#I also kept in the joke weakness of catnip

[damadorias]

woo woo woo revamping an abandoned villain character. His names brennan and he’s smug asshole, he used to be a twewy oc but I never posted anything about him because ngl he was a bit of a rule breaker in terms of how things work in twewy.

But yeah now he’s been turned into a villain for a story I’m throwing together for funsies about a dream world leaking into reality. And instead of an angst villain backstory all he has as a motive for destroying shit and doing villain stuff is he’s lived so long he’s bored out of his mind and is just doing that shit for the kick of it

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

Various Feelings About ASIT Part 6: Doctors (and other lovers) 1 of 2

Cool, so this got long, it's now divided into 2 posts.

Okay, so technically these posts are asking why Garak and Bashir aren't a thing yet, because I've been really good and barely gone on tangents about how this books is essentially a love-letter to him that subsequent novels apparently decided he wouldn't drop everything to act on, but whatevs, I'm here to find out why that might happen (intrepid over-analyser that I am), but first let’s look at Garak’s general luck in love (it’s shit).

I touched upon some of Garak's inability to not get attached to other people despite the best most soul-crushing training in the galaxy in the “Sentimental Garak“ post, but mainly just... Garak falls in love really easily you guys! (as a proponent for the upsides of polyamory I approve, get a feeling Cardassian society as presented doesn't, but hey, that's what tears and fanfiction are for)

First! Cardassians (since we haven't seen him expressly into anyone non-Cardassian other than our boy Bashir – attracted, yes, “in love with“ no). They all start with P, which I won't over-analyse. Palandine, Pythas, Parmak. This post is Palandine and Pythas mainly..

Palandine first (with a side of Barkan). I firmly come down on the side of him being in love with both of them to begin with – in the sort of immature sense of “they're attractive, above me, and give me attention,“ kinda way (which isn't shallow emotions necessarily, it just stems from a place of deep insecurity and therefore not great for healthy relationships). They teach him poetry, train him to be better, tease out his secrets, and yeah, there's this scene:

[Extract from book. Barkan has just crashed on Garak and Palandine. - sat cross-legged, Palandine studied her exquisitely shaped hands. Now, with the three of us, the dynamic in the enclosure had changed, and we were all adjusting. I no longer had Palandine to myself - but surprisingly, I didn’t mind, in fact I was plased that Charaban was here. His stillness, like everything else about him, had grace and strength. I sneaked another look in his direction and marveled that this was the same person I had first encountered in the storeroom. He returned my look, and in the next few moments a bond grew between us that I had never thought possible. The whooshing flap of a night bird pulled our attention up to the section of glimmering sky that was visible. “I love the Blind Moon,” Charaban said softly. “Why is it called that?” I asked, deeply relieved by the mysterious change that had come over us. “It’s the time for lovers’ assignations,” Palandine answered. “The moon will give them enough light to meet, but not so much for them to be discovered.” “So if you and Elim were true lovers I wouldn’t have been able to find you,” Charaban teased. “That’s right, Barkan,” she said with a direct look. I shifted position in the ensuing silene and tried to hide my disappointment with Palandine’s reply, but at the same time, the pleasure I felt in the company of these two people kept growing.]

I know they were essentially using him, but then, Barkan (the consummate Cardassian) was using everyone. That was kind of his M.O. Palandine fell for that as well. Wonder if Barkan had been capable of feeling the kind of remorse that Palandine felt what would've happened. But from Garak's perspective, yeah he was into this threesome (I'll get back to my love Palandine in a sec).

Too bad he's missing the person who's actually got his back, my boy Pythas, aka, precious babe, want to protecc (even though he's perfectly capable of that on his own), I read so much into him that probably wasn't intended, but urgh. Here's a hypothetical: If Garak had realised Pythas' (in my opinion) massive heart-eyes for him instead of running after Palandine and Barkan, who were much better at pretending grand loving gestures and therefore catnip for a sad, sentimental young Cardassian, what would have happened?

But anyway, here's a list of things Pythas does for him without it being a ploy/a way to seduce him/another way to use him:

1. Saved him from getting a beating, even though there was nothing in it for him and Garak was even kind of rude towards him at that point

2. Offered to wait for him after training (and then hesitated/was about to say something when Garak declined, what did you want to say Pythas????)

3. Helped him out/was his second-in-command essentially during The Competition (there's an argument here that Garak was expected to become One Lubak after this and Pythas his second-in-command, but then I'm like... Cardassian culture doesn't encourage people to go for second-in-command when they could be first-in-command and Pythas absolutely could do that. He was just following Garak as his natural leader instead)

4. Told him his real name (in contrast Palandine and Barkan were telling him their names to manipulate him) and apologised for something that wasn't up to him (Garak having to leave Bamarren), a sign of weakness/sentimentality in Cardassian culture

5. This one is possibly over-reading because Pythas is a perfectionist, but the amount he over-prepared Garak for their shared mission + their little shared joke about Pythat being a ghost, which makes me both happy and sad (also I over-analyse the fact that he meets Garak after years with the words, “beautiful sight isn't it“ whilst looking at him, not the scenery)

6. Apologising again when Garak lost out on becoming his father's successor (also, going by the next point he knew Garak and Palandine were having an affair and never used that to get ahead)

7. Pythas coming to warn him about Barkan, at risk to his own life, again with no benefits to himself other than Garak not being captured/possibly killed

Then, of course, there's the natural cryptic ways he talks where you have to decipher yourself what he means – Garak might be a master at lying by telling the truth, but Pythas has perfectioned the art of saying so much while saying nothing at all. The price of being good at keeping your emotions in check is loneliness and bitterness.

[Extract from book. Pythas has come to visit Garak in the rubble of Cardassia. - part of me wished she hadn’t. Until your doctor spoke about healing... on every level. It’s what the body wants, he told us... unless we choose otherwise.” Pythas sat with his head bowed for a long moment. “I’d become very bitter, Elim.” I sat on a rock across from him and gently put my hand on his. What was it about this place, I wondered. And I remembered Parmak saying that if we couldn’t mourn, we couldn’t move ahead.]

So uh. Pythas calls him Elim. Pythas calls Parmak “your doctor.” This whole thing is about mourning and moving past a life not lived as he wanted to. Oh Garak. The one person you didn't fall in love with (and I always wonder if that tiny moment of tenderness isn't Garak realising something in that direction about Pythas' feelings towards him and comforting him, tenderness is after all in short supply, so I take what I can and analyse it to hell and back).

Let me backtrack to Palandine for a moment. I contrasted her to Pythas by saying she had manipulated Garak, and that's true, she did, she was upset about it and wanted forgiveness. I am a biased reader, always, and honestly, I never thought Garak and Palandine were good for each other (for similar reasons Garak and Pythas could've never worked out) – they were too caught up in the net of lies and bitterness and trauma and neither of them had the language or the abilities or even the chance to try to work their way out of it. Palandine started out by using him (and I don't entirely buy her “we're all using each other“ excuse either, that sounds like she's bought in to the propaganda too much, although I will concede that I think Garak was too young to know what he wanted at the time, so definitely went for people who were powerful in ways he wasn't – he's always trying to learn from others, isn't he) and they ended up using each other to “pretend” they could exist without the system.

Maybe if they had met again after the Dominion War... but maybe their personal history was too much of their past selves to be able to heal as partners (in contrast to, say, Parmak).

Parmak! I think they actually do end up together post-book? (Una Mccormack books). Another doctor, the irony is lost on none of us, we know what you did Andy! In terms of learning from another person, he's certainly a better teacher than any Bamarren graduate. He engages him in similar subjects as Bashir did, but coming from the perspective of another Cardassian it's a lot less patronising-sounding, and challenges him for the better, just like Bashir. It’s almost like... they’re quite similar to one another.... ........

In the next part we'll take Garak's later love-interests and compare them to his earlier ones and to one another.

[singularname]

ooc: cats 2019 was hot garbage that doesn’t belong in the jellicle junkyard. Below are my thoughts and my review. I get pretty technical at points. So here you go. PERSONAL BLOGS DO NOT REBLOG! Liking and commenting and sending me asks about stuff is fine. But please do not reblog. I’m sure more thoughts will come out as I discuss things and such, but these are my first impressions.

positives ( will be above the cut ):

You could tell who the broadway singers were and they stood out.

Munk was good, but I have some thoughts but overall he was good. He was probably the only one that even remotely understood his character, but he still had a few off beats.

Jennifer killed it, no i wont take critiques. Memory was pretty good.

Mungo and Rumple made the debut version of their song likeable (cause I do not like the debut version of their song) yet i have thoughts.

Bustopher Jones (the song) was decent, out of all the reworked numbers it fit the best and didn’t seem to far from the reworked plot or the original, so it was a good middle ground. James did well, he’s no operatic singer, but he did well, best of the non-trained leads at least.

Gus was good but his song was a bit boring he needed someone more to play off of as that is what acting is partially

Skimble may just have been the best part of the whole damn thing. The inclusion of tap into his number was pretty smart. I do wish more of his accent shined through though.

The rundown theater worked it would have worked better if they kept it all there.

negatives ( below the cut ):

Dance was sacrificed for cinamtography which was a damn shame. this musical is one of the premier dance musicals

Munk’s voice at the beginning was far too high, and did not exude power. It got better.

Victoria being the stand in for the audience was stupid and pointless. Especially with the fact that Addressing of Cats was kept in and broke the fourth wall.

Victoria’s acceptance of Grizabella was pointless because the jellicles hadn’t accepted her, she wasn’t even considered a jellicle yet. Her agency in that number meant nothing. If she had been a jellicle it would have been better. A better audience stand in would be the fucking kittens cause its their first ball.

The lack of touching made the touching that was their awkward. It was like they were all afraid to touch and interact with each other. And the CGI didn’t help, like when Munk lifted Victoria off the car at the beginning which looked like he wasn’t grabbing her at all which we know isn’t true.

Tugger had no point in the musical because he sang his number and disappeared, and not by fucking Macavity. Jason could have done more with the character, he had the right voice, but its like he wasn’t trying.

Jenny-Any-Dots was ruined. She wasn’t a respectable cat, and the mice were stupid. Sorry, I mean the idea was cute in theory, I liked that, but the execution was stupid. And the zipping of her skin NO. It just works better with the cats acting it out like they act out skimble’s number or bustopher’s number. It didn’t add anythign to the cats sing the songs about themselves because that idea was dropped when Skimble and Bustopher even sang their songs. Like its a poor idea and poorly executed, especially since the original is like gossip the cats gossiping about who could be chosen.

Who will it be echoed only once? UGH. The chorus was fucking weak in the few moments they were given to stand out.

Speaking of clothing, the clothing choices made no sense, along with proportion of human clothing. If I put a watch around a cat’s neck it would fucking choke. Yet a ring can fit around a cat’s arm? Some of the clothing was too human like all of Misto’s costume (which why was he wearing it the full time? he looked better without it).

The replacement of coricopat and tantomile for the hip hop twins was utterly stupid and useless.

Some of the framing of songs and such especially at the beginning was bad. But that could also be because it takes you about 4 songs to get your eyeballs used to the damn CGI.

Mungo and Rumple were good, but Rumple would have been better if she kept the accent up like Mungo did. I loved seeing them do a burglary, but I prefer the musical version where the scare the cats away under the guise of macavity then have fun in the junkyard.

Growltiger had promise as a song but they only gave us a line followed by a joke so that was stupid. The whole barge shit was stupid. Their were no stakes and we never see the other cats get off the damn barge. Also griddlebone poor poor griddlebone.

The opening number was missing so many things like decent choreography. None of the choreography made them look feline, they looked like humans doing a mix of jazz and ballet. Just turning their hands over instead of open hands would have been a tremendous change. But like I said earlier what choreography there was was sacrificed for cinematography so you could see what you were supposed to see instead of letting the audience watch and see it on their own with some lighting suggestions to draw the eye away from the main dancing.

I think the concept of Skimble’s number was great, but I thought taking them out of the ballroom was stupid. But it was the strongest number and the one besides memory which had the most relation back to the original.

Why were their so many songs and verses cut? Naming of cats named only plain names, not the fun names which is where we get names of our characters from! Like half the cast is named in that number. It made the chorus seem distant and impersonal, along with the lack of touch.

Robbie should have gotten the same treatment as the girl playing victoria he had almost a bigger role than her, aside from her little grizabella moments which all of those important grizabella moments were done in seclusion. Half the reason they have agency in the stage show is because other cats can see her.

The lack of touch! enough said.

Tugger not singing Mistoffelees song upset me. Robbie did good, but he is not Tugger. Mistoffelees song was ruined by all the pausing and bullshit. There was not a climax to the song at all because it was always stopped and restarted. it felt like a dinky kids roller coaster that had no real payoff because Misto has no confidence so when Deuts appears it may not have been because of Misto at all just saying.

Old Deuts was... bad. Judi was pitchy at best (sing talking the lines just don’t work), and just not very convincing. Her presence wasn’t commanding or authoritative no matter how much Robbie tried.

Bomby was fucked three ways to hell. Taylor was okay, but the song Macavity was ruined with the catnip and all the bullshit with that. Macavity is a cautionary tale, and doesn’t fit in with the actual purpose the musical wanted it to be. Her song wasn’t as a good as normal, and it missed aspects that having it as a duet brought.

Beautiful ghosts was absolutely pointless, and quite petty of a song. Perhaps if we knew more about Victoria or she was a jellicle it would have made sense, but it just seemed very disconnected.

I am mourning the cut of Peeks and Pollicles. Because it explain its a dog, so when Bomby says it in Macavity you have a connection to the word. Here it just seemed like a nonsense word. Plus no rumpus cat. Cutting it means that Munk’s normal song was changed to skimble, and i guess misto. Also cutting it means you take a whole number away from the chorus, and thus you loose more personality of the chorus cats.

The chorus seemed absolutely pointless because you never could watch them and focus on them. They were just their not interacting with one another, not doing anything really. All of what makes the jellicles a tribe was taken away because these cats seem like strangers to one another. Not to mention taking away their solos at the beginning is a crime and again takes away from the personality of each individual chorus cat.

Jason should have sang misto’s song cause it would have given him a purpose besides a star to get butts in seats. he was their and i half wanted him to sing the end where victoria did because then he would have had a purpose but nope.

The cutting of so many verses from songs was just a shame. The musical inspires people to take up ballet, and jazz, and tap but all of it was cut for cinematography purposes and to make you look at the main actors in a different shot so their is no inspiration for the dance.

Skimble’s number had an awkward shot on the train bridge that was so far away you couldn’t even see the silhouettes any more.

I mentioned proportion earlier but like the train tracks were way off, i mean we’ve all seen Aristocats right?

Victoria not having her moment after naming of cats was sad. And whatever moment their was ruined by the assassination of misto’s character. Cause it was bad. He never questions himself as being good in the stage show just where his powers come from. But here he has no steadiness in if he is good or not, and he’s just badly characterized.

The kittens had no excitement for Tugger in his song. None of them did they seemed more happy about the milk rather than this hunk in front of them.

Macavity was shit. Seeing him throughout took away from him being mysterious and threatening. Seeing him fall at the end with Griz floating away was absolutely stupid and cartoonish and TS Eliot is rolling in his grave at that alone. Why he is not a zombie yet coming to kill Tom Hooper for fucking his poems up is beyond me. Also Macavity is a ginger cat... but he had no hint of red hair on him at all.

The jellicle ball dance sequence was bad. It wasn’t just that they weren’t cat like it was that what’s his face was trying to do a Sugar Plum Fairy and have them all dance to the quieter notes in the musical which made it seem disjointed. Sugar Plum Fairy works like that because its a light number she is supposed to make you listen for what she’s dancing too not just what you are hearing. This did not work.

The plot was stupid. The competition and stealing of cats was stupid. It was not needed. The had the element of putting on a show and talking about cats getting chosen they didn’t need macavity for more than that, or to make him want to be chosen. Him being a threat alone is good enough.

Munk did not get his fight. That was given to the damn cats on the barge. I am not happy with that.

I wish the named cats were more present in the bigger group. They blended into the background before their own songs, and then they disappeared because of the shitty capturing the cats plot device that was shitty and not needed. It took away from your familiarity with the cats who were present because we know nothing about those cats at all.

A moment of silence for all the chorus cats we don’t see or know, or were written off, and had no interpersonal relationships with each other. Literally the lack of touching between them makes it seem like all these cats are strangers to each other. Robbie tried.

Another moment of silence for Gillian Lynne’s choreography. The nuance she gave to it, that was all lost and gone.

Finally the CGI the hands were inconsistent, as was the face stuff. They had whiskers but they were hard to see, and because they had no nose or mouth (cat versions) defined it didn’t feel right, and we know it was possible to do both since the actors wore makeup.

[cosmosogler]

today i got up soooort of on time. then i got distracted by the internet!!! so i was 2 minutes late for class. the air was chilly today though so the bike ride over to campus was gucci. perfect weather.

i took furious notes in both classical and quantum. classical today was “graded” by a professor who left the comments portion of the lecture very open-ended. we weren’t really sure what to say. i ended up kind of dominating the conversation even though i didn’t really want to.

gotta keep my trap shut!

after that we went to get spaghetti. i missed it, even though we only skipped one week. suzanne asked why i talk to my parents. that got me down a pretty dark lane of conversation. i tried to focus on how i wish i had a closer relationship with my siblings... but i’m still so angry. all the time.

eventually harrison said something like “we need to pick a different awkward topic before my day gets ruined.” 

and i said “OH. i’m sorry my life ruins your day.” 

i was mostly joking. he apologized but we did change the topic to “awkward topics.” 

then i went to group therapy. i had to fill out a survey beforehand. i thought about how i was feeling the last week or two. i only really started feeling like i had any energy at all yesterday-ish. so i kept my answers pretty low mood-wise. 

i only consciously lied on one of the questions because i wasn’t sure what the required response would be. and it wasn’t a big lie. i’m not really at “high risk” of killing myself. maybe 5%. right now at least i feel ok. the past week collectively though, i wasn’t feeling too hot. 

group therapy was... actually good? we tried to focus and dwell on some conversation topics even though most of us are usually lightning-fast about responding. i ended up talking quite a bit. they seemed worried. they also seemed pretty upset about the department thing, where the professors/coordinators lie about how your classmates are doing to try to push you to work harder.

one thing the group leader said though is “how can we help you?” 

i told her i’d get back to her on that. i don’t really know. i said hearing about their self care routines and comparing ideas helps. i have made adjustments to my routine over the last two months. pretty drastic ones. i haven’t yet been able to re-cram in time to meditate before bed but the podcast helps me doze off at least. 

i’ve been drinking more tea too and i think that keeps my stomach a little more settled. caffeine free so i can drink it with dinner.

i need to think a little more about what other people can do to help me. i don’t really have any hope of actually being helped any more. i still get let down all the time by the people who are supposed to be in charge. but like... you only get out of group therapy what you put in. if i can find a specific goal to achieve that these guys can help me get to, and how to get them to get me there, that’d be great! but i also might not have Problems if i am able to get that far? i mean, like, you gotta be pretty on top of things to know exactly what you need help with and what that help needs to look like.

after that i went to e&m. something about that classroom really throws me off, because in the last ten minutes of class my eyes started hurting AGAIN. like a cramp, almost? this doesn’t really happen anywhere else. reading for too long i just get a headache and then i grind my teeth which makes the headache worse. i tried some eye exercises and that helped for a few minutes but by then i was way behind and i was just tired. 

the frustration builds up. the professor will make a step that doesn’t make any sense and not explain it. someone will ask a question and he won’t explain it still because he thought the question was dumber than it actually was. he goes too fast. just little things, but millions of them for 50 minutes straight. and then trying to focus on the board hurts. maybe his handwriting is too small and it strains my eyes? maybe i get frustrated because he stands directly in front of his writing and his lecture is incomprehensible and the anger and anxiety make my muscles tense up which hurts my eyes? i dunno.

after class i checked my email and then biked back over to the group therapy building. but this time i went to the third floor. the person i was having a meeting with was like 10 minutes late even though i got there 5 minutes before my appointment. i took the time to update pokemon go since i haven’t touched it in over 8 months. i caught a murkrow and looked at the entei raid a few blocks over.

i want entei. not gonna happen at level 20 though. my strongest pokemon is 1400 cp. this thing was like 19000.

anyway this new person is annie. the student “care area” is not a therapy office but they can help coordinate between the drc and my department. we talked about maybe dropping e&m for now since the workload is getting to be too much. (i am 4 weeks behind in grading.) 

so i will talk to danielle about it tomorrow, and then see how i do on the test on friday, and then talk to both of them again next week. i’m a little stressed about the consequences of dropping the class. the financial aid requires a certain amount of credit hours. and we’re supposed to be done with classes by the end of our second year, and i won’t even have finished UNDERGRAD e&m by my first year if i drop it. and it’ll give me a glaring weak spot on my next round with the prelim right after new year’s. 

well, i haven’t talked about it with the drc yet, so i probably won’t get anywhere worrying about it right now.

at the end of group therapy i said that even though i like to complain, i will try to follow up with actual solutions more. 

it just seems like... most of the things i complain about don’t really HAVE solutions. or i’ve already made a decision about how to deal with them but they are still very difficult and/or stressful. my classmates said it might be a good idea to reach out to my brother more after he moves away for college because teenagers are super moody and just not very enthusiastic about talking to family members in general. so that just means being patient for another two-ish years.

after that i biked back to the office.

OH! I ALMOST GOT HIT BY A CAR THIS MORNING. it was like three inches away. they were making a left turn across the road i was riding down and they just... didn’t stop. or go and get out of the way. i had to pull a hard turn and swerve up on the sidewalk and i almost hit a pedestrian. 

it’s like they weren’t even looking.

anyway i got back to the office at about 5:15 or so. i took a 45-minute break to eat some food and walk around a bit and goof off on facebook. i felt a little better after that, and then suzanne helped john and i study for our e&m test. we covered the entire chapter, just the main ideas, but it helped a lot i hope. i had my mind blown once at least. i understand dielectrics WAY better now.

we got done with that at 7:10-ish, so longer than a full class period. i was exhausted and antsy by the end of it. i packed up my things, yelled at luis a little bit about the alphabet song since we’d been having an argument about it earlier, and then biked home.

he told me the alphabet song came before the alphabet and that’s why they are in the order they are. i think the vowels should have all been put together.

the alphabet song was based off a mozart piece apparently and copyrighted in 1835. TAKE THAT, LUIS! EAT IT!!

when i got home i made some dinner and hid some cookies around for snoopy to find. she was WAY more interested in looking for them after she watched me hide them. and also had some catnip that i put on her walk-through brush. then she seemed to realize for the first time that her cat bed has two levels, and the lower level had cookies on it.

she’s a goofy one.

by the time i finished eating it was after 8:30 so i watched a few youtube videos and checked the 9 o’clock updates. then i ACTUALLY SAT DOWN AND DID SOME GRADING. i got through 2 pages of a whole lab section, which comes out to 36 pages. i did that in about the same amount of time, and then i spent a few minutes feeding snoopy and preparing my daily planner for tomorrow, and then it was 10 so i started writing. now it is 10:43.

it feels like this week has been going extra slowly. maybe it is because i feel more focused so i am losing less time to the Void of the Internet? my breaks have been more... deliberate. i set aside 90 minutes to play smash bros, and then got back to work after i felt more relaxed. stuff like that. it was a lot of fun, too.

i am a little worried about friday, between the test and the fact that i have to have 9 sections of labs graded by the end of the day, which is just not going to happen. tomorrow i don’t even get to sit down and take a BREAK let alone do work until after 4. friday is busy all the way through 4 too. and today was busy through after 5.

AND i gotta start the classical assignment somewhere in there too so i don’t have to try to slog through a 12-hour assignment over the weekend yet again. 

tomorrow my labs ungraded are gonna bump up to 12. but i made progress today. i have doubled the amount of grading i’ve finished. that’s something, right? 4 is twice as much as 2, even if you need to get to 70. and then 20 more after that.

something good. i jumped right away to asking questions when i got to my meeting with annie today. i admittedly did not have time to look up their office before i got over there, but she was very kind and explained how their office was different from the drc and counseling centers and what they are useful for. we got a solid plan set and another appointment scheduled within 25 minutes. 

now i just need to apply that “here is how this will be helpful” authority to emotions i guess? i’m not very good at asking for help from peers. i do it a lot but that doesn’t mean i’m good at it. well, i can do academic questions pretty well. but personal help is like... a league of its own.

i think i did a good job making use of some break time today and then getting back to work when i was ready. i didn’t have a LOT of time today but i stayed busy at least. and i paced myself really well yesterday because i wasn’t miserable and exhausted today! 

well, i was miserable and exhausted. but not AS miserable and exhausted as i usually get when i work too hard for too long without breaks. because i took breaks!

[cosmosogler]

hello. i didn’t go to bed until 12 last night. because i’m really cool.

so i got up at like 8:30 this morning and then didn’t want to do anything. i forced myself to shower around 9:30 or 10 and ate some breakfast. then i kept bumming around. at around 11:30 or 12 i decided to clean my apartment and wash my bedsheets. that went pretty well. cleaning the litter box was terrible because snoopy keeps missing the litter and then her waste gets caught in the folds of the box liner. 

phew!! i got distracted for like 4 minutes there.

i asked suzanne for a ride to the bowling alley at 5 since it is a 30 minute bike ride from my home and she said sure. then i made the rest of my tempeh tacos and then i took out the trash and stuff and went to the used bike place to get my bike looked at since it’s been handling a little weird. i walked in confidently this time and found the guy asleep on the floor in his back room. he startled awake when i knocked gently on the door. he rode my bike up and down the back road a few times and also replaced the batteries in my headlight since it sort of died. he didn’t let me buy the batteries myself. i wasn’t sure if i was supposed to tip him...? it didn’t occur to me until now that i might have been supposed to do that.

i didn’t spend long at the grocery store and i only used like half my budget money for it. when i was arranging my groceries on my bike i saw that suzanne had changed her mind about giving me a ride. it was after 4. she asked if i’d be ok with jennica taking me instead and i said sure. then i rode home and got ready for the party with like nice clothes and earrings and stuff. i know it’s just bowling but it feels nice to dress up sometimes.

then 5 rolled around and i asked jennica when she was coming to pick me up. when she didn’t respond i got suspicious and asked suzanne if she had actually asked if jennica was willing to drive me before she made the offer. she said no, that i was supposed to ask jennica for the ride myself. then she suggested i rent an uber. 

i got super mad SUPER fast. i didn’t say anything for a few minutes since it was texting. just kinda quietly let my temper run its course for a few minutes. i decided to try and figure out why i felt so angry so fast. i guess it’s because... i felt kinda betrayed? like she KNEW i couldn’t easily get there myself. and she volunteered jennica without actually letting jennica know i needed a ride. and ubers are technically an option but they feel so unsafe... and they’re really not a good business to patronize. 

and call-in taxis are just so unreliable... i would get left at my therapist’s office for hours and hours and hours back at villanova. i would get there in the middle of the day and then be left there until after dark.

that wasn’t the taxi business, it was the campus transportation, but i don’t really trust other people to drive me where i need to go or even pick me up any more haha. even at nau the taxi service was SUPER late. 

so i biked 55 blocks out to the bowling alley in my fancy skirt and dress shirt and the skirt got tangled in the back wheel before i figured out how to set it more securely in my lap. 

i had to go an extra 12 blocks because there was no stoplight so i could cross the road for 6 blocks past the alley.

i was still roasted when i got to the alley even though i was also now super hungry and very tired and sweaty. and it was a bowling alley so it’s not like they had much food i could eat. i had a piece of cheese pizza and i think it’s the worst pizza i’ve ever had.

alex’s twin ryan had made tons and tons of desserts though and i tried some of those. the cookies were super good but i stopped having an appetite extremely quickly. i knew my body was hungry but it just wasn’t gonna let me put anything else in my stomach. my mood did improve after a few cookies.

jennica apologized as soon as i got there. suzanne didn’t seem to think anything was wrong and congratulated me on all the exercise i got. i turned my attention toward getting the bathroom fixed because every single one of the toilets was clogged.

i bowled with everyone, just one game since there were 6 players and it took forever. i won. alex’s friend meredith would have won but she left. alex took over for her and she had such a lead on me that he actually did beat me with that score. i was going to beat it... then i dropped the ball on my last turn. 

like, i literally dropped the ball, my fingers slipped right out of the holes and it went straight into the gutter.

beforehand, while i was trying to rent some shoes, the lady behind the counter was very interested in telling me about how angry she is that people are really mean to “disordered kids.” ryan ended up by the counter while i was waiting to ask for shoes but didn’t want to interrupt. he said that he and alex get that a lot but i guess it’s easier now that they are very much adults. 

i felt kinda confused because i guess i just... don’t see why you would make fun of a disabled person? i mean i see people doing it all the time but it’s like, why? i said something like “i don’t understand because, like, who are you to judge someone else’s intelligence?” the lady behind the counter kept saying that it “doesn’t make them less human” but i wouldn’t even go that far. like it seems so obvious that i don’t even think about that. i guess i figure that even if something wasn’t human you don’t have an excuse to mistreat it. like a cat or something. 

like “they’re alive” is reason enough not to be an asshole. humanity is a gate check after that so the question shouldn’t even get there.

just because i don’t always understand or directly see someone else’s thought process doesn’t mean they don’t have one. sofia back at home only has a muscle/nerve disconnection thing and people treat her like she’s stupid because she talks slow and sloppy. but even then she’s just a normal kid with reduced fine motor skills. 

so... i don’t get it. it just sounds so frustrating.

and i guess i’m not a stranger to the insults either even though i ain’t got no diagnosis outside of depression and my heart defect.

anyway i stayed until about 8 and then i biked home. i almost got hit by a car that didn’t look both ways before making a left turn AGAIN. i’m glad that i didn’t hesitate when i saw them keep moving and did my best to get out of the way instead of slow down and hope they’d see me and stop. i got honked at but like... i have headlights on my bike. the light was green for me and “slow down” for them.

when i got home i hid cookies for snoopy and put some catnip on her walk-through brush. she had fun with that for a little while. when i got settled down and into my pajamas and had a snack it was like 8:40, so i checked out some youtube and checked my comics at 9 and then did some grading for 40 minutes and got about a third of the way done with the last section. it wasn’t as much as i’d wanted to get done today, but i spent so much time doing absolutely nothing that it’s probably a good thing i took a pen to the lab reports at all. also the EXTRA HOUR I SPENT ON MY BIKE. altogether i biked like six miles today.

tomorrow my goal is to get up early (since daylight savings will give me an extra hour to try to sleep) and get right to the office to start working. i guess i gotta make some pasta salad before i leave so that’ll take 20-30 minutes. i’m gonna finishing grading and do last week’s quantum assignment i think, since it’s supposed to be really short, and then try to make any headway at all on my mechanics homework until my food and energy run out. 

retaking the quantum test is gonna have to wait until after i have literally ANY time to review my quantum notes and try to remember this basic stuff that i have already known for over a year and still can’t seem to write on a paper if it has “test” written on it.

i get really frustrated with people who seem like they’re flaking on me. today was kinda my fault i guess... should have checked with jennica right away. i got confused by suzanne’s wording and the fact that it really didn’t make sense for her to volunteer someone she had not checked in with first.

makes me feel like i don’t matter. 

and like... i already feel like i don’t matter. but outside confirmation that i don’t matter to my friends makes me freak out. just like how i know i’m hella dumb but any outside confirmation just like... totally ruins my day. and sometimes my week. and sometimes it’ll seem fine at the time and then a week later it’ll ruin my day.

maybe, without these... disappointments? i can sort of convince myself that “i don’t matter” is a lie. but then when i ACTUALLY DON’T matter my “i was lying to myself, ha ha, maybe i can be confident” becomes the lie! and i hate being deceived like that. it makes me feel like all the progress i make with self esteem and stuff is just... an empty distraction. the reality is that i DON’T matter, and i just wasted all my time and energy pretending like i did, because i’m stupid and i let myself make these mistakes over and over and over and over.

like i had hope or something. but that hope is so fragile. i just want people to like me. i just want to matter to people. but it feels like i can’t. and it hurts every time because i’m stupid and i keep hoping even though it ain’t never done me any good.

something good today was that i did, in fact, bike six miles and i didn’t run out of energy. i was tired, sure, and sweaty, but i could still feel my legs just fine. it’s going uphill that always wrecks me. 

i joked yesterday that i’m so small and weak that this is the best shape i’m ever going to be in. barely able to get up the hill on the way home day after day. small. and weak. if i didn’t have a deformed heart i would have been like three or four inches taller and i got the athletic build that says i should be able to get pretty strong. but now i can’t get strong so i just look kinda lumpy.

i wasn’t able to develop the necessary muscle systems that normal little kids get when they scream and run at warp speed all day every day. and my immune system never really got off the ground. my body heals at like the slowest possible rate. that time i scratched my face like four weeks ago? it’s still healing. my pretty small gallbladder incisions from two months ago, which “shouldn’t leave scars”? still healing and even kind of still inflamed.

but hey! i biked six miles! that was ~ an hour total of sustained semi-heavy physical activity. i don’t spend a lot of time coasting. maybe i don’t have the sprint capability i need, but i seem to be building up endurance over time. i can live with that i think.

i’m nothing if not resilient.