Dancing in the room

Little bitty pretty one.

That song makes me smile.

It was in Matilda and it was great to dance to as a kid.
It plays at a school dance and you want to dance around being silly
It played the night before my housemate left and we danced around spinning each other and doing terrible dance moves and being silly.


It's just a song that makes me smile.

... and Brown Eyed girl just started playing, time to dance!

Goodbye Roommate

It is rare for me that I am so vividly touched by someone whom I have not known for a long period of time. Perhaps that is why I was pleasantly surprised to find myself growing poetic on the bus the other day.


You see, My housemate E just moved out yesterday. For the past week, I have spent a good deal of time with her, just chatting away into the night. Laughing at terrible (or turrible as we were saying) puns and silly jokes.  Our discussions often led deep into the night and I don't mind having lost sleep over it.


I don't know if I have ever felt so read so easily. As I was sitting on the couch with E and chatting, she reached over and began massaging my head, neck and back. As she hit on my back she gasped a little at the amount of tense knotted muscles. Immediately she demanded I lie down so she could work on it. This was the first massage I've had in probably months.  It hurt, but in a good way.


As she worked at the hard muscles, we continued our conversation. It was then that she read me like an open book.

"You're probably the kind of person who everyone comes to with problems,  because they know you'll help solve them."
I didn't deny it, I was curious where this train of thought would go.
"I remember, a little while after we had all moved in, and I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but you were on the phone with a friend, who was complaining about an internship or something."
I nodded a little, I remembered the conversation I had had with my friend A.
"I remember thinking, wow, this guy is a nice guy! I would never have the patience to talk to someone for 45 minutes and do what you did"
I gave a small sigh of contentness as she unwound a knot near my shoulder blade
"I was glad then, we needed a nice person in our house. I mean, H----h is nice, but high strung and focused. H----e is emotional and gets upset pretty easily. You" her hands stop for a moment searching for a muscle before settling on moving up to my neck near the base of my skull "You're focused too, but in a different way."
I chime in "I'm focused yes, but H----h's and my approach to problem solving is a bit different." her hands move to massaging near my ears
"Right, she gets kinda, obsessively focused. You're more relaxed about it"
"Patient"
"Yeah you're very patient, like with your friend. I don't know if I could do that"
I smile as I think about A. "She was having a hard time, but she's a really good friend and kinda like hearing her vent, I don't get worked up often, so I kinda enjoy seeing the raw emotion come out of people, it's something I don't do so its refreshing as long as it's not directed at me."
her hands move to my lower back
"You're a peace-keeper."
How many times has she said that to me in the past week? Month? Whenever we discuss siblings and family, my being the youngest results in her telling me I'm a peace-keeper. She's not wrong. In my household I did get along with people in my family, I did help mitigate arguments a bit and try to resolve problems between people.
"I just like solving problems."
"You seem good at it, kill any beetles today?"
Beetles. That's the insect her and I had decided I delt with at work. I'm always maintaining and developing for a bug-ridden system. When I was talking to her about it she had asked me the absurd question of what type of bug it was. After laughing and musing for a bit, we decided on beetles. 
"I did. A system wide one that I've been dealing with for a couple days"
Thumbs press into my back and I feel a muscle release and a wave of relaxation hits me. 
"That's good"
We chat a little more about my work and she shifts a little and starts reworking my shoulders. 
"I think you should live in Burlington."
She's referring to my upcoming need to choose to live in the capital where I work, or continue living in the shadow of my alma mater  "Why's that?"
"If you live down there, you'll just work all the time and won't hang out with friends as much. You'll go to work, come home, work more, sleep, work, work. You'll be unhappy with yourself and I'm sure you'll visit friends here sometimes but you'll go home from work, be exhausted and not want to make the journey to Burlington because you work to much."
I think about it for a moment, feeling myself get offended that she would think I wouldn't go see my friends, I let it pass through me as I'm not really offended just an initial reaction to being told how I'd live. But after a moment reflection " You're probably right. I work too much." her hands start working again, I don't doubt she could tell I was taken aback for a moment. 
"I think you should live here, and enjoy life a bit, take some time for yourself and don't spend all your time working."
"I don't work all the time, today I came home read a book and played guitar on the roof"
"Good! Do that more!
We settle into comfortable silence for a moment before she brings us back to our original conversation, bringing up taking time for myself. And getting my friends to do more things like this. I respond "I'm always the one to give the massages, never to get them."
"Well, maybe in a past life you were a giving tree! I bet, whenever your friends need help you're the kind of person who comes running to help "
my mind flickers to an incident a few months ago where I ran to the hospital to sit with a friend because she needed someone and another incident where I walked out of my way late at night to go sit with a friend who had been crying.
"And when you're always helping people like that, and they can always rely on you and count on you, people forget that maybe the person they ask to solve their problems has problems themselves"
I can't disagree with that. She's just hitting the nail on the head.
"You have to take some time for yourself, or get one of them to give you a massage instead of the other way around."
I turn my head and look back at her. She looks very focused, concentrating on finding the knotted muscles in my back. I catch her eye "You're reading me like one of your books. You know that?"



I'm going to miss her. She was a great person to live with and had a keen insight into my head. H----e had described E and I as twins when she saw us dancing in the kitchen while making muffins one night. Drinking Vodka and prancing about to the dance of the sugar plum fairies. Always dancing in the kitchen, getting Sara Bareilles stuck in her head and snapping our fingers as we bounced all around the apartment. One of those light-hearted friendships where the smiles flow often and conversation is just easy.

On her last night, she cooked dinner for the 3/4 housemates who were home. Each dish served was themed for a person. For H----h: steak. For H----e: pasta with pesto sauce. For me: homemade pizza rolls. We had set the table, tablecloth and place-mats and just sat together and were a small dysfunctionally functioning college student + alum family. H----h and H----e both got her a card from the store, some get well soon cards or those kind of funny you're going away and we'll miss you but here's something silly kinds of things. I had made her a card as well.

When I make a card for someone, it is not meant to be shared. I write them for one person and they are the object of my focus for that time. I think about the person, about the relationship I have with them. I draw on all the shared experiences and inside jokes I can and I try to create something that they will treasure. For E, I had folded a piece of paper in half, drawn her name in large bubbly letters, drew flowers and tree's and nature on the front. Then a curtain and stage on the back, haphazardly writing "The world is your stage" on it. Cliched, but for her very true. She's so full of life and bravadous acting that watching her cook was like watching a comedic play. Inside I had written her a poem, and filled the other half-page detailing things I remembered about our time spent as housemates together. I wrote the poem on the bus that morning, watching the mountains go by on the way to work.

It's been a long time since I wrote song lyrics, poems, or anything like that. I used to a lot in highschool, but I hadn't felt the urge or had the inspiration to do so for a few years. So when a line popped into my head on the bus, I began writing and then decided that it would be perfect as a gift for her to remember me by.

I honestly don't share the things I write for other people most of the time. As I said, it's personal and focused entirely on them. But I like this one so much. That I want to share it. It probably won't make sense to anyone reading this, as it has inside jokes with her primarily. When reading, make note of the commas as the poem does have some meter, although it switches up a bit near the end. But, in all it's glory:

This summer spent with you I will not forget;

Nights shared, Canadians met

With laughter heavy and hearts light

I give to you my thoughts in flight

My souls a kiwi, yours a salad 

full of interest, variety, and the occasional ballad

Favorite housemate, soon to be

Favorite Californian, from ol' M.E.

Could be sad, rather reflect 

On smiles, risks, 'n' auburn flecks

Two deer in headlights, laundry goes out

laughter mixed with British shouts

You told me you write

Could I tell you I'd read?

Lyrics, novels, proclivities.

You're going away, but keep in touch

if you need help, Facebook's a crutch

East coast, West coast, wherever you are

That's where you'll go and friends won't be far

Peace.

It is not always that I write when I'm happy. Today is one of those days.

It is so peaceful.

My day began late, up to late spending time with one of my roommates who will no longer be my housemate in a few days. I have enjoyed making a friend of her this past summer, and I am going to sorely miss her when she leaves Friday morning. Only 2 days away, I won't dwell on it.

Work went as expected, we moved the office around and my new position is much nicer, since I have the trees and glass door to my back. I can close my eyes and imagine the river if I'd like, and the sound of the wind through the trees and shrubbery behind me is soothing as I program my heart out. I fixed an error today, deploying it and talking to my Russian coworker while doing so. I believe he is my favorite, as he is quick to smile and laugh.

The bus ride home was uneventful, the wifi cut in and out making it difficult, but as usual my bottomless patience simply shifted my attention to the mountains as they sped past. There is something beautiful about nature when you can stop and appreciate it.

My walk home was quick, determined. I found my home locked, no roommates? Its odd for all 4 of them to be gone, but then I remembered one of them saying something about a fair, and I know the one moving away is at a potluck tonight.

Home is quiet. The cat asleep on the couch. The shower called for me. No music this time, my mp3 player is dead from being left out on the table for 2 days without charging. A side affect of the late nights I've been having. After my shower, pulled pork and toast cooking and I walk up the stairs. The microwave humming behind and the toaster oven clicking. Today will be the one of the first times I've had leftovers from this batch of pork I made Sunday.

I grab a book. The Time Travelers Wife. Sit at the table for the first time since we got it, and eat my meal while reading. Something I've never done before. The house is completely silent and I love it. It is so calm having nothing to distract me at all. No loud noises. No stories I don't care about.

I eye the piano. Playing it loudly, letting my fingers find what I want to hear. Music comes from the soul, and today my soul was peaceful but loud about it. It was beautiful and ended on a C.

I read some more. And drink water.

Music

It always impresses me how much meaning we can attribute to music and songs that were shared to us by people we hold significant in our lives.

Why am I awake right now?

I wonder how many blog posts have that title? Or facebook status's. Or tweet updates....

Well I'm asking it.

I drank a bottle of wine while watching a show with a roommate. Then proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. Woke up with my roommate's (different one) cat sleeping on my chest. Just purring away. That's cool cat. I didn't want to feel bad about getting up and going to bed.

On the bright side I'm trying out my new bone conduction headphones right now. And it's pretty awesome. The sound is crystal clear without me having to blare the music, I don't feel like my ears are stuffed up or like I'm going to build up earwax or something because of having crap in my ears. I wouldn't care about sharing them since I don't have to put something that's been in someone else's ear into mine (there must be a shorter way of saying that. Auri-share-a-phobia?)

wheel.

I feel like a 2n+1 wheel.

I'm always a 3rd, 5th, or 7th wheel when I'm out with my friends. Normally it doesn't bother me too much. But this weekend it did. Maybe it has something to do with one of my friends getting engaged? Maybe that my married/partnered friends make jokes about how they can't code as much like I can because I have free time because I'm not linked up with someone. They're supposed to be jokes, but they really only serve to remind me that I'm alone. Sure I'll quip back at them about those types of things. But I never show that I'm hurt. That maybe I wish that I could stop being a workaholic long enough to enjoy someone elses company -- or rather, that I could stop having only one thing truly defining me to my friends who see me as just a programmer.

Sure, Programming is what I do. It makes perfect sense to me. And I love it very much. Do I not get lonely because of my dedication to science? No. I get plenty lonely. Especially when I'm sitting in a room, listening to all my friends talk about how great it is to be married and have 'that promise of someone being there' when you get home or need them. Or how they shirk duties for projects and don't really hold onto the details of an application because they simply want to hang out with their spouse.

They say they're envious of my work ethic and how much time I can commit to a project. ... Maybe they assume I'm ok with being by myself. And having no one anymore to hold. Well... they'd be wrong. I'm past the stage of getting over my ex. 1 week for each month together with that person is my rule for grieving a relationship. So, 12 weeks after the breakup is supposed to be when I'm ok with being lonely again. Or at least, that's what I told myself I'd do and what it'd be like...

unfortunately, that's not the way life works. I don't want to say I'm still hung up on my ex. But, I still love her very much. She's one of those people who I want to talk to still, and when the liquor flows in me and loosens up the tight logic bound in my brain, I text her and tell her I miss her. Why? Because I do, I really do miss her. I'm ok not being with her anymore. It's best to move on or something right? But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be with her or at least see and talk to her. I feel like I've been cut out though. I could be completely wrong. But there's just not as much commication as I wish there was.... of course, that could be because she finally got tired of my drunk texts. And me not being able to get over her it seems.

After half a year, shouldn't I start not feeling so lonely? It's bad enough being lonely. But I get upset when I hang out with couples, because everyone was else seems like a perfect couple or they have things going for them... what do I have? I have a job in my field.... I have the respect of some peers. But what I want is for someone to actually love me and care about me. As more than just a friend. I want to have a cuddle buddy. Someone to talk to when I have to handle all my issues. When my medical bills or conditions pop up, I want to have someone to call to the hospital to hold my hand and to help me through. Of course, that's too much to ask for.

how do people get dates and meet people when you don't have hte very common ground of schooling together? I don't know. Of course, I'm not really trying to get anyone to fix my loneliness problem. That seems wrong somehow. But really though: I feel like I'm going to die alone, self invested in my work, I leave no time for going out to meet people, and I'm not going to do online dating. That just seems like a cop out to life. I'm married to my computer as is, I don't need to use it to date people too.

Pacific Rim and Evangelion Similarities

When I saw the trailer for Pacific Rim, I looked at my brother and we both nodded and agreed that it was an Evangelion rip off.

Now that I've seen the movie? My opinion is still the same.

Let me just list off some of the similarities:

• Giant robots controlled through neural connections
• The idea of a sync ratio between the pilot and the robot: (In the case of pacific rim there's also the drift between pilots and how their minds meld into one. Sound similar to the end of eva? yeah.)
• In one of the first scenes with the pilots helmets, you see an orange liquid drain from the suits. LCL anyone?
• The pilots wear tight body suits that have connectors to hook up to the machines better.
• The quiet female character has blue hair (Rei has full blue, Mori has just blue tips)
• The Main character runs away for a period of time before coming back to save the day... after someone scolds them for running away.
• The male and female leads are in love and have a great sync ratio with each other (No flame bait for people who prefer Shinja x Asuka over Shinja x Rei, but come on, Shinji and Rei were more compatable when working together as clearly shown in the episode "Dance like you want to win" similarally, Rally in pacific ocean shares a better connection with Mori over any of the other hotheaded pilots he meets ) 
• There's a big council cutting off the budget to the organization with robots
• Big monsters tear apart the robots in inhuman rage and destroy everything
• monsters that spits acid that melts building http://wiki.evageeks.org/Matarael
• The chainsaw knife that deploys from the machines body and the prog knife from eva
• Fighting giant monsters in close hand to hand combat is more effective than long range weapons.
• Over bearing father figure controlling all the action (Marshall and Gendo)
• The red robot... and the four eyes on one of the other ones.
• The robot standing with no power while it's pilots are at the mercy of the monster in front of it (Asuka/Reis' eva's when fighting http://wiki.evageeks.org/Zeruel, which is killed brutally by the main character when he swoops in to save the day) 
• The hot headed pilot makes a noble sacrifice so the other pilots can go on (asuka in EoE)
• The protaganists machine has a dual core that allows it to operate when the other machines cant. Eva 01 has the s2 organ to do the same, and the Gipsy has a duel nuclear core.
• The main characters both lose their machine
• EoE ends with the ocean and not being able to breathe, so does Pacific Rim. And then, the series ends with clapping, so does Pacific Rim.
• Quirky scientists performing morally unsound experiments regardless of orders. 
• THIS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCcFTeDdq_Q
• I'm sure there's plenty more. But those are the ones I can remember after seeing it once. 

Calm on the outside as usual

Today I was in a mood.

Feeling retrospective and contemplative I decided to sit, listen to music (Imogen Heap) and think about my life.

It was amazing how many small things I could remember back from elementary school and preschool and onward. Things that were so small and meaningless, but yet still held enough meeting for me to remember them after over a decade.

One of my roommates came out and handed me a mimosa that she had made. It was tasty. We sat and we talked, and she told me how she had told her friend back in California about me and how similar him and I were. Then she added that we were very similar, except that I wasn't depressed -- at least not visibly on the outside. We talked about how sad it was that so many people are depressed and she asked me a funny question.

"Do you ever look in the mirror and realize you're really annoying?"

I agreed outloud, because of course I feel like i'm annoying to my friends. After all, I send off texts with useless information to them out of the blue, I text friends I haven't talked to in months with nothing but the words "Love you!" and I startup conversations for no reason other than to hear from them. I call it keeping in touch, but I feel like it's probably annoying. I don't know how to moderate myself in that regard. How much is too much? Who gets the last word in? When should I stop texting/chatting?

And of course internally while I'm explaining to her how I feel like I annoy my friend S with my constant bombardment of "I miss your face", I'm thinking to myself

"Do you ever look in the mirror and just hate who you are?"

Of course I didn't ask that, but her question immediately made me think of hating myself and those moments of staring and wondering why I do what I do and if I could change. I've resigned myself to life after college being lonely. It's fine. But I don't see any chance of meeting someone exciting and new, someone who I can be myself with and I don't see myself finding a partner anytime soon. Too many other things to deal with.

I asked her if she felt like she was annoying and she laughed and said "of course!" and we discussed her feeling like she's too bossy with her siblings and stuff. I told her how I felt, that she wasn't annoying, she was just very full of life and it was a good thing. She laughed because she's been told she's full of life before. Which isn't surprising. When you're a person who has that kind of magnetism and feeling for how to live, it's not surprising that people are attracted to it and want to befriends with you, and if they have to describe it, then full of life works perfectly fine.


Of course, -- and this may be projection -- but I find that when people ask questions like that, and reflect on themselves and what others say about them, that perhaps maybe they're not as happy as they seem. For example, she perceives me as a calm person who is collected and is not depressed like her friend. Yet, the moment she asks me a question that causes self introspective I can't help but immediately jump to negativity about myself. It makes me wonder if when I told her she was full of life, if perhaps she doesn't quite feel the same about herself. -- of course, that's conjecture and probably projection of my current feelings onto her. So who knows.

The heart of another is an impossible thing to understand. I can no more fathom it then I can move the stars.

Time to go to sleep and sleep off this irritating feeling of self introspective. It's not conducive to my mental health I think.

Ignored

When you're excited about something, most people share right?

I get excited when I'm programming. So I like to share. My friends are sitting on chat, and I chat 1 or 3 of them and tell them what I'm doing. They're status changes to away.

Why am I ignored when I just want to share something I love?

Scumbag brain

I keep having dreams about my ex.

It wouldn't bother me if they were nice dreams, but they're not. They start out nice. I'm happy to see her and hang out with her (because I miss hanging out with someone I consider one of my best friends) and sometimes she's happy to see me too. But it always takes a turn for the worse and the theme is always the same.

She's been with someone else, she has a new boyfriend she didn't tell me about, she has a new boyfriend and she cheated on him with me for months. All these things. To clarify my position, it'd be totally fine if she got a boyfriend in real life. I'd like to think I've moved on (not to anyone new, but I'm not pining after a relationship with her anymore -- although typically after I wake up after these dreams and see the empty side of my queensized bed it does make me miss having her to wake up next to --) so it wouldn't matter if she got a new boyfriend. We promised each other that when we found new partner's we'd tell each other. And I'm going to stick by that promise if I find a girlfriend she'll be the first to hear about it. Anyway, the common theme in the dream is betrayal. Typically we're having a great time just hanging out, or we've fooled around a little and are just laying down together cuddling...

and then she drops the bomb.

Dream her tells me that she's had sex with this random person, or tells me that she's been cheating on some new boyfriend with me (which thoroughly pisses me off because cheating is the worst thing you can do to someone and I don't wish it on anyone --I know that heartache all too well), or just something like that. And she does it in a way that's completely unlike her in real life.

So, it's easy to be like, oh that's just my brain and they'res no way she would ever act like that. So why does my brain keep doing it? I don't really buy into dreams telling us anything or having a deep universal meaning (psychs can go shove it), but I know my subconscious is trying to tell me something, but I wish it would tell me in a way I could understand, not in a way that just makes me wake up sad.

Maybe I'm just lonely and miss having good company around.

I am

I am an award winning, published, well respected college graduate. It's time to start acting like one.


...

And if I knew how to, I would! Haha, I think I'll just keep being me and I'll be ok :)

So tired of being told I'm good at stuff

I really am.

Am I overzealous? Or overbearing? Am I too much?

I work on projects, I get excited when people want me to help out. I ask them questions and propose new methods and want to help out and make any system I work on a great one. When I'm not met with the same amount of enthusiasm it kinda gets me down.

My friends working on a cool logging framework that's cross platform/language and its pretty cool. He invited me to work on it with him, and I proposed a system to help seperate each language and stuff from each other. I just picked up the project again after not touching it for a couple months and asked him a couple of questions regarding if I could delete some old files or not. NOW, we are using version control so he can get them back anyime he wanted in case we needed them, but I just wanted to make sure.  Unfortunately, he's cramming for an exam right now and I guess I must be a bit of a bother. He pretty much told me as much, said he was sorry for being a grouch but that he hasn't looked into the project for a few months and since he's studying could care less. I was fine with that. But then he said that since I'm a better programmer than him and the other guy whose been working on it with us combined, that he thought he spoke for both of us when he says: "have at it"

I'm tired of being told I'm so damn good at something that I get free reign over a project. That is not how group projects work. Its sad. I miss my friend Jack who actually questioned my decisions and we'd have great debates about which algorithm or data structure to use for a particular piece of a project. Sigh.

People are ignorant

http://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf/2013/05/story_of_olmsted_towhship_homi.html


A friend of mine showed me this article. And I did a little bit of reading. First the article itself, and then the comments section. Good lord were the comments a time and a half to read.

It amazes me that people can be so ignorant and discourteous to each other. The social stigma and bias against a person whose transgendered is remarkable, and so many people --including some of the ones commenting-- are so blatantly prejudiced that it's simply remarkable.

It just seems like some people just don't understand the difference between sex and gender. Is it because of the area they grow up in? Is it a lack of education? Is it just constant reinforcement of a gender dichotomy that makes them believe that they're only two genders in the world? Bullshit.

I live in a pretty liberal state, and one that has a lot of the better laws in place for trans-people. And it's really great because I know transgender-ed people and they're really nice. There's nothing 'freakish' or wrong about them. If someone believes themself to be born in the wrong body, and then seek to correct it, what's wrong with that? I don't see how its different then someone being born with some type of birth defect, and then getting it corrected. Again, there is nothing wrong with it.

But people in the comments keep arguing, some deliberately going out of their way to call the victim of the article a man. There was one particular comment that capitalized every reference to the victim and made sure it was using HE or MAN. What an asshole. There were a lot of good comments from people  I can assume are either educated or part of the LBQT community itself, trying to educate the neanderthals that sex is between the legs, and gender is between the ears. It amazes me at how resistant people are to the concept.

In an anthropology class I took 4 years ago we learned about the Fa'afafine, who are the third gender of Samoa.  I remember being fascinated as my ideas about gender were blown out of the water. I remember thinking, wow, that's really cool. Other cultures can deal with up to 7 different genders (or at least that's the most I've heard so far), and its fine. If the USA  is so great, then why is it so far behind on basic things such as equal treatment of homosexual and gender dysphoric people? Is it really that hard to be a bit more aware?

Now to be completely honest, I hate that everything always has to be politically correct all the time. You can't say this, you can't say that etc etc etc. But with some things, it's really important. A simple thing like referring to a transgender woman (male-to-female) as he is what's called a micro aggression. You might not realize it because you just slipped up, but to them it defeats everything. If a transgender person's goal is to be stealth (pass in their preferred gender) then something like referring to them with the wrong pronoun destroys some of that self confidence they've built up. You might not realize it, but those kinds of things hurt.

I find most of the comments on that article horribly bigoted, insensitive, and completely off the mark in some occasions. Instead of trying to understand what's wrong with what they're doing, many people just start backing into a corner and trying to hide behind things like ignorance or some pseudo science. One person went so far as to say that it's not a disease so how could it be a diagnosis? Uhm. Well, Dr. Attempting to be smart, Gender Identity Disorder is a recognized issue in the psychiatric community, the reason treatment exists in the first place for it (HRT [hormone replacement treatment] and such) is because after seeking help from counseling and psychiatric services, you get the diagnosis of it and start treating.

Its awful how foolish, ignorant, and plain insensitive people are to important issues like this. Only recently have homosexuals really started to gain some amount of foothold into being accepted in the world and they're still facing opposition from idiots and assholes everywhere. I feel for these people and I really do wish that we could educate people better so that incidents and bias's like the ones expressed in the article and its comments didn't happen at all.

just my 2 cents

Low and then high and teeeeeeeeeessssstiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeees

It's amazing what lying in the dark thinking can do for a person.

I got the results of an ultrasound today. I expected the worst. I was disappointed. And yet... I feel I steeled myself for the worst, but forgot to construct the barriers necessary to handle the other options. To be honest, I had prepared myself for a diagnosis of testicular cancer. That is not the prognosis. However, I still have had my concerns about some other things confirmed.

Expecting something and actually feeling it are two different things. And oddly enough, I think I would have been handling this better if it had been cancer. Instead, I just have more questions. The initial diagnosis of an atrophied testicle back in winter when I had my kidney stones was a possibly correct one. I have followed up with a physical, and the doctor scheduled me for the ultrasound. I have just received the results from him today. I knew there was going to be something wrong with me. But hey, I guess you can never fully prepare.

I think I would have been fine if the medical report wasn't so very cold. Reading that a piece of you is called as an abnormality or an anomaly, while true, is painful. I'm not upset that I have one good half and that that has some random little issues popping up around it that I'll need to keep an eye on. No, I'm upset that the terminology was so insulting. Or rather, that that it is my body that can be described in such a way. I have never been particularly fond of my physical self, being more in tune with my mind and feeling like a stranger or passenger stuck in a shell. A defective shell apparently.

The object that has similarities to what my right half should look like isn't... hmm... testicular enough to fully be identified as an atrophied testicle. Rather, it has some appearances but is still described as  abnormal or an anomaly. So the doctor wants me to get a urologist's consultation since they specialize in the male genitalia , and depending on what the specialist says, to get a contrast MRI to see if I have an intra-abdominal teste or if the thing in my right half is what remains of a possibly torsion-ed testicle.

Fun Fact: I've known about my right half being messed up the whole life. Fun Fact: I assumed my physician I had my whole life back home knew about whatever was wrong with me, and that was why it was never brought up during physicals even though this thing would have been clearly active. Fun Fact: I was told that this should have been addressed at birth if it was a birth defect. Fun Fact: I should have been made aware of what was on my own charts throughout childhood so that I wouldn't feel alienated from my peers who were normal Fun Fact: I was told that this never being brought up to me is malpractice. But I can't find myself seeing it that way, the doctors always ask "Do you have any questions for me?" But I was always too damn afraid to be that different. To actually have questions. Sometimes my parents would be in the room, so how could I have brought that up? I remember always thinking to myself, this time they'll see it, this time they'll do something about it or tell me about it. I was always relying on them, the experts and professionals to know what they were doing and to help me without me needing to ask. Relying on other people seems so foolish sometimes. Everyone's motivated by selfish thoughts, everyone wants to better themselves, the only time you can rely on someone else is when they need something from you. It's like everything is a damn transaction. Fun Fact: I feel like most of the friends I have, I only have because they use me to study or to learn from. Fun Fact: I don't blame them to only want to be with me if it helps them. Fun Fact: I see myself as wholly defined by my work. There is nothing more to me than that. The relationships I have with other people? If they're nothing more than just using me as a means to an end, then how can I find worth in them? I just see myself as losing faith in relying on other people more and more. It's like how I lost my faith in God. I always asked for help from 'him/it/her' but nothing ever came. My friends here in VT, I ask for help. Not always directly, but I'm trying not to scream it, I don't want to be a bother, I don't want to be awkward, or be that guy who just wants to talk and be serious. No one wants to be serious. Someone brings up their feelings? Fuck 'em, why should we talk about feelings when they'res parties to be had and nights to forget? Oh I dunno... maybe because I'm having trouble and you called yourself my friend. The people I call my friends? Are they really friends... or are they just peers. A network for me to use as an end to further my career growth? I certainly hope not. I want friends. I could care less about making a lot of money. Money is not important to me at all. I did not choose my profession based on a paycheck. To other people, what the hell do they see? I've been staring at the award the department here gave me now, and I just can't see why they gave it to me. Well... I can state the obvious things. I know why they gave it to me. They perceive me as something I'm not. What do they see me as? They see me as a leader. Someone whose involved in the community. Someone who helps others, who strives to learn, who tries to better themselves and to challenge themselves and succeeds. They think I'll do something important or big. And what do I have to show for their perceptions? Nothing. I have nothing. I can lead yes. I can speak and give a lecture. I can help others understand. I can tackle a problem and beat it down. But how do I actually feel about it? I have no concept of self worth. I judge myself on others. And for a while I judged myself by the projects and work I did with others. But I'm so tired of that. I'm tired of just sharing some technical thing with other people. What meaning is there to it? I want actual relationships with people. I want someone to care about me, and actually convince me that they care about me. But I'm not going to get that. Why? Because people are busy. They're always busy. I had a goddamn mental breakdown at work a few weeks ago. Just sitting there crying as tons of thoughts raced around in my head. I cleaned myself up before a meeting with my boss and gave her my professional opinion on some crap that didn't matter to me. And during that time, I emailed my friend. My best friend. All I wanted was for someone to swoop down and help me. To be there. I hadn't asked him up to that point for any sort of help with my issues, hell, I had made sure he didn't know. I didn't want to worry him at all. And that's my problem. I don't want to worry people. I don't want to take time away from them to deal with my issues. But yet, here I am blogging about it, where I know it will probably be seen by someone who I really care about, who I never want to upset. Who all I want for, is for her happiness and for her to have the most amazing life. And yet, here I am writing, fully aware that the things I say here might make it to her, that might cause her concern for me.

I'm a mass of contradictions. I want her to care and to make me feel better. I want her to not be concerned about me and to not worry. I want to rely on her to be there for me. I want to believe the words she told me before, that she will be there for me. But I don't want to have to have her do that for me. I don't want to be a burden on her. I don't want to burden anyone. And the same with him, with my other best friend. I want him to be there for me, I want to tell him my issues, and I want him to listen and come to me as I would come to him. I don't want to tell him my issues, I don't want to burden him with my issues. I don't want to add to the problems of this world. I just want to solve them. I want to fix things. I want to make people feel good. I want to make people see themselves as I see them. I look at her and I see the most amazing woman I've ever known, someone who gave me more in a year than anyone has ever given me in my whole life. Someone who actually cared about me enough to comfort me at my lowest lows. Who was responsible for making me feel those warm feelings of love and someone who I felt serious about. Someone who, even though we're no longer together, has maintained contact with me and still is there for me when I really need her. I don't know how I could ask someone to do what she does for me. When you find someone who just seems to say the right things, I just want to be selfish and hold on to it. But I had to let go and I could let go because I want her to be happy, and she can do so much better than the fucked up ball of contradictions and emotional wreckage I am. I look at my friend and he's more of a friend than most of the people I've known my whole life. I've stayed up nights upon nights talking to him about fears, about secrets, about nonsensical bullshit. He didn't just want to use me for grades or to study with, he actually cares about me. And even though I've been feeling like shit and he hasn't really been around for me as much, I know he would be if he could be. We all have issues, and I don't blame people for dealing with theirs before dealing with others.

I'm so damn quick to accept an excuse for someone not being able to help me. Do I not want help or something? Am I subconsciously just running away from my problems? Do I think I deserve this? What did I do to myself, what did I experience growing up that has made me feel this way. No matter the amounts of awards and praise bestowed on me from other people it just doesn't seem to matter. Am I just depressed? I don't feel depressed. I don't contemplate suicide. It's weak and foolish. Entirely selfish and solves no problems. I would never dream of doing such a thing to myself. Such stupidity. I've had multiple friends who have tried to and my respect for them drops off rather fast at that point if they don't seek help. But really. Am I displaying depression? I had 3 bites of a burger for dinner and am full already, I just lay in my bed for 4 hours in the dark listening to random music from youtube and it wasn't until the power range theme song came up that I felt a little better. I could be out drinking with friends right now and being ridiculous, instead I'm in my room listening to music sitting in my underwear because it's warm. I don't want to be drinking right now. I don't want to and will not be an alcoholic like my brother. I will not let myself be pulled into abusing and relying on substances to keep me happy. It's stupid. And yet, I fall into my own trap and let my work be my drug. Is that any better? Am I any better than the people I dislike? I told my friend the other day that we hate the things we see in ourselves that we see in other people. It's why I think that people who are too similar just don't get along after a while. You see the things you hate in yourself reflected in someone else and it's just too much.

The girl who had a crush on me that I blogged about before attempted suicide a couple weeks ago. It's not my fault, she has other issues that she's told me about that are the real reason. But I don't think I'm especially helpful in my rejection of her. Probably another nail in someone else's coffin. I had a talk with her a week or so ago and she told me she hated herself, and that she didn't know why. She sat on my floor and cried and pored her heart out to me. It's not the first time this semester that I've had a friend over in my room crying into the night talking to me about their problems. It's like my room has become this weird therapy session zone. I really don't mind listening. In fact, I take a weird sort of selfish pleasure in hearing other people's problems. It cheers me up. Am I an awful person for that? Hearing that someone else has it rough... I suppose it just eases my loneliness a little bit. Especially when it seems like their problems are worse than mine. And the weirdest thing is that most of the people who have come to me and talked to me about their personal problems, I didn't even think of as friends before. Just random acquaintanceship. What makes me special enough that they want to talk to me about it? Can they tell I'm hurt as well and maybe find solace in it? Or is it just that I'm the nearest thing that seems to be willing to listen.... to be honest it feels more like that last one. I'm sure that if the people who talk to me about their problems had a therapist then they might not even need to bother speaking with me at all.

I guess I just see myself as a tool for other people to use and then throw away... It's not an especially nice view on myself. But all I want to be is useful. All I want to do is to fix things and to make someone else happy. Can I even do that if I can't be happy myself? Is that why none of my relationships last? Am I just thrown away when they've used me for what they wanted. Does anyone care? Will I just go off and work at my new job and live somewhere new, as a hermit, never seeing anyone? Will I be forgotten?

Probably. I don't think I'm really worth noticing.

How is it that I started by talking about my medical issues and ended up pyschoanalyzing myself again? This happens a lot. Maybe I'm just bipolar or something, I have really good days sometimes and am happy as can be. And then I have times like this where I get some bad news and am all down...

I suppose it's normal to be upset over getting bad news, especially when it's got something to do with your own body. So maybe it makes sense that I'm feeling worthless and crappy --because my body is different and I'm not who I wish I could be, so I guess I'm just really feeling that. I don't think I'm actually depressed. I think that I'm just expressing myself and letting things out.... which is healthy right? All those bad feelings and shitty thoughts are just me trying to get the pain out from not being able to accept myself for who I am. Quickly! Have a Zen Moment!

I cannot lie around in my bed for 4 hours doing nothing. It is not productive and solves 0 of my problems. And that's the truth. I can't say that no one cares about me. I have to believe that some people do. They might not be the people I expect, but I'm sure they do. I have to believe other people when they tell me good things about myself. I've got to build up my confidence again and be happy with who I am in life. I need to take pride in my achievements and build my relationships with people so that I don't just have a network of possible job options, but a network of friends who'd like me to succeed. These things are not easy. But they can be done, and I have the work ethic to do it. I'm sure there will be many days that I feel low, and worthless. But on these days I just need to actually listen to the people who I care about and try to internalize what they tell me is good about myself.




But does anyone notice
But does anyone care?
...
And these words changing nothing
As your body remains
And there's no room in this hell
And there's no room in the next
But does anyone notice
There's a corpse in this bed
-
Early Sunsets over Monroeville -MCR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0NERhGOr2w

Voicemails

When a doctor calls you and leaves you a voicemail in which he basically tells you that you should come in and sit down and he'll explain the results of something to you when previously he was just going to email them to you, and his tone of voice is very strained and he pauses a lot... in that sort of way that someone who is debating whether or not to tell someone bad neds or not... it really makes me not want to call the clinic and set up and appointment to go in.

Apparently now I come in both Mental mess up flavor and physically fucked too! Such a joyous occasion. I wonder what wonderful ailment I'll have to suffer through next. I guess I'll make the appointment on Monday and then find out what else could possibly be wrong with me

Trying to hold a trainwreck

I'm tired of posting depressing thoughts all the time. But it seems to be a trend in my mind. I swear I'm not trying to be this way, and that I am trying to get better. But I'm just so messed up and I don't have what I need in order to get through it.

I can talk to counselors about my problems. I can see a psychiatrist. I can talk to my friends. I can be assured of their support through messages and texts. But when I actually need someone physically with me everything seems to just fall apart. No one is there. I've posted before about how nice it was to be needed by my friend when she was in trouble. I guess I just wish I had someone like me there for me. Someone who, when seeing that I have an actual issue, will drop what they're doing and come help me.

Of course, the problem is, that I suppose seeing that I have an actual issue is the problem. I'm not one to walk around parading that I'm having trouble with something. I might drop a hint or two, but hell, a hint doesn't work, and no ones going to drop everything just on a hunch. It's not like I ask for assistance with a lot of the crap I do. And the few times I've asked a friend to come down and see me, or talk to me, so far I haven't really experienced the 'come and help' point.

It's not anyone else's job to deal with my problems but mine. But I'm just so sick of struggling and thinking about them every damn day that I just don't want to deal with it anymore. And there is no inbetween the line suicidal message or any bullshit like that in that last sentence. Suicide is for the weak. What I mean when I say that I don't want to deal with it anymore, I just mean that I want the issue resolved. I want it fixed. I want some solution to my problem. But I know the solution isn't going to be coming anytime soon. That dealing with what I'm dealing with takes a long long time. No one knows that better than me, I mean, honestly, I've delt with it my whole life so it's not like 4 years will be too much of a dent in it either.

I just want the physical comfort of someone being there, telling me that it's alright. Having that shoulder to cry on type of deal. But hell, I understand why no one wants to deal with that. No one wants to see people cry. Hell, I don't want to see myself cry. I just want to be held and told it's ok. That it will be fine. Tell me lies if need be. I don't even care.

God I need a personal day soon or I'm gonna be a wreck. While I was walking to work today my mother called me and lectured me about drinking on a Monday night. Basically accusing me of becoming like my brother and being an alcoholic. Uhm. No. Nice try though buddy. I drank last night to celebrate being done with a very difficult and stressful class. I was out with friends and had a lot of fun. I made an ass of myself with drunk texting a bit I think, and I really do need to apologize to someone now. But still. Going to drink with some friends is not an alcoholic thing.

There really is no comfort in talking to family for me. I wish that I could have a great relationship with my family like some people do, but the more I talk to them the more I just feel alone. I have to wonder about that with my friends as well. Because sometimes it just seems like I can't see eye to eye, that I can't get on the same level as them. I just don't understand how to deal with other people anymore and I feel completely distant from reality sometimes. Like I'm just stuck in my head with all these thoughts about all my issues. The worst part about it? That I'm the one who has to deal with the issue. I don't mean that in a pity party sort of way, I just mean that this is something very personal and that even if I talk to a doctor about it or something the person who has to penultimately accept it and handle it is myself.

That's true for any issue really, but some problems you can get some help from friends with. Sadly, not really one of those times. I just wish that I hadn't started actually addressing and dealing with it until I was done with school. But instead I rushed into trying to solve it. Which is totally like me. Always trying to fix things, always trying to solve the problem, refusing to brush things under the rug. Maybe attacking a problem head on isn't always the best way. Maybe it would have been better to just keep running away from the issue. Just let it sit in the corner of the room and ignore it. But nope. Nope, I decided that I should face it. That I should deal with it and get it off my mind. And what do I have to show for it? It's on my mind every second of every damn day and it's like a virus. It just spreads to everything I do and I can't even keep it out my mouth anymore, I hardly censor the oh-so-not-very subtle bits that might refer to it when I talk. I just can't deal with this anymore alone. But somehow telling the few people who I've told about, while it's been a small release, hasn't helped. I haven't gotten the help I want back from them. The responses to far have been positive. Maybe I need a negative response so that I can just get cut open and let out some of these feelings. Maybe that's why I'm finely blogging about it, not letting it sit between the lines of these posts anymore. Actually being out with it and saying that I'm messed up. That I actually want someone to pay attention and to notice me. ... obviously the best place to get that is blogger... not. I don't know. Maybe I just want to bring it up enough here that I'll be asked about it. When I'm asked, I don't foresee myself really wanting to talk about it. And that's the worst part. Certain people, I just want to talk to them about it in person so that they can't run away from me. But talking about it in person is the worst. It's the most terrifying of all the ways to discuss it. Yet for some fucked up reason I feel the need to think that some people deserve being told about it in person. Does that make any damn sense? If I'm so afraid of being hurt, so scared of receiving that negative reaction, then why do I want to tell the people who could hurt me the most in person? That's just fucked up. It's like I want to be hurt.

Hell, maybe that's the truth of the matter. Maybe I just want to be hurt, but I know that I can't hurt myself because I will never do that. So instead maybe I'm just trying to push people into hurting me so that I can actually feel something besides this rending awful feeling of lying to the world and lying to everyone I care about. Maybe that's just part of who I am. It would certainly explain all the worthless feelings I have. It would certainly explain 90% of my choices in relationships. Maybe I just always chose cheaters subconsciously because I wanted to be hurt. But what kind of person does that? Do I feel like I deserve to be hurt or something? What the hell happened to me that made me this way? Why do I have to be this way? I just want to change. I want to "get better". I don't want to be fucked up anymore. I want to be able to live my life the way I should be living it. I want to be free.

Above all else. I just want to be told that I'm loved. And to actually feel like I'm not being lied to. I want to believe people. But how can I when I can't even believe myself? I told this idiotic kid I worked with who started chatting with me about cheaters and trusting people that he had to trust people at some point. You've gotta get past your hedgehog dilemma at some point.  I'm such a hypocrite. How can I tell someone else they need to trust someone when I know that every-time I've trusted someone I've been let down and hurt. Well I guess that's not so true. I suppose so far a few people I've told about my issue have been supportive and nice. But I don't feel like I trust that. I trust them enough to tell them about it without worrying about a negative response. You choose your battles, and when you pick someone to talk to who you know is always supportive of other people and is really kind, then you've rigged 'the battle' in your favor. But I guess I just doubt it. Even if they're supportive on the outside and in words, it's deeds that matter. And when someone reacts poorly in person to it, it means more. You can see more when you're talking to someone face to face. You can't hide a reaction to someone telling you something intensely personal and fundamentally changing in the image of what you see that person as.

Fuck. I can't help but wonder if I'm just feeling messed up like this because it's so close to my first relationships anniversary. I've gotten over the relationship and over her. I'm convinced of that entirely throughout my core and I know it's true. But still. Friday is the day. 4/26. Even since that breakup the number has always popped up. It's like when you don't want to see a number and you subconsciously find it everywhere. You attribute meaning to something as meaningless as a number and there it is. I just always feel upset on that day. Without fail. It's just a reminder of a failure I guess. A damn good failure because, I can be honest about it, that relationship was awful. Yet it set the expectation. The expectation to be hurt by others. To be thrown away and tossed aside by someone you care about.  To be confused and not understand how someone can do that to someone.

Cheating still makes no sense to me and  I don't think I'll ever understand why people do it. There's never a reason for it. Not a good one at least.

Damnit. I thought I was getting to a better place in life. I thought that things were looking up, yet I just keep looking back. Reflecting on the past isn't my issue anymore, I don't do that that much. The future is my main concern now. Where I'm going. What I'm doing. Who I'll be. Who my friends will be. And I have all this stuff to think about, and yet,I'm stuck looping in the present with my thoughts. Always these thoughts on my brain. It's like I'm obsessed with finding a solution. Maybe I am. Maybe that makes me who I am and why I'm good at programming. You can always find a solution in programming. Always. There's always a fix. Maybe that's what I love about it. Is that I have control and the power to fix any problem I've made or someone else has made in the code... With me though, there is no fix it seems. Or maybe I just need someone to come along and show it to me. I need a second set of eyes on my problem to help me figure it out. I need a fixer. I want someone to come and fix me I guess. But how can I ever expect anyone to help me if I can't even tell them I'm broken? I can just wait and hope that someone comes along and falls into my lap with a solution. But that's no way to live. I can actively seek someone out but that doesn't seem to work either.

Maybe that's why I'm always so much happier when I'm in a relationship with someone. Being in a relationship with my work is fine, it keeps me busy. Recently it hasn't kept me as distracted as I wanted though. All the personal and emotional issues seem to just be pushing their way to the fore front of my mind. And I just want them to go away, to be solved, to be dealt with. And if possible, be able to deal with them not alone. It's not that I'm lonely. To be honest, I don't really miss it. I don't mind sleeping alone in a bed or not having someone to kiss or anything like that. I miss cuddling and feeling close to someone and that comfort. But, besides that I'm not terribly lonely. Meh. That probably doesn't make much sense at all. Reading that sentence over again makes me think, hm yeah, that sounds like a lonely person right there. Sigh. I'm just so tired of being emotionally drained constantly. And I'm predicting that this Friday is going to be a low point for me. The damn day is always is. 4/26. I wrote a song about it before. Depressing as all hell. Had a beautiful and haunting guitar part, but it conveyed the feelings I had, and made my singer in my high school band say "this song makes me want to kill myself. Its good, and has a lot of meaning, but damn, that openning riff is just... it hits you in the core man"

And that's where I'm hit everytime with this issue. Right in the core. It's a fundamental and pervasive feeling and I wish that I could just shut it off. That I could be happy with who I am right now and be ok with it. But nope... I rushed in to trying to solve it at the first chance and now it's like I'm out on the ocean surrounded by feelings and contemplations. Out in that Ocean alone. And I really just want a beach ball to draw a face on to keep my company.




God I'm fucked up...

Caring and workaholic

Do you ever wonder about the lies we tell ourselves to stay happy?

I think everyone does it, you tell yourself a little white lie so that you don't have to feel bad about something. Sometimes the lies are a bit bigger though. I think one of the lies I tell myself is the amount that other people care for me is larger than it really is.

Life is busy, everyone's got their own issues to deal with. So I typically don't expect my issues to take precedence over anyone elses. But wouldn't it be nice sometimes? I guess what got me thinking about this is something that isn't really comparable, but sentimentally is.

Yesterday around 5 my friend M called me from the ER. She doesn't like hospitals and I had seen her the day before and she had hit her head. I had told her to go to the hospital and get checked, but she waited. So then there I was in the ER keeping my friend company because she hates hospitals. Turns out, she did have a concussion. I'm happy she called me though. She and I are both workaholics and do too much sometimes and our personal welfare takes a sideline seat to the main event of our lives. Which is work. Oddly enough, her being concussed is the only thing that actually made her stop and try to take care of herself. And ditto on me. I work a lot to stay preoccupied. And plus I don't really have much to do when I'm not working. I think the only time I take care of myself is when I'm in a relationship because I have someone else to live for and think about besides myself.

So yeah, I've been in and out of clinics for the past month dealing with my own issues and it's just stupid how tired of Doctors and counselors I am. I just want to work and not have to deal with any of this emotional personal crap. It's far too draining and distracting from my career.


Also, I've recently started listening to MCR again. Fuck me right?

Happy Cry

I don't think I've ever cried because I was so happy before.
Today's a first :)

Time Management and Doctors

My professors quirky rules for time management:

1. Clean your inbox everything day
2. Keep a hard copy planner AND USE IT
3. Setup cron jobs or gmail calender notifications to plan things out and reminds yourself of important things


That being said. God I need to figure out some more time management. Right now I balance two organizations, 3 jobs, and 4 classes (ha 2,3,4! and that all starts with one of me so 1 2 3 4!)

Anywho. I've been having a lot of medical appointments recently. Checkups and other important things. Sadly it's not my work that's taking the hit. It's my classes. You'd think that someone would be more inclined to skip work (I mean, after all some people don't like their jobs, and any excuse to get out of it is nice). But I'm more inclined to skip class. Why? Because I don't feel like people are counting on me to perform some service in class. Class is me time. Me time can be sacrificed.

I'm fully aware that people accommodate and the world will not stop if I stop working. But really, I feel bad any time I have to take time away from a job. I don't feel bad at all skipping a class to make a doctors appointment.

This year has been full of doctors and insurance so far. Hopefully that stops.

Maybe once I graduate in a month I should change the name of this blog to musing of a workaholic.

Crush, feeling like crap (SURPRISE SURPRISE)

This girl I know told me she had a crush on me. I think I briefly discussed this in my last post. It's been fine since then, normal everyday activity, normal amount of conversation with her online and such. She's not an outspoken person, and prefers to talk online where she can hide behind the screen and think a bit first. Which I completely understand.

Tonight though, as she sent off her usual flurry of random meaningless things ( do I chew gum? yes I chew gum... oh you're collecting gum wrappers for an art project? Please, context first, then ask random questions out of the blue), I walked over to get my food from my desk, and the facebook chat noise went off. Quick successive of multiple messages. It's fine, I'm talking to 3 people, but then I go look. Nope. All from her.

So I think to myself "goooddd whyyyyy why is it when someone likes you but you dont like them back they just get on your nerves so easily" and then my brain stopped. And I sat there and thought about how I try to stay in touch with my ex. And that sometimes I send off a ton of messages to her. Normally with a picture I thought she'd like, or just checking in and seeing how her life goes. I worry about her a lot since she takes on a large courseload and gets stressed. And I'm still used to remembering things like she has test X soon, and wondering how she did. I like keeping up to date on people I care about, and I do that for all my friends. But I wonder if maybe she ever feels that way I just felt towards the girl who's crushing on me. That feeling where you're really just like: "God damn. Leave me alone"

That kinda triggered an unhappy bit in my brain on. That whole, well good job not realizing that you're probably not helping her get work done by bothering her with messages. You're probably  not really doing a good job of giving her her own space and all that stuff that an ex should probably do. All those wonderful little feelings that just culminate in feeling worthless and that you're just still fucked up and you can't even be someones ex properly.

I'm sure it's a passing feeling. I hope. My immediate reaction when I started to get into that drain of 'oh look whose still an annoying person who doesn't get a hunt and keeps on trying to be friends with somone even when they're too busy for them' was to start to reach out for help. Of course, feeling like crap... the person I wanted to reach out most to was her. But of course, I can't do that. Doing that means that I'm bothering her and being this pathetic person. And pretty much enforcing all those thoughts about how I must be super annoying and that I'm probably bugging her but she's just too nice to tell me to go die in a ditch. Instead of doing all that, I decided to write it out instead. This way, when I'm done feeling this way, maybe I can look at this and say: ''you know, I'm not so bad, I just get a bit down sometimes"... of course, still doesn't change that my reaction to starting to feel like crap is to reach out to my ex and want to talk to her. But hell... what do I even say? What can I say? I want to come to her with my issues because she told me she'd be there for me and I told her I'd be there for her. But when my issue is that I feel like I'm the problem, that I'm not doing any of this right, that I'm the stupid one... I don't know what to do. I'm not going to go fishing for some pity party teamates, this isn't a pity party. It's not, woe is me I feel so bad. It's I feel like shit because I find myself projecting my feelings towards the girl who crushes on me, and talks to me all the time, onto my relatiomship with my ex, only the situations are reversed and im the one who talks all the time.

You know, these moods fucking suck. I feel so fucked up when I'm seriously arguing with myself over how I feel about anything. I guess I'm feeling better now that I've typed things out a bit. But really, I guess I'm looking for affirmation that I'm not an awful person for wanting to keep in touch with a friend I care about. And I'm really not that bothered by this girl talking to me alot, she's young, a bit immature, and any advice that I can give her to help her get over me is fine by me. Sigh. I just wish that I could handle my own issues to well.

My birthday! PLUS! Awkard.... freshmen has a crush on me (facepalm)

<awkward> Skip to the birthday part... is more interesting...

It's not easy being strong in your relationships with people. 

There's many different kinds of relationships. There are ones that straddle the boundary between love and hate, there are ones that feel awkward and won't stand the test of time. They're ones that fall between true friends and love. And there's so much between. 

In each relationship there's always a duality. Two opposing forces. Many times they're not opposing and they work in harmony, other times they're completely at odds. Seeing differences and reveling in them is what makes life, love, relationships, and being human unique. 

I find that a lot of the time in relationships I like to walk a line. I try to be a mature individual. I put my heart on my sleeve and let people know what I'm thinking. I like to let it all out and see what the world thinks. And then when the world doesn't like it, I tell it to shove off and that I'll be who I am. 

A friend of mine accidentally  sent me a text intended for a different one. And in that text she said that her heart had dropped a bit because she had overhead a conversation that implied that I liked a girl. I honestly have no idea what conversation she heard (I was ecstatic about a presentation I gave today and didn't even talk about any girls at all while I was in the lab, hell I'm not currently pursuing any romantic interests), but whatever she heard I guess was one of those moments. 

You know the moment, when you've fallen for someone and you find out they really like someone else or something. That feeling of having your hopes dashed. That curl in your stomach and blank feel that washes over you. Falls through your mouth and into your legs. Any amount of hope you had built up involving a relationship with that other falls apart. I know the feeling well, I used to pine after girls in middle and high school, knowing full well that I would never be with them, that they'd date other people and that I would feel like crap doing it. I never dropped those though and went for 'an easy' girlfriend or something. Anyway, high school aside, I know the feeling. And suddenly I was on the other end of it.

Well not that sudden, I mean, you have to be completely oblivious to not get the feeling that someone likes you a bit more than as a friend. Chatting you up whenever you're online, talking to you when they normally have trouble talking to other people. Etc etc. But even though I knew that, I decided it didn't really change much. I decided that she was my friend and that's what she was. I'd be nice to this girl. This girl who seems to have a few family issues, some self esteem and social discomfort. When you meet someone and you see someone who wants to come out of their shell but doesn't know how. You just want to help them embrace being alive and in a social environment, learning to be comfortable talking in front of people and not so stricken by social anxiety that they can't function well. 

So there's that. She accidentally sent me that text, I asked what conversation she had heard (because I certainly had no clue what she was talking about), she realized who she had sent the text and asked me to please please forget that that had just happened. ...Obviously not something I can do. So I talked to her, told her it was fine. She told me that even though she's had a crush on me, she's been trying to stop having a crush on me, she described it as hopeless. It pains me because I know exactly how she feels. And really it's a phase. It's a growing pain that quiet people have to go through. That moment when you have to actually confront someone with your feelings. And while she never intended to do it. It happened. So I was trying to help her through with it in the most gentle way I could. 

I have this issue with trying to be nice. The problem is that I try to be nice. You can't be nice with people all the time, set's false expectations. Sometimes you have to be mean. But there I was, trying to be nice, giving her advice on how to work through her issue of crushing on someone and them not having the same feelings back. What a weird scenario, right? Normally that kind of thing happens with a friend, not with the person who you like being the one giving you advice on how not to like them... how fucked up is that? 

I mean, what do you really tell people in a situation like that? I dunno. It's crazy. I honestly don't know how to really deal with someone crushing on me. It's not a situation I'm used to (oh woe is me no one likes me -- not. I've got a life to live, no crap pity thoughts like that for me). 
</awkward>

It's my birthday tomorrow. 

People seem to think it's weird when I'm not excited for my birthday. There are reasons. Most of them meh ones, some of them good ones. But I've just never really cared for it. It's not that I don't like seeing people, and having everyone wish me nice thoughts. But I guess, I haven't really done anything worth celebrating yet. Like, being born took no effort on my part. That was all on my parents. My mom when giving birth to me (Gross) and my dad when he had to take care of my mom for 9 months and cater to whatever crazy whims she had. All I've done since being born has been to get messed up, fix myself, get messed up, fix myself. etc etc until college when I suppose I have a few more accomplishments to mention (paper published, winning a competition with some friends, being a leader in my community, etc etc).

Even though these accomplishments sound nice on paper, does it really do anything? Eh... no. I want to make a difference in someones life. I want to create something that will change people's lives for the better. And if I can't do that, I'd like to settle down with someone somewhere and be the difference in their life. ... I'm selfish though, so I'd prefer to have a larger accomplishment than marriage. (Is that too awful of me to say? I dunno maybe)

Anywho. I guess it's nice to be celebrated for a day. But this year there will be nothing. My parent's aren't coming up to visit (they've come up every year), there's no girlfriend to give me a present this year and visit (that's fine, just mentioning it because that's a difference between this and last year), none of my friends have ever really gotten me a gift. I probably won't spend money on anything for myself besides a double neat grey goose with a splash of cran at the bar (I like my vodka as straight as it can be with a bit of red). And I'll be in class then at work. And the day will pass just like any other. In 48 or so minutes I'll be one the 24 hour road to being 22. The evil age that means I've managed to make it another 4 years through schooling and have to go on to the next step.

My ex has been reminding me of my birthday for the last 2 days. I really hate calling her my ex, because that sounds like she's not a part of my life anymore or something but that's a total lie. I don't like to use name's on my blog. Naming people just... it's not good I think. So I just have to refer to her as my ex I guess. Anyway, she's been reminding me for the last 2 days. And honestly it's nice. I like being remembered. I remember telling her about one of my fears, the fear of being forgotten and not making a difference anywhere and just being... gone. She told me she wouldn't forget me. A hard to believe statement to be honest. It's easy to fall out of contact with people and start to forget them, so I really can't expect her to maintain a promise like not forgetting me. It's the same kind of thing as how some people are busy all the time. It doesn't matter how busy you are. If you actually care and love someone, you can pretty much always make time for them. I suppose if you care and really love someone you'd never forget them. But emotions are tricky so you can never be sure that someone else feels the same way about you as you do them. I know that I won't ever forget my first. My second I forget frequently (it was a series of bad decisions), my third... her and I are still good friends but tend to just catch up every now and then and besides that live pretty separate lives.  With my most recent ex.... I don't know. I'd like to think that she won't forget me, but I just can't believe in something like that... not that I don't want to, but just that telling yourself that someone will always be there for  you (because they said they would be).... it's hard. So far that promise has been there, even if I wish that she had more time to talk to me everynow and then (I worry about her because she's so busy and stressed and I really do want her to succeed in everything and have an amazing life. She's a fantastic person so I really am cheering in the crowd for her and wishing her the best and all the happiness). Jesus christ... before I keep talking in circles about how much I love my friends (including my ex because she's one of those special people who fall into the best friend radius) let me get back to the point.... which.. right. She's texted me each day over the past couple of days with a countdown of my birthday. And it's felt really nice to have someone.... looking forward to it I suppose. Because I never do, and yet... here's this person who --if I think about it a bit-- is genuinely happy that I'm alive. That I was born. That I met them and am their friend. I suppose, while maybe that's not the sentiment she wants to send and I'm just feeling sappy and interpretting it this way, I'm just happy about it. So I guess. If you read this, thank you. I dunno if you'll get past that part about my other friend having a crush on me. I don't know if I'd want to read that either. (such a weird scenario! HELP!)

dAnywho. I guess what I don't like about my birthday is pretending to be happy about it. Like, people will find out and they'll smile real big and be like OMG HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOOOO and if you're just... if you just half smile and go.. "oh yeah thanks" they wonder if somethings wrong with you. And so I learned that lesson over a few years and learned that if I don't want to be bothered by people I have to pretend to be happy about it. But really, what's so bad about not being happy on your birthday? I don't see a specific reason why I should be happy I was put in this body. Talk about bipolar.... up there I'm talking about how I'm happy my friend (that's a better way than saying my ex!) remembered me and has been counting down to it. It honestly has meant the world to me over the past few days. One of those little beacons of sunshine in a stressed up week.

Anyway. Before I just keep blathering about how awesome my friends are and how supportive they are of the things I do and that I'm really lucky. I suppose I'll just stop writing. Talking about my friends support in the things I do and struggle with is a WHOLE other post. k bai

PAX East

Why do people have such a huge issue with gender bending?

Yesterday was my second time bending my gender a bit for fun and amusement. On halloween I dressed up like a girl to get laughs out of my friends. And it worked. It was harmless fun. But my ex really didn't like it and got upset at me. Yesterday I went to PAX East dressed as Youmu Konpaku from Touhou, and I had my friend make my costume and teach me how to do makeup so that I'd be able to pull off the cosplay well. Right now both my parents are assaulting me with questions about why their son is looking like a daughter.

Seriously what the fuck. Take a goddamn chill pill. It wasn't even my idea to begin with. My friend D asked if I wanted to go to PAX, liking video games I said yes. She wanted to cosplay as Nova from Starcraft, but she didn't want to be the only person cosplaying. So I told her I would cosplay with her. She was looking for ideas and then remembered that I had dressed up as a girl for halloween. So with an evil little smile she asked me if I would cosplay as a girl with her. I don't have a problem putting on different clothes. They're just clothes. I am who I am, so it doesn't bother me what I wear as long as I make it look good.

So I said yes. And we looked around and eventually I decided on Youmu because I play as her when I play Touhou and she had a simple outfit that my friend could make really easily. Over the last couple months we've planned it out and this past week really finished everything up. My friend waited a bit to make my costume, (she's got tons of homework all the time and is really busy) and ended up staying up all night finishing the blouse and not being able to finish the vest. Which is sad because it would have tied the whole thing together, and I was a bit sad because the vest is what would have really said "Hey I'm Youmu!" But that's ok because this random asian dude recognized who I was so I gave him a high five and it made my day.

I got to meet up with my friend E who I haven't seen in a year, I was with my friend A, it was funny. He was like: Oh hey its A, and whose this chick with him, oh god I know you!!! It was really funny.

I got to play Steel Battalion Line of Contact and won 1st place in every match I played, which made me smile because the idea of a guy dressed up as a dollish girl beating a bunch of people is funny to me.

Those were the fun bits, well, being dressed up as a character you like is fun in itself. Doesn't matter if it's a girl or boy. If you're cosplaying something you like you cosplay it. No one cares if you have to gender bend, or at least no one at the convention. People are plenty amused when you can pull it off. And it makes you feel good when you do.

It's not that I'm trying to be something I'm not. I'm being who I am. Who I am is someone who has fun. Who doesn't care if people think I'm weird for pretending to be the other gender. Honestly, why should I care what you think about what I'm doing? People's oppinions are there own and why I base a lot of things off other peoples opinions (See previous blogs posts about perception) when it comes down to it, who you are is who you let yourself be and what you allow to affect you. Whether or not I look like a boy or a girl doesn't matter.

There are plenty of countries out there where there are more than 2 recognized genders. Why does the US have to be so damn binary about it? I hate being minimalized and made to feel like there's something wrong with me because I like to do stuff that other people don't (And sometimes refuse to) understand.

People are just so judgemental and it's really hard to deal with when it's your own family or someone close to you passing that judgement about something that you really love to do. I love cosplaying as a character I like. And if I cosplay, then I will do it the best I can. If I cosplay a girl then I'm going to make myself as passable and attractive girl as I can. I sent a pic to my friend M and she showed it to her lesbian friend and she ranked me an 8. Which made me pretty happy considering that I don't think of myself as an attractive guy, so it's nice to know that when I do pretend to be someone else it works out and makes me seem more attractive. Because being considered attractive is really nice. I don't care if I look like a boy or girl, if you look attractive you look attractive and that's nice. Compliments are compliments.

GAH! I had a lot of fun being dressed up. I knew that there would be people who wouldn't understand how I can 'be ok' with dressing up. And that would just be like : Well He's obviously fucked in the head becuase he doesn't conform to my idea of gender role. Well fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you. I knew that there would be people like that. But I didn't expect it to be my own parents.

Seriously. Fuck off so I can do some science in peace. Maybe I'll dress up like a girl just to fucking spite all of you. Teach you that I really don't give a shit about what you think. My friend E had that crafty look on his face and he almost made a bet with me then decided against it because the last bet he made with me he lost. (He bet me 20 bucks that I wouldn't listen to the inception horn 10 hour long video straight. I did it and recorded it for proof and he gave me 20 bucks). It was funny when he started asking it, "hmmm noo no I wont do that" "what?" "I was gonna make a bet with you to go around like that for a week but I know you'll do it and I'll lose money so no" "haha I would do it hah!"

GAH. I'm alternating between remembering the good parts of being dressed up and how fun it was, and how angry I am at people who have such an issue with it. Why? Why did they have to phrase there goddamn questions like that. "Why does my son look like a daughter?" As if there's something wrong with that. Fuck your tone. Fuck your prejudice. Fuck your judgement on something that I love. fuck you

In a single word I think I can sum this all up. FUCK

Post from Slashdot

http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/03/12/0238239/dad-hacks-donkey-kong---now-pauline-rescues-mario

Whiney Mac Fanboy:

In response to “You seriously think Lara Croft isn’t a sex object? Post on Slashdot

-

SmallFurryCreature

Since I have no reason to hate you with a passion, I won't suggest you watch Twilight but aren't the males in that drivel just as much sex objects?

What really is the difference between Lara Croft and Fabian? Don't know who he is? Google it and you will find he is a model who appears on countless romance novel covers and NOT because he is a novelist.

Sex... wasn't really all that much a part of the original Tomb Raider. yes, she had big polygons, which most of the time you don't see since the camera is behind her. Meanwhile the women in Planescape: Torment had FAR bigger tits but nobody complained about that. Because part of the reason to have big tits in low-rez games was so the tits would be visible at all.

In Israel right now there is a law banning thin models. To protect the feelings of the whales. Because the only thin women are freaks who don't eat of course, not just a normal percentage of women who just happen to not overeat and have a natural slender built. To protect one groups feelings, another group is excluded. For every a-cup girl supposedly offended by doubt D Lara, there is a double D girl offended by every small titted heroine. Can't girls with big busts be heroes or are they condemned like blondes to always be stupid whores?

HERE IS THE SECRET

Every personality you see in the media, is a role. Doesn't matter whether you like said role or not. It is a role. Every actor acts a role defined by the writer. Media can NEVER show reality (which is why people who take 1984 as a prophecy as such idiots) because the writer WROTE everything as if he/she was god. A personality is self-destructive or succesful because the writer made it to be like that. In Far Cry 3 and the new Tomb Raider the "hero" goes from a snivelling coward to lean mean well adjusted killing machine because that was what the writers put in the plot. A different writer could just as easily have written a plot showing how both lapse into insanity. When backdraft was made, fire departments around the world saw an increase in volunteers and Pretty Woman has been claimed to have caused an increase in girls thinking prostitution always has an happy ending... for the girl. Mind you, the postman always ring twice didn't see more people wanting to be postman. Because the writers made on proffesion seem heroic while the other... wasn't. And many movies have shown hookers in bad light. The role an actor plays is not real.

REAL people are often WAY more complex then can be put in a 1.5 hour movie. Lara Croft breasts are often the joke of back pains... and? This is well known among women and those who live in the same world as them. Breast reduction surgery does exist and STILL women with small breasts want to be sultry big bossomed and big breasted women want to be slender and cute. And men want big cocks despite most women not particularly liking to be stretched to wide or to deep while men with actual big penisses wish that girls wouldn't run out the door when they get naked. We all want what we can't have because SURELY the grass is greener on the other side, so we all climb the fence and never wonder why so many people are climbing the other way.

BUT it is NOT the media's fault, it is our own.

Take publicity shots for say Star Wars. You can probably find some of Carry Fisher in her metal bikini and say "fan service". That is because all the pictures of Harrison Ford strutting it, don't appeal to YOU. But they ARE fanservice to a LOT of women. You drooled over Leia, they drooled over Han. Or Luke. Or Obi-Wan... women are weird or Jabba... my gf picked me after all.

You might think that a Lord of the Rings does not have much fanservice but just search the net. So... does that make the characters sex symbols? YES! Just not to you, but if SOMEONE drools over it, it is a sex symbol.

Sex sells, it always has done and both genders lap it up.

Sexism is only seeing it in one gender. Note the Israeli law on thin models ONLY applies to females. Because everyone knows bulemia is bad for girls. Body building for guys where they inject themselves with hormones and painkillers, that is a-okay.

If Lara Croft was solely designed as a sex symbol, the shower scene in the game would actually have shown anything, her clothes would have torn, the camera would be centered on her front and she wouldn't be completely a-sexual in her activities. OR she is just a game hero packaged attractively. No different from say Master Chef from Halo. Lara is designed to make the player "gosh, she is nice, I wish I had a gf like that" while Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox".

Sex sells, spotting the titty sell is a bit easier then spotting the macho sell. But it is there. And BOTH sides got it.