So naturally, that means I have a lot to talk about. The day started with me treating my coworkers to 2.5 dozen cookies (2 dozen fresh, plus leftovers from Tuesday), but I should have known what making my birthday very public would entail. I got a lot of compliments for the cookies (Subway really hits the spot), and plenty of Happy Birthday declarations, plus questions about how old I'd be turning.

Then while I was guarding, the entire pool began singing Happy Birthday To You. I was more or less predicting that (It's the same group that caused the first embarrassment I talked about, after all), but I was hoping it'd be off the guard stand, because there I was, trying to do my job, while having completely broken down in laughter from my embarrassment, trying to cover my face up yet being forced to look through it. (Worse, I may have gotten a quick-check then. Certainly hope not, of course, and that my boss understands the circumstances behind the distraction.)

That was pretty bad, but later in the day, a bunch of summer camp kids came in...and as I was walking by to wristband them...they all simultaneously said "Happy Birthday". Because one of the people overlooking said summer camp kids is a coworker, who was there earlier. So that was certainly something.

I left the rest of the cookies there, with instructions to give leftovers to the front desk, so we'll see what comes of that later. After work, though, came a trip to Alfy's. If you don't know, that's a pizza place. Pretty good, albeit slightly expensive, pizza, a treat done maybe a few times a year at most, akin to trips to Denny's. My whole family was there, making it our family gathering for the week (because my parents are gone tomorrow, natch), but we could only stay there for an hour. It was a productive hour, I suppose, but not nearly long enough.

Then came round dancing. My sister almost embarrassed me again, but ultimately, much to my surprise, opted not to mention it. We did have a bit of fun with puns, though, in one of our conversations. (Basically, about a very poor segwey--I know I'm misspelling that but I can't figure out how to get it correct--into a Foxtrot called "Where and When", and I said, "Where and When did we discuss Foxtrot?", which led to a Hurricane Of Puns off of our playlist for the night.)

Soyeah, pretty good day, I'd say. Got to treat others, got some nice family time, and got to have some fun. About as good a day as I could have hoped for.

I went to my square dance club's get-together for parade planning, which'll be this Friday. (Uhg. I was planning on using that time...)

My sister did her sibling duty of leaking the existence of my birthday, with predictable results, much to my embarrassment. And the interesting thing is, my sister noticed something. I mentioned this in a blog post of mine before, that one time I did the dancing and people broke out in clapping.

Well, the same thing happened tonight: no blushing, but extreme laughter, complete with a facepalm and moving a little bit. That's how I reacted in extreme embarrassment, and my sister noticed the lack of blushing, inquiring into it, wondering if any members of our family even CAN blush. (I'm pretty sure my younger sister can and has, but other than her...not really.)

I thought it was interesting at least.

I actually need something to talk about in length for me to truly be back in business, and, well, at least for today, as of right now...I really don't. Maybe that I'm progressing nicely in Chrono Trigger? (Ayla last I knew was 39 and she's the lowest I believe, depending on how much the 75% XP has impacted Lucca and Marle. This being the FIRST visit to the prehistoric era.)

I really got nuthin'.

I suppose it's worth noting tomorrow's my birthday, but not much special about that.

Well, now that the computer's working again and my mental health has improved, I'll be back to blogging on here every day again. However, unlike before, this might not be my first choice to put my thoughts, and might be secondary to the private place I put my thoughts when I didn't put them here. Because said place had people there give me feedback to help me when I needed help, and now that I've created the topic, it's good to check in every once and a while to let them know how I'm doing.

Soyeah, the dynamics here are probably going to shift a bit, but not outright change radically. I'm not going to bore them with endless talks about, say, Red Hood Rider. It's a topic to be used for when it's needed, to express my more vulnerable side, more or less. Since showing my vulnerabilities is only a fraction of what I blog about (sometimes more, generally far less), it being mostly on there won't really change much here.

Butyeah, look forward to more entries frequently now. I might channel elements from those 'blog' posts later, but for the most part, just know I went through a dark time, very dark time, and had people there to give me solid encouragement and advice which was immensely helpful at putting my mind to ease.

So this is my Saturday entry. That leaves a two day gap, and for you people not seeing the entry from the fifteenth, a four-day one. (And since this won't be posted until tomorrow, make that five days.) I made entries those days, just in a private place on a site, because I was in...a very, very dark spot and needed some help from people.

I got it, but I'm still recovering, so...taking things very, very slowly.

(Editing note: Basically, what happened with the gap between the 15th and the 18th was that on the 16th, I had a complete breakdown. I was a mental mess, terrified I would kill myself. I didn't think that merely blogging about my thoughts on here, to an empty audience, would make those very negative thoughts go away, so I used a substitute. In the time between the 15th and the day this entry has been posted, my mind has gone back and forth, destabilizing as recently as two days ago. The technical difficulties were also a pain to deal with.)

So I'm typing this past midnight, but frankly, I'm probably not going to post it until tomorrow, that being, some time Thursday in spite of this being my Wednesday blog entry.

To be blunt, I'm basically only typing something up right now because this is a daily blog so should update every day. I just...really don't have anything to say right now. I'm in that zone where I'm just kinda wasting away.

I'm doing stuff, and thinking stuff. Important things. It's just that they're not translating into long-term things like making a blog. They just sorta pass by. So I'm here, rather uninspired, basically wanting to go to bed, thus why I'm frankly not going to post it tonight.

It takes about five minutes to rev the internet up into working condition to post this, and that's five minutes I'd rather spend in bed right now. I know I sound grumpy right now, maybe I am, maybe I'm just a little bit bitter in life, but it's mainly just an overall feeling of...well, it's hard to describe.

Like the feeling that there's nothing ahead when there should be, I suppose. Not sure how to word it. That's the best phrasing I've got.

Butyeah. Sorry. Said it at the very beginning of the blog, you could expect anything, and a post which is in a negative tone like this comes with the package sometimes. (Sucks being human and admitting I'm at a low, but I am.)


(Editing note: I entered into a downward spiral that caused me to seek immediate help on Thursday as a substitute for blogging that day, thus why this didn't get posted then. I experienced technical difficulties the day after that, which have lasted until now, preventing the entry from being posted until today.)

I think it is...It's working! It's actually working!

THANK GOD I CAN ACTUALLY BLOG AGAIN!

...*ahem*

If you couldn't tell by my, what, week-long absence, I experienced a bit of difficulties, but I'm mostly through them.

Some, but not all, details to follow. Normally I'd put the other blog entries first, but it's 11:35, so I'm gonna cheat, put this entry first, and then go back to the previous days.

Short version short, I did some off-site blogging to continue doing an entry every single day, you probably won't see them, but I did make some entries intended for here that never made it thanks to technical problems. (So while I technically wasn't blogging every day, for the purposes of writing a daily blog, I consider myself to have written an entry each day if not two or three, thus, the days-without-slipping timer remains unbroke in my mind.)

But really, not too terribly much. I'm not really sure what I can blog about. I mean, I should be blogging about something, and Tuesday's the kind of day where I've got stuff I could talk about a plenty, but the inspiration's not really there. I suppose I should mention that on Red Hood Rider, I've begun to think up more surnames and middle names. I can allow characters who're of sufficient age to only have two, and characters who have lived most of their life on the streets I allow to have only two, but I figure that otherwise, there should probably be three unless they have reason not to have that many. (Or have reason to have more.)

So I've gotten my naming process going. Gotten a fair amount done, but still got more to go.

Turns out that the fight is much easier than I thought. You just have to cheat a little bit--I changed the battle mode from active to wait. Spekkio won't wait indefinitely, but those key extra seconds allowed Chrono to cast Life when Marle fell, and Marle to get Haste up. Spent quite a few Mid Tonics and a few Ethers (Chrono got low on MP), but I did it. At level 24, so with five levels to spare.

Now comes the farming. (Which I'm going to see if I can also cheat on--it's normally set to five; I'm going to set it to what I THINK is the fastest, to see if that speeds things up.)

Buthey, at least I got started! Etched out the rough details (and I really do mean rough details) for the first two panels (which I will now need to clean up a ton, something I just really didn't feel like doing), and now have envisioned the rest of the page. (I'm modifying my original design for the page for spacial and timing reasoning: originally, the second panel had dialog in it, but I realized that the dialog would be best placed elsewhere.)

Basically, there's three extra panels from the script, to be in the middle of the page. The first panel will feature confidence (with unsound effects to go along with the first two which I'll put some in), the second a change in expression (but otherwise silent), the third will feature the dialog that was meant for the original second panel, and the last two panels at the bottom will remain as I originally envisioned them.

Not a very neat solution; it's rather an ugly one in fact. But since I forgot what my ORIGINAL original elegant design (which had natural timing) was, this will have to do.

Though mainly today, I kinda just want to play Chrono Trigger. (Even though I'm primarily farming, trying to get enough money to buy the outrageously-expensive equipment that you're not supposed to actually buy yet, all the while for the focus of trying to beat the current 20-29 Spekkio who currently is two-shotting Marle before she can cast a single spell. Basically, there's a need to get equipment while not leveling up too much.)