Ran 1 mile (lvl 1 incline, 0.8 at 9:40 min pace, 0.2 at 8 min pace), did Turbo Kick, ran another mile (lvl 1 incline, 0.6 at 9:13 min pace, 0.4 at 7:53 min pace).

There's a lot I'm thinking about, and stuff I want to write, but it's 4:30 AM and I think now is not the time. I'll get around to it later.

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Had kind of a weird sensitive emotional day. It was kind of frustrating, because I kept feeling all these things and then reacting to stuff in what felt like an overly reactive way, and the part of me that usually tries to keep things steady felt like it was behind bars and just had to watch as the rest of me went on an emotional rampage. Like my voice of reason was trying to calm things down but couldn't reach, so I just had this tiny observational voice in my head going "wtf wtf wtf no no stop."

I kept doing things and saying things that I knew were obviously irrational or like... not constructive, and in the instant after they came out I was like "aaagh no why" but it kept happening... and I felt frustrated because I could see all my mistakes and where I was going wrong and what I should have avoided but I couldn't seem to get those feels under control. The friend I was talking to was nice about it but I still felt pretty terrible about it, since I'd normally do a better job of handling things.

Felt like if you were trying to make Thanksgiving dinner and you're just watching from behind your eyes like your body is a prison and it's burning the turkey and you're going "NO NO OH GOD TAKE THE TURKEY OUT" but your hands won't cooperate, and then you get control back as soon as the oven door opens and you can see the black turkey that you now have to serve to everyone.

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In more positive news, I reconnected with my friend Noah today... Have kinda been catching up with him a little, although he's not too quick to respond since he's on mobile. He said he was glad that I messaged him and that he missed me, and that felt really nice. It's like, I care about this person and I want to know what's going on with him, and it feels good that it's not a completely asymmetrical thing. He asked what kind of music I've been listening to though, and I linked him a bunch of songs I liked and he wasn't into most of them, haha.

[11:02:45 PM] Noah: Dude I finished your Playlist those were some really mellow emo songs lol
[11:03:08 PM] Me: Haha, mellow in a good way?
[11:03:31 PM] Noah: No lol
[11:03:49 PM] Me: Aw

I asked him if he'd been making music, because in the past he sent me some songs he was working on and I liked them, but he hasn't shared anything with me (yet? Fingers crossed). I legitimately like his music and was listening to his demos a bunch earlier, so I hope he does send me more stuff.

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Oh, and the biggest positive surprise of the day was a package that came in the mail... My mom was like "did you order something?" and I was like "No?" and opened it and... it was bird pajamas... With the note "You can't be sad if you're in bird pajamas!" There was no indication as to who sent it, but I heavily suspected that it came from Kyle (spoiler: it did). It was a silly gift and it made me smile. Now I have some warmer pajamas for winter... It's really nice to get these surprise presents from him. If it was just random stuff then it wouldn't mean that much to me, but he generally picks things pretty intentionally, so I get things like flannel sheets (my favorite!) and boxes of Goldfish (also my favorite!) which I really appreciate.

Anyway... I've been feeling pretty exhausted from all the emotional stuff, and I felt like I needed to sleep around five hours ago, but that was too early, so I just stayed up. I think it's late enough to go to sleep now, though.

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I had a really good experience with the meetup I went to today. Went to the Ethical Culture Society platform on current ethical issues. It was mildly like a church service, which was interesting, as I haven't been to anything like that of my own accord in years. I enjoyed it though, as campy as parts of it were. They had secular live music that everyone sang the chorus to, and there was something like a lecture, but group participation in the form of comments and questions was encouraged.

The lecture was about religion and its function, how it works and what it does right and wrong. It wasn't about slamming religion in general-- although one of the two speakers did ask the audience at the start what some of the things they didn't like about religion were. Mainly it was about what religion provides that people value and need, and how to find those aspects without the blind faith, dogma, and demanded conformity that so often plagues organized religions. Interestingly, they pointed out that when religions start, they're headed by people who are distinctly non-conformist-- freethinkers who attract a crowd with their different ideas. Once those leaders die, though, religions tend to become more dogmatic and rigid, as the successors try to codify the teachings of the prophets to preserve them. Then, some new freethinker comes along and shakes up the system, and the cycle repeats. The proposition set forth by the speakers was that religions serve as a survival tool, and that science is actually something of a spiritual successor to religion, in that it gives us a way to organize our world and understand it. There is a pretty big difference of course, in that science, despite having certain rules and basic assumptions, encourages flexibility and open-mindedness and doesn't advocate unquestioning allegiance.

There ARE people who treat science like a religion (scientism), but science is not a religion per se. People who play by the rules, conduct rigorous research, and come up with conclusions that seem counter to what "should be" scientific have made observations about this. It's not scientific to definitively declare that ghosts don't exist, for example, unless you can conclusively prove that ghosts don't exist. Until then you just have to remain in an agnostic position about it. Yet there are scientists who will fight tooth and nail against an idea like that, claiming it's too woowoo and supernatural to be scientific. Science is a tool for discovering truth, not a truth in itself. I think this is something that many people don't understand, and so you get people who fight against science because they think it's just a bunch of people in white lab coats being smug jerks who say "god doesn't exist because SCIENCE." Meanwhile there are plenty of scientists who are also religious, because science doesn't actually conflict with religious beliefs unless your religion says you're not allowed to question anything in it or investigate the world.

Partway through the talk, this shirtless guy started rummaging through the refreshments in the back of the room, and someone went to go talk to him. A bit later, he started messing with the camera that they were using to record the talk, and the speakers paused while the situation was dealt with. There wasn't too much commotion-- a man asked the shirtless guy if he needed help, and they asked him not to be disruptive-- but it quickly became evident that the shirtless guy was not going to stop (he seemed like he might be mentally ill), so they asked him to leave, though not before offering to give him some food to take with him. It was handled pretty calmly and respectfully, I think, although there definitely was some tension because of this random shirtless old guy making a bunch of noise in the back and interrupting the talk. Someone took him outside and talked to him, and the speakers discussed what had just happened and how the room had reacted to the disruption, as well as what we could take away from the incident. Since it was my first time, I had no idea if that guy was a regular attendee of the meetings or what was going on, but when I asked the people around me, it seemed that nobody had ever seen him before or knew who he was. I found out afterwards that he was just some dude who lived in his car and that in addition to coming to our meeting and going through the food, he had left the radio in his car playing so loudly that it disrupted a meeting in a nearby community center as well. Apparently the police were called to help him. (The police in that area tend to be friendly and helpful rather than aggressive and callous, a fact which my seat neighbor noted when she was recommending that we call the police to help the shirtless guy).

So, yeah, I enjoyed the meetup a lot, and they have other types of meetups as well for this group, so I'm thinking I'll try to go to the book club they're holding next week. The book is Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, and I got the audiobook from the library online. It's pretty interesting so far, but I don't like audiobooks much and I wish I had a physical copy instead. This book is only ~200 pages but the audiobook is almost five hours long. >_> I don't think it would take me nearly that long to just read it on my own... And I'd probably process it better too... Ah well.

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Had a talk with my friend today about where we stand and possible ways to work things out. It doesn't seem like there's a way we can compromise, at least not in our current life situations, but I feel better having had the conversation. I feel... more able to accept things, I guess. Like, it sucks, but now I have a better sense of it all, and I'm okay with that. It's sad but I feel at peace.

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I stumbled upon the artist Jesus Leguizamo tonight and I like his stuff. I think this one is called "Gypsy Head".

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"Please Be My Third Eye" by La Sera.

I can feel your heartbeat
When my mind is clear
I can see your visions
There's nothing to fear

Will you please be my third eye tonight?

---

There are some things I miss about being in a relationship, and I've been thinking about those tonight.

Just remembering things like getting into a game together, like a hack-n-slash or an RPG, developing some kind of pattern or strategy for how we played. I like melee characters, and summoning stuff to fight, not interested in potions or status effects, that sort of thing. It's nice to have someone who balances me in that regard. I get tired of games so quickly once I hit the double digits of hours played, but having someone to play with, and having a specific game to play with them, keeps me interested.

It was also nice to go on walks, and go shopping for things we needed (or, I guess in some cases, for things I decided that he needed... like Kleenex). Going out is nice, though I'm not much for things that are too wild. Trying new restaurants is one of my favorite things to do with a partner, although they've had varying levels of enthusiasm for it.

I miss... having someone to dress up for, someone to look cute for. I'm not much interested in impressing strangers. It is fun sometimes, if I have time to kill, to experiment with different outfits I guess, but I don't really feel like I'm very into fashion without someone specific in mind.

I like having someone to share what I'm learning with, although I guess that's a bit less applicable now that I'm not currently in school. I feel like I'm usually learning something, though, and I enjoy talking about that with someone. Tonight I decided to make an account on Meetup.com and was looking through the groups to see if there was anything that appealed to me. Mostly there wasn't, but there's an ethical culture society that seems promising... I get the impression that it's mainly older people, but that's okay. This is the kind of thing I wish I had someone to go with me to, though.

Making a Meetup account has gotten me thinking about what my interests and hobbies are. I never know how to define those, and I haven't in a long time, maybe since high school. Most of the time I just rely on what I know I used to like and kinda use those things as the default. What's interesting to me about this particular characteristic of myself is that people seem to generally find me interesting despite my lack of clearly defined interests. Maybe my vagueness makes me seem mysterious and people imagine that I'm hiding all sorts of complex cool things they don't know about, or something. Orrrrrrrr maybe it's just that I think about things very in depth and that comes out when I talk. More likely that, I guess.

I hate being asked to describe myself because I legitimately don't know what to say other than the very basic stuff I know applies to me as far as other people see me. Age, ethnicity, gender, etc. Tick off those boxes in the demographics section. I could use analogies that would have more meaning to me but that would be lost on the other party, and there's no point to saying it if it doesn't communicate anything of value to the person you're talking to, as far as I'm concerned. In my opinion, talking should be an exchange of information... so why talk if what you're saying won't be received by the other person in any meaningful way?

Then again, it's hard to know how the other person will receive what you're saying to them... And goodness knows I have a tendency to tell people less and less over time as they react in ways that erode my faith that they're getting what I'm saying. When I think about the way my reflex to clam up like this, I feel like my instincts are a giant clothespin that I'm caught inside, and I'm trying to keep it propped open with my arms.

Sometimes I just get tired of fighting it. Still trying, though.

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