From Boiling Energy by Richard Katz:

A short time later, it hits me, a direct and terrifying realization. I am in an enormous oven, baking beyond what I have learned to experience, with no release into cool. Nowhere in this open, arid land, with its tall walk-through grasses, scrubby bushes, and scattered trees covering the flat, sandy ground, nowhere is the cool I knew. Shade, yes, shade enough. But the sun-heat lingers on, drifting only slightly diminished under shade branches. I am in the oven of that land, and there is no way out. Terror is of no breathing space. Terror is of dying.

I'm supposed to be reading various chapters of this book for class, but I was struck by this quote. It feels like something I understand very deeply right now. The things I am used to, the things that I had all my life, those are inaccessible to me right now. There are only faint shadows resembling what I had.

I guess it might seem like an odd comparison, considering that I'm in pretty much the opposite environment from what is described here, but it all feels so open and exposed, bare and unprotected. My room doesn't feel like a safe haven because it's similarly bare and lacking in comforts I would have at home.

---

Yesterday I saw a squirrel running up some stairs at school, and for some reason it felt like one of the most important things I noticed that day. I pointed it out to the classmate who was walking with me, but I'm not sure if she heard me or saw it.

---Edit---

Oh yeah, these are the rain boots I got last weekend.

I have been wearing them every day.

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

I think I had a bad dissociation episode yesterday. It felt like reality was disintegrating, and almost everything seemed entirely incomprehensible. Luckily it only lasted a short while, but I felt extremely dazed and disoriented during it, and it happened during class. >_>

During the episode, I had thoughts of giving up on my current situation and going and living with my parents forever, as some kind of pathetic NEET too fragile to deal with the stresses of adult life. I don't think my parents would accommodate that, though, and I don't think I could bear the shame of it anyway. When I left St. John's, I had at least a general plan for the future. This would be different. I can't allow myself to be a failure. It would be better to die, if those were the only two choices.

I am lucky to have a boyfriend who is so supportive of me and considerate of the context of my life right now. Although I still worry about how my issues are affecting us, his reassurance and faith in me do make it easier to deal with things.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Got the blood test results back, and they showed that I'm anemic, so I'm taking iron supplements now. Hopefully that clears things up. I'm supposed to take them with vitamin C either an hour before or two hours after eating a meal. Since I don't have a set meal time, I'm not sure I always manage to take them within the right time frame, but I hope that doesn't impact their effectiveness much.

I started a list of restaurants I want to try with my boyfriend awhile ago, and we're going to start going to them once he gets his paycheck this week, so that's something to look forward to. So much food around here... It's gonna take us awhile to try everything. I don't know if we ever will, either, because we keep finding new things to add to the list, and we only have so much time and stomach space.

There's a get together happening with my cohort and the second year cohort tonight, so I'll get to meet the second years and hang out with people from school. I'm interested to see what the second years are like, since I haven't really had any contact with them yet. The guy hosting the event has a cat at his house, though, so I hope that doesn't negatively affect me. I'm still not sure if I'm actually allergic to cats or not, but it's not something I'm keen on experimenting with.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

"Stop Talking" by Memory Tapes.


I've been listening to a lot of Grimes and the Mortal Kombat theme recently, but this song is also nice.

Last night my boyfriend was brushing his teeth, and I looked over at him and was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of giddy excitement. I had to turn away to keep myself from giggling uncontrollably. I don't really know why it happened, because most of the time I can look at him without feeling like I'm in high school again, sneaking furtive glances at my crush. This morning I felt pretty cuddly too, but he had to leave for work. I feel like I just want to snuggle up to him in bed and stay there all day. @[email protected]

I don't know where this is coming from. We didn't see each other for a few days this week, so maybe... absence makes the heart grow fonder? I don't have a lot of experience with not-long-distance relationships, so I'm kind of still figuring things out.

Yesterday I walked to a health clinic to do a blood draw for some lab work. When I went to the health center on Monday, they did an EKG on me, but it didn't show anything. The person who checked me out there wants to see if the blood test shows something thyroid-related.

Walking to the clinic only took about half an hour, but I felt terrible by the time I got there. Really lightheaded, and my head was pounding. My heart was also racing, and I tried to take deep breaths to slow it down, but it didn't help. During class in the afternoon, I had some of the same problems even though I was just sitting down the whole time, and I also felt fairly nauseous for the second hour of class. I got dinner after it ended, but felt too sick to eat anything for a few more hours. It felt pretty crappy, and I half-jokingly told my boyfriend over Facebook that I just wanted to lay my head on his lap and complain about how terrible I felt, which is why he came over last night. He's such a sweetheart. >.>

I did miss him though, aside from wanting him to be here so someone would attend my pity party. It feels silly, since I just saw him on like... Sunday morning? and there really aren't that many days between Sunday and Wednesday.

Oh my goodness, I just feel like I love him so much right now that I don't know what to do with myself.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

I've been taking vitamins and trying to drink more water, which I think is maybe helping with things. I do feel better than I did before.

On Wednesday I donated blood in the afternoon, and then went to the bookstore to pick up some books I needed for class. While I was standing in the aisle figuring out which books I was going to get, I suddenly felt very lightheaded and dizzy, and I thought I was going to faint. I dropped to the ground and sat there, kind of slumped to the side, leaning on the shelves. I was listening to my iPod, but I realized that I could barely hear the music, and that everything sounded far away and somewhat muffled. My body felt weak, and I was overcome with nausea, to the point where I really thought I was going to throw up. I wanted so badly to be able to go to the bathroom, which is right outside the bookstore on campus, so that I could throw up, but I couldn't move without making the nausea worse. I also realized that the skin of my face felt extremely cold, almost to the point of being numb, and that I had started sweating. Having never experienced a cold sweat before, it was a strange feeling.

I don't know how long I was really on the ground, unable to get up, but it felt like at least five to ten minutes. The entire time I was there, there was a guy only a few yards away from me, looking at his phone. He never once looked at me or asked if I was okay. I ended up just looking at his shoes for a good portion of the time and wondering why he wasn't doing anything. Did he not see me fall? Was he that unaware of his surroundings? Did he just not think it mattered? It was somewhat disturbing to me. I don't think he could have thought my behavior was normal, because I had my head resting on one of the lower shelves and was breathing heavily, and at one point I attempted to move away from the shelf so I could try to crawl towards the bathroom. As far as I know, these are not things people typically do in bookstores.

Interestingly enough, after I finally felt well enough to get up and buy my books, that guy just walked behind me and out of the store, without having bought anything. So he literally just stood in the same aisle as me that whole time and didn't buy anything. The whole thing is just dumbfounding to me, honestly.

I have an appointment at the campus health center for Monday to get checked out, and hopefully there's nothing seriously wrong with me. Most of my friends think it was probably the blood donation that caused the whole incident, but I just want to make sure.

Gonna try to hang out with a couple people from my new cohort today, so I hope that goes well.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

11:39 PM.

I've been feeling listless and tired, so I'm looking at the Volunteer section of Craigslist, as I sometimes do when I'm having trouble being interested in life. It seems easier to just sign up for volunteer things than to find something that I want to do for myself.

I submitted some information to a study, so I might end up participating in that. It's been awhile since I was in one, so maybe it would be fun.

Also looking at volunteering for a charity sale, but I'm less sure about that one. Need to look for a job, too... My life feels kind of empty right now and I feel like I should be occupying myself with more, but it's hard to motivate myself when I'm tired all the time. I sleep and only feel awake for an hour or two before I want to sleep again... Bought some multivitamins today in case that has anything to do with it, though.

Have been listening to a few Eerie Summer songs tonight, and they're nice.

"It's Okay" by Eerie Summer.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

I guess I don't really feel any different now, being 25. My birthday pretty much just felt like another day, it didn't stand out too much. Fro wished me a happy birthday on Facebook I guess, and my mom called me to say it too, but I didn't really celebrate. I miss my friends and wish I could have done something with them.

On the bright side, last night I think I made a friend from my new cohort? We talked a bit after our orientation, and she invited my boyfriend and I to go to a cupcake place with her and hang out a little. She's rather loquacious, but she's very nice, and I like her. When she asked how old I was, I said "Twenty... five... tomorrow," and she said it was a bit of a short notice to bake a cake (she likes to cook), but maybe she'd make something another time. I thought it was really sweet of her. She also said she'd like to throw some dinner parties at her apartment, which sounds like fun, and I'm looking forward to that.

For my birthday... well, we didn't do too much. Checked out a pizza place nearby (and got a slice of peach habanero pizza, which was actually pretty good) with my boyfriend, but mostly stayed in otherwise. We talked about some serious things in the morning, and I was... a bit agitated by some of them, but I felt better later on. I think I was dehydrated today though, because we went to the bookstore so I could get some stuff I need for class, and I felt really off-balance and kind of like I was going to faint while we were there. :S Also checked out the fitness center at school and got a salad to take back to my place...

I felt like it was important to get out of the apartment and walk around, but I wasn't really in much of a mood to do anything outside, so we ended up watching Tetsuo: The Iron Man inside. Probably should have shown him Tetsuo: The Bullet Man instead, as I feel it's a little more accessible, but oh well. We also tried watching Sausage Party briefly, but it was so awful that we stopped it maybe... twenty minutes in? We talked about more Serious Things after that, but somehow transitioned to joking around and laughing about stuff, which lightened the mood a lot. We were kind of mocking New Age pseudoscience-y stuff, and it was a pretty silly conversation. Boyfriend laughed really hard at "free range broccoli" and when I said something about "chlorophyll is just something scientists made up to make us feel separate from plants, but really, the same blood runs through all our veins." It was nice to laugh like that, especially after how I felt earlier in the day.

Oh, and I got a message from a former friend... so we'll see how that goes.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

My achievement for the day thus far has been setting up my laptop as a virtual router so that I can have wifi in my place. It wasn't a difficult process, but it just wasn't working before, and now it is, for reasons I do not know. I was able to get online with my tablet, and my boyfriend connected his phone too. ^_^

I'm still settling in here, but I think I'm getting the hang of things more. I had my first on-campus meal yesterday, and it was pretty good. Just enjoying spending lots of time with my boyfriend right now before he starts work and I start school in a couple days.

We have been finding a lot of interesting little parks around here.


My food yesterday! It was super satisfying. o.o


We walked around campus at night yesterday, looking at the gardens, and found this.


And I took a picture of a pretty flower using flash, but partially covered the flash with my hand, and it came out looking like this.


My birthday is tomorrow... I'm gonna be 25. I'm a little bit sad that I won't get to celebrate it with my friends, but I guess I can at least Skype with Becka and Fro (and maybe Vicky) on Friday. And my boyfriend will be here with me, that's not insignificant. He said he already knew what he wanted to get me as a present, but he has to wait for his first paycheck to come in before he can get it. :0

Yesterday he said he hopes we're still together forty years from now... I feel the same way. I know we've been together a relatively short time, but I really feel like we could spend our lives together. It almost seems like it would be unnatural not to.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!