It unfortunately requires a specific mindset for me to talk about it (namely for me to be more of a certain me), which means that right now I can't, but...when I can, you will enjoy it!

...I mean. It could be worse. The other guard coulda been a girl; the opener coulda been one of the more insistent ones. Neither is the case but it's a good thing, since otherwise I might not have held together. As-is, it'll still be tricky enough for me. I didn't have breakfast made for me--this would be fine if I left myself time to make one, but I did not. I didn't have coffee fixed for me; same thing, only stronger: brewing coffee takes WAY too much time.

To top it all off...last night I basically got zero sleep. Oh, I went to bed plenty early enough. I shoulda gotten 4.5-5 hours' sleep. Not as much as ideal, mind you, but a normal, typical amount on a Saturday night (I can't go to bed before midnight) given how early I wake up on Sundays (6 AM).

...It's just that I didn't actually sleep. This is different from staying up; I was actually in bed with my eyes closed so not staying up. This is different from having poor quality sleep (though that's a problem I can have, too!). This was me, flat-out tossing and turning for hours and being physically trapped awake. I never had so much as LIGHT sleep. Because with light sleep, you at least have dreams. I wasn't dreaming. Not once.

This isn't, "I remember nothing". When I've dreamed yet cannot remember anything, the memory of the dream still remains afterwards in spite of the contents being missing: I have an awareness that I was dreaming even if I don't remember what about. So I basically 100% ALWAYS know when I've had a well and true, proper, dream.

This is flat-out no dreams, because of no real sleep. My mind god chaotic mumblings and jumblings. I talked to myself a lot. Self-reflected. Much of which felt honest even if I'm not sure about it myself. I felt my mes were speaking to each other, but with an absolute lack of harmony, lack of control.

There was just no focus. There was just no direction, but not in the aimless wandering way, pleasantly drifting from one thing to the next. In the "can't actually lock onto something soothing". I was tense. I was stressed. I couldn't relax. It just was all-around unpleasant.

I'd honestly have preferred a nightmare. Nightmares are, after all, dreams, just bad ones. They're still subconscious though. And last night was all too conscious. I never stopped thinking. I couldn't focus/direct my thoughts, yet my thoughts still were racing: the worst of both worlds. And now, after that, I've got no food or coffee. So today will be hard to endure.

So work wasn't actually bad in of itself, save for one annoyance.
At the times that people usually come there was basically a ghost town.
At the times that nobody should be around, we were at almost a two-guard ratio of mostly kids, with it being all families seemingly randomly choosing to be around at that one time.

So it was busy overall, but not bad. It was actually pleasant and relatively restful.
And all the other problems I mentioned, I've been dealing with today. I've eaten a lot (a lot a lot), I've slept a little amount, I fully believe I will sleep like a log tonight (I believe that when I go to bed I will conk out quickly) meaning no need to worry about being safe...

...Essentially I'm saying that my girlfriends' first reactions to reading what I wrote this morning would probably be to panic even after the day had finished and I'm telling them not to because while I thought​ the day would be bad, it actually ended up turning out to not be.

Whichever me is driving me right now, it is a blissful and content me because I am just right now overwhelmed with a feeling of calmness, serenity, of smoothness and of overall just joy, of happiness and contentment. This, in contrast to the me of last night. I don't have all the memories/experiences of last night. I remember what I did, and I can remember what emotions I had, but I can't remember the connections between them.

It's actually, ironically enough, a little bit like how I describe Black Ruby (Ruby's Dark Messiah/Forbidden Art #3 superform) compared to her normal form, actually. I blogged about that way way way long ago, and at the time while Ruby was in fact based off of me that particular bit I meant as fiction not fact. Yet apparently my subconscious is able to predict me better than I can because it's an apt description.

I'd have to track down my entry on the subject. But basically. I know what I did, more or less. I know most of what I thought. I definitely know the feelings I felt last night much to my horror (because I know exactly what those feelings are and they are feelings which go beyond emotions I know words for. Think something akin to bitterness mixed with rage, wrath, hatred, anger, a desire to lash out, loathing, contempt, and feeling slighted and I don't know any single emotion which is all of those combined: a pound to the heart, instinctively going into fight-or-flight and choosing the former--it's not a pleasant thing).

...But I can't connect the dots between the three. It both feels like something which is real, and something which I was imagining. It both feels like it's truth, and yet a lie. Because it both feels like it was me, and yet it wasn't me. So it'd be more accurate to say it was a me, it just wasn't a very pleasant me.

I'm not gonna lie and say that I'm a bed of roses right now (there's still lingering emotions from last night I call forth whenever I think about me in that mindset), but I do overall just have that feeling of...love. Love of the world. Love of the moment. (This is a biggie.) Love of the situation I'm in. Love of others. Extra love to my significant other who I am going to miss talking to. (I'd cheat and go talk to them while I'm at school, but while they would emotionally enjoy that, they would rationally not want me to do that and overall their rational side is stronger than their emotional side so I don't want to upset the rational side and as a result, I'll just have to resist.) And even love of myself.

A liiiiiittle bit saddened at me having failed to be better. My being that me of last night was something I was actively working to not do, so in that sense I slipped. I got in my head an idea that I had to do things even knowing that my mindset was worsening as the night progressed rather than getting better. (And not worsening due to degradation of cognitive function thanks to the hour. Just worsening on an emotional level.)

But while perhaps regretful or even remorseful. I'm not actually loathing myself for having gotten into that place. It's not what I wanted, it's something slightly shameful, it's something I might have a slight fear of, but it's not something which right now I'm really worried about. I'm just...in a zone right now. An emotionally mature, mentally mature, adult mother zone where I feel like I just know myself and know it is good.

Now. As for the rest of my day. I ended up waking up early. We're talking, 11ish early...and that's after the denial of me having been awake, so really 10ish. (This, in spite of me staying up until 4:30...and not really getting to sleep until almost five.) Yeah, I know. That's not much sleep. I took an hour nap though to help a little bit. And it's not my fault. I didn't set a timer. That's just the time my body woke me up.

Maybe outside stimulus played a part (I honestly don't remember), but that's the time I was woken up like it or not. Thaaaaaat...probably means I'll be exhausted by the end of the day, buthey. Today's the last day of college. A little tiredness is worth it. As is a little hunger, since all I had was the edible parts of three eggs for breakfast and that means I'll basically be going 8-10 hours without a meal. (God I hope my family makes me something even though I doubt they will because after being tired I'll probably be in no mood to be creative.)

I'll survive, is what I'm saying. It might be a bit unpleasant, but this is the last time, so no more worrying for me will be necessary. But anyway. I also got my car back today. The downsides? Bad radio. (My car has no antennae and thus has static everywhere and almost no actual music. The fix to the car did seem to make it better though weirdly enough.) Less storage space for stuff; awkward retrieval of stuff.

Not having a door which actually locks when my car is parked in a rather shady location. (Everett...isn't really the greatest of places. It's not really safe. You see lots of signs of it everywhere, from the type of people walking around to the state of things to the advertisements on boards to horror stories of the area.)

And having it be a smaller car means that in order to sit at the location I want to (basically all the way forward), my head rams straight into the top of the car, because the wagon is meant for either shorter people or for taller people to sit further back. (It apparently never occurred to people that a tall person might actually want less leg room, not more.) In contrast, the 4runner is big and bulky and thus it's basically impossible to run into that problem.

The upsides? Literally everything else; I think perhaps part of the reason I'm in such a calm mood today is simply because of just how smooth my ride was today. (Car driving can really set the tone for the day.) It's a little difficult to say if I was in a good mood and thus drove like it or if I drove in a way which created the good mood, though it doesn't matter in the end. (Honestly I think it might be a bit of both, in a self-feeding loop of sorts.)

The car handled beautifully. The steering was great, the acceleration/deceleration were the best they've been in a long time, the radio was clearer than it has been, it was just a calming feeling I suppose to be in that car and driving it in a relatively safe way.

Anyway. I'm at school and should be working.

My immediate to-do list:
-Make an MS Paint sketch of my cup
-Make the power point presentation for my project
-Finish the drawing for my project
-BS a way to make this seem harder than it was
-Maybe mention what I failed to do and what I learned from the failures
-Do all the parts for the quarter in a fraction of the original time and then do drawings of them
*Print the drawings I haven't already done
-Print the drawing for my project
-Ask my assistant instructor about maybe 3-D printing my project

...It's a lot to do but I have a lot of time, so. I'm not all too concerned.
Wish me luck! (I might need it since I am notoriously prone to distractions.)

Albeit, more in the projecting way. As in, basically feeling phantom limbs in a sense, in this case being phantom anatomy: things technically not there and yet which were so strongly felt today it was as IF they were there. (It's moments like these where it'd be a hilariously bad idea to do anything to disrupt that projection because it would in fact trigger a dysphoric episode to have been in this euphoric zone feeling as I should feel and then having reality oh-so-kindly reminding me that is not the case.)

Yesterday I felt like regardless of my birth biological sex and regardless of my appearance (which was androgynous leaning on heavily feminine), but today is a feeling of being inside the right body even though I technically am not. I just feel like I'm in the body of a woman today (even though I know that's not the body I have), and it is an awesome feeling. That's the feeling I look forward to eventually feeling every single day and having constantly non-stop.

Since eventually I will transition. Eventually I will get the surgery done. These are not wants. These are not desires. These are goals, goals I might not quite have the plan to accomplish, but things I can and will get because I do in fact need them.

I'm a girl. Always have been, always will be. When I look at my body, there's a duality within, both of rejection and acceptance: I can accept that is what my body is right now. I can accept that if I can't find a way to make my dreams come into reality it might be the body I am stuck with, trapped in, for life, and that I'd have to be okay with living in it, so to some extent I am.

...Yet that does nothing to change how it's not my body as I want it to be. I will never stop wanting a body matching my mind, until I have said body matching my mind. I could live a happy life without transitioning--but it'll never be as happy as a life where I do transition. Because being a woman and yet having a body which is not a woman's really sucks.

So that's why days where I can fully give off an aura, a projection, of being female in body as well as mind so effortlessly are so nice for me. They're glimpses into the future I wish to see come reality, and they are just about one of the best things I can have in my heart.

...The absolute best, of course, being...my significant other. I was thinking about them a lot, yesterday, last night, this morning, and the whole time I was just filled with love. A deep love, one where I was close to them the entire time. I want to be with them, to help them, to do whatever they need me to do. And it saddens me whenever I realize I can't help them, that they are on their own for their issues.

It's not in my nature to meddle with others. I don't pry, even if I'm curious, even if I want to know. And if they offer me the opportunity, asking me what I want to know, my mind draws blanks and in spite of me undoubtedly having things I'd love to know, I can't actually think of them at the time of the offer. And by the time I think of things which I do want details of, the opening has closed.

Maybe to them, the offer is an "always-open" thing, where they would answer a question no matter what time I asked it. Yet for me, I just can't ask unless I am given a specific opening, a specific prompt, TO ask. So mostly I don't. Mostly I just hold no interference in the lives of others...yet for them, for my significant other, it might be worth making an exception (them allowing it, of course). Because I want to be involved in their life, I want to be a part of their life, actively rather than passively. I wish I knew how to do that beyond this blog post though.

...At least as I write this. Obviously, by the time I post, I'll be at home, inevitably with more to say. But anyway, today I had a "D'oh!" moment when I realized I wore my work shoes rather than my workout shoes, which are two completely and entirely different things. (WELP THERE GOES MY RUNNING FOR THE DAY I GUESS I WON'T BE DOING FITNESS STUFF.)

Ah well. Still got plenty of walking done. (Enough where I am maybe even at risk of a blister forming on my feet. Owwww.) Not nearly as intense, but better than nothing, at the very least. Sometimes, plans just have that tendency to go awry.

...And speaking of plans for work, at some point soon enough for it to not inconvenience them, I need to inform my parents that the staff meeting this Saturday is a potluck, so they can go buy something for it. (What, I...well I don't have the slightest of clues. Food? Food sounds good.)

Why we're randomly having a potluck, I don't know. Whose idea it was to have food before going into the water (a hilariously bad idea for strenuous aquatic activity, i.e., the very thing we're going there for), also no clue. But oh well. It is what it is, I'll live, and I'll quite enjoy the food. (It just seems so odd to suddenly do.)

On that day, I will need to sadly leave earlier than normal: 30-60 minutes sooner ideally, because there's a bike race that day. (What time, dunno, but rather safe than sorry.) But with me aware of it in advance, I can plan accordingly and adjust things so where it's not a major inconvenience. (I'll probably be spending time with my S.O. so they might complain I have to leave so soon though. Sowwy.)

...On that note, that tangent's an excellent segue into a personal rant at my family. Last night, they wanted a mini-impromptu family night, watching Agents of Shield. No problem, right? That's a show we all want to watch. Of course. They either thought this idea up on the spot or otherwise failed to notify me of this in advance, expecting me to be ready to watch it in like five minutes.

This is not at all an unusual occurrence. What they fail to understand is that I am meticulous. I think out everything even if I don't look like I do. I absolutely need, need, something like six hours' warning in advance at absolute minimum (at least ideally), specifically because I plan my days out in advance.

Springing things on me last-minute (and thus, by extension, ruining my given plans) is a good way to sour my mood, as ideally I've got even more time than that: 12-24 hours if not even more is what I'd prefer to have ahead of the given time, so I can schedule things appropriately--clear my plate and leave nothing to be done during the given time.

When they ask me to do something...then they are asking me to do something during time I don't have cleared. Normally, this ends with me voicing discontent, but ultimately relenting. (And probably building the impression I'm not happy about watching the show. Half-true: I'm not happy, but it's for reasons unrelated to the show which is something I enjoy just...I enjoy it most of all when I am hyped up for it so springing me on it means I'm just in the wrong mood for it and thus I'm not going to enjoy it as much.)

This time, I bluntly told them "no", which I believe I vaguely alluded to yesterday.

The good from this: I genuinely, honestly feel that standing up for myself and not letting them roll over me is a step in the right direction, signifying my growth as an individual, because I'm letting it be known that, yes, I have desires that don't always coincide with theirs.

The bad from this: because I was distracted doing something else at the time, I didn't convey my motives FOR saying "no", so there may be consequences to me having done so. Among them, they may mistakenly believe my rejection equals an utter disinterest in the show, when that couldn't be further from the truth--I very much DO want to watch the show, I really do.

I just...want to watch it at a time where I'm not giving something else up TO watch it. This is ridiculously easy to do if I know about it in advance! I'll clear things up, making things happen all before, or in some cases, after the given time. My family doesn't know that I have a life.

They assume I'm wasting time, doing nothing, that I'm free--that what I've done isn't "real", and thus, it's meaningless, it holds no value, it's something which should be easy to give up. They think it an addiction and that there's nothing to be gained from it.

But I'm very much not doing that. The connections I've made have fundamentally changed my life on the most basic level, in ways I never would have known were possible otherwise. It was someone online who tipped me off to me being bipolar. It was people online who helped me realize I was trans. It was interacting with people online which made me realize why I had lost touch with people in person, that my autism meant I could be eloquent to them but awkward in-person.

I met my significant other online. And while we're working on slowly changing that, for the time being, we're still that way. (The closest we've come to each other is live webcam footage of one another without audio.) The feelings I feel for them are real, not lies, not me deluding myself. I've experienced me deluding myself (also online by the way since that never happened to me in real life), and I know what me deluding myself is--this isn't that.

All of it. It's real. It's me. I CAN be free...but I need to schedule it. Because otherwise I use every minute of every day. And I do make actual use of that time. I am doing things like interacting with people, both to give them advice and ask for advice. I do research on subjects, I try to figure out what I want to do and also how to make what I want to do become more realistic.

I connect with others. I may waste some time online, yeah, sure. A little bit here and there for games I do. But I mostly to be honest do those just as a hobby, as a personal thing for fun which is a small pastime, a small thing which takes less than an hour per day and whose main function is honestly to serve as a distraction from my true time. (It's much better for them to think I'm playing a game than it is for them to realize, say, I'm researching...oh, you know, something like GRS? Or whatever term you'd use.)

I can't communicate with them well in-person about these things. Aside from some of them being forbidden for obvious reasons (bigoted father), there's the fact that I have autism and I just don't communicate well especially when interrupted and my family doesn't know how to NOT interrupt. They don't know how to just listen. And for me to talk. That's what I need people to do. That's why this blog works. It's because I just talk. And then when I've finished. Then they can ask. Then they can launch inquiries. Then they can seek clarification.

But that never happens. I just. I function best when I can talk. And I can't talk to them because they just don't understand that the way I talk requires certain conditions they don't allow me to fulfill. They mean no ill will. It's not like they obsessively talk themselves. It's not like they're people impossible to get a word in with...for normal people. A normal person could communicate with them just fine.

Yet in spite of them knowing that I'm the way I am (all of them have at least a passing awareness of my autism even if only half know it explicitly by that name), they don't seem to understand, to realize, the natural consequence of what I am, being this.

I communicate in words, not speech.
The internet is where I do words.
So it's where I have gained my life experiences.
It is where I have lived my life.

It is the place where I know, where I feel at home.
And in a sense...it is the place I intend to stay with.
Because while to them, none of this is real...

...For me. They're honestly less real than that life.
In order to pursue my love, I already know that at some point it's quite probable I'll have to give up everything I have now in order to go to my significant other.
And yet...that is something I am fully prepared to do.

Because I know my feelings.
I know my own call.
I know myself.
I know how I work, and how I don't work, and I know what is and is not healthy for me.

Now me knowing what is/isn't healthy for me is no guarantee I'll actually BE healthy, admittedly.
I know spending an entire day on TVTropes is a bad idea and yet I am a trope addict.

But when I do those unhealthy things I know exactly what it is I am doing.

So I just.
I just wish there was a trust in them to trust me in knowing what I am doing is actually of value.

And going on a date with my significant other is something which I'd qualify as being important, and not a waste of time. I love them. Dearly and fully and truly from the bottom of my heart. Every day that love grows stronger and I experience it in different ways: different emotions I feel get tied to that singular emotion I have in my heart, and I know they are facets of love. Longing, happiness...the list is endlessly growing.

Emotions I know are tied to this one emotion which is new. And that new emotion which I've never experienced before can only be called love. Because I know the other emotions which are considered similar to love yet aren't really love. And this...isn't them. I well and truly. Utterly. Love a person.

No amount of sacrifices would be too much to spend time with them. <3

Why?
The omen.
That's why.

Which omen?
The omen.

I'm superstitious, remember?
Well the omen is encountering a Range Rover. Now granted. Right now I'm not really that much Ranger. She does tend to come forward when she's called on or when the mood fancies her to do so, so right now there's more of her than normal but I'm still not exactly her right now.

Butstill. Even when she's not actively a part of me. She's still a part of me. One of the mes. One of my selves, even if not the active self. So the superstition applies to all mes, not just to her. So when I see a Range Rover. I always think to shift the second R over: Ranger over. Thus, the bad omen.

And here's the thing.

I saw one in the parking lot for school.
But then I forgot about it by the time I was getting ready to leave--and the funniest of things happened.

I narrowly avoided a collision with a car. Somehow, I missed that they were coming, and accidentally cut them off. I imagine they had to slam on the brakes and honk at me. (I did back up and let them go in front of me, and I think they got the idea that, yes, I just genuinely didn't see them and I meant no ill will and wasn't trying to be a jerk.) So the omen was warning me of that, meaning I'm safe, right?

...Then I saw another Range Rover on my drive home.

Welp.

Unless said omen was warning me of the cop I saw on my private road (I doubt it), that means something terrible is going to happen to me and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I've taken as many preventative methods as I possibly can, yet something will inevitably end up happening. Which won't be pleasant.

Now granted. Said something could be a minor inconvenience in the grander scale of things. But all the same, I am doomed to encounter some form of bad luck today, so all I can really do is try to make it a small bad-luck thing rather than a big-bad-luck thing, and beyond that just brace for impact because dang​ does fate have a funny way of warning me about incoming disasters.

Probably on the way to dance, especially since most of my time prior to that will be spent asleep.

AAAAAUUHGH.

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

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

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

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

Lights are flickering, so I might not be able to have this entry go through. I don't know why we'd lose power here, since it's just rain, no wind, so nothing our area can't handle (this is actually ridiculously light...well, relatively speaking, anyway), but it's at least a possibility.

Still.

​I am writing this entry assuming I can make this as an entry. I promised a rather lengthy ramble, and I intend to deliver it, and then some. Let's start with the 'some'--today was a long day. A long, loooooooong day. From work to counseling to college. It was exhausting, it was tiring, and I am so ridiculously behind. (I really really really REALLY need to get updated on, for instance, Go Get  A Roomie.)

But as per the usual at work, I did do some productive thinking. In this case, about colors. When I was younger, I assigned blue as my favorite color arbitrarily, since it wasn't a favorite color of any of my siblings. Orange, similarly so, became my second-favorite color. Green, my brother's favorite, was my third, so there was overlap. Butstill. This was exactly that:

While for them, these favorite colors of theirs were favorite colors, for me the favorite colors were a lie. I didn't know why at the time. I did insist on them, I liked them well enough, I continued on with the color scheme for years, but all the same it was a facade, since those colors meant nothing more to me than others.

I similarly held a hatred of red, blue's opposite color. There was no logic behind it. There was no reason for it. There wasn't even any feeling, any belief. I just avoided it, entirely on an arbitrary basis: "because I could". Because it was the image I presented. Because it was what was expected of me.

It took me until much later to realize the truth. Specifically, I began exploring the aspects of the myriad of colors: all their many meanings, all the things associated with them, what they symbolize, what they invoke, how each has strengths, how each has personalities, how they are essentially a living canvas of life, all with their own stories to tell.

And that's when I realized that I didn't really have a favorite color. I loved them all equally. To this day I still insist on the blue as favorite. But my real feelings are that basically any color is awesome, all of them are great, and that my favorite will shift from one to another depending on my mood, depending on what's appropriate, depending on my feelings, since those different colors, they all mean something different and that's an awesome thing.

...But here's the really really really really interesting part.
As it turns out.
There's.
There's, uh.

Actually a color association for me.

Rather specifically: mastina from the get-go has had blue as her primary color. (Or should I say me? Because right now I'm very largely mastina.) It started with her using the little blue moglin Zorbak as her avatar, and never really went away. So. I really actually in a sense do have that. And funnily enough, white is also a color I heavily associate myself with.

In contrast, Ranger from the get-go has had red as her primary color. It started with her red dragon avatar, but it has transcended that. I associate Red Hood Rider with Ranger more than anything else (after all, largely, I believe it is Ranger who makes Ruby), and guess what Ruby's colors are? Yep. Red and black.

The full dynamic and history is far, far, far more intricate than that. It's not quite forming coherently in my mind right now, which is a shame, because this feels like it's a wondrous tale to share, about how it turns out that both versions are true.

In a sense, I really do have blue as my favorite.
At the same time, blue is not my favorite--me insisting it was, was actually a little bit of denial on my part I believe.
And that applies to all aspects of my nature.

I associated red not with masculinity, but femininity.
So when I was young, rejecting it was me pushing it away, in denial of who I am.

Of course, now I understand colors a lot more, though to some extent that's actually still true believe it or not. Ranger I feel is actually more feminine than I am as mastina. I'm definitely still a girl. But I'm more of an androgynous blurring-the-gender-lines girl. As in, still a transwoman. Very much so. But. Not very girly. (Except when I am.) The spectrum of genders is near-infinite, but I actually feel more fluid (and as a result, more neutral) as mastina than as Ranger, who is solidly on the girly side at all times.

It's really really complex, I wish I had the words to describe it better. I'm always a girl, no matter what. But some of my mes are more so than others, some are closer to neutral, some fluctuate, some are both closer to neutral and fluctuate, and some are just flat-out full-on girls, no masculinity at all.

Let's see...college...didn't go so well.
Well it wasn't terrible.
But I wracked my head trying to do the quiz I knew I needed to do.
And in spite of my best efforts.
I just couldn't.

I hit a wall.
I kinda...gave up.
I'm not sure if it was the exhaustion of the long day.
Or the panic.
Or the feeling of pressure.
Or the simple frustration of knowing I should know the material yet not knowing it.
Or just not having it click.
Or being forced to skim since it's literally 90 pages I had to read through.
Or what.

I just.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't connect things.
I couldn't make it work.

I did some of it.
I don't think I've done it well.

I don't know when it's due.
If it was due today I'll get docked 20% by turning it in late, on top of all the deductions for the things I'll get wrong.
It's just.
It's just hard.

And I don't know why.

I cruised through the actual part design.
I basically nailed everything else in class.
I even will get bonus points if I remember to send an email for them.
...It's just.
That quiz? It aint a quickie. 66 questions, nearly 200 points total in worth.
And I'm blowing it.

It's not a great feeling, and rather demotivating, and not something I really wanted to think about.
What I do want to think about?

Well, places that I'd like living at.
There are three basic locations where I want to live.

One is exactly where I am right now: maybe not this house, but this area. The Pacific Northwest. The reason? I love it here. I love all this area has to offer. I love the technology, I love the culture, I love the people, I love the environment. You know there's actually a ridiculously high number of my friends who're less than a 12 hour drive from where I live. British Columbia (usually Vancouver), Idaho's panhandle, Eastern Washington, Oregon (usually Portland), northern California (okay this might be pushing it a bit), and many places within my own Western Washington.

There's like. A ton of people here. With one exception (who I stupidly could contact yet haven't because I am a moron), I've never actually met any of them, for a myriad of reasons (namely, lack of established meetups, schedule conflicts on the few which do get established, and me being a huge freakin' coward), but they're HERE.

And the weather? The weather is what I like here. It's amazing. Plus the scenery is drop-dead gorgeous almost regardless of season, though I have a soft spot for Autumn. It's just. It's a place with a lot of supportive people. And lots of great stuff. And lots of connections. It's comfortable. It's safe. (Safe enough.) It's easy. What's not to love?

The second location I might want to live is in the United Kingdom--more specifically, nearby (but not actually in) London. Why there? Well for a start: it is also one of the locations most of my friends are in. I realize it's a whole country, meaning, not exactly a place where I can take a walk and go from one friend's house to another's.

...But all the same. In spite of that. There are in fact a bunch of friends in the UK, and quite a few around London. The other reason I'd want to go to the London area is that, by my understanding, the weather there is nigh-identical to Western Washington weather.

Why, I don't know. But my understanding is that it's essentially "mostly temperate, with occasional extreme heat or more commonly extreme cold; not usually too windy but windstorms can happen; stereotypically known for always being rainy yet not actually being that bad with plenty of sun, however, with that stereotype having existed for justifiable reasons given rain more often than not-rain".

That's my understanding of what it's like there, and that's literally what we have here. I believe this is actually backed by science, that the similarity between our two locations is actually well-known, and yet they exist for entirely different reasons. (Something to do with the seas I believe and the direction of the current, which makes the weather there be very weird compared to other places, yet that very weird is also in our state for different reasons.)

The third and final location where I'd love to live?
...Not like the other two.

Because that?
Would be Australia.
Now, incidentally.
The problems of living in London would be magnified tenfold in Australia: just because I have a ton of friends from there doesn't mean me also being there would mean we could meet. It's quite literally a full continent. Them being across the country is them being across a country, making them dead seriously the difference between living on the west coast of the US and living on the east coast: there's no ease of access whatsoever.

It also is rather...unusual, weather-wise. I mean. I'm sure if you looked hard enough. There'd be some place in Australia with weather comparable to my home. It is a full continent, and all that. Butstill. It's basically...all of an entirely foreign world.

Stereotypically, everything trying to kill you. (Whereas in Western Washington, nothing can kill you--except for a black widow which doesn't even exist except in areas of the state I'd never be in in the first place.) Also stereotypically, very very very very hot and arid: dry, desert, and with population largely focused in specific areas.

The reason Australia makes the list after all that, then, though, is quite simple:
The quality of the people there is just that worth it.

I mean.
I have friends in Canada, though that to me is basically just living in the US. (I know I know they're not the same but there's literally no discernible difference to me between a British Columbia native and a Washington native; the boarder means very little. It might be a different story if going to Ontario, but the same could be said of going to, saaaay, Texas.)

I have friends in many places across the world, another prominent place being Germany.

And the friends I have nearby, and in London, are really good friends.
And I have really good friends elsewhere in the country too.

But.
I'm thinking about it.
And I'm dead serious.
Across the years.
I've had my closest of my closest friends all be from Australia.
And that's what makes it be a place I'd be willing to move to.

The people there.
It'd be worth it.

And I know it'd make them so ridiculously happy.

Again, being on the same continent does not equal being able to see them all, butstill...
...One can dream, right?

​Anyway. I believe I owe an update on Civ 3 as well.

​The good news is: I found an alternative between being completely and totally utterly annihilated and holding out for beyond-impossible odds. 

The bad news is: I really really really really hate the alternative solution I have come up with for my problem.
Why?
Simple.

Because the name of this miracle?

Scorched earth tactics.

As in, "If I​ can't have Thessalonica, then nobody will!"

I tested it out once: it WORKED. Persia did not attack my two armies.
The problem is.
This is something I absolutely wanted to avoid.
When I faced a force I knew I couldn't hold off with my nearby elephant army, I ended up having to burn a formerly-Macedonian city to the ground, razing it, in order to keep the Persians from having it. (This city was the one north of Athens but south of Thessalonica.)

I really didn't want to be forced to do that again.

Especially given that it doesn't get rid of my problem--it only delays the problem.
I still would have 24 immortals nearby.
And then on top of the 24 immortals to the north...I have about an equal number to the south. (Well, less. On a bad turn, I counted about eight or so near there, but on the one time I did the scorched earth burn, I believe there were far more than that located there. Less than 24, but still of a rather large number. The total they have in immortals is I believe something like 36? In that range, at the very least.)

The problem with the Persians is that I can win any individual fight--even perfectly so. And I can replenish my forces faster than the Persians. I can build units almost every turn. I can attack multiple times per turn, killing more units than they can field.

My two normal armies can attack at least once a turn (if they have to traverse terrain), sometimes twice a turn.
My elephant army, twice a turn (if they have to traverse terrain), sometimes three times a turn.

So that's anywhere from 4-6 dead immortals per turn. This, plus my other units slowly but surely killing one after another immortal and then retreating out of range. (At least, for the most part.) The thing is. The Persians are just. Too dang close. With too dang many. For me to actually hold the line.

I can win the battle by atrophy. By denying them land, I can slowly but surely wear them out. Like I said. I can make units almost every turn. These units don't die easily, getting to live. (Albeit, often with only one health.) Meanwhile, I'm killing the Persians time and time again. It's just. It's a matter of scale. How many turns will it take me to wipe out their force?

I mean.

I have a southern offensive. In that field, I hold a distinct advantage.
I will claim city after city there, albeit me needing to give my units some rest at the moment.

But.
With the Persians where they're are.
We're looking at me essentially abandoning in addition to Thessalonica at least one, maybe up to three cities, all of which are conquests from Macedon I didn't want to ever lose. (Among them, I believe it's called Ambrasia? Would have to have the game up to check the names, but it's a city with a very good location.)

Cities with a lot of established buildings. Cities with a lot of established history. And I'd be burning them to the ground, in order to stop the Persian offensive.

You can understand why I am hesitant to employ this tactic, yes? After all...if I held Thessalonica, killing off all their 25 units in one stroke. (Or even 24 of said 25, or even 23 of said 25.) Then I'd keep all my ground, and be able to singlehandedly stop the offensive in one stroke. One decisive move, one decisive battle. Their strength would be gone.

And if I raze Thessalonica. Then I maybe, just maybe, slow the Persians down enough for me to wipe them out bit by bit. But also quite possibly very realistically end up having to sacrifice more than just Thessalonica. More than just the city I literally just as of that turn claimed. I might end up having to sacrifice cities I've held for ages.

And thus, the dilemma.

Hold on for a miracle.
Or make a tough sacrifice which might not even give me the results I want.

It's kinda sad that those are the two options I have, since the original was "let myself be pummeled into mush" or "hold out for a miracle", and now I'm substituting the first for the third of "hurt myself to not get badly hurt".

It's something I'll have to sleep on.
(Speaking of which, sleep's something I will be needing. Quite a bit of, considering I get up tomorrow early for class. And have Tae Kwon Do that afternoon, so.)

So there's still some lingering resentment hanging about, but for the most part, it's gone. Right now, I feel full of energy and life. I feel like I'm free to live my life right now--to love myself and maybe even others. I just feel...happy again. Content. Fulfilled. I feel like I'm back to being a me who is able to function, who can fulfill dreams.

Sorry to worry those that tend to worry. I feel like I had more to say (I kinda thought I had like ten paragraphs, not one), but whatever extra words I had have faded. I think the most important concepts got conveyed, though. I think I can make the most of life right now. And that's all I can really ask for.

My mind is scattered. Heck. Even my dreams were fractured last night. Last night, it wasn't my usual "bunch of dreams with me remembering none". And it wasn't "shift between dreams using dream logic". It was quite literally attempts at dreaming falling apart, breaking into pieces, fragmenting over and over and over again.

I did eventually manage one dream about power rangers which contained an interesting idea (the lead Ranger was permanently partially paralyzed in an accident, having been a star athlete prior to then; when a Ranger, he has that gift back), along with some potentially-interesting plotlines (his bloodline has a gene which makes them incredibly receptive to becoming Rangers, and many of his ancestors filled his role--also included? His baby brother, as in, literally a baby, an infant less than a year old, who through the morphing process becomes an adult), along with some rehashes. (One Ranger was essentially Tommy Oliver in his role of former-lead-Ranger-turned-supporting-Ranger. Along with the aforementioned Ranger-induced age-up.)

It also featured a mechanic where past Rangers would, in a mirror reflection, if going through the morph sequence, still give off a phantom image of their prior life as one--so long as the morphing grid is functional, at least. And a character who was of questionable appearance, looking and sounding like a villain, yet who had a deep connection to the Ranger's morphs and knew all about every aspect of it and  was in fact on their side.

But otherwise. That should have felt like it was at least an hour in real life for dream-time.
...It felt like less than half that. That's not a very restful dream. That's a scraped-together-at-the-last-minute dream. My subconscious desperately trying to scrounge together something coherent in a time I am otherwise incoherent.

Because right now I am a mess. I felt better going into last night, but it returned with a vengeance this morning. Thoughts like, "I don't wanna be here". "I don't want to be this me". "I want to be mastina again" and the like, flooding me. Not suicidal thoughts, mind you. Just. Thoughts of me not wanting to be the one in control, for someone else to take over. Feelings that I suck, that I'm not good, the like.

I just don't want them. Yet I can't stop them. They're bombarding me constantly. Is this really the way I view myself? Because I don't want to be in denial...but I also really really really don't want to think this way. After all. To me. To some extent: "Your mind makes it real". As in. Things which aren't true can be made true if we believe them to be true. So the happy me. The me who is worth being.

That's the me I want to be. Even if it's a me who isn't fully in-touch with reality, I don't care--it's a me who can shape reality. The me that I am now might theoretically have that power, but any change to reality I can think of would not be for the better.

I just. I want to be someone else right now. I mean. I'm going to be Bree no matter what. But I want to be a different Bree. The memories, the emotions, the feelings I'm having, they're all so steeped in negativity. My past failures all in my mind. My emotions, up on the surface.

I'm just. I'm in pain. Deep, deep pain. Pain which makes me lash out, know I'm lashing out, and hate myself even more for having lashed out because I want to be that better person, I WANT to inspire others, I WANT to do well, I WANT to create things (also noteworthy is that I've thought of lots of story stuff recently in the last 12 hours or so, far more than normal), yet I know that as I am right now, I can't.

I'm like a living, breathing stereotype right now. Of the insufferable artistic savant: someone either far too in-touch with reality or far too divorced from it, maybe somehow both at the same time as contradictory as that sounds. Who can create great things from their experiences, from their pain, from their suffering, as a coping mechanism for all their myriad of failures.

A creature filled with self-doubt, self-loathing, and just a general desire to be better, to be something else, and thus the escape to other worlds, other realms, mostly of my own creation. I'm in weak, vulnerable child mode right now. Not strong, confident adult mode.

I want things to go right.
I want things to go better.
But I don't know how to stop my destruction.
Other than to just. Let it out. Vent it. Explain. And receive support. Because I know support helps me, it did last night.
I mean. I'd rather be the one giving support. I hate needing it. I hate that I'm a flawed human being who sucks with all my myriad of flaws. I want to be someone who can be a positive influence. I want to be a role model. I want to be a shining beacon of humanity, all the better parts of it. I want to show people they can be stronger than they think they are. I want to be a leader by example. I want others to follow in my footsteps, be inspired by what I've done, what I do, and see the better aspects of my techniques, my teachings, incorporating it into their own ways.

That's who I want to be.
And I know that the me I am right now is a miserable failure at most of them. The closest I get to success is that I recognize these faults and want to correct them, want to better them, can be open and honest about their existence. But even there I lie a lot, especially to myself but also to others.

Me as I can be. Me on a good day. Me when I don't suck. The me I'm not right now but was a couple days ago. That me? That me I think can do it. That me I know can give support. That me I know can inspire others. That me I know tells people they are better than they think they are. But this me? Not so much. Which is one reason why I really want to be...not the current me.

I think I've identified some of the upsides of the current me--and thus, I know why I have this side within myself. But right now. I don't want it. I don't want those things. I want the other things. So I want to change, to be the other side. Because this side is not what I feel I need right now. This side, maybe I'd need it at a different time. But said different time would be not right now.

I'm sorry. I really don't like to have such a negative rant. I should've put the power rangers stuff here at the bottom, to end on a high note. I like the positive. But I can't muster it right now. I wish I could.