hamburgerbasket

I could be super dramatic and write a whole new dramatic post or whatever. But I kind of just like writing random things on my Dreamwidth for me to look over later so basically...2024 has been stupid and weird and bad? and good?? and baaaad?? but also kinda good?

Some highlights (and lowlights)

-My grandma (who I am/was very close to) died. It was very upsetting.

-Discovered that my house was full of black mold.

-Was briefly kinda homeless because yeah...mold.

-Had an exposed nerve in my mouth for all of this. (It is fixed now)

-Got DiVORCED.(We're still close friends but YEAH, being broken up with a few weeks shy of being together for 10 years on top of everything else that was happening was...not great.)

-Realized I'm...very into men actually?? (Gay?!?!)

-The mold got fixed, I live on my own with my dog and my cat now.
-My new neighbor is lovely.

-My little sister got married.

-Medically I am finally actually doing good. ( Back on Testosterone, down a bunch of weight, blood pressure is finally under control..wild how constant stress and trauma really fucks your body up.)

-I love my friends.

-I am decorating my own space and learning new things about myself.

-I guess that's what a hard year is supposed to do, teach you things.

I can't wait to finally have my house back in order after almost a year (just gotta get my new floor in and the ceiling repainted and it will finally be finished!!) I just want a place that I can continue to heal myself and read and make art and all that good stuff. I haven't had that in a very long time. I guess it's good to finally write it all out. So I can't make promises to myself that I will write more for myself. But journaling is good, at least that's what my therapist tells me. So for now I am writing things for myself. Sometimes I got to use a blog as a stream of consciousness.

See ya later,

Oh man I've already bungled the "Trying to write a journal entry every Sunday" thing now haven't I??

Been spending a lot of time with family again. It's weird that they are all in the same place right now (My brother lived overseas for the last 5+ years and my mom lives about 8 hours away but has been staying down here more) So in a way it kind of feels like back in the day when everyone was here. It's very strange (nice, but strange.)

I'm currently trying to kill a little time while things are slow at work. I love having a work from home job where they don't expect me to be 100% present at all times. It's so refreshing and nice. Also all of my coworkers are super nice and understanding. (Love working with a bunch of neurodivergent queers who actually meet people where they are at and like GET it.) Having to pretend to be busy when stuff is NOT busy is the most mind game bullshit ever and has really done a number on my brain over the past decade. I'm working on healing it and hopefully this place helps me do that.

Now that I'm not trying to figure out how to use art as a way to survive, I want to get back to developing characters for fun. I miss having fun. I hate that I ever had to try to think of art as a job. Art as a job is soul crushing and sucks shit. I can't even imagine how bad it is now with the rise of AI and all that bullshit. All of my friends in the industry we studied are spread so thing right now and I HATE that for them!! They deserve the world and for the thing they love to be able to support them in being alive.

Anyway, I'll leave that here. It's back to work time. (Or more accurately, time to go on lunch break and then see how many emails come in right when I'm actually not on the clock anymore lol)

Oh no, I accidentally blacked out and wrote a 1000 word essay about wizard game and my dumb feelings about it.

TL;DR: Harry Potter stuff makes me sad because I actually really loved the franchise. People are asking you to simply not spend 60$. I’m not saying the game is bad, just don’t act totally shocked when people look a little weary of you afterward, and know that that is not coming from nowhere.

The thing that sucks personally about Hogwarts Legacy for me like...I -wasn't- one of those "Read another book" people.

Harry Potter WAS very important to me. I was 8 when it came out, it was a household favorite thing. Some of my fondest memories are from summer afternoons laying on the backyard trampoline while my mom read these books to my little brother and I. (Literally my whole 20th birthday (2011) was centered around traveling across the country to go to Universal with my mom and brother so we could go to Wizarding World!!)

I bonded so much with so many of my best friends over this series. I was the cringey teenager on roleplay forums making my own ocs (that was one of the reasons I got on the internet back in the early 2000s!!!) It WAS very formative in a lot of little things in my life. the idea of being able to make your own oc and wander around the castle and the wizarding world was everything I would have wanted! (I also spent a lot of my teen/early 20s being real gay about the Marauders lmao, I still stand by the idea that the fandom made content is miles better than the source material and also I just like animal bros and dog boyfriends.)

I also happen to be a trans person. I am a transgender man who transitioned later in life. I grew up as a girl, and unlike some I still connect and look fondly on my girlhood. I was a little girl who later in life realized I was a man and would be more comfortable as a man. (This is not up for debate, do not try to debate -my- identity with -me-.) I wasn't just some tomboy who got "preyed on by the predatory transes" or whatever the hell the gender criticals are on about. Majority of my friend group are OTHER trans people (some of which I have known since childhood who later in life found out they were trans! It's almost like kids who are inherently queer are drawn to each other and look out for each other because no one else was or would! Wild concept I know!) A lot of us WERE really into Harry Potter and bonded over this world.

So when all of JKs shit came to light it hurt a LOT. It continued to hurt a lot as she continues to up the ante and outdo herself in her self-imposed competition punching downward to be the worst kind of person she can be. (This was not my first rodeo with this though lol I was a gay kid who was really into Enders Game and Orson Scott Card can eat my whole ass. JK is just on such a HUGE public scale.) It's not like we're -all- out here like "Well this franchise has always sucked anyway!" Some people are, but not all of us. Some of us are coming from a place of old fondness and betrayal. Sometimes growing up is realizing that the people who make the things you loved are terrible people, who you can't in good conscious support anymore. Especially when the creator of the franchise DOES get money from this game and HAS stated that she will be sending financial support to orgs whose entire existence is to cause harm to people like you and your friends. (Also when the creator of the thing is totally comfortable with sending her deranged gigantic following after random trans people online. Which at this point in time DOES effect people in their everyday life, what year do you live in where you think it doesn’t? Internet world and the real world are more blended than ever. There is no simple “just log off” when everything in “real life” has been pushed to blend with being online.)

So I don't know man, spend your 60 dollars. Play your game. I have seen playthrough stuff and I'm not going to lie it DOES look fun. (The castle stuff and aesthetics are actually really pretty, and the characters are very nice looking) Just don't throw a fit when your trans friends get upset and are weary around you going forward. It shows that your allyship is performative. When your friends simply ask you -not- to spend 60 dollars? that's just simply asking too much apparently. Just play your game and shut up, don't sit here and seek validation from the people who are reasonably upset about it.

(And honestly your Jewish friends, but as a non-Jew I am not going to comment on this game and universes antisemitism because that is simply not my place to talk. Just know that it IS there and it’s surprisingly blatant. There are plenty of articles and posts from Jewish people about how messed up the whole goblin thing is, and I implore you to seek those out and -actually- listen.)

I don't know what this is. I don't know why I wrote this. I just want people to know that it's not just people hating on a thing you like. I loved the thing too. The thing was formative to me, the thing still holds a dull aching place in my heart. A fondness that will probably never leave me.

I'm not judging you for loving a franchise. I'm just sad that people asking you to literally do -nothing-, just asking you to save your 60 bucks, the easiest thing you can do? Well, that is simply asking too much for some people, apparently.

That's it, that's my rant. Have a good day.

I don't want to jinx it by speaking it outloud, so I am going to my online journal that doesn't really get read. My wife's mom is considering buying a crystal store that wife and I could live out of and work out of (her parents are retired and their current house is almost paid off). It's secluded and on the coast and I will literally cry from happiness if it actually happens. Not trying to get my hopes up, but it is a fun little thought if it actually does happen.

Lol, once again I am using a different keyboard to write out an entry on here. This time is for a dumber and more infuriating reason.

I got laid off from my office job today. So I am using the keyboard from my desk at work on my personal computer now...I can't say I wasn't able to see this coming. I'm a receptionist for a mortgage company, and if anyone has noticed, the housing market has been scary bad. So it was pretty easy to guess that lay offs were coming. The only reason this one sucks so bad is that it's hilariously getting laid off over labor day, AND it happened 2 days before my birthday. Like?? Lol thaaaaanks. Happy birthday to meeeee.

I'm obviously upset and scared and don't really know what's going to be happening in the future. Life changes scare me, as they always have, but I'm hoping that this will be a good change? The thing I liked about my job was consistency, but in a way that was getting me stuck in a rut. Maybe this will force me to get out of my comfort zone and get out of that rut and see people again? I've missed people over the last few years. If I was not working I was isolating at home because of pandemic stuff...So I've basically seen the same few people for the last 3 years almost every day.

I want to get back to a career adjacent to the arts. That's what I went to school for and that's what I do when I'm not answering phones or pushing paper around an office. Or maybe go back to school finally? But the question with that is if I would try to go in for another art degree route or try -FINALLY- to get more into death work adjacent stuff? If I hadn't gone to art school when I was fresh out of high school, I was planning on going into the mortuary and funeral services route. So I don't know maybe try with that again??

Or maybe finally start that webcomic that I have been working on for A LITERAL DECADE. It's all written out and stuff, I just need to sit down and do all the art and website building and promotion and stuff but man I just...I don't know. It will never be as perfect as I want it, but I just have to learn to accept it.

I know that I keep saying "I don't know." But I genuinely don't...I'm just unsure about everything. I used to feel like I had a path with goals that I wanted to achieve and then they kind of just got all jumbled up and out of my reach.

We'll figure it out.

We gotta figure it out.

I'm tired of having to be on top of things?? I know saying "I'm done adulting" is very,,,Target in 2016 but like DAMN DUDE.

I don't know, tired of having to take care of things and people. Tired of constantly having to fix things or pay for things. Or worry about how to make money to survive. I don't know. Maybe I just want to be a kid again? Bro idk

Having a weird ass night and a weird ass time in a weird ass time period.

I am currently trying to, I don't know?? Connect? With the person I was 10 or so years ago. So I guess this counts. I am currently on my bed, alone in the dark, typing some random journal on a random website with my laptop on my lap. It's been awhile since I've just let myself be alone. I should really just let myself actually do that. So I guess that's why I'm back here...writing random journal entries.

I could do another entry about death...there's been another one, and this one hits the deepest so far. A professor I had in art school, who was basically a dad to all of us in the program, passed away this week. It's gutting, and it sucks, and I miss him so much. He made all of us have such an appreciation for art and was one of the most supportive presences I have ever had the sheer luck to have in my life. I'll miss him, and thank him forever. I wouldn't have the passion I have for drawing without encouragement from him, and I am FAR from the only one who feels this way about him. I want to make good things, authentic things, true to myself things...and he would have pushed that feeling so hard. I'll miss him forever.

10 years is such a long time, but at the same time it feels like just a blink. A bizarre, confusing, blink.

Harry Potter content awakens such a weird emotion in me at this point LOL;; I see old communities and get this twinge of nostalgia and get happy for old times on the internet and in fandoms.

But then I instantly remember that the person who made that world that I spent so much time in throughout my life. The person who made the world I bonded so hard with friends and family members with??? Actively harms and hates the kind of person I am specifically? It sucks, and it's hard??

The "Read another book" people get really annoying when it's like? Dude?? I was a lonely sad queer kid who didn't realize he was trans while he was reading them when I was a literal child in the early 2000's. Like I DID read other books lol. People can like more than one thing at the same time, or have things they like go dormant in your brain for awhile. It's not like everyone who is upset ONLY ever read HP?

Like damn dude.

Idk, I felt the need to ramble about something and had been clicking random communities and kept seeing a bunch of HP ones and getting REAL NOSTALGIC for the early 2000s haha. I'm just trying to make a habit of journaling things out. Trying to do one every Sunday or so, like a restart to the week before I have to go into work and try not to scream about every human I see. I used to do that on LJ when I was in high school, like every sunday I would just ramble about whatever while I frantically try and cram a little bit of freedom time in before I have to go to bed and face Monday.

I'm finally getting back on testosterone and antidepressants. It's been over a year since I kind of quit everything cold turkey because getting to my doctor during the whole pandemic thing was?? Really difficult. I'm excited for muscle mass to come back, and would be GREAT if my voice dropped again (doubtful but oh man would be wonderful!!)

Also just...anything to make me function again and not just? freak the fuck out over every little thing? Being on antidepressants isn't just a magical "I'm not sad anymore" it's more like? It makes the dumb bullshit my brain does easier to sort thru? not feeling like the inside of my head is just "Loud dial-up sounds followed by a fax tone." I like this better than therapy because every therapist I've ever had (who didn't -actively- make me worse?) just seemed really bored and would hand me the same 2 or 3 pamphlets like? Thanks lmao, I know how to do breathing exercises and grounding techniques man, been mentally ill my whole life, lady, cool pamphlet tho.


Idk, medical stuff,,,hopefully will feel back to my "Good normal" soon. I miss that, I want that back for me.


Anyway, happy pride, I'm getting back on testosterone white boy summer starts NOW. >:U

I learned that a friend I had for a brief time in college passed away this week due to cancer. That's 3 friend deaths in just this year...I'm so tired.

The thing that is messing me up the most about this one, is thinking about the last time I saw him. The last time I hung out with him was with another friend, who died about 5 years ago. That's just an entire memory with 2 dead friends,,,and it fucks me up so hard. They're people who probably didn't even remember me, our times were so brief, and I'm easily forgettable...But however brief, their kindness had an impact on me, and knowing they're not around to show that to others hurts.

The last time I saw them both, was the year my childhood friend died. I think about Caity all the time. A friend who encouraged my weirdness, and a friend who deserved so much better. She was sick for so long, she died the day before I came home for Christmas break in my sophomore year of college. My wife says that Caity knew I was coming and knew I wanted to see her, and that Caity had been happy for that. She says this to comfort me, but I still feel like I let her down.

I'm not even 30 yet, I don't have any business having this many dead friends. None of the 3 mentioned above got to make it to 30. All 3 of them were incredibly talented and bright people, and they didn't get to continue doing the things they loved. There's just this huge rift where these people were. That eats at me.