1.15.25
Four months weed free

Wednesday

So, four months have come and gone since I quit weed.

The seven months I went sober from November 2022 to June 2023 feel like an eternity to me now… It’s crazy how I’m more than halfway there to beating that record. And there’s no doubt in my mind that I will, like I’ve said before I feel zero urge to relapse. In terms of sobriety, I feel like there’s not a whole lot to report on. Memory has improved, attention span is generally the same, and my lungs feel a little bit bigger. There is one thing I’ve noticed that I think is pretty neat, though: Laughing at something while sober feels exactly how laughing at something high feels. I almost feel high when I do it! Anyway, general life update:

The other day I finally got rid of my TV. I hardly ever used it, plus there’s nothing it can do that my computer can’t. It was also taking up space on my desk; I had it on my desk facing my little work station so me using it would be more intentional and less impulsive than if it were facing somewhere more comfortable like my bed. So from now on I’m gonna be that much more productive since I have less to distract me and more space on my desk. I could’ve sold it on FBM or something but I decided to give it to someone for free instead since theres people who need their money more than I do. My brother wound up giving it to one of his friends who coincidentally had just broken his TV on accident after he tripped on the HDMI cord and ripped out some of its insides. So yea, no more TV :3

I’ve been trying to put more effort into saving money lately, and I’ve taken steps towards that goal in a few ways. For one, I bought one of those jars with a timer lock on it to put cash in. Each payday, I put some money in the jar and set it to remain locked until next payday when I can put more money in. I also asked my mom to lock me out of the family Amazon account, which is where a ton of my compulsive spending happens. Books are only like ten or twenty dollars, so it’s easy for me to give in to my habits and spend juuuuust a little bit more. Lastly, I bought a few books all about finance to help guide me through my spending problem, those books being Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins, and The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. I actually just finished that last one the other day, and plan on writing an entry about it after I go through it again.

Speaking of money, I’m getting a second job soon. I’ve wanted to branch out from my current job for a while now, and I was originally planning on quitting temporarily so I could focus on whatever new job I got myself, but then life happened. Due to a shoulder injury requiring surgery ASAP, my mom won’t be able to work for about six or so weeks after the fact. She tried to comfort me by saying my brother will be able to help us pay bills, but I honestly doubt that. More often than not, it’s US helping HIM with money troubles… So, I’ll be working about 55-60 hours a week for a little while. It’s not all bad, to be honest I’m pretty excited for this new job! I’ll be working as a server at this breakfast place. I’ve wanted to work in an environment that allows me to talk with others more, and I want to learn more spontaneous social skills in general, so I think this’ll provide those for me. Plus, they did say that first-time servers tend to do pretty well at their store, so I’m not particularly worried. And hey, thanks to this, I’ll still be able to save up a little bit of money each check!

So yeah, all in all I’m doing just fine.

1.9.25
It (barely) snowed today

Thursday

It snowed a little bit today. I lied and called into work so I could enjoy it since it hardly snows in Texas. The high today was 33 F, low was 29 F. I took a few pictures.

Started off my lil journey by taking a lyft to my local 2nd hand bookstore. Pet the kitties. Drank some free tea. Read some more of The Psychology of Money and took note of how much faster I’ve been getting through books than I used to. Meditated for a few minutes before leaving and walking about ten or so minutes to this Korean place I’ve been meaning to eat at for the longest time now.

Got myself some spicy beef bulgogi and some tteokbokki, which came with sides of kimchi, rice, bean sprouts, black beans, aaaaaaand I forgot what the little orange guys are bht they were good. It was all pretty fucking spectacular, I’m not too sure how to describe korean flavors since this was my first time eating korean food that wasn’t instant noodles like my beloveds Buldak and Chappegetti, but it was fantastic! The beef bulgogi was rich and flavorful, and had a nice kick. In hindsight, I do wish I got it spicier, you can choose between mild, medium spicy, spicy, and extra spicy. Again, the medium spicy that I got had a nice kick, but there was very little pain at all. I guess my spice tolerance is higher than average, one of the decorations they had was this document written by food reviewers going through restaurants in Texas to find some great asian flavors. One of those restaurants was the one I was at, and they said the medium spicy level had them chugging glasses of water…? I didn’t even think to get a drink until halfway through my meal when I randomly thought to myself “Oh yeah I never got a drink lol”.

Anyways, the tteokbokki was also super good! I’ve wanted to try those damn rice cakes for a long time and they lived up to my expectations pretty well. Their texture was soft and bouncy, and they soaked up the flavor of the sauce really well! The fish cakes were also super tasty, and I actually think I liked them more than the rice cakes!. Again, decent kick but not as spicy as I’d prefer. I’d say the most interesting flavor I had was actually the kimchi that came on the side. It was kind of sour and gingery, but still had a really nice savory and spicy flavor. All in all, fantastic first experience with korean food! (other than noodles lol)

I dropped da rise cakess :P

I woulda taken more pictures if it had snowed more but everywhere just looked kind of sad and wet so I didn’t take much.

I wonder why my phone got this blue-ish tint all of a sudden? I didn’t use a filter or anything…

A good four hours into this walk and I was still feeling perfectly fine. It’s not that I wasn’t cold, I was cold, I was very cold, but it just doesn’t bother me the way it does other people. I’ve always been this way, I vividly recall one chilly cloudy day when I was seven where I was running around in my front yard totally unbothered by my runny nose and stiff fingers. I’m 90% sure this is an autism thing.

”Sensory processing is how our nervous system takes in and understands sensory information. It plays an important role in how we feel and manage temperature. Autistic people often have different ways of processing sensory information, which can change how they handle heat and various health conditions. This means they may react differently to temperature changes.

Some autistic individuals may be hypersensitive to sensory input, which can affect their daily activities. They may feel heat much more strongly. On the other hand, some might be hyposensitive. They need stronger sensory input to notice temperature changes.

These differences in sensory processing affect how their bodies feel and react to heat, leading to unique needs regarding thermal regulation. Understanding these differences can help us support autistic individuals in feeling comfortable, especially when the temperature changes.” Source

Whats kind of funny is at some point during my walk I thought to myself “y’know just because I’m fine with the cold doesn’t automatically mean my body is…”. I must be a prophet! About twenty or so minutes later, I got some minor chest pains. It was nothing crazy, but my legs were hurting a lil bit and my stomach was a tad bit nauseous since it wasn’t used to digesting that kind of food. So I decided that I’d go home for the time being and go back out later. Welp, as I sat down waiting for my ride, those chest pains I mentioned got worse… and worse… and worse… and worse… I looked it up and it turned out I was having bronchospasms. Basically, my airways had taken in so much cold air that they were now contracting! It fucking hurt a lot. In the car, I successfully hid the fact that I was in a lot of pain from my mom and sister until I was home alone, where I immediately took a hot shower. After all that, I took a nice three hour nap, got up, and started writing this entry. Even now, my chest feels a little tight. All in all, pretty good walk. If you hate the cold, you should take walks in it anyways. Because in twenty years you’re gonna wish you did. That’s all I’ll say about that.

1.6.25
Quick lookback on 2024

Monday

Okaaaaay so I was going to write a whole lookback on 2024 but lately I’ve been kind of dreading having to write that and honestly I don’t think i really want to. So instead I’m going to give a quick rundown of why 2024 was such a good year for me and the primarily focus on what I was out of 2025.

Reasons why my 2024 was amazing

I became more socialized. For a long time, I found it really difficult to build and maintain friendships. This year, it just kind of… clicked in my head! I’m still not sure exactly when or how it happened but I really came out of my shell this year, and my life feels more meaningful now that I have people to share it with.

I became a reader. When the year began, I could maybe read ten pages a day before getting bored and doing something else? Now, on a really good day, I can do eighty in one sitting! I know that’s still not a lot on the grand scale of things, but it feels like a lot to me. I feel like my mind has become stronger ever since I took on this hobby!

I became less selfish. In late 2023, I realized how deeply selfish of a person I was after reading a chapter in my favorite non-fiction book atm, Awaken Your Genius by Ozan Varol. Ever since then, I feel like I’ve been doing a much better job at taking other people's needs into consideration, and putting them first.

I’ve learned to stop using my disabilities as scapegoats. I’m not sure exactly when, but at some point I got into the habit of justifying a lot of my mistakes and shortcoming with either my autism, ADHD, or drug induced brain damage. After a friend told me some hard truths, I’ve realized that I shouldn’t let these things define me nor should I ever use them as an excuse.

I get to use this website as my creative outlet! What’s funny is that I still vividly remember the day I discovered Neocities! I was going through some nasty depression at the time, and in an effort to rekindle an old flame, I was re-downloading Minecraft. As I was waiting, I was scrolling on youtube when I found a video about the indie web. I feel extremely lucky to have my very own little corner of the internet where I can have myself and my interests on full display. Plus, it’s more motivation to journal!

I feel like I have a much clearer vision of myself. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like most people have a decent idea of the shape of their character and beliefs by the time they’re nineteen, but due to my unique circumstances I entered 2024 feeling a lot of nothingness. I’m entering 2025 with a much clearer vision of who I want to be and what I feel to be a healthy amount of emptiness. Notice how I said emptiness and not nothingness. The way I see it, nothingness represents nihilism and apathy. When I say emptiness, I mean that in the zen context. “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the experts mind there are few.” Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Shunryu Suzuki. I am entering 2025 with a healthy amount of emptiness.

And I got a Quest 3 :3

That’s basically it in a nutshell! Like I said, there’s much more to it than that but I… don’t really feel like typing it all out when there‘s always ten other things I’d like to get to. But yea! My 2024 certainly had its ups and downs (the downs were pretty rough) but all in all I think it was the best year of my life so far! Here’s to 2025!

1.5.25
First book of 2025!

Sunday

Finished my first book of 2025! I learned about it in the 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter by James Clear where he briefly discussed his book publishing company Authors Equity at the end. One of the books this company published was the one I’m discussing now, Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End of Suffering by Joseph Nguyen. It’s a pretty short book, the actual meat of it is only 130 pages and the next 40 or so pages are just guides on how to apply what you learned to your life. What’s crazy is that this is actually the expanded edition, so the original was even shorter!

I really enjoyed this book and I think it was a great one to start my year off with all in all! Basically, it’s fundamental teaching is the distinction between thoughts and thinking. The way the books explains it, a thought is something that arises naturally within us, something thats out of our control. We don’t deliberately create thoughts, they just are. Thinking on the other hand is something we do deliberately and is actually more in our control than we realize. Here’s some examples from the book:

For most people, me included, it feels pretty impossible to really take control of thinking since we don’t realize that thoughts and thinking are two different things, and haven’t been separating them at all our entire lives. But now that I’ve been taught the distinction I already feel like I have slightly more control over my internal processes.

This book has had me eyeballing zen philosophy the past few days. Much of its general philosophy is inspired by zen teachings and Nguyen even recites a few tales from zen temples to illustrate his points. My favorite of these would have to be the story on emptiness.

”Once upon a time, there was a wise Zen master. People traveled from far away to seek his help. In return, he would teach them and show them the way to enlightenment. One day, a scholar visited the master for advice. "I have come to ask you to teach me about Zen," the scholar said.

Soon, it became obvious that the scholar was already full of his own opinions and knowledge about Zen. He interrupted the master repeatedly with his own stories and failed to listen to what the master had to say. The master calmly suggested that they should have tea.

Once they had been seated, the master gently poured his guest a cup. The cup was filled, yet he kept pouring until the cup overflowed onto the table, onto the floor, and finally onto the scholar's robes. The scholar cried, "Stop! The cup is full already. Can't you see?"

"Exactly," the Zen master replied with a smile. "You are like this cup-so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup."

One position this book takes that I will say I disagree with is that it seems to frame thinking as something that is inherently bad. I think Nguyen specifically stated that thinking isn’t inherently bad but he really never has anything good to say about it… I’m really grateful that this book taught me the difference between thoughts and thinking and that it’s gotten me interested in zen philosophy, but I don’t think a non-thinking life is what I want at the moment. I quite enjoy thinking about stuff. I do know a few people who might be better off without so much thinking though… I would recommend this book if they read in the first place.

My favorite chapter was actually the second to last chapter where Nguyen gave me a new outlook on unconditional love. He talks about how he used to be incredibly peeved by the fact that his girlfriend Mikenna, now wife, couldn’t name any particular reason why she loved him- she just knew that she did. A lot. Meanwhile, he could list a thousand different reasons why he loved her ranging from her smile all the way to her life outlook. Then one day he thought about it differently: “Wait a second… what if one day she didn’t have a beautiful smile? Or one day she didn’t love the world as much? Would I love her less? How many traits would she have to lose before I decided I didn’t love her anymore?” He realized that by naming so many reasons why he loved her, he was making his love conditional on those traits. Mikenna couldn’t name any particular reason why she loved him because her love was unconditional.

It got me thinking back to a time when one of my friends asked me what I liked about him and I kind of struggled to come up with words. At the time I felt like a shitty friend for it but I realize now that simply feeling love in your heart for someone is enough without being able to put that love into words.

The last thing I wanna discuss about this book is how much I love its cover design! I’m a big fan of the less is more approach to book covers, and I think this one does that absolutely brilliantly! Aside from the fact that the minimalistic artwork is beautiful in its own right, it holds hidden nuances as well! While I was chilling at my local 2nd hand bookstore (which I will have a lot to say about in a future entry) I decided to start at the lines beginning on the left and follow it the entire way through. What most people won’t realize is that there are several points in the brain where the line breaks off into two lines, symbolism for how our brains are tangled and complicated. Another piece of symbolism I thought of while writing this: the line that the brain is made out of is the same line that the head is made out of. I like to think that this is symbolism for how our minds create our reality and ties into one of the books teachings that we may not be in control of the objective reality, but we are in control of our reality. This cover packs so much meaning into something so simple, I just love it!

All in all, if you’re someone who struggles with anxiety and overthinking, or if you’re just looking for a quick self-help read, I’d highly recommend this book! Additionally, if you’re looking to get into zen I also think this book is a good place to start!

Happy reading, ya’ll!

1.2.25
"So you just work now?"

Thursday

The other night I was having some small talk about video games with a co worker that went as follows:

I said “I would give you some recommendations but I don’t really play video games anymore.”
”Oh yeah? So what you just work now?”
”No I… just found other hobbies is all.”

I’m grateful that gaming has become so popular and is now mostly respected as a medium of it’s own, but I wish it wasn’t the, like, default hobby for men nowadays. It’s kind of sad how this guy assumed that if you’re not gaming, that automatically means you’re just working all the time instead. Or that you would be gaming if you did have free time. I dunno if this is me being nitpicky or dramatic or whatever but that quick exchange has really stuck with me ever since it happened.

1.1.25
Fear of saying nevermind

Wednesday

Sometimes in social situations, I commit to something I said or did when I really don’t want to out of this strange feeling of anxiety, even if I have no real reason to.

This happened earlier today. I was watching a movie I really like with my grandma, but I got the impression that she didn’t like it because she had dozed off for a bit. So, I texted my mom asking her to call me in a few minutes with an excuse as to why I had to come home. But a few minutes later, after i got off the phone with mom and explained to grandma why I had to go, she actually made a remark about how much she liked the movie. At that point, I should’ve texted my mom telling her nevermind and to make up an excuse why she didn’t need me… but that anxiety kicked in. I felt almost locked into place, as if the ship had already sailed. I didn’t say anything and let my original plan play out against my will. I left her house halfway through the movie and left her to finish it on her own. I hid the depressed look on my face and forced my voice to not sound melancholic as I showed her step-by-step how to log out of my Youtube account when she’s done watching the movie. I’m kicking myself in the ass right now for being so scared of the word nevermind.

I’m pretty sure this is something I learned in my childhood that I haven’t been able to shake off yet. I know there are countless incidents of this happening, but at the moment I can only recall one other. It was in either 2019 or 2020, and I was getting ready one morning to leave my brothers house after a long night of cooking my brain with THC, when his girlfriend and her mother were making breakfast burritos.
”Do you want a burrito?”
”No thanks, I’m not that hungry.”
This was a complete lie. I was starving and wanted nothing more than a burrito in my mouth. But I hated myself at the time, and just couldn’t bare to accept peoples offerings. The mere thought of it would’ve made me sick if I wasn’t already so goddamn hungry. I sat waiting for my brother, and watched for an agonizing ten minutes as they made burrito after burrito, staking them all neatly on a plate.
”Are you sure you don’t want one? We made them just for you guys!”
As if the fear of accepting things from people wasn’t strong enough on it’s own, the fear of backing out had piled onto it.
”No, really, I’m fine!”
The show had to go on. There was no way in hell I was asking for a burrito then. I hoped to god they didn’t hear my stomach grumble.

I don’t know why I do this, why whatever show I started must go on even though the show only exists in my head and nobody even cares or realizes that there could possibly be something for me to be anxious about. Maybe in my early years, my mother or father or both would get visibly irritated whenever I changed my mind about something I wanted midway through them providing it for me, and I just learned not to say anything now whenever I do change my mind, or want to backtrack on something I said or did, or something I’ve been saying or doing. I think it would make sense if this were the case. I learned to not say a lot of things to protect my parents emotions and to protect myself from their emotions. Regardless, I hope the habit is something I can leave behind in this year. I haven’t forgotten about New Years lol, I’m still working on a couple entries on why 2024 was so special to me and what my goals for 2025 are. Stay tuned for that!

PS, this was the very first entry I typed out with my new typewriter keyboard! :3
I want to write an entry talking about why I got it and how it feels to type with it in the future, but that’ll be after I’ve talked about last year and next year and all that good stuff.

12.15.24
What writing is like for me

Sunday

This analogy for what it’s like for me to write was inspired by a chapter in Naoki Higashidas book The Reason I Jump where he creates an analogy for what his memory is like.

I imagine that for neurotypical people, moving their thoughts from their mind to a word document is pretty simple. Like moving cargo. It’s always right there for them and it’s as simple as moving it from point A to point B.
For me it’s different.
Imagine my brain as a massive river. Sometimes it moves rapidly, other times it moves slowly, but it’s always moving. The river is densely crowded with fish of various shapes and sizes, and caught in the crowd are the ones I’m trying to catch. Sometimes, whatever thought or event or topic I want to write about weighs heavily on my mind, and I can easily catch one fish after another. Other times, fish worth catching are buried under my stream of consciousness, and I need to really force myself to sit and catch something.

A journal entry that might take a neurotypical ten minutes to write could take me up to an hour. Sometimes I’ll type up one sentence and twenty minutes go by before I type the next. Sometimes it takes me longer than usual because the fish I’ve caught is pure emotion, abstract and abstruse, and I need to translate it into something logical and definite. The combination of piecing together what exactly I’m feeling and how to translate it to text, along with the chronic distraction brought about by my ADHD makes journaling a very time consuming activity for me, but a rewarding one still. Each sentence I write down makes me just a little bit better of a storyteller than I was before. That’s how we reach our goals. Not with giant leaps, but with baby steps so small that you don’t even notice where you’ve gotten until you look back to where you were before.

Each entry on this site is a step in a better direction for me!

12.15.24
Three months weed-free!

Sunday

I’ve been pretty unmotivated to write lately and I was just sitting at my computer, going through my little list of potential topics I’ve jotted down on my phone, trying to scrounge up the motivation to transform any of them into a whole entry, when I realized it’s been three months since the last time I had THC in my body! When the new year comes around, I’ll be halfway there to beating my current longest sobriety record of seven months!

I’m doing pretty good at the moment. There’s only five days left before my homie Gladiator gets back from his five month stay at boot camp! I’ve been waiting so long it almost doesn’t feel real. Funny story, he got his phone back for a bit on the 8th and I got jumpscared by a text notification from him! I was doing a driving lesson and me and this girl were switching from drivers seat to back seat every 30 minutes. I was pretty fatigued and absent mindedly checked my phone in the back seat, that notification woke me the fuck up! Super excited to see him on VRChat again :3

Speaking of, I’m finally making good progress on getting my license. Driving lessons have been going good, and getting on the road wasn’t as scary or difficult as I thought it would be. I can envision myself driving from point A to point B a lot easier now. I had to have my friends bully me for not having my license since my family couldn’t give a fuck, and Gladiator was one of those who pushed me to bite the bullet. It is not a coincidence that sober me is the one learning to drive.

Another thing I’m super grateful for now that I’m sober is that I can remember what I read much more clearly! Reading was actually my main motivation for going sober back in June, but that didn’t motivate me for long. It’s such a bizarre sensation… Being super engrossed in whatever you’re reading and every word of it being super interesting and impactful… and then you just forget all of it. As much as I enjoyed books like The Dark Forest and House Of Leaves, I can’t say I recall a whole lot of them… I have found a clever solution though! I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of books I’ve already read at work! As much as I want to simply reread them, there’s already so many other books that I need to get to. Listening to these forgotten books at work gives me the best of both worlds I feel.

I think that’s it for the sobriety update. I still haven’t gotten any urges to relapse and honestly, unless some major shift happens in my life, I don’t think I’m at risk of that at all. Sobriety really is a privilege.

12.7.24
Dream Journal 5

Saturday

I just had probably THE most bizarre nightmare of my life… this description is going off of the notes I jotted down in a half-asleep daze right after I woke up.

The earliest part that I can remember is me going around in some city that definitely wasn’t Lubbock, my notes say it might’ve been in the UK? I can’t quite recall anything UK about the area but whatever, moving on. So I was out being a wild young man, getting drunk and high and being a dumbass generally. I remember taking a video of this one guy giving me a mean BJ, and for some reason, whether it be the dream logic dictating it or me being super under the influence (which is how I tried to explain myself later in the dream), I sent said video to the general chat of one of the discord servers I spend the most time in.

As expected, they did not care for it at all.

The terrifying part that made this a nightmare for me was coming to my senses and being on damage control. I can’t remember any messages exactly but they were absolutely disgusted with me. The notes I jotted down said that I knew I wasn’t fully in control of myself when I sent that message, but trying to explain that to them was kind of pointless wasn’t it? My friends (ex friends now) weren’t operating under dream logic, but regular logic where people feel violated when you send them unsolicited videos of you getting your dick sucked, regardless of whether or not you meant to. The last thing I remember from the dream was being in one friends dms desperately typing away trying to explain myself when I finally woke up. He was someone I’m incredibly grateful for because he’s critical of me and has helped me see flaws in myself that I never had before.

This dream was so vivid I literally had to check Discord to make sure it didn’t actually happen. So where did this come from? I have a couple ideas.

For one, this server that I sent the video to in the dream was actually kind of a hybrid of two different servers I’m in in real life, and one of those servers is home to someone that I’ve had some drama with a few times over the past month or two. Maybe a piece or chunk of the reason this dream floated through to the surface was some feeling of prosecution inside me? What’s strange is that I don’t actually remember this person being involved in the dream fiasco, probably because they’re not super active on the server in real life due to the fact that sociology majors tend to be busy people. The other idea I have is this: My friend Gladiator who’s at boot camp should be getting his phone back today. Emphasis on should, it depends on if he passes the crux. Maybe this dream came about as a result of some feeling of anxiety that he may not pass? I’m not consciously anxious about it, his best friend says he’s confident he’ll pass so I am too. Or maybe nervousness that we’ll all finally be able to contact him again after so long? I have been, kind of, anxiously checking my phone each and every Discord notification…

I don’t have nightmares very often, which I’m very grateful for, but when I do they’re always so interesting to analyze and pick apart! I do wish I could remember them more clearly, but I really struggle with putting away screen before bedtime which probably isn’t good for REM sleep. I will say though, this is a far cry from when I smoked weed. Another reason why I’m grateful I quit smoking is that when you get high regularly you cannot remember jackshit about your dreams. I know I’ve had them, but they vanish seconds after opening my eyes.

Damn, I wish I had a DC Mini rn…

12.4.24
My first tattoo

Wednesday

I asked my mom “What I should tell Grandma when she sees it?”

”She’ll be totally fine with it, in her eyes you can do no wrong.”

”...and if I do do wrong?”

”It’s fine, you’re at the top of the grandchild food chain”

...whatever the fuck that means…

This fine symbol is the logo of my favorite music artist at the moment Nujabes! You can read all about how I feel about him in my entry on the 27th. All in all I’m super happy with how this came out! Watercolor can be pretty difficult to tattoo but she did a wonderful job I think! She has years of experience but this was actually her very first job in this building! I’m honored. I tipped her $50 as a warm welcome to Lubbock. The appointment went great! They told me I was bold for getting my very first tattoo on my hand since hand tattoos tend to hurt more, but honestly the pain was perfectly tolerable! At it’s absolute worst, it made me bite my lip a little. I’ve always had bizzarely good pain tolerance. I don’t know why, my childhood was pretty easy and I didn’t get hurt often… Other than the time I broke my collarbone.

And the time an empty bookshelf fell on top of me

and the time I was playing catch with a rock and it fell onto my head and busted it open

and all the times my brother punched me in the stomach

and the time my dad shook me violently in a fit of animalistic rage

Okay I think I know why I have such good pain tolerance.

ANYWAY

I gotta leave this plastic wrap type shit on it for another 14 hours. After that, I have to avoid submerging it in water for about four weeks. You might reasonably assume this to not be possible for a dishwasher, but I’m actually more of a dish putter-upper, so I can totally go four weeks without submerging my hand in water. I hardly ever do the really wet jobs anyway, so I doubt my coworkers would mind, especially if it’s for the sake of preserving this lovely piece of body art. I wonder what I’m gonna tell the church guys though…

On the first Saturday of every month I go to this little church get together in the morning with a bunch of old guys. What’s really funny is the first time I went, I thought it was gonna be people my age. I was very disappointed to say the least. If they’re curious enough to listen to some of Nujabes’s music, I hope to god they don’t pick one of the hip hop songs he produced… I don’t want them knowing I got the logo of THUG MUSIC tatted on my hand. I hope they just land on Aruarian Dance or sum and go “oh this is nice!” and leave it at that. To be fair, they may not be so judgemental. A lot of the time when old people think of tattoos they think of skulls and devils and titties and skull devils with titties and shit like that. They may not be so quick to judge a pretty little watercolor symbol like the one I got.

I am SO excited to be able to just… have the tattoo and not have to take such special care of it. Of course, It’ll wear faster than other areas since I kind of use my hands a lot, but I think it’s worth it!
Pretty crazy how I got a Nujabes tattoo before I got the Metaphorical Music vinyl

11.30.24
Finally... Visual Studio Code

Saturday

I couldn't find a good tutorial for this, so to anyone who uses the Neocities built in code editor like I did until today:

How to bring your Neocities code to Visual Code Studio

1. Scroll to the very bottom of your dashboard and click "Download entire site"

2. Unzip the file

3. In Visual Studio Code, click File, select Open File, and select your unzipped website file.

Step 4. Hit ctrl+s to save your file and click Run to preview your website.

Now that we have that out of the way... Laziness is self-contradictory. When you think about it, taking the easy road ironically makes your life harder more often then not.

If you're reading this, go onto my profile on the Neocities site and check out my view count. As of me writing this, My stats are 5,711 views and 4,021 updates. If you don't know, your site can't distinguish between you opening up your website and someone else opening it up. I'm willing to bet that about 4,250 of those views are just me updating my site and checking to see if everythings working the way I want. Funny thing is, I've known about Visual Code Studio this entire time. So then why did I stick with the built in code editor on Neocities?

Short attention span.

That's really all it boils down to. I bet I looked up how to transfer code from Neocities to Visual Studio and didn't find a straight-forward answer (when ironically the answer was incredibly straight-forward) and I was probably very high and didn't feel like figuring it out. And the built in code editor is right there so why not just keep using that? Yeah it sucks but when you think about it stuff like this is a big reason as to why Neocities is so appealing. Most of the people who are used to the core web probably won't want to do all the research to figure out how to get started on building a website, so Neocities creates shortcuts to help them get on their feet. Instead of figuring out how to get your own web domain, you can sign up for Neocities how you would any other service. Instead of having to learn how to navigate Visual Code Studio (which is layed out with people already familiar with coding in mind) and bring your site files over to it, you can use the built in code editor which is less dense and explains things more simply to you. Instead of having to search for corners of the internet to find small websites, you can browse through them at your leisure. My point is, by making the process of getting started as frictionless as possible, it makes it easier for people to join the indie web.

As happy as I am to be writing this in Visual Studio Code, I'm super grateful that the built in code editor exists and I doubt Neocities would have as many users if it didn't exist. In that brief period where people aren't quite sold on Neocities, any obstical they run into could be the obstical that turns them away from it for good. Yeah, I'm lazy. But lazy people deserve personal websites too.

In the future I wanna add some kind of Fun Facts section to this site, and one of those facts is sadly going to be something among the lines of "subtact the number of updates + about 200 to see my real viewcount!" but whatever. Better late than never I guess. It'd really do me some good if I quit settling for less.

11.30.24
Two jokes I cooked up

Saturday

Here's a couple jokes I've thought up randomly during my day to day life.


What do you call a flock of vape users?

A popcorn bucket.


What do you call a Mexican who's also an environmentalist?

A green bean.

11.27.24
Dad Story

Wednesday

Dad was always super anxious. He wouldn't let us play outside in the rain because he was scared we'd get struck by lightning if that gives you an idea. According to the CDC "the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are less than one in a million, and almost 90% of all lightning strike victims survive." Letting the fear of one in a million chances control your actions is CRAZY. He didn't really talk about his past (or anything for that matter) so I'm still not sure why he was the way he was, but it's like his brain always took him to the worst possible places for no reason. He wasn't in Vietnam so it couldn't have been that. Although he did try to get in; I heard the following story from my brother. My dad at the time knew he wasn't eligible to enlist but that wasn't gonna stop him from trying. When the time came for the gas test, he had a horrible coughing fit and failed miserably. Later, they ran a test and the doctor asked him "Son... are you aware that you have athsma?"

The jig was up.

SO he wasn't a Vietnam vet, but sometimes he sure as hell acted like one. I vividly remember one event in my childhood that still baffles me to this day. One night, I forgot which side of my body my heart is on right? So I stroll over to the living room and ask my dad who's sitting there, "Hey dad, which side of my body is my heart on?" He completely pauses for a moment, and with the most alarmed face and accusitory voice you can possibly imagine, he looks at me and asks

"...Why?!"

...Well dad, I, an 11 year old boy, am going to perform OPEN FUCKING HEART SURGURY on myself of course! Why else would I ask such an awful and suspicious question? WHAT THE FUCK??? What kind of respone is that?! What did he think a literal child was gonna do with that information which, may I remind you, is common knowledge! It's not like I asked if shooting myself in the head fucking hurts or something, good god! How could a man who is this radically distrustful of his own children possibly form meaningful relationships with them?

I have no idea what kind of traumatic events lead to someone being that suspicious of people and hopefully I never will.

11.27.24
My thoughts on hip-hop

Wednesday

I've been getting into hiphop lately! My music rotation isn't that big yet since i've only really started exploring lately. This is not a controversial opinion in the slightest, but I think most modern, lord forgive me for using this word, mainstream rap music is hot garbage. I don't think there's anything inherintly wrong with a rap song were you spit bars about how real you are and how this shit aint nothin to you or whatever, but there's just SO MUCH OF IT. The way I see it, a massive chunk of mainstream hiphop sounds like a bunch of different branches on the same tree; This one may have more leaves, this one may have no twigs, this one may be thicker than the rest, and this one may be shaped funny, but at the end of the day it's all oak tree. I grew up listening to it from kids speakers in school, and now I listen to it on my co-workers speaker at work. It all just sounds homogenous to me.

There are a few exceptions here and there.

Murder On My Mind by YNW Melly is a tragically beautiful story about how Melly can no longer enjoy the fruits of his labor now that he's haunted by the guilt of killing his close friend.


Pretty much every Juice WRLD song I've heard sounds outside the typical mold for mainstream hip hop in terms of lyrics and production.


The artist that got me into more meaningful hip-hop was Nujabes. For starters, I used to be a huge fan of lo-fi beats, and even though I only really value them as background music nowadays it's still made a big impact on my music taste as I still have an affinity for less produced sounding music. Nujabes is essentially the godfather of the lo-fi genre as we know it today, so I feel like I've really come full circle here. What really makes or breaks a hip hop song for me personally is the quality of the instrumental. The sounds produced by Nujabes are always beautiful and they prop up the lyrics wonderfully. The lyrics can be amazing, but if the instrumental is nothing special it just really doesn't resonate with me much.

To demonstrate, here is the original version of his song Blessing It:

It doesn't really do it for me because the instrumental doesn't give me much to chew on.

Now, here's the remix he made a few years later:

Literal Ear Orgasm.

Here's another example, A remix of what I consider to be Nujabes's magnum opus Highs 2 Lows by Uyama Hiroto (who's music I also really enjoy btw). The instrumental is... nice I guess but it feels too, I don't know, passive? Like, it doesn't work super well with the lyrics? I'm not sure but it just doesn't really hit for me.


Now, here's the original Highs 2 Lows produced by Nujabes.

Just incredible. Upon closer inspection, I realize that Uyama Hirotos remix feels out of place because the original vocals and instrumental are inseperable. I feel like a lot of hip hop artists put too much faith into the quality of their lyrics without investing too much time or effort into the instrumental, not realizing just how important it really is. Would I be such a big fan of these songs if their instrumentals didn't complement them so well? I doubt it. To be honest, I lack the musical knowledge to describe with words why I think these songs instrumentals fit the lyrics so well, but each intrumental just sounds tailor made for the lyrics. The vocalist on Highs 2 Lows, Cise Starr, is I guess who I would consider my favorite rapper or MC as he prefers to be called. I say probably because I really only started to dip my toes into this genre so I don't have a huge selection of artists to choose from at the moment. Again, I like the musical knowledge to describe why I feel this way but his lyrics are just so...beautiful. Remember that Uyama Hiroto guy I mentioned earlier? Cise Starr wrote my favorite song produced by him, Soul Of Freedom.

11.23.24
Losing my gamer gene

Saturday

In January this year, I began to analyze and question the role gaming played in my life in a way I never had before.

From mid august to mid september last year, I spent about a month straight renovating my room, and all of my methods of chilling out like playing video games or watching youtube were completely off my mind. Once I was finally finished up, it was like I'd had some kind of spiritual awakening. I was motivated to become the best man I could possibly be, and wanted to get in the habit of reading, learning Japanese, doing yoga, meditating, taking cold showers and all kinds of other shit. However, as I slowly started re-incorperating games and youtube into my life style this motivation faded, and it made me wonder if maybe video games were an unhealthy influence in my life and if they held me back from achieving my goals. In hindsight, I think I burned out because I tried learning too many new habits all at once, but I was definitely onto something.

At the time, I literally struggled to imagine what my life would look like without video games; I'd been a gamer ever since before I knew having a birthday meant I was a year older, they'd been there through every phase of my life. Even when my life was its roughest and my family was its coldest, video games were able to distract me and keep me going. That month, I tried to go two weeks without playing any video games. I almost lasted one week. After that failed attempt and giving it heavy thought for a few days afterward, I decided that even if I could scale back a little bit, gaming exiting my life entirely would more than likely never happen...


...and then it just kind of happened?

I dont know. Maybe the realization hit me while I was punching in code, maybe while I was reading a book or an article, maybe while I was hanging out with friends, or maybe while I was working, but I realized that without trying or even so much as thinking about it... I had stopped playing video games. I think it comes down to a few pretty simple things here.
1. I have a wider variety of hobbies
2. I have friends to be better for
3. Video games aren't rewarding enough for me to choose them over other things anymore.

I wouldn't say I grew out of them cuz that implies that people who still play them at my age are immature or something which they're not, I'm a firm believer that video games are for everyone. It's more accurate to say they've stopped serving me. The dopamine rushes I get from games just aren't what satisfies me anymore. Every now and then I miss gaming and kind of want to play some sick looking new game that comes out but it's almost always just an impulsive urge and not a real, strong desire. The fact that this change happened so naturally says to me that this was meant to happen. I don't really feel the need to escape from my life the way I did as a kid and I'm extremely grateful for that. As much as I loved games as a kid I can't help but feel like I was using them to fill a void in my heart.

Technically I still game every now and then. I'll hop on WEBFISHING, but I'm really only there for the chatroom. I'll play a visual novel, but those don't require much effort or skill. And of course, I'll hop on a game I already have tons of experience in, but I don't want to put effort into actually learning a new game. Really it comes down to effort. I've spent so much of my life putting all my effort into games and now I wanna put it elsewhere. My advice to anyone trying to break out of a hobby they feel is negatively impacting their life? First and foremost, really analyze where this hobby started and why you're so into it. Try to figure out why you have such a strong attatchment to it. Maybe get a therapist to find a strategy for your life and your needs. Some tips that help me a lot include: Try and find new hobbies. This is easier said than done obviously, but wanting to divert your attention away from whatever your problem is will help. If it's bad enough, you could force yourself to divert your attention and make yourself busier. Get some more hours at your job or get a second job, maybe do some volunteer work. Another thing that would help is finding friends who're either outside that hobby or wants you to quit it. Friends are what help me get sober, and I'm sure they could help you quit whatever you're wanting to.

In conclusion, I think it would be really funny to go back in time and tell my younger self about what I do; Tell him that I currently have a PS5, a Nintendo Switch, two VR headsets, a gaming laptop, and my own tv. And what do I like doing in my spare time?

Reading.

11.21.24
No meds :(, life updates

Thursday

Turns out, my journals been broken for a week! :D

I just now realized, when I was dicking with the code to start this new entry, that I forgot the end tag for my last entry so for the past 168 hours no ones been able to read all but one of my entries! Fuckin sick!

anyway

I made a blunder in the process of obtaining my precious ADHD medication. Because it's a stimulant, I have to scheduele an appointment with whatever doctor happens to be there every three months just to check up on me and make sure it's still working for me okay. Welp, I forgot to scheduele it on time :/ As of today, I've been without my main ADHD medication for a week now. Honestly, the last time I had to go any considerable length of time without my main medication was a large chunk of last November, that was a really hard month for me. Couldn't do jackshit but play Titanfall 2 and watch youtube. I was expecting that basically, but it's actually been much easier this time around. Definitely not quite as productive as I'd like but I can't really say I'm struggling. My reading has definitely taken a huge hit but other than that it's been pretty tolerable. I FINALLY Got started on re-doing my vinyl section, still haven't done a whole lot tho, just got the position code all figured out.

I'm gonna be working 50-54 hour work weeks for the next few weeks or so, which should give me about $800 a check. Still financially recovering from a particularly bad spending episode. My hunt for a part time server job has been totally fruitless so atm I have no other option. I remember, when I finished my first 50 hour week a couple days ago, I was tired from work for the first time in a long time. Not exhausted yet, just tired. I've noticed that I tend to bounce between extreme frugality and reckless spending. I wish my family wouldn't enable my spending... living with enablers makes being responsible much harder.

On a more positive note, I got my learners permit yesterday! I was using this Texas drivers ed app called Aceable specifically for getting my learners. Aceables whole marketing campaign is "You can get your license in a DAY with this app!" Should I though???? IDK man I feel like that's a lot of information to cram into an eight hour course. I just don't really like it much. It teaches you like a thousand different things each lesson and then asks you, like, ten questions? To make matters worse they're ALWAYS multiple choice. I definitely feel like I've learned some stuff about the road but not nearly enough to go straight to getting my license.

So yea, that's whats going on in my life. Nothing too crazy as usual.

11.14.24
Two months weed-free, brief history of my drug use

Thursday

Yesterday marked two months since the last time I had THC in my body! I thought I'd give a lil update on how I'm handling it so far. This isn't gonna be very well articulated or anything, I'm just rambling.

But uh yeah, I feel pretty alright! Definitely much better than how I felt the last time I put it down. I still vividly remember how defeated I felt when I opened up Telegram and texted my order to a plug. My primary reason I quit that time was so I could remember more of what I read in books, but that wasn't enough to motivate me in the long run. This time, I'm quitting for personal benefits and for my friends! It makes it much more challenging to form meaningful relationships with people when you forget, like, 75% of what ya'll talk about. Weed did give me a much more positive life outlook but I feel like it was mostly artificial; Of course you're gonna be a happier person if you're constantly inhaling free dopamine. Last night, my friend Fellow said that when we first met in Febuary, he thought I was a wholesome asexual guy, haha. Now he says I'm super chill but super freaky >B3

Why dont I give yall a brief history of my drug use? Soooo....


It all started when I was fourteen. That's bad, but I've heard worse. I've heard of people in Lubbock getting started when they were ten. Anyways, I was at a friends house (the only friends house I ever went to as a matter of fact) when they pulled out a lil bit of weed. What they did was pretty much the polar opposite of peer pressure. "you don't have to do it, it's not for everyone" which I really appreciate in hindsight. I'm tempted to say that it's basically my fault that I got started in the first place, but to be fair these were my only friends at the time so of course I wanted to be like them. I smoked with those two every now and then but who REALLY dragged me into it was my brother. After school, I would walk to the Dominoes close by that my brother worked at to sit down inside and wait for my ride. I remember our quick exchange like it was yesterday, his big wide grin I was unaccustomed to seeing on his face as he walked up to me excitedly.

"did you smoke weed with your friends?"
"yeah"
"was it fun?"
"yeah"
"do you wanna come smoke at my house?"
"yeah!"

As fucked up as it was for him to supply me, I can't deny that I learned a lot of invaluable social skills from going over to his house. I forgot a lot of them but still. What was fucked up of me was that I only went to his house (well it was a duplex but you get what I mean) for the first time to smoke. Before then I hadn't even thought of checking it out in person if that gives you an idea of how inconsiderate I was. Moving on, from that point forward I smoked quite a bit. I'd go over to his house a lot, sometimes for a full week, but always getting high one way or another. A big reason that I enjoyed his house so much was because I loved being away from my disfunctional depression house as much as possible. For the next, oh idk, three and a half years or so I was either getting baked at his house or he was sending me home with a pen. During this period, the longest I'd ever gone sober was two weeks. I know! Two whole weeks! What a nightmare, right? That was until I got into a fight with him in November 2022. Not gonna go into detail cuz it's a whole nother can of worms to open and unpack, but I had really started to go off the deep end now that I had my own income and could buy as much zaza as I wanted. The fight I got into encouraged me to finally put it down for good. Or at least, that's what I thought at the time.

My first major sobriety episode lasted from November 25th to June 27th. 214 days is not bad at all for my first time quitting. That one night in June, I was hanging out with my brother and got curious to see what getting high would be like since it had been so long. After that, I smoked occasionally. Sometimes I'd go a whole month without smoking but I'd say got high maybe three to five times a month on average? Not a whole lot. Than, in Febuary I decided I wanted to smoke with my mom since she was cool about me smoking and I though it would be a really interesting experience. My brother was joining us and the day before we had planned to do it he called and said he couldn't get a pen like he planned due to a sudden expense, so I pitched in and bought the pen myself. The night we all smoked together as a family, he decided to let me keep the pen since I paid for it.
And I thought to myself "y'know... It's been a while since I've had a pen in this room. A lots changed. Maybe I can make it work this time?" and thus I started getting high every day again.

The first few months were pretty amazing if I'm being totally honest, but in May something broke inside me. I realized that I wouldn't be able to move out like I wanted to for at least a year or two, and the reality of having to stay close to this miserable family crushed me. From that point onward the weed gave me plenty of free dopamine but without a northstar to trek towards it didn't amount to anything. About halfway through June I think, I got myself together and put it down again... but this didn't last long. Like I said in a previous entry, I quit for primarily selfish reasons and those just couldn't keep me going for long. I lasted for about a month before I became so depressed and unmotivated to do anything that I finally hoisted up a white flag and got myself a new pen. My use was pretty frequent up until September 13th, when I finally found the motivation I needed. I met my VRChat friend Gladiator one day in Febuary, but didn't actually start talking to him until July when I decided to request an invite from him because why not. We clicked pretty much instantly, and it got me thinking about how many other potential friendships I'd lost due to THC stealing away my memory. I thought about how many amazing conversations and connections I've had that I've forgotten. And this time, I quit not for my sake but for the sake of my friends.


And there you have it.

I've had some low points over the past two months where I felt it would be nice to have some of the free dopamine that THC provided me in the past, but no genuine cravings or thoughts of relapsing. I think whether I'm happier than before is a complicated question, but I'm certainly healthier and a much better friend. I can breath, remember, and work clearly now and I've missed that feeling for a long time now. To any poor potheads out there who want very badly to put the pen down for good, or at least to pick it up less, my suggestion would be to find reasons and motivations outside of yourself to quit. Definitly try and surround yourself with people who want to see you sober and open up to people about what your struggling with. And to any kids out there who rot their brains with THC, porn, social media and any other addiction that reigns supreme today, due to nihilism and detatchment... I know you're sick to death of hearing this but reiterating this is all I can do for you at the moment;

There is hope.

There is help.

The world doesn't end with our generation.

11.12.24
Negativity

Tuesday

I've noticed that I've been a very negative person lately.

A decrease in positive thoughts was inevitible with sobriety but it's really becoming a worse and worse problem for me and I feel it's starting to weigh on my friendships. I feel like the majority of what I want to discuss is negative and I don't want to give that to other people. I live with people who share their negative energy and I know how draining it can be. In fact, I think a major factor in these thought patterns is the fact that I still live in the environment that hurt me. That negativity has leaked into this website as of late and I apologize for that. I tried to think of things to be grateful for earlier, but I set some rules for myself.
1. It can't have anything to do with things outside my real physical life like the internet or fiction.
2. It can't be anything obvious like living in a first world country.
Things that exist only in my physical life that are unique to me. I really struggled with this. The first thing that came to mind was how grateful I am to work a high paying job (for what I do, that is) that doesn't take away much mental energy. But other than that, even now as I'm typing this I can't really think of anything at home to be grateful for. There are things I should be grateful for but nothing I genuinly am grateful for. Most of the things that give me joy in my life come from outside of it in one way or another. I hope this is simply a lowpoint in my sobriety and doesn't snowball.

I've realized lately that I need to start doing things for myself and not just for my friends. Don't get me wrong, I'm really grateful that I have people that I want to be better for, but I think relying exclusively on other people for motivation is a recipe for failure in the long run. Other people won't always be there nor will they always be enough to push you forward. True motivation comes from within; when I think about the times in my life I was the most motivated, I was doing it for my own sake rather than for others sake. I hope I can find that motivation again someday.

I've made some good progress lately, though. I'm now elligable to get my learners permit, I just need to scrounge up some money to get into driving classes. I'm gonna be working six days a week for a few weeks sadly, I've been trying to find a lil two days a week part time server job but most employers either aren't biting or aren't hiring. So far the best I've gotten is "We might be able to get you in after the holidays." I wanted a part time job because I really want to have two days off a week, but I can't wait any longer for extra money. It's not all bad, the overtime at my job is pretty nice.

11.10.24
Alcoholism vent

Sunday

This is a depressing thought but I wanna get it off my chest, I could definitely see myself becoming an alcoholic in the future.

I've been thinking about when I drank on Halloween, and how effortlessly socializing came to me. How loud and proud I was and how much... warmer I came off as than usual. I imagine it's how a "normal" person talks and expresses themselves. My dad was quite the locked-inside autist and quite the alcoholic. He never really talked about it (or anything for that matter) but i think its safe to assume he got hooked for the same reason I could. By the time I was old enough to understand the concept of "daddy is drunk" it had long stopped working for him. He wasn't really much different then from when he was sober, he was just... drunker.

It's honestly a bit frightning the clarity I can envision my potential downward spiral into alcoholism. I can see it right now; taking chunks out of each paycheck for some beers to sip on while I fuck around on VRChat and have a blast being an extroverted version of myself, and it works for a while... but I inevitibly need more and more alcohol to get the same feeling and my liver gets fattier and my gut gets leakier and it gets to the point where I can't put on my VR headset without being hit with by strong cravings for alcohol.

There's not much of a point to this entry but whenever I'm on VRChat and I'm struggling to get going socially, a lot of the time I do think to myself "I wish I was like how I am when I'm tipsy..." and I hope that doesn't evolve into "I wish I had a beer right now"






i had a bad day today

thought about my childhood a bunch

i was writing a journal entry about it and i couldn't stop thinking about it afterwards

oops.

11.7.24
Defining "chronically online"

Thursday

If you're reading this right now, there's a good chance you've used the term chronically online in a derogatory way before. I came across someone on discord lately who's said to be chronically online by a friend, but after seeing how engaged he is with his friends it made me rethink how I've been using that term and who I've been using it on. As of now, I'm no longer a fan of that term because it could mean so many different things, the internet is made up of galaxies; Someone who spends hours a day researching articles online for work, school or as a hobby fits the label of chronically online. Someone who spends hours a day playing games online with their friends or by themselves could be labeled chronically online. If someone like me spent the vast majority of their time working on their blog or any other project over the internet, they too could be labeled chronically online. But when we use that term, we usually don't think of those people, do we?

I think chronically online really means social media addict, so I looked up what do you think qualifies as chronically online and, at least on a surface level, that does seem to be the case. There's a few reddit threads asking for red flags that someone is chronically online and to me they all sound like behaviors learned specifically from social media and the core web. Some comments include, but are not limited to:

"The one who knows all the Youtube beefs before the people even know they're beefing" -Deleted

"They speak in memes." -BillionTonsHyperbole

"My(24) 18 and 19yo coworkers trying to explain to our 56yo boss who sniper wolf is and why it’s 'such a massive deal' that they 'can’t believe you haven’t heard of this' because it’s 'everywhere.'" -kimjongk80

"Using xpill and alpha/beta shit unironically" -rawgu_

"Censorship of “controversial” words: sewerslide, yatzee, le$bean, grape, etc" -deferredmomentum

"'Women won't date anyone under 6 feet that doesn't have a six pack and isn't rich...'" -Waste_Coat_4506

"Using the same lines word for word as a roast, 'Bro really thought he did something 💀'" -TearsOfAJester

And so on.
Generally I think chronically online isn't best used in this context. It's kind of like finding some super duper ultra racist dude wearing a Texas t-shirt and saying to yourself "yup, that's texas all right" when in reality he's just from Vidor. If Vidor was the capital of Texas. And most people didn't know or acknowlage that there are places other than Vidor.

This was a really shitty analogy...

I think it's about time for a new insult to throw towards people who need to get off their phone and touch some grass. I though of this phrase and it's not super original, someones prolly thought of it before, but I much prefer the term

It's specific, snappy, and easy to remember. Definitely rolls of the tongue better than chro-nic-ally-on-line. Someone who uses the internet for hours of research won't get their information from a 90 second TikTok. Someone who spends hours writing online won't rely on comment section catch phrases in an argument. And someone who spends hours a day gaming with their friends...
...probably will speak in memes now that I think about it.

11.3.24
Oversharing

Sunday

I'll admit that my life is rather boring.

I live a mostly sedantary, easy, and safe lifestyle in a boring town still in an awkward transitional phase from not shit to shit that has very little to do all things considered. I think this is a feeling a huge chunk of gen-z has to sit with and come to terms with; our ancestors have given blood, sweat and tears to ensure their seeds could live easier and safer lives, and now that we have that... we're not sure what to do. There aren't as many risks to take, not as many hurdles to jump over and therefore not as much character to build. Unable to find substance in the world around us, we seek excitement through screens that show us social media feeds, movies and TV shows, games, and porn. We chase the high of various drugs that are now more readily available then they ever have been, either to become interested and involved in the world or to retreat within ourselves. I have my own methods of chasing that lost excitement in my life as well; meeting bizzare individuals on VRChat I never would've come across in real life, losing conscious control of my arms and wrists as they slice ten blocks per second in Beat Saber, and of course, smoking myself stupid just to name a few.(more on that last one later) I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with chasing excitement through digital means and substances,(we've been doing the latter for all of human history) but it's important to ensure that we're learning, growing, and challenging ourselves rather than simply distracting ourselves. If all you ever want to do in your life is distract yourself from it, what's the point of living?

About a week ago I was reading Extremely Online: The untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet by Taylor Lorenz. The second chapter is all about the rise of the mommy bloggers, and how they were among the first to become "influencers" as we know them today. The blogger at the forefront of this chapter is one Heather Hamilton, or Heather Armstrong as she's often referred to, the webmaster of a once explosively popular blog Dooce.com. Taylor details how most media depictions of mothers at the time were heavily sterilized and either covertly or overtly mysoginistic, often depicting moms as golden gals who always do their absolute best for their beloved children. Of course, if you have a mother, and most of us do, you know this is far from the reality of raising a child. It's messy in many ways, both physical and mental. When the internet came along, these women were given a voice society hadn't been given up until that point.

"So, a generation of mothers turned to the internet, either as readers, or writers, or both. Blogging gave them a needed outlet for their creative energy as well as a way to connect with others like them. What began as a hobby ultimately found millions of readers with a shared, unmet need: solace, entertainment, and camaraderie during a period of life that was often isolating and overwhelming." Pg 20.

Before I had finished this chapter, I'd skimmed through Dooce just to take a look, and haphazardly read a few lines from the entry that greeted me when I entered the site. Some days later, I continued reading Extremely Online and finished chapter 2.

"A lot of bloggers who were super active when I was have left the industry," Catherine Connors reflected. "The spaces got more and more toxic and it seemed to be getting worse and worse." By 2015, for Heather Armstrong, there was only one solution: quit blogging. So, she did. A few years later she returned briefly, once again penning heartfelt and candid posts about her struggles with depression and alcohol addiction. Then, on May 9, 2023, after relapsing at her home in Salt Lake City, she took her own life. She died at age forty-seven."

I was stunned. I had no idea I was reading words written by a dead women. I revisited Dooce and noticed an href to an In Memoria section on the right side. Considering how strongly it pops out of the minimalistic site layout, I felt embarrased for not noticing it sooner. This time around, I had given the entry my full attention.

"On October 8th, 2021 I celebrated six months of sobriety by myself on the floor next to my bed feeling as if I were a wounded animal who wanted to be left alone to die. There was no one in my life who could possibly comprehend how symbolic a victory it was for me, albeit it one fraught with tears and sobbing so violent that at one point I thought my body would split in two. The grief submerged me in tidal waves of pain. For a few hours I found it hard to breathe.

I had isolated myself entirely from the outside world because I didn’t understand what was happening to me. And I was embarrassed. Here, two years into this often frenzied and wandering dance with life, I understand that I couldn’t hold anyone’s gaze because everywhere I looked I saw nothing but my own worthlessness. And so I chose loneliness. I couldn’t handle the idea of anyone else knowing just how bad I felt about myself.

I now understand that “what was happening to me” was a physical reconciliation with pain. 22 years of agony I had numbed with alcohol had come alive and transformed itself into an almost alien life form. I often felt like I was being electrocuted for hours at a time. The core of my body absorbed the shock of it all, and it brought me to my knees. I was forced to stare this wild-eyed savage straight in the face, and now I look around and think, “Oh, this. This is just life. All of this is just a physical reaction to psychological pain.”

Sobriety was not some mystery I had to solve. It was simply looking at all my wounds and learning how to live with them."

That last line really struck a chord with me. I've been weed-free for about a month and a half now and I intend to keep it that way for much longer. I got hooked on THC because my life felt duller than a bag of rocks without it. I remember, when I first started smoking when I was fourteen, it was like the world finally came alive for me; I was curious and excited about life and the world for what feels like the first time in my life. I think the biggest challenge of sobriety for me personally is learning how to find my life interesting without the assistance of free dopamine from drugs. Looking back on all of this, I think back to a line from page 26 of Extremely Online that reads:

"One of the things that had made Armstrong popular, however, was her propensity for a little TMI (too much information)"

This book and this blog have greatly shifted my outlook on blogging: I realize now that if I want to write entries that resonate and stick with people, I'll have to put out much more than shitty small-talk about how my day was. I'll need to put my full self out there - warts and all. My day to day life might be dull, but the context of how I got here is anything but. I realize that few people are reading this, and that's perfectly fine with me. The indie web is about creation, not clout. Regardless of how many or how few will interact with this site, I want them to exit out of it feeling like they read something real and valuable. If they wanted random pointless blurts and monotonous yapping, they could find an unlimited amount of those things on the core web.

I'm not quite sure how to end this entry because I'm not sure who I could be talking to at the moment. But to whoever is reading this, know that what you'll read from this point onward is as truthful as I can possibly manage.




PS, I just read the first ever entry on Dooce from May 6th 2001, and it reads:

"I should probably shoplift something before I die.

Why do I daydream about Rod Stewart in inappropriate positions?"

If there is a heaven, I'm sure Heather's a star at open mic night.

Rest In Peace, Heather Hamilton. You'll live on through your website.

10.31.24
Dream Journal 4 and Happy Halloween!

Thursday

I honestly think it's pretty neat that today of all days is when I woke up from a nightmare. I hardly ever have nightmares so it's pretty interesting to look back on them once I wake up.

It actually started out as a normal dream and then spiraled. The earliest piece I can recall was me working on my website at night and looking at the main hub when my mom walked in. I always minimize the tab when she does but for some reason I didn't this time. Idk if there was anything stopping me or if the dream logic simply said no, but she got over to my desk and noticed my screen. Before she could even get the sentance "what're you looking at?" out of her mouth, I blurted "Close your eyes! It's a surprise!" out of panic. She did, partly because I put my hands over her eyes.
I can't remember what happened immediately after that, but some time later there was A dog that looked identical to my dog Honey sticking it's head through my window. I guess it was standing on the air or something?? It was standing perfectly regularly, as if my window was close to the ground, but I don't remember registering anything for it to stand on... I did register that it wasn't Honey though. I let it sniff my hand, and it started barking violently and even nipped me a little. I panicked and shut the window on it's head, but I didn't think to grab anything in my room to push it fully out with so I could shut the window, and I ran out and closed the door. I came back a little later with my mom (not sure what the fuck she was gonna do) and the dog was gone so I quickly shut the windows. I can't remember if this part happened immediately or later, but I was closing my curtains perfectly to make sure none of my room was visible from the outside when I noticed two people in the backyard.

And they noticed me.

I shut my curtains and ran out to the living room to tell my family what I saw. As we were talking, they started trying to kick down my back door. In the moments before it broke down, we discussed something but I can't recall what. I grabbed a knife and waited by myself for them to break it open. Not sure where my dogs were when this was happening... Now, the final part of this dream was the scariest and also the most... oddly specific. When the door finally burst open, it was two black women who were wearing, like, Rainbow Six Seige type character designs and not robber get ups? They both looked identical to each other, their outfits were very colorful and well designed, and I know they were black women because even though they were wearing masks, they had big beautiful afros that were let loose out of it perfectly! I'm not sure why my subconscious chose them as the attackers... I don't think I'm racist... Anyways, I charged at the one closest to me and pushed their gun away from myself while I tried to stab them with my other hand. I say "tried" because for some reason, each time I tried to stab her, even though my aim was fine (it's kind of hard to miss someone in front of you with a knife...) the knife would somehow dodge her body each time, like two magnets repelling each other. While this is happening, I see the other person shooting, presumably at me, but I don't feel anything most likely because I've never been shot and my brain didn't really know what to do. After like 4-5 consecutive point blank misses, I changed my grip and finally stabbed her in her back several times until she fell down. I charged at the other one and stabbed her in the abdomen until she fell too. I faintly recall looking at the aftermath and all the blood on the walls and floor and all over me. I must've been "shot" because the dream ended with me losing slowly consciousness.

It seems my mind decided to spook it up a bit for halloween...

I have a feeling I know where my brain got the dog at the window part. One time a couple years back, I was babysitting my brothers dogs and I had like four dogs in my room just chilling. My window was open but I shut it once I heard some snarling kinda far away but close enough to be cause for concern. Low and behold, a few minutes later and what do they all gather at the window to bark at but a couple random ass dogs in our backyard? Good god, I am SO grateful I shut that window. If I hadn't it would've gotten pretty bloody and honestly I don't think the intruder dogs would've survived... They were outnumbered and my brothers dogs were fucking pshycos... I wonder if specifically the combination of seeing the people in my backyard while closing the curtains came from something my brother told me... Apparently, the violent crime rate in Lubbock, where I live, is 2.2x higher then the state average! Source. Ever since he told me that, I always make sure to close my curtains perfectly before I leave the house. Oh, and of course, the first part came from me not wanting my mom to ever find this site lol.

I had a pretty good Halloween all things considered! I had to work today sadly, I didn't have(the money for) a costume, so I told people that this year I'm a wagie! :D After work I got to see a friend I haven't seen in a hot minute which was real nice. We drank a decent amount, and I made the foolish mistake of chasing down a couple shots with redbull at like one in the morning, which had me up until damn near FIVE. I got up at 11:30 thanks to that :') but it was a great time! We shot the shit about whatever, video games, work, movies, how our friends have been and whatnot. His roomate moved out recently and he turned his old room into a fucking HORROR MOVIE ROOM which is just crazy. Lately I've noticed I have a bit of a problem with envy but I was just really happy for him and I'm grateful for that in hindsight. There were a few things that made me a bit sad for a minute though, specifically reminders of just how forgetful my brothers weed addiciton has turned him. Apperantly he forgot that i've gotten several raises at work AND the first time I got DRUNK drunk back on January 1st this year...

That day should be seared into his memory, not JUST because we got fucked up but because earlier that day, during an errand we ran with our sister, we passed by a burning house! We could see the smoke from a mile away! In the words of my sister who I think would make a wonderful stand-up comedian in the future, "New year, new house!"
Man, thinking about how my brother has no memory at all of these events makes me pretty sad but also makes me grateful that I've cut THC out of my life and encourages me to keep it that way. Once I came home, I proceeded to drop my $50 no longer available vinyl pressing of the Donut County ost on the ground so whoopsie daisys! It's perfectly fine but fuck me man. I guess that's just what happens when you're drunk lol. Hopped on VRChat for a couple hours and hung out with my friend Tiny. Wish I took a picture or two... He brought up how he's pretty interested in interstellar spacecraft and loves spacey-type maps and I showed him Exoplanet Journey. There, we talked about aliens we would fuck and nerded out about a whole bunch of other nerd shit.

All in all I'm pretty satisfied with how I spent Halloween this year. My only real complaint is that I'll have to wish my friend at boot camp a late Happy Halloween in a letter since he didn't graduate on Oct 27th as originally planned. Other than that, I don't really mind being a wagie for Halloween as long as I get to spend it with friends.

10.23.24
Dream Journal 3 and massive vinyl haul

Wednesday

I always love it when I can vividly remember parts of my dreams. That's another reason why I don't want to get back to smoking weed, you COMPLETELY forget each and every bit of whatever you dreamt about. For a little while after I woke up though, I could remember how they made me feel. Nowadays, every now and then I'll sleep extra just so I can keep dreaming about whatever random nonsense my subconscious cooks up. Anyways...
The earliest event I can remember was being a worker (volunteer most likely) in some kind of youth event. There were kids of all ages and we were in this big ass house. I vaguely remember staying there overnight so maybe it was some kind of summer camp? I don't remember what we did though. On the last day when everyone was being picked up, One person who was there to scoop a kid was a childhood friend I haven't spoken to in years, I'll call her T.

T and I recognize each other and I can't remember us chatting but I know we did because I do remember her offering me a ride. What's funny is I subconsciouslly knew she was there to scoop a kid, but the only person she wound up picking up was me, and I KNEW she wasn't there for me. Next, I remember being in the car. She was in the passenger seat, a man was driving. I don't remember what they're relationship was. On our way to where ever we were going, I spotted an outdoors record store (horrible idea btw) and asked them to drop me off there. They pulled up, we said our goodbyes, I got out, and the male driver, AS A JOKE, which I also thought was funny and was totally cool with, hit me with his car. The dream logic made it so I was totally fine, and I didn't go flying or anything, but you don't bouce off a car the way I did without sustaining a few injuries.

Next, I remember browsing through only a few before I picked one up to inspect it. A gust of wind suddenly showed up even though it wasn't windy at all when I arrived. It was incredibly strong, and blew on the vinyl record I was holding so hard it was starting to bend. According to the dream logic, the wind blowing on the vinyl made it difficult for me to pick up? As if it were heavier? Also, all the records sitting in place were completley undisturbed by the wind, and were only affected when picked up. Despite this, I Insisted on picking up and inspecting this record. After about a minute of struggling, the record was pretty much broken in half, and I got so pissed off that I crushed it in my hands even more and threw it back onto it's place on the display. The following interaction was completely wordless: I look to my side to see who I can feel is an employee. He gives me a look of dissapointment, and I feel ashamed. He presents the palm of his hand expectantly, and I give him some coins in my pocket? It couldn't have been more than $2 but he takes it and walks off.

I can't quite remember what happened in between that part and this part, but the next thing I remember is watching this strange video: So picture an outside area with a big stone staircase shaped in a 160 degree angle leading up to a corridor in between two apartment complexes. The corridor has doors, staircases, and balconies. There's a big flood happening, and the water is flowing towards the corridor but no water is getting into it yet. Apparently the water is moving so fast, that when cars hit the staircase they go flying into the corridor and bouce off the walls. Now, the video I was watching... was a compilation showcasing different cars and how hard they hit the staircase and how much damage they cause to the corridor. I'm not sure with what intention I was watching it, or if I thought it was real or a simulation, but I was watching very intently. I'm not sure if I just got super immersed or if it actually happened, but at some point I was no longer looking at a screen, I was actually there, albeit in some omnipotent viewer form. Like those VR videos on Youtube.

At some point, the staircase breaks off entirely and joins the army of debris in the flood. Then the water level lowers, and the camera pans down to reveal people fighting. Not how they would in real life, but how they would in a game or action movie. One person is using a spear and she climbs up onto the corridor. Suddenly, it transforms into some kind of mobile ad??? Also for some reason, everyone is now lizard people? Anyway, the pacing is super fast paced and ADHD like a mobile ad; Theres loud bombastic music in the backround and the spear women clibs up a ladder or something to rendezvous with her friends. The last thing I remember was her running toward something before my alarm woke me up.

It's clear to me why vinyl records had a cameo but who knows where my brain got the rest of that from...

Moving on, I went to my grandmas today, intending to drop by real quick and pick up this Titanfall 2 poster that was shipped to her house by mistake. I wound up picking up a lot more than I intended... I opened up one of her cabinets to get something for her, and told her how I thought a big stack of photos were little vinyl records for a sec, and she told me she actually DID have a bunch laying around!
These bad boys have been hiding in plain sight for years! They were in a container that had since been used to hold up one of her plants next to her TV. I always see EP's stored like this, not much care for their condition... I guess it's just cuz they're cheaper and aren't really a thing in the modern vinyl age. I'll have to get a spindle adapter to play any of them, but I'm excited to! It'll be nice getting short bursts of old school Hi-Fi every now and then. Right after I took em out of their container and put em in a box to take home, I remembered seeing a vinyl record my dad used to own in my grandmas garage one time when I was helping her with something in there. I put on a mask and looked for some more records in there.
Good news, there were atleast 70 LPs waiting to be discovered! Bad news, they were stacked on top of each other... If you don't know, stacking vinyl records on top of each other is unwise because after a while the pressure will cause the records at the bottom to warp. They'd already been on top of each other for god knows how many years, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to stack them for a little while longer. As expected, they were COATED in dust and tiny dead things like spiders and bugs.
Heres a picture of an itty bitty spine I found :3 it took me about an hour or so to wipe them off just enough to where it was acceptable to bring them into a clean house. My grandma reminisced on certain chapters of her life as I wiped off one forgotten relic after another. I liked the smile on her face as she saw old Elvis albums (yes, she was an Elvis girl, who wasn't back then?), Christmas songs she'd play during the holidays, gospel singers that helped her get through tough times, and we even found a pressing from 1964 made by her high school choir class! Sadly, it belonged to a different family member, and the songs my grandma sung in are likely lost to time. There were also a lot of my dads old records in the mix, including but certainly not limited to: Michael Jacksons Off The Wall, which was sadly at the very bottom of the stack... A few John Denvers. Yes, I have Country Roads on vinyl now! :D Poems, Prayers & Promises was the first record from the stack I played. It was definitely very scratchy and crackly, but considering its age and the condition it was found in, it sounded quite nice! Dad also had some soundtracks, like West Side Story, Cat People, and even The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!

I was NOT expecting to come home with such Iconic sounds! I took everything I found, ACTUALLY cleaned off what interested me and put them with my vinyls sitting next to my player, and put the rest on the bottom shelf.


Overall, pretty great way to spend my day off! It was great being able to bond with my Grandma over these old records, and my collection has grown considerablely! Still not sure if I'm going to document ALL of them in my vinyl section, that would take Hours. What I DO know is that I'm going to redo my vinyl section; I'm going to give my vinyls and my vintage vinyls their own pages so I have more space to show off their cover art. That's all for today, ya'll have a good one!

10.18.24
Dream Journal 2

Friday

For once, I managed to put my devices away last night and let my brain wind down from blue light exposure. I guess it paid off, cuz I remember two very vivid and bizarre dreams. They both happened in the same dream "Universe" I guess you could call it. So The first major event I remember was pretty scary, but not enough to be deemed a nighmare. There was this very big tall building somewhat close to my house but not close close. Well, it got 9/11'd. Or atleast thats what it looked like. It was exploding and pieces of debris were falling everywhere. I remember my survival instinct telling me to get the fuck inside, but I just couldn't stop looking away from the spectacle. As i later found out, this disaster was a complete accident. The way this one news article described it, the building was hit by a tiny piece of matter that was shot out from space... by a particle accelerator. You don't need a degree in physics to know that thats not really how those work.

Now, the SECOND major part of the dream, I honestly can't get ya'll to understand just how bizzare it really was with words. Sooo, it was this secret society, right? All the decor was black and white, and our clothes were only black and white. I remember everyone wearing a basic shirt and pants type deal, and one time I mixed it up by wearing a white open jacket over my black shirt. I sat down at some confrence or lecture or something and the lady giving it looked at me kinda weird. Her face said to me "ugh, what a peacock..." Y'know those little tunnels kids crawl through in playgrounds? Shit like that was our primary mode of transportaion from room to room. Sometimes we'd slide down, sometimes we'd crawl. I think the people there got to live there for free, at least, I don't remember money ever being discussed. Now, the one thing that we all had in common? That tied us all together? WEED! Whatever corporate entity that was behind the whole thing had their own brand of weed pens that everyone was hitting. I remember seeing one of my coworkers in a room with like seven of his brothers who looked damn near identical to him(I don't think he has seven identical twins in real life). Meanwhile, he was ripping the fuck out of his pen. I can't remember what the brand name behind the whole thing was, but I know there was one. I remember seeing the wreckage of the aformentioned disaster through on of the windows. I also remember seeing the leader/CEO type dude sitting down and talking in a video played on a big screen. He was an old white dude. The last detail I can remember vividly was going into this one girls living space. She must've been some kind of VIP member. We all had our own room, but not only did she have a whole ass house, it was colored red along with her clothes!

That's about all I can remember vividly, but how strange. I wish I didn't look at screens so much before bed, I think I only put down the screen last night because I was so exhausted. The dish machine at work had short circuited, and we had to wash everything manually for the next four and a half hours. They had to re-wire the entire system. I'd love to make putting the phone away before bed a habit, but I don't really have that kind of motivation anymore. Anyway, I'm gonna go take a walk since it's cloudy out for once! Byebye.

10.12.24
Update on sobriety and other stuff

Saturday

It's going.

I've been sober for almost a month straight and I guess I could be doing worse. As expected, I'm not nearly as interested in my hobbies and interests as I am when I'm high. I've hardly updated this page at all, hardly written any logs or journal entries because there's less that I feel is interesting enough to write about. I've hardly read, I've hardly played any games... What have I done? I know I haven't just been sitting around being idle but I feel like I haven't been ABOUT something in a while. I have gotten into collecting vinyl records as of late, but thats kind of it. The one thing really stopping me from relapsing is the promise I made to my friend who's in boot camp, Gladiator. I promised him I'd get sober.

I'm dealing with the classic stoner dilemma. When I'm high, I wanna be sober. When I'm sober, I wanna be high. When I'm high, everything is so colorful and interesting but then I forget all of it. When I'm sober, I can rememeber everything okay but none of its of much interest to me. I actually met Gladiator during one of my smoking episodes in Febuary. After that, I didn't talk with him at all until late June. I saw his name in my friends list and didn't remember him, so I decided to join him and re-introduce myself. He recognized me immediatly, started telling his friends about how cool I am and how he had so much fun with me and all. I shit you not, i literally did not remember him at all. Not his voice. Not his avatar. Nothing. It was all gone. That is by far the most tragic cost of smoking weed. It shatters my fucking heart when I tell people that no I don't remember those crazy conversations we used to have, and no I don't remember that time I jumped off the roof, and no I don't remember meeting you or your friends. It fucking hurts. Life with THC really is a dream, no matter how cool or memorable it is you'll forget the vast majority of it and all you'll have left are little fragments. I'm just so tired of forgetting. What's the point of having the time of my life if my memory of it fizzles away like cotton candy in water? The most obvious solution is to try and use it responsibly but I just don't know if I can. Each time I take another shot at it, no matter how convinced I am that I'm stronger than the pen or the rig or the whatever the fuck, I always seem to make an excuse to smoke more.

I guess the reason I relapsed last time was because I felt like I didn't have anyone to be sober for. I'm not terribly close with my family and I don't really have close friends irl either. I'm grateful for Gladiator and for the people I've met through him, like Falcon and Tiny. I'm also really grateful for VRChat, without it there would be countless connections unmade, social skills unlearned, and burdens still on my chest. His return date is December 20th, can't wait to see him again.

On a more casual note, my family and my brothers girlfriends family are all doing this secret santa thing. I feel bad for whoever gets to buy my gift, they're paying $73 for a vinyl pressing imported from the UK lol. Juuuuuuust barely fit the allowed price range of $50-$75. That's all from me for now. See ya'll later!

9.27.24

Friday

So the earliest part of the dream I can remember is taking shelter from some kind of natural disaster. I was with two mexican coworkers, one older guy who works with me in the dishpit and a younger guy who works on the line. I guess it had calmed down temporarily because me and the younger guy left to get some more food, and I remember it looking like it had just finished raining outside. I think this part of the dream came from my friend Falcon, who lives in Florida which is having a hurricane atm. I don't quite remember the journey to whatever store we went to, but I remember there just being a big pile of junk food...I can't recall what led to the next part I remember, how the dream logic/circumstances changed, maybe I was traveling with some kind of group? But I found myself in some kind of hospital lobby and the only occupants were me, my Grandma and Great Aunt. They were having a casual conversation and at some point they brought up that my Great Aunt was DYING. I was NOT aware of this and they were like "oh you didn't know that?" super casually as if I didn't know she was taking a road trip or something.

The last part I can remember is of her final moments, but the logic here was incredibly strange... it was in real life, but, also in VRChat??? It was real life yet I could bring up the Oculus menus and everything with my controllers, and I was asked by someone to stream her final moments. She was lying in a hospital bed unconscious, and my dad whos been dead for two years now was also lying on a little bed on the floor somewhere nearby. He didn't look like a corpse nor was he dressed in any fancy way, but I don't think he was alive either and I didn't really acknowlage his presence. Anyway, there was a timer counting down to the moment she would die, about 16 minutes. I was trying to start the stream, but my contollers were glitching out and weren't cooperating with me, something they do far too often. But this was the worst possible time they could've done this. After a few minutes of fighting with them, I was having a full blown panic attack and shouting at the top of my lungs "NOOOOOO! NOOOOOO!". In desperation, I restarted my headset to try and get them to fucking work, and that's when I woke up.

I'm not sure how exactly to end this log, but I guess I'll say that the infuriating experience of owning the Quest Pro controllers haunts even my dreams.

9.23.24
The Redemption Of Time and of the floor in my house

Monday

Just finished The Redemption of Time by Baoshu and I certainly have some thoughts... For those who are unfamiliar, It's an unofficial fourth entry in the Three Body Problem trilogy, officially supported by the original author Cixin Liu. The quote on the front calls it "A thrilling, fascinating new adventure to uncover more mysteries of the Three-Body world". It certainly delivers on the uncovering mysteries part, and I'm certainly glad I read it, but as a book, i think it's a bit weak. The vast majority of it isn't really stuff happening, but rather people explaining stuff thats happened, happening, or is going to happen. There isn't a whole lot of plot we actually get to see for ourselves. To be fair, a lot of what happens is kind of beyond human comprehension, and I don't think taking us for a ride through it was Baoshus goal anyways. It wanted to answer questions and it did that. The Three-Body community is very mixed on this book and I can totally see why, it's contributions to the Three-Body universe are very bold to say the least. I might write a review for this book if it keeps weighing on my mind, and it's only 269 pages anyway so theres not too much to go over. I DEFINITLEY have some thoughts on it's ending!

Speaking of ending, I've been ripping up carpet in my house for the past few days! The house I live in is old and run down. It doesn't look good, and when you walk in it doesn't smell good. One major contributor to that stench was the rancid carpet in my parents bedroom, blackened with dog excrement. The other day, I finally got my moms permission to rip it out! The process of ripping up old carpet is so satisfying to me, almost like I'm banishing a demon! Cutting a line into it with a box cutter, rolling it up and throwing it into the dumpster in the alley, scraping up the tile with padding caked onto it with old piss and throwing all that out too. I love it. I haven't presented this idea to my family just yet but I honestly want to just get rid of all the carpet in the house, it's all gross. I really don't get why anyone would deliberately put carpet down when tile and rugs are so much easier to maintain. If you spill something on tile that's a little "oopsie daisys!" and you can get it cleaned up in like ten minutes. If you spill something on CARPET, thats hours of work just to get that one stain out. And if that's what it takes to clean one stain, how are you supposed to clean years worth of grime and dirt buildup?! If you want a soft surface to walk on so bad, why not just put rugs down everywhere? I can't wait for the day we look at carpet the same way we look at popcorn ceiling and lead paint, a relic of the past.

9.19.24
Psychedelics are fun, but...

Thursday

All I've ever wanted out of a trip was self discovery, and all I've ever gotten was fun. To be fair, I'd rather have a fun trip than a terrifying one, but I was under the belief that Psychedelics would "expand my mind" or whatever. Maybe I just need to let it happen naturally, my buddy Falcon told me his boss took shrooms intending to have fun and wound up, in his own words, "talking to god". He quit pretty much every substance he was using. Must be nice. Maybe it's just cuz I have no god to talk to.

I've never done anything super crazy, just shrooms and acid. I'd try a DMT cart if they weren't $200! Yesterday I decided to have a shroom trip in VRChat around my friends. I DID play VRChat the first time I took shrooms in January, but I didn't have finger tracking or any friends I felt comfortable being that vulnerable around, so this time around I took shrooms specifically with the intent of playing VRChat. I recorded about twenty minutes of my trip. You can watch it HERE if you want.

9.17.24
RIP consoles

Tuesday

I've been thinking a lot about Concord lately.

If you're even the type of person to be on a website like this, I'm sure you've already heard of it. I'm typically not the kinda guy who can enjoy shitting on a bad game for longer than 20-30 minutes, but I can't help but click on a new video dunking on Concord whenever I see one. There's very very little I can say about this spectacular trainwreck that hasn't been said a thousand times by a thousand different people.

"EIGHT YEARS! ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS! SEVEN HUNDRED PLAYERS! WOKE! CRINGE!"

But I haven't heard anyone bring up this point: The blog post announcing that Concord would be going offline didn't say they were taking it down for good, and we both know they're not flushing all that work and money down the lost media toilet juuuuust yet. They're gonna re-release somehow, but I seriously doubt it'll be free to play. How do F2P games monetize? Cosmetics. So the seemingly obvious solution is to get a bunch of sick customization in there for us to waste our money on, right? Well, thanks to those ultra-realistic PS5 graphics they're so proud of, that would be an absolutley MASSIVE undertaking! Making new skins is much harder when you need to render every fucking PORE in the casts skin. Would creating the skins cost more money than they earn from them? Possibly. It certainly doesn't help that the art direction is an absolute clusterfuck. Now that I think about it, a lot of the character designs seem like they'd be better skins than default outfits, don't they? Freegunners like Dutchess, Lennox, Lark, and Jabali come to mind.

On one hand, you really hate to see it. I could tell from the moment I saw gameplay that it wasn't just some cynical cash grab, the gunplay was just too polished. Remember 2019, when we were so sick of all these free to play shitters trying to suck our wallets dry, when we were yearning for a game where the only thing you had to pay for was the game itself? Putting a price tag on a multiplayer only game in 2024 is so bold!(or suicidal depending on how you look at it) Why the fuck did it have to be this game?! Sony is surely going to intentionally misinterpret this as "well, I guess the people really DO want microtransactions!" I honestly believe that this game would've done much better for itself had it come out four years ago. Than again, it doesn't take much to get a peak player count higher than seven hundred... On the other hand, as much as I wish it didn't turn out this way, I can't deny Concords corperate nature, nor can I deny that this is exactly what Sony deserves. Consoles have just complETLY shat the bed this generation, and it's not hard to see why. No games. The fact that Concords getting an episode in Secret Level goes to show how confident they were in this product, because that's really all it is is a product. Pretty crazy how fast a company can go from knowing what their customers want to being completely out of touch. It looks to me that Firewalk Studios never really knew what they wanted this game to be. Four years of pre-production + four years of development - clear vision = Concord. Most people call it a poor mans Gaurdians of the Galaxy because it takes tons of inspiration but has no actual identity of its own. Concord is cemented in gaming history as the embodiment of failure, and it'll be fascinating for me and many other people to see how they try and dig themselves out of this deep deep hole they've fallen into. Far more interesting than the actual game itself.

It's pretty sad to see the state consoles are in this generation, but honestly I think this was inevitable and I doubt it's gonna get much better. In fact, I think this is the beggining of the end for consoles as we know them. For one, consoles don't even have fucking exclusives anymore, they just kind of nonchalantly changed the definition of exclusive from "Only on this platform" to "not on Xbox or Switch". (to be fair, the switch is a given...)They've already surrendered they're greatest strength to the computers. Remember when a PS4 exclusive coming to PC was a huge deal? It's the standard now, because no ones dumb enough to exile their game to the baron wasteland that is the PS5 library. My gaming laptop, the Lenovo Ideapad 3, is strong enough to run Halo Infinite at 60fps with great resolution for about $750. That's not great, but how much longer until we can get it for $650? and then $550? and than $450? Better and better gaming PCs are getting cheaper and cheaper, meanwhile consoles are getting shittier and pricier. Consoles are highly controlled ecosystems, PCs are true freedom! At the rate were going, I seriously doubt we'll ever see a Playstation 7. I hope to GOD Gabe Newell picks a worthy successor, because Steam is about to have a monopoly on the gaming industry.

9.12.24

Thursday

When I was fourteen, I thought weed was the coolest thing in the world. I've realized, now that I've become older and more experienced, that the level of avoidance and neglect in my house was genuinely outlandish. Each and every opporitunity my parents had to leave a positive impact on me, they buried their heads in the sand. After a lifetime of complete and utter ignorance and detachment, TCH showed me what real interest and curiousity felt like. Neuron connections that should've been formed by living and learning with the help of strong role models and life experiences finally began to surface in my emotionally malnourished brain, like an old computer being turned on for the first time in years since its owner left it behind for something better. something easier. For once, I had something in common with my peers! Chances are, if I was in a house that wasn't my own, I was getting high there one way or another. Weed brought us together for the same reason it brought our parents together and their parents before them as well. IT'S FUCKING FUN!!! It strips you of your habits and normal ways of thinking, 1. Forcing you to see things from a new perspective and 2. Making you pretty retarded in the process. Humans like feel good. Substance gives feel good. Humans use substance. In the words of my mother, "It's not fucking rocket science!"

I vividly remember a blunt rotation with my brother one time in 2020, where I innocently said "I wish I could live like this." My brother replied "You can!" but in the context of our lives back then and today, I don't think that was entirely true; You can always have TCH in your life, but TCH won't always be what your life needs. My Instagram feed would be full of adults in their own homes inhaling otherworldly amounts of smoke with the wildest tools you could possibly imagine, exhaling wherever they pleased, having to clean up for absolutley no one. I could've only dreamt about having that life back then.

Well, I had it a few hours ago. Two dab pens, one disposable that I meant to buy and one cartridge that I didn't because I didn't know it was gonna be just a cartridge. My very own dab rig, strong enough to keep me either on my ass or pacing around my room for hours, either way not getting much done. A Telegram group chat that could get flower, dab, dispos, carts, edibles, and plenty of other fun things to my doorstep in half an hour or less. Plenty of Benjamins and Grants to pay for said Telegram chats' products. Countless people to smoke it with and no one with the authority to stop me. From the perspective of an emotionally destroyed fourteen year old me, what else does a man need in life then weed and a homie to smoke it with? I had it all!

Six years later, the trauma that kept me from living my life spontaneously hasn't gotten any smaller, but it's become a much smaller part of who I am. "Quitting smoking is easy, I've dont it hundreds of times!" Mark Twain was right. Getting sober is the easy part, staying sober is something else entirely. I gave anything that could be useful in the process of getting high to my brother to keep away from me, a move that would absolutely baffel young inexperienced stoners who fully buy into the stoner-hippie dude-bro fantasy lived by Cheech and Chong, or Harold and Kumar. I would love to claim that I'm quitting for good this time, but I've quit for good before. Weed isn't just a sacred medicine that transforms my life into nothing but sunshine and rainbows, nor is it just trash that ruins my life but keeps me coming back for more.

Sobriety is what I need to be my best self at the moment, so I'm going sober. But when the day comes that TCH is what I need to be my best self, and that day WILL come, I will happily shrink my lungs just a little bit more.

9.8.24
Writing & Fighting

Sunday

Today was a very good day and a very bad day. I'll start of with the good cuz I don't wanna start negatively and it took up more of my day anyway.
One of my VR friends Gladiator went off to boot camp back in July, and I finally got a letter from him yesterday! Here's what his sona looks like. I'd credit the artist but unfortunately I don't know who they are and Gladiator never told me before he left. The artist IS a total fucking legend tho, he said he wouldn't be able to do Gladi's ref sheet for another few weeks, but when he heard that he was going to boot camp before then he dropped whatever he was doing and got it done right then and there! Say what you want about furry artists, they treat their clients with respect! I focused most of my energy today on writing my letter back. It wouldn't have taken me nearly as long if the Sandbox app didn't give me 6000 characters to work with! He's really struggling and he hardly has any contact with the outside world (for modern day standards that is) so I really really want to make it count. I just kept on writing what I wanted him to know and I kept thinking of more and more things and before I knew it I'd used up 5000 characters. 944 words so far. I'm waiting on a friend to lmk what he wants me to put in the letter for him and I'll send it off on the sandbox app. I don't have much writing energy left so I'll end the good part there.


Now, onto the bad part. My dog got in a fight with the neighbors dog. I was in the backyard with my dogs when the neighbor opened his gate to the alley to do something and his dog ran out from under his feet. The dog walked right on over to a particularly weak portion of our heavily run down wooden fence, and instigated a fight with My pitbull Apollo, who got there faster than I could. The neighbors dog regretted it almost immediately. Apollo immediatly got a strong hold on the neighbor dogs snout, essentially making the poor bastard helpless. Me and the neighbor were trying to pull our dogs off of each other for probably a minute but it felt like a year. My throat hurts because I was screaming bloody murder the entire time. Eventually Apollo finally let go of the poor fucker and I was able to drag his ass back inside. My heart was beating so fast I starter dry heaving. It was pretty terrifying but Apollo is pretty much untouched and I think the neighbor dog is okay because afterwards the guy was really friendly while he explained himself. And besides, he's lucky that Apollo didn't get his fucking neck or anything.
But I also can't deny that I should just fix the fence... I have time, money, energy, and no excuse not to. This isn't the first time this has happened, and if I don't at the very least reinforce the fence, it certainly won't be the last.
I think that's all for today. Good night dear reader.

9.4.24
Furry haters actually like me :3

Wednesday

"I dont usually like furries but you're pretty chill"

Is a comment that I get every now and then on VRChat,and I take it as a compliment much more than an insult. I can think of a few reasons why people tend to be more comfortable around me than other furries. For one, my main avatars character design isn't sexualized (mostly...). I think this is what rubs people the wrong way a lot of the time. It's not SUPER common, but common enough to be noticable, for furry avatars to be dressed in a very sexually charged manor like This. To be fair I don't see this much at all in non furry worlds, but in places like furry hideout or furry talk & chill, I honestly don't even conciously register it when I see one anymore. It also helps that Bone Wraiths are sick as fuck. People are often caught off guard or scared by me when I casually waltz over to try and join in on a conversation haha.

But I think it mostly boils down to the fact that I don't let people hurt my feelings over the internet. The furry community tends to lean left, and with that comes people with the mentality that someone critisizing or making fun of you online is absolutley awful and you should blow it way the fuck out of proportion when it happens. I know better than to respond like that. I realize that the furry community has no idea I exist, and that I owe it nothing. I'm not scared to critisize or make fun of furries and of myself, making it easier for me and normal people to establish common ground. Additionally, I really don't mind being at the receiving end of any VRChat harrassment or bullying, nor would I ever do the cowardly thing and block someone, unless they're literally making it impossible for me to do whatever I'm trying to do. To any sensitive furries or people in general who get really upset when some edgelord comes about spewing words we only describe with their first letter, or calling you a furfag or zoophile and telling you to touch some grass and find a father figure, please don't just dismiss it when I tell you that the best thing you can do in that situation is respond kindly. Whenever some troll or group of kids comes up to harass me, I know better than to let them get to me, and I calmly and respectfully let them know that. And once they see I'm not hurt, they open up and turn out to be cool people! They're always caught off guard too, like this never happens. One time in Feburary, a guy told me he had never met a furry who was a good person. By the end of our conversation, he told me I have a great wisdom and even asked to clone my avatar, which I happily said yes to. I don't remember much of the talks I've had with trolls and bullies because I'm unironically a THC addict, but I do remember both parties feeling really seen and understood, and I definitley remember a lot of unfavorable opinions on furries being changed completely.

TLDR:
1. Be humble
2. quit dressing like a slut

8.31.24
August in review

Saturday

Well, all in all... This month would've been much worse had I not found Neocities.
At the start of this month I was dealing with some really rough depression after a month long tolerance break that gave me an, ironically, sobering reminder of why I have a problem with weed. And it certainly didn't help that an online friend I was really fucking with at the time was leaving for boot camp and won't be back until October 27th. It was probably the second worst depressive episode I've had in my life. In an attempt to rekindle old flames in me, I was redownloading Minecraft when I saw This video on Youtube while waiting for the launcher to install, and I am so fucking grateful that I did.

You can interpret it as me being a creative soul or me escaping reality through work, but generally speaking the times in my life I've been the most content were when I had some creative project to build up. With Neocities, I've been happily scratching that itch bloody, but there are other benefits/reasons for me to commit to this in the future.
For one, I feel much more motivated to journal and write because of this page. A lot of people know that journaling is good for your mental health, but less people know how good it can be for your social life too! There's this great video from Cole Hastings that talks about how important storytelling skills are when translating thoughts to words, and how we can improve our storytelling skills through journaling and learning to communicate our thoughts clearly and gracefully. Of course this is just a helping hand and NOT a solution for awkwardness or anything, the best way to learn how to socialize is by socializing more. But I'm also gonna write about and/or review whatever my autistic mind has it's sights set on, and I think that'll help strengthen my critical thinking skills and give me a better idea of where i'm coming from when analyzing media or reflecting on an event.
I also think it'll be a great tool for introducing myself to people. I'm one of those guys who'll stammer and stutter if you ask me to tell you about myself. Whenever someone voices curiosity about me, I think it'll be great to be able to give them this website's address and let them learn as much or as little about me as they want at their own pace. That is, on VRChat and some other online spaces... I think I'll stick with stammering and stuttering in real life for now.

Outside of Neocities, I haven't had much going on. I never do really. Twenty years old and still don't have my license :) I've lived a suffocating sedentary lifestyle pretty much my whole life thanks to a combination of the spread of brainrot over the past decade and severely mentally ill parents, so it makes sense that I have so little incentive to learn to drive. It certainly doesn't help that my family can't be bothered to encourage or even pressure me into learning since their standards for me have always been extraordinarily low. If you're reading this and ever see me in VRC, bully me for being 20 and not having my license!
Oh yeah and I turned twenty lol that too

I look back on this past month fondly mostly because I think I'm going in a better direction. I've made some progress in learning to talk seriously and honestly, without the shields of sarcasm, detatchment based humor, and the iconic "lol" at the end of a sentance that was the polar opposite of funny. I've been spending more time with my sister and I've been getting closer to my VRC friends. I've still got some weeks before the new(and the first) anti-depressant I'm taking goes into full effect. I've even been enjoying regular games again! I will say though, I've hardly read any books this month, but that's because I've hardly done anything other than build this website, but that's gonna change soon! Now that I've got the basic layout of my site down, I won't have to put so much time into considering how I want everything structured. Well, not that I HAD to...

All in all, I think I'm out of that major depressive rut, and I don't think September is gonna suck but I don't have the optimism to tell myself it's gonna be great either.

8.27.24
Little bit of gayming

Tuesday

Hello peoples! I gotta say, this year I've hardly played any games outside VR. I don't think I'm "growing out" of video games per say, but at this point in my life I guess I find it difficult to dedicate my time to games that don't benifit my life outside of them, like Beat Saber and VRChat do. This past week though, I got back into a few games I have downloaded on my PS5, which has basically become a glorified media player.
Titanfall 2 is one of my absolute favorites and I've replayed the first half of it's campaign at the time of me writing this. This game really is my Halo 3, and I feel so lucky to have played during its glory days as a kid. At the time I really resented how overlooked it was(and still is), but looking back on it seven coming on eight years later, I feel grateful to have been apart of a small tightknit community like that.
For fps campaign standards, Titanfall 2 goes pretty fucking hard; It may not make any sense but it understands that that's not the point. A lot of big fps releases nowadays try to win players over with absolute dog diarrhea stories that give context to gameplay not much different from anything else on the market now and before... Titanfall 2 understands the importance of focusing on the ride and putting the story on the back burner. I should make a section on Titanfall 2 someday :3

Two of the games have been rougelikes! well, Risk of Rain is rougeLIKE, Slay the Spire is rougeLITE or whatever.
Super glad I decided to try RoR2 back in 2019 cus this game really is such a blast! I've been mostly playing the bandit (right) but sadly i've never beaten the game before so I still can't play as the captain (left). I really like how this games item system scratches some gamblers itch in me, especially since they've added loads more content to the game since the last time I've been really into it! In fact, a Whole new expansion for it came out TODAY! :D Funnily enough, the only reason I got back into RoR2 was cuz they're adding CHEF INTO IT AAHAHAAAAAAAHHHHH HES HERE HES FINALLY HERE!!!!11!!!11!!!!!!

Chef was my all time favorite survivor from RoR1! I hadn't been playing RoR2 nor was it in any corner of my stream of consciousness, but when I saw that trailer I literally jumped out of my seat and started jumping up and down out of sheer hype! That's when I decided to re-download RoR2 and give it a shot.
Translating Chefs kit from 1 to 2 would be difficult because in 1 he's fundamentally built for a 2-D environment, so I've always been super curious to see if he would still be so good in the second game. Welp, I'll be getting my answer soon hopefully! I do plan on buying Seekers of the Storm, but idk if I'll have to do anything to get him... fingers crossed, cuz I don't spend too much time on games lately.

Speaking of rougelike where you're at the will of random chance, Slay the Spire! I wouldn't call myself a deckbuilder fan, but I really enjoy this game and Inscryption! My first run back, I got to floor 30 even though I was still getting a hold on the game again! Not bad not bad. When I played it a couple years back I seem to have mained the Defect, but dude the Ironclad is overpowered as fuck!! You need to be super careful in this game cuz healing opprotunities don't come very often, but the Ironclad heals 6 hp after every battle! It felt like playing on easy mode, the amount of damage I ate would've ended my run if I were playing another character. Also, there's a second game coming! Neato!

I've also been playing some Fortnite with friends but I got some other stuff to do so I'm gonna end it right here. Bye bye!

8.21.24
First blunt in ages, nine hours

Wednesday

Now, THC has been re-incorperated into my life and has been coming and going since Febuary this year, and I've realized lately that throughout the past six months of getting high I haven't used flower at all. This was mainly because concentrates are more convinient, significantly less stinky, and have a much higher percentage of THC. However, I'm starting to think that maybe the reason I become so retarded when I smoke concentrates is BECAUSE they're, like, 98% THC.
Well lucky me, because today my brother came over with a blunt! I got too high for this to be a worthwhile "test" of how I do on flower, but i'll tell ya it was nice! My tastebuds have grown accustommed to the smooth dankness of concentrate, forgetting the earthy burn of flower until earlier today. I did feel more functional and found it easier to have honest conversations, but to be fair, that's always how it is before my tolerance builds up. I'm not sure if it's due to lower TCH or lower tolerance, nor am I sure if I'm willing to spend the money to find out...
Buying the weed itself is no big deal, but I'll have to buy a pipe to smoke it out of and a stink-proof container to store it in as well, adding $75-$90 to an already roughly $40 purchase. And keep in mind, this whole flower thing is just an experiment. I don't really wanna spend $130 on something that might not work out for me in the end. We'll see.

I worked my ass off on this site today, I think for about nine hours? Got a lot of work done on my marquees! Originally I was going to have the left side be stamps and the right side be buttons, but there seems to be way more stamps out there than buttons and adding new items to the marquee would be a pain in the dick anyway cuz of the way I've done it. Go ahead, Ctrl + U and see for yourself :3 So yeah I'm gonna have stamps on the right side too and I'll find something neat to do with buttons. I have these marquees layed out the way they are because I think it makes my blinkies, stamps, buttons, and webring(coming soon) much more visible, and also makes the site feel more alive and dynamic. I haven't seen anything quite like what I've done with these marquees, and there's probably a reason for that but I'm more than happy to ignore reason >:3.
I'm really starting to love how this place is coming together!

8.19.24
It's been twenty years

Monday

Freshly Twenty Years Old
I guess a lot of people that I tell are gonna ask me "how does it feel" and I'm not yet sure how to reply in a way that doesn't make me seem generally dissatisfied with my life, even if that is the norm for people my age nowadays. I DO feel a decent amount better ever since I've started working on this website, and I have been doing particularly good these past few days, which I'm hoping is a result of a new medication I've been taking; I went to the doctor the other day to discuss a change to my ADHD medication. He said theres this medication for anxiety and depression called Welbutrin that's been approved to also be perscribed to people with ADHD Along With their medication, and that it can work pretty well for people like me who've built a tolerance to what their taking. Imma keep it real with yall, I think an anti-depressant is exactly what I've been needing for a few months now lol. I should start to feel it's effects one to two weeks in and it should be in full force at around six to eight weeks if I'm remembering correctley.

With all that, even though i'm doing better I'd still be lying if I said I was in a good place atm. It's been a while since I've felt a strong lust for life or interest in learning new things and the reasons why are stories for another day. But all in all, even if i'm not as far along as I'd prefer to be, I do think I've made good progress in terms of working on myself. My self esteem/respect has grown somewhat and I feel like I have a much clearer idea of why I struggle with people and what I can do to help myself in that regard.

Being free of the social media brainrot that poisoned my mind for so many years feels like a curse on me has been lifted! I feel like i've experienced more art, made more money, and felt more genuine connections with people. But video games have become much less of a priority for me, and I can't help but feel like I'm having a mild identity crisis in that regard since gaming has been a massive part of my life for as long as I can remember.
So yeah. Not super excited to be 20 tbh but atleast i'm not scared.

I had a great birthday tho!!! well okay i had to go to work at 3 on my birthday >:[ but I had Sunday off so we did birthday shit then and today while we could. I wanted to go to this badass hotdog place we have called Flippers Tavern, but they were closed on Sunday :[ so we went where my twin sister wanted to go, Copper Caboose. It's a pretty generic burger steak type place but they have shitty American Arcade Cabinets to mess around with so I never mind going there. "No No No, this isn't Flappy Bird silly, this is
Afterwards I hung out with my family for the rest of the day :3 I busted out my Switch for the first time in god knows how long to play Stardew Valley with my twin sister while we hung out with everyone.

I got a ps4 for Christmas in 2016 and Stardew was the first game that REALLY grabbed me by the balls. I vividly remember being dizzy with excitment once, telling my Mom and Grandma that I'd played eighty hours of Stardew Valley. "that's not something to be proud of..." said Grandma, humorously but clearly honestly. For once, I didn't care what she thought of me.
It was a lot of fun to revisit the game after all these years, especially since my sister is super autistic about it atm and knows way more about it than I ever did! Guess which ones me lol


Today we got to go to Flippers Tavern and yall HOLY FUCKING JUMPIN JESUS these were the GREATEST hotdogs I've ever eaten in my life oeidrufygbncvmkb iuygtfrdesdcftvyucfidoekdjfnvb

I was paying for the food so I splurged and got myself two dogs! The waitress warned me "they're big dogs..." I replied "I'm a big boy".

The Super Sonic

Roasted garlic sausage, bacon jam, whipped cream cheese, sriracha, griddled onions, and fresh jalepeno...$12

I got this one cuz i thought id like it (i did)

The Sourpuss

Griddled sauerkraut, pickle spear, crushed salt & vinegar chips, and queso franco...$10

i got this one cuz i hadn't had anything like it before

Motherfucking Wow!
Back when I was young enough to be able to pick one food as my #1 favorite, it was hotdogs. And it's a damn shame that they've become synonymous with processed slop nowadays, because you can create some mindblowing dogs if you've got the right ingridients and a big enough mouth gape. I also got to try what my sister got, Flippers take on the classic chilidog!

The Damned Dog

House beef chili, cheddar, diced onion, jalapeno crisps...$10

This one tasted absolutley grand, honestly a lot better than the sourpuss even tho it was still pretty good.
My mom got this badass looking vegan jackfruit sandwich

Vegan Jackfruit Tinga Torta

Chipotle braised jackfruit and onion, street corn salad, avacado, cilantro...$10

and she liked it but honestly i though it tasted disgusting in an oddly specific way... So at the fair here we have this barn where you can see a bunch of animals doing animal type shit right? This sandwich... tastes the way that barn smells... is the best way I can describe it. Not a fan.
All in all this place was an absolute BLAST! A Damned Dog for ten bucks? I'll be taking plenty of people here in the future I'll tell you that much!

Only one more year until I can (legally)drink! Me and my family have very addictive personalities and my Dad was your textbook alcoholic bum. Despite this, I am super excited to be able to go to the bar! I feel like there's just not much for a young wippersnapper like me to do in this place. But if theres one thing we all have in common, it's that we love escaping our problems through substance use. You can feel however you want about alcohol and drugs, but you gotta admit, they bring people together in a way that isn't often seen in modern America. I think being able to connect with new people over drinks is going to be great for my social life, maybe not for my liver though...

Twenty years is a long time but I feel like the person I am inside my brain hasn't existed for very long at all. its four in the morning. I should wrap this up. Good night sleep tight don't let the bed bugs bite!

8.12.24

Monday

It's always been varying degrees of difficult for me to try a new game, but now that I've found two games I genuinly love with all my heart along with hobbies and interests OUTSIDE video games, it feels damn near impossible. I'm glad I tried Risk of Rain 2 back in late 2019, just played this game for the first time in who knows how many months and just kinda slipped right back into it. Acrid is still best boy and the most fun to play imo. Only lasted like 15 minutes but had a great time lol.

I always think about trying a new game but I can never quite conquer my rigid autistic rituals. Funny fact, I was actually in the process of redownloading Minecraft when I saw a video about neocities on my youtube feed... and here we are. I planned to join a Minecraft server but still haven't. Shoulda had my FBT set up my now but I still don't. Have'nt even gotten started on Children of Time like I wanted to. (I'm actually considering rereading House of Leaves)
But atleast I've gotten some good work done on this site. Been working on my Internet Crusader review, decided to actually start filling this sight with something to read other than my autistic rambling about how my life's been.

shitty.

its been shitty.

but I don't want this site to have, like, a trauma dump section or anything so I'll try to keep the NOT fun mental illness to a minimum. The funny mental illness, on the other hand, has a home here.

On the brighter side, I discovered a new manga I really like through Neocities! You may have seen this site called Read Nekojiru around. I did, and i've fallen in love with it's morbid humor, unhinged nature, nihilistic worldview and a general lack of that signature Japanese peer pressure that holds so many artists back. Mangaka Nekojiru beutifully illustrates her dark thoughts and traumatic childhood through the dreamlike and often bloody misadventures of two little cat-children.

While part of me wishes this manga had a bigger audience in the west, I can't imagine mainstream exposure ending well... I can definitly see the provocative nature of Nekojiru's art upsetting people who let themselves get offended by shit online that has nothing to do with them, escpecially taking into consideration the, uh, the River God chapter.
If you know you know.
but yeah, if you like dark humor and cats, I definitley recommend Nekojiru! Oh and Cat Soup is ABSOLUTLEY FUCKING INCREDIBLE. I am SO going to write a review on it someday but I'll have to watch it again and also read some more of the manga to get context.

Rest In Piece Chiyomi Hashiguchi
1967-1998

8.7.24
Day off well spent

Wednesday

Spent my day off today locked the fuck in building this site. I think the top left corner looks great! I do wonder if the song requests section will wind up being worth it tho, I've seen some pretty popular websites with pretty... not active comment sections. I wonder why people don't comment more? I guess I'll find out.
in other news i like my vr friends :-] I have a lot of things to set up in this menu. I'll have to decide what I want to draw the most attention to. I want it to be simple but not boring, dense but not overwhelming... I want to really make it my own. as cliche as that may sound.
I'm gonna test out my full body tracking on vrc with Needle :3 Hopefully it works fine but I won't be surprised at all if it doesn't.

8.6.24
Books are based and so is neocities

Tuesday

1:40am
I've had my full body tracking shit for like four days and I still haven't finished setting it all up. I just been so focused on this website and others. I also got some new books today! One was a recomendation from my friend, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. From what I read on the back, a bunch of people in space stumble upon a planet that seems just right for humans, damn near made FOR humans. It winds up being too good to be true tho, cuz another species wants it too. There's a lot of commentary that could be made about human nature, and i'm intrigued to see how the cast treats the planet knowing what happened to earth. Plus, i recently finished the Three Body Problem trilogy (or as it's Officially known, Remembrance of Earths Past trilogy) so I'm excited to have another sci-fi space epic to compare it to.

The other book I got is one Internet Crusader by George Wylesol. I actually found out about this book on neocities! regret to say that i forgor where... this is a graphic novel about a boy who has to use the mystical power of the golden era internet to stop a satanic doomsday cult from doin doomsday cult shit! only read the first seven pages so far and i love georges hand drawn internet style! There's a ton of potential for a story told through screenshots of someones computer screen, and I really hope he takes advantage of its unique storytelling approach instead of just having it be a gimmick that gets old like 30 pages in.

8.4.24
This edible ain't shi-

Sunday

Well today was a real doozy.
I remembered that I still had some edible gummies from some months back and i decided I might as well eat them while they're still edible since I had today off anyway. Edibles usually take a while to kick in for me so I made the silly mistake of eating them first thing in the morning. Bro, that shit kicked in IMMEDIATLEY. I was hoping to at least mess with my full body tracking for a little but I was fighing for my fuckin LIFE tryna make myself some eggs.
Luckily i wasn't completley retarded for long. After an hour or two i was functional enough to mess with this place some more. Still figuring out what I want its basic layout to be. Added a comment section, some buttons, and a pretty new background :-D I also cleaned my room for the first time in, like, a month?? If you're reading this CLEAN YOUR ROOM STINKY!!!! and drink some water while your at it.