) OR human flirting…. aside from the dialogue where ziyal’s feelings are really laid out, i would have read it more like a father/daughter kind of thing, especially since it seemed like garak was taking dukat’s place. idk, maybe cardassians don’t give a shit about age gaps like that (a fictional race where a much younger female is permitted to adore and fawn over an older man who’s done little to deserve it but exist and be himself around her. i just… yecch, i wish they hadn’t taken the romo road here. and admit that part of it is ship and part of it is squick. and part of it is just… trying to fit them into the other pieces i have of each character. a lot had to happen between them offscreen.

i was thinking of maybe doing a night court crossover fic, if i ever did anything creative. one chapter for each possibility. garak in eglantine. garak in… lol i guess bryony would be the house of ferengis then. but no, isn’t there a house that produces gardeners? or would that still be eglantine, to have that visual art component? garak could be cereus, i suppose. following the rules, the decorum, the unbreakable grace of his service. oh my god. i could do garak in each damn house. (yeah i could. lmao) julian in balm, obviously, or possibly gentian. either would be easy, obvious, fitting choices for the implant storyline. oh my god. julian and garak in valerian and mandrake. my stomach just.. did that thing where it feels like it dropped into my groin and i have no sexy way of describing it.

maybe someday. or maybe it’ll only ever be a plan of a plan. yeah, how about that one.

is it terrible that i wish ST could be semi-mandatory viewing for ppl in positions of power? to make sure they see this vision of a future society that respects life and does such an actual… decent job of providing for its citizens? makes actual improvements to quality of life and gives a shit? it doesn’t have to be this way.

my cracked tooth is hurting most of the time now. i think it sorta backed off over the weekend when i wasn’t having carrots for a snack, soooo that bodes well for my main snack component every week day. maybe the dentist i saw wasn’t such a terrible person. maybe. i can’t believe a fucking glass water bottle broke my front fucking tooth. (not broken, not yet, but probably will be if i try to wait 6 months for a second opinion. and at this rate i’ll still be insurance-less by then)

i’m supposed to take a shower tomorrow morning. i hope i do. i hope i do as well at work tomorrow as i did today. i hope i smell less unwashed and musty than i did today. later in the day, i came back to my seat, and someone had sprayed some kind of… scented aerosol of some sort in the area. it didn’t smell like the usual lysol. was it a hint, or coincidental? does it matter, given how noticeably i smelled? 😛

i might actually be getting over my work crush. how disappointing. last friday, a bunch of ppl from near my area were leaving at the same time as me and we were all talking about the overtime the next day and joking and smiling, and he came up the stairs as we were heading down, and i happened to see him and meet his eyes mid-grin. it felt good but not electric. then when i was putting my shit in my car, he walked past and said, “see you tomorrow” with this big smile on his face, like, god damn, what a bright smile. is that even a compliment or is that just toothpaste advertising? an… effusive smile? ugh. and i hate my body and face enough these days that maybe i’m rejecting myself for him anyway. i feel like he’s too conventionally attractive to see anything worthwhile about me, physically–but maybe he hasn’t been looking that hard anyway. or maybe it’s more obvious when not all bundled up for this freezing-ass weather. or if he ever tried to touch me. i genuinely disgust myself.

it’s nice to be saying all these things, for once, but i have to go to bed before it can get any later.

P.S. i did finally respond to ALL the backlog of messages from m. fuckin’ yeah.

i’m ass-over-tits into ds9 now. 20 years late to the fandom. and…. reading because of it. reading novel-length g/ara//shi/r. holy hell.

this particular ep is worth staying up for. even after a week of OT and drinking and fic-derived sleep deprivation and lethargic depression. it’s…. so much depth and emotion and realness (and screen time!) for garak. i fucking love it. i’ve come so many times now between that and ao3. i’m such bland trash, aren’t i

my cracked tooth started hurting again today. kind of a lot. i wonder if the carrot sticks are part of the problem…. i don’t know what to do. the solution to one of my problems is the cause of another problem. i felt scared and upset.

my body feels tired but my brain could just keep rolling on. i really am depressed, aren’t i. i want to die, don’t i. i avoided nausea this morning but maybe i won’t be so lucky tomorrow. four and a half hours now. i fucked myself for like, two hours, even though i feel like i can’t feel… how attracted i should feel. like there’s something missing, but it doesn’t end up mattering.

i’ve gotten even more distant from m lately. sometimes i’m not, but most of the time, i’m tired of her mannerisms and feel unhappy, and/or nothing

suddenly struck again with the question of whether that one thing i cut today was the correct version. uugghhhhhhh i’ll have to check tmrw

2015 revisited

my cold is for real now and it suuuuucks

i should probably be trying to sleep rn but i have no conception of the morning or how shitty i’ll be at waking up. i won’t be bleeding so it shouldn’t be that hard, right?!

i came here wanting to say something, but have forgotten what that was. maybe something about…. doing things. maybe something about m. maybe something about the intersection of doing things + m in my life. fuck, what was it xD i guess maybe that i was thinking it might be easier to accomplish things if I went ahead and did them while i was still out, rather than going and getting her, going home, then going back out? today was kinda inevitable bc of her appointment, but damn, what timing.

talked all evening with…. man, too many ‘k’ people to just initial… kim. don’t know if i actually helped. hope she wasn’t mad at me or anything. felt like a decent human being for actually responding to her p frequently and holding conversation today, instead of ignoring, and validating her while she split on one of her new dudes.

meeeaanwhile i did nothing to improve myself and had cheddar chex mix and white chocolate flips for dinner.

tmrw it’d be nice to…. get some paint swatches on the way home, then head south for the rest of the shopping we want to do. oh shit groceries too

ants found the counter tonight. thankfully, i found the ants. the counters are clean for now but i’m sure they’ll keep coming now that one found its way up there. 🙁

why am i still bothering to write this, why am i still awake

snif

i’m tired and don’t feel well, but apparently want to blog anyway

so yeah, i think i caught my mom’s cold from last weekend like she realized i might, AFTER sharing her ice cream with me. it isn’t as terrible as last year’s, yet, but it’s still been surprisingly annoying. a lot of coughing. my left nostril is over-dried from the fluticasone and it hurts to breathe so clearly through that one + not the other one. which is annoying bc i thought i did a better job of getting the fluticasone dose into my right nostril. i put some vaporub on my chest before settling in to this post to try to numb my throat. hopefully being outside a bunch earlier didn’t exacerbate it or anything… i should text mom to tell her she was (probably) right and compare symptoms, and text dad to be sad about the npr programming we’re losing.

but hey, yeah, i did play a lot of pkmn today. both of the go and moon varieties. i’d been sitting at 11 on a tough eevee sos chain for a few days, building up apprehension/expectation/anxiety bc i’d just started breaking in a new team… i got it to 24 (out of a goal of at least 31 eevees, after which point i’d catch the first female i could find) while watching tv with the baird, and wasn’t paying especial attention, when we exited the battle for some reason? I don’t think I did anything to cause it to faint, but i must have gotten a critical hit on my last move or something. it was too early to struggle. either that or it ran away but that’s unheard of, isn’t it? so that was disappointing but at least i figured out a decent strategy for my current team–it can be kind of slow, but it’s getting faster as everyone levels. (and easier to accidentally one-hit). so most of the reason i’m still awake is because i decided i was going to get back to where i was in the sos chain tonight, and i only just accomplished that.

also played some of pkmn go, and cashed in on that sweet vday special to get a bunch of things i hadn’t even seen before. i’m so lickitung. god bless all the licky pokemon. and it was nice to be outside for once, even if i feel paranoid abt discussing the weather in case it’s some kind of Clue~

i only barely heard about this on friday, but apparently there was a wp hack? given that it had to do with updates of one sort, i was nervous, but my blog appears to have auto-updated already to the version with the patch. thank god… i really need to learn more abt privacy and junk. m and i were talking to the sib earlier this week (after watching Paris Is Burning! which is fucking fantastic and i wish more queer ppl would watch it) and realized that they actually… have surpassed me in a significant, practical way. a little sad but mostly proud.

last night, for what felt like a long time, i dreamed about brett. hanging out with him on what might be my brain’s reconstruction of the downtown waterfront… except it was way more residential. i think we talked a lot but don’t remember what he said anyway. it left me w a surprising number of feelings. just him and me, walking around, talking about…. anything, it seemed like. sometimes i wonder if i still “really” love him, whatever that means. i think it’s more just that our relationship was the last relationship i remember feelings mostly un-conflicted over. feeling my feelings, falling in love. Except…. I know that’s not rly true. Melissa was like that for a while, before Everything Fucked Up Forever and How Do We Undo This

last, aaaaaaaaa, the work potluck on fri! so much good food. AND cute coworker and i had a little conversation. i initiated after seeing that he apparently brought things for the potluck, being surprised bc most of the ppl who work in his area wouldn’t be able to take lunch at the set time of the potluck. i jumped right into being casual with him and he went with it and sounded rly nice, but at the end, i said “we’ll see” and he said “we’ll see” right back and i don’t know if it was socially affirming or if it was the kind of repetition where you’ve, you know, disengaged from the conversation and the person who you were talking to and you’re just verbally solidifying how little you care. OF COURSE IT COULD GO EITHER WAY. and yes of course i’m giving a shit about this. i’m sorry fuck i don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, you’re just really cute and every time i see your face from across the room i can’t help but be like, “wow he’s really gorgeous” and it just slaps me in the stomach. by comparison, i’m old fat unkempt unfashionable garbage, so yeah i’m kinda thinking i make him feel uncomfortable if anything at all. i’m sorry, i try to be not annoying or doing anything that might cross a boundary. oh and THEN after the potluck has been going on and he’d gotten a few plates of food and was heading back from his (second) lunch, he like…. came out to say thank you to everyone for the food. who does that?! it was surprisingly thoughtful. i just…. i have no idea who he is, man. every time i think i’m letting go xD

i woke up at a reasonable weekend hour this morning. the sun was actually coming through my blinds, making everything look weekend-perfect. i gathered up a bunch of my stuff to have with me in bed before getting up, and among other things, i… took 15 minutes between sos eevees to try to describe the “ideal me”. It’s funny, I was kind of expecting/hoping for something so far away from who i currently am, but really, i ended up writing something more transitional, like, someone who i could get to if i Just Started Doing Things. it just described my current priorities rather than becoming an overwhelming wish list.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa exhausting

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i need a (concise) tag for this work crush

IMMEDIATE P.S. oh yeah had to go thru my tumblr earlier for potential security reasons and saw some of my original posts from 2014-15. i was actually…. saying decent things that i have no memory of saying. it seems like maybe it really is important for me to write down how i’m doing and what i’m feeling, AND continue looking back on that, to be able to examine and remember it and integrate it. so there’s that

roosevelt remix

lately when something has gone well but isn’t necessarily…. remarkable?… i’ve been hearing homestar’s voice say “cool.” and then that particular intake of breath through the mouth that makes it awkward and immediately less cool (whatever “it” was). I think it’s from the “four drinks for four cool guys” short. could be wrong, though. anyway this is kind of irritating bc I have a hard time reproducing the exact “cool.” i hear in my head either (a) accurately or (b) smoothly, without looking like a complete weirdo. in case that was my priority when making hsr references in 2017. (not that referencing hsr is the point! it’s just in my head so i want to put it outside my head, thus exorcising this particular echolalia.)

i feel… accomplished today. how rare. honestly tomorrow i’ll probably be over it but i actually did pretty much all the shit i could’ve expected myself to do today, production-wise.

washed my sheets as soon as i got up, then remade bed as soon as dryer went off
FINALLY, after three weeks of putting it off, did the necessary pretreat on my shirts so they can be laundered. I’m letting them sit overnight before washing them just so the baking soda has time to counteract three damn weeks of sitting in a stinking dirty heap. god, i fucking hate that i have to do this and i’m so bad at doing it regularly before it turns into an intimidating hour-and-a-half bullshit chore.
i guess in list format this really isn’t that great looking
i can’t remember what else i did of actual consequence WAIT
ran the dishwasher
washed *and* folded non-shirt laundry
scrubbed the toilet (but didn’t add bleach yet)
cleaned up my desktop computer’s desktop (no, not “deskotp”)
got an idea of the direction i might want to head on my 2016 playlist’s album art, grabbed some resources + inspiration
purchased and used fluoride rinse to help my cracked tooth not ache, since according to my mom that can help. today wasn’t really so bad wrt that ache, thank god. it’s been a full week of more pain than usual, since chewing gum for most of a day
other groceries
picked out my outfit before bedtime cram-time
OH YEAH i sorted out all my paperwork and bills and shit and filed and recycled and set aside for shredding. THAT felt satisfying… even if that part of my desk still feels relatively unusable bc of, like, some glow-in-the-dark sticker stars in the corner. it doesn’t feel like a clean workspace, it feels like open shelf space. but i’d like to use it for notebooks and the like, since it’s not right in front of the kvm.

it’s snowing outside rn. i wonder what tmrw morning is gonna be like. there were a few power flickers over the course of the evening, but so far it’s stayed on. knock on wood. if the power actually went off, i might have to actually sleep in the same bed w m for the first time in what, over a month? I even felt vaguely interested last night.

i don’t know if this momentum is gonna still be with me tomorrow, what with potential weather/power disruptions, incipient busy season at work with one person still out, and being up as late as i am rn… but i’d like to keep doing things. there’s always stuff, of course, and it’s probably only a matter of time before i overwhelm myself with expectation and burn out. but dammit, my usual mindless stimulation options just aren’t cutting it in the past few days. i saw a site that offers free drawing tutorials and want to check that out. gotta get back on the daily cl checking train. could keep working on the 2016 playlist album art. remembered my pile of clothes + pics for tce that i need to make an imgur album for… it’s been almost a year since i started working on this and i still haven’t gone through the pics to find which ones to upload. sheesh.

also need to take out money to pay m for some of our bills. god.

i watched snk this weekend. i marathon-ed most of it on friday night until 2 in the morning (why i’m still wide awake at this time tonight) while working on my shitty phone wallpaper idea (i think it got 0 notes after working on it for a few hours that night and then the next day as well.) let me tell you something: don’t try to watch subbed anime while doing something else that requires visual attention, unless you want to fail at both. amazing insight, i know. but as for the actual show/what i saw of it…. i didn’t really… get why it’s so well-known? It’s really not that great. Kinda cool plot, but the characters all felt flat and like… their emotions and motivations were frequently not compelling. and overall the show was pretty heavy on imperialist rhetoric, i think… the titans sure make eerie villains, though. but whatever apparently everyone thinks the characters are worth making fanfic about! especially abo dear god i’ve seen too much. even as little as i’ve seen, it’s too much.

yeah actually on that subject. people… do the people writing these things realize how absurd it is that they’re this far inside this trope? that they place this belief system onto canon, worm it into the cracks so it can exist behind the scenes? and how that reflects on them, the writers, and the world they live in? the violent possessiveness of monogamy, all the twisted priorities that make mpreg more common/desirable than, idk, trans characters or adoption or surrogacy or any of a number of things… like… cis masculinity is just gonna swallow everything? ok then. but to be fair i’m very much a spectator and don’t have much context for the fandom(s) that created this and grew it to this point. i’m sure i’m missing pieces, but i’m also sure that there’s a shitload of misogyny in the mix.

wtf how did i get from 12:34 to 1 am, fuck

yesterday i also finally watched A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and was still distracted by phone-wallpaper-making, and…. felt like i was missing something. but then it might be one of those artsier films that would’ve made me feel that way even if i paid close attention the whole time. I really enjoyed the long, emotional pauses between protag greaser dude and protag vamp lady though. those were really well done and rly… rich. and it was very satisfying to see the vengeance wrought on shitty dudes. yeeeaaaah, i’m probably missing a lot. whatever.

also worth noting abt this week: reading teen vogue led me to learn about k-beauty, or korean beauty. apparently it’s been about 3 or 4 years since it was hip soooo it’s good to know i’ve still got plenty of backlog from being a depressed useless piece of unaccomplished shit. it’s… good scaffolding to learn more about skincare/facial routines and products, though. i was kinda intimidated and confused before and now i am slightly less confused. like any kind of daily/regular use thing, it sounds expensive… but i think i could maybe figure something out for myself.

that’s a lot. and it wasn’t the worst writing ever, either, at least in parts. i know my punctuation was especially shitty. but it felt… okay. time to get insufficient sleep, be really cold/wet, and get stressed out driving in unfamiliar conditions!! ye

in my mind, all of the time

I purchased Hot Thoughts this afternoon and proceeded to listen to it 75ish times until bedtime tonight.

Everything is horrible. I am horrible. I’m so depressive, I can’t do anything. I’m really good at out-waiting my own desires and interests. It’s gotta be some kind of executive dysfunction, right? To constantly be thinking of the thing, but because I’m doing something else and haven’t basically exhausted whatever that something else is, I never get around to the other thing even though it sounded more interesting? I actually had interest in drawing, earlier, but I would’ve had to get up and find a drawing pad and utensil and come back. Instead, I hatched a few more (male) eevees. and named them all after eggs.

what does it mean that the dentist’s office never emailed or called me about a follow-up? My appointment somehow vanished from their system even though I used the scheduling assistant on their official damn website + received a confirmation call from SOMEONE human, and now they won’t contact me directly for something they said they could get to me within a day. It’s been six days–a week, in the morning. Given all this, I kind of want to believe that they actually exist in a weird limbo-type deal that no communications can penetrate, but can be physically accessed on foot. They’re the shitty Avalonian dentist office for wealthy white people.

Ugh, I hope I’m overthinking it. I was not reassured by the doctor’s approach. I was not given info or options, only talked over. Even my fucking pediatric dentist treated me more respectfully than that. By contrast, the only subjects on which these ppl consulted me were (1) small talk, (2) marketing research/feedback, and (3) trying to upsell me with whitening treatments. Oh, and (4) an odd number of questions about my jaw/jaw pain. I…. don’t feel v confident abt their office, honestly.

K split on me, I think. Idk what to do. I’ve never been on the receiving end, and my fears about not being borderline enough are getting in the way of thinking this through rationally to put myself in her shoes and figure out how I can do better/be helpful and not just say bland, trite garbage. I don’t have the energy to pursue it that hard, but I don’t want this to become some kind of power struggle to see who can stay silent the longest and who’ll crack. I just…. don’t know what to say. I did a shitty job empathizing and said some useless crap and you probably felt ignored, uncared for. I’m sorry I didn’t know what to say. I guess I’ve never actually talked to anyone else while they’re splitting, before you. also I didn’t have much info on the situation surrounding your split. it was v sudden and information-free.

I hope I ever do anything. I hope I use my gym membership, hope I get physical therapy, hope I ever finish a single wallpaper, hope I catch up on cleaning tasks enough to feel capable of doing something educational/practical in the evenings, hope I find a job that doesn’t suck w/medical benefits.

p.s. starbucks’s smoked butterscotch latte tastes like cannabutter coffee