money
5/17/2024
My check was deposited in my bank today, so after paying my credit card bill I went to Walmart to get some personal needs and some food.
Here's a funny story I can't post on social media: I went to the personal care section to get blemish patches, Stridex, lotion, and... lube. (TMI but it's one word, you'll get over yourself.) The corner with ~wellness~ items like vibrators and condoms have been locked now (lol based shoplifters stealing buttplugs), so I asked the old lady in that section to unlock it for me. When she did, she immediately assumed that I was going to get an oral contraceptive/Plan B and reached for it. I just corrected her and grabbed the lube, but LMFAO??? Even if my relationship wasn't an LDR, our dyke asses aren't going to use that...
Unfortunately, even though getting the stuff I needed for myself (I also got shampoo, conditioner, and fiber powder) was inexpensive, the food was another story. This wasn't even a grocery haul, I forgot a bunch of things for the household in general and just cheap shit for myself. But Jesus Christ, I knew basic food prices have been spiking in the last few years, but my state has been one of the worst about it. One of my favorite Reddit posts that's been stuck in my head was a gym bro on r/frugal said that he buys baby food to put in his shakes because it's cheap and healthy, and I wanted do that ever since. So okay, let's go to the baby food section since people already seem to think I'm a hettie. I can't find this post now, but I forgot to mention that I saw it in 2018. That's not true anymore. The canned baby food is now $1.26 and $1.56. For a small jar of baby food. The cheapest option was 68¢, but... What the fuck??? Even the babies have to suffer!
Once again, if you're wondering why Americans are so fat: This shit right here. Also lack of walkable cities, car dependency and lack of third spaces leading to sedentary lifestyles, gym memberships are expensive and borderline a scam, healthcare is extremely expensive and not even worth it in my experience... (And no, it's not expensive because of the fatties.) I don't see "fatphobia" as a social justice or oppression issue, but it's classism if you ask me. You'd think that being poor means you'd eat less, but even the cheap food isn't nutricious or filling in my experience. When I got microwave meals for work, the sodium was high. So okay, I'll just make a sandwich. But then the lunch meat and bread isn't totally good. But then if I don't eat I'll also gain weight. I wish this was a matter of just choosing to not eat cakes, but there's no point reasoning with skinnyfats and anas.
Last note, but I don't have any sympathy for women who buy into redpilled incel shit about hitting the wall and sexual market value. "Waaah! I'm 24.9, my womb is going to become barren soon! I'm 30 and soooo old!" I get it, because I was scared and depressed when that birthday approached... Until I realized that's just not true. Get some self respect. The vast majority of people in real life can't tell how old I am. I had two Uber drivers mistake me for a teenager and my coworkers at my last job thought I was 20-25. I caught a dude twice my age gawking at me (gross lol) and another busted old motherfucker tried to ask me out weeks ago. I thought I was supposed to be soooo old and ugly apparently? (I was ugly in my 20s...) I'm not even a 10 (look at what I just wrote earlier), I just dress decent and shower a lot. Maybe that's those femcels problems...
"ungrateful"
5/15/2024
I did some housework for my dad under the guise of "my hours were cut and I need extra cash" today. I'm no longer stressed about missing my credit card statement, and I have enough left over to get some personal needs and groceries. Pretty easy day overall. But of course on the way home he gave me a typical boomer lecture that just made me feel like shit. You're so lucky to have a house that's paid off, most people your age don't have that. Except I'm not "a millennial homeowner", the house is not even in my name. Half of the basic functions in this house are broken and costs too much to repair, so I have to live with it. It's better than being homeless or living in a shitty apartment, but I hate living here and not a moment goes by where I wish that "just moving" was an option for me. There's a direct correlation between moving here over 20 years ago and how I became addicted to the internet and screen time from age 10 onwards, because I grew up having no friends and being isolated from others.
"[Current state] is better than [home state]" I don't fucking care. I just want to get out of here. "Where do you want to move instead?" Almost anywhere else? Somewhere not car dependent? Somewhere I can go out and have places and community close by? Even when I had IRL friends, we talked online because we lived on the other side of a state. Before I got with Kotte, the main reason I wanted to date was so I could have someone to move in with, but I have too many (rightful) red flags out of my control like financial instability. I wish I could afford to move to the city or even another part of the state. The thought of never leaving scares me. Even when my work pushed me to my limit, the hours weren't enough to pay rent at some apartment so I could "just move".
I have a bulk update for tomorrow, though.
shit
5/14/2024
After almost 2 years of doing this shit... I think I'm going to start using /style.css eternally sometimes. It's getting really tiring for pages that roughly have the same layout but with different colors, ex. runes and journals. I might reuse this layout for future journals, because holy fuck I am so tired. I'm working on what's probably going to be May's rune that has a layout I made that will be more-or-less reused in the future. Blah. I really want to redo my index and about page, but the drive I had for throwing things at the wall until they stick (coding) is low and I'd rather draw instead.
I've been dealing with stress over paying my credit card this month, but luckily I'm going to do housework for my dad again so I can pay that off next week. I'm still frustrated I had to use it to my phone bill, because I really wanted that burden off my back... Whatever. I'm going to bed early and haven't had any caffeine today. Kotte's birthday is next week. I'm probably going to tell my family around then.
oops
5/13/2024
I deleted my Twitter last week (when it's been 30 days I'll change my locked burner account's username to my old one so followers can see where I went) and I'm wishing I could delete my Tumblr so bad. The issue is my remade blog is over a decade old and I've tried to back it up several times with no avail. Among the decade worth of reblogs there's some old art, photos of late pets, references... I might try to reinstall Tumblthree or something and try to do it again. The last time I backed up a sideblog on it, my computer overheated and froze to the point I had to forcibly shut it off. My manual exports also die midway even when I let them run for 12 hours. Jesus...
Every time I try to write out my grievances with Tumblr, it turns into an entire illegible book about how my experience is just full of developmentally stunted crazies being treated as an authority on things they know nothing about, misinformation being spread by people playing telephone, repacked conservative Christian values from a so-called "queer and left-leaning" site, slacktivism, friends becoming complete NPCs that drop their values after joining, etc. etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the site became a psyop after Yahoo bought it a decade ago, because it's not even "just on Tumblr" or "weird parts of the internet" anymore. So many social justice "discourse" has leaked into real life, so I can't "touch grass" and "curate my experience" to stay away from it. It's so frustrating. I almost regret sharing this site on my Tumblr in my early days because I don't want to be connected to it (even if it isn't a secret).
Even for things like ~fandom~ or original artwork, it's barely "fun" because the way posts can escape containment ruins good discussion. I also just barely have investment in a lot of original characters I see, because it's the same recycled fandom crap and tropes. The tropes or "tags" (in the vein of AO3) are supposed to come after you make something, not building your characters or story around what boxes it can check. I appreciate people who actively try to avoid that, even if I don't find personally interesting. I've literally debated if I wanted to go back to dedicating time to developing my OCs and post it. I could be the change I want to see on a personal level even if it's for myself, but I just hate how things are treated as consumable "content" and "fandomized" when I'm Just Some Guy posting art. Having someone get parasocial with my art over a decade really scared me off from wanting to share art ever again. That's probably letting them win, though...
I'm not even one of those "omg I was brainwashed by Tumblr!!! Pity me!" types, I joined when I was freshly 18 and I take responsibility for anything I did wrong. I feel more complicit for not dipping or reaching out to people who got dogpiled in my circles, but I had "anxiety" (fear or being "next"). Even then, that "anxiety" is still there when interacting with people. I think about where my best friendships were made online, and it wasn't on Tumblr or Twitter or wheverever else. It was on forums, instant messaging, DeviantART, etc. Even the people I lost contact with but still have fond memories about I found via there. Almost everyone actually cool I found elsewhere either inevitably went crazy and radicalized or I drifted apart from out of paranoia. I hate how this was just the culture I wasted my adulthood in. Either way, I'm sure as fuck not going to log on next month. Ugh.
w/e
5/7/2024
1. I squatted my url on Nekoweb some time ago. I wrote it off as "the Neocities for turbozoomers host" but I should give them more credit. I thought I could mirror my site to there since one of my biggest paranoias when this went out of my control was "what if something happens to this url? - Then I realized that going from Geocities -> Freewebs -> Neocities is a reminder I really don't know shit, so no, Nekoweb will not let you just drag-and-drop everything onto the dashboard. The editor is a lot better, the features are better and the supporter's price is cheaper. Well played, kids! If you're more tech-oriented you might like it. I really don't think I have time to manage two sites, but I do want to try it... Maybe I should just mirror the index page?
2. I made a new version of my old art gallery, and it reminds me how the way my art folders are structured make me want to bang my head against a wall. When putting the new page together I thought that maybe I should make a subfolder in the old -> fanart folders? But then that would break a page and I'd have to edit another gallery. Why did I do this?! My site evolution is kind of amazing (fun fact: I blamed "ADHD" on why I put off doing anything for so long...) but I wish I did it "right" the first time. When I read a tutorial about deploying to Github, I just thought wow! This is so much easier than what I'm doing! But I'm so far into this and I don't want to nuke my site, I'm just going to make my life harder and not! REEEEEEE!!!
3. One friend group shared a stupid post about why high-functioning autistic people need to shut up about how a cure for autism is bad, because there are mothers who struggle with raising nonverbal children prone to tardrage. First, the "cure for autism" shit is fucking stupid because pushing for a way to "cure" future generations doesn't do shit for people who struggle with it now. Second, it's interesting how when it comes to "low-functioning autism" or even things like Oppositional Defiant Disorder (literally one of the most evil things I've read), why is the narrative always "those poor parents for having to deal with a retarded misbehaving child, we should invest in a cure that likely won't even happen in our lifetimes" and not "why is this child acting like this, what is going on at home? Can there be community for parents who struggle with raising disabled children and resources so their children can stay healthy and not hurt themselves?" Like no, I don't give a fuck about the burden of the parents. I'm convinced the vast majority of parents are ill-equipped narcissists that want a miniature version of themselves or are NPCs with no other life purpose. Can't reason with "people" like that...
4. Cheap week is hitting me hard. I was so happy that my credit card was close to being paid off, but I ended up having to pay this month's phone bill on it. And of course, I can't not have phone service when I'm in this system and calling the workforce so much. Feels bad. Now instead of paying the credit card off (...somehow...) in 2 months, it's bumped back to three. My phone bill is expensive too, but this phone was given to me years ago so I can't get a cheaper plan because it's locked to the service pre-installed on the phone. I just had to downgrade my plan to be $30 a month. Still too much!!! Jesus christ. I have to buy a new phone with a cheap plan whenever I get a job. I called my placement provider this morning to talk about why I quit and what I want to do next, but he said everything depends on the counsellor sending him paperwork so we can have a meeting. I'm just going to start calling her to know if she does. For the love of god PLEAAAAAASE I need this to be over. I want to be employed by the Summer or even Fall since that's when I got my last job. :( By my birthday at least??? Please? ;_;
Per Kotte's advice, I'm going to try to go outside for 40 minutes a day to help lose weight. I've been able to do that for the last few days and feel better, but it too hot outside today so I only made it 30 minutes. Better than nothing! Not to have a mild ED moment but sometimes I don't mind not eating much during cheap week, but not having any caffeine is weird. Probably for the best... I feel like going to bed early now.
...
5/3/2024
Not much happened yesterday, although I was off to a really bad start. I slept in a bit because I was low energy, but then I got a surprise call from my placement provider. I was going to call him myself, but I jolted awake. And it just reminded me of how... Helpless I feel. I didn't have my notes on hand, so when explaining why I quit my job, I felt like a brat complaining even though there were legit issues with my last job. I don't know the professional lingo to explain why it's bad that I worked so much but still considered part time, why one of my managers got away with breaking the rules, and how I was stuck to this one role with an awful turnover rate. And even though I haven't been unemployed for that long (hasn't been 6 months yet), I feel trapped in this system of waiting for a higher-up to give me permission to do things instead of just going out and applying like a normal person. I couldn't go to school normally, I can't get a job normally, I feel like a permanent child all over again despite being on a decent track of working for three years.
I am so sick of how trendy and commercialized diagnosis and mental illness is. I wish I was never diagnosed with anything. It has fucked up my sense of identity so bad to be told I have a inborn flaw at a young age, because fixing the symptom is easier than getting rid of the root. It's like my feelings of being a failure were validated by someone more "official" than me, and growing up it just led to more jabs about how I'm crazy and on drugs. My personal agency was replaced with learned helplessness because "you're X. X is why you're like that." And some diagnosis can take your autonomy away entirely... Being misdiagnosed with a "NOS mood disorder" when I was 17 led to being put on a cocktail of meds that made me pre-psychotic and having a religious phase for awhile. Back when I was dumb enough to talk about this on Reddit under an alt, I had to explain to a "therapist in training" who agreed with psychiatry-critical takes that it's not wise to list schizophrenia as an "extreme case that's necessary to diagnose" because of how it's weaponized politically.
I used to get angry about "self-diagnosis" as a teenager because I felt like people were co-opting my "inborn" struggle to be cool. (Don't deny that this happens; There is clout had to want to look like or become the underdog out of privilege guilt. Look at how many people started "converting to Judaism" after Trump.) Now after I realized professional diagnosis fucked up my life, I just envy self-diagnosers and people who only "found out" they were XYZ later in life. (If you read last month's entries, you'll know there's a market for those people.) Why do people "want" to be diagnosed? So you can "get help"? Being in-and-out of therapy from age 14-29 was useless at best and retraumatizing at worst (and I can't even talk about my bad experiences outside private communities) and expensive. Since I was a child the only "help" I can get is meds thrown at me and no alternatives when it backfired on me. What help? This is why I don't want to be diagnosed with any trauma-related disorders, because I know I'll just have the same old shit mainlined at me.
Being autistic is a big part of my identity, because it was proof that I wasn't chemically defective and have an observable genetic trait on both sides of my family. Advocacy for over the past decade has shown us that Autism Speaks is a scam, early forms of ABA are abusive, and vaccines won't "turn" your children autistic. But I'd rather have learned about autism second-hand as an adult, than be diagnosed as a teenager as proof that I'm too stupid to be in school, and have it on my records that employers can see. I feel like I've been handled with kid gloves ever since. Another thing that's made me hate professional diagnosis is how different early VS. late diagnosers are. I had a family member who was diagnosed with autism as a child, and being deemed "special" (pejorative) led to being coddled by his mother and acting like a manchild past 30. When family members visited me, his behaviors like posting hentai on Facebook and being on 4chan 24/7 was treated as something he just can't help because he's autistic. (But I'm autistic too and know you shouldn't post anime porn where family can see?) Not to have an "internalized ableism" moment but before I was diagnosed I legitimately hated autistic people, because I thought they were screaming overgrown coddled children or sex pests like Chris Chan.
Ironically, a part of me still feels that way. I think the worst kinds of autistic people are usually in the "early diagnosed" and thus have their bad behavior coddled as "just something autistic people do, he can't help it" camp*, and there's the adults who thinks that it's a privilege to get branded by diagnoses as a child because they "missed out on it". Getting diagnosed late teens was bad, but it's better than as an actual child. I'm lucky that childhood behaviors like making up elaborate manuals for games that don't exist and my character obsessions was seen as being creative, I don't know how worse off I'd be if I was forced to take antipsychotics alongside SSRIs growing up. But even then, it still frustrates me how no accessible "help" exists besides paying money for shitty services and echo-chamber support groups. I don't relate to most autistic adults because I still actually want to grow up and function in society. You can talk about how capitalism is a big problem, but where are the resources and community to learn to survive in it, instead of LARPing a communist revolution on your college campus? Why do so many "queer" "autistic/auDHD" people have their identity revolve around pop culture and picking out labels from a list? I know that sounds hypocritical coming from me but my problems don't come from "lack of representation" in cartoons, it's that that society has quickly shifted to be hard to live for everyone in the last few decades. I know autism is another "cool" label people use like ADHD to explain their learned behaviors; It frustrates me how autism is always summed up as the "quirky" symptoms that most people arguably have like having special interests and stimming, when motor skills, cognitive issues, flat effect, not visibly emoting, etc. have negatively impacted my life.
I don't know when my placement provider will schedule a meeting and reassessment for me, but I almost wish there was a way I can be un-diagnosed. I can easily be un-diagnosed with depression and anxiety since it doesn't affect my life as much (also everyone is depressed nowadays...), but unfortunately my behavior in real life was what led to a therapist "clocking" me as potentially autistic and referred my parents to diagnose me. I frequently had customers at my last job interpret my tone of voice and facial expressions as "rude", but the sole perk of having it on my record was my boss was less harsh about it. (Maybe she should've put me back in a position where I don't interact with customers then...) So this is a hole I have to live in. I wish I was like those young adults who discovered these things via Tumblr or TikTok and just conditioned myself to have these symptoms for a sense of community, that life sound fucking great. Oh well.
* (Not to bring in dreaded nuance, but I know this isn't always true - I used to be friends with a woman my mother's age who was diagnosed with "childhood schizophrenia" AKA the proto-autism as a child and severely abused for it. Maybe it's a matter of sex differences? Boys will be boys, especially when randomly sexually harassing women...)
:/
5/1/2024
Not much is happening, although I just noticed April is over, which... Bums me out a bit. I got a call yesterday from the plasma center asking why I haven't been back, and the guy was clearly someone I didn't meet there. I just told him that I was turned away twice because my veins were too small to draw blood from even when I hydrated the day before, and this is an issue I have even when I went to the doctor. I asked if they happen to have small needles to use, and he replied it's an 18+ clinic. I mean, I know... but maybe some adults have small veins? (Skill issue.)
This was going to be a surprise, but I'll go ahead and spill: Since I can't do anything "fun" like request time off from work (since I'm still unemployed because I'm a dumbass that quit*), I'm going to give Charizard1246's page a new layout for his 22nd birthday. It's basically an even shittier and broken version of my index (which is better now, but still has issues), but it's really not worth salvaging. Now I am trying to make a two column layout, and it makes me want to bang my head. Do you think I'll ever fix that other shitty layout I made early on? lol -_-
There's a holiday this week in Kotte's country, so she's been staying up later on her own schedule to talk. Last month I added a world clock to my phone so I can see what time it is over there, and sometimes... I get depressed when I see it. I knew we were 7 hours apart when we first met, but it hits me different now. It's the afternoon when I wake up, and her bedtime in the evening, and regular morning time after midnight. My schedule is 5x healthier than it was the last time I was a NEET, but it makes me wish we were closer. I'm lucky she's a night owl...
That's kind of a weird trade-off, isn't it? I accepted that I might end up alone years ago because I thought I was fundamentally incompatible, but it turns out the right one was on the other side of the world. I wouldn't trade having someone that understands me and feels safe to be herself around for anything, but ever since December I idly daydreamed about living together, moving closer to meet up, etc. Maybe one day...
* Although I was given an update and lead from the workforce hours ago. I'll get to that tomorrow.
