Both weakness and strength

Weak, to avoid death.
Strong, to embrace life.
Each at their own time,
in their rightful place.

I'm saving myself

Let me clear this up right now. I understand exactly why you're gone. You stayed by me for a short while, dragging me away from suicide. On the beach, you told me that we could be romantically involved again. You took that back. You told me we could be best friends. I tried to just accept that, but I doubted my will to live without your love. I realized that I was saying too much to you for nothing. I went to therapy. It helped me. But it was too late. That evening, you stopped talking to me.

You're gone because I didn't improve quickly enough. I thought I needed you to be even closer to even keep breathing. I was wrong. Look at me now, months later. I am alive, even though I'm probably dead to you. Look at me now. I'm managing and even enjoying life, even though you're not lessening my burdens. Look at me. The only place you are in my life is in my heart, yet I'm still using you to get better.

I think that perhaps I'm as well as I'll ever be without you here. I think I can push myself through this world without you here. However, I don't want to. The reason I'm still going is so that I'm well enough for you to take my side again. I'm aiming to be able enough that you can hold my hand without having me drag you down. This hurts. My feelings hurt.

I am bleeding from innumerable slices across the skin of my life. The apathy of depression is a drug that removes the pain, but also removes the grip from my hands. My will is a hot iron that I use to cauterize my wounds. To keep my life from bleeding out, I cannot just dose up on apathy. But endure too many burns at once and I'll black out, dropping the iron, while wounds open up again. Nobody else can hold that iron. Nobody else can close my wounds. The most anyone can do to help is keep me awake. The voice I hear loudest is yours.

The words from those who are placing themselves right next to me sound raspy and puny. Yet even just the echo of you in my heart chimes clearly, though distantly. If you were with me, holding my hand, I could stay awake, perhaps even burn all these wounds shut. If your echo has brought me this far, then maybe your presence would bring me the rest of the way. That's why I have this to say.

Please. I think I've done enough on my own.

I was her friend

There was a time when she and I texted comfortably. I don't have any of those texts anymore, since I had to reset my phone and the texts were too old for MightyText to keep in archive for free. There were a few topics we conversed on that I remember pretty clearly though.

We talked about religion. She told me that she is Wiccan, and I told her that I was Christian. Sounds like we have a huge difference in belief, but we don't. I believe it possible that she can light a candle with a snap of her fingers. More generally, we believe in magic. I think I brought up the time you threw a dalmation figurine at a glass and the figurine somehow ended up inside the glass. We both believe in spirits. I told her about the seance I held with you and our friends. She said that was more of a gypsy thing. What makes me particularly smile when remembering that conversation is that she thanked me for noting that it was a safe seance. Most Christians automatically label seances as unsafe and demonic regardless of method, and many teens who give seances a shot don't take precautions and do create a potentially dangerous situation. You can understand her relief in my position.

After you, my brother, and I watched Divergent in theaters, I remember texting her about it. As I recall, she's read the books. We talked about what factions we'd be in. She and I agreed that we'd fit into Erudite for our intelligence. However, I said that I probably wouldn't actually choose that faction. If Dauntless drops members through a series of rigorous tests of bravery and combat prowess, I'm sure Erudite would drop me for being lazy. I suggested that her laziness would threaten her too were she to join Erudite, especially because they'd probably have videogames available to them. She said the videogames would be seal the deal for her decision. Now I'm not sure whether I'd risk joining Erudite or give myself to Abnegation.

Finally, I remember a time when she confided in me. She told me that she was having an issue with how you were acting with her. I can't remember exactly what the issue was, but I don't want to remember precisely anyway. She talked to me about it at night while you were asleep. I listened to her, consoled her, talked about it. I fell asleep while texting, though. If you hadn't found out about that conversation, I probably wouldn't be talking about it now; I may have forgotten. But that morning, after having sex with me, you borrowed my phone to mess with some apps. The screen unlocked right to our conversation. You saw everything, even saw a text that she'd sent when I was asleep. You got very upset that we'd had this private conversation about you.

After we broke up, you tried to tell me that I didn't actually care about her. You said I was only interested in her body. No, she was a dear friend that I loved. She was a wonderful friend to me. Until the day she realized where her attractions lie. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised at what she kept from me. I shouldn't have been upset with her. I shouldn't have transformed it into a test of loyalty for you. I expect her to never regard me as a friend again. Sometimes I think terrible things about her, too. However, when I look at the relationship she and I had as a whole, I still see her as a friend. She is still a person that I care about. She isn't an enemy for being a liar. She's imperfect like any human, like myself. She deserves nothing less than kindred regard.

K project

As with Blue Exorcist, the first episode of K didn't quite catch me. However, I have to admit that a scene from the preview at the end of it convinced me to continue immediately.

That girl is a cat, simply called Neko. She belongs to a schoolboy named Yashiro Isana. Yashiro, or Shiro for short, lives on an islet at the boarding school that occupies it. Every student he comes across, often to mooch food off of, likes him. His personality is subdued and kindred. All is normal at the near-future Japanese campus, with its cleaning bots that yell at trash to die, but then Shiro is asked to run some errands in town. There, he's attacked by hoodlums wielding red flames, and saved by a swordsman who battles not with his blade but with arms of midnight-blue energy extended from his own hands.

Can I take a moment to say how adorable this scene is? You should see the Shiro's face in the previous shot! Anyway, once the ship has begun to sail and the two get to a safe rooftop, the swordsman, known as the Black Dog, draws his sword on Shiro. A video a person took one night ended up having recorded him being shot to death. The shooter is a man who claims to be Yashiro Isana, the seventh, colorless king. The shooter looks exactly like Shiro as well. Kuroh has come to the conclusion thus that Shiro is an evil king and, by his master's orders, is determined to execute Shiro. But Shiro doesn't remember committing the crime.

I'm glad that a cat convinced me to continue this series. Of course, the cat alone would have driven me away from it. Combined with beautiful (blushing) boys, supernatural abilities, and mystery, though, Neko heightened my curiosity just to the point that I couldn't just stop watching. Immediately after the first episode, much more humor becomes apparent, starting with Shiro's handling of his execution. Relationships develop and are revealed. The workings of these powers and the concept of the kings are brought out in stages. And the soundtrack is swanky, though at some places incorrectly applied. There's a track played during a helicopter scene that's just so perfect the first time! But I'll let you get to that on your own. I'd rather give you the opening!

Judging by the opening songs of other anime you like, I think this is your thing. ^.^ And as you can see there's a plentiful cast of pretty boys. I'm wondering if you did a double-take, "Was that Axel?" Because that was my first thought upon seeing the Red King. Guess it's inevitable when you've got crimson, spiky hair and flame powers. Another quick note on franchises I've been reminded of. Factions and flame powers? Couldn't help but have Katekyo Hitman Reborn! pop into my head. Not that K should be compared to those two, really. This action-mystery anime that dresses scifi as supernatural should be regarded in its own domain. I'm very sure that you'll enjoy this anime when you put some time aside for it!

God could be depressed

It can be argued that recent times have been godless. Who knows how far you want to stretch "recent times" to encompass. There doesn't seem to have been any sort of divine intervention on a biblical scale. You and I know that there have been miracles, but many feel that so-called blessings aren't widespread enough. The general consensus appears to be that, for an all-powerful creator, God doesn't care to do enough.

My response to that is that we don't understand God. We can't hope to understand God. He acts beyond the bounds of our wisdom and comprehension. But here's a thought: maybe that's a problem. Many reject God's will. Some are ambivalent to it. People of the Book accept it. Who is there to truly understand God's will? Nobody. How many supposed followers are truly doing good for their fellow humans? Arguably not enough. And how does He feel about that?

Nobody understands. Nobody helps enough. Nothing you do is enough. You waste everything you're given. You scare and burden people. You're a killer. It's all your fault. The world would be better off without you.

Depressed people have so much potential. They can do so much when their depression isn't getting the best of them. A depressed God would make a lot of sense. It wouldn't be that He can't help, or that He has some grand plan. He'd simply be terribly discouraged from doing anything. What's the point of doing anything? Something always goes wrong. Someone always drags the world back down. This isn't a theory I'm going to subscribe to, just an interesting thought to entertain. It came to me when I recalled these lyrics:

Emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness is cleanliness, and cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty just like me.

Netflix has those shows you love

After finishing another anime today, I went browsing through Netflix for new ones to watch when I've got time. One of the newer additions to the roster is Bill Nye the Science Guy, no kidding. Markiplier seems real excited about that. I'm only bringing that up because Marki brought it up, I know you're quite sick of that show. But Netflix also has some other lovely additions since you and I last bothered to search your favorites. I'll list 3 that I know you love.

Criminal Minds

When you searched with me, Netflix only had a movie. Sometime between then and now they got the actual show on their roster! Since I saw Gideon in the S1:E1 thumbnail I had reason to believe their archive starts at the beginning. A quick Google tells me that the first nine seasons have been up on Netflix since August of last year. Wow, we should have thought of looking twice! I love what I know of the show, so I know this is something I'll have to resist binge-watching now that I'm aware of its availability.

House, M.D.

Netflix has more than one of your favorite doctors. All 8 seasons of House and his adventures, medical and otherwise, have been available since April of last year. I've seen the beginning and I've seen the end, and I've certainly seen enough to be familiar with House and the characters who have been in his department. Now I can fill in the holes in my knowledge with my Netflix subscription. Since the series ended in 2012, there's absolutely no rush to fill in the holes in my series knowledge; it's not going anywhere, hopefully. I'll certainly have fun watching this on the occasion.

Psych

This show we did find before we separated, and we watched a few random episodes of it. You've seen absolutely every episode of this one. I have to admit that I haven't so adamantly been catching up on Psych, but I've watched one occasionally, hopping around. I believe in the last episode I saw Shawn and Gus infiltrated a posh facility for the mentally unstable. Shawn was a great nut, which comes as no surprise. Wasn't this also the last show we watched together? I think it was playing as I looked up places for us to dine at, before our last outing. Psych came up in my consciousness again recently as I discovered that it is one of the few shows that has referenced Supernatural. I'll pop a few more episodes soon, I'm sure.

So visit me, visit her, or get your own subscription and you can enjoy any episode of any of these shows that you'd like. And, of course, there's much more to watch, too. I've got a few more anime to try on Netflix, then I've got Criminal Minds in my sights. All the while I've got to make sure to keep to my responsibilities. I'm relieved to be able to live so normally now.

I'm not angry for this

I'm not angry at you for not staying by me. I know you were led into this course of action. I can't feel anger during this depression anyway. It should be clear that I wouldn't be angry at you right now. What might be questionable is whether I was ever angry at you since we broke up.

I was angry at you once. Surely you remember that. I was trying to find another relationship, with the person I could trust most. I told you who that person was. She was already in a relationship, so you told her about my interest before I was able to confess. That was to keep her from being "blindsided". When you told me that you'd already told her, we three were driving to hang out at my house. I had planned to confess to her there. Instead, I was the one blindsided. I was so angry that I yelled at you to get out of my car. You insisted on at least being taken to your mom. I dropped you off there.

I was angry, but that didn't quite have to do with not staying by me. When I gave you the ultimatum between your two loves and you let me down, I wasn't angry at you. As we went along being friends, I often acted like a jerk, but that wasn't to vent anger. It was to create distance while you became independent and I looked for a healthy relationship. I wasn't angry when you stopped talking to me, either. I was scared for my well-being. Ever since you stopped listening, I've been scared.

This doesn't make me angry. This scares me. Maybe if you knew that you would act like the best friend you said you were to me.

Precipitation unheard

Droplets float lightly;
precipitation, unheard,
felt only outside.

Tengen toppa gurren lagann

Pierce the Heavens, Gurren Lagann!

Above is Shimón, whose name is suspiciously close to that of everyone's favorite Disney meerkat. Like the meerkat, he lives in an underground village and his place in that village is to dig holes. He's largely an outcast, particularly unattractive to the girls. He has a hand in causing quite a bit of trouble for the village. That's where most of the similarities end, though. Unlike our meerkat, Shimón is the best digger in the village. He's only dragged into the mischief of his buddy and older-brother-figure Kamina. The poor boy's parents aren't alive to be concerned about how he's treated by the village. The existence of a surface is treated as a myth by the village.

One last difference: Shimón's adventure begins at home. He often discovers neat knicknacks while digging, such as the little drill above. That's just one part of the find, though; he also excavates a big metal head in the ground. Before he can show his bro Kamina, a much bigger metal head crashes through the ceiling of the village, flooding it with sunlight. This face isn't inactive, though, and it starts to wreck the village. A girl with an energy rifle swings in by rope to help, adding to the confusion. After brief introductions - the girl is named Yoko - Shimón brings Kamina and Yoko to the face he found. His drill begins to glow, and he's able to activate the face with it; the three jet out of the tunnels inside atop the mech-head and manage to flying-uppercut the enemy head right back up to the surface. Shimón and Kamina see a view like they have never seen before.

This post-apocalyptic scifi anime just gets better from there, as Shimón leaves his home with Pumba and Simba Kamina and Yoko, adventuring into the big, wide world. This anime both expounds on stereotypes and blasts expectations away, providing a commendable balance of moments that you totally saw coming and moments that will likely blindside you. The world of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is slowly unearthed with each episode, the methodical madness woven into an impressive tapestry. Your biggest question may be, "Giant face robots, what the hell?" That actually does get answered, don't worry.

If you're still not sure whether to watch, how about giving the intro a play? I just love it.

So, that's all my words of praise! Watch this anime and I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised by it!

Memorial day

It sounds wrong to say, "Happy Memorial Day!" It's specifically a day commemorating our soldiers' deaths. Can't really be happy about that unless you're an anarchist or have no regard for a warrior's life. Makes sense to be proud, but Memorial Day celebrations aren't usually stoic in nature. Cookouts, alcohol, et cetera. Then again, perhaps indulging in the freedoms that the armed forces protect is an appropriate way to appreciate the lives given for it.

Mom grilled up some steak. We also slapped steak sauce on some veggie patties for me and cooked them on tin foil above the grill. When the patties were cooked, Mom set them on the actual grill to give them racing stripes. It's really crazy how much the flavor of the meat I used to eat was actually just the sauce! The patties were delicious. My brother enjoyed his fill of steak, so I'd say it was delicious too. Also had some white rice with peas and carrots. I've been avoiding white rice, but I piggily grabbed a few servings of the stuff. Mom also made a medley of vegetables, main ingredient being string beans. I ate that right up, too. Yeah, I didn't really limit my plate today. Heheh.

The only special part we made of today was making the food, though. We didn't all sit together to eat. Sorry, we're not that patriotic. Actually, it was my brother's idea to cook today. And he's supposed to be the unsentimental one! My mom thinks he was just thinking of the food, not the holiday. Probably true, but I'll choose to think he cared about the day. I finished yet another anime, Samurai Champloo. I really liked it, especially the soundtrack, but I don't think you'd care enough to watch. So I won't be writing up a recommendation for that one. I've still got Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to write up, after all!

What'd you do today? It wasn't too sunny, but did your uncle invite you for a get-together anyway? I hope you ate as much delicious food as I did and enjoyed time you spent with your family. Even sans family, you got today off from school. It's always nice to get time off school. It's been nice for me because for once I haven't had school assignment to worry about. Yep, it happens once every 10 weeks, haha. I get right back into another module tomorrow, though. Since my bro's back to school too, I'm assuming you are. Hope you've been able to relax!

Another outing with bro and mom

The passed day, my little brother and I took my mom out for shopping! First stop was the mall downtown and, within that, the food court. My brother neglected to eat before we left, so he was starving. I wasn't opposed; it'd been a few hours since I'd eaten, so whatever. First thing I noticed is that the Wetzel's Pretzels there was shuttered, its outside stripped! I instantly regretted not getting pretzels there while it was open just last month. I know that's sad news for you too. Let us mourn the loss of the dear store together. =[

My bro got some crispy shrimp, which he liked the taste of but which gave him a stomach ache. I had my first Panda Express ever: mixed vegetables with eggplant tofu and two veggie spring rolls. Well, that was the order. At first they didn't have fresh mixed vegetables, so I waited on that. When they got the vegetables, they only had one spring roll left over. I decided, what the heck, I'd wait some more. And so I waited such a long time that they gave me these cheese-filled scrumps apologetically. I ended up just taking the last spring roll. The food was delicious, even if the frying pans didn't align for me, haha.

Hitting up Hot Topic, I snagged a two shirts I liked on clearance. One has 12 of the Doctor's mugs lined up on it. I could have gotten a snazzy shirt with Clara and on it accompanied by words of mystique and praise in French. But you know that neither Clara nor French are my favorites. In retrospect, I feel bad that none of those shirts had Capaldi on it. I need to get a shirt with him on it as soon as I can, because I am really satisfied with his Doctor.

The other says "smile, your life is tolerable" (sans comma). I hope it's true for anyone that sees me wearing it. It's definitely more acceptable than saying life's good, and at the least it's funny in a slightly dark way. The shirt is more advice for myself than for anyone else, though. My little brother got a soft, light scarf decorated with police boxes. My mom got a pocket mirror with Arial on it. While the mirror is cute, why get something like that when you can use your smart phone screen these days? Anyway, there were a lot of other options, but we didn't want to drain Mom's purse too much.

Unsurprisingly, the World of Warcraft merch my mom was hoping for was absent at Hot Topic. Physical WoW products were also absent from the GameStop next door. We could have checked out a store called Comics and Stuff, but by that time my mom was too discouraged. Sorry Mom, I should have gotten you into a game that was actually cool. Haha. Anyway, we had more parking garage adventures. You'd think I'd have the structure down by now, but no. While we didn't get lost per se, we didn't really make our way straight back to the car. The thing is that we started in a weird place, but I made our way to somewhere I recognized from my previous excursions. All was well!

We went to Costco to pick up food for today, Memorial Day. We'll be making a nice little dinner, you see. My mom got really uptight about me riding in the shopping cart, so if I can help it I will no longer take her with me and my brother to places with shopping carts. >.> We also went to the bakery for sweetbread and donuts. Since I rejected sweetbread for myself, I instead indulged in a slice of carrot cake. When I opened the container, the carrot-shaped icing popped right off the cake and stuck to the lid. That was just somehow funny. The carrot had a weird texture! The cake was yummy, anyway, and everyone at home at least liked it. Sorry you didn't get a bite.

That's it for yesterday. I've been watching Samurai Champloo, and I didn't leave myself enough time for two messages. I started on the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann recommendation, but I realized that I wouldn't get it done so I switched over to this. That recommendation will come out today, promise. By the way, today is also International Towel Day, so I hope you know where your towel is! Take care~

All is wrong

In this mind, all is wrong.
The truth is sadness, wrong.	My lie is blind faith, wrong.
This pain is nothing, wrong.	A smile is short-lived, wrong.
To embrace demise, wrong.	To pursue lost love, wrong.
Which wrong will make it right?

11-hour sleep

I went to bed at midnight last night. Woke up nearly at midday! That's to be expected when you stay awake for so long. I actually feel pretty fantastic having done that. It definitely doesn't feel like I went a full day without sleeping! Maybe I should do that more often, who knows? Maybe that was a good choice out of the ones I made the past few days.

It would be pretty radical to choose not to sleep every day. There isn't even a good reason to do it except that I can. Isn't it unhealthy, anyway? I'll think more about it, and I'm not set on staying up tonight. Could go either way. I might be feeling effects after all, because I forgot to put the proper permalink on my last message and some Blogger stupidness won't let me put the right one on this message either. I wish I could automate the permalinking on Blogger as I like it, or have not such a permanent link and be able to change it if I mess up, but that's one of the few things I can't do here.

The dogs were a topic that deserved its own message, but there are other little things that I'd like to share right now. One of those things is that my grandma found a little device the other day. It looks like the quesadilla maker, but its inside is deep and flat and the device is really quite small. Whatever the cooker's intended purpose is, it is great for toasting sandwiches! I put together a sandwich yesterday, popped it in the powered little thing, and closed the lid. After a few minutes, I opened the cooker up to find the bread toasted and the contents nice and warm. And, of course, the sandwich was delicious! Thinking about it makes me want to make another this instant.

However, I have another bread-encased meal in mind. We have been getting bolio loafs lately and I haven't bothered to eat many. It's a bit of a hassle to slice and fill them, and a whole loaf is bigger than what I should be eating anyway. I've been watching an anime named Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and it's got a lot to do with drills. The shape of a drill reminded me of half of a bolio. Half of a bolio reminded me of bread bowls. And thus I came at my next meal idea: cut the bolio in half, push open a cavity in the bolio, and stuff the bolio with whatever! I chose cheese and beans as my filling. I stuck the bolio in the toaster oven, wedging it upright in the grill. It got burnt at the top, but it didn't fall over or spill in any way, it was easy to hold, and it was yummy. I'll use that other half when I'm finished writing here, heat it at a lower temperature, and use shredded cheese instead of string cheese. I feel like I should give this meal a name, to differentiate it from a stuffed full-size bolio.

I was considering calling it Tengen Toppa. That translates to pierce the heavens. I feel like my meal isn't worthy of such a name, though, even if it is in reference to the anime. Could just call it a drill, but is it conical enough to be worthy of such a name? Anyway, I finished watching Gurren Lagann today. It is fantabulous! And now I understand that one of the first jokes made in Lucky Star was a reference to Gurren Lagann. The joke was hilarious on its own, but it's even funnier knowing that the punchline was a reference to an actual anime. The Lucky Star anime is only 7 days older than Gurren Lagann, actually; they aired at the same time. That must have been absolutely hilarious for viewers who watched as the series were first aired! I almost feel like I missed out 8 years ago, but hey, better late than never.

I'll write about Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann tomorrow. This is an anime definitely worth publicly recommending. I would have written about it today, but there were too many other things that I wanted to say. Guess that bit of silence did me some good, made me want to open up again! I'm refreshed and pretty happy. I hope you're feeling well too!

Dog updates

I have three adorable little dogs. That statement is more for my supporters than for you. You know my dogs very well, two boys and a girl. I'm going to keep even them anonymous on here. Anyway, stuff has been up with the dogs lately, and I certainly think you'd like to hear about it.

First of all, our little girl isn't feeling so well. Yesterday her lower jaw was completely matted in gooey saliva. When given a treat, she would take it into her mouth but not chew, dropping it back out of her mouth covered in slobber. I washed her head and cut her chin fur short. The fur on her chin looks better short, but the reason for cutting it was so that it'd be easier to clean the drool off. We had no idea what's keeping the poor girl from keeping her mouth shut and from eating. Today I'm told that she had bled from her mouth while I was asleep. That finally prompted my mom to take her, accompanied by my brother, to the vet.

Apparently a cut on the inside of the doggy's mouth was the cause of all this. We and the vet are hoping that her gums aren't infected, but I think her inability to keep her mouth shut means her gums are inflamed and that's a sign of infection. It's a good sign, though, that she isn't drooling as much today. She isn't eating solids, however. I gave her a bath when she came back from the vet. The boys found their way into the bathroom and started sniffing her, even though I turned the water on their faces. The older one actually jumped in with her, so I gave him a bath too. Silly dog.

Speaking of that dog, look what he did to me this evening.

My stepdad was getting some serious growls when trying to take burrs out of that boy's paw. As I'm more respected by those dogs than anyone else in the house, I decided to give it a try. More growls from the impudent dog, plus teeth-baring, and finally the attack. It's not the first time he's bitten me. Partially out of the knowledge that moving your hand worsens a bite and partly to show him how little his biting affected me, I held my hand still until he let go. My mom and stepdad tried to make some point about leaving the dogs alone, but I was half expecting him to bite me anyway so I didn't care at all.

After sternly delivering reprimanding words to the pup, I left to wash my hands. Then I returned to removing the burrs. This time, he stayed relatively quiet. He didn't give me any more trouble. The reason he thinks he's got a place to growl and attack is because my mom and stepdad give him that place. When he doesn't want to be touched or moved, and he starts to bare his fangs, they just back off. With domesticated animals it seems that you have to stand your ground. They won't respect you if they can scare you. That dog takes effort.

The third dog is doing just fine. The boys are very concerned for our girl, and of course this one's way of showing it is by licking her incessantly. Sometimes she's been in the mood to spook him off though. You should see him when she growls at him. When the other boy growls at him, he approaches slowly and fearlessly, growling back. When the girl growls, he jumps back a foot. He's too concerned to run away but too spooked to get near, so he makes quick hops around interrupted by his intense staring at her. That furball gets so intensely jerked around when he feels two different ways about something. The dog even whines with indecision and fear. Can't blame him, you know how scary the little girl looks when she bares her teeth. Scarier than the boys, to be sure.

Well, that's how they're doing. I'm not horrible myself, just my skin hurts a bit from the bites. I'm sure the puppies would be very happy to see you walk through the door again. Someday you'll let them jump on your legs again, won't you?

Oh woah, state of abnormality

I've been awake for nearly 30 hours straight. I'm not trying to brag or something, just stating the fact. I could go to sleep right now, and I could have at any point in the passed day. I just didn't go to sleep. I didn't care enough to go to sleep. I've just been up, either programming or watching shows. There were some times when I let myself nearly doze off during a show, but I could continue to be up.

Things aren't normal with me, obviously. Maybe it's better to think of normality as less of a single state and more as several states, each with a certain degree of normalcy and comfort, a certain blend and structure of activity. What's different? First off, I'm not going out of my way to help people. I'm hardly even going out of my way to talk to people. Instead, I've been programming pretty intensely. I mostly haven't even been coding with the goal of creating a system or program. I've been coding just to implement concepts, to make very non-specific stuff that has a lot of potential uses. You can call them utilities. For the things that I'm doing that aren't uncommon, I feel like I'm doing them in strange proportions. Programming, watching anime, preparing and eating food, and sleeping are habits that haven't manifested in the correct ratios. Like I said, intense programming and no sleep. Food-making has been less frequent and efforted for me. I'm not iterating through so many episodes of anime in a sitting.

Not all of that immediately appears bad. In many ways, I don't really think any of that is particularly bad. I just don't want to feel lost. I want to stop changing in ways that matter only enough to make life feel different, that don't matter enough to improve living. It's weird to think outside the axis of getting better and getting worse. The easiest way to compare today to a year ago is to say that it's worse, so I expect things to become better again or stay worse. It isn't surprising that the current changes hardly mean anything to me. The surprise to me is that they don't actually do anything to me.

Because of all this, I've decided to revert. No more doing what I feel like. I should regain the structure and composure that I had just a few days ago. Very importantly, that means restoring my writing frequency. I won't try to make up for the posts I've missed. One can't take back time, only use more time to pretend to do it over. This experience isn't worth so little that I would try to cover it up by writing in the stead of what should have been written. Two posts each day again, starting tomorrow.

No all-nighter. I should say hi to my friends. Less programming, more effort into food, a bit more anime-watching, and a good night's sleep. Let's see if I can pull it off, being more normal tonight.

Give in a little

Please excuse me for a while. I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk with anyone, not about anything. I missed yesterday completely, without warning. I'm still here, though. I'm safe.

I know I'm supposed to fight the urge to cut myself off, but I've been feeling the pressure now more than ever. I think it's built up, and I need to let it seep out by indulging a little. I just don't want to force myself to bottle it in any further.

It's been nearly 4 months since I started writing Tell Her Before I Die. I've gained many great supporters and empathizers. I'm glad that they're reading and responding, sure, but I haven't seen a single word from you. I'll keep telling myself that you'll read this and that I should keep writing, but another day.

I'm sorry.

Hey follower, read this

Tell Her Before I Die has over 50 +1s on the main page. Only one person follows it through Blogger, but that's okay because I understand that people who don't blog on Blogger won't care to activate Blogger on their Google accounts. My G+ account is followed by over 720 other accounts. The highest number of +1s one of these messages has gotten is 24, and the lowest is 0. That one with the highest +1s was my Mothers' Day message. I'm sure the reason for this is that I made images in several different languages from that message and shared them on G+ with the link. The message with the highest number of registered page views was The braver, with 34 views.

With that recitation of statistics, you probably think I'm about to complain that the blog should get more attention. No, that's not where I'm going. There's one more statistic that I've left out: every message with no +1s and less than 5 registered page views are ones that I didn't share on Google+. I can make one of two things of this. Either most of my supporters only look at Tell Her Before I Die when they see it appear in their G+ stream, or most of them don't look at the posts individually. I've also noticed that the blog's registered page views appear to decrease drastically when I don't share to G+, so it would seem like the former is true. But that Mothers' Day message has more +1s than registered page views, so obviously the page view count is unreliable.

At first I felt bad about sharing my messages to G+. One of the main reasons I started writing here instead of on G+ was because I didn't want to flood my followers with depressing messages, after all. I still feel a little guilty realizing that sharing may be the only way to get people to look at my messages. It's not so terrible, though. At any rate, I'm satisfied and thankful that people are reading this at all.

Forgetfulness and quesadillas

The quesadillas I make now are always stuffed with goodies. The one I made today had cayenne powder and chopped tomato, onion, celery, and lettuce. It's been hard to keep the quesadilla together when I'm eating with all those things in there with the cheese. One response I've come up with is cutting the quesadilla into thirds. Another that I tried today is adding an extra slice of cheese, since cheese is the glue of a quesadilla. Except it's more healthy and delicious than glue.

Why the heck did I do that? I figured out a while back that two slices of cheese is ideal for the size of tortilla that I use to avoid overflow. Consequently the cheese, and some of the quesadilla's other contents, overflowed while I toasted it. Derp. Seemed like a brilliant idea when I came up with it.

What I'm wondering now is why I forgot the ideal cheese amount. Thanks to depression, there have been many times when I was so wrapped up in sudden sadness or apathy that I forgot how to do what I was doing, or even what I was supposed to be doing. I don't think depression is to blame this time, though. I was feeling fine when I was putting my tortilla sandwich together. I've gotta blame this one on good old-fashioned adventurism and forgetfulness! Tried to break out of habit and forgot why the reason I had that habit in the first place.

That's not so bad of a mistake though. Remember that time you were making a quesadilla for me and you forgot to put the top tortilla on before closing the quesadilla maker? You were so upset when you opened the maker and realized your mistake that you threw the quesadilla - well, open cheese sandwich of tortilla - right into the trash. I still would have eaten it if you hadn't thrown it away, I told you. Waste not was, and to a much lesser extent still is, my food philosophy. Not sure what lead you to that mistake, especially since that wasn't your first use of a quesadilla maker and your previous attempts were perfectly successful. I'm glad you were eventually able to look back at the incident and laugh, especially since I'm immortalizing it on Tell Her Before I Die now.

I still enjoyed the quesadilla that I made. After thoroughly moving the quesadilla and overflow onto a plate, I just ate up the overflow with a fork. From there I was able to enjoy the rest of the quesadilla by hand. I'll have to remember next time that the cheese amount must stay constant. Maybe there's some better way to arrange the ingredients. I'll experiment with that and see what comes of it. At least if I make some grave mistake then I can write it off in the name of science, since stuffing my quesadillas is relatively uncharted territory for me. If I forget one of the tortillas, though, I'll be disappointed in myself.

A hello to our old friend

Today was the birthday of a mutual friend of ours. I called him at the start of the hour to give him my best wishes, and we chatted and caught up for quite a while. It's been months since I last talked to him. I wonder how long it's been for you? He didn't mention that anyone else wished him a happy birthday, but I kinda have doubts that you bothered to do so. You don't really go out of the way to talk to people, though you're better at remembering birthdays than I am.

You always complained about having no real friends. You'd have real friends if you kept up with them, you know. Silly hermit fox, it would only take the occasional text or call to keep some real friends. Inviting someone to go somewhere, even just to the mall, would be a great move too. Considering your regular habit of alienating your friends, I shouldn't be so surprised that you abandoned me when I needed you the most. Yet it's still a shock.

Our friend is currently enjoying his birthday currently with Skyrim. Almost tempts me to play Skyrim again, but I don't have any extra content like you and he do. Perhaps once I've taken my last final for the mod on Wednesday I'll play around with it. Nah, I'll probably be busy with something else. My little brother was discouraged by the first episode of the sixth season of Supernatural, so it'll be a while before we watch that again. In the meantime, I've been working and watching anime. Finally working on that big to-watch list!

I mentioned that he, I, and others we know should all just hang out somewhere sometime. He mentioned that we should chat more often. That's the sort of proactivism that friendship is made of. Those sort of casual suggestions are what can make someone really be a friend to you. Try reconnecting!

Handling regret

I was thinking about the last time I tried to visit you. That scary time. I thought someone horrible had done something to you. I was so panicked and I didn't handle it correctly at all, because I didn't know how to. I ended up as the bad guy, when I was lost and too anxious to change things. It's not something that I particularly want to remember clearly, but I do remember each minute of it. I don't want to talk about it now, but I'll likely make myself write about it another time.

This memory makes me very uncomfortable. I know there was a better way for it to have happened, but I can't blame myself for reacting as I did. I know that, if anything, I should blame that stranger who was at your house, but that's just not how I like to think. I try not to blame other people, because I can't control them. I try to think about how I can take responsibility, how I can handle things moving forward. But that incident is a huge regret and truly resolving this mess is an option unavailable to me. There are times when it's better to defy personal philosophy, but that doesn't make the action feel right.

What I noticed today, though, is that I could handle that memory much better know than when it occupied me in the past. It's usual for me to have physical reactions to those kinds of memories, to deal with the feeling of helplessness. The energy helplessness creates is like a pliable clay streaming to places not quite defined, blurring back through some other unclear edge and creating an exasperating loop around my body. Not so much of that today. I was able to reflect while continuing what I was doing, with not even a troubled facial expression. I'm glad to be at a point where that is possible.

It's a step closer to being the right person again.