#WHOOOOOO PUT THIS IN MY NOTES AGAIN. BURN

[cosmosogler]

guess whoooooo lost track of time!

i basically did none of the things i was hoping to do today. i got up kinda late since i had so much trouble sleeping last night, i spent too long in the shower, i can’t remember what i did all morning. i couldn’t leave the house since dad was gone... oh, i washed the blanket. and i made plans to get lunch with some relatives next monday. i feel like i’m forgetting something important i was going to do though. like, really important. 

i did pick up my meds in the afternoon when dad got back. i haven’t started taking them yet. i will start tonight at bedtime. 

the steroids don’t seem to be helping doge at all. dad said that might happen. she’d have a lot less time if that happened. he said he wasn’t gonna let her live like that. she didn’t leave dad’s room today. i gave her a bowl of water and my brother brought her food bowl to her when it was time to feed them. she wouldn’t go outside unless dad was around either.

i did coax her outside at about 7, after i had a small dinner that made me pretty ill. 

maybe the infection is why i’ve been feeling so much more discomfort and pain this last week. and generally been feeling junky and absentminded. it’s dumb. my old doctor tried treating my pain with antibiotics back in early january when it first started happening and that didn’t help then. now it’s three months later and i suddenly have an infection?? even though i just took a round of antibiotics for that exact strain? jesus.

oh, i got a confirmation email for an appointment with my old therapist. for an appointment i did not schedule, and was not on my schedule card. i was pretty annoyed, but i called and made sure to specify that i meant “all future appointments” when i had asked for a cancellation. 

that seemed to eat up my entire supply of resolve for the day. i did not call the school. school related things are so incredibly stressful right now and i haven’t dealt with ANY of them. and i know that’s bad, and i’m bad for not doing them, and it’s gotten me in trouble with school administration in the past... i don’t know why “need to do thing” + “anxiety about thing” seems to mean “inability to do thing” every time. it’s not a very useful manifestation of stress. usually like, a desire to do a thing and imminently needing to do the thing come together and result in the thing getting done. i guess that’s why it’s an anxiety disorder. 

i didn’t take wiley out for a walk, even though he asked twice. my ankles have really been hurting whenever i put on shoes. i forgot to put a bandage on my other ankle before i left for the pharmacy and had to limp awkwardly around the store to try to avoid the chafing. i bought myself a candy bar and in the less than 10 minute trip home it melted. i was kinda bummed.

after trying to walk and hurting my ankle though i didn’t really want to go out of the house. so wiley and eve suffered for it. i did sit outside with the three of them for like 25 minutes though. 

my favorite way to pet eve is to take her leathery ear between my fingers and thumb and just feel the thin velvety fur. she doesn’t seem to mind at all. when she does mind she just shakes her head and pulls her ear out of my hand. diogi’s a little harder to do that with because her ears are all scarred up from her hematomas. and she gets real ticklish. wiley thinks it’s a game and nips at my fingers.

i talked with oz for a long time today. i have felt too lethargic to really commit to playing games... voice chatting is easier for me than focusing on a game. i would say that i feel better playing games in person, but 

OH WOW A BOTTLE CAP!

i would say that i feel better playing games in person, but i still kinda refuse to play games with dad. and i’m not being very persistent about getting him to sit down and continue watching jojo. i think i don’t have a problem playing games with asher because they are in person, and they are short and low-commitment, and also i enjoy playing games with asher. those three things are like... what needs to happen for me to be able to focus. 

pokemon is the obvious exception, but i have trouble articulating why. i’ve always liked pokemon. it lets me feel assured that i could put it down at a moment’s notice and attend to other things if i wanted/needed to. i just... never put it down, or if i do, i don’t put it down for long. 

it’s not that i CAN’T stop playing. when i’m hanging with asher i don’t really even think about it that much. i was really super bummed in december and january when i wasn’t playing because i had misplaced my entire collection of competitive/gifted pokemon, but that wasn’t because i wasn’t playing. it was more because i didn’t have the choice to stop playing. it had been taken away from me. in high school i went for years without playing. i still often go weeks or months without touching it, especially toward the end of the game’s “season.” it’s just, i feel like i can always just pick it right back up whenever i feel like it. and right now i ain’t got nothin better to do.

it’s better to have a project than to not have a project, right?

i kind of want to stress the difference between having a hobby and having an obsession or addiction. like, i have a physical addiction to my antidpressants, biologically. if i don’t take them i have really unpleasant withdrawal. but i am always, always sadder to not be talking to my friends than i am to not be playing pokemon. no question.

maybe i need to reassure myself because mom’s accusations make me feel insecure about my attachment to my hobbies. she always said i was addicted to video games and they were rotting my brain or whatever. but she also said i was addicted to melatonin. which is a dietary supplement and a naturally occurring chemical in your body.

she’s good at ‘splaining to me. momsplaining.

i get “addicted” to things like tetris and sudoku puzzles way more easily than pokemon. with pokemon there are generally good places to stop, and it’s easy to build a routine and stop at the end of that routine. but with tetris it just goes on forever. and sudoku puzzles, i can’t stop doing them when i start. when i close my eyes i see numbers popping into squares. i was actually pretty annoyed with my family for getting me a huge “daily sudoku” puzzle book for christmas. i had a sort of post-it note-sized 500 puzzle pad for a while in high school. i spent hours tearing through it, neglecting to eat or drink or do much homework. they had to be solved.

with jigsaws, and with pokemon, i don’t feel as... anxious getting up and leaving it for a little bit, or coming back tomorrow. 

i think i burned myself out though. i don’t even like doing the single online sudoku puzzles any more. i just do the new set of picture logic puzzles that comes out every friday and that usually takes about a half hour to forty minutes.

that sure was a tangent! pokemon was actually the first thing that really encouraged me to learn how to read. it had a lot of unfamiliar words and concepts that i had to actually sit down and read to learn about. like i had to figure out what “hydro” meant. before that i had tried to pick up long books like ms. piggly wiggly and kind of brute force my way through reading new material. but for video games i had to read because i had to learn the rules and how it worked. it wasn’t just a story.

i mean, i was still super bad at it until, like, crystal version came out almost three years later. but after i spent two hours trying to figure out how to get past veridian city because i didn’t know that i had to get the thing from the shopkeeper and take it back to professor oak, i learned that i had to learn how to read new words if i wanted to play this whole game.

formative experiences!

so i guess i did do quite a few of the things i had wanted to do today. tomorrow i’m gonna get lunch with gramma and i will TRY to contact at least one school for any of the reasons i need to contact any school. that’s just vague enough to not be a real commitment!

i should be a little more active with asher about settling in and studying for the general gre. he has to take it before the end of may i think? because of various scheduled events happening in his life after that. i say that not because i want to fuss and meddle with his life, but also because i have tutored before and in the physics field it is a very useful skill to have. now is the time to start working on a battle plan.

ok, it is past 12:30 now. i should stop writing and go to bed... i will try to pick up a new tv show this weekend i think. i’m thinking... death note. or maybe motorcity... something not too long-running, and preferably complete. i don’t have the energy to keep up with new ongoing shows right now. and i am feeling satisfied with the amount of show/movie critiques i have seen for now.

a REAL project would be starting a book! whoof. or worse, trying to draw or write again!!! terrifying!!!!!!