There was bound to be interesting stuff happening. So...the day started with me bringing my stuff back which I had taken out. (Well, the essentials, anyway.) When I entered, I was blown away at how different everything looked. In my four years of employment, the pool and surrounding area has never looked this clean before.

It was weird and a little bit of cognitive dissonance. Never before have I seen such a mixture of shiny new and worn-down old in the same location, with everything cleaned and polished and lots of older stuff replaced with newer things but some things being impossible to hide their age even after a cleaning.

Buuuuuuut, overall the pool was a much better environment, and our staff room is also neater and more efficient with more space available and instead of lockers we have bins which're actually much bigger than the lockers ever were and have the advantage of being easily removed.

It was a whole lot of good stuff, so the reorientation went well I think. Of course, there was a slight oversight. Inevitable given this was my first week back and I was bound to forget something. In this case, my lifeguarding shirt. Buuuuut, since I was bringing my stuff back, that meant instead of depositing my gear I got to wear my gear.

Specifically, two of the items I bought earlier. The V-neck was wonderful, and it was light as could be. Unfortunately, while it is a staff shirt it's not a lifeguarding shirt, so over it I had to wear my hoodie, which is a bit bulkier and heavier, but with some adjustments, was livable. I got to break them in, and when my shift ended, put them in my bin when I changed back into my civilian attire.

Soyeah, that was work. I thought of a fair amount at work, but the thing which most stuck out? One of my mega-universes, Mythe. You'd recognize it as being a setting which I largely imported into Red Hood Rider. You may also recall it started out as a setting which was basically ripping off Artix Entertainment just with my own little touches added here and there. (And every story within has absolutely terrible writing.)

But one of my favorite stories in that setting, the climatic final book of that universe that I have dreamt up anyway, is what I worked on a little bit today. The plot can be summarized as, essentially, this: a gathering of all the greatest at everything has been called, intent on answering a grim threat. And by greatest at everything, we mean everything. Every fantasy job, every fantasy race (that is on the heroes' side at least), and every fantasy class (that is on the heroes' side at least), sending representatives to a council meeting.

The protagonist, a necromancer and ruler of a land, was obviously not invited since he of course is evil to the core--but with the right half-truths and taking advantage of the better parts of good-aligned people (namely, he can't hide the land he is from but he can chastise anyone for assuming him originating from a land ruled by an evil overlord necromancer--him, but they don't know that--would mean he'd be evil, when it is quite correct that people anywhere can be good or evil him included), he manages to get to the meeting anyway.

He attended more out of curiosity than anything else, but when the nature of the gathering was revealed, he was forced to volunteer with these best of everythings thanks to a common interest: a threat capable of destroying the world was well on its way to doing exactly that. Our villain protagonist is evil--not stupid. He knows that promises of mercy, of living if aligning with that foe, are empty because he lives on the planet they are trying to destroy, and has a rather vested interest in avoiding death. (Basically he has a grudge against death thanks to meeting death as a young man when everyone he knew was killed yet death refusing to take him too.)

A potentially incomplete list of all the attending abilities/traits:
-Fighter
-Warrior
-Soldier
-Guard
-Defender
-Guardian
-Knight
-Samurai
-Berserker/Barbarian
-Valkyrie/Viking
-Lancer
-Duelist (mixture of both pistols and blades, the latter which is also called a Fencer)
-Gladiator
-Martial Artist
-Monk
-Cleric
-Paladin
-Crusader
-Battle Mage
-Spellblader (part of what the protagonist is pretending to be)
-Weaponmaster
-Rogue
-Gambler
-Trapmaster
-Trickster
-Scout
-Bandit
-Pirate
-Thief
-Assassin
-Ninja/Shinobi
-Reaper/Reaver
-Archer
-Ranger
-Hunter
-Woodsman
-Arbalester
-Sniper (bow)
-Sniper (gun)
-Gunslinger
-Musketeer
-Merchant (is actually a class, yes)
-Mercenary (is actually a class, yes)
-Elemancer (can use magic of all eight elements but is limited to exclusively those)
-Pyromancer (the main thing the protagonist is pretending to be)
-Cryomancer
-(I need to look up the appropriate word for Energy)mancer
-Geomancer
-Aeromancer
-(I also need to look up an appropriate word for Light)mancer
-Shadowmancer
​-Necromancer (what our protagonist actually is but not something which is supposed to be known)
-Technomancer
-Telekinetic
-Mage
-Wizard
​-Warlock
-Witch
-Sorcerer
-Sage
-Druid
-Shaman
​-Summoner/Conjurer
​-Beast master/tamer
-Dragon master/rider/tamer/lord
-Telepath (Illusions/Hypnosis)
-Psychic
-Mirror (copies stuff, aka Mime/Blue Mage etc but Mirror is my name for it)
-Priest
-Healer
-White Mage
-Acolyte/Zealot
​-Incanter/Invoker
-Bard
-Dragonslayer
-Nightslayer (Vampire Hunter/Lycan Hunter, and similar)
-Witch hunter
-Shapeshifter
-Scholar
-Adventurer
-Caster (special class I made up)
-Ichoromancer (blood master)
-Creator (special class I made up)
-Scribe (profession)
-Blacksmith (profession)
-Accountant (profession)
-Historian/Librarian (profession)
-Runesmith (just assume profession until told otherwise)
-Alchemist
-Engineer
-Barber
-Archeologist
-Astrologer
-Diplomat
-Herbalist
-Miner
-Cook
-A vampire (well actually, half-vampire)
-A werewolf (well actually, half-werewolf)
-A dragon
-An elf
-Maybe a dwarf?
-Maybe an orc?

...The thing is. I'm not writing just about 100 characters to be on the heroes' side. I'm aiming more for 30-50: a notably large group, but a still passably small group. As a result. Multiples are possible, as in, one person being both the best vampire and the best of something else. And our protagonist--while specializing in necromancy--genuinely is a skilled pyromancer and can use it effectively in spellbladery, meaning he's both of those (secretly all three), for an example.

Another is that the telekinetic specialist isn't actually having their first specialist as telekinesis. They're firstly a cook. They use their telekinesis to effectively provide meals for an entire army singlehandedly, something impossible for anyone with anything less than absolute mastery of telekinesis.

So basically I want to eventually figure out the logistics of who specializes in what. I already know many of the main characters. The ichoromancer is a star in one of my other stories along-side the dhamphir. The lycan is also the caster and is a star in one of my other stories. Part of being a caster (which is similar to necromancy) is being tied to a partner and his partner is the best in one of the melee classes if not more than one. A few others were defined as well.

But I didn't get to narrow it down as much as I'd like. I did do a few things, such as the scholar being the bard as well and also being a scribe/accountant/historian/librarian (one of the most diverse skill sets), but for the most part these things are left blank right now even though they shouldn't be blanks.

...Oh and yes I actually can waste hours on research here especially with...distractions. I got pretty thorough but I'm pretty sure I could find more which I didn't consider duplicates or unusable if I did a little more digging than I've already done. Because, uh. Yeah. This only scratched the surface.

I love the setting and I like the story. Would require a massive rewrite to be usable but it's doable. The protagonist is one of my favorite creations of all time for good reason. (I wish I could explain more of the setting/world but I'm drawing blanks on what to say.) Good reason I imported him over into Red Hood Rider. (Admittedly he only gets a couple of cameos and references outside of the cameos but he's important all the same.)

On the very loosest of loose bases, in fact. The story that he appears in is thousand-year-old backstory for Red Hood Rider, in that events in his original source material of Mythe which his story was telling...have a very similar analogue in the Rubyverse's backstory. The funniest thing is, that wasn't even planned! It was just a funny coincidence. So in that regard, you could kinda sorta consider Red Hood Rider to be the sequel to this guy's story if not for the fact that it's in a different universe altogether. (The Mythe universe was imported into the Rubyverse, meaning that most things in Mythe happened in the Rubyverse, but vice-versa is not true in that nothing in the Rubyverse happens in Mythe unless it was originally from Mythe in the first place.)

So, in a sense, I could be said to be writing a prequel right now which also serves as a sequel to some of my other stories! Confused yet? I know I sure am!

So I do apologize if I am a bit scatterbrained here. Speaking of apologies, I owe one for putting all three entries for yesterday in...well, a single entry. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't show up in chronological order if I published them separately. Plus, this being my laptop I was publishing them on (I've since switched to my desktop), I didn't want to take the extra time two extra entries would necessitate.

But anyway. We did in fact get up reasonably early, at like 7 AM. To our surprise, our mom had cooked us all a hearty breakfast. As in, not just a little, but a lot. A big, big breakfast. In my case? Aside from the standard coffee, three eggs (done perfectly, too!), two pieces of toast (albeit not buttered and a bit burnt but oh well), bacon, and sausage.

I only had room for one piece of bacon and one sausage, but boy did I want more than that. I had as much as I felt I could eat without being at risk of vomiting. I'm a little bit sad that physically I can't eat as much as I want (and as much as I want likely translates directly into being exactly how much I actually need), but I still had a much bigger breakfast than normal (normally I'm given three burnt eggs that are somewhat putrid to the point where I'll maybe on a good day eat two of the yolks and nothing more because the rest is inedible), enough where we didn't need to stop for lunch.

Hmm...while I'm pretty sure that there's more memorable about the trip than this, the only other thing I can think about is that in our standard sibling bet for arrival time, I lost by literally 30 seconds. My older sister bet 4:15. I bet 4:22. Splitting the difference, an arrival time past 4:18:30 would mean I won. (If operating by the minute rather than by the second, then I lost by a minute.) But we arrived at exactly 4:18, no seconds attached.

This being arrival time at my brother's place, of course. From there, we started driving home. My younger sister, the driver, insisted she was heading south when my older sister asked why she was heading the northern route. She soon was proven wrong, when it was indeed shown we were taking the northern route. (Which is probably a longer drive, though honestly not by much. 35-45 minutes, versus 30-40 minutes I think.) That got us home at basically dead-on 5.

There was one other thing I did during the trip though.
I wrote a song.
This particular song, I had essentially the idea of "cram as many innuendos in from gaming as possible", more or less. It's probably not that unique as a result. Especially since I made it without internet access so I didn't exactly have an on-hand list of terms used in gaming, which would have allowed me to have much greater creativity. Ah well. I hope you still find Level-Up hilarious:

Hey, you and I make a great team
With your black hole and my white beam
I can be buffed to go fast
And with you we can have a blast

I'm telling you you'll never need a priest
Not when you have my hands' touch healing
With practice I'm sure our skills are mad
You and I have what the other lacks

Let's grind together,
Keep going 'til we're slain
Experience makes us better
All the things we will rake

Let's grind together,
Keep going 'til we're slain
Experience makes us better
All the things we will rake

Friendly fire, you hit me with lightning
No worries took a potion for my HP
We'll drink such fluids as much as we can
Having fun like that is part of my plan

You've spent your mana and are bleeding
I've got a healing shiv so hold still please
Our partnership is the best in the land (originally I had "Our partnership is meant to last" but I like this better)
Level up with me and never look back

Let's grind together,
Keep going 'til we're slain
Experience makes us better
All the things we will rake

Let's grind together,
Keep going 'til we're slain
Experience makes us better
All the things we will rake

Let's grind together,
Keep going 'til we're slain
Experience makes us better
All the things we will rake

Let's grind together,
Keep going 'til we're slain
Experience makes us better
All the things we will rake

...It's about some healing class player partnering with a more destruction-based player. Right. Yeah. Totally. In no world whatsoever could it possibly just so ever maybe be a guy hitting on a girl.

...If you rolled your eyes at anything here...I've done my job!

I was promised that when I took my shower, it would be warm. I made a ton of prep work for taking a long shower, too. I prepared a bath. I brought a rag to put soap on so that I could clean myself with soap (something I typically don't do normally). I couldn't find shampoo, but I was going to make liberal usage of the conditioner and then let it sit for a while before thoroughly washing it out. (My understanding of conditioner: don't leave it in past the shower; I was told by a professional that's very bad, but don't immediately wash it out; you lose the benefits if you just put it in to immediately be removed.)

It started out promising enough...and then, like a switch, was suddenly gone. It wasn't really gradual, either. It went from scalding-hot-when-on-max to lukewarm-on-max in an instant, and from there, slowly deteriorated to the point where it was essentially "fighting to maintain temperature but losing the battle badly bit by bit", more or less. I was less than pleased by this development. I rushed through the shower, from skipping any hope of shampoo to not using liberal amounts of conditioner (I did use some though, but I didn't cover my entire scalp, just two major areas) to immediately washing it out and so on.

Unlike at home, the bath tub we have here is actually deep enough to have a decent bath in. But unlike at home (where by the time the shower fills it to the top, it's warm water still), this one didn't have time to get warm. It was like a condensed version of a pool in temperature, more or less: I could tell that it was reasonably warm, but it was still well below body temperature, with my own body heat doing more to warm it up than anything else. Body heat, which would slowly over time be lost. Because water conducts heat. (In a small enough environment, this is a blessing, since it means the heat is maintained for longer. In too large a setting, a curse as it is seeped quickly.)

So I didn't even have a chance to have any real post-shower relaxation time. I was hoping--praying--that my time spent in there would allow me to maybe get warm again, or failing that, that I'd be able to at least relax and spend time lost in thought as is my favorite shower pastime. Nnnnnnnope! Just cold. It wasn't severe cold. But it was enough of cold to drive me out.

This came after me having been rather restless during the night. Do you know how, if you're traveling for too long sitting, you can get really, really uncomfortable? Especially on the point of contact your body makes with the seat? (I.e., your butt.) Yes, well...for some reason, I was having that same effect during the night sleeping on my bed I've used for years without trouble. I tried shifting positions multiple times, but shifting to the other side (which is the side I normally sleep on) was for some reason REALLY uncomfortable (worse even than the pain from sleeping on the side I was), sleeping facing up was uncomfortable, and sleeping facing down was murdering my back.

No matter what I did, I wasn't getting a decent rest. No position worked. I at times was for some reason worried about being delicate with things (dream logic may have been in play), but even when I threw caution to the wind and was like "I don't care what this damages, I need to find something comfortable", I...couldn't find anything even remotely comfortable.

My dreams were also strange. Part fantasy, part reality, part mixed timeline, part could-be-real-but-clearly-isn't, all very, very real-feeling at the time. In particular, one part of the dream had me absolutely convinced that we weren't down here for a funeral, but rather a wedding. One attended by square dancers I know rather exclusively. Except for a few local relatives, including my recently-deceased grandfather whose funeral we're here for. He was rather alive in the dream.

It was even using that wording: "Not a funeral, a wedding". As in, at times, there were somehow reminders of reality, and yet in the dream realm they were responded to consistently and adamantly that it was a wedding. I can even vaguely recall the faces of the couple being wed, and yet, they're not someone I can pin down from reality.

Then there was a separate section of the dream involving some hipster eco-terrorist organization I think it was, which had a particular modus operandi: some cheaply-made home explosives for an initial shock that was ultimately harmless, then a minor electronic sabotage (in one case ruining a playstation3 for their intended target) as a warning. Then, later, if their demands wouldn't be met, a much larger and rather lethal traditional explosion would be set off to level the place.

They had a bit of an unusual recruitment policy, born of caution: members don't join the organization by volunteering. That sets off red flags. Rather, instead, they would seek out members such that they would recruit them individually. I was more awake than asleep at this point and was formally woken up before I could explore this further though.

Anyway, I've been warming myself up this last half hour or so (the time it's taken to type this), and now I'm going to finish my prep work for leaving. We leave in half an hour or so, and I need to finish getting dressed and brush my teeth. Probably not in that order. Won't quite take me half an hour (probably ten minutes or so), but it'll take enough time that I want to start now, especially since you never know what I might have to do. Oh, including things like my third hair brushing. (When I take a shower, I brush my hair before, to make sure I don't have a bunch of hair come out in the shower. Then, I do it immediately after the shower, both to help accelerate the drying and to make sure it sets right. The third is a final correction.)

Soyeah. Stuff to do, and I'm gonna do it. Noon now, so a second entry is almost assuredly coming today.

The funeral is a two-part process. The first part: at the funeral home, meeting a bunch of people I don't really know who somehow know/remember me or apologize if they do not, when I have absolutely no recollection of them. Aside from those that I vaguely recall from last year which were the same thing, essentially. People who have some kind of relation to the deceased, be it neighbor or blood, that are important and yet I just have zero ability to retain memories of how.

It also is a time where lots of stuff can be done, in this case including a speech by my dad. It included a fair amount of history, things I somewhat knew and somewhat did not. I knew my grandfather was a fighter pilot in world war two, and that he was shot down over Italy and was stuck in his plane for 24 hours (he rode the plane all the way down). What I didn't know was that his whole squadron was shot down and he was the only survivor, and that the people rescuing him quickly shipped him off because he technically wasn't supposed to be there. (Presumably, shifty orders from above to do something sketchy.)

I also knew he managed an energy plant for the remainder of the war, and was vaguely aware he learned some Arabic from his Arabic subordinates. I even recalled that he learned enough to briefly be appointed a translator until his superiors learned he didn't quite know enough to get by as one. However, details like him being able to listen to a film as recently as two years ago and recognize the Arabic spoken there would not be how a native speaker would phrase it, that I didn't know. Nor did I know that he had survived riots from protesters. (Though, hurtful as it sounds to talk ill of the deceased, I couldn't help but wonder if his experience there was how his racism got transferred onto my dad).

One of the things my dad focused on was that my grandfather put family first and built a strong family which emphasized love, values he passed on. But standing from my perspective, I couldn't help but think that my grandfather, similar to my dad, had a "family as HE sees it" view, in that an outside view would have been punished severely. I did feel bad for thinking of it in that terms, but it's difficult not to.

For all intents and purposes, as far as everyone knows, my dad loves his children. Even he thinks that, and even we acknowledge his love is there and is strong...but with the dark undertone that it wouldn't be there if the truth were exposed. Meaning those outside of his narrow viewpoint of the world live in constant fear of that love NOT being unconditional and turning to hate.

There was lots of mingling and storytelling and sharing of lives and whatnot, which I am very bad at doing in-person. I'm just not good at socializing, which this was largely doing. I wouldn't say I'm the black sheep of the family since that would imply my family is white sheep, nor could I claim the inverse. It'd probably be more apt to say I'm a brown sheep in a flock of gray sheep, in that we are at opposites in many ways, yet neither could be inherently better or worse than the other.

I did reflect a little bit on death during the time I had and more or less came to find I was able to sum my thoughts up there in a neat little thing easily quotable:
Death is a celebration of life. Do not mourn by lamenting loss; instead, rejoice by remembering.

I mean, there's a little bit more to it than that, but that's a fairly laconic method of stating my viewpoint, and it's something which holds true regardless of your viewpoint on subjects such as religion (e.g. thoughts on life after death, thoughts on the meaning of life). Death is an undeniable part of the world, but it is no coincidence that many a fiction writers have written it such that mortality is actually a gift of sorts.

There's many quotes to the same effect on there, even: "What's the point in living if you can't die?". Endless numbers of fictional works have explored this subject to great extents. They've gone on and on and on about it, detailing the nuances there. Anime/manga, Comic books, Western Animation, films, and especially Literature, among many other media which have the subject be a focal point.

And to some extent, they have merit. Living Forever Is Awesome, and make no mistake, I intend to, but failing that. Failing immortality, failing living forever...having a good, long life filled with happy memories is in of itself worthy, even if you leave no visible legacy. Your actions impact others, even if they don't remember them, and while some of said actions will impact things negatively, for the MOST part, even negative actions can cause an overall raise to the happiness of others in the long-run, in any number of unpredictable ways.

I mean, obviously the negative actions in your life you will regret. You will regret the consequences of those actions, too. Even if you know said actions led to better things, you'd still feel bad about them. And factor in how most likely you WON'T know if those things led to better overall lives you're likely to assume they led to worse ones...it adds up to lots and lots of self-misery. And yet. We are human. We can't pretend we're not. We're flawed, we make mistakes, and we try to grow from them but an attempt is no guarantee we succeed.

We fail. Then we fail again, often at the same thing we just failed. And we keep failing and feeling worse about our failures. But sometimes, even if only on chance alone. Those failures end up giving us things we could never have had without them. Failing at being successful, for instance, is probably one of the only reasons why I have two girlfriends I love in the first place. Had I succeeded when I was younger, had I not been a failure, I almost assuredly would have never met either of them. I could never call that a bad thing (the opposite, having two girlfriends to love is the largest blessing I could have), even though to happen it required a lack of a good thing.

Basically, what I'm saying is...a single happy memory of a good time outweighs any number of painful memories of lesser times. And that's what death brings forward. Another often-repeated line is something to the effect of "Do not speak ill of the dead", and I actually think it is for much the same reasons I'm outlining here.

Because death is a celebration of life. While you can acknowledge the dead had shortcomings, disrespecting them, insulting them, is choosing to focus on the negative rather than the positive. It is making an active choice to not celebrate their life, to not give meaning to their positives, to the happiness they have instilled in the world.

I wish I could explain it better than that. But basically, I feel that while we all feel the pain of loss, it's an unavoidable part of life...so instead of focusing on the inevitable, we should make the choice to enjoy all the good things, no matter how big, basic, small, or complex. We can't ignore the existence of the negative. Acknowledging it is a must, since denying it is a really bad idea. But having an active focus on the negative is something I think reinforces it and I don't think that's healthy.

Which is why my mourning doesn't involve tears. (As if I could produce them anyway, but I don't feel sadness.) I do feel loss...but I also feel warmth of the good, of what was nice in life.

I hope I don't sound crazy for this.

...And it's about at this time that I realize I only described the first half. The second half, more private, is at the cemetery, where the body was lowered into the grave. Each sibling placed a rose on one of the three graves we have there. (One for our grandfather, one for our grandmother, and one for our aunt who had been dead since before any of us were born since she died in her teens and was my dad's younger sister).

That's about all I can think about. But, yeah. Today was a bit of a heavy day. I kinda wanted to talk actively with my girlfriends while at the funeral, but I knew it would be bad form to do so. I mean, I kinda sorta did so anyway even knowing I shouldn't, but I couldn't help it. I wanted them. I wanted them a lot. I still want them. I want to talk to them and I want to cuddle with them and to hold them and just be all...close. Where I would be able to feel life instead of death, as it were.

I don't want to be alone. I still feel that way because while I might have family, they don't quite get me.
...Oh, that reminds me. Just before leaving, I was asked if I needed to wear my ridiculously-stupid ring. I took it off, and was asked why I wore it. I told the truth: it's because I like to have an object on my hand to fidget with, and I use the fidget-ring all the time. This is not the whole truth, because I genuinely just like wearing rings. Buuuuuut, I'm pretty sure I'm getting some rings for Christmas now, which will be nice. My first official jewelry! Albeit based on a half-truth, butstill!

Anyway, dinner's done, so I'll be having it. I may or may not make a third entry today, depending on what we do tonight. We leave tomorrow, presumably in the morning, which means packing stuff tonight. I can't wait to get back home again. Because while I don't hate being here...I love being at home because everything I really care about is there, in that there I can contact my friends and girlfriends whereas here I cannot. And that's basically like 90% of my life I can't have. So while the 10% of me I have right now isn't bad...it's still only 10% of me.

The other 90% is all too eagerly awaiting my return. (Or so I hope!)

Mainly because stuff happened! For supper, I had lasagna, which was a gift given to us by some old lady I really don't know the name of. While my dad was eating, I did some artwork. There was a drawing I wanted to make, but I quickly learned I lacked the reference images to make it real and with no internet connection (well, not quite true: dial-up on the local desktop, which would never be able to load the needed images), so I only finished the initial sketch with a promise to do more on it later. (A promise I'll probably forget, but eh, we'll have to see.)

After that, my brother and my younger sister played cards with me. We started out with Crazy 8s (which I won), then transitioned to poker at around 6 or so. I don't know why they chose five-card-stud poker, but they did. As it so happens, I'm pretty good at playing conventional poker. The problem is, I got a harsh reality lesson: my siblings don't bluff. My siblings will call basically anything unafraid, so bluffing doesn't work. Meaning, I couldn't bluff them (what I'm good at), and if they bet, I knew I would be outplayed. Ultimately though, I'd say that putting myself at a chip disadvantage to have that knowledge was useful.

I did manage to adjust, and while for most of the game I wasn't well-off chip-wise, by the battle of luck (since literally no wits were involved as nobody was bluffing ever), I managed to mostly regain my footing. This ended up leading us to a finale where we all went all-in. (That technically shouldn't be possible but oh well.) I had a full house that round and neither of them had anything close to that, but at that point they were ready to throw the game just wanting it to end so...it ended! With me winning. At like...10:30. A full three and a half hours later. A bit monotonous and a drag which started to become more of a chore than fun (which is why it ended when it did), but it had moments making it worth at least mentioning, thus this entry.

We leave tomorrow, and last I heard, the plan was to get up "whenever (my brother) gets up". This may have been said only semi-seriously so I should go out to get an update, but regardless, it's not gonna be late. It will be, at least reasonably close, to early, which means prep work tonight: packing everything. Once again, I have no time limit on this, but unlike at home where I pulled an all-nighter, here with no internet, I'm gonna run out of tasks eventually. So I'll be fully packed tomorrow and I'll be ready to leave quickly, and I'll even get some sleep. Even if it's only 2-4 hours, the rest can be done on the trip.

Soyeah, gonna put my laptop to sleep now. Next entry will be when I've returned!

Well, we arrived! Not that saying that really matters, since my blog readers can't actually read this until I get back home and post it given that, as per the norm, there is no internet here whatsoever. (Though, god I hope I can connect to weebly when I get back home. I'm recording my blog on my laptop and it'd be a pain to transfer things over.)

The line between yesterday and today is a little bit blurry, since I did in fact pull an all-nighter. A significant portion of said night was spent trying to troubleshoot problems on my computer with one of my girlfriends. (I owe them both time when I return, which will be hell to schedule. I'll have mafia, I'll have game stuff, I'll have work on Sunday, so I'll be juggling at minimum five different things. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it though in that I will see what their schedules are and see if we can set dates up. Preferably in the plural. <3)

Other than trouble-shooting problems on my computer, let's see...well, today began with my main contact line with one of my girlfriends (the same one I was doing tech support with) malfunctioning, cutting me off from them prematurely. (Which sucked since I didn't get to say goodbye to either of my girlfriends. I wanted to, but I was so busy trying to fix the problem and also trying to rush out the door that I didn't get the opportunity to do so directly. I hope that all of my texts went through at the very least. Not ideal, but better than nothing.)

It also began with me reading my blog entry from yesterday and compiling my stuff. I did so, but I was a little scatterbrained. This actually caused me to be the reason we left as late as we did, at 8 rather than 7:45. (Normally I'm the first ready.) Ah well.

We drove part of the way, then we realized we forgot something our dad had specifically asked us to bring (a gun or two, out of concern for potential looters reading the obituary I think? Something along those lines), so had to retrieve it. This meant we ended up being half an hour late to arrive at my brother's place, 9 instead of 8:30.

From there, it was basically smooth sailing. We took the western route (less smoke and less travel time), stopping at our usual gas station and that was our only stop the entire trip.

There, I had for the first time in my life Carl's Jr. Specifically, I had the...what was it called...something Western Double Baconburger. It was absolutely DELICIOUS, and a good meal especially since (aside from coffee) I had been on an empty stomach prior to then. (I KNOW! BAD HABIT BUT I WAS PRESSED FOR TIME OKAY.)

There might be more but I can't recall anything really significant. I slept a fair amount of the way. It mighta been in-and-out of consciousness type sleeping, but it was enough. Total drive time ended up being basically 8 hours I think.

Since arriving here, well, I've got basically zilch in terms of cell service. I've sent texts to both my girlfriends. As of this entry I'm reasonably sure one girlfriend got the texts but the other girlfriend I'm not so sure about. I'll have to see what I can do tomorrow to get in contact with them. Isolation sucks. I don't want to not be here. (I actually want to be here.) But at the same time. I don't want to be cut off from the ones I love and I effectively am right now. I can vaguely kinda sorta maybe reach them but it's spotty, sketchy, and yeah. The usual unpleasantries.

I've unpacked my stuff, and am getting ready for bed. We did have food when we got here, bacon burgers, which were even better than the fast food joint's versions in my opinion. Additionally, we did our usual Cards games: a round of Hearts, and a round of Golf.

As per the usual, in Hearts I got second place, losing to the usual winner of my older sister. (My younger sister lost.) I did pull off a shoot-the-moon once to get there, which my older sister was not amused about.

In Golf, however: I never lost a single round. As in. Quite seriously, never once in our ten rounds was I last place. The problem was, I was rather consistently THIRD place, and fourth place was INconsistent. Meaning while I never once racked up the most points, I racked up enough points on a consistent basis (rather than inconsistent) that I got last. I wasn't even playing badly! I just had a lot of bad luck. Actually, I had a lot of good luck. Lots of times I had like two cards left to flip at endgame and they ended up as being aces or jacks or the like.

...Yet getting scores like 22 (when last is 27), 13 (when first is 8 and last is 17), and so on and so forth...means that basically. When I did well everyone else did well (so when I had good luck it didn't do me any good); when I did poorly someone else may have done worse, but it was a different someone else every single time. (There, my younger sister won by seven points. I lost third by a similarly narrow margin, but there was an insurmountable gap between third and second.)

Really, when you're dealt like a queen, a king, and a ten in a hand...and you consistently are drawing cards like a 7 or 8 or 9...and the person next to you before you is drawing like 5 or 6...and the person AFTER you is drawing a disproportionately high number of 2s, 3s, and aces...what can you do? I had very bad hands and I was given very bad methods of fixing them. My siblings were given okay hands and given good ways to fix bad hands for the most part. There's some skill involved, but Golf has a lot more luck to it than Hearts does.

Butyeah. That's the evening pretty much. There's probably more but I can't remember anything extra. Tomorrow's the funeral so expect another long entry!

I'm likely forgetting a TON of stuff. Like, a ton a ton of stuff. But. I should lay the details of the blog out here. I am going to leave tomorrow (really later today) for Oregon. The funeral's on Friday. We'll be driving back home on Saturday. Uh...crud. There was a lot more I WANTED to talk about but I can't remember what it was about. Important stuff, things I think my girlfriends (or at least one of them) wanted to know and I wanted to explain, or maybe they didn't make it explicit they wanted to know but I thought it'd be nice for them to know anyway. Something along those lines, but I literally for the life of me can't remember.

But anyway. It's the eve of leaving annnnnnnnnd...I have done literally nothing. What do I bring? My robe, dress shirt, dress pants, my black shoes, at least one change of clothes if not two, my pills, my phone, keys, comb, toothbrush, razor, laptop, drawing materials...I think that's everything? But I can't really think. I told one of my girlfriends, "hey I'm a PRO at this no worries" and I usually am but I'm having a moment of derp in that all my preparation has gone down the drain because I can't remember it.

Oh well. I do apologize for me being a mess. And not talking more. And...well everything. Given the circumstances, it's a bit understandable hopefully. So. Like. I'm going to start getting ready now. I'll probably not make an entry before leaving since I've burned almost all the time I would use for one. I wish I didn't have so little to give you but this is the best I have to give.

Oh!
Important to note.
Where I will be going. No cell service. No internet. No phone. No satellite. No cable. It's a wasteland, essentially. So I won't be able to contact anyone unless I actually can. If I can I will. If I can't then I can't. But assume I can't unless I can.

I told one of my girlfriends I was going to bed, but that was before I realized I hadn't blogged--I think they'll understand me delaying for that reason though. I also had rather the annoyances with my browser. Games were refusing to load, and my Web Of Trust I'm pretty sure was killed. (I don't use it that often but it is nifty to have and somehow it got killed.) Things which delay bedtime past the intended time.

Ah well. Some things I can wait to fix until tomorrow, though others like this blog are must-take-care-of-immediately things.

My girlfriends might protest about that being a broad sweeping statement, but even they would be lying if they didn't admit I have my moments of derp. (After all, that's arguably part of my charm since screwing up is the most wonderful thing of all. At least that's what a consistent screw-up like me tells themselves to not feel bad!)

Today among them. I heard a staticky song on the radio, and I thought for a split second, "huh, I thought this was two separate songs, but I guess I could have been mistaken, I don't really know this song/artist that well other than knowing it's a really famous song/artist in the rock world with every part of the song being well-known so I can buy these two parts that are well-known being from the same song, because the only time Rock 98.9 does doubles is on weekends or holidays and today is a weekday".

Then I passed by the Pilchuck River bridge--basically an unofficial park. It was loaded with the most cars I've ever seen there, in spite of today not being particularly hot/sunny, but I wrote it off as being essentially end-of-summer traffic, or something like that.

Then, AC/DC played on the radio...and a second AC/DC song (very unambiguously so in that I 100% absolutely knew both were AC/DC songs) began to play. And the confusion set in. "They don't play doubles except on weekends and holid--oh, today's a holiday isn't i...*dawning realization*...oh. Ohhh..."

This would be why we had family night on Sunday rather than Friday, I'd assume. But that second realization immediately after the first? That's the real idiot moment. Not realizing today was a holiday was bad enough, but the second failure is the implication thereof. On every holiday, there's no counseling, meaning my appointment isn't until next week.

As early as last night, I've been preparing for an appointment which isn't until next week.
Thus, the facepalm-worthy moment where, unambiguously, I was an idiot.

Ah well. Nobody home except my sister to realize it, and she was gone at the time so she'll not even know. It'll be our little secret on this blog. (Which is theoretically public, but not like anyone in my real life reads it since I would basically instantly know.)

Speaking of which, my parents have left for Oregon already. I was under the impression my sister would be going with them, but apparently not; she's leaving with the rest of the siblings, so that makes things much easier on me. The funeral is on Friday, so we leave on Thursday and start the journey back home on Saturday. (I don't expect I'll be able to post during that time anywhere since I'm not sure we even have dial-up there and while I can use data I'm not sure there's even cell service there.) I have work Sunday, so I'll be dark for a while.

​Soyeah, that's an update on me. I'll let you know about any further developments.

So for whatever reason, there was a decision to not have family night on Friday. I don't actually know why, but it was instead meant for Sunday, aka, today. However, among the four of us who actually live at our home (my parents, me, and my older sister), we had a pseudo-family-night anyway by binge-watching Agents of Shield until we had finished with the latest season (season four).

I rather liked the framework, and was relieved it didn't end the way I thought (I thought that for teh dramaz not to mention for furthering the chance of reviving Hydra, that evil!Fitz would come out, altogether overriding Fitz as we had known him, because that is what was multiple times foreshadowed), but also disappointed in how they concluded the framework (because it was essentially "too clean" and a lot of wasted potential--with the technology they built and the characters they had, I thought that an LMD would be made to bring them in as heroes, especially since it was possible that one character was a "loyal" Hydra agent actually loyal to Shield and if brought into the real world would help to sabotage the plan and I have to admit I was hoping for that).

Still, the direction the season did take was along the same lines of what I was predicting, just in a less drama-filled way. I do have to wonder what exactly will be happening here, but it was nice to have seen. My Saturday had the anime-night I talked about before, though I didn't mention the game I was wasting time on is Binding of Isaac. (I got it from one of my girlfriends as a gift.)

It's rather fun, but sometimes it can be frustrating when the game literally spawns hellish nightmares of floors. My best run ever, for instance, I managed to get luck of the gods early-on by--without a deal with the devil--managing to pick up the ghost upgrade, which gives you flight and makes your shots pass through walls. I also got helpers, to give me multiple shots, and also had multiple upgrades to range and speed, so I was basically a god. I gained permanent health to fill out the full first bar...

...Except that one level spawned with basically no health refills. And lots of enemies I had never encountered before (this being my first time having gotten that deep), meaning I took damage from being unfamiliar with how they worked. And then I kept searching. And searching. And searching. For health. The level was ridiculously long. Like, most floors have something around twelve rooms total or so, this one was at least fourteen and not even finished because I died before having explored it all.

And how did I die? I spent a key to enter a room. 99% of the time, when you use a key to unlock a room, the room inside is a shop. I was expecting a shop, and I had like 50 coins to spend. (Part of my luck? I had a massive surplus of both bombs and keys and also coins. Yet zero ability to spend said coins because no shops were spawning.) 99% of the time. When you use a key. You enter a room which is a shop. Swear to god, play the game and test it out yourself. It really is, almost 100%, a guaranteed shop.

...What did I get instead of a shop?

...A boss battle.

At two health.

I was unprepared for a boss battle because I was still desperately searching for health and I was hoping that I was going to be entering a shop (which often contains health both normal and spirit which I could afford to buy both of, effectively doubling my health and enabling me to have a realistic chance of surviving the floor's official boss battle), and yet. Instead of the 99% chance of getting the shop I needed. On that hellish floor which spawned terrain useless for my abilities and enemies which could easily surpass my strengths. I got a less-than-1%. Boss. battle.

I was streaming this at the time, and ranting and raving to one of my girlfriends who was watching the stream about how the game hated me. (Literally I was the floor above the original-final-boss's floor. The penultimate floor of a person's first playthrough.) They were like, "Hey it's not quite as bad as it looks" literally moments before I opened that door. And then when I did, they instantly were like, "Okay maybe the game does hate you" because they, as a veteran of the game, also knew just how improbable it is to encounter a boss instead of a shop when unlocking a room.

I swear that the game loves to give absolutely junk spawns half of my playthroughs and yet in said playthroughs in spite of me having no advantages I manage to get relatively far (most of the time) with my skills alone...and then when I am given good spawns, I am instead given ridiculously bad rooms for those abilities. As in, getting abilities which are literally god-tiered for free (another playthrough I got that one item I can't remember the name of which is considered :easymode: because of its massive wave of damage, and it was from a demon door but I was at full health with a health drop outside the demon door so I went in, got the item, and restored myself to full health), and then entering areas where said abilities are a hindrance.

(Said :easymode: ability has a charge time. If fighting multiple enemies, especially ones which can't be one-hit killed, and ESPECIALLY ones which can regenerate over time, and throwing into that the need to actually hit the enemies in the first place and not miss when often enemies have movement trajectories that allow them to evade, it proves to be my death every single time even though it's a god-tiered ability.)

If someone told me there was a predictive AI which sees how well you are doing and deliberately messes with the RNG numbers when it thinks you are doing "too good" (and which offers zero sympathy the other way if you just suck), I would absolutely believe them. Because it's just so infuriating to have been on the fast-track to godhood and then be thrown into situations where said god-tiered abilities are of no actual use, reducing you bit by bit to a withered husk which eventually perishes when overwhelmed.

Still fun though. I'm also still hoping to pick up one item in particular. In one playthrough of the game, I got an item which turned my head green and made my shots be puke-bombs (essentially), and I found that I was reasonably skilled at not blowing myself up with them. In fact I was rather good at not doing so. (I did die eventually, but for much the same reasons as above: areas spawning where enemies couldn't be killed by my bombs without me killing myself, in that they were too fast to be hit and were right on top of me. I think it was actually a boss battle in the form of lust which killed me, since lust is fast, gets right on top of you, stays right on top of you, and with bombs instead of shots, can't be knocked back at all.)

There's a different item which has a similar effect, turning shots into normal bombs. The difference is, this item once picked up for the first time unlocks a challenge where you always 100% of the time spawn with that ability. Given my positive experience with using bomb-shots, I think that if I could use them on every runthrough I'd do reasonably well. It'd take some adjusting to, of course. I'd blow myself up often enough to make my girlfriends question if it'd actually be worth it. I'd get bad luck draws frequently enough where they would see me screwed over by the enemies' formation.

​Not to mention, having bomb-shots makes the majority of items you'd pick up be worthless since bomb-shots don't have great synergy with most other items. However, the sheer convenience of having effectively an unlimited bomb supply, combined with practice and luck of the draw ability-wise, would allow me to eventually get something able to take me all the way.

Anyway. That was my Saturday. Now for my Sunday. We're having family night tonight from my understanding, in spite of the recent developments I hinted about. What were the recent developments? Yesterday, my grandfather took a turn for the worse--much, much, much, much worse. This information was passed to us second-hand: his caretaker tends to panic and exaggerate and say things which aren't quite true, and she was the only direct source of information. Said information was then filtered through our mother, who is also prone to panic and exaggeration, making it a second unreliable source of information.

This is why I indicated it might not be as severe as they thought--but in this case. It turns out they were actually right, as of today. My grandfather died a few hours ago, so now we're making funeral arrangement plans and so on and so forth. Half the family (as in, everyone living here except me) is leaving soon. I think tomorrow, but I'm not sure of the details.

The rest are meant to leave the day before the funeral and presumably return home the day after the funeral. When the funeral will be, I don't know exactly. How long I'll be gone, also don't know that. But I will in fact be gone for a few days. Dealing with family members who are emotionally unstable, and who have noticed that I seem unfazed by this and assume me being unfazed is a type of apathy/indifference in that they are outright accusing me of not caring. (And the worst part is, in a sense, they're not exactly wrong.)

A bit of a hostile environment where I'm at risk, but I'll survive. I always do. The main thing is, there will be coordination of stuff which I'm not so good at coordinating. Getting the house prepared. (Food for the cats, alarm set with me having knowledge of how to disarm said alarm, doors locked, etc.) What to pack. (I don't even have a clue.) How to communicate, how much responsibilities I'm expected to have, and so on and so forth.

There's just a lot of juggling involved and I don't know what is expected of me. I don't know how I'm supposed to act, what I'm supposed to do, and how I'm supposed to live my life while everyone is grieving. (I've previously explained in a prior blog how for whatever reason, I can't actually grieve in a situation like this. It's difficult to explain, but basically the pain of loss isn't there because I don't feel like I have lost them in spite of them being gone, if that makes sense. Death as a celebration of life, as it were.)

Soyeah, that's the drama. Turns out it's a little more significant than I thought last night and will be impacting me. I'm a little worried, but I don't think concern for me would be warranted because everything I'm worried about is for the most part smaller stuff. 

I'll let you know when I know more.

First came nothing, then came anime night with my brother coming over, and after he left I wasted time playing games. There's some potential serious real-life drama, but not something that directly affects me (so, no need to be worried), but it's not something to blog about at 6 AM. I'll talk about it tomorrow. By the way, tomorrow will also be a family night so I'll be less active. Yes I know Friday was also a family night of sorts but that was watching Agents of Shield (more or less anyway). Soyeah, I have stuff I should talk about but it'll have to wait. Nothing is absolutely vital as far as I know.

...With it being 7 AM, I don't think I'll get the chance. I didn't even get to finish the thing I was working on anyway so it doesn't matter that much I suppose. Ah well. I'll see about talking tomorrow, though my other obligations may prevent me from doing so.