The Journal

Unstoppable forces, unmovable objects, etc.

As of writing this, we are only 44 hours from moving apartments! We're only moving 10 minutes down the road, but me and boyf are also moving in together, which is a big step. We've basically been living together for the past 6 months since our furniture is at his old place though.

I'm really excited for the change of scenery and to have more space. The new place is twice as big as my current apartment and in a way more walkable area. We'll have a big back porch, real appliances, and close enough to the stores that I can actually shop for dinner every day if I want to. I know that everything won't be perfect, but it's going to be so much better in so many ways.

I've lived in my current apartment for 5 years, which is the longest I've lived anywhere in my life. If I hadn't grown to hate this place, I would probably be much more sad about leaving. Instead, it feels much more like leaving the house after high school: packing up the best parts and leaving behind all of the hatred and disdain that have soaked into the shitty concrete walls.

So many bullshit fights with my ex (that keep resurfacing in my memory as I come across my workarounds for her behavior) that amounted to nothing more than us wasting more of each other's time. I just had to email the landlord about the closet shelving that she broke by delibrately doing things I told her not to - specifically because it would break the closet - because she thought I was overreacting. I'm going to lose my mind if I keep thinking about all of the absolutely insanely stupid shit that happened with her.

I'm just excited to get a fresh start. And also to be done packing and doing heavy physical exertion. I'm not a huge fan of change, but it feels pretty positive when it's own my own terms.

Masculinity as a form of joy

I won the top award at my job - IT professional of the year - by a landslide. I got a nice certificate and frame, $1000 bonus, and our executive director gave a speech about me. Dressed in my business casual "straight guy" clothes, hearing about how I'm lauded not only for my technical expertise, but also my attitude and interactions with people. Firm handshakes and the room bursting into applause for me.

It's a feeling that I don't think I've truly had since high school, which I guess would be pride? Nothing has really felt worth being proud of, but I'm glad that I have this now.

People are constantly telling me that I work harder and better than others or that my salary doesn't reflect my effort, but I just feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to. I don't want to turn this into a bitch fest, but the mediocrity of everyone else around me pisses me off, because I don't know if I can be mediocre and be okay with it too. I've always been expected to be perfect, even as a child, and it's upsetting to see full adults not held to that standard, but giving less effort myself would feel like failing. Anyways, bitch fest over.

After work, me and boyf went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and it was absolutely fucking perfect. There was a short wait that we spent outside because it was so nice out, the service was amazing, the food was exactly what I wanted and at a great price, and my drinks were made exactly like I would make them. It was truly the best restaurant experience I've had since the extra fancy steakhouse in Boston, for less than half the price. I'm just so happy to finally get some good fucking food and service around here!

There was an interesting moment of just... absolute indulgence when they brought my plate. I was a little tipsy, shoveling bread, steak, and corn into my mouth and washing it down with more whiskey & diet coke. After the year+ of constant nausea, it almost makes me cry when I get to really enjoy food like that. Just a moment of complete bliss and joy.

I think it's really funny that my two most recent moments of joy/bliss/whatever have been whiskey & steak, and curled up in a blanket with a cup of tea. My joy is very beverage-based but I do have complexity, at least.

Updating the journal.

I would say that I can't believe it's almost been half a year since the last entry, but that's pretty on brand for me and I'm not afraid to admit that.

After lots of debating and going back and forth about what type of journal I want to keep and what type of website I want to make, I figured I might as well just get back into both of them at the same time. I'm trying my best to actually try my best here, even if I don't really buy it.

Building websites from absolute scratch isn't the most fun work, but it's still rewarding in a way. The same can be said for identifying and expressing my emotions. Sure, it's pretty easy to mentally ruminate on a single thought for hours by myself, but it's probably a good idea to flex the "verbalizing and sharing" muscles too.

I realized recently that I've picked up some weird hangup about expressing myself and my opinions. I don't know when exactly it happened, but I thought it might have been COVID or something. Thinking about the timeline of events now, I think it really might have been the second time I dated my ex. Just a complete loss of my own identity and worth. Codependency and childhood emotional neglect make it real easy to lose yourself like that.

It also didn't help that I was off of my meds for over 2 years. I didn't realize it until right before getting back on them, but Jesus, it really was killing me. I've only been back on them for 2 weeks and I already feel so much more alive and confident. I'm glad to have the strength back before we move at the end of the month, too.

Okay, damn, this post is plenty long enough. Back to making the rest of the journal look nice... and function.

Spare time is like money. I don't have much of it.

Well, it's another new year, and even though I'm just now realizing that my computer ate the last blog post I made, I'm still excited to keep working on this website.

I haven't been able to do much on here recently with how busy we were at work, and then I was travelling for the holidays. I do love working on this little project, but I've noticed that I seem to get absorbed by it (and not necessarily in a good way).

Hopefully I can find a way to balance working on this and... literally the rest of my life lol.

The first journal entry.

I've actually been having a lot of fun building this website, which I'm grateful for. I have vague memories of customizing my MySpace and Tumblr pages, but I feel like I always gave up too soon. I was also 14 at most though, so I'm glad that I gave myself that base to work off of now.

There's still so much that I don't know, but I feel like it's all much easier to grasp now. Especially Javascript, which was the most frustrating thing in the world (and had way less functionality) back then. I've been working a lot with PowerShell at my job, which has given me a much better understanding how functions work in general.

I'm really glad this site is coming along so smoothly. As in, I spend an hour trying to get 1 element placed correctly sometimes, but everything seems to be doing exactly what I want it to so far.

I can't wait to add more things (especially putting together my little music player) and just start a collection of interesting things I find as I explore Neocities more and more. Hopefully we stay slow at work so that I can keep working on this while I'm here.