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Memores acti prudentes futuri


You're unsure if I am a loose end or a strand
that waits for you to mend or understand
A few words
"When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness."
~ D.H. Lawrence

"Is the meaning of life defined by its duration? Or does life have a purpose so large that it doesn't have to be prolonged at any cost to preserve its meaning?"

"Living is not good, but living well. The wise man, therefore, lives as well as he should, not as long as he can... He will always think of life in terms of quality not quantity... Dying early or late is of no relevance, dying well or ill is... even if it is true that while there is life there is hope, life is not to be bought at any cost."
~ Seneca

"People will tell you nothing matters, the whole world's about to end soon anyway. Those people are looking at life the wrong way. I mean, things don't need to last forever to be perfect."
~ Daydream Nation

"All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories-- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death."
~ The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes

"The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road."
~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
~ William Blake
TICoSME
Musicalities!
Online Radio
Soma.fm

More Fun Shtuff
Newgrounds Audio Portal
Pandora
SoundClick
Kill that boredom!
Binder Paper Comics

Web Comics and Such
A Distant Soil (Some nudity)
The Adventures of Gyno-Star (Some explicit stuff)
Aquapunk
Axe Cop
Basic Instructions
Bear Nuts
Beeserker

Blue Milk Special
Bug
Buttersafe
ChannelATE
Cigarro & Cerveja
Crunchy Bunches

Curia Regis
Cyanide and Happiness
dead winter (has some explicit stuff)
Devilbear: The Grimoires of Bearalzebub (PG-13?)
Diesel Sweeties
DUBBLEBABY
Eat That Toast!
E-merl.com
The End
Evil Diva
Evil Inc.
Existential Comics
The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon
For Lack of a Better Comic
Forming (Explicit)

Girls with Slingshots (some explicit stuff...?)
Mirror
The Last Halloween
Last Train to Old Town
L.A.W.L.S.
The League of Evil Genius

Legend of Bill
Living With Insanity (some nudity)
Love Me Nice
Married to the Sea
Meaty Yogurt
Medium Large
The Meek
Metacarpolis
Monsterhood
Monsterkind
The Moon Prince
Moth (Some nudity)
Mr. Lovenstein
Muddlers Beat

Natalie Dee
Nedroid
The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
Optipess
Out There
Owen's Uncles
Phuzzy Comics
Political Cartoonists Index
Poorly Drawn Lines
Powernap
The Property of Hate
Red Meat
Rice Boy
Robbie and Bobby
Rosscott, Inc.
Safely Endangered
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Savage Chickens
Scary Go Round
Scenes from a Multiverse
The Secret Knots
Serenity Rose
Stand Still. Stay Silent
Stinking Hellebore
Strong Female Protagonist
Subnormality
Tales of Pylea
Three Word Phrase (some nudity)
Tiny Kitten Teeth
Toothpaste for Dinner
Trying Human (Some nudity)
Two Guys and Guy

Wilde Life
Witchy
xkcd
Yellow Peril (PG-13)

Infrequently/No Longer Updating Web Comics
The Abominable Charles Christopher
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
The Adventures of Ellie Connelly
American Hell
Bag of Toast
Bear in Mind
Bobwhite
The Book of Biff
Brat-halla
Brightest
Broodhollow
Bullfinch
Camp Weedonwantcha
Chain Bear (Some explicit stuff)
Chainsawsuit
Conspiracy Friends!
Daisy is Dead
Distillum
Dream Life
Dumm Comics
Ectopiary (Some nudity)
Edemia
Edmund Finney's Quest to Find the Meaning of Life
A Fine Example
Finn and Charlie are HITCHED
Floodmud
Freaks!

Green Wake
Gun Show
Hark! A Vagrant
Head Doctor Productions
Hello with Cheese
Helpful Figures
Hollow Mountain
IDK Comics
Inscribing Ardi
Intragalactic
The Intrepid Girlbot
JBabb Comics
Kyle & Atticus
Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space
Letters to a Wild Boar
Lovecraft is Missing

Manta-man
Meat and Plastic
Minimalism Sucks
Mis-
Moe
Moon Town
The Nerds of Paradise
Nimona
No Reason Comics
Odd-Fish
One Swoop Fell
Patches
Pictures for Sad Children
Raymondo Person
A Redtail's Dream
Riotfish
Roy's Boys (PG 13?)
Run Freak Run
Saint's Way
Shortpacked!
Sin Titulo
Snowflakes
Split Lip
Spooky Doofus
SubCulture
Super Buzzkill
The Super Fogeys
The Super Gay Adventures of Ross Boston
Thermohalia
Troubletown
Mirror
Ugly Girl
YU + ME
2815 Monument

Pure Flash Awesomeness
Aardvardkbutter.com
Angry Alien
Die Anstalt : Toy Psychiatry
The Frown
Hoogerbrugge

Other
Bogleech
Clients from Hell
Brian Despain
Creatures in My Head
Damn You Auto Correct!
Jhonen Vasquez's site
Overheard in New York
Passive Aggressive Notes
Submarinechannel.com
Superdickery
UHpinions
Whirled
Second entry of the day
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
I did end up going to cycle class. Didn't run afterwards though. Felt kind of lazy for just doing the one class and nothing else, but it was cardio + upper body so... I dunno, that kind of helps.

Birthday is in two weeks and thinking about it is kind of stressing me out. I need to plan it and tell people so that they can mark it on their calendars, but I feel overwhelmed by the logistics.

I feel like one of the big differences between "I feel fine" and "I feel terrible" is how hard things seem. On a good day I can go and wash all the dishes in the sink, clean the kitchen, cook for myself, and enjoy the whole process, but on a bad day, even thinking about doing any of those things makes me feel anxious and exhausted. Maybe I just need to work on forcing myself to do them instead of thinking about them. The thoughts are draining.

Still need to write up a critique for my new writing buddy and write a piece in response to the prompt he gave me... I haven't really been feeling like writing anything long, although I have still been jotting down snippets of poetry if they come to me. I have some ideas floating around in my head for the story I'm going to write, but nothing too concrete. Then again, I rarely plan out what I'm going to write. Things just... come to me. In a way I feel like my writing process is incredibly lazy and thoughtless, because I kinda just go with the flow and rarely edit, but... people seem to be okay with that. -Shrug- I'm lucky that people think I'm already a good writer... really not motivated to get better at it. >_>

Finally went grocery shopping with my dad today. We hit up Grocery Outlet and I got five boxes of Power Bar protein bars because they were $3.75 for a box of 15. Hell yeah. This might help with my energy levels at the gym, since I've been struggling to eat enough to have adequate energy for workouts.

Here's a song Youtube has been pushing at me for awhile:

"I Miss You So" by Salami Rose Joe Louis.

It sounds like sitting in a quiet, dimly lit coffee shop in the city by yourself, stirring the lukewarm remainder of the drink in your cup, and alternating between staring out the window at the streetlights and across the table at the empty chair in front of you. It's almost closing time, and you can't stay here forever.

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Welp... time to redo
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
I got logged out somehow after starting to write this entry, so I lost the entire thing and now I have to rewrite it.

"Strict Machine" by Goldfrapp.


I really don't feel like trying to rewrite everything I had before, so here's the summary:

-Ran three miles yesterday. (Ran 2.25, took a break to do Bosu plank, squats, burpees, ran 0.75).
-Might go to cycle class tonight but I dunno, we'll see.
-Downloaded a 90s dance hits mix that made running easier.
-Running longer goes better when I set a goal (e.g. 2 miles) and then stretch it a little when I get close to the goal ("I'll just go to 2.05," "Might as well go to 2.15" etc.). It's easier to go farther when you're already really close to your new goal.

-Conversation last night got me wondering if I'll ever feel some of the things I used to feel again, or if I'm just a different person now.

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Good day + constructive talk [DP]
Sunday, September 3, 2017
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Scattered musings from today
Friday, September 1, 2017
"You Never Knew" by Negative Gemini.


I thought a lot about dying today. I mean, compared to normal, that is. I think about dying all the time, but today I thought about it more frequently. My parents drove down south to visit my aunt and uncle at their new house, and I had to take them to my other aunt and uncle's house so they could carpool. Coming back from there meant driving along the road where I got into the accident last year. Although I'd driven that way by myself since the accident, it had been a pretty long time, and my mom kept asking if I would be okay. I told her it didn't really matter, because I get anxiety now whenever I go around a curve anyway (it's just that the amount of anxiety varies).

The whole way home, I imagined what would happen if another car hit me on the road, or if I didn't brake in time and slammed into another car. When would my parents find out? When would my friends find out? Would I die on the road or would they cart me to a hospital first? I thought about what it was like to be in the car for the accident last year, and the noises, and hearing myself screaming without realizing that it was coming from me. When the car landed upright, I sat there staring ahead, gripping the steering wheel hard, my whole body rigid and tense. When I heard someone calling out to me, asking if I was able to get out of the vehicle, it was like waking up from a dream, and I couldn't really understand what had happened or how I got there. Then I realized that the radio was silent.

It's hard for me to drive without music playing. If there's nothing to occupy my white noise thoughts then there's more space for anxiety. I guess music is kind of like a security blanket for me in that way. It helps drown out the bad stuff in my head.

---

My friends were busy tonight, so I went to the art walk downtown by myself. It was... a strangely emotional experience. In the quilt and textile museum I saw some quilts that were the winning pieces in the Japan Handicraft Instructors Association, and they were absolutely amazing. I don't think I've ever been so stunned by quilts before. I wish I had taken pictures of more of them... I only got one picture, of a quilt named "I touched your scar in the dark". For some reason beyond my descriptive abilities, the name of that quilt struck me deeply. It evoked this intensely intimate, vulnerable imagery, as well as feelings of loss, distance, loneliness, and pain. It reminded me of lying awake in the dark next to a sleeping figure, physically close but... alone.

I think, no matter what I might feel for the person sleeping next to me, if they're asleep and I'm awake, it is lonely to be the only conscious body in the bed. The separation feels so profound, even though I know that in theory I could wake them up if I wanted to. It feels like an uncrossable distance, a metaphysical Grand Canyon. Seeing as how I find it very difficult to sleep around other people, I've been in this lonely spot a fair number of times, now.

Despite my dislike of platitudes, there is something I find fascinating about clich�s, and I often find myself unraveling them in my mind. "So close, and yet so far" is such a tired and overused expression that it's practically meaningless, but it does succinctly describe the feeling of being awake next to someone asleep, in a way. I mean, it takes all of the emotional complexity and depth out of it, but it does apply. I've had this longstanding habit of using these kinds of sayings and aphorisms as axioms in the logical propositions I spin for myself about life. I don't know why; I guess maybe I just like to reinterpret what I know until it makes sense within the current framework of my life. These little sayings are like shortcuts, verbal placeholders in my philosophical formulas.

---

I think, once I have some spending money, I'm going to get this book:

The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel by David Levithan.

---

Last night, after my weekly Skype call with friends, Sean and I stayed on for awhile and talked, just the two of us. I ended up opening up to him about a number of things that have been on my mind, and... it was hard, and it was sad, but I felt heard, and that was nice. Back when we first became friends I felt like I could be open with him, but there was a long period where I didn't feel like he was really listening to me, so I didn't talk to him as much about things, and I felt like we grew a little more distant. But yeah... last night was better. There's no resolution, but I didn't need a resolution, I just wanted to feel understood, I guess. That's all I really want, most of the time. It just happens very rarely. Sometimes I wonder if the part of me that lets me feel connected to other people broke a long time ago.

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Hair progress... [2P]
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
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I'm in a strange half-awake state
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
I've been browsing through Gabriel Picolo's Icarus and the Sun on Tumblr, and this one got me right in the feels: (Click)

Not always into these romantic/sappy/moody things but I guess I do like this one. The art style is nice as well.

---

A guy on OKC wants to get into writing regularly, so I offered to give him writing prompts/critiques if he wanted, and he took me up on the offer. He might give me some prompts back, so we'll see how that goes. It might be nice to get back into writing more often. I write here, and I've been writing a bit of poetry on the down low (not for sharing though), but nothing really... too creative. Might be cool to have a writing buddy like my friend Mike has, although I don't know what this guy's style is. Fingers crossed that it's not cringey and terrible.

I don't really know many explicit rules for writing, but having read so much, I guess I have something of an intuition for what I think is good vs. bad writing. Some people don't have a sense of all the connotations of words, and then you get really awkward phrasings of things, or just weird descriptions that take you out of what you're reading (if you were able to feel immersed in the first place, that is). Good writing, in my opinion, submerges you in the world of the piece and feels seamless, natural. Like breathing air. For fiction, anyway. Nonfiction is a different creature entirely.

So yeah, looking forward to how this writing thing goes.

"Hold Still" by Grizzly Bear.

Here we go again
We�ll carry on, my only friends
I�ll take one chance without compromise
There isn�t anything left to try

Here we go again
We�ll carry on, but then again
We couldn�t take this on, the story goes unformed
As if we never were there at all


I love the lyrics in this song. The music itself feels like hot days at the end of summer, rust, tall dry grass, empty air in the shade, and the temporary infinity of waiting for something unknown.

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I forgot to title this for a whole day
Monday, August 28, 2017
Had to bike to the gym today because both cars were being used, but it worked out fine. Extra exercise, haha.

Ran 1 mile (9:31, lvl 1 incline) before C.S.I., then jogged a slow mile (10:00, lvl 1 incline) after class. Have been trying to run more slowly so that I can do more distance, but man, it gets so incredibly boring. I have to resist the urge to speed up the treadmill to at least an 8:34 minute pace, because I know if I do that it'll tire me out quicker. If I run as fast as I'd like then I tend to get chest pain for the first third to half of it, which sucks. I guess boredom is better than pain?

I feel like my brain's just about always buzzing with thoughts, and running kind of reallocates some of my energy so that I'm not thinking about as much, but it doesn't take enough that I'm completely immersed in the moment, and it's not so little that I can just space out and daydream or have a nice productive problem-solving session, either. It's just in the zone of boredom...

Although, speaking of daydreaming... The book I'm reading, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, cites research that apparently shows that daydreaming can sap your motivation to pursue your goals, because our brains aren't that great at telling the difference between fantasy and reality, so by daydreaming, we're in some part tricking our brains into thinking we already have what we want. It makes us feel nicer, but it also means we're not pushing as hard to achieve our goals. I thought that was pretty interesting. I'm not as much of a daydreamer as I used to be, and I think that I've become more productive since I stopped fantasizing as much, but that's just anecdotal evidence and I hadn't really thought about there being any connection before.

Also related to this book, I'm feeling like maybe I need to rethink my goals (or at least how to achieve them). I like to try to reassess what I think I want and how I'm going to get there every now and then, so that I'm not just chasing something that doesn't fit my situation. The book mentions a system for clarifying your goals and mapping out a plan to achieve them called WOOP, which is summarized as follows:
-What do you wish for?
-Visualize that and the outcome you want.
-What obstacle is in the way?
-What's your plan for overcoming that obstacle?

I'm trying to put what I want within this framework right now to get a better idea of what I might do specifically... Not going to write it here I think, at least not right now. Need more time to consider it. I have a lot of ideas about my internal goals (who I want to be, how I want to treat other people, etc.) but I don't devote as much time to my external goals. I guess my priorities there are a bit obvious, haha.

---

Mm... I miss my friend. Without him to talk to, I have a lot more time to read though, I guess... Not that I wouldn't be able to read if he were around, I just wouldn't really want to. I suppose that's just how I'm inclined, by default... when I get close to someone I don't want to do anything else but talk to them. They can't really "get in the way" because everything else (excepting other friends) fades into the background.

"Overpowered" by R�is�n Murphy.

A chemical reason
If reason's your game
A chemical needing
Is there in the brain

With pre-programmed meanings
Like a little more pep
Alien feelings
We have to accept

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Book group
Sunday, August 27, 2017
I really enjoyed the book group I went to today for Ethical Culture Society. Felt like I was scratching an itch for intellectual discussion. Prior to going, I felt slightly apprehensive because I was wondering if it was going to be more intellectual than I've been used to for awhile, as I really haven't had much in the way of in-depth intelligent conversation recently, but thankfully it wasn't like that. The discussion was very approachable, and I didn't feel out of my league even though everybody else there was probably around 20 or more years older than me. It was a small group, so everyone got a chance to talk.

It's hard to find people whom I can be both intellectual and silly with. I feel that I generally have to pick one or the other and stick with it. So, some people experience me as being pretty serious and thoughtful, and other people... not so much.

Didn't go to the gym today... It's been terribly hot the past couple days, and the heat is sapping my energy. I fell asleep after I got back from the book group, but woke up a few hours later because it was getting too warm in my room. I'm going to the gym tomorrow though for sure. Thinking maybe eating more will help with the lightheadedness. In better news, I don't seem to be getting exercise-induced rhinitis anymore, so yay! That was one of the things really putting me off running before. Getting sneezing fits after running was so annoying.

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