diary

finally moved my blog posts over here. forgot i'd made this page at all and the css is fucked all over from moving things but i'll get around to fixing it at some point (hopefully). i just finished reading casey plett's 'a dream of a woman' and my god. i love books that are collections of short stories and this one being about flawed trans characters navigating love and relationships and themselves...... tore me in half. i wasn't sure if i loved the writing at first, but it definitely had me emotionally hooked from the start. big recommend. i also finished re-reading 'wuthering heights' on the 5th. insane book. i want to watch one of the movie adaptations and fear (like most) what emerald fennell's adaptation is going to be like.

we're going on the almost 3rd week of this year. what can i say about it so far? idk. it's been alright, i guess? i've been sick most of this week which hasn't been pleasant. never taking not being congested for granted ever again. almost certain someone at my best friend's baby shower gave me the plague. reminder to myself to keep wearing my fucking mask everywhere no matter what. i also went with her to tour the apartment i'm praying to move into. i called the leasing office on thursday and they said they'd have an answer for me hopefully by the end of the day friday, but it is now sunday and still nothing. my anxiety has been off the charts awaiting an answer - it is genuinely my dream home. it's half a duplex and has an old timey kitchen with a GREEN sink and it has a loft area upstairs that i'm hoping to make my art/craft room + fig's space. it's more than i'd like to be paying in rent (in a perfect world lol) but there are so little options in this part of town. almost no options, rather. so coming upon this one felt like some sort of miracle. i really, reaaally hope i get the approval this week. our current lease ends at the end of february and time is moving too fast for comfort. i'm also hoping to start my new job by the end of the month too. i've been waiting for them to send me my assessment results paper since wednesday so i could upload it to apply for the final exam i have to take, but it seems no one is timely with email replies these days! (i have an insufferable love for email and am a chronic email checker - when i still had a smart phone, the majority of my screen time was just the email app as if there was ever anything truly important for me there.) i don't know. i just hope things move along in those two aspects of my life. maybe then i will finally be able to breathe.

yesterday i did our yearly holiday gift exchange with my best friends - one of them had me wait till the end to open an envelope that ended up being HER ULTRASOUND PHOTOS AND PREGNANCY TEST. surely i cried. i was in shock for most of the day. my one best friend is due to give birth in late feb/early march and now this! she's due around september and i am so sentimental. i love them both so much and am so happy to be a part of their lives. it's been 10+ years of friendship at this point and idk! i've been so full of love and gratitude for them since last night. i'm fighting off the feelings of being behind in life with a fucking sword right now. another dear friend of mine who i've known since middle school reminded me last night that neurodivergent people are on different timelines and i wish that reassured me that i'm doing everything at the right time, but it does suck a little bit to feel like i'm making up for years lost. the intersection of being trans and neurodivergent and making up for lost time, i suppose. nonetheless, i am genuinely excited to be a part of my best friends lives.

what else do i have to say about this year so far? oh. i've picked up yarn spinning. when i realized it was something i wanted to learn, i almost immediately went for a whole giant spinning wheel and opted against it. partially because i can't justify spending any unnecessary money right now while waiting to hear back about this apartment and what if i absolutely hated it? i ended up getting a basic drop spindle and learning that way. the hyperfixation took over quickly - it was all i could think about and everything i was watching or reading was about yarn spinning. even sillier, i thought i'd hate the drop spindle in comparison to a spinning wheel, but i love it. i'm getting used to spinning more consistent yarn this time around. unsure why i thought it'd be easier on my hands than knitting or any other fiber craft, but its not <3 it is so painful on my hands <3 i have to seriously start doing hand/wrist stretches and taking more breaks AND wearing my compression gloves. i know all of that. but it is so unbearably difficult to get myself to unfocus from a project once i've begun. i'm glad to be making again, but it isn't going to be sustainable if i keep it up this way. i technically have 3 different knitting projects on needles right now that i keep bouncing around between. two primarily. i'm trying to use ravelry a bit more seriously this year as well. apparently i've had my ravelry account since 2012 when i learned how to crochet/knit, but i've never logged any projects till now. i've actually finished some knit projects this year already! (maybe i'll finally have things to put on the fiber arts portion of my website portfolio lol). i've made a pair of fingerless gloves and tabi mittens. i finished the infamous petiteknit sophie scarf before last year ended and am currentlyyy working on the petiteknit october sweater (in the most beautiful yarns ever) and a pair of wool/cashmere socks. i'm trying to use up my yarn stash before buying any new yarns. i'm really excited to finish the october sweater and praying i have enough yarn for it because one of the yarns i'm using was donated to the library when i still worked there - 5 skeins of this beautiful merino wool/cashmere blend yarn. i started the 3rd skein last night and still have half the body to finish up as well as both sleeves and the neckband. i did the math to make sure i'd have enough but i think i'll be playing yarn chicken. i ALSO found out there's a way to knit sleeves two at a time (the same technique i'm using to knit up the socks!!) and am dying to try it out because i am in the habit of knitting one sleeve/sock and not wanting to do the other. i could talk about fiber arts all day truly.

i think those are all my thoughts for now. i might go to my best friend's grandparents house for lunch and possibly bowling with my middle school friend and his partner later in the day. feels good to do things after having spent the week doing a whole lot of knitting whilst being ill. trying harder to live life this year. i think there's a lot of potential for good things to happen this year and i want to keep believing that. i hope your year is off to a sweet start and that it continues on that path. write soon.

after today, i am disconnecting this page from my site as a blog and turning it, i guess, into a journal/diary of sorts that can only be accessed if you know where to look (or just have a neocities page lol). either way, this hasn't really served the purpose i had for it as a blog and i want to be able to freely write about my feelings without fear of it falling into the wrong hands, i guess. i didn't write all of november and subsequently, all of december as well given that today is the last day. today is the last day of the year. this godforsaken, awful year. the mountain goats are blaring in my brain - i made it through this year and despite all its (and my) efforts, it didn't kill me. i am still here. truthfully, i've been wishing i could've slept through the last two weeks of this year and completely avoided feeling any of the things i've felt and all the reminders of how much sweeter last year's holidays had been spent alongside j. going into a new year still in love with the same person who doesn't share the sentiment - not how i pictured ending this year. honestly, i didn't picture any of the events of this year going as they did. and i guess having to remind myself that i'm not getting my "when harry met sally" new year's eve monologue is just becoming more depressing. i stopped having hope, making wishes, having dreams this year. up until very recently, i couldn't imagine the future getting better. no matter how bad things got in the past, i could look back and think "at least it wasn't as bad as being 15". and this year was that. i know all i've done is write about how bad this year has been, but i don't think i can emphasize it enough how desperately i've been waiting for it to end. not that i expect the passage of one year into the next to suddenly bring some sort of change overnight and to wake up tomorrow feeling renewed and happy, but idk. don't know if i'm making any sense.

i do have hopes and wishes for this upcoming year, though. mostly in relation to my art practice and hobbies. recently i've been obsessed with watching videos of people spinning their own yarn from wool and different fibers. my love for fiber arts, in general, was renewed when i started knitting a baby sweater for my best friend's soon-to-be baby. i've been trying to be realistic and careful as not to exacerbate my carpal tunnel again and burn myself out, but i also don't know when to set a limit till it's too late. i picked a sweater i'd started a year and a half ago back up - i have to finish the neckband and one sleeve and i am going to dye it because the yarn i'd originally chosen is not something i see myself actually wearing. i also started a pair of tabi mittens and finished one up yesterday. i'm waiting for this alpaca/silk blend yarn i ordered to come in so i can start this other sweater pattern because the yarn isn't quite up to gauge but it'll be my most beautiful knit yet. someone had donated the yarn to the library when i still worked there and it's a merino wool/cashmere blend. so that mixed with the alpaca/silk is gonna be SO cool. i'm a bit nervous though because i'm not entirely sure i have enough of the yarn for the sweater and of course, the brand is discontinued so i wouldn't be able to get more of the same one. i'll figure it out, though. i think that's currently all i have on my needles. i also wrote down that i wanna try filet crochet, mostly to make a table runner for my dining table. i may or may not start that today. but my yarn spinning supplies (a drop spindle, to start, and some roving wool) arrive today and i've been anxious to give that a try. in the new year, i also want to finish making the updates i started to my website. i kind of hit a wall because i'd re-designed everything in figma and was REALLY excited to work on the code aspect, but stepped away for a couple days just to come back and absolutely hate it. i liked the layouts i'd come up with, but it felt devoid of joy. and if nothing else, i started this website as a source of joy for myself at a time when i really couldn't find it anywhere else. the digital library has gotten 427 (as of today) hits and to think of THAT many people accessing this silly little archive i created is so heartwarming. i hope to continue adding more titles as we move into the next year.

currently, i'm trying really hard to finish reading wuthering heights before the day ends, but given that i still have about 150 pages to go, i'm not sure that's going to happen. i'll have to see how far i get. my goal for the year was to read 24 books and this is book 24. i'd have finished 24 if i kept re-reading stag dance, but of course i picked up reading wuthering heights in the middle of that and it quickly became my primary book. its taken me a little longer than i'd have wished mostly because it was written in 1800's english. (silly side note but to this day i get nightmares about having skipped most of the second semester of my AP Literature class senior year + the only book i thought i stayed around to read was the great gatsby) but i came to realize, i'd read most of wuthering heights in that class because a lot of the book i actually remember. weird lost memories. my sister got me for secret santa and among other things, she got me some books.... from the digital library! funny enough, one of them i had already read and have a physical copy of, but i guess never updated that i read it so she got it for me. out of 600 titles, her picking that one felt like divine intervention or something. anyway, she got me 5 books so those will be the first couple reads of the next year. she even got me a book i've been meaning to read for AGES but the library never had a copy of (of course) (a dream of a woman by casey plett). i hope to have more time for reading, especially more non-fiction. still trying to finish 'abolish silicon valley' so i can write about it. i've been wanting to do a series of my 'divine machinery' zine and maybe eventually have friends/other artists collab with their own art/writing about tech stuff, but that'll be something to come.

i guess i should note here that i moved - and came back shortly after. my best friend said nothing fuels me like spite, after having driven 14 hours from IN back to FL with just my stuff and my bunny. (i hope to never have to make a drive like that with fig again). but as someone who's never driven more than 3hrs one way in the same state without someone else in the car with me, undertaking a 14 hour multi-state roadtrip on my own was definitely something. i also hope i never have to drive through atlanta ever again. idk what was worse - the endless sea of fuckass cops or the 7-lane bumper to bumper traffic on the bypass. horrid. made me never wanna complain about florida roads again. i don't necessarily think being back has been much of an improvement and i'm still unsure if i made the right decision coming back at all, but i just couldn't imagine myself being away while my best friend is pregnant with her first baby. i don't know. i feel really stuck sometimes and the feeling of being behind in life is starting to haunt me. i know that's silly to be feeling at 26, but one of my best friends is having a baby and the other is getting married fall of next year and i'm just here. i am just here. trying to shake that feeling and just exist.

it is december 31, 2025 at 9:41am. i am sitting downstairs sipping peppermint tea (as i have tried to do most mornings lately). i am ready to say goodbye to the last 12 months. i hope the next 12 months and the days ahead are brighter and happier. for myself and everyone around me. for whoever reads this. i hope the days to come are sweeter than the one's passed.

i plan on archiving old entries soon. i keep begging for a clean slate - in every part of my life i guess. i turned 26 on tuesday. things are not any better but i guess expecting things to change overnight isn't realistic. anyway, i turned 26. and i'm moving out of my house. it's been a long time coming and i think i put it off for as long as i could without i dont know. i put it off because of how afraid i am of change and how afraid i am of being far away from those i love again, but if i don't leave now, i think i will never get away. i've been saying i want out since i moved back to this state and that was 5 years ago. i can't put it off anymore.

i will be coming back to visit in january for my best friend's baby shower and in february for her sister's wedding. i think it scares me that she won't be a 45 min drive away anymore when i leave. i move out in exactly 3 weeks. i put in my two weeks at work today. i've never put in a two weeks notice before - since i used to get burnt out working at a place for less than 6 months and leave unprompted when i couldn't stand it anymore. but i've been here 3 years. and most of my coworkers talk to me enough to also know that i've been considering leaving for a couple months now. given the state of the world and my freshly diagnosed autism, i'm terrified of having to look for a job again. the friend i'm moving in with (hopefully temporarily while i find my footing) has told me not to stress it and that i need a break from everything including a job, but i don't want to burden anyone. despite how many times he tells me i'm not a burden.

i've been looking at apartments/houses online to rent up there and have found a few i like a lot. i've never lived alone and i am still unsure if it's a good idea for me to do so. my paranoia can get the best of me sometimes even while living with people. and having only myself to rely on is also.... a horrifying thought. not in a lacking support way, but moreso in a "i find it hard to take care of myself" sort of way. i understand why the psychologist who did my autism assessment said i have "level one support needs", but i think a lot of the support needs that i do have are made easier by living with people. i just fear ending up like i did when i moved to mass and my agoraphobia worsened severely. i'm grateful even now to have fig, for he is my reason for getting out of bed. i'm trying to think of the bright sides in having my own place - my mess will be mine only. the kitchen will always be available to me. i can decorate as i please. if i'm able to get the 2bdr house i was eyeing, i could set fig up with his own room or maybe set us a guest room for when friends (hopefully) visit.

maybe 26 will be better. kinder. i've yet to feel that, but i guess there's still time. i want to make a home for myself this year. i've been finding it really hard to find hope over the last year. maybe a change of environment really is what i need. maybe that'll make all the difference.

oh! i guess before i go - i got a tattoo! on my birthday! courtesy of my little sister. she gifted me a tattoo a few years ago as well (my st. sebastian one!). this one is the circuit board cross that i used for the cover of my "divine machinery" zine on the back of my neck and i love it SO much. it is the first tattoo i've gotten on my back and the placement is just right. my sister kept making the joke all day that i looked like an android now. maybe i'll take a picture of it to insert here soon. and i went to the salvador dali museum last sunday! they had a van gogh 360 dome exhibit thing that we did at the start and i surely cried. i love van gogh. however, the museum was FULL OF AI!!! there was different screens set up for you to take "ai selfies" with dali or talk to dali's ai voice and i hated it. AND I SAW PIERCE THE VEIL HOLY SHIT. i almost forgot that happened. the day after my birthday was the pierce the veil concert. they were incredible live and the setlist was so good. i guess overall my birthday week was sweet. i tried to spend as much of it as i could with my best friend which made it sweeter. she made me the most special diy card/gift ever and idk. i forget how much she loves me sometimes.

i want to finish all the zinetober projects i started. i was able to upload 3 here so far, but i think i hate the way my zine pages are set up and realizing that i SOMEHOW have all of them connected to the same css page as my art portfolio was not cool. maybe that's what i'll get up to this weekend. maybe. i guess that's all from me for now. here's to turning 26 - here's to (hopefully) better days ahead.

man, shit sucks. if i knew this year was going to be one bad thing after another, idk. i'm exhausted. i'm trying to make up some sort of excuse to go home from work right now, but is being there ever any better? and at least i'm getting paid to be here. what a stupid predicament. idk how to express that i just feel Bad. i'm about to see my therapist 3 times in the span of a week and that just feels so defeating. things were supposed to have gotten better by now. things were supposed to feel better by now. i really think i need to ask to leave. i don't even know what to write that would make things feel less heavy anymore. i dont know. i cut all my hair off again. half because the impulse control was nowhere to be found and half because the feeling of my hair touching the back of my neck was exacerbating every thing bad i was feeling. idk what the point of this is. i'm just tired and sad and want to go. anywhere but here. anywhere but home. this would be easier if i wasn't losing friends at the speed of light or if the friends i actually wished to be around didn't live hours and hours away. i feel disconnected and alone and most of all, unwelcomed. i miss feeling okay. i miss my friends. idk.

the way i can experience imposter syndrome while simultaneously experiencing severe sensory issues should be studied by scientists. i got my autism assessment result back and the verdict is in: i am autistic. i met all of the criteria for a diagnosis. which has resulted in a very strange and difficult week. the psychologist who did my assessment told me i'd probably have a lot of "what if i'd found out sooner? how different would things have been?" thoughts and she wasn't wrong. with those thoughts has also come feeling a lot more imposter syndrome than i bargained for. i sought out the diagnosis because i thought i was exhibiting autistic traits and somehow getting that diagnosis spurred a lot of "maybe she made a mistake! surely i can't really be autistic!" i say this all while struggling severely at work today. i got myself worked up yesterday over not being able to find my lino sheets for a block print i was planning, had to make an impromptu trip to the art supply store to get more, they didn't have the chocolate bar i wanted at the register, trying to transfer my design onto the lino was not!! working, my roommate brought me back the wrong chocolate bar from the dollar store, then i got stuck in a loop of knowing my hand hurt trying to transfer the design, but not wanting to stop which allllllllll compounded onto me waking up later than i should've for work this morning, hiding in the sewing room to avoid being talked to, working on cutting out the lino and pushing myself past my limits and exacerbating my carpal tunnel pain, finding it difficult to speak when spoken to, being way too cold, and all of my clothes feeling wrong on my body! needless to say, i am having a really hard time. every time i've tried to start something today i get almost immediately frustrated and unable to focus for more than a few moments. even this, i've tried to write twice. this last hour is dragging so painfully. my hands/wrists are in so much pain.

if my job wasn't making it impossible for me to take needed time off right now, i would've asked to go home early hours ago. i keep having to take pauses because my brain stops working at trying to form words. i really want to crawl out of my skin today. i've been trying to work on one of the zinetober prompts all day and just can't. i know what i should be doing when i feel like this is extending myself some compassion and not forcing what isn't working - but that is increasingly difficult right now. i'm just frustrated. and hearing myself complain adds to the frustration!

i'm trying to make at least 10 zines this month and i've finished one so far. i think if i didn't spend hours trying to choose the "perfect" font i'd be a bit further ahead. i've got a few in progress too. i made one for hayley william's new album for the lyric book prompt. i had to re-do the format of that one a few times till i settled on making it like an actual lyric book you'd get in a CD case. the fall out boy one is in progress for the fanzine prompt. the saw (2004) one is in progress for the horror prompt. i'm working one about my love/hate for technology & its current state that i'd been meaning to do as separate essays but i think zine format will be so much more engaging for me and what i want to say in it. i'm glad i found that zinetober prompt list - i think it's helped out with the art block i'd been having over the last two years especially re: my zines. trying to remind myself it doesn't have to perfect, it just needs to be done. or however the phrase goes.

perhaps i'll have more to say when my hands hurt less and i don't feel like a stranger in my skin. until then.

four blog posts in one month? who am i?

i got a raise at work today and it has me reconsidering some things. the main one being whether or not i want to proceed with moving in november like i've been trying to plan or if i should just wait things out until the lease is up in february. that's still 5 months and i'm unsure if i can mentally handle everything i am feeling for another five months. but i also do not want to rush a whole out-of-state move over two bad weeks. (deep down i know this is more than two bad weeks and actually the accumulation of many bad weeks but whatever). there's just a lot of moving parts and i want to make the move with a feeling of preparedness and certainty (to some extent) rather than desperation and anger. idk. my heart still feels set on moving to * in february so i don't want to have this weird gap of time where i'm not working towards that or taking the steps i need in order to get there? too many thoughts. i just don't want to let things get worse over the span of the next 5 months and have my brain be in even more shambles and even more derailed by having to move on top of that. i guess i'll let it sit for a bit this week. sigh.

i truly think one of these days someone from county IT is going to come and punch me in the face for some nonsense i've done on my work computer. it's been at least twice a month now that i get a call from them because i've tried to install something that "raised a red flag" and honestly it'd be funnier if i WAS doing something to warrant that. last month they shut off my computer access to the network over some random website that never loaded and spent a half hour on the phone trying to get my access back. today's call was because i was TRYING to see if by some miracle i could get the .NET sdk extension downloaded onto vscode (again) to no avail and they somehow got a notice about me trying to do something with Python. the IT guy on the phone even laughed when i explained and said they just have to make sure it's not a russian hacker (eye roll) posing as me. highly unlikely and incredibly annoying to keep running into this issue after we've asked them to grant us administrator permissions for things like this. whatever i guess. needless to say, i couldn't get the .NET extension and now have no way to continue the c# course while i'm at work and not on my personal computer so i am (begrudgingly) going back to trying to learn Python after my single day of feeling defeated over it.

i also started learning a bit more about how linux actually works and am finding that interesting. i realized i was able to move my taskbar from the left of my screen to the bottom in ubuntu and i think that has eased my hesitance in exploring it more. i guess as far as media goes, i just finished watching the hbo docuseries thing about julius kivimaki yesterday. i tried looking more into him and things related to him, but unsurprisingly there is very little to actually go off despite how much was discussed in the four episodes. i don't find him particularly interesting or cool by any means (quite the opposite), but i think my brain is doing the fixation thing again and has me needing to know everything there is to know about something. autism assessment results in a week LOL. seems like the theme for this past week though, i've been working on another fall out boy zine and started rewatching regular show yesterday afternoon AND i watched sinners finally yesterday as well and then asked my roommate if he'd want to rewatch it with me in the evening. (he said no!) (if you haven't gotten to watching sinners, strongly recommending it. beautiful and fun and just so sick.)

my birthdays in less than a month and scorpio season starts soon enough. not sure why that is giving me this little inkling of hope and warmth as if the rest of this year hasn't proven itself to be anything but hopeless and cold. i think its the thought of moving where i actually want to and the good that will come from that. i'm trying hard to not let cynicism take over my true core thinking. it's been snaking its way in little bits this year and i am not a fan! mostly i just want the uneasiness i've been feeling again to dissipate and for my nervous system to feel sort of regulated again. i hate how easy it was for me to feel so derailed again!

i dont know i dont know! i wish work would go by faster but i also don't want to be home so that's a fun predicament to be in. i'll probably keep note taking on Python and pass the time. hope october is kinder to us all.

back again. i never did get to pick back up on the last blog post, but i've got an hour or so left of work to kill. i wanted to talk about the digital library update + my silly realization while wikipedia hopping. but i think i'll probably wait to talk about the archive until i've written out the full thing i've been writing about my process of building it and how i've been keeping track of everything. my realization was that i somehow have developed an unintentional habit of ending up researching weird shit that is bound to scare me? i think i've always been this way but i'm reminded of when my roommate would go on family trips more frequently and being left to my own devices usually left me with watching those iceberg deep-dive videos but about scary shit that i would not watch under any other circumstance??? and he certainly would advise me against it had he been home. the same went for the wiki articles, i started off with just fun silly things and by the end, i was on the Uncanny Valley and MKUltra articles??? and then i wonder why i am easily frightened and paranoid. its the same thing as when i'd stay up reading creepypastas as a teenager despite how afraid i was. don't know what that's about but feels like a silly pattern to have picked up on.

yesterday i was home all day and somehow spent 7 hours trying to resolve my vscode/vscodium c# issue which just ended up with me booting ubuntu onto my computer in place of linux mint. i was finally starting to get used to mint so i'm a bit bummed i ended up running another distro, but it did (thankfully) resolve my issue so i can continue the c# course and get on with learning game dev eventually. i find it funny that i didn't pick up web dev/computer science related things until the past year or so. maybe i'd be further along if i'd picked it up sooner, but i guess i can't speak on things i didn't know. idk. ubuntu has been so far so good, though. i added a nyan cat theme to my firefox browser (maybe temporarily idk) and am still getting used to the taskbar being to the left and not the bottom. there's a lot of differences from mint and definitely from windows, but i'm sure i'll get the hang of it soon enough.

i keep finding myself typing and then backtracking as if to censor myself? censor myself for who? the inner critic strikes again, i suppose. i keep thinking about You Weren't Meant to Be Human and am debating re-reading it despite having finished it only a few days ago. it was just so??? idk has fully taken over parts of my brain. i picked up Invisible Monsters (my all-time favorite book right beside Stone Butch Blues) and it's been so fun to read for like the tenth time. it's so campy. speaking of camp, now that i've been made aware that there's a SAW MUSICAL??? i'm trying to plan a trip out of state for my birthday to see the show live. not sure if it's gonna be possible, but a guy can dream! since there isn't a new saw movie coming out this month, maybe this will be the next best thing.

i feel like i want to have a blog style page on here for longer/more personal entries. we'll see if i get around to that anytime soon. i'm trying not to let the "who cares?" monster in my head win. trying to remind myself that the things i have to say matter somewhere. time seems to be slowing down now. there's still half an hour till close. i don't want to keep going with the linux lessons i was working on (my hand is about to fall off after writing like 7 pages of notes). i've been considering transcribing my notebook onto a page here too. i've seen a lot of "learning in public" style pages that i always find to be so cool. it's fascinating seeing what other people are learning and how they keep notes of everything. perhaps that's what i'll get up to.

something about falling down an almost 3 hour wikipedia rabbit hole. i've had nothing to do at work all day so of course that's where i'd end up. (i fell upon coffeeplant's wikipedia articles page and it was all downhill from there. i should probably take a screenshot of all the wikipedia pages i went through over the span of almost 3 hours. my brain is slush but learned about the ELIZA effect and that will probably come in handy for the essay i'm working on while reading Abolish Silicon Valley. (i really gotta get on with reading that more). i finished reading Joseph Andrew White's You Weren't Meant to Be Human. man. the last two horror books i've read have had queer, autistic main characters and it just hits so hard. i spent a good while of yesterday evening telling my roommate all about it. i'm supposed to be having the feedback session of my assessment on the 6th of october. whatever the result may be is looming over my head. anyway.

this past week has truly been a rough one. feeling very close to how i did in may and am not loving that. it's starting to seem like i'm going to be moving sooner than i would've liked, but for the sake of me staying alive. which i guess would also be my reason for choosing to move when the lease is set to end in february, but everything is hitting a point where it is just a bit more than i can take and still be well. idk. we'll see what the rest of this month has in store and then my mind will be made up. i know i wasn't meant to stay in this state for as long as i have and the thought of leaving is bringing up so much grief again, but idk. idk. let me move on.

its starting to get darker earlier and i am dreading every second of daylight i am losing. getting out of work in the evening and seeing less and less sunlight is going to do a number on me sooner than later, so i'm trying. really trying my damnedest to stay focused. and for fucks sake, can i please remember to take my vitamin D??

this work day has mostly been a bust since IT is useless and hasn't installed any of the programs needed on our computers and i've had no luck installing the .NET C# extension in my VSCode so the course i've been taking has to wait until i am home! which blows as i do not want to spend my time at home also staring at a computer! with the addition of them not installing much needed programs, the web development class i'd been planning for the last three months is likely getting canceled. whatever. i spent the first half of my day continuing with the full stack developer course i'd started and put down. i finally understand the css position property guys! crazy!

another thing i am picking up that i regrettingly put down last year is learning ASL. i had an episode (some sort of fucking panic attack? sobbing fit?) that led to me just crying and not being able to communicate why while locked in the downstairs bathroom of my house for almost 2 hours - and my dear roommate/friend just sat with me till it passed. i don't know anyone else who would handle me as kindly as he does in those moments, but am finding it more and more frustrating as i get older to not be able to speak. i say as someone who would give anything to not have to communicate verbally ever if the chance presented itself. so my aforefriended coworker/friend is taking it upon himself to also pick learning ASL back up. i have to make the time for it now or never.

i also finally published the updated digital library/archive page! yippee! i have more to say but unfortunately i have to close up shop at work. to be continued????

what the hell. didn't realize it'd been 3 weeks since i last updated. much to update on, i suppose. i finished reading chuck tingle's camp damascus. loved it. am currently reading joseph andrew white's debut adult novel you weren't meant to be human. lots of feelings about that one so far. had the first session of my autism assessment on monday. cried before and after, lmao! almost finished with the updated digital library/archive. just have to figure out how to move a few things around (css position property eludes me still, idek if thats what i should be using), make a nested dropdown menu (currently have a regular drop down for the future sort/filter options but cannot figure out how to nest more options within them), make the dark mode toggle functional, resize a feeew things, and decide whether or not i want to keep the color scheme/design i'd picked. on the bright side, all the content is there, fonts exported beautifully, it is almost an exact copy of what i came up with in figma!!! (really surprised myself with that and am kind of proud of how much i knew), and (drumroll please) ITS MOBILE FRIENDLY! i have finally conquered media queries!!!!!!!! i probably won't shut up about it for a while, especially after having spent almost 3 days trying to figure out how to get the grid to resize for the mobile/tablet/desktop views. and i finally updated it with all the resources i'd been sitting on, so there are currently 600 documents for people to peruse and save once i finally get it up. i know it'll still be a work in progress and i'll have to work out how to make the sort/filter options actually work (NOT looking forward to that!). and last few fun things, i think i'm going to be switching over to Linux (Mint) as the OS for my laptop and am taking it upon myself to learn C# so i can then learn game development???? shout out to me taking it upon myself to make my life just that much harder for no real reason.

i had briefly started trying to learn Python yesterday before realizing this morning, it wouldn't be that helpful for what i want to do with game dev especially when i'm considering Unity or Godot as game engines, both of which use C# and not Python. (i know Godot has its own scripting language but learning C# will grant me access to both game engines, and i will probably end up trying to learn Python at a future point anyway). all of this to be said, i don't even... really play video games??? which i know i will probably have to do to study and get inspiration, but mostly this is me picking up yet another intensive hobby for the purpose of learning new skills and not really for the result that'll come with it. that isn't to say i'm not really excited for the games i will be building, but that's a long ways from right now. j. has even started doodling pictures for some medieval fantasy game he seems to think i'm gonna build overnight. it hit me sometime last week that with my persisting carpal tunnel and wrist pain, physical art has been harder and harder for me to make over the last few years, and how frustrating i kept finding it to be because i was setting out for some sort of end result while not enjoying the process. but with the more computer things i learn, be it ui design or programming languages or whatever, i am enjoying every step of it. (this has led to a lot, and i mean A LOT, of anger about ai "art" lately and feeling like what the fuck is the point but i am working on a writing piece about that and don't feel like going on that rant here).

also the amount of reading and re-reading i've been having to do about linux has my brain feeling like mush. i know that i'm probably going to go with mint as its said to be the most beginner friendly + my lovely tech friend also suggested i go with it/he uses it. i just want to make sure i'm doing everything correctly. i'll probably start the process tomorrow since i have the day off and want to go as slow and i possibly can as to not mess anything up.

oh! i've also started running. semi-inconsistently lol. i was on a roll for the first two weeks of this month - OH MY GOD. I FORGOT TO SAY I SAW MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE???? THAT WAS A THING THAT HAPPENED???? I SAW EVANESCENCE AND MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE!!! WHAT A SPECIAL NIGHT!!!! can't believe i forgot about that. that was part of why i'd not been running as much as i would've liked last week. i had to get my baby bunny neutered (i cried that whole day too lmao) and then had to work the rest of the week and leave early saturday for the concert, got home at almost 2am, and have been exhausted until just about this morning when i finally pushed myself to go to the gym. not sure if i love/hate going to the gym before work yet, but it was empty so that's a plus. since i wouldn't shut up about fearing i was going to get a bloodclot or have my muscles atrophy (clearly i have a flair for the dramatic) from being glued to a chair every day at work, i got around to asking my friend who recently did a triathalon (he is the coolest ever) how he'd gotten started running. especially because i don't know when to quit and was going to end up with some sort of injury before i even started. he told me about some different 5k training programs so i'm trying really, reaaally hard to stick to that. it's also been helping because i've also gotten back into stretching and weight lifting at the same time so i'm not pushing myself too hard with any one thing. the program is supposed to be 9 weeks so if i stick with it, i would be able to hypothetically run a 5k by my birthday. crazy.

the number of parentheses i've written in this is a bit ridiculous. i should probably get back to this C# course (freecodecamp, my beloved). maybe by next update the digital library shall be up. despite how much this year has fucking sucked, i'm really glad i'm finding joy in what little ways i've been able to. may that continue (for you as well).

my wrist still hurts. typing is NOT helping. but for the life of me i cannot focus on the book i'm trying to read. i should see someone about my wrist. anyway.

i am yet again trying to make the time go by faster at work. i've been reading a lot of queer horror books lately. i really have to get around to updating my book log soon, but for now, i guess i'll just list them here. (note to self to work on book log whenever my wrist recovers). if ever my wrist recovers. the books i've been reading this month are as follows:

• manhunt by gretchen felker-martin, aug 4
• cuckoo by gretchen felker-martin, aug 16
• rest stop by nat cassidy, aug 22
• chasers by eve harms, aug 24
• brainwyrms by alison rumfitt, aug 25

i really wish work was going by faster. i really wish my wrist didn't hurt (i say while surely worsening it as i type this). i really wish i could focus on what i'm reading. idk. i've started weight lifting again. my body definitely feels it. the other day i was feeling a lot of grief about experiencing body pain again. in a way that i hadn't in a while. between getting my period (hrt i miss you) and my wrist pain - idk. i wanted to work on art that day and not being able to even sketch a bit on the tablet sucked. i'm supposed to find out on sunday if i got into the artist residency i applied to and that just adds to the grief. how am i supposed to participate in the things i enjoy if i am always experiencing some sort of pain? especially now in my hands? i know at some point i'll have to get it checked out, but trying to explain to any professional that i'm in pain always feels like a deadend. maybe i've just experienced bad doctors in recent years.

i should probably get to a stopping point before i make it even worse. maybe i'l be able to get through some more reading. i guess those are today's thoughts.

i should definitely not be typing with the way my wrist has felt the last 3? 4? days but there is fuckall to do at work aside from stare at this screen so might as well try to make the time go by a bit faster. nto sure what i did to my wrist aside probably excessive typing but the nerves in it feel fucked lmao. i've made no progress on the digital library this week with my wrist feeling like this. work is dragging this week, too.

every day it's hitting me more and more that i would like to move out of this cursed state when the lease ends. i can't picture myself being happy here. i haven't been happy here. idk. i'm just starting to feel more and more disconnected from everyone as the time goes on. people are having kids and getting engaged and i'm here still having nightmares about a person who doesn't love me back. whatever.

i fell into a reading slump this week not having my books come in before i finished cuckoo. and it seems like this weekend will be more of the same. i thought my copy of gretchen felker-martin's new book black flame had gotten delivered, but it was the copy of stag dance. and i got my copy of cuckoo and chasers yesterday, but cuckoo i got to annotate since i'd finished reading a library copy and chasers is only 145 pages and i'm on page 95. sigh. i also finished reading nat cassidy's rest stop yesterday. super gross and gory and ridiculous. it was also about 100 pages so i finished it within a couple hours at work. i didn't expect chasers to be so short, but so far i'm enjoying the story. hopefully black flame is a bit longer and i won't finish it so fast. i made a list of a bunch of queer horror books i want to get through over the next few months, but i'm either gonna have to order them or get them sent as ILL's because somehow i work at a library that has not a single book i want to read.

i finally posted my "30 days no smartphone" thing on substack. perhaps i'll insert it onto this blog page. not having a smart phone has been great and i can't imagine going back to having one. my nokia is here to stay! hopefully having more time on my hands will force me to make more physical art. well. maybe when my wrist recovers. blows that all of my hobbies are just contributing to my damn carpal tunnel. typing this is honestly getting more painful as the time goes so i'm gonna just pull up allison rumfitt's brainwyrms and try to make some progress on it. (started it yesterday, feeling meh about it but this last hour and a half will be the death of me if i don't do something).

didn't realize so much time had passed since i last updated the blog. oops. i guess i'll start with some silly things. i finished reading gretchen felker-martin's manhunt at the start of this month and loved every single second of it. i'm not usually one for reading horror (at least not since reading creepypastas and the like in middle school), but i guess her books have reignited that love. i started cuckoo shortly after and found out she had released a book on the 5th of august and immediately put it on hold at work. it's still on order so i'm impatiently waiting for that to come in so i can start it as soon as i finish cuckoo. love me a fucked up weird read by a trans writer. cuckoo has been a rollercoaster and the part III hasn't been holding my attention as much as the rest of the book, but i do think i'm gonna end up buying a copy of it to re-read and annotate at a later time because it's overall a really great book. also found out that she has her first 3 novels on her gumroad so i WILL be purchasing those when i'm done with my queue of books. i think it's nice that i've started reading horror again as we're nearing fall and it got me out of my reading slump.

now for the more exciting matter of business. for the last couple months, i'd been thinking about re-doing the format and style of the digital library/archive. i briefly mentioned it in the last? post or the time before. i started working on the re-do around the 7th of july as far as the actual coding goes. which was probably a really backwards way of doing this and am finding many issues with having done so! nonetheless, we prevail (or something like that). since i was learning UI/UX design anyway, i thought it'd be a good idea to start just messing around in Figma to see what kind of layouts i was envisioning. i also opened a g**gle form to get feedback on what was wanted from people actually using the archive. the major thing being a mobile friendly version and the book covers pictured instead of it just being a text only directory. along with a few other things here and there that people suggested. the form is still up here in case anyone wants to add their input while i work on the revised library!

i wish i could say any of this design process came naturally to me. i wish i could say i didn't spend 3 shifts at work trying to decide on a color palette only to end up right back with the color palette i'd chosen at the start of july. i wish i could say it's been easy! but it hasn't. at all. and i am honestly glad it hasn't? it's forced me to problem solve and step back and (repeatedly) ask myself "am i enjoying the process? do i like what i'm designing?". when i started learning to code, i remember telling a friend of mine that it was helping me with not catastrophizing at the first sign of something not going right. i'd since lost that ability this year, but am working my way back to it. this project is really important to me so if i wasn't enjoying the process or even liked what i was designing, what was the point?

i designed over 18 different desktop versions when i couldn't decide on a color palette. not including the 3 i thought i was gonna go with and the many failed attempts with the first layouts i messed around with. this whole thing has been a lot of trial and error and i'm trying not to rush it. at this current moment, the digital library page on my site is its original HTML file as i somehow deleted the CSS file attached when moving some things around. go me! but all the resources on it should still lead to the right pdf.

hopefully soon i'll be able to share the design i've been working on and see how close i can get to that with my coding skills as they stand lol. i'm just trying to pass the time at work right now until i have to instruct my sewing class (completely forgot about it until i came in this morning. oops.) but here's to better days ahead.