Which I mean is technically true; I said I'd blog later and I am in fact blogging later. Of course, not about the subject I promised a ramble on. That'd take too long; the earliest I could give that is Thursday but probably not even then. Maybe Friday, but most likely Saturday. Just too much stuff to do prior to then. (Namely, school tomorrow; dance tomorrow; work on Friday; family night on Friday.)

I mostly came to point out how much I love my significant other and how I'm basically addicted to them at this point. I find myself often thinking about them, even at times I shouldn't. All my thoughts at least partially revolve around them now. At all times, good/bad/neutral, I have them in my mind. Love truly does do funny things to the brain. I so wish I could see them and spend more time with them. <3

But anyway. Life stuff aside from me gushing from a schoolgirl would probably be appreciated by everyone. For school, I don't actually have anything actually required to be done which I didn't already do, at least I'm pretty sure. I do have some things to turn in of course. But I did them already.

One of the more nasty things required is a hand-writing assignment. One reason we use CAD is specifically so that we don't need to do things by hand...and for good reason. I have incredibly shaky hands, especially when nutritionally deprived and/or when I am calling upon them for fine dexterity. Quite literally, the more precise the task, the less precise my hands are.

I can move my hands around just fine to, say, type. I can make more broad pencil strokes just fine. But fine motor control? The type to make mechanically-defined preset standards be met? I just don't have the ability to do that and yet it's asked of me anyway.

Also, ow. Typing hurts my hands right now. They're shaking more than normal but also more exhausted than normal. Because of the hand-writing assignment, I suspect. This is the curse I've always had and mentioned on the blog before in fact. As an artist, as a writer, I need my hands, and yet, they have problems. In the wrists. In the tendons. In the joints. Whatever, wherever.

It is to some extent genetic. I know my mother has shaky hands. I believe one or both of my grandmothers had it as well. I also know these problems (carpal tunnel and/or tendonitis) are things members of my family have in fact struggled with; my older sister was so badly injured that the only thing which can fix her hands fully would be surgery since literally everything short thereof failed to heal her.

The thing about our family is that it's often obvious we have some immense talents. We have some gifts that people would absolutely love to have. Strong athleticism (even out of shape, we can keep pace with people who have been training for years when we've done nothing of the sort), strong innate ability in certain subjects, we have lots of various forms of artists, we tend to ace tests easily, we usually did well in school with a deep understanding of the material we studied, lots of things like that.

...And yet. We're not superhuman. For every upside, for every talent, for every gift, there's a downside, a curse, a limitation. Obviously, not all members of the family inherit all of the quirks. But of us six, usually at least half have any given trait. Either good, or bad. The ones who have the trait differ, varying from trait to trait. For instance, my brother has the same resistance to diseases I have yet lacks the "once infected stays sick forever" part I have, whereas my dad has vulnerability to diseases and has the staying-sick-forever issue.

I don't quite know where I was going with this ramble. I feel like there was more I wanted to talk about. But I should get back to school, and do whatever awaits me.

Right now I think I need sleep for a nap before tae kwon do.
But before then, quick update.

Schoolwork was...
...Well pretty unproductive. Deer in headlights kinda sorta? I just. Was like. "Uhg, I want this to be over."
And was thinking a lot about my significant other and thinking I'd rather be with them, spending time with them, doing whatever. And I was tired and exhausted.

I did manage to get through it though. And get Subway. Same as usual, with me adding Subway Vinaigrette (huh that might actually be its real spelling, did not expect spellcheck to have that) to the sub.
Good news!

I love the taste.

Bad news!
Between it, the three others I add, and guacamole...my sub is increasingly becoming an icky gooey mess. It's a delicious mess, mind you. But it's more sticky. More drippy. More slimy. None of those things are bad, just something you have to live with.

...All the same. I think that a change of tact is in order and that next time, I'll be putting those on first, and then the Parmesan with one other thing (pepper, extra salt, whatever) to maybe hopefully suck out some of that excess liquid. Speaking of liquid, I deliberately had a different drink theoretically with more to help me wake up...except I messed up by partially spilling it, ruining the balance and equilibrium I was attempting to establish (not to mention maybe making the cup sticky), so I had to lap up a moist, wet drink of flavored water essentially.

Ah well.

​And with me teasing my S.O. with the number of possible innuendos above, I should go on to sleep.

AAAAAUUHGH.

I SHOULD BE WORKING.
I SHOULD BE DOING SCHOOLWORK.
WHY IS MY BRAIN NOT WORKING.
I'M NOT FUNCTIONING.

THE ABILITY TO WORK.
IS ABSOLUTELY GONE.
GONE GONE.
LIKE, GONE.

ABSOLUTELY. COMPLETELY. ENTIRELY. GONE.
MY MIND. SHUT DOWN ON WORK.
I CAN THINK STORIES.
I CAN THINK CREATIVITY.
BUT CAD, SCHOOL STUFF, IS NOT THERE.

AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO OTHER THAN VENT BECAUSE MY MIND IS JUST NOT FUNCTIONING AND I'M WASTING LIKE THE ENTIRE DAY BECAUSE I SHOULD BE WORKING BUT I'M REALLY NOT BECAUSE MY FOCUS IS UTTERLY ABSENT AND MY MIND WANDERS AND THIS MUST BE HOW MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER FEELS BECAUSE I AM SCATTERBRAINED AND CONSTANTLY THINKING OF EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE THING I AM SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT AND I FEEL LIKE I'M A DIFFERENT PERSON THAN I NORMALLY AM WHEN SCHOOLWORKING OR IF I AM THE SAME PERSON I'M IN THE BIPOLAR EPISODE OF THE YEAR BECAUSE HOT DAMN DOES THIS NOT LOOK LIKE THE NORMAL ME, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

On a different subject, which I will get to when I'm not at school like I am right now. (Probably between school and tae kwon do, but that depends, because the ramble will be a long one.) So what am I doing right now? Well I'm supposed to be doing schoolwork.

What am I actually doing?
Writing this blog entry, of course.
Which is...

...A full ramble anyway!
In spite of that being the thing I shouldn't do until after class!

Oh well.

Anyway. More specifically. Something I've been on-again/off-again working on is actually followthrough on something which I posted on this blog. I created a song a while back, Villain Song. And I wanted to create a Disneyesque (classical cartoon animation rather than the new 3D style--may or may not be hand-drawn, works either way) musical which would feature that song as essentially its second song.

I had the general idea of a narrator establishing the base world, how the heroes had started off already winning, leading into their opening song, with the main villain being grumpy in the background, switching to being the perspective character, delving into his life, and when he got fed up enough, launching into the tirade which inspires the villainous uprising, coincidentally making him the main villain.

This? Nothing new.
Also not new? The general idea I had for the protagonist. I always wanted to play around with the idea of a trans protagonist. I wasn't sure what kind of trans protagonist I wanted: agender, bigender, transwoman, transman, various others I'm not as familiar with (but probably should be), but trans all the same. I wavered on whether the protagonist would be genuine nobility or not, as both would have their upsides and their downsides.

Upside of no nobility: not as cliched. More relatable, even believable. An average person coming to the conclusion the system wasn't right, and with a drive to change it not out of birthright, not out of devotion, but out of a genuine interest in doing the right thing.

Downside of no nobility: I was aiming in this setting to subvert cliches, sure enough, to create an actually realistic world, yeah...but I still wanted to maintain some aspects of the fantastical worlds we've come to know and love, and a royal blood connection is an easy way. It also gives a direct motive to the villain and ties him to the hero--with the hero having a claim, that's an actual threat to the villain.

Ultimately, I compromised on nobility, and had the child be a distant cousin of the royal family, an infant, but whose legitimacy is questionable. Furthermore, this link would remain unknown to the protagonist, only suspected as a possibility from the genre-savvy antagonist. That seemed like a fair way to get the best of both worlds: not a direct link, with the actual link being only vaguely relevant, and neither the protagonist nor the antagonist really caring about it, with both motivated by other factors regardless.

As for the question on trans, I ultimately decided for the sake of other interactions that I created today that, yes, even though it may be a bit on the overdone side for me at this point, I'd make the protagonist a transwoman (and a lesbian). We'd get a montage of her growth at various points, with her surrogate parents doing the best they could to help her, along with her slowly coming into her identity: not in the sense of royal blood identity, but just identity as a person, basically the antithesis of that.

In short, she actually has reason to not accept, to not acknowledge, her birthright, because it's a source of conflict to her identity. She only begins to consider it in the story for the sake of convenience, a means to an end, and not one she's satisfied with. She already knows she might not even be that person anyway, so she doesn't want to pretend to be that person, and yet, thanks to the setting, people are desperate and want that last descendant of the royal line to exist out there, and that can get her supporters, get her followers.

Most of this existed already. Some of the new aspects I created today were other characters. For instance, a succubus assassin, hired by the antagonist to kill the hero. Now, the antagonist has access to the family records. He knows that they are ambiguous at best, but is genre savvy enough to suspect that there was inevitably a survivor who would turn hero. He knows the birth gender of the child as well. So he made sure that the assassin in question wouldn't fall for the victim, yet could still get close to them and kill them.

He essentially had tryouts then until he found a lesbian assassin. How did he test this? By making himself a target. He anonymously hired the assassin in question with himself as the target. She's of course surprised--even knowing of the assassination, he shouldn't be able to have stopped it. He has a full harem, after all.

The villain at this point points out that in spite of having a full harem, he has no heir. She thought that was to prevent the heir from usurping him. While he points out that is accurate, he also explains he just lacks interest. She questions why nobody's tried incubi; he says they have, but the result's the same: he can and has partaken in that particular vice, but he derives no pleasure from it. (In short, he's asexual.)

I basically wanted to give depth to all the characters in question, start to finish. Another character I created was essentially a religious guy struggling with his faith, as he had trouble with the idea of the world being meant to be what it is, having a crisis in his belief and yet still trying to preach.

I also went into some depth about the world, both pre-uprising and post-uprising. Basically, the pre-uprising world was stereotypical high fantasy. King ruling, adventurers adventuring, merchants traveling, monsters defeated by the heroes, crushed in a decisive battle that the opening was celebrating.

The post-uprising world was one where the villain knew he couldn't rule indefinitely unless he changed things, so he made a "the strong will rule the weak" ruling: not discriminating off of race/status/etc., albeit discriminating off of ability. The strongest get to be eligible for tests of loyalty to serve the villain. He incentivizes the merchants to have him as their ruler, convincing them that their profits are higher with him ruling than anyone else. And with people/monsters constantly fighting each other, nobody can really challenge him.

I really like it as it's a brilliant idea, but it's never to be since it'd require me to essentially have my own studio: animators, voice actors, the whole works. Ah well. It's a nice thought.

Though my family celebrated yesterday. We had a lot of funny moments, as per the usual. One of the most hilarious things? Well, to understand this story, you need to have a little bit of background on the situation, so let's rewind time a little. (The payoff is worth it, I promise.)

One of my normal meals on an average week is microwaved potato skins.
A while back, however, a mistake was made: instead of buying the normal microwaved potato skins brand, my mom bought something she thought would work as a substitute, from a brand she thought might even be better.

When I actually went to try them, I learned to my despair: this brand wasn't meant to be microwaved. They were meant to be made in the oven. I didn't have time to wait, so I microwaved them anyway, guessing at the time. And it turned out...they were absolutely awful.

However, I was reasonably sure it was not because of the microwaving a product not meant to be microwaved. I was pretty sure the potato skins themselves just sucked. More specifically, the cheese being absolutely terrible, ruining the taste and flavor of the whole thing.

My mom knew better than to try buying more, but thought that if the mistake was ever made again, it would be worth trying to do them the "proper" way.

Fast-forward to this Friday. My dad had bought the same exact wrong brand, but instead of it being deliberate, it was absolute incompetence. (It's a little hard to mistake one brand for a completely different brand. It's even harder to read 'Fridays'--what he got--as 'Farmers'--what he meant to get. And yet, he somehow managed.)

​My mom followed through however and decided to make them anyway. I warned her that it wouldn't do much good, but I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt--she was after all taking time to make me food when she didn't need to and failing that food, I had a chocolate muffin I could consume.

...And then it turned out that I was right. It was absolutely terrible. Godawful even. The taste was abysmal. The culprit? I could clearly identify now more than ever as being the cheese. I let her know that, no, it wasn't my method, the product just sucked and wasn't very good.

​She decided she would try one just to see what the big deal was.
Her reaction?
"Oh my god".
She agreed: peel the cheese off and it might be edible was her stance on the subject.

So then my sister decided to try it out. She was wise enough to only take a fraction of a piece, and she...came to the conclusion it was terrible. She said she was surprised at how good the potato skin itself was...but that the cheese made it inedible.

And now you have the background behind me fast-forwarding to yesterday. Where my other two siblings were over. My brother asked what the potato skins were. We told him all of the above. His reaction? "How bad could it be?"

​The moment he took a bite, he spit it out. And went?
"Oh god."
And he kept spitting.
And he wolfed down some extra food just to drown out the taste, morbidly saying that's basically the worst thing he's ever tasted. "The cheese! The cheese!"

My younger sister must have been a masochist because at basically the same time she tried. She had a strategy of trying a small piece at a time. "Oh god!"
Nope.
Didn't work.
"The cheese is just awful!"
She then proceeded to try and drown it out with water, a strategy my brother copied.

The universal consensus from basically the whole family: that cheese is something that is absolutely terrible.

We did have a fair amount of good food though, once we got to eating. I decided to stay to hot dogs (same as today actually), but also had hamburgers and corn on the cob available. After the main course came S'mores. In a surprising twist, my younger sister got first burn of the evening (something we always track as a mark of shame), though that wasn't too difficult an achievement since the charcoal we had wasn't really at ideal s'more distribution at the time (it's ideal when it's primarily white in color, yet still solid: too much black, too much heat and too little surface area; too little solid, and there's not enough heat and again too little surface area).

Universally with the possible exception of my older sister, we all seemed to settle on "two, then done" as a nice number for S'mores. The nice thing about doing them isn't really the s'mores themselves (honestly I actually don't really enjoy the flavor) so much as it is the experience (including the nasty bits like mosquitoes and the sticky nature of marshmallows and gooey nature of pre-melted chocolate which wasn't supposed to come pre-melted).

We took a lot of time deciding what to watch, before settling on--of all things--...George of the Jungle.
Which is a funny coincidence, since that's something I had wanted to suggest, and yet when push came to shove, there was "a film I couldn't quite remember what it is I was going to suggest". My mind went to Mulan as being it, but I was really actually trying to go for George of the Jungle, yet it wasn't me who finally suggested it. (When it did get named, my mind instantly went, "OH! That's what I was going to say earlier but couldn't think of!")

So it was a fairly good day overall.

In other news, today my mom did acknowledge that I do need to see a doctor, so. That's not something she forgot about. (Nor something I did, though reminding her about it is something I kinda sorta kept slipping up on, but at least in this one instance, it's good to have a mom who can remind/remember you about a thing like that.)

Soyeah.

Good times.

Now if you don't excuse me...I think I've got a date with Princess Tutu. (Well, more accurately. A date with whom to watch​ Princess Tutu. <3)

So I have a little bit of time to kill (not much, but a little), so I figured I'd share with you a game update.
Right now, I'm playing a few games online automatically.
Loosely, I am playing The Perfect Tower. (More or less the only thing I really have left to do there is to upgrade my tower tier and/or fight Cubos multiple times and/or go on multiple missions...all of which require micromanagement and are thus things I haven't done yet.)

I also play on a once-or-twice-a-day basis Dawn of the Dragons.

The third game? Another idle game, Crusaders of the Lost Idols. Right now, I'm doing the latest campaign, since it had 14 crusader slots open. (The preferred amount for me to have. I can make do with less, but that's my preference and there's no campaign I have easy access to with that number--right now I'm aiming for the thousand-deep achievement, so.)

​The main thing which I am struggling with there is crafting. (Well, there's a slight struggle to get every crusader up to the highest level of EP needed. I try to get them above 50, then above 100, then to 200; most can't reach there. And I learned at least one mission requires 300, meaning things get even harder. But crafting's the main thing.)

Specifically, I am struggling to get the number of resources necessary to craft the things actually worth crafting. It takes 240 common materials to craft legendaries, which is absurdly high considering you average like 3-4 per time you get common materials.

As a result...I'm getting a backlog of things I need to make.
I need to upgrade Natalie Dragon's blade.
I need to upgrade Jim's hat. (Both of them do major DPS for me, albeit not being my main two--right now, that's Frosty and the Old Hermit.)
I need to upgrade the Princess's cape. (Lower-priority, butstill I expect this to be a good legendary.)
I need to upgrade RoboSanta's final non-orange item to purple. (I have a huge surplus in Legendary Catalysts. Because, again. They are not my problem.)
I need to upgrade Detective Caine's glass. (Lowest-priority since I don't expect much, but still important.)
I need to upgrade The Dark Gryphon's idol. (High-priority, given that I use the protect-heal combo to some extent.)

And I need to do all of this...

...While also upgrading the legendaries I already have. Nate Dragon getting his cursed blade to level 5 will require literally hundreds of materials.
Other legendaries I already have, well, some are useless, but others are gamebreakers that I could exploit more if I actually had the resources to upgrade them.

Soyeah.
​A bit frustrated at the lack of material I have.

Surprisingly, work didn't suck that much. I mean. I did realize I'm having a bout of depression about midway through (I could just tell), but I think that will be cured by being around people. (Specifically one person. Yes, I'm referring to you. <3 But people in general help too.)

I think the realization kicked in when I wasn't really feeling like dancing to most of the grooves on the radio. I usually would be prancing about like an idiot and being a goofball, but I was basically serious and morose the entire time. Work didn't have any incidents beyond my mood being bad, though.

Of course, I'm utterly exhausted, since the bad sleep combined with work means I really want to nap.

But, I have some confirmation of family night tonight. My brother is in fact coming. Presumably it won't be just us four, so that means my parents will presumably be coming home as well. Whether we meet tomorrow or not, I don't actually know, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

For now, just know that I do have that, so won't get to talk much to people.

Which is a shame. I really, really enjoy talking to people. I used to actually be really really good at it online but at some point my skills atrophied. Ever since I've had a significant other, though, I've...slowly but surely been feeling those skills return, I feel like?

Like. I just feel like expressing myself more. Talking more. I feel more alive, and I want to share that enthusiasm with others and let them know of my experiences and why the world is worth living for. And this is something I am absolutely okay with. <3

​Though I should take a nap.

So last night, the timer I normally wake myself up using went missing. I don't know where it went, but I was forced to improvise (eh things coulda gone worse than they did), getting TWO alarm clocks set. (At least, in theory. Hard to say in practice.)

This, because my backup plan--other timers (yes, plural)--didn't work because BOTH had no hours function. Or more accurately, both had one which if it works I sure couldn't MAKE work, so basically the same thing ultimately. Timer's still missing as of this morning. I suspect my parents stole it when they left and absentmindedly forgot I actually USE and absolutely NEED that timer.

Yes, NEED.

Because my experience without it shows why.
'Cause, uh.
Yeah.
I ended up being woken up by a repeating ticking noise which SOUNDED like an alarm clock (albeit kinda sorta a weak one)...a full hour early. And every few minutes (almost like a snooze button was pressed), it would end up repeating itself. However, it couldn't have been either of the ones I actually set last night. How do I know?

Two reasons, actually. One, because waking up at 5 AM was in fact a full hour prior to 6 AM. Could it have been a mistake in settings? Nope! I checked both the alarm clocks I had actually set: they were both set to the proper times (both AM, both with the right hours), with their alarms where they should be (both at 6:00 AM). So it's not like one of them could have triggered itself early.

And two? Because I physically unplugged one alarm clock and turned the other one off. And I'm pretty sure off on that other alarm clock means OFF on that alarm clock so it couldn't really be the culprit at hand. And yet, I still mysteriously heard something like an alarm clock.

...This does lead to perhaps both fridge brilliance and horror: Brilliance? Now I have a possible explanation for why I'm sometimes randomly restless--because I quite literally get less rest thanks to a trigger. Horror? I have absolutely nothing within my power to change whatever it is that sound may be because I can't pinpoint it so if it's a recurring thing then I'm just stuck with it.

So you could say sleeping was fun. (God I'm so tired and I haven't even begun to work yet. Welp.) I did get a rather restful nap this morning though, albeit one which cut into my time for morning hygiene. (I combed my hair and shaved, so I won't suffer as badly on my dysphoria, but skipped brushing/flossing my teeth.)

Speaking of being in the bathroom though...I was there quite a bit both at home and here at work. Suspected culprit? Rice. I think my body reacts to rice similarly to how it reacts to Mexican food (especially tacos), that being: while I personally love the food, the taste being blissful, and would most definitely LIKE to have more...something about it utterly wrecks my digestive tract. (Which is already bad enough on its own.)

With my parents gone overnight I did have a different meal and balance (more creamer, more coffee, breakfast bowl microwaved frozen food rather than fried eggs), but I don't think that was an issue given I was suffering even before eating. If anything, I actually felt my breakfast today made me feel BETTER--not only better than I was, but better than I am normally. (I think it's probably because it's at least theoretically more balanced?)

It's also possible the two chocolate muffins these last couple of days (both Friday and Saturday) did it (we don't react well to chocolate, family genetic trait), but I actually doubt they did that much digestive damage, as it were. My sleep also could play a factor, but I was actually beginning to feel the disruption as early as last night, prior to bed, which indicates it was a problem already there.

Now that I'm done potentially giving TMI about my body, let's go on to describe my day thusfar. Good news! I discovered that the treadmills at work have heart monitors which actually work. I used to see their heart rate thing and wonder how the heck it worked, how sometimes it displayed and yet other times it was just blank.

Turns out the metal handles are actually with purpose, and there's some kind of sensors involved there, because by gripping them, that's how it gets the heart rate.

Bad news! Because to get the heart rate you have to grip the handles, you can't actually use proper running technique to run. You can monitor your heart rate at a walk, maybe even a jog, but faster than that you can't, making it basically worthless.

Worse news! I was still using it today, as I didn't feel up to a run...and here's the funny thing. According to the heart monitor. I am hilariously, HILARIOUSLY out of shape!

As in. According to the heart monitor, I had a heart rate of ~130. (Thereabouts anyway.) I believe that's beats per minute, though I don't know for sure. Doesn't really matter, because on the side panel of the treadmill, there's a heart monitor guide. It tells you different ages and different percentages of (presumably healthy) heart rate activity off of those percentages.

And according to the rating I got. Of 130. That's 65% of maximum.
65%.
Of.
My.
Maximum.
Allowed.
Healthy. Heartbeat.

And I was going.
Two.
Miles.
Per.
Hour.

As in. Half an hour to walk a mile.

And that's going at sixty-five percent of what my maximum is supposed to be.

Now!
Granted.

Things might not scale linearly. Just because 2 MPH had me at 130 doesn't mean 4 MPH would have me at 260.

Also granted!
The reading from the built-in monitor could have half a dozen ways it could have been wrong.

And also granted!
The guide given is probably written for the average person of my age, and thus cannot be realistically expected to deal with my unusual body type.

Butstill.

I think the heart monitor has at least some merit there.
And boy does that spell out just how hilariously bad I am at keeping my body in condition.

I also didn't perform as much as I'd like to. I walked one mile. That was it. I could walk two miles and still have time to spare. I largely wasted that extra time, too, since there was nothing to do past a certain point. (I mean, I did write this out, but otherwise. Almost a full hour.)

Ah well. At least in a followthrough to my entry yesterday: I think I'm okay? Among other reasons I think this, is that I believe I've discovered at least one of the subjects of the conversation yesterday. I'm preeeeeeeeetty sure my mom washed my jacket. It looked suspiciously clean; the pockets looked suspiciously changed in organization from what they were; it looked suspiciously positioned differently than I had left it. And I do keep secret stuff (such as a spare set of keys) in my pockets, so that would invoke some conversation.

If that's the extent of the topic, then yeah, nothing to worry about. We'll just have to see though.

All this, before work has begun. I'm once again surrounded by girls though, so I kinda suspect today will REALLY suck. Also, I still don't really know my family's plans for the holidays. I vaguely believe there might be some sort of family night tonight? And maybe nothing tomorrow? I know my sister's coming over today. But that's about all I know.

I have a slight confession.
I've really been up since like 10 AM.

Even though as far as the rest of the world is concerned, it was almost 1 PM when I got up.

Why the dissonance?

Because I woke up to the sounds of my family talking.
And quite a bit of their talking was...

...About me.

I heard lots of things which they think I can't hear not only because I was supposedly asleep but also because of my room being isolated.

And to be fair.
Both apply.

I only picked up fragments of the conversations.

But across the times.

I heard references to various things which were unambiguously referring to me.
And in...contexts which concerned me.

"Maybe they're not doing well at school" was one of the lighter ones, but a far more concerning one was my mom at one point I believe going to the effect of, "they're young and it might just be a form of expression", and things like "at least it's not as bad as when they were on that mafia" and the like.

Like I said.

I couldn't hear much.

But I got scared.
I wanted to stay in bed because I was afraid of coming out and facing a confrontation.

I worked up the courage to try at 12:45.
And by then whatever it was they were discussing about me had apparently blown over.

But I wasn't dreaming.
I know what I heard was real.

They were talking about me in ways which are incredibly worrying because it almost sounded like things they'd be talking about if they were prying into my life--

...And it'd be absolutely, utterly, ridiculously easy for my secret to be found out if so.

Because I make basically zero effort at hiding anything.
Heck.

Even if I were to try to--that'd probably make things worse because if you're audacious enough to appear as if you have no secret then it makes people think you have none whereas if you start being secretive then suddenly they become suspicious. So if I started, it'd be too little, too late.

And I do mean.
There's basically zero way I could hide it if anyone looked.

Literally everything I have is so openly exposed at this point.
I don't log out of my blog.
I don't log out of my gmail.
I don't log out of my yahoo.
I don't log out of Disqus.
I don't make any efforts to hide pieces of papers which contain words which would give me away.

There's literally an open book to be read on me, were anyone to make that invasion of privacy.

The only thing protecting it is that unspoken word, that unwritten rule, that contract of "my life, my business". And while in some ways the whole thing being blown over by the time I did "get up" is good (that means whatever it was, it wasn't so bad as to get me disowned/kicked out of the house), what it does mean is that if someone other than my mom scratched the surface...

...That they started latching onto something. If swept under the rug, that's good. But if it's not, then...well, not.

The worst part is not knowing.

I literally have no clue what it is they saw, what it is they did. It could be something absolutely and completely and entirely harmless: I could be fretting, I could be paranoid, over literally nothing. It could be they caught something I can very easily justify and explain, and thus, put their fears to rest, put the issue to bed. It could also be something I'd have to tell a bold-faced lie about, for instance, them seeing something which is unambiguously from me and yet unambiguously female and me going "It's part of an online roleplay". (I mean from a certain point of view, that could technically speaking be true. But that's not an idea I really like especially since it'd reinforce a bad stereotype.)

It could be any range of those. From absolutely completely totally entirely not a big deal to something which my mom desperately had to save face for me in my stead. And I don't know which, and I have literally no way of knowing. And it's something which...

Well is honestly scary.

I literally just made a promise that I wouldn't lose someone because of my family.
I literally just made that promise yesterday.

Yet I honestly don't know what that was.

And to some extent, all I can really do is...nothing at all.
If I change my behavior, it'll incur suspicion.
If it was harmless, then I've got nothing to worry about.
If it wasn't harmless, then I've got nothing I can do within my power to change that.

​So all I can really do know is hope and pray that everything is still okay.

Well, as much as someone like me can GET bored, anyway. Whole, "overreactive imagination" thing, and all that, where every little thing gives me entertainment. There's never really a dull moment; I enjoy every bit of life, and I love doing things which to others would seem monotonous and boring because for me they're anything but.

Still. All the same. When I have a combination of depression and a lull in things to do. I get, for lack of a better term, "bored": all the things my mind first jumps to as possible activities are for whatever reason not things which I have an inkling of either desire or ability to do.

For instance, I can't talk to my significant other because if I'm doing my timezone math correctly, they're asleep-or-if-not-asleep-SHOULD-be-asleep. I can't do schoolwork today because accountability sheets are due every Friday and I turned mine in yesterday for bonus points that were offered--so if I did any work today, it would be "free" work, not counting towards my total. (Also, I don't wanna.)

I don't even have family night as an excuse to chill out and do nothing and to limit my time, because family night is...going to be weird. Holiday weekend and all that. I don't know what the plan is, but I know what the plan is not. And the plan is not tonight, so. No family night tonight, meaning I've got as much time as I want all to myself.

I don't have any immediate mafia game obligations at the moment anyway.
So I've basically got four options I can think of:
-Play Civ 3 again. I don't want to start that, because while I have the time right now, I know I won't have it later and doing so feels like a mistake. Also, my only options are to save scum or to abandon a war to the point where I question whether it would be worth it. Probably not this one.

-Get back into the modding groove of things by knocking out some mod design stuff I procrastinated on. This is actually viable and something I need to do sooner rather than later (I do after all actually want to run these games while there's actual interest in them, not literally half a year later), however, I just feel like it's not something which I need to do right now and my desire isn't that high. It's something I can do, that I thought of, but not really something which I want to do.

-Get caught up in webcomics. This one won't take me that long, and I do want it done, but...I actually have a bit of a higher calling right now. And that is...

-Art. Now, I still don't want to try a proper revival of my webcomic, since I know I don't have the time/ability to do Red Hood Rider right now. Okay, so I want to, I just know how stupid it would be to try. However, there are other art things I do want to do. For instance, remember my entry about outdoing myself? I want to color that image.

Really, really badly want to try coloring that image.

And I have the time to do so, even.
And I think I have the ability; I've learned new tricks which could help me make it better. (In theory, at least.)

And there's other things I could do. For instance, clearing off the scanner so I can use it and uploading in an art dump all my sketches that I've done. (And there's been quite a number which I have done!) I don't quite know what I'll manage to get done.

But I want to spend today on art at least partially if not entirely, so.

​Wish me luck.