Journal

Time for the lightning round.

Jordan and I are setting up for our third anime convention and the first one for this year. I've had a tub of various figures that I've been dying to sell for months and am looking forward to meeting people and doing so. There's a chunk of Amiibo figures of characters I don't necessarily care about and a TON of Funko pops I want to get rid of. I want them GONE, the ugly little fuckers. I'm keeping a very small few, mostly my Crash Bandicoot ones and a select number of what I deem good and unique figures, like Wrecking Ball and D.va from Overwatch. Do I play that game anymore? Nah, but they are just cool lookin robot guys. The basic build Pops can go. Need to think about how I'm going to display them and set up an option for mobile payments.

I finally lost my cool about my neighbor's repetitive bassline alarm clock. I understand being a heavy sleeper, but no one's alarm needs to be going off every 15 minutes for SEVEN HOURS. I wrote a note on a piece of notebook paper and stuck it in his screen door this past Sunday when I saw him leave. He didn't come back until Tuesday afternoon, but I believe he got the message! I only heard it like four times today while I've been home. It was going off in 30 minute intervals instead of 15. I think it was also quieter. I can still hear it but you know what, this is good for now. That's a big improvement. We'll have to see how the weekend goes because that's where it's the worst.  I counted the alarm going off 27 times on Sunday alone! 💀

The person who owns and repairs the laundry machines in my apartment complex (I thought that was the apartments itself but I guess not) came in to fix the machines. Good, because a third of them didn't work at all. Unfortunately he jacked up the price for the second time I've been living here. I've spent a lot of money recently on tech stuff, but I'm not opposed to dipping into savings again if I find a small portable washer/dryer combo that I can fit in the hallway closet. I'm not paying four to six dollars a week just to wash the essentials. Not to mention towels and blankets that always require more than one dryer cycle. Shove it up your ass. Literally apartment hunting now because I miss doing laundry in my own home.

Speaking of spending money, I bought a Steam Deck so that I could lay in bed and play Balatro. I mean, there's other reasons but I won't lie, that is the biggest reason. I made super good progress in that game this past week now that I've got it on a handheld. It's the perfect handheld game.

Today was cool. I took the day off and spent time outside. Went through a car wash and then spent a good long while vacuuming out the floors and seats, wiping down the interior, and cleaning the inside of the windows. Normally the insides of the windows wouldn't be cleaned but I left my windows cracked and some overnight rain rolled in, leaving streaks all over. Bleh. The car is nice and crisp and clean now, even put up some new lil guy stickers on the rear windows! Great temperatures coming this week, I'm so excited. Friday is supposed to be in the upper seventies! Sounds like another day off to me. 🤔

End note: I'm on my fourth ticket with Epic support to get back the item they removedd from my account on Januiary 31st. First time they said they'd look into it and let me know when they have more info. They never got back to me and closed the ticket ten days later. Second time they literally never responded to me. Third time they sent me social media links to a completely different issue and said "your issue will be fixed in a later game update, follow these posts for updates when they come." I looked at them and sent them back screenshots of the posts saying "this issue has already been resolved. This isn't the issue I'm having. I don't have my item." They replied some shit like "ah, you're right, the issue has been resolved. Contact us if you need anything else," and closed the ticket. So I'm on NUMERO QUATRO. They said, exactly like the first ticket, that they will email me once they have more info. I'm gonna email them every morning asking if they got that info yet. Until they give me back my item, I'll be waiting outside Epic headquarters with this kinda energy.

I had some thoughts after listening to Stevie's latest episode of their Community Interviews episode, give it a listen here if you haven't already.

That episode was recorded in December and now listening to it in February, I'm realizing my creative pursuits have been at a standstill for a while. Yeah, I've done some writing in the past. Yes, I've dabbled with painting in the past. I've messed around with drawing and music, but thing I noticed that popped up so frequently in the interview was the time these creative pursuits took place. Nearly all of it was years ago. Listening to this back made me a little bummed with how often I was talking about something I did and it was like ten years ago. Next time I do a show like this, should that ever happen, I want to be able to point to more recent projects. 

My goal this year is to be better. Since my last update, I've been exercising semi-regularly (my goal right now is to bike/play Rhythm Boxing every other day and on days I don't go to work) and I've been putting effort into cleaning my apartment way more often by organizing my belongings and throwing out some that are old/unused. This has been great so far! There's still plenty of stuff I can improve on but the improvements I've made to my dwelling already have done wonders for my mental health.

Tying these things up in a little bow here; making stuff makes me feel good and I haven't been making a whole lot of stuff recently. So in an attempt to keep my mental gear solid, I think I should make stuff too! Gotta keep in mind whatever I make right now is probably gonna be trash., but that's okay! You have to start somewhere! I wanna write little stories, I think that might be an easy creative start for me. At some point this year I'm GOING to fiddle with music. I have everything I could possibly need to start making music, including informational books on theory if I wanna take a more educated route. I also have an idea for a solo(?)  podcast-type show that I've been sitting on for two years now. I've been so caught up on planning it out completely before I start and that's not necessary.  I just need to do it. It can be changed later down the line if needed. 

I've also been plotting about the return of VG Radio. I'm toying with the idea of new segments and implementing some small creative bits. I'm thinking of spreading them out to be bi-weekly and doing more themed episodes, both in an attempt to reduce the risk of burnout. No promises this will happen, but I've been thinking about it the past few months. Figured if you're on here reading my ramblings, you deserve a little sneak peak before the masses. 😉

New Year resolutions aren't something I particularly care about. I'll set one or two occasionally but it's definitely not something I feel like I have to do every time January rolls around. On the last day of 2023 I gave myself a goal. It consisted of two pretty broad things. One I completely utterly failed, the other I can technically say I accomplished, but when I initially made that resolution I had much grander expectations, so I don't feel like I saw that one through either.

This year I've decided on a single very broad goal for myself; be better. "But Andrew," I hear you say, "couldn't you just lose a pound and take out some trash and say you've accomplished your goal?" Well, yes. I suppose I could say that. In a way, I'm already better. It's such an all-encompassing goal that I'll pretty much succeed no matter what. I could wash a plate and say I'm done for the year, but that's not genuine. I owe it to myself to push more, do more. That's why I'm tackling every day with this phrase in mind.

I believe that if you really want to reach some kind of goal you have to remind yourself of that goal. You have to remind yourself so much. To the point where maybe it's annoying. Since I've set this goal for myself about two weeks ago it's been the first thought in my mind every day. I think about it multiple times every day. I eat a little snack and leave the wrapper on my desk and think "no, that's not where that goes, be better." Instead of waking up and playing on my phone, I've gotten up and have done stuff before work that isn't just playing video games (the last three days I've gotten up and exercised before breakfast, today I'm doing some writing!).

I had a moment where I was at work yesterday where I was super frustrated at my co-workers. I could have easily called for them to help me with the very strenuous workload but instead I pouted and basically threw a tantrum. That wasn't being better. Hey, I can't be a perfect human being 100% of the time, but I recognize that that was the wrong course of action and now the goal will be to be better and to not let that happen again!

I like this goal a lot because it's so non-specific and encourages just general improvements. What all will be better? My physique? Knowledge? Skills? Mental health? With such a broad goal for the year it's nearly impossible to fail. Now the real challenge is to see just how much better I can be!

Listen, I literally just want to talk about the new Linkin Park album. That's all this entry is.

I've been a fan of Linkin Park ever since I discovered music. Having two vocalists and a dedicated DJ wasn't super common and I loved the music they created. To this day I love the blending of genres present in all their records. Their seamless blend of rock and rap mixed with Joe Hahn's scratching and sampling is just perfect. I don't wanna be too dramatic but wow, there's a reason they've been one of the most popular rock bands since the release of their debut album Hybrid Theory back in 2000.

I can talk about the band and it's history in-depth (I did that in high school a few times, if you're gonna let me pick a topic for my essay/presentation, you best believe I'm picking something I'm passionate about) and I've got thoughts on all their albums but right now I just want to focus on the most recent project, From Zero.

This is one of my favorite Linkin Park records. It's not going to top Hunting Party for me, but it's good! I was gonna make a small list of my favorite songs from the album but sitting here with the physical vinyl in my hands, I realize I like all these songs. I've been enjoying the whole album front to back and I don't think there's any stinkers on it. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be Two Faced. I don't watch many music videos but the video for Two Faced is so fun.  I recommend checking it out. 

This album is real fun. I've said all of their records sound different from each other, and this one is interesting because I feel like it blends familiar themes with new sounds. It sounds old and new at the same time. You hear a lot of those angsty and angry themes/lyrics you're used to if you're a long-time fan, stuff that sounds right at home on earlier albums like Meteora and Minutes to Midnight. Tracks like Heavy is the Crown and Casualty send me back in time and you could easily picture the late Chester Bennington singing on these songs. There may be a new singer but the soul of Linkin Park is very much still there,

Speaking of Emily, I think she fits in really well! Familiar yet new, she can screech and scream fairly well and I think her regular singing voice is even better. With more practice I'm sure she'll do the old songs justice during live performances and make fans very happy! Mike and her tag-team vocals easily and you can tell they had a lot of fun writing and recording the music.

I was gonna do a thing where I pin-pointed specific lyrics and how they could parallel with lyrics from older songs but I don't think it's worth the time and effort. I'll just say that if you're a long-time listener I'm sure you'll find a degree of familiarity within this track list. Give it a listen with an open mind. Maybe it'll sound a little different from what you're expecting, but the spirit of the band is absolutely still here and I'm very happy about that!

Hey, how ya doin'? What's your favorite band? Oh yeah? Well I fuckin' HATE that band. Everything they've done after their second album is trash. Why do they even bother making music anymore? You should listen to something better, let me show you my favorite band!

Have you seen a comment on the internet similar to this? I bet you have. I'm seeing examples quite similar to this a lot recently. Linkin Park, a band I have loved since I've been listening to music, announced their comeback this year following a seven-year hiatus after the death of their lead singer. They have a new vocalist and most of the comments I see about the new music are aggressively negative. Is that because the music is bad? In my opinion, no. Personally, I think it's really good! It really does carry the spirit of the band and I could easily picture the late Chester Bennington on these tracks. It sucks that Mike Shinoda and the rest of the band got back up on their feet and bravely started working on music just for the internet to be all up in arms with comments like, "this music sucks, just make a new band and stop using the Linkin Park name, you'll never replace Chester." I just can't imagine making art you're passionate about just for hordes of internet people to shit on it, but that's what the internet is now.

There's a phrase you might have heard in school when you were young; "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." We need to bring this back because I think a lot of people have forgotten it. The internet gives everyone a voice but that doesn't mean you need to use it all the time. It's okay to just look at something and not immediately react to it publicly. You can have an opinion and not make content out of it. 

For the most part I've stopped using Twitter (X, The Everything App). The only things I'm on nowadays are Facebook and occasionally Bluesky. Bluesky so far has been a pleasant experience! There's no ads and I'm not seeing any of this pointless negativity that does such harm to my mental health. Facebook, however... I've used it since high school to keep in contact with friends and I'm genuinely thinking it's as bad, if not worse, than Twitter (X, The Everything App). If I'm using the Facebook app I have to scroll through 4-7 posts from either pages/groups I don't follow or ads before I see a single post from a friend. When I do see something I want to see, I don't dare look at the comments anymore. It feels comical how over-the-top the aggression is in just about any post at all. To demonstrate this, I'm going to open up a fresh Facebook feed and document some posts and their top comments in real-time (if you're reading this, I guess it's not real-time).

(Following) A woman sharing some hardcore/metal bands she's listening to recently. Comment reads "Cool, I know what not to listen to now."

(Not following) Ign shares info about a character showing up in future Star Wars movies. Comment reads.... god, okay, actually these are all awful. Jesus Christ, just say you hate women, you no-life nerds. Yikes.

(Following)  Someone shared a photo to a group for "pics that go hard" showcasing anime tattoos. First comment says it isn't remotely applicable, it's a decade old, and it's irrelevant. (Who gave you the right to decide that? Weird Redditor mod energy.)

(Ad) Advertisement for Naruto-themed G-Fuel. First comment reads that they love to drink G-Fuel because they love consuming chalk. (This is speaking ill about a brand which like.... halfway gets a pass in my book.)

(Ad) An ad from Nintendo about Lego Horizon Adventures. First post is from a grown-ass white man wearing shades and flannel in a truck saying that he couldn't get through even a few minutes of the game despite him loving both Lego and Horizon and that he is DEEPLY disappointed with this game.

PSA: unnecessary negativity is cancelled. Just an FYI, in case you didn't know. We're putting a stop to that shit. I'm not even telling you positivity is mandatory. I know some days are rough and finding positive things can be difficult. I'm saying the useless petty shit is cancelled. If you don't like your friends' favorite bands, instead of TELLING them that, just listen to what they have to say! I promise it'll make a difference, and if we all do it? Boy, we out here changin' the world.

If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. 

Have you ever done or said something in the past and then looked back at that moment in the future with the thought, "why did I do that, I'm so stupid"? Chances are, you have. At least, I sure hope you have. If you look back at your previous words/actions and you feel yourself cringe, it means you recognize that that was something you shouldn't have done, meaning you've grown and learned since that moment. Well done! You didn't feel progress happen but here's the proof that it did. 

I have a lot of these moments. Times where I didn't think enough before I spoke and times where I was being selfish and not thinking about others. There's a lot of these I probably won't ever talk about in a public setting like this, but I wanted to share one of them that I recalled last week.

I was in high school and in a long-distance relationship with a girl. I'll call her Jane. We spent every day texting back and forth and because of the time zone difference she would often stay up very late just so she could have more time to talk to me. She had a friend, Elizabeth. I didn't know much about Elizabeth but I was mutually following her and some other close friends of Jane's on social media, which is often the case when you have a partner, you create a little web of acquaintances. 

Elizabeth and I had a few things in common. We talked rarely, and it wasn't usually in a one on one setting.  Which is why it was surprising when Jane approached me (this term is used metaphorically, of course) saying that Elizabeth had a crush on me. That's weird. Did she tell Jane that? Why would she? Why is Jane now telling me?  I didn't quite know what to do with this information.  "She likes you and I think you should talk to her and let her down easy," I was told.  Ah, it's my problem. As "the man," (how manly was I really at the age of 16) I was being tasked with talking to Elizabeth about how her and I couldn't be an item because I was already with her friend. Yikes.

With absolutely no plan (mistake number one), I messaged Elizabeth the next day to talk. I didn't get to the point immediately, but eventually we got to the topic of relationships. I started talking about Jane (this would be mistake two). I realize now, I shouldn't have talked about her so much. I should have kept the conversation about Elizabeth and myself. I look back on this now in complete horror, but what I did was talk about my relationship. I gushed about how I fell in love with Jane, about what we would do together, and about how often we would talk. I talked about our future plans. I talked about how she made me feel.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The details are hazy, but I vaguely remember Jane asking how it went, me recapping the conversation, and then something along the lines of "what the fuck is wrong with you," as a response. Whoops. Turns out, gushing about your partner to someone who likes you isn't a real bright idea. I don't remember talking to Elizabeth much after that, especially not after Jane and I broke up. I doubt we're friends anymore on social media. 

Not that you'll ever see this, Elizabeth, but I hope you're doing well. Sorry about all that. You probably don't remember this nearly as much as I do. Or maybe you do. I hope not.

As I wrote about at the beginning, looking back on this incident in disgust means that I've grown. Some way somehow at some point I learned "hey, maybe that would be a stupid fucking thing to do." I look back at a lot events like that now. I would never do those things again. Looking back it's so clear. Looking back on my life in the present tense I'm also going to be thinking the same thing. No one's perfect. We're never going to be perfect. As long as you keep moving and keep learning, you'll be fine.

The minimalist phone thing mentioned in the last entry didn't work out. It was good for keeping me from habitually opening apps like Facebook and Twitter, but in switching phone layouts I lost all my widgets which are actually helpful. I kept forgetting about Duolingo since I had a home screen reminder. My weather widget is also something I use a few times daily and I couldn't do that. I also had quick access to my calendar to see upcoming events, and a clock that showed my next alarm. The app also wanted me to pay for it as a subscription starting after a week so I gave up and switched back. I'm more aware of the time I'm spending on my phone now. I have to constantly be aware of what I'm actively doing on the phone, otherwise I will get caught in that vertical content scroll. Doing a lot better though!

I've decided to step down from my team lead position at work. This should take effect starting this week. I originally went up to this position because I was really bored, but now I've got way too much stuff to do. The shifts seem really unbalanced too, first shift will have to do a certain number of things and then I'll come in and have to do literally four times as much. Sometimes on my own. It's tiring and I will get home most days completely exhausted. I want to have energy to do more streams and to work on creative projects, so that's why I'm stepping down. We'll see how it goes!

I went to an anime convention back in March and I'm planning on doing another one next week! This last one was real crowded and I think that's because the building wasn't really made in mind for events like that. This next one should be at a much bigger building, so hopefully my anxiety will be way more in control. It was still fun though, I got some cool artist pins and prints and the panels I went to were a LOT of fun. It's always an amazing experience being surrounded by a bunch of fucking dorks.

I stopped drinking caffeine and drastically reduced my melatonin use. Soda and coffee started having a reverse effect on me where I would drink it and immediately get headaches. I.... still get headaches... but overall I feel better! I'm starting to get into an actual natural sleep schedule without the use of sleepytime gummies and that's cool. Twice in a row now I've turned my alarm off to try and sleep in and I've managed to naturally wake up ten minutes before my alarm. Twice in a row! Wow!

Since the last time I've wrote on the website I got a new Audio-Technica record player and some bookshelf speakers for it! It's incredible compared to the tiny suitcase players I've had with built-in speakers. I bought Linkin Park's single collection and have played that a few times (I actually wish I had shopped around for it first. I ended up paying 50 dollars at a Best Buy for a standard black vinyl when Wal-Mart had colored variants for 40). I also bought a media cabinet specifically for the player since my player is too THICK to put it where the old one went. That will be delivered and assembled before the GOATS come in; both Hollow Knight soundtracks on vinyl. I'm so excited. City of tears on a plastic disk is going to project my soul to a new dimension.

Anyways, that's all I got for now. I dunno what I'm doing with the website right now. Maybe this is just my own little Twitter, where I can ramble for as long as I want to without having random people commenting on my musings. I'll just type stuff here that isn't interesting enough to tell people on stream or something. Shrug emoji. Until next time!

I've recognized that I'm spending too much time on my phone and I'm taking steps to change that.  I downloaded Minimalist Phone, it removes all app icons and I can set limits on apps I find myself endlessly scrolling on (vertical content is a fucking problem).  My attention span right now is fucked to hell. I'll get on Facebook while food is cooking and then I'll spend two hours scrolling reels. Or I'll open Twitch and be in a stream for five hours. It's too much. I just had a three day weekend and barely did anything with my freetime and I'm real sick of it. The new phone layout makes it harder and less tempting to scroll endlessly so I'm hoping to get my time back and feel better. Cause I been feelin like SHIT. Gotta give myself props though. Nothing can be fixed without ever taking a step. Recognizing there's a problem and starting to do something about it is great! It's not gonna change anything overnight but I started work on it and that's the hardest thing!

Will hopefully give updates later. Hoping to do more things I enjoy like playing games and working on music.

We typically spend a lot of our time in our homes. It's our base of operations. It's where we eat, sleep, and sometimes work. With so much time being spent in one place, maybe even in one room, there are physical things around you that you're bound to forget about. Look around your bedroom or living room next time you can. What's something that you see so often that you don't think about much anymore? Pick it up, assuming you can, and take a closer look at it. Think about how you obtained it. Why do you own this? Was it a gift? What did it mean to you at the time? How long have you had it? Has it changed your life in any big or small way? Now think about it in the present tense. Why do you still have it? Is it important to you? Does it still make you feel the same as when you got it?

I found myself doing this tonight. I looked at my framed art prints on the wall. A signed (by Matthew Mercer) Fire Emblem Awakening print, a print from the first time I saw the Game Grumps live in-person, and a theater-poster styled print of the Scott the Woz episode, 'Borderline Forever.'

I framed the signed print somewhere in 2015/2016. My friend and I saw Matthew Mercer was going to be at a convention in our state. We looked up where it was and decided that it was within a reasonable driving distance. We had never been to a convention before and we both knew Matthew Mercer from different things (for me it was Fire Emblem and Resident Evil 6, for her it was Attack on Titan).  We grabbed my little sister who is a big anime fan just as we were and we all drove out there. It was a long drive to get there and back, but it was one that we repeated the next day as well! We had a lot to see and a lot to do and it was so nice being around so many nerds who were into the same things you were. We bought some merchandise, talked with all kinds of people, I ranked pretty high in a Smash Bros Wii U tournament (I might have won but we decided to leave because it was getting really late), and of course we got to meet and talk to Matt Mercer. I ordered the print to sign as soon as I knew we were going to the convention and got real lucky because it showed up the day we were going to meet him! We waited in line and I got super scared because we only learned once we got there that he was only allowed to sign certain "official" merchandise, which meant no fan-art. My print was absolutely fan-art. We got up to his table and I was sweating. Especially since the staff there with him had told Matt, directly in front of us, that he didn't have to sign our things since they weren't "official," and I was so relieved when he shrugged them off and signed all of our stuff anyways. We were thrilled. We chatted for the small amount of time we were allowed. Part of this included him shaking my hand and saying his line from Awakening, "you are the wind at my back and the sword at my side," and I lost my mind and blurted out "I LOVE YOU." (Looking back, this might be the first hint that I wasn't 100% straight.)

I was gonna write more, including my thoughts about the other two frames, but I've been typing for a bit and my wrists kinda hurt. 

PS. I encourage you to do this exercise! Write a story about something you own no matter how big or small it is. Recall how you got it and why you've held onto it. I'd love to read about it if you do. :)

PPS. Kelly Kao drew the piece I'm talking about here. Check her out! https://twitter.com/kellyykao

I've been streaming on Twitch for five or so years now. It's been fun, but I can't help but look at other people on the platform sometimes and feel jealousy and bitterness. I know my goal isn't to become famous and make a living off of it because I genuinely don't think I'd enjoy it. Having people on the internet pay your bills seems like a nightmare. There would be inconsistent pay, for sure. Your livelihood as a "content creator" is hinging on whether or not you can be entertaining. There's just not enough constants. The whole thing is too flimsy.

That being said I'll still have moments where I feel bitter seeing someone break into the hundreds of thousands of followers after only a year or less. I know I don't have that because I don't take it as seriously as them. Yes, there's an amount of luck, I think that'll always be the case when "algorithms" are in play, but ultimately I do believe I could maybe achieve that if I dedicated myself to it. That brings me right back around though, I don't really want to do it. At least, that's what I've been telling myself.

Maybe I'm just afraid. The thought of putting so much time and effort into something on a consistent daily schedule and then coming up with nothing sounds like a nightmare. I could hypothetically spend time out of every day learning editing, and I could stream specifically to get footage for YouTube videos. I could stitch together some videos, do some funny little edits, do a bit of acting on stream so that everything is grand and overexaggerated. I could learn the ins and outs of social media and work day in and day out to slowly trickle in new viewers. How long would it take me to get somewhere where I felt the work had been worth it? A year? Ten years? What will I do when this is my source of income and a new person comes into the stream who isn't familiar with my brand of humor and then makes a social media post calling for me to be cancelled? I'd be forced to throw it all away because some random person on the internet didn't really like me.

Have you heard the term "unreliable narrator?" It's what you think it is, you can find examples  in media like books and podcasts. A good example I can think of right  now is the narrator Cecil in the podcast Welcome to Nightvale. He has good intentions when he speaks, but he doesn't know everything. He will say one thing that he believes to be true, but that won't be the case ultimately because he doesn't have all the facts. You can't always fully trust what he says.

What if that's me? What if I'm my own unreliable narrator? What if I do want to be a bigtime streamer and I've conditioned myself into hating the online world and "content?" What if I'm just too scared of failure and this is my way of coping? It would make sense. That would explain why I start on dozens of hobbies with big dreams that I ultimately give up on after a day. If I never try then I can never fail, right?

Maybe I just have ADHD. Maybe I need medication.

Ding! The phone screen lit up the dim room. The text message read simply, "Very clever." She was onto me. I don't know how, but she was starting to figure it out.  I've been so careful, how could she possibly be on my trail? I've gone to great lengths to cover any possible tracks. I've triple-checked my surroundings every time, I've ensured I had an iron-strong alibi for every instance, even getting rid of anything, or anyone, that could potentially leave behind a loose thread. 

So how does she know? I guess more importantly what does she know? If she doesn't know the full extent of my operation here then I might not have too much too discuss. If she knows everything she might not be texting in the first place. If she knew everything then surely the authorities would have already been alerted. If she knew the danger she was really in I most likely wouldn't be getting cheeky little texts like this. I think it's safe to assume that I'm still in the clear here, at least for a while. 

What do I reply to this text message with? Do I feign ignorance? Do I ignore her? Do I confirm a tiny detail and let her believe that's the extent of my activities? 

This panicked train of thoughts went on for what seemed like an hour, but was realistically only a few seconds. I unlocked the phone and navigated to the text message. I let out an immediate sigh of relief. She was only responding to a little joke I had sent her a few hours prior. I set the phone down and caught my breath, letting my heartbeat return to it's natural rhythm. With a renewed sense of comfortability, I rose from my seat to start cleaning up the basement. After all, you can never be too careful.

Where can I go to be helpful

to someone, to me

What can I do to be satisfied

with something, with me

How can I feel fulfillment

with me, for me

So... I started meditating I guess. Saw an ad for a year-long free trial of an app and thought, "sure, why not." It's fine so far, nothing immediately life-changing. It is interesting how different meditating is from what I thought it was. I had briefly tried it on my own maybe five years ago knowing nothing about it. I thought "the goal is to have literally no thoughts and this will make me more relaxed," and then I'd get mad that I couldn't immediately banish all thoughts. You don't really get rid of your thoughts. That's just what humans do. We think. We think about a lot of things literally all the time. Meditating (in my experience of doing a handful of guided meditations and nothing else) is about centering yourself. It's about checking in with yourself; checking your breathing, emotions, and thoughts. Making connections that maybe you wouldn't have just going about your day normally. (Is that right? It sounded cool in my head.) I'm gonna keep up with it for now. Seems like a good habit and that's what I really want to focus on this year. Good habits. I'm still not doing super well with good sleeping habits. I was up at 4am again last night. One thing at a time, I suppose. 

This doesn't fit in with the larger topic I wanted to write about today but I wore a light pink v-neck shirt and my pink D.va hoodie to work yesterday and someone said that it looks good on me, that I look good in every color, and that they're very jealous. That made me feel really good! Boosted my mood for the whole day. Spent a lot of time after that thinking, "I should compliment people more often. If something like that can improve my day, I could probably easily improve other peoples' days as well!"

Oh boy. Nothing good can come from staying up until 4 in the morning. I had no legitimate reason to be up so late, I just didn't really want to go to bed. Eventually I had to, though. I had trouble falling asleep which happens if im on my phone for hours and then I try to sleep immediately after. Once I was finally asleep I woke up every hour. I don't think I took any melatonin last night. To make matters worse, the cats were running around yelling at each other and knocking things over most of the night. I believe I heard cats outside that were fighting as well. Finally got out of bed at my 10:30 alarm and went to make coffee. The coffee was incredibly mid. I used ground beans I bought from the store that are supposed to taste like Ihop pancakes. Slight hint of syrup when the bean juice touches your lips, other than that nothing notable. Not a great start to the day but it's not too late to make it a good day! It's supposed to rain all day long and I decided yesterday that I would take the day off (they said it was going to snow and I dont like driving in the winter weather). I fuckin' love rainy days. I'm going to attempt to declutter the living room while I'm stuck inside and I'll probably ask people if they wanna hang out and play games later. Ultimately it's up to me to have a good day. I won't let an inconvenience or two decide how my mood is for the day! 

I have trouble sleeping and that's been the case for as long as I can remember. I'm  trying to get into some better habits this year and one of those is having a better bedtime routine. This past week I've been putting the phone down earlier than normal and instead building tiny Lego plants. It's pretty chill and I get a neat little thing to display once I'm done, I enjoy it a lot! I'm thinking this is not the only set I'll buy this year.  Anyways, yeah. Sleep. I took a melatonin last night, as I usually do every night. I took it a lot later than I usually do, though. You're supposed to take it 30-60 minutes before bed and I ended up taking one after I'd already been in bed for an hour or so and I think that caused weird dreams. I dreamed I was driving my car (which was a fancy SUV for some reason? Maybe that came from the fancy one I rented last year.) to a gas station to fill up. I fucked up and went to the wrong pump and filled up my car with shampoo. Because... one of the pumps had "car shampoo" in it. It was meant for the roof of the car. Silly me. I was mortified. I was making calls asking if anyone knew what I could do or if my car was just ruined now. I didn't get an answer. Next thing I remember I'm in what I think is Italy? But it was also mixed with Brooklyn? I was riding down some stair rails on my feet like Sonic the Hedgehog. I was also belting out the Sonic Heroes theme song. Also the entire city was flooded to a degree that no one was possibly living there. It was a ghost town filled up with dozens of feet of water that wasn't going anywhere.  I was having a blast just running around and practicing parkour moves in a long-abandoned city.  I then woke up with a severe pounding headache that has persisted through most of my day. It its currently 6pm and I have been in bed most of the day. So... what does any of this mean? I dunno. Who cares? I just thought it was interesting enough for me to write down.