~herbe@TTBP



20 march 2024

had a cool chat today! earlier in calc class. my teacher is chill he knows im trans. he asked me about picking the name basil, like, the deal with me being he/him but like basil can go either way as a name. and i told him about my whole deal with names and gender and transitioning a bunch of different ways and he said yeah like maybe you want it to be tricky and bring up conversations and im like exactlyyyy.

so that was cool! i love it when a cis person understands that sometimes being tricksy is the point and it rules.



08 march 2024

AURGH. graugh. fucking hell.

i want to be shredded up like pulled pork.

so i dumped my toxic ass fun as hell evil coded situationship once i met this new person and i was like "i can No Longer be on my Insane Bullshit i gotta give a real person a chance"

but we gotta ask the real questions which is why was i with him in the first place? he made me feel seen for the parts of me that i dont open to other people, or at least never have felt like other people understood.

im multifaceted and hard to get to know and understand and i love evil and maliciousness. there are certain lines that i realized i don't want to cross, and being around him showed me those lines, and showed me reasons why i don't want to cross those lines. but a key part of what we had was, from my perspective at least, was that he wasn't a better person than me. and i feel like moooooost people are better people than me, if im being honest. i dont always Think it when it comes down to it but i sure do feel it.

but like there was 0 pretense with me and him. he was shittier and i knew it, and i don't even think he viewed me in the good/shitty dichotomy, but like... there was no pretense about being a good person, about morals. and i was not trying to fix him, either. i was pretty alright with how he was, from the sense that like, i didn't think he needed to change. people like him just exist. i wasn't expecting him to change, i was just along for the ride.

and within that i was - i am split in twain. well, far more than twain, but Mostly Twain in the sense of there is the hemisphere of me that delights in chaos and cruelty and has no shame in it, and there's the hemisphere that understands and shares in the delight but also wants better for people and wants to be benevolent and is, and has shame about understanding and sharing the delight. and judges the other hemisphere whether they want to be judgemental or not, and tries not to judge, but still judges. even in the way i see this reflected in my ex and am judging him for it. putting him down.

he did really suck though. like, exceptionally bad. and i would laugh with him about it. it was refreshing to be around someone who put up no social pretense. but he was lame, honestly, he was a loser, and i liked him. and i really didn't like him honestly! but he was fun. and in some way yes i did like him.

he made me feel seen - but like, seen for the ways i hate myself most. and that's really meaningful. and where am i now?

trying to be a better person - ending it with the guy, and .... trying to be someone who would be deserving of the affection of this person that i have a crush on now.

this person seems to have a nuanced understanding of morality in certain ways already. i would like to learn more about them and how they Think of things. but just certain things they've already talked about gives that impression. but they're also just like, the type of person who i've decided in my head is a better person than me - as in, seemingly innocent of any major wrongdoing, seemingly benevolent and pleasant to be around. and also just really cool and fun and enjoyable to spend time with.

so the idea that this person - this person more innocent than me (and i say this seriously, because, as a character trait that i will not elaborate too much on, i have seen and engaged in horrors far beyond what is normal for a human. 99% of this world is more innocent than me. maybe 98%.) could see me and perhaps understand me in my dichotomies as a holistic, as an entire person, and maybe even love me and want to know me and want to be with me. thats insane to me. that seems like the highest echelon of what i wanted.

the guy wasn't able to give that sort of validation and recognition to me because i didn't really value it coming from him. and see like, i... this new person, i see them as normal, and i feel like every normal person is better than me. and they're great and cool in so many other ways and just like genuinely a person that im glad ive met and stuff but also they like... are normal in a way that im not, and the guy from last month was also abnormal but not exactly in the way that im abnormal. i mean like he was like 4channy. but like. a 4channy guy thinking im cool and fuckable is like, fun, but doesn't make me feel like i have a place among normal good people. and it was fun to play in that space and let myself be that type of self where i just didn't care about being a dick.

but being around this new person makes me want to a) mostly, be accepted in my entirety by a person that i admire and b) failing that (because i still kind of believe it can't happen) somehow overcome or overpower my dark side and be the type of person they could love, maybe. and that sounds like b) sucks and i really don't want to do that but in a lot of ways i Also don't want to be awful forever.

i hate myself. i love myself only from a third person perspective. i could love me if i knew me but i can't love me being me.



07 march 2024

oh my god. okay. so.

im in a new club and the guy in charge is RIDICULOUSLY bad at leading a club. like holy shit. the other like - okay so fucking this guy is trying to make soooo many useless officer appointments and its so inefficient and just such a bad attitude towards leadership - not even necessarily malicious, just incompetent - and it is so frustrating.

GOD forbid though that i try to become an eleventh fucking Officer in this round table infinite spiral. its just so frustrating to not see things go well. and i left a club i was vice president of because of way less honestly.

however my crush is in this club so i will be coming every day until i die so :) i will cope.

also... :)))))) aUWAHGHGHG>>>>>>>

they are so cute. gawd.

they grow out their leg hair and it rules severely



04 march 2024

awaaaaaaaaa i have a crush.

so i had a fucking insane february that ultimately did NOT result in the Goal. turns out schemes and plots don't always fucking work who woulda thunk.

some of that scheme shit is best left in the drafts but. its like im not letting myself have feelings about it. im having this whole heel face turn like its nothing while im the busiest ive been in years. worn the fuck out.

BUT i do have a crush so. there we go. THERES something to Think about.



05 february 2024

dawg i am on some nefarious shit. im smokin that dark evil pack. yall got me on my scheming business.

anyway life is swag right now im on an engineering team doing weather balloons and satellites. it rules. also i find out if i got a job today.



15 december 2023

dawwggggggg i am so drunk rihgth now.

okay so i am in NEW ORLEANS and we fuckin had a great night honestly great.

im a literally the perfect amoynt of drunk. bro the being drunk feels even more intoxicating than the penjiman button.

DAWG i a m fucke d up. and the worst part is that like imr ready for action. im ready to be aout on the town with my BROS. and nobody is up for being out right now. god damn business trip. motherfucking god damn it. now im left coding shit to entertain myself and keep the world from spinning.

dude i don't even have the energy to write a manifesto or something. what the fuck is even the point. god damn it.

but AUYYYYY tonight was awesome and the hurricane Hit and the sweet white wine for house price instead of normal price Hit and the bourbon street joint Motherfucking Hit and the fucking cigs hit and over fucking all? solid ass night. almost ready to call it a night. not quite. jesus christ though.

and tonight was swag with hanging out wiht friends and shit and i was right where i needed to be for real for real.

god give a crossfaded motehrfucker a keyborard and you'll get shakespeare. who shares a birthday with me btw.

anyway to the Chance Motherfucker who Might be reading this who Isn't Me...

:)

time i oughta sleep.



26 november 2023

wow what a night.

great football game, played a lot of stands tunes, got some good memories of the upper deck audience. did alright marching. had such a crick in my right back hip area. but yeah the game was great, my friend mr.trombonas was visiting with us. gotta hang out with him next semester before he graduates.

then the clubbing whooo weee. made a better decision that was not quite a best decision. my god the milfs. ok i almost fucked up and showed one a magic trick. which DIDNT work on my friend in the bar but did fool the hell out of my friend later in the night.

anyway its not even midnight yet. i had to hardcore remind myself of like, fucking, standards today. jesus christ. so much that i dont want happening is happening and its reminding me what i like. its wild

hey remember that one time in florida i was a Childe and found a 20 dollar bill out on the grass around a church

time to... astrology



20 november 2023

well Okay then.

this is mostly for posterity: i asked tarot what i would need in order to break my emotional attatchment to my ex. i got six of wands, two of cups, four of wands reversed.

the first two cards are super clear: i need a win in love. like, i need some successful relationship, one where things really click. tl;dr find soulmate and i will no longer be hung up about what happened between me and my ex.

four of wands reversed indicates that i need to leave home to find this person, or build a new home with them somewhere other than where i grew up. leaving my home state (which i did a long time ago but have still tried to return to and have thought about moving back to) will provide the ground necessary for me to find whats new and good.

now for the advice on how to make success happen. the chariot reversed and the two of wands reversed. it will be Slow. it is not coming towards me anytime soon. and i have no way of planning for it. it will just happen when the time is right, nowhere near now, the process will be long and theres nothing i can really do to strategize for it.

alright. so im left with this shitty pining until then? fucks sake.

like honestly i know they're not even that attractive to me these days. shhh shut up shut up about how that doesn't even matter to me rn. but like. ugh. i am trying. they were cringe in a lot of ways. i know they've changed but i literally got a reading saying that i would have committed suicide if i had stayed with them in the "perfect" version of events i was wondering about. and i know it's true, i know. they're not perfect. they definitely couldn't handle me as an entire person. i just based so much of my life around them, so down bad psychologically, its like they're a coping mechanism.

a huge shitty cosmic joke. thats what i feel like. i KNOW this has to be some twisted ass karmic "had to happen the way it did" bullshit. and maybe it'll all make sense once i do meet that person out there that will accept me and be actually attractive to me and give a fuck about what i deal with. i mean i can absolutely see how it all makes sense.

i just wish i didn't care so much.

and yeah i can see the unhealthy undertones in trying to move on by finding someone better but i don't know if that's really that serious. maybe it's normal.

i have, for the record, met people that would have been a better fit with me. fucked those things up royally (well, i can really only count the one person that i felt that way about) but im sure there are more people like that out there. god the lore on my life is insane. and i mean actually insane. like whatever you're thinking, i guarantee it is way out of left field compared to what you're thinking. being so strange makes me feel alienated from people.

2023 was supposed to be my baller ass, slam dunk, great fantastic epitome of a good year. Look what realistically happened. First five months were... chill, but purgatory. Then a whole fucking nuclear explosion happened for a month, but I came out of it walking again instead of being disabled. I dunno. It was fun but horrible. Then summer, then returning to college after a year away, which was nice, in terms of being around people my age again and getting back on the path to something in life. And then I've just been in college. Marching band has been nice. I guess it's been a "lucky" year in the long run, which was what my 10th house profection year was all about. But pluto being activated fucked my shit upppppp re:nuclear explosion. Pluto went retrograde in my 12th house and psychologically i was absolutely undone. I'm worried cause in late january of next year (pluto still being activated in my chart) it'll enter my 12th house again along with the sun entering the house at the same time. I'm fucked, and I know exactly what would be the culprit, if I let things get too far. I have to be really careful and learn the neptune conjunct lilith lesson, even though it's hard. I'm gonna be so fucking fragile. As if I'm not already. I'm already flying too close to the sun.

God fucking damn it.



08 november 2023

boy the weirdest shit happens to me.

i just did poorly on a calculus exam. i did study for it but i didn't show up to class every day. missed a lot in my opinion. probably didn't even get a b on it although i only know for certain two questions that i missed, which would make an 88.

i keep fucking up and facing consequences for it.



06 november 2023

day after my tildetown two year anniversary :)



15 october 2023

i had a good day today. there was a festival on campus today that was celebrating our culture (culture of my ancestors too) and it was awesome. i tried a bloody mary for the first time and it was really good especially with the garnishes. there was great music and also crafts being sold and i saw some old friends and i got henna done. although it flaked off kinda early and i hope it sets correctly. there was good dancing and great food, i had alligator sausage on a stick.

i played board games with my friends afterwards and won twice in a row :)

it was a good saturday. the henna has a moon and some dangles and stars. called my mom, she sent me a bit of money, it covered the henna.

sometimes i wonder like. is it ever going to get easier? and i don't have that answer. you would think good days like this would sway me to thinking that yes it does get easier but i can't really say. i think everything is a wave. and the hardest parts will be the hardest parts again and again and come and wash over me again and again but good times will wash over me as well.

i just wish i was around people who understood me. more than just my therapist.



07 october 2023

we got a football game today woop woop, it's the third one out of five total this season not including showcase.



06 october 2023

had some good times tonight. some folks taught me how to play pitter patter, it's a state-specific card game. they really liked how i shuffled (sooo much practice, diogenes) and this one guy took a video of it and was like "this guy is a pro" and put it on his story. he dapped me up, patted me on the back when i was doing good, and i won twice in a row one time. god i fucking love card games.

made me genuinely happy.



01 october 2023

this is just what my life actually is when i look at it.



24 september 2023

had a great football game today. mostly talked with my friend who who went to the same high school as me, mr. trombonas. we reminisced a lot with his other friend who also went there, he's dating the feature twirler. it was a close game but we eeked out the victory, that was really cool, super interesting game. i was mostly texting this barista i gave my number to during the game, but my best friend told me to avoid them, that theyre super emotionally unstable. welp. time will tell if i follow that advice or not. pregame went well but i fuckin missed a lot of direction changes when marching halftime. gotta get my head in the game next game day.

i love it though. this is what its all about. game days are fucking awesome. i love performing. during sweet caroline everybody in the audience did the bom bom bom and we could hear it and it was awesome. also i was high fiving all the kids in the stands before and after. some girl gave them a bit off her plume. gave them all high fives and fist bumps and it was great.

my other friend told me i was really good at playing clarinet which was cool. also they fell on their ass, totally missed the bench.

love game days. god im tired. goodnight



22 september 2023

sooooo i gave my number to a cute starbucks barista uwu. i threw my back out by taking a nap wrong on a deck under a tree outside. had to take off of marching band for the day. back got better by now though.

got some calculus homework i need to start on eventually. we're getting to all the different derivative rules and even though i took ap calc before, this stuff is pretty difficult, i get tripped up. feels like the difficulty curve went really high. made a 100 on the first test though.

had the art critique today for the design class im in. went well, got good feedback. sometimes i feel like my designs are much more simpler than everyone elses but maybe that adds a bit of charm. and they were really three dimensional too so that works good.

can't believe we're on the tail end of september. we have a home football game this saturday that im really looking forward to, its gonna be so much fun. ill have to come write here about it after it happens! i love performances.

all of my shorts are a little too small it feels like, since i gained some weight. would like to get some new shorts but i don't have all the money i need to do that. i need a job. i keep trying to apply to places but they keep leaving me hanging. there's a couple of places i can look to apply left but it's getting sparse. just trying to stay afloat yknow? trying to have vending machine money. my family makes it tough on me emotionally.

i gotta sleep. meow.



20 september 2023

having weird conflicting feelings about this new college that i'm at and kinda missing the old one. didn't think i would be missing it but here i am missing it. it was cheaper for one although that's not a big deal to me right now, it had better support systems at least marginally, it was more liberal artsy, and there was a really great group of people in one specific dorm there that i miss dearly.

i just haven't really found my people here yet at this college. i've found people but i think my social battery gets drained semi quickly after yknow a year of isolation and not being around anybody.

worlds were colliding at my last college and i know i got out at the right time. there were some dire social consequences that i was barrel gun staring right down and my time and space at that place had expired. and i had a really good final visit, too.

i sort of wish there would have been a way for me to stay.

but even then i wouldn't have had the opportunity to change majors like i did here, changing to computer science. i had already wanted to fit in a minor in CS at the old college and just barely might have had room but im glad i get to actually major in it here. but even then it sets me back two years and yes i have gen eds done but itll still be four more years of college on top of the two i already completed.

i guess i just feel frustrated. i wish there were more people here like me. i've found friends but i don't feel like i've found anybody here who actually understands me. my best friend goes here but we barely ever see each other because he lives off campus.

i guess im waiting for things to really pick up for me. im sure they can but it's a lot to adjust to again and although i hated the old place while i was there i find myself missing it. there was a lot more nature around, there. here it's more urban. good to know that trees are important for my mental health. it was a good college and i hate admitting that.

but there was real reasons why i would have been ousted from my comfort spots there and that would have made the whole thing not worth it. having to avoid people in my major, having to avoid critique space back when i was doing an art degree, having to avoid the house i loved so dearly. natural consequences of the things that happened but it still would have cut so deep. yes, i got out at the right time, and it hurts to know that i had to leave.

i had to leave so bad that the universe gave me a whole ass disability one year and miraculously cleared it up so i would have the chance to come to a different college. like, wow, i can walk again level, literally.

i am assuming that i have been plopped down at this college for a reason. yes my belief system works that way. and hey i'm doing marching band again! and that means the world to me! it wasn't just misplaced childhood nostalgia it was real passion and determination and that's being stoked again and that might be one of the only things really keeping me going anymore. and there are more pagans here which is cool. finding so many pagans has been awesome actually we've been doing really cool stuff together.

i assume that the deeper i get into the computer science degree the more interesting it'll get. and it'll set me up for good job opportunities too. way better than i would have had pursuing an art and anthropology double major. that wouldn't have really landed me anywhere except a museum and i don't find museum work that interesting, i've done it before but i think that computer science stuff is more fun for me. tilde.town helped me realize that. now whether i'll enjoy doing it as a profession is a different story and maybe i would be happiest teaching art somewhere but i want flexibility to move states and i don't want to get stuck in the south teaching art for 30 years. comp sci feels like the best option so im glad im still bullish on that.

i guess im just in a slump. weirdly depressed somehow. but i'm making the most out of what i can, im managing my classes, and.... and i should get to sleep before 8am calculus. yippee.



17 september 2023

a fresh fresh return to tilde.town. a restarted tmux (thanks lag) and no more tabs open and tilde.town is mine to do what i would like on it! a big old start from scratch after a long hiatus.

so to get really personal i threw out my sweet laptop i had had since 2019 in a suicide attempt early june. i did keep a backup so i have pictures and files and stuff like that. the stickered laptop back is irreplaceable though, so that's a permanent casualty of my attempt on my life.

i happened to leave a suicide note on that external drive that i had on me during the event. and boy is it difficult to read. it's sharp and spiky and it also reminds me that i lost my journal from 15 years old and my sketchbook from a critical time in my life from where i moved during the events.

im thinking of doing random blackout poetry of my suicide note deranged ramblings and if its funny keep bits and pieces of it like trophies, they can get pretty fucking funny when you let them imply things

its a tricky game teasing out what works and what doesn't.

anyway i decided to reapply to college after getting through that! now i'm doing a degree for computer science. concentrating in video games.

i only fucking realize when im high that i am incredibly emotionally damaged and very very sensitive and still care far too precisely what people think. also theres room to work on myself but im doing a bangup job and its emotionally not too bad.

gonna create an astrology musings page on here i believe

anyway i think i have a second chance at being sober. didn't do it tonight and almost got a hard fucking lesson down my throat, got uncomfortably close and it's really sobering. can't be doing this shit. man what the hell is so great about having an altered mental process. all it does is make me think in different patterns and i'm overhearing way too much and i'm way too sensitive and i carried the god damn god of prophecy and divination apollo.

personal thing to self i will try to go without any substances (including monster energy drinks) until october 18 2023 because that is about a month from now so it's a good long while and it's the anniversary of getting my arm signed by daniel howell i was thinking of getting it tattooed but i'm not totally sure i have tattoo money although i have the closest thing to tattoo money that i've ever had. but i wouldn't have it at the shop that's walkable. i uh. saw some ugly tattoos getting put on people in that shop and i feel like a good shop would say something. gonna go to the more expensive out of my way one if i happen to get a job before the 18th, if not, i'm just gonna wait until i have a job probably and try to organically save the money to get it.

that feels like an actionable goal to work on my whole weed addiction. i should have known that sober i would regret it. it's like a nicotine thing for me like an actual addiction with how much i am unable to say no to it even when it mad fucks my mental up. i'm looking at the delusional ramblings of a suicidal kid and how am i still using weed when it puts me so close to that edge.

i'm so glad that my ex knows basically nothing about me.

it is a good thing to avoid him so the really jumble jumbled terrible emotions don't resurface and it's weird to see them months and months later.

i shouldn't have smoked weed but god damn it i need some sort of plan cause somehow even trying to listen to gods and goddesses omens wasnt enough to stop me. hermes said he didnt approve and i wore him down til he said okay but only to teach me a lesson. apollo didn't approve of it. persephone did? but thats like a new goddess i've started working with and i don't understand why that was.

i need an actual like plan if im gonna stay off weed while im surrounded with it in college. i need to think ahead for like how im gonna react while my friend is hitting his dab in front of me and lets me share.

nobody can do this for me and no i havent stopped passively allowing myself to slip into addiction.

god damn it things become so clear when holding the totem of the god of divination.

i do love having deities that actually protect me. but i juuuuuust about almost got taught a really hard lesson about being reckless. i guess im just really fucking young and feeling kinda helpless considering how much i'm recovering from all at once. it's a lot on me and i'm already deciding not to go out and purchase a vape from any corner store any given day. i've listened to that omen well enough. i don't even think i would be tempted to drink alcohol, haven't pushed for that. weed is just the hardest thing for me and do i have to lean into this difficulty somehow? embrace how hard it is to be sober? fucking google AA? maybe a support group really would work.

i don't know. it's really intimidating, all of it is. and my problem isn't with alcohol, it's with weed. i'll just try to make it a month and see how it goes.



07 may 2023

hey hey hey hey hey.

life is may and it is warm and good in may 2023

i have so much STUDIO SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and it is warm and rich and wonderful.

snapchat is available for the web now but isn't supported on firefox. chrome, edge, safari only. THAT should tell you clear enough what spyware is what. man. paring down soon...



27 march 2023

i am getting ready to take my driving test in a couple of hours :) studying a bit now but I am confident that I am gonna ace it.

I found a typo in the drivers handbook manual, in the Pedestrians section it talks about the visually impaired "carrying a white with a red tip." they forgot the word cane.


I GOT IT!!!!! I Got It. Passed with flying colors. The instructor complimented me too :3

And I drove by myself and sang at the top of my lungs today.



17 february 2023

Today (Thursday the 16th) I completed Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. Went to dinner, came back, completed it again. I'm so fucking proud of myself.



14 february 2023

i took an angry little nap today after my testosterone shot and had a nightmare type of angry dream, sort of. was stressful

was prone to anger but its like, yah, cause i literally just had a hormone spike

so many creative irons in the fire, it's wild. really rocking with the times though

being as present as i can here, enjoying everything around me while i'm in it, making conscious choices to make the most of it that i can. i'm doing my part futureherbe.



08 february 2023

last night i was in the bathroom and when i walked out my dad was holding the cat up aiming him at me and it took me by surprise!! it was really funny. he said that he had to stand there holding the cat for more than a minute and he was afraid the cat was gonna get mad at him

it's a really funny mental image and it was a hell of a surprise i loved it

i'm realizing more and more about astrology the more that i study and live and such, especially about my north node. my north node is in my fourth house and it's very much about learning to connect with others and listen to them and also set down roots in a community and have family around me. basically, because i've felt so estranged from family in the past, it requires effort for me to connect with them but it is very rewarding to put that effort in. it's important for me to feel connected to my family. so, although i've been feeling frustrated about where i'm at/waiting for it to be over, i've also tried to have a sense of gratitude for where i'm at, and really lean into the gratitude and letting myself be right here, right now. and it's not difficult per se but it does take some amount of effort, but it's nice. i need this, i'm right where i need to be. i don't need to wait till i'm 40 to actually work on this stuff, it matters right here right now.

it continues to be rewarding, emotionally

i'm also continuing to look at my own emotions and i'm really staring them down. i've had to refigure my emotional strategies with myself, i can't think my emotions into the form i want them to be. that's not what actually works. every time i'm scared of my emotions, it's a lesson, it's an invitation to look at the feeling and see what happens when i embrace the fact that it's there. and recognizing the emotions when they're there teaches me a handful of things; one, that no, nothing is disastrous about the emotions I feel nor about recognizing the emotions I feel, they are simply emotions. two, that accepting they are there and taking them for what they are is what actually encourages their fluid motion and change. rather than repressing them and expecting something new to take their place, accepting that they're there allows them to naturally flow or stay. but it's all about accepting what Is There, not about forcing or trying to control them, even when i Want my emotions to be a certain way. accepting what is there that i'm scared of opens the door for new emotions too.

anyway. my priority is me! also i have the feeling that there's a lot of connections and realizations on the other side of this process, and that i'm doing a really good job closing some stuff out. but like... just because I know that there's deeper reasons going on and just because i can almost realize it doesn't mean that it's the right time for me to draw those conclusions. it's actually super duper the wrong time to tackle a lot of stuff so I just gotta let time keep going and know that i will get to it at some point, for sure.

i don't have to endlessly tug at every string. there will always be more loose ends. i'm walking the hell away, walking towards myself and my art and my confidence and every new thing ahead of me. my pace is fine! i'm doing more than fine, i'm coming so far so fast, honestly.



29 january 2023

my anger was systematically stolen from me.

my entire adolescence, my anger has been stolen from me. never allowed to be real.

(vriska says that's what happens when you grow up with a spider lusus 8itch as manipulative as that woman was)

i remember being so fucking angry at her, all the time, having to parent her. having to shush her fucking nuclear temper tantrums. i lived through hell. i lived through fucking hell growing up. and i was always so fucking angry at her but i could never express it because every spare forgotten moment without conflict with her was a fucking treasure. it was so rare. so i wouldn't cause conflict myself even though i fucking hated her and i was so angry at her because i wanted every moment without yelling and bitching to go on for as long as it possibly could.

i remember one night. after school practice. i was 15. there was this other guy that we had agreed to give a ride home since he lived nearby and his parents didn't get off work til like, 9pm, and practice was over at 6:30. so my mom was supposed to show up at 6:30 to pick me up. my friends were leaving practice, a couple of them saw that i was still there at school, they offered me a ride, i said no, my mom's coming, i also have to give a ride back to this guy so no thank you. the folks at practiced dwindled. my mom didn't show up. 6:45, 7pm, 7:15, she wasn't there. i was calling her, over and over again. both phones. using the other guy's phone. my band director came to sit outside with us. she wasn't going to leave until we had a ride home. i used her phone to call my mom, too. voicemail. voicemail. voicemail. voicemail box is full. 7:30, 7:45, 8:00. i didn't even know this guy that well. we were on good terms but we never really talked as friends or anything. he just looked at his phone to pass the time. did i have a phone at this point? i don't think i did. i was calling her off of his phone, off of my band director's phone. 8:15. me and my band director get to talking about classes. i had done engineering last year, but they put me in the beginner section again since they were reworking the program. i thought i might like to do engineering as a career, but i didn't like the new teacher. she asked me if i only liked the class because of the teacher. it was a good question. 8:30, 8:45. called her again. again. voicemail box is full. i didn't have any other family i could think to call. (she hated our family, she isolated me from them so much, she made me think that they didn't care about me because they hated her for being a bitch.) (i probably could have called my aunt.) (i wish i had.) (i felt so alone.) 9:00. the other guy calls his parents. they're on their way.

9:15, and we were sitting out in the dark for nearly 3 hours, and they drop me off at my house. it's night but the door is wide open and the living room lights are on.

my first thought was wondering if she had committed suicide.

i walk in, terrified, i find her lying on the couch unconscious, i wait and see her breathe and i'm relieved and then i am so, so fucking angry.

i take the phone and go out on the porch and call my girlfriend and tell her everything. and i am steaming mad. i'm fucking furious. and she's furious with me. she supported me, she knew how fucking awful it was, yes, that woman was so fucking terrible. my girlfriend and i talked for a while about it. i was so angry. it felt so good to have someone see me and be angry with me.

i went back to my room. after a bit she was roused from her fucking slumber and came in my room. she asked me how i got home. the fucking AUDACITY to have THAT be the FIRST FUCKING THING SHE ASKS ME. She asked me as if she was fucking ACCUSING me. She did not ask with concern, remorse, with regret. She said it like a fucking threat.

She abused me for my ENTIRE CHILDHOOD.

So she shows up in my room and asks me how i got home and i tell her the guy that i was supposed to get home, his parents showed up and brought me home. And I told her first that I didn't want to talk about it that night. That we would talk tomorrow. Nope. She made me talk about it that night. And i was so FUCKING angry and when i tried to express that she shut me down. She was always louder. Always. And she told me she had taken an anxiety pill (a klonopin) and that's why she was asleep.

SHE FUCKING TOOK A SLEEPING PILL BEFORE NEEDING TO PICK ME UP FROM SCHOOL. She KNEW it wasn't just me, but also another guy too. She didn't even have to pick me up every day. 3 days out of 5 I took the bus. But on the rare fucking occasion that it was embarrassing and shameful for me to be left in the dirt, cause it wasn't just me, but another guy caught in the crossfire, THATS when she fucking really ups the ante on how fucking shitty of a parent she always was. SHE WAS A TERRIBLE MOTHER.

I was so angry and she did not fucking APOLOGIZE or take ANY accountability. Nothing. There might have been a sarcastic sorry but there was NO remorse, she was pissed off that I had the audacity to be upset at her.

And my grandma had died. And my grandma was gone. And we had all lived together, the three of us, for my entire childhood, and she was gone, and I think that she would have noticed that I wasn't home. I think she would have woken my mom up and told her to go get me. But she wasn't there. I miss her so much. It's very nearly almost 6 years since she died.

I'm so angry. I'm so angry still. I'm so fucking angry.

The next day my band director asked what had happened. I told her my mom had taken a sleeping pill.

For a long time I was only able to access my anger because it had fucked over that other guy. I was so used to her being shitty, so used to her abuse, that I had lost the ability to be angry for myself. It just wasn't tenable. If I had been angry every time I had the right to be angry I would have been consumed every day by rage. I was powerless. I couldn't spend that much energy. But she had fucked over someone unrelated. I wanted to say innocent, but I WAS INNOCENT TOO. And I deserved a mother. I had a lusus.

And since she had done that I could access my anger, because I was angry for someone else. Same thing about a couple of years back, my friends were in the back seat with me, I "ordered pizza wrong" (hung up and called again), she nearly crashed the car while screaming at me. I was crying. My friends were holding me, we were all terrified. I could be angry at her for that, because she had hurt my friends. But I deserve to be angry for myself.

So for a long time too, honestly only until thinking about it now, I felt so guilty and ashamed. As if I should have known how much of a flake she was and I should have known better than to trust her with responsibility. And I felt ashamed and like that kid's parents would have hated me, or he would have hated me, or as if ANY of it was my fault at ALL. I dunno how he felt (probably not great about the situation) but I was a victim of my mom and I was a victim in the situation, sitting out in the dark for 3 hours, not knowing if she had fucking killed herself, not knowing whether she would come get me. And those parents probably didn't -- no, there's no way they blamed me. It wasn't my fault. They would have known, hey, that kid's mother is not reliable at all, but they saw I was left there too.

But a little part of me had really thought they would have blamed me until I thought through it now.

I'm angry at her for being a terrible abusive scumbag. I'm angry at her for ruining my childhood. I'm angry at her for not giving me a safe stable loving supportive or at least predictable environment to grow up in. I'm so angry.

I have to learn to access my anger more. I think I wrote a year ago about how anger is so hard for me to access, but I have a lot to be angry about. I have to let myself be angry. I deserve it. I deserved so much more than what I got.

I used to really regret that that night was a night where someone was relying on me (no, my mom) for a ride, but today... I'm so fucking grateful I wasn't alone. I don't think my band director could have given me a ride, since she was a school official. I think if she could have given us rides she would have about 2 hours in at least, yknow? But if that other guy wasn't there, I would have had no-one. I didn't remember anyone else's number except for my mom's, anyway, and I didn't have my own phone, no contacts, no way to call friends who may have helped me out. And she was out out out asleep. Door wide open for hours, I guess. I think if I hadn't come home she would have stayed asleep through the night. I would have been stranded. I don't know what would have happened but today, knowing it wasn't my fault, knowing nobody blamed me, knowing it was entirely my mom's fault, I'm glad the other guy's parents showed up and helped me home that night. I'm glad I wasn't alone.

It's hard to admit that I'm glad I wasn't alone, because he was also stranded, but... I needed someone to help me out. It's okay that I needed help. With a mother like her, I needed a lot of help. I still need a lot of help. God that's hard to admit.



25 january 2023

okay, i'm still heartbroken. you got me there.

i'm still heartbroken, i can't ignore the physical feeling of constriction around my chest

...but it really was progress. and there really was and is progress and my mindset has changed

but part of it has to be the freedom to look at my heart, look how broken it is, and say yes, this is heartbroken.

and also know that i can keep living and loving and finding new people and worlds even with a broken heart.



21 january 2023

i DID IT

I DID IT

I did it!!!! I have done so much but I have Especially done It.

this is a triumph !!!!!!!!

So. I am speaking of coming to peace with a situation that has been on my mind for basically my entire adolescence, since the very very very beginning of high school. I went through the entire experience and now I am finally at peace and life is so much more than what that was.

I was even talking about this as early as the first start of my tilde.town. My whole spiel on "friends and friends and a fixation" and a hug that was far too tight. Like damn I been going through it. Beeeeen going through it. What an emotional state. It wasn't even -- like it was less than a year since the friendship ended at that point, it was really recent at that point honestly. So I begrudge nothing of myself for going through those emotions and riding them the whole way through. Nothing was wrong with the pace at all. It felt like it would be forever when I was caught in the middle of it, but now that I'm past it (two years, almost, since the friendship ended) I realize hey, wow, that pace was extremely reasonable.

And it feels so so so good to have put it to rest. Like, yes, I am burying my first love. I gave it a eulogy and everything, it was a whole process. I really did it, though. I believed in myself and I got here, and I feel so free, and I feel like I have my wings. And my clarity. I'm so proud of every part of myself, of every time of myself. And I'm so happy to be here where I am.

I've lied to myself very often about this situation but for once I feel like I'm not lying to myself, finally I feel like I'm not lying to myself when I say I have peace. I tend to be a perfectionist with my emotions (virgo moon virgo moon) so like it's hard to accept that it's okay that some things feel a little prickly but overall this is insane progress and I really do have peace. It's now peace with prickles orbiting, not prickles with peace occasionally glimpsing in. It's a much better balance, and I feel happy about how things have gone for me. And like... the joy was real in its own time. Nothing erases what was real. I get a new beginning, now, though. And I am EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean I really cannot overstate what a milestone I'm at. It's so fucking huge for me, it's beautiful.

I don't feel the need to shrink or hide any part of me. I feel huge. I feel expansive. It's a process to learn to expand myself and be radiantly me and I'm enjoying the process and I love where I'm at.

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so so so proud of myself. I'm so happy. I am so READY for this YEAR!!!!!!!

I'm also going to be having a stellar time with all my creative irons in the fire!!

I'm feeling fucking fantastic honestly. I feel in my element. I am so very myself.

Anyway. I'm happy and proud of myself. Talk more soon!



14 january 2023

hi it's me my self respect

i am self respecting at an all time high and it feels excellent!

i am really just totally fucking grooving. i had an EXCELLENT friday. what a friday! second testosterone shot too. wahooooooo!!! god it feels so good to be back on testosterone.

making more art ykhowitis. also thanks aphrodite for today

<3



07 january 2023

i love the liminal space of early january.

there has been no grand lead-up that has focused on the january as itself; all the oh-look-a-new-year is really focused on the entire year ahead, not just the january on it's own. january is the start of things, but when i look back at years i've lived, i don't define them by their januaries. i think of what things were like in april, in october. sometimes in terms of decembers, too. but januaries are loose and light and woven into the beginnings, partials of new stories, beginnings and settings and starting over.

i love the liminal space of the first week of january.

i restarted testosterone yesterday!!! at a lower dose with a smaller needle than before. i'm really fucking excited about this, i've been hardcore missing testosterone for a while, i have journals about it since like, last august. and here i am! re-estroginization over and here's testosterone. fuck yeah. autism be damned my boy can work a gender.

this time around i'm grooving as a lesbian in full lesbian vibes, also i'm rocking xe/xem as The Pronouns (xe rhymes with they and xe/xem is plural pronouns. also xe're turns to xey're. but that's just like a style guide tbh the whole point is the funky art of them, no presh on the particulars)

looking forward to further voice drop, thicker body hair/more of it, general face shape stuff, hands... gonna b Epic....

it's nice cause like i'm Starting Testosterone with all the starting testosterone excitement but i've also gone through a year of full dose already so i have a bunch of progress i'm happy with, its a best of combo

hoping to cruise out and take it slow this year. been very very happy thus far this year :)



31 december 2022

well well well well well

meow!!!!! final day in 2022 here we are :O

i am about to snooze tonight. but i would like to share a few thoughts here and a few thoughts when i wake up. seeing as it is my last late night up in 2022 and i almost went to sleep midway through writing this.

for the first time in a month, maybe more, i had the energy and strength to clean my room up a bit, and throw things away and take my trash bag out. and i wasn't in terrible pain afterwards immediately. i mean we'll see if i get a pain flare up tomorrow but like... this is fucking huge progress. i didn't push myself farther than i could take it but i was able to pick clothes off the floor and set them on drawers/chairs and to take a trash bag down. and this has been insurmountable and painstaking for... 8 months. 8 months total, I guess, I've been dealing with disability. But i was finally prescribed medicine and it's working. I know I'm scared to call it working after less than a week but after seeing no improvement and honestly just degeneration for like, almost a year, seeing any improvement makes me so hopeful. I really do feel like I have more energy too. Can stand up for a little longer than before. It's a low dose right now and def just a first step but I'm so so so fucking glad to finally be in medical treatment.

2023 feels stellar from my point of view. I am so so so very excited to meet it.

2022 -- and I'll leave more of this pontificating to herbe of tomorrow's wake -- but 2022 was a genuinely wonderful year for me. it felt like a promise of better days well kept. it felt like a reminder that even when i don't know where to step next, ground will be under my feet.

and holy shit so many fucking awesome things happened!!!! holy!!! shit!!!!!!! meeting dan howell, giving him my art, doomed! was an AMAZING show. what a good night. i even got to see backstage :O cause i was using my rollator and this other person had a cane and we couldn't get down into the venue's seating with all the stairs, it was really hard. so we went backstage and used the elevator back there and i just Augh!!!! it was so cool!!!!!!!! magic magic. i MET him!! we have a picture we had a conversation!!!!! that has been a dream for me since 2015 at least if not a bit earlier. not to mention the show itself was fan fucking tastic. He Was There!!!! Also i was watching w prescription tinted sunglasses (i didnt have my own glasses i had to borrow my friend's) and the orange glow was so fuckin sexy and in character for the tour's theme and all that. Honestly improved the state of things.

also! other AWESOME shit happened in my life. i know getting covid started the whole being disabled thing but like the case itself was mild and the college paid to put us up in hotel rooms with grubhub budgets so i was ordering food every day for a week. which was pretty slick and it was a nice hotel room and i took a good break cause i was approaching burnout at that point. and me and my partner had gone to an amazing party before we caught it. like yes we caught it there and that sucks but got damn it was a fucking good party. it actually meant a ton to me sentimentally, it was a huge turning point for me in accepting myself and feeling like i was starting to feel okay socially and could fully exist as myself. it mattered a lot.

there was this one really great time over spring break where me and a friend took a bus to town and went to an asian market together. i think we got like... reuben pizzas out of a food truck on st pattys day? like literally sauerkraut and corned beef. i liked mine a lot at least?? its a funny idea, i never heard of it before, but i loveeeee reubens so hell yeah. and they fired it in the oven in front of us. the asian market was awesome too. i found my new favorite hot sauce, chin-su. plus assorted goodies including BEANSICLES. yes you heard that right folks black bean beansicles. they're coconut pops with plain black beans in them. they, they just taste like beans. they really just taste like beans. i was eating one while walking down the road and there was some sort of get together me and my friend passed on the street and we walked around them on the sidewalk and the ladies called after me when we were near to make room for us on the sidewalk. and the ladies called after me like, queen, beautiful, all that (i had a great outfit on not gonna lie) and that was so nice honestly like i felt loved. that in particular was good vibes.

also i saw my best friend early this year and i may see him again in the next!!!

lets see well also my 20th birthday was fucking AWESOME. not only was i on tilde.town and making my Teenager project (which felt soooo fucking great) (artistic fulfillment goes brrr) but also i literally just had the birthday of my dreams. like. i think that is the most favorite birthday i have had thus far. i really can't remember any one that would have beat it. my friends were there, it was a huge party with all the folks i was close to, and there was party part 2 at my room, and it was faaaaaaantastic, and my polyam lesbian friends slept over in my bed and it was so comfy and gay and fucking awesome //OwO// not to mention how that led into my springtime Lesbian Toyotathon !!! polyam lesbian toyotathon!!!! boy what a wild ride that was. so many pretty folks,,,,, that is all i have to elaborate on here. (and beautiful poems)

and ahohoho? ahuhuhuhuhu? are we arriving at summer of 22?????

so i couldn't do the summer program i was signed up for because i was too fuckin disabled to do archaeology and this shit happened so quick. so like. i literally just. i just booked a ticket back to go see family in the state i grew up in, that i had to leave five years ago, just because i could!!! just because i wanted to visit again so motherfucking bad and i was already hoping to go in august so i just moved everything up. and i saw my family! and i saw my cousins and that meant the absolute world to me. i'm so glad i got time with family. also got to see old friends there and that was absolutely wild. i mean it had been 3 years, pre pandemic, since i had set foot there at all. fucking wow right? i missed my friends so much. it was so emotional so emotional. that was deep seated closure and also continuation. like. i'm not dead. part of me is still there, with my friends, and i can come back. it just... it brought so much clarity to so many parts of my emotional state and story. and there's more questions it brought as well but i don't think that's a bad thing... just a continuation of the journey. i got to stay there for a whole month :)

and then i actually fucking saw a doctor in late july ??!!! mind you i did not know what the fuck i was going to be up to over summer. like. i did not know where i was gonna live, what i was gonna do. i knew i needed to drop out of my college due to the campus being so inaccessible for me. i knew i Wanted to drop out of college for a smattering more reasons. like really fucking bad. and the people that were around me were like no don't. and i fuckin did it anyway. and you know what? i sent the official withdrawal email while listening to fucking All Star by Smash Mouth. i recorded it too!!! it was a really strong choice for me. there was so much that went into it. anyway when i went back home i thought maybe i was gonna find someplace to live there. but like two days after i landed in my hometown, the college called and said they found a doc that could see me, even though they had said it would have taken at least a year before i left. so fuckin lucky!!! so i rebooked my flight to go back up to the college i had just left (and thought i had left for good.) and i saw the doc but i also had already withdrawn and it had been processed that day so like. he told me that he could run hella tests but he couldn't do anything if i wasnt gonna be In The Area. and i had already decided i firmly would not be. But he ran tests and he reccommened the meds for next steps, but i had to go see a new doc for that. And i'm on them now only because i saw him over summer so my new doc had something to go off of.

just so very happy for things lining up. so happy to be fucking medicated rn.

yknow it actually does mean a lot to me that i didn't get stuck back in my home state. i'm not restarting from the beginning, i'm not looped back, and i get to keep moving forward. and that's big for me. i get to do this. it's really good for me, and i got all the time i needed in the space i was in, and i loved it there.

and here i am, staying with other family. i've been here since late july. i also revisited my old college in october while i went to see dan howell and holy fucking shit that went so well. and i went to new york city in the middle there! holy shit though. it was amazing. amazing amazing amazing like... yes i missed it there and i got what i really needed and it ended on an amazing halloween party and i got all the experiences basically. like up and down the list i got all the experiences i missed from college. and i let myself take up space there and i saw my old friends and it was a dearly needed month and a wonderful time.

also just generally living here has been pretty good?! i feel like the family time has made a big impact on me in a way that was missing before. i also been up to not only Activities but Hobbies.... i was practicing and performing in a symphony and it felt fucking great to perform with such a great group. haven't had a concert like that in five years i guess. always were tiny groups after but no, this is the real deal. the christmas concerts went stellar. had to miss the halloween one to go see dan howell but like i was going to go fucking see dan howell no matter what i had had tickets since may.

another huge fucking thing this year has been the taste of financial... anything, really, that i had gotten. i had saved stimulus packages and was able to work at my work study job and like for the first fucking time maybe ever i had more than 150 dollars in savings at one time. i was saving for my summer program but ended up too disabled to go digging yknow. so i just. used the mons to buy plane tickets and also buy VIP dan howell seats the MOMENT they went for sale. i thought i missed the meet and greet option but i fucking found a seat that worked and HELL YEAH DUDE. HELL YEAH.

i have never a) had the money to treat myself in that way, b) had the freedom of self determination and not being a teen living with parents to just do things the way i want to, and c) had an official ID with which i could get on a plane like i had this year. and holy hot damn did these things turn out so beautiful for me. and ive made such strong choices!!! and ive been so beautiful. and confident. i mean seriously though i like. had 5 dollars total for a whole month or two in 2021 ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER TERRORS AND HORRORS of that year. i lived that shit, i didn't know how i was gonna eat, couldnt afford my healthcare, etc. so this was a huge difference. just feeling very grateful and more safe.

god i know i said i would let daylight herbe write most of this but i went on my roll!!! this year has been excellent. oh also in terms of artistic fulfillment i've been doing css based art (and like. based on my own art ive made physically, and like, crunched up beautifully with digital filters) over at ocimum.neocities.org and i'm gonna start directing irl ppl to that place to replace social media. (didn't want to link irls to town necessarily so i made the neocities)

i feel great. i made a videogame for a dear friend this year. in two months! learned gamemaker from scratch, did not know a thing about it! didn't know much about coding honestly??????? like i had. Touched javascript. and it sploded. but i used gml code for it and hella youtube tutorials and really got it working. and did all the digital art for it too. it was such an involved project and i adored making it and my friend's reception of it and reaction meant the absolute world to me. also i did advent of code and got a solid bite on python! learning to program in python and problem solve!

yknow something really beautiful is that i don't even feel like this year is a peak yknow? like it is soooooo special and important but 2023 is gonna be so bright and beautiful and fantastic for me. it's gonna be amazing. i don't even necessarily like.... need to look at it intuitively any deeper than that? there are some things i Know im looking forward to and something that i am sure is the biggest surprise i could never see coming and i am just so eager to be surprised that i just want to walk into it smiling and not worry too much about looking for details.

if tomorrow's herbe has anything to add, be my guest! for now... au revoir, et bonne nuit, 2022! thanks for the lovely times right when i needed them


alright i know i am a perennially sunny optimist but hey there im have-slept-already herbe and i have other things to say about this year.

i think appreciating the good and revelling in it is very important and i enjoy doing it but i have a habit of being so fucking stubbornly optimistic and positive that i don't let myself go into the shitty emotions because they run so fucking deep in the sewer that i'm afraid i'll get lost and forget the sun still rises.

i had to give up a lot of things this year. either taken from me, or by choice, or by responsibility necessitating it. i fucking had to give up walking. or, walking without a mobility aid. moving around without pain. i had to give up the sensation of not being in pain in particular anywhere in my body. i had to give up my college experience. i had to give up being around my community of friends when i left college. had to give up being in a dorm that felt so fucking much like home, had to give up my room that was reserved for me (a single room!) (no roommate necessary!) and had to give up my whole next two years there. i went back, i realized the place had changed, but it was also enough of the same that i would have been happy. i would have had ways to be happy. it would have been beautiful. nope. had to give that up after the vacation ended. and i had to give up being in the community groupchat. it was entirely my responsibility and choice but i had to give up being in that groupchat, which was the only place that i had a social connection to many people in a groupchat. now i just have people to message directly. its different. and i don't fucking know ANYBODY in the town i'm living in right now. oh, sorry, no, i do know, lets see... some very lovely people who go to my grandparents' church. and some retired music teachers i play in a symphony with. but i gave up having a social circle of people my age, of people like me, of trans people, of people who can call me by they without a second's hesitation. of people who SEE me trans. and! i can't go back. i can't go back to visit. i have to give this up as well. i cannot go back to that college to visit, can't go back to my old dorm to visit, i mean there is one week Maybe but i have bigger plans that i would rather go with, i just cannot go back and it will never be the same. there would be no fucking point in it with everything that would be my responsibility to manage. i would have to avoid the only fucking house i lived in and loved and the only place i would even want to stay on campus. it's not my place anymore. it was, and i loved it, and i was loved there, and i can't go back and it fucking breaks my heart.

And I Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllll liiiiiiiiiiiiiikeeeeeeeeeee i went through some Very Similar Things five years ago! I feel like maybe actually kind of totally this is all the same fucking emotions i was spinning around in five years ago! Minutely different context but this very base very wide very deep feeling of i was loved, i left, i can't go back, this all fucking HURTS. And I'm in a state where I know nobody, where I have no opportunities to meet people my age currently, and I'm just like, oh boy, where the fuck have we seen all this before, yeah? Haven't we gone through the SAME exact shit five fucking years ago!!!!!

my heart hurts it aches it aches it aches. may we remind ourselves, herbe, that this is still so fucking early in everything in our life!!!! i'm turning 21 next year (which will be so fucking epic) but like i'm still not 21. i am so fucking young. ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING EVERYTHING I HAVE BEEN THROUGH IN MY LIFE. like... i had to take one of those demographic surveys for my new doctors appointment... and, well. i basically had to list everything that's ever happened to me with a couple of social workers. and hearing their reactions to things and also taking the time to talk about everything that's happened in one sitting (while only barely scratching the surface, story wise, context wise, only giving facts) and like... it was haunting. like, i told them one thing that happened two years ago, like yeah definitely serious but in terms of shit that has happened to me? it is like. C tier in my head in terms of relevance. but they took it seriously and they were like "oh ok so not that long ago" and like... yeah no you're fucking right it wasn't that long ago actually. fucking NONE of this was that long ago. i haven't been alive long enough to have any of it be long ago! and all the shit that happened in the middle there has been the Biggest Fuckin Deal so like, i just... i treat this type of thing as my normal, or i forget that it's not normal, or i forget that i shouldn't have had to go through so so so so so so motherfucking much. like i think about the situations in my life that i have had to accept as normal, treat as normal, and now i'm seeing -- Really seeing and understanding -- how these things affect me to the bone and how this ripples to my emotional state and interpersonal relationships and it's really fucking sad. none of this has been long at all. at all. i know i talk about five years as a big deal right now cause it's like... a quarter of my lifespan i've lived here, but... look, herbe i know you're here in a couple decades or more i KNOW you are!!! and i know that you're here reading my new years eve missive of 2023 and I know you're here understanding just how very little time i have had to live with all these things and live past all these things and see that life is more than these things. you get it. you get it and i'm trying to get it better by imagining you.

In Other News. I just went down with my family to see the fireworks tonight and the show was so so so beautiful it was all so beautiful. my legs hurt and my heart raced and i had to sit many times on my rollator over what would have been a 3 minute walk, and i'm in pain now. i haven't been on the meds for long so i hope more can be done for sure.

but the fireworks were gorgeous. It was so fucking beautiful. It was over the water and so gorgeous and it was special, and i felt like... wow! wow, this is it. this is the year that i have been waiting for!!! it's here it's here and happy new year! i've really been waiting for 2023, it has been such a bright spot that i've looked ahead to, and i don't even know what's in it yet!!!! but i know it's awesome and epic. and it is HERE BABEY tomorrow - a matter of hours, i get to be IN 2023, not just looking towards it!! god i haven't been so jazzed about a year coming up since 2019, and that year slam dunk ruled for me, so like. i am just so absolutely excited. the fireworks were AWESOME, lots of beautiful patterns, and at the end there was a huge surprise and the fireworks went SO high and covered the whole sky and there were patterns and it was like -- i was trying to tell my dad "they were tempering our expectations" but i couldnt get the words out i was like HOLY SHIT!!!! holy SHIT!!!!! couldn't finish my sentence! that fucking ruled. there was a nice russian lady with a cute curly dog that sat next to me too, she was friendly. anyway. Great night and happy new year and I love fireworks so much. Fireworks are sooooo magical. I love watching fireworks and it's just ,,, ah!! it's spectacular.

so... i have no idea what to expect specifically in 2023 but this time i know it is good vibes!!!!! it is good vibes. surprisingly fucking awesome. and here we here we here we are!!!

all the stuff i said about this past 2022 being beautiful and out of this world and excellent times and surprises and good times i needed is real and honestly this year has felt so excellent to live in. like, what an adventure. but everything else i said still stands too. two truths and all that. i think keeping in mind that this was my First Year Ever after all the ahem, Events, of 2021, helps me understand that like. yeah! yeah i deserve a lot of fucking credit here!!! and i did great and life got great and like, a lot of things are going to be happening all at the same time so soon after big things like 2021 happen. (and i wanna give credit to 2021 herbe too -- holy fucking shit. i respect him so much. i love him. i would cry over him. i would grieve and hold him and be there with him so he wouldn't be alone. that year has value, too.)

but hey here we fucking are!!!! 2022 was great and 2023 is HERE FINALLY!!!!!!! i get to LIVE this year!!! i don't just have to, remember things having happened. im living it here and now!!!!!!!!!!!! (Almost) (True soon)

congrats, and happy new year, and i'm so fucking psyched i'm here. and thank you aphrodite for everything and especially for how beautiful the fireworks were.

meow!!!!!!!



26 december 2022

so after doin all my stuff with terminal based vim for a year it turns out i get annoyed when other IDEs don't have vim shortcuts. I mean I know that using vim to navigate gamemaker studio is not what the general public would want At All but god damn it i would love it so much. it would just... its like it would fit some intuition that i've been building since i've been doing all my creative work and all my learning to code while using vim. i used visual studio code on github to do advent of code and i chose only to work out of vim in the terminal. i really do not like how some of these editors autocomplete brackets once the opening bracket is typed. also i gotta fine tune the settings on my gvim on my laptop to be a bit more like tilde.town's. i really like how the line numbers are displayed. maybe i should go for neovim? idk.

i feel faaaaaaantastic. so As It Turns Out. I have not taken an actual Vacation Break, since two weeks in October. So I have been Taking a vacationbreak since one week ago. this it turns out is Very Important.

taking a break is quite Important and so i will be riding out this break for as long as i can make myself take a break.

it turns out! that! completely unemployed completely chill and living with close family and supported, i am happy! and safe. and i am disabled and they support me so much. which really makes my life so much so much better. this has several positive effects on my life.

i am YOUNGGGGG I am 20 years old. I can recognize how much of what i'm living is SO gonna be grouped in with me Being Young when i'm like. an adult remembering my life through certain eras. like i have some idea in mind for me personally that i know i am crossing the threshhold into adulthood quite soon. it's gonna be a new experience and a very distinct one due to different factors. so like. right here to this month to this day to this christmas i have been recognizing that this specifically is my distinct vibes as myself. like i'm giving myself all the room and space to have a safe happy not-hungry hobby-rich artsy teenage christmas. which i have not had before ever. so getting This One was really special.

i also think life is just generally gonna get better from this point on. and this feeling fucking rules. i also am finally the vibe i have WANTED to be for SO LONG!!! i am finally the person in the situation i WISHED i was in in 2015. i have been WAITING for this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok like i say i have taken a break. For one i finished a huge project on the 17th. I had been working on that since the end of october. <3 I taught myself gamemaker and did all the art and watched so many tutorials (mostly specifically one guy's way of doing it) and it was a birthday gift to a dear friend. She didn't expect it at all but she loved it so much. I borrowed ~abraxas's sentimentalbloop.mp3 for the video game's background music. There was a part where the puzzle was to complete an ear training exercise, to listen to a tune and reproduce it on the piano. And she said the perfect level of difficulty was trying to listen to the piano music while this beautiful orchestral piece is in the background.

(Apparently I made the little tune uncharacteristically hard for an ear training exercise? Cause she's really good at it but she said it was "twelve tonal" and I don't know anything about ear training so I just made a jaunty little tune that I thought sounded fun. Also the jukebox tune was in one midi soundfont and the piano was in a different one cause i thought it Made Sense. Gameplay! And acoustically i liked it better.)

I've been taking a break cause i finished it but i have yet again filled the void with art projects. ocimum.neocities.org and especially /art.html cause that's where everything i've been doing the last week is. i have also spent my time: chilling out. being awesome. also there was Christmasssssssss and i got a lot of nice things. definitely ups the vibe.

in other news jupiter has entered aries and is moving into the third house imminentely! me well i think it is so cool that i have an information device and a program that colorfully and elegantly shows the exact true position of the stars.

there is also a camera function! complimentary and derogatory. at some level it is useful for video calls but! I miss my old laptop that had a swivel camera.

i have since covered the immovable laptop camera on my Regular Guy with a bandaid that i got from being a VIP at Daniel Howell's tour. i MET HIM. I HUGGED HIM. I HAVE A VIDEO OF A LITTLE OF THE INTERACTION AND I -----------

So miracles happen. Personal miracles happen. I know what a miracle looks like to me when i fucking see one!!!!!!!!

the bandaid says ask me about my injury

jupiter is in the secound house in aries at this moment, which is my house of aries, although it moves into the third house soon

NEW BLOG IDEA cause i Can't Stop Coming up with Things to do.

one of them is to make an astrology based journal.

The other idea i had was that the schooling system is inhumane for many many reasons but like one idea i hold in particular is that there should be the option for a gap year between eighth grade and high school. Like not mandatory but could be freely chosen. i think not having a gap year and a BIT of time to just Chill Out and do hobbies is just inhumane honestly.

See one of my hangups about the astrology journal is that i was worried for privacy reasons if it would be too much to give away. Cause it would be too obvious to who i am in terms of mental and emotional state. I think though that it is actually quite obtuse to most people and so my autistic worry that it would be Too Obvious is a bit funny. Like I consider telling y'all that aries is my second house and jupiter is there right now... like that reveals a lot actually.

hmmm... my second house of aries starts at the 25th degree. since jupiter is in the 0 degree and coming out slowly further direct into aries, it's not quite in my second house of aries. aries rules my second house but jupiter is currently in a degree in my first house. and it's in the General third house. my first house is ruled by pisces, and due to pisces being my rising sign Jupiter is my chart ruler classically. Neptune is the modern chart ruler but it's either jupiter or jupiter/neptune for me personally. Jupiter is in cancer in my birth chart, and jupiter is exalted in cancer. It's also in my fifth house in my birth chart, barely 2 minutes into cancer's fifth house.



25 december 2022

it's christmas eve and i'm in the gregg zone.

the gregg zone is the song ReDoin by JerryTerry on youtube on repeat for quite often hours at a time

it's my mental health stability pride music.

it is my groove.



22 december 2022

i have to charge a respectable fee for the businessing. i'm valuing my time and effort.

i have to be clear about the money. i'm not doing this for free or for exposure.

glad my family has my back.

really just some disrespectful ways of talking about the compensation aspect. not professional, jonesing for free. this is freelancing, not volunteering. "not gonna get rich", "you'd get a gratuity", "good for resume", doing it as a charity rather than a job. yeah no this is me freelancing. didn't appreciate the tone it turned towards and remembered how vulnerable i am in that situation. its like my family was my union there tbh. i can't sell myself short.

in other news i am so delightfully catching my vibes.



21 december 2022

i wonder, wonder, wonder...

tomorrow i have a lunch and consult with two folks about being hired to design two websites. i thought it was one website, now it is two...!!!! i'm hoping for the best and eager to have the meeting. it's gonna be great.

i wonder i wonder i wonder.

i'm romanticizing the present moment while living it. im sinking all the way into my nows.

SUPER fulfilled artistically at this point right now. been doing neocities art. did two tonight, write quit and pomegranate. they look so different on desktop and mobile and yet so artistically coherent and like a pair, like... each view enhances the art and the experience of the art. i've been feeling Great about it.

business tomorrow!!!!!! tonight i feel so jazzed about my future and i'm peeking into the romanticization of being 20!!!!!!!! for me specifically. the romanticization of 2022 means that i don't know how much i enjoy my art until i'm ten years older and i'm getting that ten years older mentalitity in the Here and Now,,, cause making art is such a cool feeling.

watching leverage tonight >:D then i get a lunch and a deal meow



09 december 2022

boy howdy. boy and also howdy.

well, i ran out of space in my journal. usually i handwrite, and i've had a journal since the end of september (and many other before it but this specific one has been since late september) and i filled it over the course of two months. lots of writing! writing every 3 days or so actually, sometimes more often.

ran out of pages around the start of december so i suppose i'm back to good ole fashioned feelsblogging. it's a bit different since i know it's in a public space, but like, i know i could bury them/private them but i don't want to. i think the differences in the medium are something to be embraced in my case. (but i'd really like another notebook, haha.)

whirlwind of emotions this week! shit happening to me that made my therapist's jaw drop. i mean i was already driven to madness by what happened but the validation of her acknowledgement of all that mattered a lot.

it was really a one two punch of a weekend, and i've been told to allow myself to feel the whirlwind of emotions that wreck me because the alternative is supressing them which is not the move. like. like all the emotions are here!!! there is no place for rationalization or suppression or any of that shit because that is not the domain of emotions. gotta feel them authentically.

SO HERE I AM. unhinged. look honestly probably the singular thing that was holding me together after all this was advent of code lmaoooooooooooooo. like deadass. side note i have loved advent of code so far. got all the way through day 6 doing them daily (as daily as possible over a busy weekend but like still) and this is in no small part to the absolute groove i would get into while coding which would take my mind of Things and Events and Occurences. the problem solving was nice to get invested into yknow. also i literally have not had experience programming before this so this was super great as a way to get my teeth into all that. i mean, really, aside from html/css, the absolute most i had done with programming before this was a smidge of javascript, cobbled together after a friend helped me figure out how to send an API request, and a bit in JS where i fixed someone's tutorial and made it work better for me for site-wide navigation bars, and print() input() in python to create typed effects, and defining one function in python to get it to type letter by letter. the only function i had ever done in python up to that point was that function i found somewhere. so diving into advent of code really took me up headfirst! i think we're at the point after a week that the skill has outpaced the things i've been able to teach myself in one day's time every time but it's been a lot of fun in problem solving and working with an answer and hammering it into functionality. transmuted a lot of my Life Frustration into Code Frustration which was then kinetically made into Code Euphoria when stuff would actually work. i still clap and go woohoo when my code works after a particularly hard bit of debugging, usually involuntarily, cause it just feels so great. so yeah! python! learning python! really finding my legs in it.

anyway yeah. i uh. i hit my limit when i realized i needed to learn how to code a general tree in python which I Could Totally Figure Out How To Do but it's a bit more than a day's work and i do have other projects and things i'm working on. but as far as practicing the art of problem solving it's been great, and i actually do look forward to bigger puzzles that i might really be able to sink time into when i have free time to spend. it's fun!

now when it comes to feelings i had some really great conversations with my best friend. so... basically, a situation that i was in got the bandaid ripped off of it this last weekend, and really dissolved, and that has been like a Source Of Misery but it also got me thinking about what it was bandaiding over the top of, which is a lot of emotions from longer times ago that i have been grappling with for years. and i realized that to "get over" this longstanding situation i was trying to move on by focusing on this present day person. but the bandaid is gone now and i return once again to facing the situation head on with no buffer. anyway. when i was talking to my best friend he told me that all this rationalization of my emotions, everything i was suppressing, was totally... just not helping the emotions actually be felt. logic is not in the domain of emotions, i have to feel my emotions without trying to force them into a logical box. like. i do not have control over my emotions. they are simply present. and so my sweet best friend's advice was to lean into it. it'll take practice to uncork and to feel but i will feel. its also scary to lean into the madness because in recent years it has translated to Actual Literal Madness through various forms but like.... yknow i think i just practice again and again and each time i come closer to peace. but peace will not be forced and i will not logic my way to peace. for as long as i'm insane about it, i will be insane about it, but... it won't be forever. at some point i will reach peace if i let myself fully feel the emotions, even if it comes in waves, i will feel all the waves of emotions and get where i want to be on the shore.

anyway! i'm sleeby. see y'all later.



06 november 2022

well well well well well!!!!!!

it's still november 5th for about thirty minutes more for me... which means it's my one year anniversary on town!!!!

god I have loved it here so much. i love being part of the community and offering my own little blocks in the big building going on here.

i've been working on hella projects!! and i've absolutely loved seeing folks in town and following what they've done. have appreciated the friends I've made here so much.

i really can't overstate how impactful having this environment has been. like... i always wanted to get into coding and web design and having my own website as a kid ("as a kid," i can get over myself lmao, i'm 20 and still definitely in Kid Realm, or I at least have the prescience to know I'll change so much in the next handful of years and beyond to look back on this period of my life as very young indeed) but I never knew where to start or really how to teach myself at all. this place really made the difference for me :) i'm learning everything I always wanted to learn and having a lot of fun in the process. projects upon projects here!

emotionally... wah!!! i think i've been alright actually? i mean. emotional spirals have definitely Been Occurring and have been difficult to deal with and i find myself often in a state where i feel frustrated and i feel like i need to Think about Scenarios in Certain Ways. Like... as if there's a correct sequence of words to think and then something will be revealed or solidified and i'll stop feeling so damn shitty. as if i can think my way through emotions. (virgo moon virgo moon virgo moon.) obviously this is just a way to punish myself for feeling bad as if it's my fault for not knowing how to think my way out of a mess.

but i have noticced that my baseline emotions are much more stable and more positive. god, especially compared to one year ago. baseline, i am much more chill at this point. i've been laughing a lot more recently. i've been letting things be good.

in any case things have been solid all around and I have loved how 2022 has gone for me this far. really just a solid year all around. lots of times hella enjoyed, lots of friends i've spent time with, lots of good memories made. i deserved a good year like this :) it's not over yet but like still. i'm really, really happy with how all this has gone lately.

i'm gonna go work on my "now" page!!!! ~herbe/now is gonna be my now page :) i'm gonna do some css updates over there and transition the rest of my main site to use the new css too.

peace!!



30 august 2022

aurgh.

i miss testosterone.

that's definitely not like the first thing on my mind tonight but its the easiest to say. i miss testosterone. i don't like how hard we retransitioned. i wanna oscillate. i miss my transmasc swag.

my wrist hurts. just like every joint in here fucking hurts here and there. god this whole disability thing has gotten fucking tough, been tough.

i might even have just continued journalling in my book if my wrist didnt hurt so bad. but im low on pages in the journal, and i finished my thought overall i think, and... idk. i still haven't figured out what i'm totally comfortable sharing here? knowing that people, like, Read This. i haven't been on town allllll that much lately.

i, uh. i feel like shit but that's probably largely attributed to a) emotional processing that was going on tonight and b) its like 11 at night for me.

it is really a lot to give up on something that i was really confident in for so long. even when i have doubts on whether ive completely given up yet. as a whole though i think its for the best. and i do mean that. weighing everything, i do think logically its the best direction even though my heart is entirely torn apart.

i feel taken care of, i /am/ taken care of and safe and loved here. and honestly its absolutely what i need right now.

i am a whole soup of emotions, honestly. the feeling of being somewhere in a new beginning, the feeling of trying to float back down to earth, the feeling of loneliness and isolation, to an extent, and also ridiculous optimism that is very hard to maintain.

i'm okay, though. even this emotional wave ride isn't drowning me as much as i remember it doing in the past. i have a better raft

i am loved and i am okay. and i'm not really alone, either



29 june 2022

(for the purposes of Diogenes, my feels page is completely Out Of Character) yoooooooo i'm having a fucking blast making diogenes. like the creative inspiration and the visions for the future of the project are off the fucking charts lmaooooooo. happy new moon!

i'm ready for everything new to come into my life, to keep rollin into my life. things are good.

planning something big this weekend, in terms of getting some fucking justice.



27 june 2022

It's a Monday and I'm at home with my aunt and uncle after eating some BLTs. Drank some green tea, it was my favorite kind back in the day. Cooked the bacon myself but my uncle sliced the tomatoes. And my aunt got me some lettuce too. I was just gonna eat bacon by itself but I saw them getting some sandwiches so I sprung for one, plus some chips.

Basil, I just want you to know that these are the good ole days. And know that I knew that while I was here and in them.

It's hard to find many more words than that for what I'm feeling right now.

My cousin visited over the weekend, I saw him Friday night, then we hung out all Saturday and he played minecraft with me on Sunday morning. We played slapjack and we also played a handful of games on my laptop, I showed him Fallout New Vegas (he immediately met the brotherhood of steel lmao) and I showed him Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. He called it "hammer game" and he said it was Thor's hammer, ahahaha. He was awesome at the game. He was even giving me tips once he got the hang of it!! We had such a great time. We also had gone outside and went on the swing bench and then we threw walnuts at each other, hahahaha. That was fun :3 And that first night he went and caught lightning bugs and handed some to me too.

I feel loved. <3



15 june 2022

i think i figured out something about why i don't like the living situation - I don't trust the family I'm living with, on a fundamental level. there's too much baggage, too many stories, too many issues. drama and all my family hates each other and talks shit about it. the ones i live with and the ones i used to live with and all the PTSD i was trying to escape here and all the pessimism and negativity that i do not fucking wanna live around! they treat me like a burden. they keep talking about me in ways that paint me as a burden, and fuck that. i'm tired of that.

good news is i'll only be here a month. and i'll see so many wonderful people. i just haven't really gotten the chance to start seeing them yet, but this weekend will really kick that off. it'll make every bit worth it, i know it will.

i just gotta give things a chance to get better and change and improve. and i'm really seeing how much I've grown as a person, which is nice. it feels very weird being back in a place i only associate with childhood. i'll be glad to make new associations though.

really i think that this whole thing is baby steps. i've only spent four nights here. and when i left, i wished so so very hard to come back, to see the people i missed. and it's been a very baby steps experience to see how that wish has come true in different ways. the first time (six months after i left) i had a chance encounter here during one of the most traumatic events of my life. like in terms of wishes being granted it was in the most strict sense of it, and it was good for what it was but it was still during a traumatic event. well, a year later, i got a more complete version of that wish, i got a weekend here by chance. and i saw some people! and it was good! and i was so glad it happened. it was still too short of a visit for my taste but it was good. and it was like another baby step.

then obviously the pandemic happened and i had a whole two year finding myself hullabaloo and obviously didn't return, but this time i'm here for a month. it's a better situation than living with my mom but it's not a good living situation because my PTSD is still triggered bad. it's okay but it's just tense enough for me to be uncomfortable. but it's another baby step. honestly, having a house and food is great for me, and a place to stay for a month is great, and i'm glad that this gets to be a longer visit than i've had before. and! i'm choosing to be optimistic, i genuinely believe that after i leave this time, when i come back it'll be even better for me somehow. i don't think that this is my last time visiting here.

so let me be clear with myself about what i want when i visit this place: i want to stay with a friend. either a friend whose family is nice and healthy or a friend who lives on their own or with a roommate. i want to feel like i'm appreciated as a guest. i want to feel free to leave at any time, i want to have good boundaries and communication, i want to stay for a while and then leave once i've had my fill of time and visits here.

healthy environment healthy people good vibes.

its the 15th of june in 2022. what a day. what an odd odd little day to be around, 15th of june, 2022. i could never have predicted that i'd be where i am now. it's nice seeing life happen and i'm feeling alright :)



14 june 2022

I think I just gotta keep seeing people that aren't related to me by blood.

That'll make things better for me, in terms of feeling like myself again. I always felt the most me when I was around my friends. My family all have a certain image of me in their head, and they all project on me in different ways. They all still call me my birthname even though I'm trans.

I'm enjoying the time with them and I'm enjoying getting to know them as an adult, for sure. I just don't want to live with them. It's been made abundantly clear to me that my aunt does not want me staying here more than a handful of weeks.

It's weird cause like, I've been figuring out my own life, my own situation, taking care of myself and making my own decisions and doing everything on my own, from applying to schools to taking care of as much of the technicalities as I can. My family has never been people that I have been able to rely on (prior to this specific visit) and yet they are eager eager eager to comment on my business and worry about me and tell me what they think I should or shouldn't do and what I should or shouldn't prioritize in life. If any of them had actually provided any material help to me in any of the processes or traumatic situations or tough bureacracies I've been forced to navigate on my own in the past, maybe their opinion would hold some weight. It doesn't.

Saw my mom today. It was a nice day. She projects on me too, and she gives advice based on her perspective and her biases in wanting to keep me in this state and dependent on her. I realized that both my aunt and my mom give advice based on what they want and what they project onto me, not from a place of actually knowing me, my interests, my strengths, my capabilities, or my actual weaknesses.

Anyway, a doctor's appointment materialized for me! Happens to be in the state I left though. Even though I came to this state to get medical treatment. Well, I was finding out today that that would be more complicated than I thought. Still going to make phone calls around here but I would love to treat this place as a temporary summer stay, and not a permanent housing situation. I'm prioritizing medical care either way though. But the doctor's appointment is with a specialist, and if I started care in this state, step one would be to get insurance in this state, and /then/ go to a primary care provider and /maybe/ get a referral, so I really don't want to jeapordize what I might be able to get in a different state by setting myself back here. I'll be able to travel back up there, it'll be okay.

I'll literally be okay. I'm tired of people trying to tell me I won't be okay. I know what I'm doing. I know myself and I love myself.

Wouldn't have ever been this confident or self assured the last time I was here. Proud of my own growth :)



12 june 2022

Well.

I happen to have MANY thoughts feelings ideas and opinions this sunday. The typing is slow cause the SSH connection must be slow cause i'm in a garage.

I'm back in my home state for the first time since late 2017. I was homesick all 2018 especially when shit was so rough in the first half of the year. Fucking sad, clinging to hope for better things elsewhere and for somehow better things at home.

I've not yet been in this state for 3 consecutive nights since 2017. I'm spending my second night home tonight.

My whole thing that I was happy about when I left this place back then was that I was getting away from my abusive mom. I did. And I proved that I'm good about setting boundaries even when she's shit at respecting them. Stuff like just ending the conversation when it goes somewhere I've told her not to take it.

Well, my whole thing coming back was that I was planning to stay with my aunt, her sister. And her husband, and my other aunt and uncle are on the property too. My aunt is a full time caretaker, they've been hospitible, I've appreciated being able to visit. She made it clear that this was not going to be permanent, and after being here in person, I'm determined that it won't be permanent. To be honest, she's my mother's sister. They're very alike. And it's put me in the same PTSD situation, feeling like a vulnerable kid walking on thin ice. I don't fucking want that. My friends never made me feel that way.



08 june 2022

took the main feels link off my index but it might be linked elsewhere in the site

i don't care i just needed it a smidge more private

i'm trying to get out of this fucking dorm and drop out of college and i'm also dealing with ridiculous pain and lack of mobility from my fucking disability complications that i don't know enough about

trying to fucking do anything but i am disabled and i fucking need help

And then i heard my suitemates (single room but small suite) fucking talking (all able bodied, all people i haven't really been able to hang out with and see because of being fucking miserable) and one of them said "there's disability and then there's disability" and something about... you know i don't fucking know or care, it was something about me being hard to live around i think, and this girl was trying to fucking say that "theres disability and then disability" like she knows a single fucking thing about any part of my body.

yeah i might not be fucking amputated but i am in so much terrible fucking pain that when i tried to walk outside without a mobility aid my right leg went numb 5 minutes in

i smoke weed to deal. i cannot leave my room because of how much fucking pain im in. it defeats any point. i am fucking miserable i am in so much chronic pain and i don't know how the fuck i'm going to survive my imminent airport trip much less packing. i know the smell sucks for people. im trying to leave as soon as i fucking can.

fuck them for not talking to me directly ever about anything and then gettting pissy and ableist and trying to act like they have ANY place to decide what is or isn't fucking disabled enough to earn their fucking pity

if they have a problem and expect me to change they need to be fucking adults and confront me and we can have a conversation

like it really wouldn't be that hard i'm just so fucking mad about people talking shit about me while i overhear it.

the only reason i think i'm even letting myself be angry is because i'm going through another major PTSD episode and have better access to self righteous emotions because im fucking furious at everything that has happened to me. it is HARD.

fuck them.



27 may 2022

Stevie Nicks's birthday was yesterday. This post brought to you by Stevie Nicks

Hey. So, I turned 20 over a month ago. The things that have happened over the last month sure have been happening!!!!

Major developments: School year ended, grades are fine, I am very much physically disabled and over the last month my physical strength and joint pain and flare ups have been increasing to the point I can't walk on two legs to the bathroom without needing to lean on the wall.

I'm "staying the summer" at the dorm at my college for a summer archaeology program but honestly like... I'll give it a go, I'll see what I think, but I think that I will be hitting da bricks maybe day 2 or 3, who knows. So. Quitting my summer course that I was excited for. Hrm. I'm sad that I can't do the course because of where I am with my disability at this point.

I'm hoping that taking the summer off, that months of rest, and hopefully hopefully some sort of physical therapy will make me feel more physically well. It's painful. It sucks to deal with this every day. It makes cooking for myself really hard.

Family will be picking me up soon. Whole host of emotions about that. I'll probably be getting a plane ticket back home early actually. Sunk cost fallacy cause I already bought one for the day that I expected the program to end but like. i'm here now. fuck it. (Family picking me up do not live in the place I call home for context, different situation)

Polyamory!!!! Lesbian polyamory!!! Lesbian toyotathon and gay ass kia summer sales event!!!! Me and my partner discussed and opened up to polyamory and now we have a Herbe Enjoyers groupchat and I have had so much amazing lesbian sex oh my fucking god~

Super confident. Love all my friends. Honestly?

I got there. I'm okay. I'm past the threshold of okay :) I'm consistently okay now and I'm confident in myself and my choices and I know what's best for myself and I feel safe enough to just rest. I finally feel safe enough to rest.

Massive shifts in terms of trusting myself lately. I use weed and I'm okay with that. I actually really like how I had my journey that helped me consciously acknowledge how I use and experience sobriety. Chronic pain is da BITCH tho and I really like being at least a little high anyway so. I feel fine. I'm proud of how I got sober and I'm also okay with what I'm up to now.

I like myself. I love myself I dare say! And more than that I'm intentionally loving every person I've ever been. I've decided there's no version of me that I don't love with my whole heart. I've realized that more than anything. It took a very long time.

I believe in my own talents and awesomeness and I feel safe and things are so full of potential here in may. 2022 is me being very happy and choosing myself and advocating for myself always. Took big practice but fuck yeah!!!!

Anxiety sure lately with the dorm move. Hard to move dorms when disabled. Hoping my exit from college will be graceful, and I know it'll be swift.



15 april 2022

hello hello. today is part of my last 9 days being a teenager. I have decided that I am celebrating this part of my life before my birthday by FULLY COMMITTING to the bit of being a teenager. i am going to achieve maximum teenager. It's amazing.

my current "being a teenager" awesome experience is being very high in a very chill and great class. you know? like last night I ate some takis and sat on a bean bag. and watched classic youtube

anyway. I do have to inform you that the dan and phil obsession will have to be massively featured in this episode.

But Als0

I'm gonna make parts of my main page link to a Specil Production for my last 9 days of being a teenager!!!!!!

so uh go lookit lmao i'll be working on it over the weekend and for the duration of this time

peaceeeeeeeee



14 march 2022

god i hope i can get some rest over this spring break. i need it so terribly bad.

up late tonight messing around not doing too much but also kinda trying to read this book that a paper is past due on... might finish the paper by tuesday, wednesday, it depends. 200 more pages out of a 270 page book. it's fun to read, though.

i miss all my friends that are gone for spring break. i've been cooking more for myself lately, that's been fun.

times are going alright honestly? I think they are, at least. i think that i really need to take as much of a break as i can soon since my summer program will keep me from having a break then.

i should sleep now, i think. not worry too much about what i should or shouldnt be doing at 2 am. sleeping on the couch tonight :^)



02 march 2022

I caught COVID and tested positive on February the 25th. My girlfriend and I caught it at the same time. Honestly, I'm in a really unique and blessed position, my case isn't that severe at all, I have my girlfriend through this as support for each other, and the college is paying for a hotel stay and giving us a food delivery budget each day. I'm eating so well. It's really uniquely nice, I haven't been in a situation this nice in a long time. I'm having a good time. Tomorrow might be my last full day here if I test negative on Thursday morning.

Anyway. Things are going well. Spring break is soon! I feel good honestly. Finished some applications and that's a big relief off my shoulders.

I'm gonna hit a nap. Goodnight :)



25 january 2022

I am having a terrible time in class right now and i really do need this writing to distract me. Fucking - I could not get 10 minutes into class without, fucking randomly, for the second day in a row (different classes), getting one of my worst and most salient fucking awful triggers brought up without me having any mental preparation in the slightest. This time i did what I owed to myself and actually walked out of class to have my PTSD episode. Cried. Came back to class.

Yknow what sucks? What's coming to mind now is this one guy who was on IRC here who started talking about like.... having a disdain for people who post negative things on feels? Like they want attention but nobody else is gonna fix it. I'm actually not surprised that person ended up having a lasting effect that comes up now to make me self conscious. I don't think that attitude is conduscive to town's whole mission of emmpathy, and regardless I shouldn't even have to defend myself in this paragraph.

Anyway. This is hard. I'm glad I finally had the strength to walk out. I have to talk to my teachers about my accommadations/etc and hopefully that'll go well, I think it will.

Me and my friends are going to have a powerpoint night this weekend. I still have to think about what goofy thing is gonna be my topic. Maybe I'll end up posting the final thing on my tilde page, maybe I won't.

Writing has helped me self regulate a bit but I still want these next 40 minutes to pass by quick. I feel sick. Quite literally nauseous. I haven't eaten today but this stuff made me feel sick.

I have my first class in intro to video today. I really do look forward to video production in general, I hope I'll make stuff I'm proud to put up here.

I'm very tired of performing optimism. I have this - this habit, I guess? This desire to take responsibility for other's emotions, trying to not let them down, trying to at least make them believe I'm okay and I feel hopeful. It changes how I see everything and it's not always healthy. Its very hard for me to break this habit. I have to learn to let myself get angrier about things, about what happened to me, I've dimmed that anger for too long and it'll likely come out in more maladaptive ways. I'm not okay, I'm not confident about my long term prospects for being okay, nobody should expect me to be okay. I can't expect myself to be okay.

I'm gonna head off. I just have to be how I am, uncensored. Let go of control and scrutiny.



23 january 2022

its two in the morning and i am very much having emotions that are two in the morning types of emotions. one of which is a headache; i should really be asleep right now.

i have a lot on my mind. i have this odd fascination with big ideas that i feel like i want to explore in depth, that i want to talk about eloquently, that bounce around incessantly in my head. my partner kinda reminds me of those ideas, one of her big things is like, when she's drunk, 90% of what she says is hilarious and goofy and kinda feels randomly generated but like occassionaly she takes some deep lore type of big idea like the transience of life and of making memories with people and how we have to drink everything in as it happens because nothing is permanent and then after dropping that absolute wisdom she just moves on to more silly happy fun and it's just. im in awe every time honestly.

but it's late and i don't think i can do much big thinky braining right now. i'm feeling okay. the semester is starting, and 2022 is an interesting year to be alive, and I'm feeling okay. happy, even. i have a lot to look forward to.



11 january 2022

well hey. i haven't been here in quite a while! right around when my winter vacation started was the last time i posted.

so uh, how's the break gone? it's been good. it's been an actually good winter for once. i saw no way home for the second time earlier this evening. i'm gonna cut this short though and write something more comprehensive later cause it's actually the 12th rn, right past midnight.



15 december 2021

Wow, borderline personality disorder sure can disorder.

I'm an absolute emotional mess today. I've got a good smoothie swirl of guilt, fear of abandonment, attachment issues, sorrow, anxiety, and empty. Fuck, man. It's terrible cause I can see the maladaptive shit and thoughts going on and I can see the consequences they would have if I acted on them, and the biggest thing is that if I did something I knew was fucked up or Displaying Symptoms it would make me feel worse and out of control. Especially if it affected others.

Terrified, terrified of being a bad partner to my girlfriend. I know we're both just regular humans and imperfect and shaped, and me especially as I'm struggling with so, so much, and she's learning how to support me, and I'm learning how to treat her right, and everything. At least I know I care. She cares so much, too.

But god, I want to cry right now. Emotional drop and plummet, I had a nice nice night last night, really good vibes.

Tonight I have to finish an abstract self portrait (my teacher isnt a fan so far) and tomorrow at 5 I have a paper due that I'm nearly done with. My partner leaves tomorrow morning and I won't see her until 18 Janvier, probablement. She needs space and to pack tonight so I won't be seeing her.

I think it is absolutely fucking broken that YouTube doesn't have a way to limit or filter keywords or provide some sort of warning like Tumblr does before showing specific videos. Even something like a "may contain: [blocked word]" by checking the autogenerated captions or even just checking the title and description. Especially for shit like spoilers that just get pushed to the front of the algorhythm! It's not about spoilers, though, it's about triggers that I have no fucking way of knowing are there until they pop up in a video. I want to code a browser addon or something that would actually fix that, I just don't fuckin know how to code.

Been in town for over a month. Full moon coming up again. I'm glad I'm here.

in final presentations for linguistics, teacher asked us to be attentive. but i have adhd and im sad give me a break

in any case, i'll head out. more days will come. surely



11 december 2021

so so so so. this is a really cool moment, actually. i'm in the dark, at the community house that i love so much. it's 5 am and the lights went off and me and my friend (and old roommate from freshman year) are on the couches in the living room for the night. neither of us actually live here, but we had a hell of a friday night, yk? it's the last friday before finals week. i sooo did not want to walk home to my dorm, like a 10 minute walk almost, at 1 in the morning when there's snow out and it's cold.

tonight was really great, actually. i took a thick nap from 2pm to 8pm so it's kinda like i just timewarped to the evening. then i showered and came over here to get something to eat since i slept through dinner but i didn't come in time to get any food. but the night was starting!! my darling came down with alcohol and we had some wine together on the couch and we started playing jackbox games. i won the champions game!!! and they came in second!!! and then we played again and i got second place :) long live drippey.

she had a lot to drink, and was kinda just. Saying a whole lot of entertaining things. she's really funny actually. also she kept talking about how much she was in love with me like literally so much and it was great. i think we need to have a bit more practice in figuring out what the right amount of affectionate is when intoxicated and around other people/in public but that's okay. really, really great night.

i ordered macdonal!! got me my dinner, got my sweet some burgies, got my friends some food. i got paid today so it slides. i do have to buy an inhaler tomorrow, and i'm also going to go with my friends to an asian restaurant for dinner. and then i'm gonna play a dnd drinking game sort of thing and have a lot of fun i think!!! ^-^



10 december 2021

i'm downstairs in the community house right now watching the game awards with a bunch of my friends. it's been a good night, we had pizza, i cuddled with my partner, i helped bake cookies. i needed tonight, absolutely.

got some inconveniences coming up. got some tough stuff to deal with. i'll be okay. computer's going to die but this is nice. things feel nice right now as the year winds down. i'm so, so glad this semester has gone the way it did. i believe in something, you know? things getting better sometimes. i'm just very, very happy, and i want to hold on to that.

gonna see my sweet best friend for all winter break soon!!!!! 10 days!!!! gonna hold my sweet boy !!!!!!

things are good actually, and it's getting easier to convince myself



05 december 2021

i wish i could cry right now, i think.

i was trying to write this earlier but i gave up on it. or, i just wasn't able to keep writing it, for whatever reason.

i have so many things i wish i could articulate. i think that the passage of time is one of my greatest fears. which is weird to say, i suppose. let me try to contextualize it.

this is ridiculously vulnerable for a website and blog that i have shown to a) my current partner and b) someone i consider a close friend from the internet that was part of my life as far back as middle school. and i think there's a certain paradox in this. i want this place - i want myself, in a sense - to be private, anonymized. i don't want to be seen. i'm so scared, for so many reasons. yet i share this place - the link to this feels page, as well - with people who know me, who see me. and with all of town, too, with people who i'm making friends with, who i hope to become closer with, a community that i breathe within. anybody who chooses to read these, and knowing from experience that people do read these, can see so much of who i am, and i'm questioning and experimenting with that experience -- you can see so much of who i am, but it's still ridiculously limited, and i'm doing these for myself first and always, and it's not my top priority to entertain or keep an audience in mind. it's there, yes. but i am my own target audience.

anyway. my earliest parts of existence, my early teens, honestly just a lot of middle school, going into early high school, was waiting. was passing the time, waiting, hoping for other times to come. was waiting, waiting. waiting out the time until the suffering would lighten. waiting for lighter days, waiting, because my age was the limiting factor in restricting my freedom under my absuser. i counted the months till i'd no longer be legally a minor. i had no idea the circumstances that i would pass my 18th birthday under, when it did come. i just remember such a feeling of waiting. endless time that would pass, surely, proved it would pass time and time again. and it did pass. no matter how much or how little changed, i watched it pass, but as long as i was under that abuser, i was waiting. i was waiting for change.

and change surely happened. and then this year, in different context, even after turning 18, i was waiting. i turned 18 as the pandemic started. more waiting. everybody, now, waiting, in the same sense of being trapped inside, waiting, just like i was, just like the only thing i'd really known, really been comfortably familiar with.

waiting, so sure something specific was coming, so sure that something would change, that i would be right about it, proven right and delivered into a new situation... so shocked when things weren't how i pictured them. in good or bad connotations, i was used to being right, and i wasn't always right. and what a thing to adjust to, seriously.

and now i'm in a situation that i like. that i adore, really. i don't think my partner keeps up with this space (i showed her on my own laptop and i doubt she memorized the link) and in any case it's doubtful she's read this far (i mean, maybe she would, probably would if she was here, but i really just... that's the thing about digital performance, isn't it? never sure if anyone in particular is watching or has watched or will watch.) anyway. i keep stumbling over my words. i'm at the point where i want to tell her that i love her, but i'm just so... the words get stuck in my throat. i'm sure i'll find a way to just be direct and express it when i feel better about the timing. i'm just incredibly nervous, and my last situationship informs so many of my anxieties and fears.

and i'm terrified because time doesn't just pass when you're in danger and need to get from point a to point b. time passes as relentlessly and ruthlessly no matter the individual experience. and maybe this just stems from a history of seeing the passage of time as something to ignore, dissociate from, to fixate on point b and make it real in my mind before the time fully passes to get there. and then to be surprised when my fabricated point b doesn't look like the reality of my present life when i arrive. so i miss out on the idea of passing days, enjoying days, living in full attention to where i am now, to what i experience before me.

maybe it's early to call, but i'm already scared of the idea of letting go. knowing that from my point in time, it's nowhere near close, but still... time is fucky, and my perception of time is fucky, and it gives me a lot of fear when multiplied by my insecurities.

i have a lot on my mind and plenty i'd like to try to put into words but it is 2am and i have a date tomorrow. and i will enjoy the day as it happens.



27 november 2021

hi there town. today is saturday, and my thanksgiving break from college is wrapping up. i'm at work right now. honestly if i had the energy i would go into the studio after this and paint for a while...

but i don't. cause after pausing on typing i just got triggered so bad that it hasn't even taken effect yet, i'm just in the shock of it, i think. thank god i am leaving work in like 5 minutes.

this is really terrible actually. i can't type my way out of being triggered. maybe i should just cut the feels entry for today off here.



20 november 2021

well hey there town. how be. how be!

i'm feeling pretty alright. honestly, i really need to get a journal to handwrite in. the more i write here the more i realize i need to restart my private journaling habits, haha.

things are still good with my partner. she's left for break now though. i'm staying on campus through the break :/ but we had a good night together last night and i really needed that honestly.

i have a lot of emotions about where i am in time and space right now. what november 20th is like. the morning after november 19th. all those feelings.

i think that i am going to let myself write about it. somewhere.

i'm tired, i have things to do even over break, which is like. blehhh. but it's manageable, and i will give myself plenty of time to relax.

overall i think i just want to be grateful that things are nice, feel nice, that things are so much better right now than they were even like, a month ago? and stuff. proof that time passes and things get better. it feels good.

i'm going to pack up and leave work and then just lie in a little pile.



18 november 2021

oh wow. last night was so nice. i'm currently in my last actual academic class before break, although i have so many little things to worry about - calling the insurance company for the fifth time, wrapping up loose ends on my linguistics experiment, getting a refill on my asthma inhaler... it's like, a manageable amount of stuff, i just feel like every day moves so fast. it's already time for thanksgiving break, all the time between now and fall break passed so quickly. and it's another full moon tonight



17 november 2021

here i am, three days later. how's today going? it's a wednesday. i'm very aware of the work that i am weighed under but I'm done with academics after tomorrow at like 2:15 pm - then it's just my job that I continue to work over the week break for thanksgiving, but that's really not too bad. Forgot to put sugar in my second cup of coffee :// Also I have this issue with my right shoulder that I got from kayaking several miles with bad form and it's still acting up even a month later. Some sort of pulled muscle.

I'm feeling good on a wednesday.

I've learned a lot about my own boundaries and what I can be comfortable with or not. A fair amount of it is trial and error, I really don't know how to do it any other way -- I suppose the best thing to do would be to listen in and think ahead but it mostly ends up being trial and error anyway. Which can be difficult. Introduces new challenges. But at least I have several things better defined now.

I like this person a lot. I'm still terrified. So many parts of me are scared of so many different things. I don't want to hurt her -- she did manage to assuage my fears on that, she told me I didn't have to worry, that whatever happens in the future is okay and won't sour how nice things are/were right now. I'm scared of a lot of things for a lot of different reasons. I gotta communicate expectations better and ask for that in return as well.

I'm about to go to a lab class so like, I'll actually have to be active in it, I won't be able to just dick around on town. I booked my flight home for winter break. I'm so excited that it really will work out. The last time I was there was August 2020. Homesick bad. Need my best friend. It's so close now, I can't believe it.

I don't want to take these things that are good right now for granted because holy shit everything has Been terrible for all the year previous, and I was in denial hard about everything, and even as far back as the pandemic starting I've been in the hardest, most turbulent part of life. Well, that's not entirely true. I always percieved the year I was living in as one of the hardest years of my life to endure just through the various consequences of being under 18 and what aging out of that would improve, and then the pandemic started as I turned 18 and everything got worse in new and innovative ways. Except for 2019, that year was pretty great. My point is, things are starting to get better now and that is a glimmer of hope that has been hidden from me for a very, very long time. I almost don't even know how to handle it. It's not just because the new relationship thing, although having somebody who cares about me so much and is so vocal about it is really really nice. We told our friend about her, she told some of our mutual friends about us. And I really do smile when I think about her, she does make me happy. It's hard to reconcile this with all the fear and issues that create discomfort. But my point was that this situation, life is objectively the best right now that it has been in a long time. I have this whole like, intuitive framework, you know? And all my intuition was telling me that this year would be so so difficult to live through and it has been, it absolutely has been, but the huge theme, tagline, whatever, was that things get worse before they get better.

Things get worse before they get better. But it's key to remember that they DO get better, and there are reasons that things got worse, and things that made everything worse are directly contributing to what is better now. Every part of the experience of living this year has been essential. my laptop is about to die, i'll make another entry later



14 november 2021

well well well. so. here i am. this is a post made by lying in bed gang. also i'm with that person i was talking about right now so post starts with kinda talking to them at the same time?? by typing this??

well obviously things went well, are going well, are actually going better in reality than i could have anticipated

school is STRESSFUL designing an entire research project in a weekend while i have family visiting is A Lot not even counting all the other stuff i will somehow do in the next 48 hours but at least it's only one more week of this shit till a full week of break

things are okay actually. like. i'm still not quite at the threshold of consistently being okay. but things are okay. things are improving. things are nice.

liberating to admit that i'm not consistently okay, and good to feel like i can still be happy even if i'm not okay. something about that comforts me.

^-^



12 november 2021

today i am three months sober :) (three months sober from weed, that is, which i was dependent on. i have drank with friends a couple of times, but i consider them completely different scenarios) i'm in archaeology class right now. epic professsor made sure to stress that sex was different than gender when talking about bones and sex determination, and that gender is constructed through cultures etc.

my grandparents will be arriving today, a bit stressed about that - i'm not sure what all we're going to do, and i feel like i'll be On Call to be Present this weekend. but i do look forward to seeing them. i have to touch up my painting before it goes on display, dunno when i'll have time for it :/

i am really looking forward to this evening when my grandparents head back to their hotel room and i have my friday night with my friends... aaaaaaaaaaaaaa. fishnets. that is all.



11 november 2021

i am sitting in my linguistics class for the time being. i have been on town for the entire time, which is alright!!! it's totally fine. we're going over stuff that will hopefully help with final research project stuff but I already know what i'm going to do. there's this little area on my trackpad where the matte area sticker is ripped a bit and it looks all shiny, it's like a little triangle where my thumb usually is. i hope that i can replace my laptop before my junior year starts. this is an old one, and it's the first one i ever bought with my own money, and i got it because the specs said i could play sims 4 on it (and also the 1tb storage space was an upside cause i was used to fucking struggling with my tiny gifted 32 gb laptop -- seriously, i don't think i'm misremembering, it was fuckin miniscule and never ever had enough space for anything) and i dropped it enough that both corners are all chipped away in the back near where the hinge is. so hopefully in a year i will get myself a new laptop. when the time comes i know just the community i will be asking for advice :) this laptop is really frustrating though. half the time, when the screen times out, the monitor just absolutely will not come back on, no matter what keys i press or if i click or anything, it just stops sensing anything. maybe dropping it so much made the sensor that sees if the lid is open or not in that case stop working. who knows. the "acer power button" "app" has also popped up like twice with a black windowed screen and weirded me out for a couple seconds and i got no clue what that's all about.

i genuinely need to give myself time and space to mourn old friendships. i realize that that thing i mentioned at the end of my old feels entry... no, i wouldn't want them to come across this place. not only because it wouldn't change anything, but because i miss who i was and who they were in the past. and i acknowledge that change that has happened since is permanent. and i don't even think that i would want a friendship with them again if they came back and offered. i don't think i would have the strength or self assuredness to decline. but for whatever reasons i don't think it would be for the best or help either of us. i'm balancing out my endless nostalgia with some grounded memories of how difficult those relationships even were in the first place. i'm prone to thinking, oh, i messed this up, and if i just hadn't done that we would still be friends and that would be a good thing and mutually beneficial. but lately it's been a goal (that i'm getting better at) to acknowledge that there were mutual issues and ways that i got hurt even back in the day, even in the times that i find myself missing so dearly now. giving myself time to properly mourn those friendships in journal entries to myself will help me a lot. we can miss messy things so dearly.

i woke up before 9 am today and spent fuckin 4 hours or so being gay as hell and fantasizing about being in a relationship with this crush that i've mentioned here before. it's fascinating how good i am at lying in bed and thinking about things. it's like... official pretty much now that i actually do have a crush lmaoooooo. i really like the uncertainty right now. it's so exciting. and distracting! and nice. and wowie fucking zowie leather jackets look so good on some people. i'm like. so scared that my fickleness and weird emotions will somehow mess this up. I Just Want Something Nice and Stable Thanks. but i give myself forgiveness if it does happen cause i recognize how fragile i am. anyway. class is over, i'm outty, might?? write more later??? peaceeeee


i got invited to dinner by someone but i didn't see it until 45 minutes after :( if i'm being honest, i get the impression she's interested in me? she's very nice and honestly it's mad weird remembering i have romantic options (although i am not Sure of the viability it is just a bit of a Feeling) (also there is this friend back home that i low key flirt with and i was honestly hoping to get closer to over break) (making choices is hard!!! but honestly i really would prefer to just be exclusive with the person i've been talking about earlier if we do get to that point)

anyway. Anyway! i wish i had the motivation to go to the dining hall and eat and then go work on my painting a bit cause i need to do that tonight. but my lab report isn't finished and it's so hard for me to Switch Tasks and leave that unfinished. but i need to eat!!! what a conundrum. the dining hall only stays open another hour :/



10 november 2021

alright, back at it again here. i just wanted to take a minute while i have it. i'm at my on campus job, and everyone here is really nice. honestly it's one of the best jobs on campus to have. last week i reintroduced myself with my new re-chosen name (i went by it for a bit in high school, then changed it to something different, and now i'm going back to it and my old they/them pronouns) and my boss offered to send an email to the staff and they've all remembered and started calling me my new name and it's really so sweet. it's so sweet. i appreciate it a lot. i was gonna wait until next semester to really start doing the whole name change thing again but it's been really gratifying to just go ahead and do it. the friends i hang out with all call me my chosen name and it's really, really nice.



09 november 2021

Wow. Okay, wow. Wowie. Okay.

I am a little bit way too fucking gay. Agh. This is in reference to the same person I was talking about in the last entrance.

I actually managed to talk about this in therapy, about how part of me is split, how some stuff makes it hard to trust others but how safe this person makes me feel. and we admitted that i made a decision that was a bit too fast for my own comfort, and that i have a tendency to stay in scenarios where i think i "should" be comfortable but i'm not really. like, i'm reluctant to leave situations where i want to stay but something triggered trauma or discomfort or something.

but oh wow. oh boy. this person has me feeling some type of way.

it's like, i really, really, really wish that i could let things work, i guess? i completely understand the things in my past that contribute to the inherent discomfort i feel around any type of intimacy, even imagined/prospective intimacy. and i know that the biggest thing for anything is time and trust and familiarity.

even though this stuff is difficult for me i'm really enjoying all this initial excitement and uncertainty. i've forgotten what it feels like to feel excited, to feel unsure, it's a lot of fun, and it's quite a bit scary, and i feel like that's all part of it.

it's nearly comical how down bad i am. it's also wonderful that the many coincidences that plague and comprise my life have arranged in nice ways in this situation.

ah, i would want to talk about my coincidences one day, but i don't think that i would really be able to put into words the way that my lived experience includes these things. suffice it to say that my pattern recognition centers are maxed out usually, and i find a lot of meaning in coincidences. that's like the whole thing of reading tarot, anyway, isn't it? that principle that things like cards can be aligned in a deck on coincidence to what you're reading for, by some sort of situation.

(it's the morning of november 10th now, I forgot to save last night, i wonder if this will still save under the ninth? i suppose i'll start a new entry now)



08 november 2021

i think i would like to create something for the zine. maybe a little poem. or something, you know? maybe i can submit this project i have for my advanced painting class for it. i don't know if physical art is something to include but it's going to be a marionnette collapsing under its own weight on a big drawing clipboard, with papers and drawings and such comprising it. maybe i'll just create some sort of poem, though. i think i could start poem composing on some odd place in my homepage? i really would like to learn how to get fancy with css. or just learn how to do anything in css at all i guess. it's funny, because when i put work into my little home here in town i anticipate being very proud of it, wanting to show it off, and yet i want to stay anonymous, i don't really want people i know in real life to connect it to me because i want to put stuff here that i wouldn't want people seeing in real life. the paradox of validation and anonymity or whatever.

i need to think about what i want to talk about in therapy pretty soon, i have therapy in an hour. the thing is, it's so hard for me to have any memory of what the week was like in between last therapy session and now. it's really tough to think about. what happened tuesday? monday night? i have a little bit of an obsession with documenting, journalling, at least when i can get around to it. i have these journals from 14, 15 years old at least, and i wrote down every story i could. along with my old sketchbooks those things are my prized possessions. proof that i've been real, that i've continually existed. i would have forgotten so much completely if i didn't write it down. it's sad to think of how much i've already forgotten. i really like to record daily things when i have the time and energy to. i need to get a new daily journal, i filled my last one, and i want to start again.

i think back to like. friday night. i saw that movie, i got into tilde.town for the first time. i got terribly triggered by a lot in v for vendetta. i wish i would have left the room instead of only turning around in my chair. i've proven to myself yet again that i find so much difficulty in actually leaving an area if i am triggered. it's fucking difficult.

speaking of, i'm in a weird little situation, i suppose? (i also suppose i should start using the private/buried feels function more often - this sort of publicness is new to me, and i like it for several reasons, but sometimes i just need to be fully candid with myself, to myself, to future versions of myself)

so like. there is this person. and i half have a crush and i half don't. it's like, i definitely feel something, and yet my mind is fighting these emotions, and also delegitimizing them. i can't fucking tell what i want. it's very frustrating. i like this person a lot, they are very sweet, i am in No place of mind or stability or knowledge of myself to try to be intimate with someone but... ugh. but i still want it? maybe? maybe i don't? i feel so fickle. it's difficult. every part of existing is difficult for me!

i barely feel like a real person. i know i'm not cohesive. i am trying so very hard to know myself, exist as myself, and yet everything in my past is haunting and i don't know how to cope with it being real. i don't. i will admit that i do not know how to cope with what happened to me being real. maybe that is the first time i have admitted this.

i know i am in a liminal space. i am at the intersection of so many complexities of my specific youth and development. i don't know how to do anything but focus on myself. my specific circumstances are so... so very much, that i find it so difficult to connect with people. seriously. day in and day out i feel so very alienated. this isn't even a "oh nobody knows how i feel" thing, this refers to a specific lived experience that is incredibly rare.

and it's terrible and it's horrible and i'm so tired. i'm tired, i am tired, i am tired.

time to go to therapy. for whatever future version of me is reading this, november has been a bit better, still stressful, still so early, i still feel very lost.



07 november 2021

hey again. today is the 7th. I wonder if I can change the background color of this page? when it loads in html it's pink currently, might switch it to a nice grey, or something greenish to match my index.html.

i had a really nice day today. i went and painted for like, 3 hours, and got a lot of good work done on the painting. then i went with some friends to an asian restaurant and got a Very Spicy bun bo hue bowl, a beef noodle bowl, and it was delicious. i do really like spicy food. i also got sushi! i was only able to do this because of the stimulus check I got friday. spending like a real big shot lately i'm afraid. i deserve it though. it was a wonderful night and the food and company was delightful.

came back and did tarot readings for folks in the dorm i hang out in. one person showed me her runes, and pendulum, and tarot deck, and it was really nice. i love those things. it was great using a pendulum again, and the rune casting i did... was illuminating. and the people i did tarot readings for really liked my readings and thought they were accurate. i even did a love life reading with yugioh cards. got a pretty solid reading out of it actually.

im very tired! should probably just. sleep. maybe add on to this later.

but yeah, today was a nice day, and it seems like it will be overall a nice weekend. i want to find a more secret place to stash writings somehow. hm. maybe i'll figure that out at some point -- i know there's a way to put feels just in my own private folder so i can only read them when i ssh in but i would like to put some hidden thingy in my actual website that people could dig for if they want to find it.

anyway! am sleepy. gonna listen to some night mind, and... vibe, and sleep. bonsoir!



05 november 2021

so i have arrived today. fresh faced and new to the world.

just for the record, I'm editing this in vim, somehow it's less intimidating than the row of commands all at once at the bottom of nano? I do have to manually put in linebreaks or else the line will just keep going. I'm doing this in plaintext cause the feels engine said I could, dunno if this will have repercussions later. maybe it will, maybe it won't. hope nothing gets too unsightly. i'm sure i'm messing up something or another, or something will be Ugly once it renders somewhere... am learning. will learn better eventually.

anyway. i showed up and walked my way into the IRC. i was immediately taught about tmux (which... is not an abbreviation for tex mex, as i thought at first) but yeah it's suuuuper useful, it's like having multiple tabs open. also got to watch a heated opinion debate about which text editors are best/best to intro to newbies! wish i had made popcorn.

just learned a neat trick in vim to highlight when 80 columns are reached so I know when to linebreak, ayo. but as i was saying, or not quite saying yet.

i don't know if tonight is the night to do the Big Introduction? or if i even need to do a Big Introduction? I'm in college, and my brain is laggy. I should be painting right now, but I have plans to watch V for Vendetta tonight with a friend and whoever she invites. i'm in a good mood right now, especially with the start of being in the town, and starting to discover everything - this place is so much cooler when you can actually interact within it instead of just watching from the outside like I've been doing before today - and also I got some clothes from a thrift event at my college. is nice.

so. i am herbe. i use they/them. i am a sturdy little leaf, and i like all kinds of oddities. i'm easily entertained. i'm in a period of my life, an Era, if you will. i'm in a weird parallel right now. i'm hungry and should eat dinner, it's 7 pm. i should, again, be painting right now, i have a master copy of a Rubens painting (the satyrs) due next wednesday but alas. looks like that will not be happening this evening. i would have to settle in for a couple hours, or one hour at least, and i would prefer to just relax, type in here, bump around town, and chill until i go watch that movie (probably after eating... something.)

i am in an Era of my life, and i will describe it using terms and ideas that don't quite make sense without context, but will hopefully be entertaining in some way? informative? maybe i just want to be able to look back on this later myself.

it has been: 74 days since August 23rd. Because of course it has. I look myself in the eyes in the future from here, and we share a -_- together.

It is 13 days until the next full moon. Marking Phase 0, Phase 1, Phase 2, and now I'm within the third moon phase. Not that they particularly change Much, it's just how they line up.

My half-birthday marker was October 22, so I'm over halfway through my year of being 19 years old. In about a week I'll be three months post-dependency on a certain substance.

It's 43 days until December 18th, so I think I'll definitely be back at a home then, not college, so I'll see so many people that I miss dearly. But I haven't seen them yet. It's been - it will have been - about a year and a half since I last saw them. A year and a half, again, again.

So many things in my life make parallels. So much of timing makes parallels, I make connections, build and use connections, learn and falter and create and am created. Ah. I've gotten pretentious already. Thought I would maybe last longer.

I'll gradually open myself up to the town, I think. Give more context and such. Tell more about myself. But this little space is gotta be for me before it's for performance for others. I think that's the best way to be authentic anyway.

I'm not okay. I want to make it clear, I'm not okay in any sense of the word. I have not reached the threshold of being okay. I haven't been anywhere near okay, and I barely got there back in... 2019. Yeah, 2019. That was the one okay year I really got in my life. That's literally the singular year where I can say that I was okay. So much of what I've been doing lately has been in attempt to get me back there. But, a lot more of what I'm doing, and what I did during Phase 0, is trying to pull back to 2013, 2014, 2015, years where I was certainly alive and yet not quite connected to anything current, and reconnect with those years, reconnect with what existence was like for me and what I truly hoped to get out of existing, what I wanted to pursue, what I was interested in, my hopes that I lost along the way. Ugh. 19 and I'm talking like I'm going to die in 5 years. I self-deprecate, and I remember that I can't talk any other way and call it authentic. This is what my authenticity is.

Anyway. The last time I was happy, safe, and feeling okay, I was 17 years old in a new high school. (I'm going to see how much I can write before I run out of time and space and have to go watch the movie with my friend. And eat, eating is important to make time for as well.) The last time I had any grip on my original existence, I was in the second semester of my sophomore year. I lost everything about myself -- intentionally, but still... it changed so quick once I moved. It took a year of adjustment to feel stable and happy. And I needed a change from how things were pre-sophomore year. I was miserable. I wished every day that I would be able to move. But I left so much behind, and the things I held on to to survive in that span of my life, I dearly missed, I acutely felt the absence of, once they were truly absent.

Wonder if this thing has a word counter? I know I can be verbose.

A year and a half before I was able to revisit my original home, and even that was a fluke. One weekend. An evening, a morning, a hug I gave too tight, a drive to the airport, a photo, a fixation. Friends and friends and a fixation.

I like to think that we were still friends back then. That we were still friends when they linked me to the playlist.

I don't know if I like to think much else. I know I will. I know I need to.

And my internal situation is such... such a situation. And god, I have love for them, us inside, but... I've never openly talked or processed enough about this. Not really. Something about this being public makes it different. I certainly haven't talked about it enough, processed anything nearly enough.

I don't know if I'll dump it all in Feels? I would like it if feels was a daily sort of thing. Actual storytelling I could put elsewhere. I have ideas for my tilde page, absolutely I do. Absolute storytelling. A vague autobiography? Documents and documents I already have.

Anyway.

A year and a half, again, again. I so acutely felt that things had moved on without me when I returned. I was welcomed, I was missed, dearly missed... but it didn't stay static like it did in my mind. My mental image, my placement of that place in the past, that was just a perception thing. The place itself, the people, they were not beholden to it. Of course they weren't. It was still jarring. I was 17, and it was 2019, and it was something I dearly wished for, and it is something that made 2019 the good year. I'm scared. I am scared, I admit. I'm scared to return to the second home, the place I left the original place for, the place that became such a strong home, the place I'm choosing to return to. I'm scared of the same things. I'll be staying longer, 4 weeks for a break. I'll be staying longer, staying with my best friend. Couch hopping if I need to. The old house is gone and sold, and it was a guest room anyway, and there's no space in the new house for me to return to.

I feel so alienated. Even when I am missed, I feel alienated. I feel alone, self-contained and membraned, and I don't even know all of myself.

I truly wonder if there's anybody I know in real life (or would know me from the other places I'm Herbe on the internet) here in the town. I highly, highly doubt it. But something about the possibility... the risk? Something about it interests me, I guess. Scares me, maybe. Makes me wonder how much I miss communication with a couple - really, just a couple people - that could potentially see this, recognize me, and never tell me. Or there's the converse: that I am putting data into the world that will never, ever be picked up or observed by people I know and engage in life with. Unless I happen to go to a meetup event specifically town-centered. You know what I mean. Something about the creation of potential really gets to me, and knowing that it's so likely that the potential outcome of them seeing this won't happen. It's just a way to miss someone. Some people. It's a way to feel guilty for missing someone. It's a way to wish communication, it's a way to avoid letting go, it's a way to imagine countless possibilities instead of listening to what surely happens whether they ever see communication from me again or not. Or, you know, maybe the countless other people that I'm on good terms with might see this, and we might have a laugh, and then I'll continue typing and realise that that's statistically just as unlikely to happen.

Anyway. I'm not okay, I'm still not okay, I'm before the threshold of okay, it's 8:10 pm, I have a movie to watch at 8:30, I'm hungry, I'm going to go eat.

Might write in here more afterwards, might not. Certainly will tomorrow or some other day. Certainly enough here to engage with to hold my interest for a long time. I'm very glad to be in town.