save your sanity for later.

erika in meat space:

frankly, I think doing shit like slapping Trav on the ass and telling him to keep looking pretty 'cause math isn't his strong suit is HILARIOUS.

For example, earlier he was complaining that his legs were still sore today from doing his new workout routine yesterday, and I said 'but think about how much I'll enjoy looking at your ass!'

Then I said, 'if it makes you feel better I'll pick up Teyla's poop (we were on a walk because I've dragged him into playing Wizards Unite, aka Pokemon Go for Harry Potter, drop your code in the comments if you want) and then he said

'Nah, I can still bend from the waist' and I said,
'no no no, that's indecorous, think about all the eyes that'll be on your butt if you do that!'

(I find stuff like that the funniest when it's something that someone has actually said to me and all of those are things people have said. Subversion of heterosexism is FUCKING HILARIOUS.)

Also, there are 3 types of people in my life when I say this kind of thing: my friends of color who laugh their asses off,
friends who were born with disadvantages but eventually educated themselves past their community to see the truth
and then there's the other white people who tell me I'm being mean to Travis.

Somewhere I picked up the meme that the 2016 election, Facebook and fake news are the crisis points directing us to implement ethics in computer science, just as the atomic bomb was a crisis point for physics and ethics in psychiatry have ...somewhat advanced since phrenology.

I spent age 8-28 on the computer. Not sure it was entirely a waste of time, yet now my day to day life is so dramatically different and I'm so much happier!

I cook. I might spend hours a day walking around, sitting on park benches, hours having conversations with and actually seeing other people face to face. On a technology heavy day, I actually boot up my laptop and might spend 2 hours on the computer. This happens...twice a week maybe.

Before now, before California, before being my own best friend and adulthood and functional living, I lived with my whole family but all I remember is being alone, constantly. I needed to be. Fake-busy chain-smoking cigarettes, up all night mainlining sodas to farm karma, typing furiously, electronic faux-Diogenes looking everywhere for an honest man. If I wasn't asleep, I stared through the Internet window into a life I believed I couldn't lead, from the wreckage I was too scared to leave.

I don't need the Internet to save me anymore. I save me. I keep me Okay. No matter where I am, whether other people like me or not, if I'm broke or flush, if I'm happy or sad, I'm the adult here.

Turns out I'm not that invested in meaningless internet points. When I was sad, when I was denying my own agency, that kind of thing meant more. I didn't see the grey areas where growth could be, too busy soaking up the pictures I could see clearly for the first time in black & white.

Lifestyle's different where I live now. Levels of acceptance in the community at large too—I feel like I fit in. Now, if I need entertainment, I head to the off-leash dog beach. Usually the ocean can NEARLY drown out my beagle running around baying her head off at everyone.

(I walk around not introducing myself but instead my delightful dog.
She bays, bays, runs up and runs away
then I say, 'hello, I see you met my dog Teyla,
you should check your bags if you used to have food in there,
yes she's adorable, she's 12 actually,
oh right well
running around and getting into trouble keeps her young.'

The reaction she gets from other dogs makes me wonder if she has the doggie equivalent of autism like me—universally even other hounds go "wuuuuuuh so loud" and kinda walk away.)

I'm glad I have this journal and the friends I made here and through my online activities, don't get me wrong! Balance is what I'm getting closer to, is the thing, and that's why I'm starting to flourish.

(I'm over ignorance; I don't need to take care of your feelings anymore. Dropped the rope already.)

Something was poking me when I sat down.

It was a sharpie.

Where did it come from? I genuinely do not know why I would want to have a sharpie in my pocket today.

More disturbingly, I vaguely recall picking it up and thinking "no reason to carry this around!"