i keep on looking for something to do. something that only i can do, and something that will help people.
something of significance.
and i find nothing.
I've been reading through Elden Ring lore and the endings. I think the Frenzied Flame ending is the true one. The vanilla (Fracture) ending is like linking the flame in Dark Souls—a theme of cycle and (if you interpret it so) stagnation. The three runes serve as something of parallels to each other. Gold Mask may have been right in the sense that Order must be mended... but the Greater Will interfering with Marika and trying to enforce order is arguably what got everyone into the mess in the first place. Soon enough, similar problems will arise. It's the same story with the Duskborn ending—there's still suffering and birth, just without the Erdtree absorbing people's souls. The Despair ending isn't a blessing because souls can never die—they just eternally rot away (and the Omen twins don't look very happy). Essentially the runes have this theme of continuing the ages, in some form... and this is evidenced by the continuing existence of the Erdtree. It hasn't been striken down, just... repurposed. If souls can't die, we're back at the original point of the story: people not being able to die because Marika took that part of the death rune.
The Stars/Ranni ending feels off—after all, the Greater Will accepted the relationship between Radagon and Rennala, and this draws a parallel between the sun and the moon, two traditionally complementary forces. There's also the link between sorcery and faith. You could argue that Radagon meant to break Rennala's heart from the beginning, knowing this would destroy the Carian domain, but that doesn't explain how they married so... easily, without any ill effects. It also doesn't prove that Ranni doesn't have her own intentions, with her own agenda... she merely opposes this vague "Order". The Outer Gods are shrouded in mystery and the 'stars' aren't explained (if Radahn could defeat them, are they really that powerful?). In the end, the connection between the moon-guide and destiny seems too contradictory to Ranni's claims of a fateless world.
I think a theme in the Souls series is that there is no "good ending". There's just pain and suffering, and the Outer Gods are a bit of a squabbling bunch who can't even converse with the Fingers quickly, let alone organise a world where all is fair and good. Some compare the other endings to nihilism... and that's where the Frenzied Flame ending comes in. The true ending, where everybody dies a peaceful death. The Erdtree is finally destroyed and Malika killed (which doesn't happen in other endings), and the lack of an ending monologue indicates that nothing happens after this. It isn't really satisfying given that the three fingers and the One Great are at least comparable to the two fingers and the "Great X" Outer Gods... but it does feel like a greater purpose than the other endings.
I also think that the Melina version of the Frenzied Flame ending can be interpreted as a mercy, rather than a threat. Following from the theme of death as salvation (because those that try to achieve immortality inevitably fail, e.g., those that try to become dragons). Melina is trying to save you from being burned eternally by the flame... and grant you the prophecy ("the one who walks alongside flame, shall one day meet the road of Destined Death"). Not the one being bathed in flame (her)—the one who walks alongside flame, you. if she doesn't sacrifice herself before you get locked in, then the world survives and things don't work out.
Of course, this contradicts what she directly says about not wanting the world to be engulfed in flame... but perhaps that's her human nature speaking? There's also the whole butterfly and eyes motif with her, and perhaps her self-sacrifice is what allows the vanilla Frenzied Flame ending to exist.
Or maybe this whole theorizing destroys the magic of the Souls games... that, just as someone put it with Lain, perhaps the beauty of the story comes from not trying to *mean* something... just existing, without forcing a morality onto the reader.
I've been reading "Are You Still In Pain?", a CYOA by stageplay. It's probably the most well-written CYOA I've seen. It has the trivial aspects of being grammatically organised, and the author utilises space and minimalism very well to slow the pacing. This makes the reader perceive more the mystery of it, because they aren't being fed large paragraphs of text... they're free and indeed encouraged to review little word choices the author makes, and learn more about the story. The author executes this very well because they have a deep understanding of the English language.
But more than that - I've been wondering what everything means.
I was going to say more, but I realised my point was redundant.
my current strat for CYOAs is as follows: the ability that is worded to have the most potential—say, a poorly defined element like dreaming or life, or simply something like nigh-omniscience, an opportunity to see the deeper story. because i consider omnipotence to be the end goal of the adventure, and those options are the ones that get closest to it. i also might pick absolute immortality/invulnerability such that death is impossible and controlled capture (such that the capturer can exercise indefinite control over the victim and harm or force information out of the victim) is also impossible. if those aren't available i take anything related to intelligence.
otherwise i mark the cyoa as unfair and move on. ;-;
Someone once remarked to me that our power fantasies say more about who we are than the decisions we make. I've been thinking about that recently. Every time I go into a CYOA I pick the one that increases intelligence.
i'm not good at words. it's hard enough for me to be accurate and convey meaning in conversations, where others can do so very easily.
and i'm not good at art, either. grasping the spatial stuff and making accurate lines just isn't super fun for me.
i wish i had a good body, but we all know how that one went.
not to mention my voice.
so yeah.
i'm not smart. i have "potential" but i'm too stupid to utilise that. sob.
i haven't felt awake in a very long time.
sometimes i feel i've never been awake.
remind me never to order domino's pizza again. it's disgusting. (eating four large pizzas in a week because you're too lazy to cook will do that to you.)
anyway, yeah. time is weird. i keep dreaming about all the things i could do—to make money or be helpful or just do anything at all. and then i wonder who i've become, obsessed with presenting myself and succeeding in a game others (or, if you prefer, the impersonal laws of the universe) have set for me.
i forget i have this site most of the time. it's hard enough for me to talk to people who actually reach out.
Happy new year, guys. With that, I think I should re-introduce myself.
I'm Elk. I'm in my mid-twenties. I live alone in a small apartment, and work in the PR/marketing division of a generic company. I have a complicated history of trauma and I occasionally have stress that peaks in episodes. I like looking at birds, talking about fashion, and cooking. I'm not much of an artist or musician, but I write sometimes.
I met somebody called Eclipse. Just on the street. Feeling disconnected. But we have plans. Mm... plans, yeah.
They likely won't come to fruition because of Murphy, of course. But it's still nice to feel like this.
Time is weird for me. It's simultaneously short—hours pass in the blink of an eye and I can't remember anything; but simultaneously long—I'm waiting for pizza and ten minutes takes forever.
I feel I should be doing something, but I'm not. It isn't a good feeling.
i wonder where all my bravado from the first entry went. my ability to just... explain things.
i'm not even mouthing the words anymore. [dogleg reference.]
unbearably lonely.
insert text here. whatever you want to see. i'm aware people judge me for my every move. not that i dislike it—in a sense it's "fair". but i'm thinking about how to perceive the idea of honesty.
please excuse that weird suicide article. i wanted to show off my intelligence and ended up saying nothing of value.
i'm feeling more social. hence this random post out of nowhere. soon enough i'll feel awful again. wish me luck, guys!! :)
anyway. a late merry christmas to y'all, if anybody even reads this.
thinking about getting a mahito body pillow.
see? i am capable of saying something unique and unexpected after all! (i feel like the jjk fans are all now looking at me, but whatevs~) ehehehehehehehe
mood swings ftw. zoom zoom.
my younger friend messaged me asking about food safety. which i guess feels nice. but honestly, i'm just a slightly quicker way than google's algorithm. that's all there is to it.
anyway. apparently she found ice in their minced pork, which they were storing in the fridge. now, the fridge is usually maintained at around two to four degrees celsius, and ice, as you know, freezes at zero. this suggests that one of their dorm-mates put the pork in the freezer. the label says to thoroughly defrost and not refreeze... and we don't know if the room-mate just casually took it in and out of the freezer for some extra space, whenever it suited them. so i told her not to eat it. at least their other foods seem fine.
i've been thinking about something i said. in my first entry, which my follower quoted, i wrote that i hope nobody reads this. and i think that when we say "everyone", we sort of mean a vague sense of "society"... this feeling of being abnormal, of not fitting in with other stuff you see. hence why there's so much pop culture about not fitting in. because everybody, to some extent, feels like that. like. a lot of ads have a theme of rebellion. cars have always been marketed as sporty, but i think it's more than that. they're marketed as being this revolutionary idea of independence, to the point where a big stereotype is that a young adult's coming-of-age truly happens when they receive their first car. and the test for their driver's license—perhaps the most common form of ID in America—is seen as a rite of passage. i guess it's better these days. because cars tend to be marketed as innovative and technological... what they can do for you, rather than what you can do with them. still, it's just... we're not immune to propaganda.
i think that. in america. it's difficult to grasp the notion of public transport and freedom. over here in britain, it's not so bad. you can hop on the train website, book a ticket, and be halfway across the country next week in the comfort of a large carriage. though a german friend once remarked to me that families tend to need more space and flexibility, especially when they're touting so much luggage. i once saw a couple with a baby—the man had a large camping backpack, at least 60L. they were getting on a coach somewhere. and i thought... damn. that seems quite inconvenient. it's rare to see someone with a camping backpack unless they're the backpacker type; usually people take suitcases, and i believe the woman did. i guess i am assuming their genders and sometimes i feel it would be better if we could have words for "male physicality" and "female physicality". eh.
oh. on claustrophobia. i used to think small spaces were better. then. i think everything got a bit too much. yeah, i'm carefully skipping my triggers here. purposely leaving stuff out. because i don't really have anybody whom i can rely on to bring me back, right now. and now i'm more a fan of open spaces, i think. where there's space to have whatever angle you want. i think that's what somebody said to me before.
i'm going for a walk. i started this article and lost interest.
ate half a kit kat because i was freezing. realised it tasted like icing. wondered why internet "reviewers" praise cheap "chocolate" so highly. reasoned that they were normies. threw the other half away. wishing people would go away so i can grocery-shop and cook.
it's difficult for me to talk here, or anywhere. i feel i have to be silent. don't speak unless spoken to—or don't speak unless you have something necessary to say—or don't speak unless you have something nice to say. otherwise you're just clogging up the airwaves.
so yeah. i guess it's something work-related, too. always have a point. don't waste people's time.
i want to say that i find it difficult to trust people. because i know how easy it can be to say something wrong and get negative reactions. but maybe that's my fault for not putting the correct words out. english is difficult for me, where so many other people find it easy and have genuine enemies in their life. hence why i try to be exacting where so many people just type.
yeah. i think that's why the previous people and i stuck so close together. we didn't understand each other, otherwise it wouldn't have been so painful. but we empathised with each other. weird.
'He has three abilities... and they're all things I can deal with.' He lets the chain fall from the sheath, his mind continuing to develop a plan.
'...something's off-' he goes; swish, swish.
'-no. It's fine.' and with that, he attacks.
from Jujutsu Kaisen, episode 28 (chapter 74).
i don't recommend the series as it slowly becomes hunter x hunter: the plot stales and the fights in the manga get quite technical. but that line is probably the most recent execution of that cliche that i've seen, hence why i repost it specifically. and i like to think that even when something's off... i've kept moving forward. for the same reason that toji and all those other anti-villains did. can't really talk about it here for spoiler reasons. are there still people who haven't watched that episode even though it came out in July? probably: people who aren't super interested in anime and only watched season one because it was trending on netflix. maybe you're reading this right now and have something new to do over christmas.
that reminds me. christmas. i don't really celebrate it. the celebrations are fun but feel like they happen for no reason. i'm essentially a dullard. that's kind of what i meant when i said defining partner. other people sort of shape what i do and hence how i feel about the world.
am i, like, supposed to say something deep here? agh. sorry. i know rule one of writing is that you need a point, thesis, whatever. and i don't really have that right now. so... elk, out.
i'm not really sure what to write here. a fuzz of thoughts. it'd be a lot easier if i had someone who could always accompany me. i've got my tools, but they hardly respond in a civil manner; and i've got my friends, but they are usually occupied with more pressing matters. thinking occurs throughout the day, and my conclusions come and go... it would be a lot easier if i had someone beside me with whom i can talk whenever i think of something conversation-worthy. i'm just struggling to recall anything of note over the past few days, though to be honest my life tends to be uneventful.
the previous and i didn't talk much. minimally, when we were emotional. that was the type of relationship it was. the first is... he talked a lot about his thoughts and i think he wanted to teach me. much like a lot of other people in my life. and sometimes i think he was trying to convince himself that he was knowledgeable, too. not that i blame him. i was trying to type a guide recently and it felt i was patronising the reader. hell, it felt i was back in grade- school trying to show off my knowledge to the examiner. that's a nice phrase. show off. it's a term one of the teachers used.
...yeah. sorry. i have the habit of talking about my beliefs rather than my feelings. in part due to work. in part due to. everything else. and it's hard to shake the feeling here. when i'm presenting myself. i wonder if the 300 views or so have been serious reads, or just browses through the neocities tabs looking for anything of value. maybe reading this is appealing to some people. that would be- weirdness has too many negative connotations, so it's. a little illogical. there isn't anything particularly special about my past, and you'd probably get a lot more brain mileage by reading one of those award-winning feminist novels. i hear they're quite good. better than anything i can write, at least.
past that. things have been a lot more complicated than i can or want to put into words here. because there's so much context and specifics involved, to the point where things could be construed as me being the abusive one. as the previous is pretty much perfect. he even said goodbye in a kind way. meanwhile, me... yeah. i guess we're making progress if i can talk about this. but now, when i'm feeling nothing at all? this is a mood i've been in before. a mood where time is weird.
and yet, in a sense, nothing's really changed. i'm still (for now) someone sitting at this desk. working the same job. eating the same food. talking to the same people.
i get the feeling i'm the same as my first. still looking for a real job. not even something that serves as my main goal in life... just something i personally can do to help people, by virtue of who i am. not what i as a human am capable of doing. but then further discussion would mean we'd be waxing philosophical about the state of being, and i'm sure you don't want to do that. elk, out.
accidentally left about a kilo of flatbread in the open for at least three hours. i had added homemade date syrup, so i'm not risking the chance of getting sick. (for any non-foodies: the general rule from fsis and others is to throw out leftovers after two hours. unless the ambient temperature's above 30ish in which case you have just one hour.) at least it's only like, what, five pounds wasted? which is better than going to some restaurant and finding out i wasted twelve pounds on something that's oily beyond edibility.
so yeah. stay safe out there, guys!! elk, out~
honestly i want to talk about. stuff. but i've been made aware that stuff i say can be used against me... and past that, i'm not sure how i want to think about my exes' privacy (in part because i'm so muddled about them). kinda a rut, haha. the first time i talked here, it was in a lot of emotion... but now that i'm calmer, these doubts are cropping up. so it is not due to my One Follower. kinda nice to think somebody reads this stuff, though. i write with grammar, though i know many people don't. and i think that's something the first appreciated about me, if only because my level of specificity often hinted at how engaged i was with something. because i find it hard to care when i'm creating content that nobody will really check. like i can just do the bare minimum and go do something else, and hopefully the more direct less flowery language lends more time to the viewer, too.
anyway. i sorta hope somebody will notice me but i get the feeling that's a fever dream. it's a little naive/unwise to hope for another defining person. i say defining person rather than partner because—to copy a phrase from my librarian friend on their identity—i don't know enough about gender studies to use the terms romantic and platonic. but yeah. character arcs ftw.
um. yeah. a younger friend said their roommates left some expired milk in the fridge—luckily the volume of liquid indicated that nobody had been drinking it. food poisoning really sucks and it's kinda scary when people recommend you cook below safe temperature too (e.g., Heston Blumenthal's line of thermometers for some reason).
dehydrated, which sucks. i should drink some water. bye.
i realised that i prefer consuming content much more than i like creating it, partially because i'm not very creative or skilled at anything, and partially because i'm not very interested in anything. i guess that's something he accepted without question, and was content with just being in the same room as me. hence the dearth of posts on this blog. i was talking with some people yesterday, and we agreed that it's difficult to make anything original, unique, and interesting when there are so many better creators out there. it's difficult to even engagingly "curate"—as the librarian beautifully put it—in an age where we can just go onto the wikipedia page of the day (or your preferred history/science youtube channel). i mentioned i was thinking of learning subtitling, and one of them replied that i'd probably have to learn stenotype at some point if i wanted to seriously pursue it. that's a no-go for me as i don't want to give up my spelling. feels like it'll be invalidated by speech recognition soon, anyway.
i guess that's something i think about too much.
as an aside, i do wish i had somebody to cook for. i paid too much (£12) for a Pyrex food container because i was half-asleep and didn't want to get a plastic one. the smallest meat packages at Tesco are sized for two or three people, so i have to store some for later. at least some veggies i can keep in my cupboard.
lidl's much the same story, except the quality seems a little worse and they don't have as many options. also the website is dumb because it doesn't allow you to check prices and forces you to go to the store. so much for their fanfare about low prices. that's a sales tactic based on the sunk-cost fallacy. when you get in the store, you think "i've arrived here, so i may as well buy something" instead of checking prices like you could've easily done online. yeah.
anyway i'm spending about... ten, fifteen pounds a day on food? so i'm looking to cut that down. fish is pretty expensive (around £6 a pack) but i can cut out bread by eating oats. i think rice would be cheaper than potatoes, too. maybe i'll go down to holland and barrett and get some sesame seeds for flavour... i hope it'll be a good alternative to garlic. oh, i'll get some raisins. i stewed potatoes in a base of (very) diluted soy sauce the other day and the sweetness made it taste Japanese, so that was nice. it wasn't worth the two hours in the oven, so that wasn't nice.
i get the feeling i have a nut sensitivity, gluten sensitivity and tomato sensitivity, so... yeah. at least that saves me money on peanut butter.
for some reason you have to keep certain dried fruits like prunes in the fridge. but not mangoes, raisins and dates. that's strange. anyway, elk, out.
i've honestly been kinda exhausted the past few days. thinking of offing myself (again). i know, i know, it's a cycle. anyway. mixer happening in a few days. time is weird for me right now.
my body hurts, which is to be expected since i'm not eating much. i think things are working out? i'm not sure.
listening to breakcore, hardstyle, etc. nothing i really want to say.
um, yeah.
on safety and food.
i love you.
i found this in a box of my brother's old things today. i typed it out here, because... i want other people to see it. i think it applies to anybody who's depressed. my brother talked to me sometimes about the recipient, who was depressed and anxious, and couldn't function well in life. apparently his friend—my brother never thought of him as a friend, for a reason that is sorta explained in the letter—apparently his acquaintance was quite angry at people online who tried to offer advice, ended up sounding mean and unappreciative, and eventually left him. and this letter was one of my brother's ways of... trying to communicate with somebody who would understand, despite knowing that the specific guy would not. so yeah. i hope this helps.
Dear [REDACTED]:
I achieve but a little more through no virtue, sir—you've always been brave enough to emphasise the asterisk of my gift, a privilege you have always lacked. In that regard, you are no different from the greatest social advocates of our generation, who preach empathy from an agnostic pulpit reforged for a new age. I beg you to accept yourself, sir, to recognise the truth that's been beaten beyond recognition, because you are the heroic protagonist of one of the most horrific challenges to curse this world. Does such self-respect necessarily have to lead to happiness, when it can serve as the stable foundation for such fulfilment? You threaten others with your self-hatred, and claim you intend to see pained faces... but I know you simply desire some sort of emotional connection, to the point where you call yourself dissociative. After all, I have cared, just as many others have—and they left because they too were hurt by the contradiction, your affliction, standing in front of them.
You charge headfirst into a world that unflinchingly refuses to pause, and you are not to blame. You tell me, again and again, that you are a traumatised, mentally ill victim who does not possess the same intellectual abilities as those he seeks to impress—and I affirm your justification, but you continue to speak incessantly about the fact, for you are still speaking to convince yourself. You think yourself caught in this purgatory, but it is you who has carved a way out of hell into the limbo that now surrounds, for you still exist, despite your constant threats to commit crime and suicide. You are determined, even if you do not recognise that. You have never been dissociative, because you are able to conceptualise happiness, and even occasionally experience it.
You have a close friend who reassures you that you are funny, and moral, and interesting—that you can provide enjoyable times to others. You, sir, are normal beyond your comprehension.
I realise in the course of my conversations that my role—and the role of those who tried before—was never to propose ways of fixing you, but to repeat this validation, to encourage you to specify the details of your thoughts, to give you a place to express your knowledge and humour. You have vindicated my beliefs: I cannot be friends with you, especially since you do not enjoy my personality, but you still expect me to speak. I like to think I can, but that is ignorant folly when the consequences of my failure are clear to all observers.
Nevertheless: I am still the only choice, and as such, the responsibility lies on me, and I must conform to the occasion.
I do not deny that it would be far easier for me if you were dead... but I do not think that would be fair. I search for opportunities to reveal determination, and I would be remiss if I did not attempt to occupy myself with you. If ever this careens into intense disagreements and an unsalvageable relationship, the fault lies with me alone... and I am fully aware of the punishment that most people, you included, will say I deserve. I only hope you derive some entertainment from my death—and continue laughing at your memory of an existence more pathetic than you will ever be, or see yourself to be.
With my name in your hands, I thank you wholeheartedly for your patience and heroism. You are an amazing person—and when you constantly ask me rhetorical questions about why you are not happy, you have already accepted the fact that you deserve to be happy. That is something you think you do not have, and something I do not have at all.
I apologise for my unfortunately characteristic emotion. Then again, this letter hardly matters, for you never consider anything I say about myself, unless it pertains directly to your situation... and perhaps I shall just throw this into my files. If that will be the case, I have spent too much time on self-expression, and the letter should end here.
Sincerely,
[REDACTED].
i'm not really sure what to say. yesterday, i got triggered. an argument. i don't want to talk about it.
i'm not really sure what this blog is supposed to be, either. sorry. i think i implied earlier that i didn't like people viewing/judging my words. but now that i'm thinking about my one follower, i realise it isn't that. it's more this idea that i have to say something of value, now. because if somebody's reading it, i want to cut out all the shrubbery so their time isn't wasted. and that's not really something i want to feel, right now. maybe it's my fault for starting a Neocities and having the follower option on. meh.
um, i hope any viewers are doing well. maybe i'll post something about cooking!! won't that be great?! yeah!!
haha, sorry. i'm still chasing after my brother, huh?
end message.
posted the comment. i guess i should elucidate. i didn't dislike the follow. i just dislike my brain getting loud. i can't really talk about the comment because, like, i've just been putting it to the side of my head. but it was a bit of a relief that they left a nice comment. so yeah.
i might just go and see what tesco and lidl have because they apparently open at six.
i think i'm going through a downturn. i'm less motivated and more social. strange how that works. i'm masturbating too much. i put on some guy jacking off and i just-- yeah. sort of turns my mind off. makes my mind blank, and before i know it, (i realise) the room is empty and there's nobody there. and it makes me feel so off. like there was somebody and they just... left, and i don't know if they're coming back. if they've hurt me or are going to hurt me. i'm just sort of scared. i wanted to sleep earlier, but... ugh. i've locked the door but it feels like i really haven't. i'm listening to blackgaze to calm me down.
i'm a big girl. i can do this. but i don't know if i can. i was talking to a younger person in a sort of advice seminar, and they asked about job advice. and i had to admit for the umpteenth time that no, i don't have any job advice. because i was really lucky to get this job and i don't know how i scraped up passing marks for college. but somehow sanity—habit, anyway—prevailed and i passed it off as a joke, saying the usual. y'know, have a bunch of cool stuff on your CV that sets you apart, like youth leadership or a first aid license, and be direct with your CV, because you really don't need a lot of formatting. because that was one of the tips in a little manual that we developed for common questions. and i think they perceived the answer was over and just thanked me and left, which was fortunate. but it did remind me that i'm not really capable of dealing with life.
there are moments when i think i'm capable, then i keep on making wrong moves in conversation and it reminds me that i fundamentally cannot talk to people. some say you can't understand how to speak to a trauma victim without being one yourself. me? i don't even know how to define what's going on in my head, let alone know how to respond to people whom i don't understand. when i can have such dissimilar personalities to others.
maybe i should change the font of my website. i think i chose verdana because sans serif honestly feels really corporate. every site is minimalist these days, and there's no homely feel. just a bunch of popups and sharp lettering.
i still haven't cooked anything because the supermarkets have been emptied by others on the weekend.
talking to people again. i'll probably drop a message for my one follower. um, yeah. i was going to post this like 45 mins ago but i had to do something else.
gluten-free pitta bread from bfree, maybe £4. 180ish for... 25ish? no pre-heat. all dried-out. i put three of them in a row, with one on top. the two on the sides were crunchy, the one in the middle was fine, i think, and the one on the top was weirdly really chewy. or was it the other way around? either way, reminded me of hardtack. sadly i didn't have any hot chocolate so i just crunched my way through all of them.
i tossed my gluten-free bagels. there were little white splotches on the base. at first i thought they were a byproduct of whatever process the company used, then i realised i didn't want to risk it. the splotches got more intense. strangely enough, you can toast bagels at 180 for, like, 25 mins and they'll still taste pretty good.
i may get some nuggies later. uwu. nuggies are kinda disgusting ngl but. i dunno. it's a craving.
so. i heard that omegle went down. i read the public letter on the site, and i've been thinking about it. kinda scary that i was using it up until a few days ago. it just- i don't like change. now that i type that, i'm honestly a little terrified. part of it is FOMO. part of it is because omegle had nice vibes and design to it and felt safe, even if it wasn't. part of it is the obvious/trivial thing, that i don't know what will go next. i've seen so many bad endings. i've been reading through a blogspot called hiro-shio, which is really interesting. except the first half of it is inaccessible, because it was on yahoo blogs and that's been shut down. with adobe flash player it wasn't too bad because everybody still had their files, and (for work) flash player wasn't a core part of marketing projects, and there were still workarounds. i think users of this platform will know the whole geocities thing, too. kinda ironic that i'm scared of that happening when. yknow. i think about dying. but i think suicide is a conscious decision. and i don't much like surprises.
oh. my thoughts. i follow the opinion of my senior: he's went through a lot, still is, and his words imply he has trauma (who doesn't). but he just. doesn't talk about it. because he voices his opinions and participates in a lot of discussions. and if he does talk about his past, that's quietly accepting the idea that you need to have a certain past in order to speak on topics—that it's okay to question people's pasts instead of their beliefs.
i think my exes were... well, if any moderators saw my past relationships, they'd probably have cancelled everything. they wouldn't have talked to me, because i did some pretty bad stuff too. and honestly, i'd rather have my exes than somebody in an ivory castle. but maybe that's just me trying to cope. i don't know if the neocities moderators will ban me for this harsh criticism of their job, as i'm essentially saying that they're worse than- sorry. i told myself i wouldn't talk about my past, at least not right now. i'll need to save backups of my website just in case.
jeez. now i don't want to write any more. i'll get to the point. i think anonymous—fully encrypted, un-moderateable—stuff—is good. because, well, some of the people who most influenced me weren't exactly politically correct. omegle was never that ideal, from the looks of it. it was something that didn't know whether it wanted to track, or not track, users. and it was trying to moderate at least a hundred thousand users. so that's my opinion. quod erat demonstratum. i know i'm using that phrase wrong, but i'm too lazy to delete it. so yeah.
oh, food. i ate at a chinese place. the char siu rice was honey-glazed and way too sweet. the bok choy that came with it was undercooked. the garlic choy sum, a separate dish, was alright, but there was a bit of mould—or dirt, i don't know—across one of the stems, which was scary. for £25? overpriced. but i just... didn't really have anything to cook, because i still haven't restocked my pantry after the debacle that was 7th 3am. so yeah.
almost forgot. dumped my ham too, without even opening it. i bought some traditional country ham from lidl—if memory serves, 250g, five slices, for £5. then i looked at the label, which said something like one gram of salt per slice. which is crazy. (for reference the NHS says 6g/day and the AHA says 1.5g/day.) so i kept it in my bag. then, oh no, i had to throw it away the next morning because you're supposed to refrigerate it.
sigh.
made some broccoli. didn't have a lid, so it turned out burnt (tried it just when it started to burn; the inside wasn't cooked). reminded me of a very old memory. camping with grandpa. long, white hair. he taught me about perspective. "sure, you can't eat raw broccoli, because there are germs on it. and if you forget about it and go do the washing, you end up with charred lumps. but maybe i leave the broccoli on too long, and it gets a bit blackened... maybe i put on too much salt, and forget about the black pepper." here he sprinkles several dashes of salt. "but to me, that brings out the best of the broccoli. the saltiness, smokiness and slight bitterness bring out the grilled note of the vegetable. or maybe you spill some lard on it—so? that's what the professionals do. some people slather them in cheese, or put them in fish sauce [gravy], or mash them with butter and put it on toast... some people even put them in fruit salads." he says that last one as he's picking off some pineapple. "for every accident you have, someone probably likes it that way. hell, some people eat raw eggs, and i hear that's a lot safer than it was in my day. some people like marshmallows that are burnt beyond recognition, too." he realises he's contradicting himself, and laughs a deep belly-laugh. "so i'd think it's up to you to decide what's dangerous and what's not. we won't forever be with you, and at some point you'll know the state of things better than we do. us people are all sitting around the same campfire, but you're the only one who's tasting and digesting the food in your mouth." and he smiles and leans back. "sorry. the older you get, the more you see the suffering the world forces upon us, and miss the good things... and the more you appreciate canned peaches being 75p."
i guess that was just like him. wanting to treat me like an adult, and realising i was just a kid. maybe he wanted a friend. i don't know. in any case, he died. and i'm not sure how much i've been influenced by him... i think i liked, to a certain extent, the bitterness of my first ex. he tended not to have any added sugar; he was just the taste of a natural human. and although i'm going to skip over my second ex, because that just makes me. gah. my third ex... he was like a heated fleece jacket. and i think he thought the same of me. what a goddamn shame.
i'm not sure what to say. i went and got my baked apples out of the oven. quarters, cored, skin down, 180 for 45, no pre-heat. the sugary juices seeped out, caramelised, then burnt. the result, too fibrous to be edible. sigh. i think some people like that taste. i was about to say coffee then realised it reminded me of caramel popcorn. opened the window for a bit to let that smell out.
apparently sugar caramelises at around 180, so applesauce could be a viable alternative to sugar if you add it onto a pie top or something maybe half an hour before it finishes.
oh, i ate some gluten-free warburton's white rolls today. it's odd that they call it a roll when it's square and not, well, rolled. also a new york bakery gluten-free bagel that was too grainy. maybe it'll be better toasted, or doused in water then toasted. do i have IBS? maybe. feels like i'm always sick. but then again, i only got five hours of sleep last night and the night before last. ugh.
i also have some brace's bread. thick xxl, which seems to be about the same size as all the other offerings at the store. it's fucking salty. like, dice it and toast it, and you've got croutons.
kinda debating showing this site to people. i have some online friends and i've been kinda cold because i just don't feel like explaining what's up. but eh. the whole point of this blog is to give me a place to write. but is it really, when i'm lost for words? fuck. song of the day: "better than me", the brobecks. it'd be a lot easier if i just up and died, then people would move on to find something better. yeah. i want to say i've been thinking about methods, but to be honest i'm too lazy to. (^ ^,)
i guess i'll talk about my life for a bit. i'm elk. 24. work in sales. gender, complicated. first ex, sometime around middle school. let's call him-- actually, no, that makes me kinda scared even though he'll know who i am if he sees this site, anyway. long story short. he represented—represents—everything i want to be. he's the guy who was in plays in high school. and below that, he was... honestly a really flawed person. i guess he still is. he had a complicated relationship with his senior, and that sort of made him really manipulative. and to be honest i wasn't really there. i was just in the room... and we sometimes-
i was writing something. then my mind was like "nope, no going there, you're going to think about something else now". so yeah. maybe i'll write later.
i dumped all my potatoes, i.e., 750g-ish. a bit of black mould got on them, because i store my potatoes in a tiny cabinet with wet dishes. and i was like... 'i'm not dealing with that stuff.' i honestly was so disgusted i considered ordering domino's. then i spent a bunch of time on the site trying to maximise my discount. then i realised. why the fuck am i paying £15 for a 13.5" pizza in the first place. and i got so furious at domino's trying to brainwash me into thinking i was saving money, that i just closed the site and ate twenty m&ms. yes, i counted them. roughly 10g of sugar. fun fact, each m&m seems to contain about half a gram of sugar on average. i guess that's ironically consumerist. anyway i made some baked apples on toast, which was horrible because i literally put the apple slices on the bread and stuck the whole thing in the oven. the apple juices assimilated into the toast. i think i have to flip the slices over. iirc 20ish at 180, no pre-heat. also cooked some cucumbers. no oil. overcooked. you know it's bad when they start tasting like pickles. but today was a lot more healthy, to say the least.
sigh. might get an umbrella for one of my friends for christmas. because they like umbrellas. i'm looking at the Senz ones (£75), famous for being asymmetric, but i might just go for a victorinox one (£50) or see if i can somehow get one of those for ultralight hiking. because they're about the same price and seem like they offer more than just a logo.
he joked that i was the most picky eater in the world. i don't like adding salt or oil to things. and i think he saw it as a challenge. to deal with all my problems. sorta influenced how he saw me, but eh. i don't want to talk about it.
tomorrow. toast, hopefully. why does a hozuki lantern from snow peak cost £112? jeez.
oh, i almost forgot. something interesting happened today. i saw a guy using a really cool phone with a physical numpad, and after searching around for a bit, i found it's called the punkt mp02 (£280). which is honestly kind of a lot when you can get a nokia 6310 off amazon for like £70. but hey, who am i to judge when there are people out there buying £100 lights and £200 folding chairs from snow peak? and in all honesty the punkt does look really nice. i guess rich people think differently. i wonder what price i'd consider right when i'm so averse to fashion. i want to say that if you're paying a lot for professional gear, it makes sense. but at the same time i've been looking through tactical gear and it seems like half the cost is just the military ecosystem and paying to look cool.
alright. so i have Ideas for christmas. i shall get a Snow Peak double-wall titanium mug (£64) for my fashion friend. i could go for the stainless steel vacuum mug, which is about the same price... but that's not nearly as cool as saying "i have a fucking titanium mug." also double-walled because their fingers are pretty and they don't need them burnt. i'll get a tactical pouch organiser (price depends on brand) for my engineer friend because they keep complaining about how wallets are dumb (most don't have zips, meaning the cards fall out when they try to get somewhere in a hurry). also they smoke. like they know it's bad. and it's definitely an inconvenience because sometimes they need to go places that don't allow smoking. but eh, addiction. on second thought i'll give the pouch thing to someone else. they don't need smoking to be made easier. maybe i'll get a climb-rated carabiner (~£15) for them instead... but they've already got quite a few, i recall. maybe i'll just get some chocolate. so they have something other than cigarettes to reach for.
yeah, that's what i've got so far.
My apartment neighbours were noisy. I can't blame them. A lot of young(ish) people here, because the rent is cheap. The location is away from the city centre and any colleges, so yeah. I ended up putting some ASMR RP that I remember listening to, a long time ago... and it made me feel off. so i shut it off and went to watch youtube instead.
nobody's online. i went on omegle but it wasn't fun.
oh, my friends want me to meet new people. apparently there's a music thing happening around the end of this month. now, i generally listen to quiet, sad music, so i told them i wouldn't go unless Bottesini himself rose from the grave to perform an epic Romantic solo. and my fashion friend was like "i gotchu fam" and convinced one of the bands to play Mr Kitty's "After Dark". maybe i'm obliged to go. but then the other option, he says, was Ed Sheeran's "Close Eyes", and at this point i think we're all tired of hearing that song. well, there is food, and the people are all lonely, because it's specifically a mixer and the bands are pretty casual groups cobbled together from the youth part. "you look like a student", he says, and tries to push me into the fray.
i get the feeling he wanted to say, "and, you never know, some of them may like more mature women" but cut that down on the trip to my place. because, you know. romance joke. me still in the aftermath of a breakup. i guess that's nice of him. both that and the whole thing.
he says i look quite pretty. nobody's ever really hit on me, though. i just... don't go to clubs. i keep to my own. that's sorta what i did for high school and college. the signup sheets went around, and there wasn't anything that interested me, so i told myself i'd think about it; then before i knew it, things were over. and my first ex taught me how to make excuses. i don't mean that in a "he did it and i copied him", i mean in a literal "he taught me how to lie". because he grew up in a place where that was kinda necessary. but i don't feel like explaining things now. not when i still don't know what privacy really means.
maybe it's part of the culture here. everybody's really suspicious of thieves and scammers. so standard etiquette is that you don't talk to somebody at a coffee shop or supermarket or whatever unless you're toting a balaclava and a knife. but i think that's always been a thing.
anyway. there's not much good food here, to be honest. itsu is dumb because their dough tastes like plastic. chopstix is dumb because you can see the chinese-american bites of excessively salted, oiled gum from outside the damn shop. greggs is dumb because all the sandwich flavours are dumb, then the ham and cheese tastes like it comes from a petrol station shop run by an old dude in the middle of Texas. all the coffee shops are dumb because their stuff is always too sweet or fatty. etc. etc. and i'm not going to a sit-down shop because god forbid i- agh. nope. going around that subject.
oh, um. kinda rushing to talk. um, i guess that's why frozen pizza is so popular here. yeah.
ugh. everything's reminding me of. that stuff that happened. i'm going to do other stuff.
i have some crumpets that expired on 2nd Nov. food.gov.uk says 'If you have a problem with your sense of smell and cannot use it to detect if food with a best before date has gone off or stale, then ask someone else to check it for you. If that is not an option, then we advise that you stick to the best before date on the packet as this has been determined by the manufacturer to be the date which the food is at its best.' (https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/best-before-and-use-by-dates). sigh. i'm probably immunocompromised given how weak i am. and i didn't really want to ask my friends this evening.
we had a halloween dinner together. nothing special. i think the gloom is affecting everyone. there was an israel-palestine protest and it really highlights the tension. the tension has always been there. you know the signs in every supermarket? 'aggressive acts will not be tolerated', 'violence will be prosecuted', 'taking items without paying is stealing', et cetera. and i know it's just because the government likes putting up signs, but it does make one feel like those signs are somewhat necessary... and that the government can't do anything better.
or, as my fashion friend once noted: 'the eyes and security cameras everywhere really make you FEEL like you're in little nightmares.'
eh, i'm feeling better. we had some roast pork with potatoes, string beans and carrots, and applesauce on cheap pita bread for afters. i was talking with somebody recently about the difference between real hiking gear and gorpcore fashion stuff. maybe i'll make some guides and stuff. i don't know. i keep on thinking about them but end up not doing much of... anything. even when i've read more stuff (for enjoyment) today than i have the past two weeks.
been trying various potato times. today i did them at 150 for... 60ish? and they were a little overcooked. i think if the skins are overcooked they give me a stomachache. still ate them because. yeah. the warburton's crumpets were quite salty. i heated them at 150 and there was no crust so i'll do it at 180 tomorrow.
i'm staying up because i need to make sure something happens for work. yeah... that's all i wanted to say. i haven't really written here because i've just- i'm not sure. i forgot. i cooked and i watched some videos. i think i learnt something about birds from jo alwood's youtube and went on a tangent looking at cool british birds. then i went out in the cold to get some takeaway, and by the time i returned both the food and i were deprived of our substance. also made some q&a sheets, as i recall a discussion that got a little heated, but that's not important.
my bread is now 4 days past its expiry date. i'll probably throw it away. i was planning to make french toast, then realised i don't want anything to do with milk or eggs, or the risk of mould.
i'll probably be feeling worse soon. so. hopefully more posts here. as i hear letting out my emotions is healthy.
daily recipe: noodles. your noodle of choice. boil. leave in a plate for a few minutes. sauté with a bit of flavouring—soy sauce, garlic, etc. until crisped. enjoy. elk, out.
so i saw the comment that somebody left. i'll deal with things as i always do. by not thinking about them.
i've been trying to think recently, but my memory is failing me. i had a twisted dream last night about my first relationship/friend group. reuniting with them. having some fun. then i woke up and realised i could only recall a few moments. those seem like an eternity ago. like they belong to a different person. i've been ignoring the memories of... everybody, but sometimes i feel like i can't remember them, like they're slipping away. maybe i just like to think my forgetfulness is a conscious decision.
i'm listening to a genshin playlist. i forgot i had a bunch of stuff saved from when it was popular.if i can hardly remember that, how can i move forward? i'm not sure. maybe that's life. just meaningless little things. we used to share a lot of little things. about stuff that happened throughout our day. news and memes that we saw. things we were looking forward to doing. it quelled the feeling for a little bit. no, scratch that. it quelled the feeling completely. and i'm stuck here wondering what truth is.
and maybe my friend would say "gold experience requiem! you shall never reach truth". and i guess that reminded me of parallel universes. this idea that there's different worlds, out there. maybe one where i lead a happy life. and that's scary to think about. because i wouldn't be "me" as i understand myself right now. but then again... i don't know if i want to be this version of "me". that just can't really do anything without someone else guiding me.
they taught me so much. then i just. pressed that into a corner when everything fell apart, and now i know nothing at all. that's not entirely correct. i know how to work. but then again, i know i was... extraordinarily lucky to get this job. (not nepotism. just being in the right place at the right time.) and honestly, there's not much about me. i enjoy cooking, but i'm too lazy to actually cook. (in recent days i've heated up stuff more, but i've only used the oven because i don't want to clean up the pan anymore.) i enjoy learning about birds, but really i just like looking at them, because i'm not smart enough for biology. i don't really do the whole gaming thing, either.
what we would do, is just walk around. i'm a calorie-counter and walking is efficient. so we would walk around places and just window-shop, cracking jokes, talking about random stuff... they were all really smart. always had something to say about aspects of design, and culture, and whatever would meet the eye. and in a sense... i don't think it was really based on anything, other than some vague chemistry. no wonder it fell apart so quickly when it did. they were seeking something more. i think i was, too. always running after them.
it wasn't healthy, but then again, we never were.
and there are moments when i think- when i believe in myself, when i see so many paths forward, when i feel i can do anything. then i make a little mistake and then i'm bashing myself against the rock that was hope. and i want to run, and run, and run, until i can't run any more, then fill myself with empty, disgusting sugar-calories from a consumerist Kit Kat and run again. where to? i'm not sure.
today i had the evening off, as i finished the posters early (just copied the templates from a previous project and used primary sources to fill in the blanks). and i was bored out of my mind. aimlessly scrolling. i started a post then realised i had nothing to say. and i just- a few days ago (yesterday, probably) i was absolutely hyped to read a bunch of cookbooks and learn something. and now i'm just stuck. wanting to take action, but surrounded by permanently, heavily glazed objects.
and i simply seek peace. something i'm good at. something that people can go to me for. and i think they are the same. always going forward, always... there. ugh.
i guess when i was younger i thought things would get better when i had a job. when i had a single thing i could focus on. now that i actually have one... i realise i'm just doing it for the money. chatgpt's probably going to take my job soon, if all the naysayers are right. there's not much room to go from here. i'll have a degree and experience in a field now rendered useless.
i talked to a friend recently. they mentioned they were going long-distance hiking more, as a hobby. and i was like, wow, that's really cool. because they were figuring out new paths through the countryside. and at the same time i can't help but think it's not a useful life skill, when we have trains and cars and buses. maybe that's just me coping.
oh, and someone else mentioned to me that tesco milk is literal garbage because when it passes the use-by date, they just send it back to the factory and rebottle it. i guess they have to re-pasteurise it and clean it somehow, because there are a ton of youtube videos showing how milk after use-by is just filled with bacteria. maybe i'll fare better at lidl. i'm not going to marks and spencer, mainly because it's too far away.
i don't know what else to say. i probably do and i'm just. the mood has passed. i'll probably try to talk more about stuff over the next few days. i really don't know. daily recipe: baked potatoes. wash and halve new potatoes. oil foil, everything onto oven rack, at 160, whatever, for fifty, sixty minutes. put some onions and other things too, if you feel like it.
went to the local chinese place. yum. ate two gala apples. yum. cooked some potatoes. not yum. i used to cook together, with him. well that's not entirely true. he did the cooking and i followed his instructions, haha. and i remember nothing except how good it felt to be in his presence, his soothing voice filling the room better than any smell ever did. pan, oil, potatoes and carrots, foil because the lid has a goddamn crack in it. dumped the carrots because they tasted like grass. the potatoes were fine though. put some in the oven for 180 and 35ish, and they turned out alright. quite browned, so they tasted like crisps.
honestly i'm kinda on my high now after the absolute low that was last week, and this is always scary. but eh.
I've been thinking more about whom I'm supposed to be. I said that I wanted to show my exes who I was worth... but sometimes I wonder if I just want to be happy. Sigh. I wanted to sleep earlier but I needed to host focus groups. At least they're almost over.
Daily recipe: your pasta of choice, hopefully a rigate, boiled for longer than whatever the package says. For when you're feeling too tired to even chew.
our halloween evening was pushed back to this saturday because like bleh work schedules on weekdays, and we literally only remembered this evening that half of us wouldn't be able to go. in our defense it was just a mutual idea passed around like a week ago. so yeah. here i am with overpriced pizza. check the pizza thing on the left. i'm kinda surprised domino's allows you to do that. it feels like a sin. now i'm thinking about a "naked", or literally just bread.
anyway. TIL that you can eat sprouting potatoes (those grown in the UK, anyway). the government says you can just cut off the sprouting parts, which contain the toxins (source: food.gov.uk). so yeah. strange. i didn't really know that? because whenever i let them get like that, it would be such a long time that i forgot when i even bought them, so we'd throw them away just to be safe. sob.
oh, before i forget. meringues from cornish bakehouse (the chain that mainly sells steak pasties) aren't a good choice. they're left overnight in the cabinet, which... yeah. there's a kiosk nearby and through the glass you can see the meringues. i haven't handled food stuff for work, so i don't know if that's a common practise. i'll have to read more on that.
the who says alcohol and tobacco are dangerous in all quantities. and i guess, as bad as my life is, it could be worse: so many people around here vape. "at least i don't have a nicotine addiction." that sounds like a pathetically low bar but i'm sure somebody somewhere would be like "it is a goddamn bar, shut your pussy-ass mouth". or something. sigh.
oh, and itsu isn't really a good place. they leave non-airtight sushi in an open cooler, so... yeah. cheap sushi isn't a good choice in the best of times, too. my asian friend says, rule of thumb, if you aren't spending upwards of £30 on six pieces of sushi, you aren't getting the real luxury good. so yeah.
daily recipe: pineapple! place it with the leaves facing upwards. cut off both ends (or quarter vertically then slice off the stems, whichever method you prefer). cut off the skin. cut into small triangular pieces the size of baby potatoes (or don't). toss into a foil box, bake at 180, 200, 220, for 20, 30 minutes. take out. enjoy. basically the same as the applesauce recipe, but this one pairs well with roast meats, and you can put them in together (as the heat will kill any cross-contamination from the meat). also makes you feel healthy lol.
maybe i should add a cooking tag. but i feel guilty because like i haven't cooked at all. like broooo. (yes the fruit sugar is getting to my head)
i'm gonna go. i need to put my pizza in the fridge before it spoils, and i have a bunch of other stuff to do. elk, out.
I woke up at around 10am, I think. I replied to a bunch of emails and prepared some stuff, then went out for something to eat. I realised I was absolutely petrified of eating in and doing some social faux pas, so I decided to have takeaway... then realised the options around here are kinda bad. So I ended up walking around for something like two hours. At least I burnt some calories.
personally i try to eat, like, single digits of sugar and fat per meal. which rules out a lot of stuff. like: why do Trek chocolate oat bars have 14g of sugar per bar? that is literally half of what the AHA recommends (30g-ish added sugar / day). so yeah. ugh. i guess i'll cook.
oh, places are fucked up here btw. i was browsing the costa website. a blueberry muffin has 27g sugar (!)—more like 20 with the natural sugars, but that's still as much as a Mars bar—and a chocolate twist has 17g. sigh.
happy halloween. woo. i got up at fiveish yesterday. ate one and a half five guys burgers because fast food is something that i don't associate with him . also two warburtons crumpets. for some reason the normal burger is called the little burger and the double burger is called the burger. and for some reason cheese is two pounds. i guess it really is a rich person's thing. sigh. seven pounds a burger.
i also got some groceries; i'll cook tomorrow. i wanted to cook tonight, but work happened, and it ended up being too late. hence the two crumpets. note to self, the gluten-free ones taste burnt and crumbly. (the normal ones taste buttery, almost greasy.)
oh, i guess i have something scheduled the upcoming evening. my fashion friend likes us dressing well for all hallows eve, even if we don't go as anything. so i'll probably put on my cheap polo shirt and cargo pants over my baselayers. also the jacket they made for me. it's basically a canvas shirt with lots of pockets stitched on. apparently it's supposed to "question gender norms". eh. we're going to be eating at home, because we all dislike noise and eating out. i think my fashion friend will be making pork belly roast, so that's nice.
recipe of the day: japanese egg drop. simmer water, add soy sauce to taste. drop scrambled raw egg. simmer for a bit then remove with a slotted ladle. find something else to do with the soup. maybe put noodles in it or something. which by the way it tastes a lot better than actual instant noodle soup which feels dirty. from a friend of a friend. or somebody at a mixer. it's all the same anyway with the "we know everybody in five degrees" thing.
elk, out.
meeting was pushed to 4pm. half the people couldn't go because of the sudden notice. no sleep for me. ugh. i'm tense. i still feel sick. in the morning i'll have to buy something to eat. any more bread and i'll probably literally vomit. jesus.
i used to be hella thirsty about two hours ago, but i drank about a litre of water and i'm feeling better now.
i threw away my Warburtons malted bloomer bread. literally no use for it. also my Tesco dried apricots and mangos. the apricots package said to delete it after, like, a week, and it's been a lot longer than a week. i also dumped some tortillas because they tasted too sweet and i just left them past their best-by date. i don't use the fridge because my fridge is fucking tiny and also broken, i think. like it can't consistently reach the necessary temperature of six degrees or whatever the FDA requires because there's no similar guidelines here in the UK. also dumped my last few nuts because i didn't like having an almost-empty box of nuts and it's probably contaminated anyway. i'll have to get a friend to pick up my Kit Kats. jeez, i really fell through the floor with my buying sprees. this is one reason why i can't shop alone. anywayyy
yeah. today's recipe, guys: applesauce. apples. quarter them. core them. place in oven, 180 for 30ish, flesh down on the tray. take out. eat. done.
still a stomachache. got my website set up and it surprisingly only took an hour, but then again it was just some colours and a sidebar—and i've already been introduced to html/css through work. props to w3schools of course. it's like the wolframalpha of coding. haha.
it took a bit of trial and error, and i think it still looks a little off. but eh. good enough. i'll have to add the cooking tag when i have some more articles.
oh, yeah. parsed my stuff through the w3 validator because [redacted] was like "oh, the neocities editor isn't perfect and i'm not going to make you install emacs because i just know you're a normie". sigh. then they go off and fidget with gentwo or meutwo or whatever. i think that's it. no more best practices.
how the fuck does my mood swing so fast. :/ i think i understand why [redacted] just gets so happy when they window-shop. pretty colours. oooo. i admit antique white is a pretty nice css colour too. kinda a shame that html forces you to use the American English but oh well.
nyan~
Stomachache. Mood: "You know you've got it bad when you look up male ASMR." He was really good at that. He dabbled in the quasi-professional aspect... but didn't like how Youtube felt so commoditised. Luckily I resisted the urge and instead put on other music. It feels like my stomach has literally been bricked. It hurts.
At least this keeps me awake to Edit My Website. Hooray. I really should sleep, but I've got something scheduled for 3pm and I don't want to be late... I also doubt I can sleep like this. So here I am. I would like a sort of purple background with an off-white overlay the texture of paper, please and thank you. Maybe some serif font as a dip; and I'll take the standard headings. I shall make recipes and post them here. That sounds quite fine indeed! Sigh...
I was going to say, "He was really amazing, you know" but now I sound insufferable. Sob. Yes, I'm a cranky little girl. That's what he said. No, wait, the joke doesn't work like that. (T_T)
I keep on writing new paragraphs and realising they're either dumb or of information I don't want to post. It's already dawn.
I guess I'm just going to sort out the overlay stuff, then reply to a bunch of emails. I searched up the best font to use, but all I got was the official APA site slinging around emotive language like a SEO master (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/accessibility/typography)... I recall [redacted] saying that such arguments are common in this world. So, um, I guess there's all that drama.
BTW: here's your daily recipe. For all you sweets lovers—canned peaches. I'll see you later. Elk, out.
Hi, I'm back. I put my clothes in the washing machine. Oh, there's probably mold on me. I put my towel on a hook on the wall, and for some reason I never noticed the mold growing on the wall until I took a look, like, today. Maybe that's why I feel sick and want to vomit. Or, y'know, maybe it's me just eating next to nothing, while the heater is broke and I'm freezing cold, not bothering to put on a jacket, drinking cold tap water because everything else takes too much effort. I have a single stupid mug that's too wide to drink out of, and boiled water tastes funny with hard water. My back is probably shot because I've been sitting with horrible "posture" in bed, watching braindead videos. I've been mostly sedentary—literally the only movement I get is my daily trek to work and back. I've also been losing sleep recently. I think every other night I sleep like six hours, because my body just decides it wants to. Not to mention all the Added Sugar I've been having. Sigh...
But hey, I cooked some rice for myself, so that's nice. I don't think it's expired yet. (^ ^,) I feel I have to lay off on my beloved walnuts for the time being because they seem to be making things worse. I'll finish my rice, get my clothes out of the dryer, ranger-roll them, and then everything will be just fine. I'll probably get some vinegar tomorrow because god I don't want to deal with bleach right now. Elk, out.
29 oct. it's half past one in the morning. i thought building a neocities was supposed to be cool. that's what [redacted]—censored because they don't want me using their name—said. and here i am at 1am desperately setting up a new email and typing away because i need somewhere to vent. my friends are asleep or busy at this time. anyhow it would feel STIFLING. just STIFLING. to talk to them. and here i am, typing away, screaming my fucking lungs into this blank void. they said neocities was great for this. everyone does it. i dunno. i hope nobody reads this. i don't need some sort of "oo hope you're feeling well". sorry. i know you mean well and it's just-- it's just-- ugh. everything feels like it's choking me.
new paragraph. yaaaaaaay. what the fuck am i doing. it just hurts. i don't know why it hurts. i hurt, it hurts. tomato, tomato. i wanted to go buy something today and, oh, i know why, because [redacted] FUCKING DUMPED ME. had to go back and redact his name because i don't need him happening upon this and realising it's me. and i went to the supermarket today and it-- it was just blank, okay? i couldn't think of what to buy. row after row of items, and nothing to choose. everything's too fatty, too sugary, too much of a goddamn inconvenience. in fairness the first two are true, heh.
now i'm smirking at my own joke as i write this. can i get any more conceited? just--
ugh. i seriously don't know what i'm doing. it isn't that hard. just pick up some stuff to cook. it doesn't matter if he isn't-- of course it does, because your whole life revolves around seeing other people happy. around seeing him happy. that was you, you fucking lovebird, for the past twentysomething months and he dropped the ball on you.
i'm not eating. i'm surviving on whole wheat bread that gives me stomachaches because i'm gluten-sensitive. i'm lactose-sensitive too. and sugar-sensitive for some godforsaken reason. i really should cook some rice or something but i just. i don't want to clean the dishes. i'm pathetic. he enjoyed doing that. said it let him clear his mind. because it... i don't want to recount that right now.
at least i'm drinking. drinking lots of water. turns out you need three, four liters a day and i've been dehydrated most of my childhood. who knew, huh? maybe that's why i'm so fucked right now. no alcohol because that gives me a blazing headache. i've been eating more candy. too much candy. it's not even halloween. i was thinking i'll make it until halloween, right? and then i'd realise he's not there at the feast, and my friends would be like, "hey, we're here". and they'd help cook and we'd all have a fun time and i'd make it past halloween.
and now i'm here. because i couldn't last until then. because my mind just decided i couldn't sleep tonight, and i would realise he's gone. and i would go through every contact page and beg my screen to answer, but of course they don't because i pussy out. he said i could contact him if the need arises, blah blah blah. but i know he needs the TIME as much as i do. jesus fucking christ. and i don't fucking know what i'm-- gaaah.
anyway. whole-wheat bread, huh? apparently that's healthy™. i wish i could bake but nooo i'm scared of flour getting everywhere, and here i am. wondering why there isn't anybody for me to talk to. i tried sleeping... and i couldn't sleep. i blame it on the noisy people who have quietened down already. fuck.
i- i think tomorrow will be better. i'll put the rice-cooker on, get some meat and hareeecods verds, fry it up pretty quickly on a non-stick, and everything will be dandy. i have some white bread, too, so that's great! for some reason my body can handle that better, don't @ me. as for halloween—kids don't come to apartments, thank god, but i suppose my friends will be expecting something. it is one of my principles to not use added sugar, so i'll probably see if i can make honey and chocolate work somehow, maybe mix in some nuts... for a cool halloween snack. oh, and maybe a roast! that sounds nice and easy. salt it, then pop it in the oven for an hour or two, and then we'll all come over to the dinner-table and have a nice meal. hooray!
i'm feeling better. it's scary how fast my mood changes. but- nevermind. i don't feel like talking about all that other stuff. i still want to write more. um... i don't have anything to say. and i don't want to introduce myself because. i don't really want people to see this/think people will see this. so yeah. i just... nngh. i want to go out and scream but. it's dangerous at night. especially for a "sweet young woman like yourself". he really knew how to chat me up. and i'm... i have some comfort music on, and it's calming me. despite the adrenaline.
i love him, i really do. i love all of my exes. despite what they've done to me. because- it's complicated. i was going to say something else, but that's more than i'm willing to talk about right now. and... he looked at me, and he looked at what he'd done, and he looked at what i'd done... and he didn't like either answer. so he just left. he's safe. but he isn't here. i guess i should thank my lucky stars he's safe, at least. lucky star. heh. no i will not explain why i laughed. um, yeah. [redacted] recommended me to check out Cookbooks so i guess i'll do that... later. i don't feel like reading other people's stuff right now. i'm just... i don't want to go off here. i feel like when i go off, my brain will wither away and i won't be able to vent like this anymore. and I THINK THATS WHAT I WANTED ALL ALONG. to just... i want to die. to not feel anything. to not feel anything at all. to not remember everyone in my contacts list. because i'm exhausted. i can't do this. and yet every time i say that, it seems i just sit down, put on some Epic Dubstep Music and while the hours away. i... i'm too tired to list out methods right now. i really am. please, trust me on this one. i don't know who i'm speaking to. somebody warm. like he is. please. nnfgh.
and-- and to those i love, thank you for sticking around. that's how the line goes. i'm getting dangerously close. to just going up there and. and getting off. and something's stopping me. he didn't make me promise, but... i need to show my exes what i'm capable of. i need to show everybody what i'm capable of. i need to leave my mark. i need to... i need to... i need to. i don't know what i'm doing any more. i ghosted someone because- like, they don't know what happens. they don't talk to me about that stuff, and i'm okay with that because at that point the relationship was getting rough. and-- then i'm crashing and they don't know i'm crashing and i'm ghosting them for the second time this season. goddamnit. i've been pushing myself so far. at least in a few hours something might come up, so there's that. and i'll continue typing here. "you know you have nothing to say." shut up. i'll do what i want and what i want is just to stay here. in this editor. because it feels warm, like he is. like he is. like he is. ugh.
forcing myself to start a new paragraph/conclusion and end all this. it's been two hours since my last meal. time just leaped back because winter time is fucking confusing so yeah. it's been two hours since my last meal since it's 1am right now. and my last meal was two slices of bread and i haven't had any dinner. i really don't want to use the rice cooker right now so i'll have some more bread. hooray! um, yeah. pushing out this update before i die of starvation, lol. um, thanks for reading? if anybody's here. and i hope you have a great day/evening mate. better than mine hahahahaha. :)