I went shopping with my mom, which gives me some (admittedly not much but some!) real-life experience in a thing I actually needed to have. While I did have to pay for about half of the stuff we bought, it was a worthy investment since everything we got was things I need: new running shoes (which apparently were more needed than I thought--I was under the impression I had size-8 feet if that, but my feet are actually size-10 though I thought the 9.5 fit better and bought that instead), a swim cap, a swim shirt, a couple of swim suits, and a couple of pairs of pants, among others.

My mom bought about $100 worth of the clothing, which made it be my late birthday present. My dad doesn't think clothes are presents and while I understand his viewpoint, for me my take is that it is free clothing, which is pragmatic, which I will actually use (that's a biggie!), and when you combine all three, why wouldn't it make a good gift? It's something which I might not strictly need, but which I still have very good use for.

After shopping, my mom treated me to coffee at...where else?...Starbucks. I got a 16-ounce iced mocha and it was absolutely delicious. After that, she took me to get a late birthday meal too (in spite of me having gotten pizza on the family night celebration and Denny's the day of my birthday), at a burger joint. I believe it's called Five Guys? Uhh...well, it had red square patterns all over the place, it's a place really well-known for its french fries, its potatoes are delivered fresh, when you make a burger (I got a bacon cheeseburger) you can choose your own toppings, it's a fast food place yet also expensive, the bottom of its bags come with fries beyond what were ordered, its fries come in a cup...can't be very many places that have all of that.

But anyway! It was absolutely delicious to have, but also incredibly filling, surprisingly. I was expecting to devour their fries--all of them. I ate my burger but I didn't even finish half of my given fries, yet alone the free extras at the bottom of the bag. Now of course there's the chance I could be sick (god I hope not), but more likely is that their food is just that ridiculously filling.

...I'll let you know circa Wednesday how my body reacts with the food. (I'm predicting minor hell, but not major hell, because the food is different but still vaguely familiar, unlike the time I had Denny's in which the food was largely different without the familiarity.)

Soyeah.
I have stuff now.

​It was all-around a good experience to have and I feel good having done so.

...So you know more or less what you're in for. (This is gonna be loooooooooooong.) I should start by asking you if you remember what I'd be doing today. ... ...Still reading? I'm giving you some time to recall it. Or if you admit defeat, to look it up; it wasn't too terribly far back I said this. Of course, it's also possible you instantly remembered, or if you're not one of my girlfriends (hey at least in THEORY I have others reading my blog!), simply don't care. In either case, I'm moving on now.

I said I'd practice Tae Kwon Do today before work. Good news! I did so. Bad news! It continues to show just how incompetent I am. For jacknives (hands above head, on ground, with outstretched legs, raising legs and arms at same time in a crunch + reverse-crunch combo), I'm pretty sure I can knock out the required 20, though I had a waterlogged stomach when I tried to the point where after 10 I decided it was a bad idea to do more.

The real problem is knuckle pushups. I struggled doing ten with bad form; I'm supposed to do twenty with good form. To some extent, me having nails so long I can't make a proper fist can contribute to that, but only to some extent. That's 95% just me sucking.

I got a picture-perfect keema-sogi/riding horse stance/wide stance, and I maintained it, something I can never manage in-class for whatever reason, and I breezed through blocks and strikes. Good so far overall, right? Well...the problem came in when after I did my eight self-defenses, I moved on to one-steps.

There are ten choreographed one-steps to perform. (After that you get free one-steps but that's a bit awkward to practice without a partner since they are literally improv.) I did...the first four. By the end of those, I was winded and dangerously pale.

So what I didn't do today? Free one-steps, ALL kicks (of which there's at least 23 by my count I am required to do on every test), and ALL forms (of which I know 12 I believe the total count currently is). Those, combined with sparring, are the most grueling part of a belt test.

And I didn't do them because of concern for my own safety. I mean. Time was technically a factor in that I set a deadline and was reaching it...but that was just an excuse I used to justify quitting. After all, I wrote this in the time I coulda been continuing to practice.

Of course. Everything past this point was added on as writing throughout the day because I didn't have enough time to write it all down at once even though I thought out most of it at one time. (The whole, "Concepts lightning-fast, words slower, writing slowest" thing, and all that. But I digress.)

For emphasis. This is me. Doing the EASIEST parts of my Tae Kwon Do routine. (Which'd by and large be in a test.) And I wasn't even putting much effort into them! Good technique and decent flow, sure, I was doing that. But with the exception of my stance for drilling (that being the aforementioned perfect keema-sogi), no effort was put into having either power or speed.

And yet. In spite of me doing nothing. I was dangerously pale.
Worse. I'm pretty sure breakfast bowls (which I had today) give better nutrition than my default eggs breakfast overall AND I didn't walk around the lake today meaning I was going in fresh. Yet my hands and other limbs are still doing the shaking thing they do when I'm deficient in something, this case nutrients of some sort. (It couldn't be hydration at fault because today I'm actually for once NOT dehydrated unlike normal.)

Now. To be fair. I'd probably need WAY more nutrition for a test regardless. We're talking, devouring a Subway footlong four hours in advance with nutrition snack food athletes use to replenish as the test would drag on. (Bananas, yogurt, chocolate milk, etc.) And even then that might not be enough given my hyperactive metabolism but it's as much as I'd be safely able to consume since I don't want to vomit during a test again. Butstill...I'm just. so. so...WEAK. (At least physically, though at times you can argue it's true mentally/emotionally as well. But that's for another time.)

​I know the moves like the back of my hand, for the most part. I could do these things in my sleep. (Aside from my mind blanking out like a moron which happens to everyone at times and is to-be-expected and not penalized.) It's instinct at this point. I can autopilot and still have reasonably decent technique and flow. With thought, the only imperfections to technique are physical limitations; the only imperfections in flow are correcting technique.

...It's just that. No matter how much I try. I can't actually surpass a certain point. I can't break the physical boundaries my body is inflicting, no matter what I do. When I do workouts, I get sore for at least a week if not two. That's a sign the workout was too intense. Easy solution, just scale it back, right?

...The problem is...when I scale back, I don't get sore at all. Which is a sign that I got nothing out of the workout and need to push harder in order to actually improve. Soreness from my understanding is essentially muscles breaking down to be rebuilt stronger. (At least in theory.) A process which is meant to last a couple of days or so for most body parts: no more, but also no less. Too little time, and they're not really rebuilding; I don't gain anything. Too much time, and I risk serious muscle damage because they haven't healed yet by the time of the next planned workout.

Yet no matter what I try, I can't find that Goldilocks middle zone, where I get just the right level of workout to give me the healthy strength conditioning I need. (And for that matter even if I did find it. Would it actually be working for my body build? I am built for endurance, so a workout should focus not on building up my immediate strength but my long-term strength and that's not something I know as much about. But what I do know is that the techniques to train sprinters and endurance runners are mutually exclusive and destructive to one another which is why you must choose between them and cannot be both. My body is more suited towards endurance.)

I'm also not flexible, at least not on my legs. (My arm flexibility is probably really good.) No amount of stretching I do changes that for me. There's workouts I do to theoretically increase my flexibility, but they have the same issues as my workouts for strength conditioning, in that they leave me too sore or not sore at all, meaning I'm not actually improving from the process.

My lower-body strength is at least adequate, but my upper-body strength is basically nonexistent. I was a long-distance runner and still am at least loosely equipped such that I'll never fail the scaled 9-minute-mile pace (for my test it's probably an 18-minute two-mile), but I'll still be breaking a sweat and I'm worried about it draining my oh-so-increasingly precious stamina reserves.

I'd be able to keep running longer because my endurance running skills are really, really, really strong (even if my pace went to hell and I slowed down, I'd be able to keep going!)--but could I keep doing the test by STARTING the ever-so-draining Tae Kwon Do portion of it?

My endurance may be fine, but without the accompanying stamina which I am lacking...I can't continue. My willpower is strong, and that would keep me afloat. I can power through anything so long as I am resolute in my conviction that, yes, I can do it. I know that, so I'm not worried about me having crippling doubts that make me want to quit. Those thoughts appear and then I shove them away because I know my own body and know that when I am pushed to the limit I can keep going past it, even if I later pay for it.

...The issue there is. I can't rely on that to pass a test. It worked last time, but only just. I'm not the one who gets to call when to quit. It's my instructor and if they tell me it's time to throw in the towel I have no choice but to since they're the ones actually giving me the test and all that.

I would be able to push my body to its limits and then past that--but there would be serious health concerns for having done so, damaging drawbacks. Heroic Red Rings Of Doom, I believe the trope is called. Or maybe (Explosive?) Overclocking. Same basic principle applies. I'd do it, but be left seriously hurt from having done it. 

My instructor has a serious concern that I might pass out in the middle of my test--or even worse. She probably has an idea of how stubborn I am and how much I refuse to give in and how much I can push my body even when I shouldn't. So she knows it's quite realistic that I'd push my body past the point where I'd normally pass out, straight to the point where she's concerned there's a chance I could quite literally kill myself by taking the test and pushing my limits so far that my body absolutely breaks beyond any hope of repair. (And honestly? Honestly. If I'm honest with myself. That fear has merit. I don't know when to call it quits. I can't accept defeat.)

Since that's something we want to avoid. It's something that needs to be worked on. Yet there's only so much I can do. What am I supposed to do? I'm advised to work out more often, maybe even every day--yet there's reasons beyond it being a change in routine/an inconvenience/etc. that I don't do just that.

At every stage, there's intent to keep going. Yet at every stage, there's a seemingly insurmountable obstacle which shuts me down and keeps me from progressing. No powering through it. No going around it. (This is the closest thing to which we have for a solution--working around the limitations of our bodies. But the limitations on my body seem to be getting worse and worse.) No route. Just...stuck. With no way to progress forward, only progressively worse steps backwards as the invincibility of youth slowly drains from me.

I'm, of course, by no stretch of the imagination, "old". No matter how you look at it, 24 isn't actually elderly in this day and age. So you might think it's too soon to think about such things. But it is pretty much scientifically proven that as a person creeps closer to their 30s, there's strong changes to their biology, which are quite literally essentially "the youth being drained", as it were.

The problems of middle-aged people start to slowly creep in because the magical regeneration, the magical energy, the magical aspects of being young cease to exist for some complicated reasons which are easy to read about but hard to really remember on the spot. That effect isn't a literal snap of the fingers, one moment you're young the next you're past your prime. It's a gradual effect. And I'm at the point where the first stages are in effect.

The worst part is knowing that it's going to get worse as I get older. It's already bad, feeling how I can't do things that I used to do with ease. It's already bad, knowing that I have to take effort to maintain what once I could do with ease, yet alone improve. So it doesn't get any better. Only worse.

Yet worse than that. Worse is the constant war within me. What is real and what's me making stuff up? What is an excuse? What is me trying to find a justification for giving up? What is nothing which I am making into something? What is me lying to myself?

...On the other hand...what's an actually valid concern? What could be damaging, harmful if ignored? What precautions are actually necessary to stop myself from being injured? (For instance, not working out a muscle which is still sore; is that really necessary?)

Every time I encounter a problem, I don't know how it should be resolved. My feet. My digestive tract. My going pale. My shaky limbs. My easy dehydration. My inability to gain weight and/or my inconsistent diet. My feeling ill sometimes when efforting. My soreness not going away.

The list drags on and on, but you get the point. I don't have any way of knowing what's an excuse and what's a real issue. And if they are indeed actually issues rather than excuses...how the HECK do I solve them?
How much help would I need to sort it?

There's only so much information people like my girlfriends can provide through the internet combined with them mostly not being professionals in the areas I am having these issues. (Though upon reading this I imagine I'm going to be bombarded with them trying anyway. <3)

So how much would it cost to be informed? And once informed, how much would it cost to maintain the correction to my problem? Even if I don't require professional supervision (e.g. professional trainer, physical therapy, constant check-ins with some special doctor)--a very real possibility mind you--there's bound to be costs: fuel, time, equipment, food, adjustments like that.

​I can't do that by myself, so how can I do it? How much support is required for me to be able to do all of that?

I just don't have the head for it.

...Though...
...Speaking of my head. This is something that I've been playing around with for a while. A few weeks at least. Often I've been holding back from doing more about Hannah/Aeris and talking about the element of air. (Even a bit about her spirit totem's unique ability, Unlimited Canvas.) Even going so far as to discuss inside my head characters outside her native rubyverse that might get some of the abilities I otherwise would shift onto her. (Think like, "pull out of thin air" as an expression meaning the air-user has the ability to literally pull anything out because they have mastery over air, including "thin" air. Which is a bit of a gamebreaking ability but it'd probably only be used by people who are up against those who also possess gamebreaking abilities!)

And the reason I feel I've done so much of that is that I probably identify most strongly with air. When I think about air as an element and what it represents, it makes a lot of sense--I am, after all, basically the ultimate ditzy airhead. I have my head in the clouds at all times. I'm crazy, I'm quirky, I'm random, I'm whimsical, yet I have a flow to me, a naturalness in how I just...am.

So those traits aren't exclusive to air (flow is water, naturalness is earth), but they are powerful in air. And while I have other strong traits like passion (fire) and energy (energy), they seem largely subservient to that whimsy, to that mood. I swing back and forth at random between things.

More than that. When I'm messing around with projecting my aura, the objects I'm making are balls of pure air. Know how when I snap my fingers I make a fireball, and can play around with it? And how with a similar gesture I can summon an energy ball? Well, that same type of ball is being made all the time​ with an ease of manipulation which is much more natural than with either of those two. And it is a ball which is not made of anything tangible--and I think it's air.

Plus. If nothing else. If you happen to think that I'm just full of it. You could say...I'm full of hot air. Perfectly justifying why I'm a fit for the air element right then and there! But also explaining why fire is relatively easy for me to access. Air complements fire perfectly and the two are like right next to one another with air fueling fire. And there's the scatterbrainedness of me.

Like, things are chaotic disjointed and just broken in train in here, as I switch around and what element would you attribute that to if not air? It just makes a lot of sense overall for me and I decided to blog about it even though I haven't really done my research on personality traits of elements.

Which I'm sure there's a bunch of if you look in the right places. I mean it'd take thirty seconds to find a cheap "what's your element?" quiz, there's a ton of those. But I mean, something deeper. Something which is broader than just "cheap knockoff of avatar the last airbender elements". (Though speaking of that show, Aang's rock trick is essentially what my hands do when manipulating the ball of nothingness. Not quite, but close.)

Some day I might actually do research on that to see if there's some serious in-depth thought about it. Something which draws from multiple sources, preferably. (For instance there's a distinct difference between western four-elements and eastern five-elements yet there is overlap between the two.) But for now, I just wanted to leave on a note which will take some explaining.

There's a line that I really, really want to fit into my stories. As in, I've resolved that somehow, somewhere, whichever of my novels I eventually end up publishing first, will have this line in it at some point. It'd be easiest to do and most prominent in the novel I was working on prior to Heroes of Gistou, because in that book it was one of the central themes in fact.

The line is just filled with hope. To the point where I may use it in all my books, all my stories, just because of how much it means. And the line was spawned from the oddest of places. I believe it was me, mentally responding to a line I kept hearing on a show. It was either Star Trek or Stargate but I think it was Star Trek. A recurring line (or if not recurring, then a line spoken which was so memorable as to be immortalized) was,
"Today is a good day to die."

I have thought that was actually a dignified way of responding to danger, in that they would look at it and acknowledge they may die, but that they are okay with the possibility and are going to go do the dangerous thing anyway because it is important enough to risk their life on.

Yet in spite of that being a good line.
I always wanted to make a character have a line to respond back to them with.
And funnily enough.
To this very day.
If you put this in quotes, it will return zero results to a google search. (Google will default to without the quotes because there's no results for the exact phrase.)

Because it is a line that I made up and nobody has used it before. (I was quite flabbergasted when I discovered that this great idea of mine was never once used before, but it is what it is!) And I love it. This line. This line was one of the contributing factors in why I fought off my suicidal thoughts and pushed through them, pressed onwards to the day after, and the day after that, and so on and so forth. This line allowed me to live.

And it might seem silly to you.
But for me, this line holds all the power in the world, especially after "Today is a good day to die."
That line?

​"And tomorrow is a better day to live."

Finished season two of Attack on Titan and the last episode of season 1 of Drifters. So that was fun. Had Tuna Helper for dinner which was delicious. But am actually past my intended bed time so I should go sleep now because I do have to work tomorrow; I'm only blogging because I received a text which I'll check tomorrow which I'm like 95% sure was one of my girlfriends telling me to "don't forget your blog!".

Namely, I am a binge-reader.
...A serious, serious binge-reader.

...As in, one of my girlfriends linked me to a manga which was 35 (plus a few omakes) chapters long with each chapter being something like 20+ pages minimum long.

Could be worse, but that's still akin to reading a full novel in a single night. And borderline an allnighter given the time I'm posting this. But that being said: Totally worth it. The manga in this case is a lovely one called Girl Friends.

...Guess what it's about!

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wasn't subtle about its subject from the start. But that's okay. It was wonderfully written and I loved the story and I loved the characters and it was just oh so beautiful and the art was quite nice, too. It was appealing on every level and every moment was worth. it.

Butyeah, now I need bedtimes. Sleeepz.

And it was pretty fun and relaxed for the most part. No injuries. Good frame when I felt like it, but no obligation to have it. Just lots of stuff which was good.

I also learned that my parents might be leaving again for a while. I'll let you know when I know more, but basically. I might have half the weekend to myself, plus my sister. Optionally an anime night but who knows there. So maybe lots of fun, fun, sexy times in my future~ <3

Specifically, Don't Starve (Together), a neat little game which is aptly named as you face dangers to health, to nutrition, and to sanity. Sanity drops too low, fight monsters. In the dark with no light, swarmed by monsters. Let yourself starve, instant death. Was rather fun though. The highest we got was 17 days, and we could have done better than that too if not for the circumstance of our demise (namely, a surprise attack by demon-dogs with no warning in the middle of the night).

It did eat up most of my day though, so.
I didn't get anything done today.

​Still was worth it. <3

I had the perfect plan for doing things right, too, in order to get both food and hydration in my system in both sufficient time and sufficiently ordered such that items would be used in an ideal order. And unlike most of my plans, I actually did this one!

​Ultimately, though, I ended up having digestion issues though, so all that planning was for naught. Now don't go panicking about my health. This time, the digestive issues are probably just from my diet in the last 48 hours. In particular, I do not have Denny's often and the timing for that meal being fully digested perfectly matches up with the time I started having an issue for Tae Kwon Do.

Even if not, I had a lot of cake and pie in the last 48 hours, which is also food my body is not accustomed to. Overall there's just a lot of food which could have caused this so I don't actually think an ongoing digestion issue was in fact the culprit this time; I just think it was a result of my diet.

Obviously, my performance during Tae Kwon Do did suffer a bit, but I was okay enough where it didn't matter much and the trouble passed so I'm in the clear. My tae kwon do teacher did want to emphasize fitness, but I still can't work on running and doing weight training isn't something I really see as viable in any way right now...but then, I stumbled upon an idea which would work.

​I'm not the opening guard on most Sundays.
So that means I effectively have two hours to kill.
I usually do exactly that.

But what if I made productive use of them?

I already do forms when nobody's in the pool.

But I can do more than that.

I think the idea has merit at least.

Counseling left me energetic, and then the rest of my time today has been mostly spent with girlfriends. The contents of that time are a bit personal and even if I were inclined to share that kind of intimacy for THIS type of time that's not the type of thing I would put on a public blog (not even if I had their explicit consent since I wouldn't consent and as I'm the one who's writing me not consenting is enough), but basically.

Today was filled with love.
And so was yesterday, but of a different kind.

​Everything is just so wonderful and I am giddy and happy and energetic and not depleted even after the drain of today. Much love. <3

Weeelll...nooot...exactly, as it turns out. Typical Sundays involve me making a pre-work initial blog, and then updating periodically throughout the day. Usually it starts with a little bit of real-life stuff, but quickly transitions into things I technically shouldn't think about during work but do anyway:

Philosophical things, religion, spirit, poetry, songs, stories, mafia games, art, and all sorts of similar "distracting" thoughts. I give you deep insight into my mind, be it my creative process, my emotions, my thoughts, my feelings, random facts about my family, or even random quirks about my body.

...Not so much today. At first, in spite of the significance of the date (more on that in a second), I thought I'd be without material today altogether. But it turns out I do in fact have something I can talk about today! (Aside from the obvious which I wasn't going to make a big deal of.)

Basically, today's my actual real birthday (which I suppose if I lacked material would be maybe worth a ramble, but right now isn't my focus though I will talk about it in a little bit), but this being a Sunday, I expected nothing in ways of actual acknowledgement of this outside of family (and maybe online friends).

Directly, of course, this has been true. No "Happy Birthday"s, no gifts, no presents, not even a Caught Ya card which are sometimes given for this purpose. (Don't be depressed, though. Once again, for emphasis: This is Sunday. I don't think I can quite convey what that means, but essentially, it means this is the norm. The default. The standard. What would happen to ANY employee with a Sunday birthday, is not exclusive to me, thing. Where I'd quite frankly be surprised if anything was done. That's just how it is, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.)

...Except...

...All the same. I ended up with gifts anyway. Aside from the pool not being busy today and me not having to enter the men's locker room (both big bonuses for the day), today I saw...
...My corrected order had come in!

Now, this is a complete and total coincidence, of course. I could tell it wasn't meant as a gift--after all, it was just them giving me what I had actually ordered, which they were going to do regardless. (I'm 100% positive I'm not special in this regard and they likely were doing the same for everyone whose orders were wrong.)

Plus I found it in the Aquatics Office area (AKA, my bosses' work station), so it is probable they intended for my supervisor to hand it to me the next time we both would be around. Meaning it was mere happenstance I stumbled upon it during my birthday. Yetstill, DANG does it look good! (And I imagine feel good as well but I can't check that for another five minutes as of me writing this sentence.)

Now, for those who have forgotten, are new readers, and/or are too lazy to check.
Basically.

The Y (where I work) was having their annual merchandise catalog, where you could order various swag as an employee in particular. I believe it's part of our annual fundraising though I'm not positive. Regardless, there were five items I wanted. I ordered all five, used three years of accumulated Caught Ya cards, and then paid the remaining $50 out of pocket (literally, the cash came out of my jacket because I apparently kept about $100 in literal-pocket-change inside of my coat pockets).

Now my family has seen only one of these. They believe it was given to me by the Y as part of my job. (Which I haven't corrected them on because from a certain point of view you could argue that is technically true; the stuff I got isn't things a non-employee could get even though there's swag which non-employees can.)

And if they figure out that I have more, they may eventually ask, but I've developed a half-truth story to tell them (I am after all a storyteller so while I may flub the details especially if they interrupt I will probably be able to entertain them by telling them).

Basically, my official story is that the Y was offering employees the chance to purchase gear, but offered discounts for turning in caught ya cards. I asked three questions (all of this is true thusfar) in succession: "Is there any expiration date on these Caught Ya Cards?" Nope!
"Is there a limit to how many Caught Ya Cards you can use?" Nope!
"Is there a minimum price you have to pay?" Nope!

So I turned in three and a half years' worth of Caught Ya cards (still all true) in order to get some free gear (which is still true because when you look at the prices at least two if not three items would be covered by that amount of Caught Ya cards meaning I got them for free--I just chose to pay extra in order to have other stuff in addition to the free stuff, where the story ceases to be all true and becomes only a half-truth).

And the full list of items once more:
-Female Lifeguard Shorts. Officially, I got them because they were cheap and yet look official, they allow me to use my swim suit as a spare rather than a necessity, and they're more comfortable. (All true, especially the last I've found.) Unofficially, it's also because they are feminine and bring out more of my womanhood as it were.

-Female V-Neck Shirt. Officially, I got them because of wanting something to wear as an emergency spare to my lifeguard T-shirt. If necessary, under the hoodie. Unofficially, I got them because heck yeah I want them. <3

-Lifeguard Hoodie. This one's all official with nothing unofficial, except maybe it being a potential reference image for Red Hood Rider down the line. Basically if the pool air gets cold again (it shouldn't but it could), I'd wear it as my default guarding shirt: still being in an appropriate uniform but being dressed appropriately for the climate. It also makes a nice emergency shirt to wear (and is thus, a spare) if, say, I need to get into the water for whatever reason. This is one of the items which was gotten wrong and yet is now fixed. <3

-The red staff jacket. The one my family knows I have. Mostly official here, too. I wanted something to wear over my guarding outfit when I'm not on-duty, yet which wasn't as heavy as my jacket, and which if things got really cold could even be worn underneath my jacket to keep me warm. It's pragmatic on every level. Unofficially, it also makes a stellar reference for Red Hood Rider because a lot of the patterning is almost exactly as I envisioned for Ruby's hoodie.

-And finally, the gray staff t-shirt. This one's also pragmatic in that I want to wear it as a workout jacket rather than getting my lifeguard t-shirt all sweaty when I work out. It's also something I want to wear underneath my tae kwon do uniform. I'm technically not staff when there (I'm an unofficial volunteer), but the idea is essentially that I'd feel more authoritative and have a greater command when wearing it. Which I now actually have!

So it's nice to have that as an unofficial birthday present.

Now as for my birthday plans...well. I'm not sure if my family is planning to eat out or eat at home. It's not going to be a family night I'm pretty sure (we had it on Friday for good reason, after all), but this does make a difference all the same. If we eat at home, then I'm basically home all day once I get home from work, and probably have free time but not assuredly so.

If we eat out, then it's to Denny's, for as long as it takes for them to receive our order and us to actually eat it. And then when I get home from that, I would definitely have free time, just less so than the equivalent amount of free time from eating at home. (Because of the wait time, drive time, size of meal eat time, etc.)

Basically, high but not guaranteed chance of an extra couple of hours or so with no real break in my online availability, versus guaranteed chance of no real break in my online availability but at the cost of an initial break in availability (the gap between coming home and leaving) plus the time spent eating (two hours or so).

Denny's also has the con of triggering my misophonia via being right next to my dad, but. While I get less time with those I'd really want to spend time with. And there's the misophonia. I kinda sorta still want the Denny's anyway? My mind is like, "I want to eat out please let us eat out I want to eat out I hope we're eating out and not staying at home", which isn't something I can rationally explain since rationally I should be saying the opposite yet my mind is basically set on it.

Oh well. It might not even be relevant. While it's my birthday, it's largely dependent on my family. What they assume, what they choose, what they want, what they think. If they put the decision in my hands then I would have to choose but my plan is to ask them what the dinner plan is and then schedule around what they tell me.

Regardless of what our dinner plans are, though.
I can tell you without a doubt what my plans following dinner will be.
Spending time with my two lovely girlfriends. <3

It might be difficult to schedule that, we might not get time together at the same time (i.e. it might end up being one girlfriend then another if schedules don't work out), any number of things could crop up (I haven't really discussed plans with them if you couldn't already tell in that they know it's my birthday and I did vaguely suggest we should be together during my birthday but I suck at having solidified things beyond that given that I didn't so. HEY MY GIRLFRIENDS LET'S HANG OUT!), but dangit.
It's my birthday.

​And there could be no greater gift than spending time with the ones I love. <3

Today involved a lot of coding. Now, I am not a coder. I am ridiculously incompetent. And this isn't exactly something groundbreaking. All I was doing was making a template. Not exactly from scratch, mind you. I was heavily, heavily modifying an existing one. But I did learn a lot all the same. Coding is hard, very difficult to parse, but all the same I did it! I succeeded.

I mean, there's one very minor tweak I want to make to it. And I haven't fully tested it to make sure it's not filled with bugs/errors/etc. In fact it probably does have plenty of those. But I've done a good job of making it actually close to respectable, and you know what? Considering a couple days ago I thought that there was no possible way for me to get what I wanted to work...I'm pretty happy with that!

Now, granted.
The effect didn't quite come out looking as I expected.
But not in a bad way!

I actually nailed it.
Well, there's one minor tweak I need to make which I need to figure out how to make (it'll be a bit complicated), but I set out to code something I could use and I am at the point where I can use it. So, success!

Now I just need to eat and go to bed. <3