So this is cool:

"Line Rider - Mountain King"

Woke up with a sore throat and veeeeeeery sore calves. I think I am sick.

Initially I woke up around 8 AM, but felt super tired still and went back to sleep until 12:40 or so. Got up, made some pasta, ate, felt tired again, went back to sleep around maybe... 3? I'm not sure. Woke up a couple hours later though, and felt like I was starving.

So... that seems good for my appetite, at least. I had a pita sandwich (spinach, carrots, hummus, feta) at first, which surprisingly wasn't enough, so then I had cheese toast a bit later.

I've been kind of stiffly waddling around because it hurts to walk normally. Sort of a cross between Frankenstein's monster and a penguin, if I had to guess how I look.

Played a really good incremental game that led me down a rabbit hole of educational games/interactive experiences in general. This article was interesting.

I feel like I've been absorbing interesting information today, which has been nice. I didn't really "do" much other than read, but I feel okay with myself.

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I made it out to the gym tonight even though I wasn't really feeling like going. Ran a mile and did CSI. In CSI we did this awful exercise where you have to hold your arms straight out to your sides at shoulder height and make small movements with them for a very long time. It doesn't seem like it would be a big deal, but it's rather painful. Then again, my arm strength isn't what it used to be...

Wasn't sure how much I was going to feel up to doing, because my throat has a little scratchy soreness to it and I'm not sure if I'm getting sick. When you start working with kids, you usually get sick within the first few weeks, until you get adjusted to everyone's germs. Might be happening to me.

Was listening to this music earlier and it was very soothing.

"Ciela's Parting Words"

It reminds me of falling asleep under the covers on a cold and rainy day...

Sadness came back to me for a bit today, but mostly I'm still kind of feeling nothing.

---

In a way I'm kind of relieved that I'm a digital hoarder, because back in 2012 or so, someone in the chatroom I used to go to linked me to a document that I wanted to find again, and luckily I still have it in my folders. It's 40 pages long, so it's probably going to take a little time to read, but I'm hoping that it will give me some insight that helps me. The guy who shared it said it helped him, which is encouraging...

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On Saturday I did a photoshoot with Fro at the rose garden. It was fun, but I'm a little nervous about the results. She was happy with the pictures she took, but she wanted to wait until she touched them up to show me anything, so I have no idea how any of it came out. I don't really have any experience modeling, so I wasn't sure what to do or if my expressions were awkward... So far she's shown me one work-in-progress and I feel like I look wistful in it. Fro said that was good, though. I guess I'll have to trust her judgement.

After the photoshoot, we went and got Jamba Juice. Mine was free because Jamba Juice gives you a free small smoothie for your birthday. Amusingly enough, Fro and I got the same smoothie, which I found out when she got her order. Greens 'n Ginger is the way to go. We sat outside and talked for awhile, then got lunch at Sweet Tomatoes... I didn't really eat as much as I normally would, but still managed to eat a lot compared to my protein-bar-as-a-sad-meal-substitute diet recently. I know I shouldn't eat 210 calorie protein bars instead of meals, but it's been very hard to work up the appetite or motivation to eat more than that. Sometimes it's all I can do to choke down the bar. Yesterday I tried to eat a big breakfast (three eggs with cheese on two pieces of multigrain toast) and almost made myself sick trying to finish it. After that I couldn't bring myself to eat any more until around 5pm. My reasoning was that getting a head start on consuming calories might make it so that I could eat more throughout the day, but nope... it just wiped out my appetite. I'm having to fight my body to eat more than 1200 calories most days...

There are some days when I wonder if it's worth struggling against, and if I should just give in and not eat for awhile. If I weren't going to the gym regularly, I feel like I probably would just do that. Unfortunately I do need the energy to not pass out at the gym. It's also nice to not get cold in 80 degree weather, I guess.

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I didn't know what 'abrogado' meant or if it was even a real word, but I had it in my head, so that's what I titled this entry. Apparently in Spanish it means repealed, or invalidated.

Possibly another factor in my mood is that I haven't had a phone for awhile. Going on a couple weeks now, I think. It doesn't really feel different. Fro and my mom are the only ones who ever really call me, and I don't have a boyfriend to keep in touch with at the moment, so I don't have much need for a phone.

This amused me in that almost-imperceptible-smile way.


It's funny, you know? Coming across a lot of stuff that I think would normally make me feel sad, but instead of feeling sad I just feel nothing.

I don't really feel happy, or excited, or good, but I also don't feel bad or depressed, exactly.

Just... nothing. There's a sort of solidity to it, as if I'm made of glass and no feelings can penetrate me. I can sense depression at my edges, but it isn't coming through.

I guess I do feel disappointed in a way, but it's on the fringes too, and it's not centered in me, I'm just getting it in my peripheral vision.

---

I know I've posted this song before, but I guess I'm revisiting my old music more than finding new music right now.

"No Turning Back" by Gui Boratto.

I can say the most wonderful words you just don't understand
I can show you the way but I know that you'll never be there

A lot of thoughts and memories wrapped up in this song.

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Felt nauseous but ran 2 miles (non-continuously) and did Turbo Kick. Had pretty bad cramps after running, before class, but thankfully they cleared up...

I've been feeling okay, I guess. Just okay. A neutral clear feeling. I don't know why. Not waking up paralyzed with anxiety or depression, generally.

Can't think of anything that's been particularly different in the last few days, other than that I've been watching BoJack Horseman. If that is the one factor that's keeping my mood stable, it's gonna suck when I run out of episodes. I guess there is something comforting about the show, though. It's pretty depressing and dark and bleak at times, but in a sort of relatable way that seems to diffuse my own bad feelings. I feel a little less alone, I guess. Media that has that effect is significant to me. Maybe that's why I watch my favorite short films repeatedly; there's a distant sort of camaraderie in these things with relatable themes. There's no interaction to get in the way of the illusion that your feelings are understood by someone, so you get to feel less alone for a little while.

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"The Start of Something" by Voxtrot.

Steady your ears, steady your ears and read my lips
Poetry is not a luxury, it's how I break this home
And when I'm really ill, won't you cradle me?
Man is not a noble animal but maybe woman is

Remember, I heard you...

Inside your room you said:
"You never really live until your back's against the wall,"
Oh, did you really mean it?
No, I never break my gaze, if just to see the scar
Remain reflected in your eyes
I think it's time to go home

---

It always seemed like classes that graded based on improvement were unfair to the students who were already performing at the top. When you're already good, your progress slows down. You don't make the leaps and bounds that less-practiced people do. The progress you make isn't impressive anymore, because the contrast between before and after isn't as prominent.

A teacher only gets a small window into your life, and they're grading you only on what they see in that window. Should you be lucky enough to enter the class an idiot, you can exit with a high grade so long as you do all the easy, obvious things to improve. Good job, A+, you're now twice as good as you were before!

I sometimes wondered if I should purposely make myself seem worse at the start, and cultivate the appearance of growth during the few weeks of the term, in order to secure an acceptable grade. Would it be cheating? To misrepresent where I was in life? Or would it be an expression of agency, an empowered attempt to balance for the disadvantage of starting out at the place that would get another student an A at the end of the term? I never purposely produced low quality work or presented myself as ignorant, though I thought about it numerous times.

---

The daily grind of improvement isn't impressive, only the comparison between where you were and where you are is. You sum up years of work in a sentence to wow people for a moment. Nobody is interested in all the attempts, all the failures, all the observations, calculations, plans to do it a little better next time. Next time, try this. Next time, avoid that. Rinse and repeat until you're different. Boring!

Sometimes I feel uninteresting because I spent a lot of my time on those little tasks that aren't impressive or cool to tell people about, and I don't engage in many other activities. Really don't like conversations revolving around "what do you do" for that reason...

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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I played games with friends today, which was nice. Woke up around 8:30ish AM and played Dungeon of the Endless with Kyle. We started a game last night and finished it this morning, then started another before he had to leave to have lunch with friends. I didn't really enjoy it much when I first got the game, because I really sucked on my own, but it's much more fun playing with him. Also nice to do something fun together. It's... been a really long time. Boy though, didn't sleep much last night! We saved our game at 2 AM and just took a few hours off to sleep before resuming, haha.

Also played To the Moon while sharing screens on Skype with my other friend so he could watch. There were some jokes in the game, but overall it left me in something of a serious, contemplative mood. It felt like there was a lot to unpack there, but we didn't really have the time to discuss it in depth. He commented that "Its like they never really met with each other emotionally on the same level" in regards to the characters who are the focus of the game, and it was a sad theme, but... I guess that also feels like a true statement about every relationship, to me. I only seem to see mismatches, never perfect fits. That could be an ingrained disillusionment with connection, though. Not the idea of it in itself-- just, the possibility of it seems slim at best. I try to be optimistic about it, but a lot of the time it feels like the feeling of connection is really just a congruent misunderstanding. Like you're never really getting what the other person is saying because you're filtering it through so much of yourself, but it's in such a way that you don't notice the discrepancies and can maintain a sense of harmony and happiness about it. As if you're colorblind and you never find out that what you see as 'red' isn't what other people see as 'red' at all. Not to disparage that feeling... You can still feel very close to people and be legitimately happy that way. I just find the disconnect inherently sad.

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For maybe a few years now I've been occasionally thinking about a story I once read in an old science fiction lit magazine. I went and found it (thank goodness it wasn't in one of my dad's sci fi anthologies, or it would have taken me much longer), and I didn't reread the whole thing, but I found the part that stuck in my memory.

The story is "Undone" by James Patrick Kelly, and in it, a space traveler named Mada and her ship are wandering around and find a utopia with an interesting cultural quirk; they don't have currency as we know it, but they thrive on what are described as "comments"-- criticisms, basically. Mada goes to a restaurant and has some kind of fancy meal, which she praises and says is perfect, and the chef is distressed by her reaction. The waiter who served her then tells her that he considers himself a poet and shares a poem he wrote with her, and she also compliments it, to his unhappy surprise. She ends up going back in time a bit to remedy her mistake.

"They want criticism," said Mada. "They like to think of themselves as artists but they're insecure about what they've accomplished. They want their audience to engage with what they're doing, help them make it better-- the comments they both seem to expect."

Though I'd never describe myself as an artist (and definitely don't want to be called one by anybody), I found this relatable. It's a strange, sort of repugnant description of things, but... it fits with how I feel.

Some other quotes from the story that I liked...
When Mada asks the waiter who served her if he still thinks one of her features is unattractive (with the implication that he found her unattractive), he responds with:

"Just because you make a comment on some aspect doesn't mean you reject the work as a whole."

And later they are having a picnic together:

"I have a present for you," he said after they were stuffed. "I wrote you a poem." He did not stand; there were no large, flailing gestures. Instead he slid the picnic basket out of the way, leaned close, and whispered into her ear.

"Loving you is like catching rain on my tongue.
You bathe the leaves, soak indifferent ground;
Why then should I get so little of you?
Yet still, like a flower with a fool's face
I open myself to the sky."

I guess I don't really know what to say about this poem except that I found it rather beautiful, and rather wistful.

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