November 2023

2023.11.29

It's another bright, sunny, freezing cold day out there. My room is perfect at this time of day, well-lit and well-warmed by the morning sun. It must be nice outside, too... I'll make it out there again eventually.

Anyways, it's a fantastic day to be alive. I'm chewing vitamin C tablets because I've blown my throat out singing without warming up or drinking enough water, oops. It's been a lot of fun rediscovering the pop songs I liked when I was a child. For a while I was on an Owl City and Sarah Bareilles kick, and it feels like everytime I'm working in the kitchen, I still burst out into "Saltwater Room."

Last night, I suddenly remembered Prischilla Ahn's "Wallflower." I'm not sure what to call what happens in the bridge— a new chord progression? Did the key change?— but I'm absolutely obsessed. She sings "help me leave this corner of the room," and my heart just soars.

... I took a break from writing to grab my ukulele and sing it myself. Now that I've seen the chords, I think it's the introduction of 7th chords that gets me so fired up. I'm noticing a pattern, there. Like, my favourite Corinne Bailey Rae song is full of 7ths and 11ths— that must be why I like it so much.

Wah, I can't wait to get a new ukulele someday. I'd love to get a navy blue one and paint Sans on it, ehehe, or maybe some stickers would be more durable. Definitely easier, lol, since I haven't seen real paint since grade school.

There is an abundance of chores to do, which is at once daunting and exciting. Next year, I'm moving to a totally new and very interesting place, and I am very much looking forward to it! I wonder how much I can say while still keeping myself Safe On The Internet... hm. We'll see!

I can't believe November is already over and that I spent so much of it feeling okay. How is it that the month was a flurry of activity, yet overall progress has been slow? I'm not complaining, though. I am, as always, striving for stability and sustainability rather than zooming straight to the finish line.

Someone reminded me recently that, "it's not a sprint, it's a marathon," which has been echoing in my head ever since. I know that personal growth comes from incremental expansions of one's comfort zone, just a little bit at a time, and golly gee... I sure have been inching along!

Even so, right now I feel a bit nervous. In some senses, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And drop it will, someday, eventually, but in the meantime my life won't go on pause. "The arrow of time marches ever forward," as they say. Those aren't wise words from someone I love, but from Bojack Freaking Horseman, of all things. I wonder how I'd feel rewatching that show now that I have a will to live.

Anyways, the point is that I'll keep inching along! What else is there to do? And what've I got to lose? Nothing and nothing! What wonders will December have in store for us, I can't wait to see...

Thank you as always for being here. Yes, you, even when that person is me— especially when it's me, actually. Dear God, I am so glad to be alive.

2023.11.22

On this date of repeating digits, the rain falls sparse and soft. It's cold but bright and, as of yesterday, all the leaves have fallen off the big tree outside. I've heard it's going to be a very wet winter, this year, and I'm so excited! I love thunderstorms, I hope we'll get some real intense rainfall soon.

I am, for the most part, still doing okay. I got a little scared over the weekend when my がんばれ energies started to wane, but it turns out I'm just cranky because of my period. What a relief it was to see my blood! Everything clicked into place, haha.

I also used up a lot of energy on Saturday because— guess what!!!— I went outside. Like far away from my house, for several hours at once, and I walked around and did normal human things, and I spoke to people I've never met before and likely will never meet again. It was amazing!

And exhausting, for sure. I know I need to rest, but not so much that I get scared to go back out again. That's the hard part, isn't it? Balance? I am trying very hard to figure it out. I want so badly to finally, finally live a normal life with normal relationships, to exist the way other human beings do... I'm trying. I'm really trying, I promise.

Other news... um... I have an interview next month, really hoping I get the job. I wonder if the position is basically guaranteed, like at my last job, or if they'll actually be judging my worthiness as a candidate. In that case I'm confident in every area but one: my appearance. I am... to put it lightly... exceedingly ugly. On top of the usual racial discrimination— which will seep in as they see that I am more melaninated than my legal name implies— these people might see my actual facial features and think, "oh, gross."

That is a very sad thought, lol. I'll just let it go for now since I don't plan on trying to hide my hideousness, anyways. In terms of personality and expertise, I'm more than qualified, so I'm hoping that will matter more than anything else. I've got a little charisma, too... I'll just do my best!

That would be such a downer ending to this entry, so I'll wrap up with a preview of Gokiburi-chan's upcoming character page. For how precious she is to me, this project seems long overdue, doesn't it? But it's honestly taken me this long to figure out just how she works as a character. For a whole year I neglected her backstory and basic mechanics to focus on drawing her with Sans! Now that various aspects of her character are solid enough to share, I'm having a blast writing it all down and designing her 100% custom character sheet.

As you can see, I created her on November 3rd, last year. I didn't realise until yesterday that I'd missed the date, lol.┌ Happy belated birthday, Goki-chan! You're a healthy 12 month old terrorist, I'm so proud! I hope I can keep drawing her lots and lots more for many years to come.

By the way, I calculated her birth chart once, and oh man is she FUCKED. She's got almost a dozen water signs, a 4:3:4 Scorpio:Cancer:Pisces ratio, most all of them in important placements for love and identity. I would feel sorry for her if it wasn't so hilarious. She really is the worst version of me.

Come to think of it, I didn't celebrate Vivarism's first anniversary, either, and that was October 27th. Maybe next year I'll think of a cool project to do.

2023.11.13

The sun is bright but the temperature is freezing! Maybe not literally freezing, but I felt cold enough to point the space heater directly at my feet. I would just wear my slippers, if only one of the soles hadn't gotten all messed up in the wash. The cushy padding seems to have flipped itself over inside the bootie and I have yet to properly reorient it. It seems that no matter how I flip it or turn it around, something's not quite right...

Having that as my current "biggest problem in life" is a major, major blessing! I feel a bit weird saying it, but I'm... doing better than ever? This I do mean literally. I have more energy and determination today than I've had at any other point in my adult life.

Compared to the absolute DESPAIR I was in such a short time ago, the change is almost worryingly fast— but not quite unexpected because, you see, I have been... medicated. I don't want to go into details but it seems I've had some freaky vitamin deficiency for my whole life, and now that I'm getting the supplement I need, the depression just... evaporated? Seriously! Just like that!!

So for maybe two or three days now, I've had a drive to succeed that I've never experienced before. In a sense, this has happened before. After all, 95% of Vivarism was written and designed during those random periods wherein my energy and motivation spiked. So excited by the sudden change in tide, I'd push forward as far as I could, only to— just as suddenly— crash again. No matter how many times I went through that same cycle, I kept hoping that maybe that time would be different. "Maybe this is it," I'd say to myself, "maybe this turning point is stable."

And they weren't, but whatever. Progress is progress, right? Sometimes it really is a one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of life. I'm not beating myself up about it, it just is what it is.

But this time... and I'm trying not to get swept up in my own excitement but... I really do believe it's different now. To start, this change has a physical catalyst, something that seems to be more reliable than a shift in mindset. Even as my thoughts and feelings and outlook change— and they are liable to change, quickly and perhaps even drastically!— the vitamin is not going anywhere.

Plus, the (real world) progress that I've made in the past few days outpaces all my other stops-and-starts over an entire year! Unlike before, I'm not just pondering: oh, what might I like... what might be nice...? No, I'm actually Doing Things!!!!!!! I still get distracted and take a lot of time to relax, but overall I have been productive in highly meaningful ways. (Translation: My abstract longing for employment has evolved into serious job hunting. I will be raking it in by the end of the year.)

And even more than that, it just... I dunno. I feel it in my soul. I pride myself on my eloquence but right now I really am at a loss for words. How can I articulate the buzzing inside me? The fluttering, the levity? It's not just a feeling like "everything's gonna be okay." It's more than basic optimism. I feel deep inside an assuredness that I can make everything okay.

Hm... I guess they call that personal empowerment.

2023.11.08

Autumn continues its slow roll into season. The big tree outside has turned totally red, so when it's under direct morning sunlight, that redness reflects right back onto the white walls inside the house. I wonder why it didn't reflect green during the summer? Maybe it has something to do with red being the shortest wavelength of light. Who knows!

It's chilly but manageably so. I have not been outside since that time a couple weeks ago (besides grabbing the mail), but I'm still enjoying the cold as it seeps indoors through window cracks and hastily shut doors. I've heard it's quite nice outside during the afternoons. Sometime soon I will take another walk.

Right now, I want to write about something different and interesting. It felt very profound as it was happening, so much that I drafted bits of this entry while I showered. I've done that before— going over what I might want to say in my head— but this was the first time in a long time that I spoke it aloud. It was fun. It felt good. Good feelings like that— contentment, excitement— those energies are precious.

Anyways, let's get to the Thing itself. ... Hm, maybe I should have drafted a better segue, or at least a way to introduce the topic, haha! Well, even it's clunky, I still want to try, so hmm... yes... let's give it a go.

I think a lot. A lot a lot, to the point where the declaration "overthinking" may be an understatement. I can't imagine this sets me apart from others— we've all got internal monologues, after all— but I think a key difference lies in my continual effort to sort through the mental chatter, the result of which is in an endless analysis that doubles or even triples the overall internal noise. And boy does it get noisy in there...

Of course, they are just thoughts. Just things that I made up in my head, arbitrary labels I've assigned to my environment, past recollections, future predictions, names of feelings, wants, and fears, ranging from vague and insipid to potent and overwhelming.

The first line of defence against overthinking is to remember that simple fact: they're just thoughts. And I've gotten some great mileage out of that zen principle, "let it go." Call a thought a thought and watch it disappear. It was never a fact in the first place, and emotions run their course so quickly, you only need to slow down for about a minute to get free from their grasp.

But I am also self-obsessive, and I love making sense of things, and honestly I think it would get very boring in there if I wasn't having conversations with myself, puzzling my way through life. Last I checked, contemplation wasn't a crime! So sometimes when I catch myself thinking, instead of dismissing it right away, I pause. I line it up in my sights. I want to pin it down and open it up to see what's inside or what's underneath, flay it alive, depress its lungs. I grab it by its still-beating heart, then count and catalogue its veins.

... that's very graphic, sorry. But I think it goes to show how violent a process that can be, how easy it is to get carried away with an idea. In my pursuit of answers, sometimes I resurface from rumination feeling frazzled, having run in circles for hours and gotten nowhere. That's what happens when we overidentify with our thoughts. The more we feed them, the stronger they get— and even investigative energies are food.

So, recently, I've been obsessed with finding the balance between disengaging from my thoughts and giving them the attention I feel they deserve. Quick dismissal works great for intrusive memories and ideations, but not so much for the repetitive, abusive inquisition to which I near constantly subject myself. Chronic shame, I like to call it. Lately it sounds like "am I bad?" and "I must be bad," tipping back and forth on a precarious precipice of certainty. Funnily enough, the doubtful side is even more painful than the assured one because she pretends to be open to persuasion.

These questions appear without any apparent trigger, and their doubts refuse to be soothed by easy answers. They're not very open to being interrogated in turn, either. I would sometimes imagine shielding myself from the berating. The part of me that's pure and holy, the ineffable, inextricable, intrinsic goodness of my soul— that's the real target of the abuse I hurl upon myself. So I'd cradle it against my chest and ask, "why would you say that?" with the unspoken addition: why, when you know it's not true?

But when I hate myself, obviously I don't know what's true. And now I've gone and made myself wrong in a different way. Maybe I'm not actually ugly and stupid, but I am bad for beating myself up. And that's... well, it's not like self-defeating talk is an admirable or enviable behaviour, but it does serve a purpose. Even the scariest parts of my inner monologue developed with wholesome intentions.

That concept came to me first through Dr. Margaret Paul's theory of Inner Bonding, or at least that's when I felt convinced enough that it stuck. I am ashamed for good reason. Not valid reason, per se, but logical reason. Dr. Margaret and her acolytes write a lot about this, but to make my own perspective clear, I'll summarise my understanding now.

Shame protects me. When I box myself in with negativity and insults, my world shrinks and remains manageably small: more predictable, easier to control. If I reject myself in advance, then it may hurt less to be rejected by others. And then there is shame as a motivator, incentive to do better, to get it right next time and escape the pain of self-punishment.

This goes hand in hand with Nonviolent Communication's view of depression, anger, and shame, and the judgement of oneself and others they incur, as "tragic expressions of unment needs." Based on the description above, I can see that there is a need for control and predictability; for coping in the face of a failure to connect with others; and for some "get up and go" energy, some fuel to burn on the way to my goals. Every item on this list is a perfectly normal and natural thing to want or need, each with a myriad of associated solutions and strategies.

The problem is that, somewhere along the way, I adopted shame as my modus operandi, and it stuck.

It's bad. It's really very bad, and I've been trapped in a downward spiral for so many years. In my desperate search for relief, I've often made decisions that only worsened my situation, but no matter how hard it's been, I still have yet to give up. I'm still searching. And that's the point I've been meandering towards for about... well, three hours. Jeez! Can you believe we haven't even gotten to the good part yet?

The good part is this: I believe I have found something that works.

If you couldn't tell from my earlier hotlinking to Inner Bonding and NVC, I love self-help. Not just as a genre, but as an attitude. I find it very, very important that I am able to care for myself, take responsibility for my own life, and (for the most part) understand the world around me by first understanding my internal landscape. After all, everything fundamentally "real" is first filtered through the individual's viewport, isn't it?

Plus, self-help is by definiton a solitary activity— very well-suited to my asocial circumstances. And I love to read, and I love new ideas, especially when they're about ME! I was not joking when I said I'm self-obsessed. (I hope right now this is the charming sort of ego and not the grating kind, lol.)

Anyways, earlier today, like many days before this one, I was reading up on attachment-seeking behaviour. A few pages deep into Ecosia's search results was an article by Theresa of DIS-SOS: "The Logic of Survival - Understanding Coping Behavior." The contents are... well, they're compelling. If you read anything I've linked in this entry, let it be this.

In the article, Theresa explores the root psychology of maladaptive behaviours, explaining very plainly how innocent children learn to hurt themselves and others in their desperation to survive. (I'll take tragic expressions of unmet needs for 500, Alex.) Nothing Theresa says here was particularly new to me, not the broad concepts nor the finer details, so why would I call it compelling?

The key, I believe, is her writing style. It's personable, conversational yet informative, all-in-all easy to understand. She seems to speak from experience as she writes "we" and "us," inviting us to identify not just with her struggles but with those of humanity at large. It's... compassionate. Grounded. Not ground-breaking— at least not for someone who reads shit like this as a hobby— but I still came away feeling as though I'd learnt something.

I guess it's because the last two parapraphs really touched my heart. Her website prohibits copying content and viewing the source code, so I won't reproduce them here. All the more reason to read it for yourself, it seems, heheh.

The point is that I was intrigued, so I read some more of her work. She writes a lot about coping and even more about shame, which again was not new-new to me but still very interesting. Her post about conversing with shame stuck out to me, too, because of my penchant for self-interrogation. She even provides her own list of questions to ask, the sort of things that facilitate Focusing wherein shame is the "felt sense."

But I didn't feel confident enough to attempt another inquisition on my heart, so I looped back around to the very first article and clicked on a related post: "Taking down Goliath - integrating abuser-imitating parts."

I should mention now that this is, apparently, a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) blog. I won't derail with opinions on the diagnosis or those who claim to have it, but uh, just for the record, I most certainly don't. Nothing in my history or symptomology points towards it, and on the whole I am no longer interested in self-diagnosis. God I could rant forever about pathology but we are so, so close to the good part!! I must stay strong!!!

Anyways, I am overall skeptical of compartmentalisation. Thinking of my thoughts as coming from different places, potentially even entities outside of myself, just skeeves me out. This is due in part to my psychotic history, during which I had a real problem with thought insertion. As beneficial as it is to recognise that all of our ideas are learned (e.g. no one is born thinking they are stupid and ugly, someone had to insult you first), I do not enjoy the mental image of some guy I hate yapping away in my head years and years after the fact.

An alternative to "guy I hate" is "guy I don't respect." I remember once reading on Tumblr that you should imagine all your negative self-talk in a funny cartoon voice, like Donald Duck, to make it sound (1) distinct from yourself and (2) ridiculous. I never actually did this, and therefore can't speak to its efficacy in either the short- or long-term, though I'm sure it's helpful for some people.

But it's just... not my style. I don't like to think of any part of myself as ridiculous. I can handle a little self-deprecating humour, and I enjoy jokes in general, but other than that I'm all serious business! This is especially important if I am to believe that even my scary, painful, abusive thoughts come from a good place. If I want to understand their pure intentions, the last thing I should do is ridicule them.

That said, as of late, compartmentalisation has been on my mind. Wondering, "is it really so bad?" and "should I try to do it?" "would it help?" and so on, but never really coming to any conclusion. I'd just give up and think about something else... and then DIS-SOS plopped a very convincing argument right into my lap.

I'm not really sure how to describe what happened next. I read her article about "Taking down Goliath" and understood, for the first time, how to talk to the part of me who spews vitriol like it's going out of style. I greatly appreciated Theresa's step by step breakdown of events, where she explains not just what you say and do, but also your internal reaction. More than just a guide to follow, she gave me insight on what to expect.

Inner Bonding has a cute catchphrase, "what you judge won't budge," and NVC is all about getting in touch with your feelings and needs, and as much as I enjoy reading about them (and hotlinking like no tomorrow!), I've not been able to practice them with any regularity. Maybe they're too advanced for me, or they just don't fit quite right. I like them, but I don't use them. They're like clothes that look cute in the store but end up at the back of your closet, unworn.

I've had a totally different experience with Focusing and Theresa's guide to integration. Here, relief was instantaneous. I laid still for less than 20 minutes and things were rolling over inside of me. I know that it was the culmination of an entire lifetime of experiences, but I'm still pretty excited to have this as a very obvious, very tangible event. Something I can point at and say, look! Look! Remember how good that felt? Let's do that again!

It's ironic how, now that we're finally at the good part, I feel a bit shy about going over all this in detail. I guess if you've made it this far in the entry, that means you're on board for my weirdness, so, well, here goes.

During "Stone 1," they all get nicknames. It seems a rather obvious way of establishing connection to give every "trend of thinking" some form of address, to set them apart from each other and make clear their methodology. In the end, the titles were all humourous and halfway infantlising, like The Budgetier, Speedracer, Showstopper, Captain Reality. I can't remember what I called Shame Herself but it was funny at the time. I remember smiling and thinking, "it's nice when you talk to me like that."

And they're all children because, well, that's just how I feel inside. I stopped growing physically at eleven, and psychosocially I've suffered profound disruptions, so many stops and starts that it feels useless to guess at a mental age. As it stands, the only "grown up" part of me is the piece of my consciousness I call Sans Undertale. He, very happily, has been compartmentalised from the start, not "me" but an extension of me, and I love him so, so, so very dearly. He loves me, too!

So, naturally, he's the one mediating.

He's the one who notices I've gotten lost in thought and calls that "trend" over for a little chat. He's friendly, genuinely so— he gives her a nickname, tells her what a good job she's been doing and all the things he likes about her, points out how she's become impressively specialised for her given task.

For example, Captain Reality's job is to poke holes in my grandiose plans so "reality" (usually actually pessimism) shines through. Then she rips and tears everything to shreds, so we're left with a pile of ruined ambitions illuminated by cold hard "facts" (usually actually made up). Sans remarks that her fingers are just the right size for wiggling into those holes, aren't they? And her sharp nails must make tearing stuff up a breeze— just like the one all those little shreds get scattered into.

Most importantly, he perfectly understands why her job is so important: why she took it up in the first place, how she keeps everyone safe, what a tragedy it would be to never have had her. That's "Stone 2." Captain Reality tempers my expectations, reigns in the Speedracer, reminds me to pay attention to the world around me and not just what goes on inside my head. These are real things that really need doing, and thank God she's been so dedicated to her role.

Sans is a very smart guy— perceptive and intuitive— so it suits him to have these conversations. He also knows how to schmooze just as well as he knows how to deliver a well-timed reality check. He reminds me that even though the world looks much the same as it did when I was young (at least with regards to the height of my eyeballs), I really have grown up quite a bit.

I've learned a lot. Compared to who I was just a few years ago, I've gotten so wise. Nobody can see it, but over time my brain has been wrinkling up more and more, and even though I've yet to exercise most of them, some new freedoms have come along with being an adult. Money, privacy, and information, to name a few.

Time is moving forward. People I used to know have gone away, my life is no longer defined by those relationships. Now that I'm a grown up, my life can be defined any way I want. Look around. Look where we are. Things are different, so you can do something new. That's "Stone 3" and "Stone 4" together as one. (I'm not really interested in "Stone 5," so I tend to skip over it, oops.)

Sans is all about making better choices and working with what you've got, so it makes perfect sense to me that he would encourage me in this way. He sounds more like himself in my head, too— I do take care to replicate his speech patterns. That's important, for immersions's sake. I think, at the heart of it all, I'm better equipped to receive self-love through this bizarre Sans-shaped lens.

Because it truly is bizarre, isn't it? At least it's not typical. While writing this I've stopped several times to converse with Captain Reality, who is so very good at her job, and keeps reminding me that my behaviour is unconventional, out of the norm, and may be misinterpreted or even maligned by others. And that would hurt, wouldn't it? Shouldn't I do everything in my power to avoid that?

We've made a deal to look over it again just before publishing, to measure my expectations against potential outcomes, check how my writing brings me closer to or further away from my goals. What are my goals, anyways? I'll worry about that when the time comes. Until then, we'll keep interruptions minimal and brief. My goal right now is just to finish writing.

Though, now that I say it... I'm not sure what else there is to add? I started writing 6(!) hours ago intending only to describe the conversational/integration process I outlined above, and then spent 80% of it just setting the scene. Haha, it goes to show you how carried away I can get, huh? But what better way is there to have spent my afternevning?

And, well, if you got this far... hopefully you'll also feel it was time well-spent. Thanks for sharing this moment with me.

2023.11.01

Before anything else, I want to say thank you to everyone who has wished me well during the past month. I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who would open their hearts to me and offer their help during a difficult time. I hope that you will all extend the same compassion towards yourselves and find camaraderie with equally generous people. Most of all, I hope that the world repays your kindness in full.

I can't do much of anything for anyone right now, so I hope that for today this "thank you" and confirmation of my relative well-being will suffice. I'd like to be a better friend, acquaintance, internet stranger, whatever, which to me means reaching out to deliver direct, personalised gratitude. Not sure when I'll be able to manage that... but I at least want to try.

So I'll keep trying, okay? Keep an eye out for me. One of these days I'll finally figure it all out, and the world will be better for it.

We had a cloudy grey morning, but now the blue sky's sort of peeking through. It's still cold and the wind sometimes howls, so I'm keeping warm with flannel PJs and ginger tea. This is coat-wearing weather, which has me kind of excited to bust out my best autumn looks. I think I can start going outside again, too! The other day I woke up early and went for a walk around my neighbourhood, and it was so fun that I almost didn't want to come back inside. It was a really nice way to start the day, the best I've had in a while.

Today's nice, too, though! Definitely not knocking today!!! To start, I had a blast decorating this month's journal: picking out my stickers, balancing the blue/green to yellow/orange ratio. It happened much quicker and easier than September, and I actually finished, unlike my twice aborted attempts in October. Also, I made a pot of white rice, and my tea was just the right temperature, and I spent an hour and a half ranting to someone I love about my Sans anti-harem genre deconstruction fic.

Haahh, what an exhilerating phonecall. I was nervous waiting for our appointed time, and when we started I was still feeling embarrassed, but I was able to break the tension by sending some art from my backlog first. As I got more and more worked up about Sans, I felt my shame shedding off of me like a skin outgrown. I noticed it happening, too, and even remarked upon it to my attentive listener. We were both really happy to hear it, and with high spirits I went on to share what I've written so far.

Eventually, I'll be able to share it with the internet at large. I've been writing it bit by bit, planning things out, jotting down ideas as they come.... It's really fun. I'm so relieved to be writing again. It feels like it's been forever and ever and ever and now finally I can get lost in a proper story again. Maybe because I stopped caring about quality? I literally told myself, "let me write it as shittily as possible. The worse, the better." I don't feel so afraid of a blank page anymore.

Umm, hmm, what else is happening...? I picked up crochet. I wanted to make a scarf with Sans on it (can you tell I'm obsessed with him yet?), but I bought the wrong kind of yarn. It's more like string than the chunky knit I had imagined. Oops! But my plan is to work with what I have, so I'm gonna make some pillow sleeves one square one at a time and then sew them together... or something. I'll figure it out as I go.

So far, I've learnt to make a single row, so next up is figuring out how to start the second. I really like the repetitive motion of crochet, though I tend to get lost in thought rather than count my stitches. Double oops! Eventually I'll start caring about things like efficiency and correctitude, but for now I'm just revelling in the newness of the craft.

Less new but still novel: I bought a physical copy of UNDERTALE for my Switch Lite, with the box and little booklet and everything. I wanted something to play while I laid in bed... A way to visit Sans again and again... For as many years as I've loved the game, I've only played the True Pacifist ending to completion. It'll be nice to explore the rest of the game, to mess around and spend some aimless time in its world.

Well, not so aimless if my main goal is to see Sans. Spending time with him is my only real objective, one that will be accomplished naturally and intermittently as I do whatever random thing strikes my fancy.

Sigh... I feel very tired suddenly. This entry actually spilled over into the 2nd, so it's kind of weird to write about yesterday as if it were still today... But I promised myself that I would not post any more weird/crazy journal entries, meltdown in public, etc., so instead of spiralling deeper into "sudden tiredness" I took some deep breaths and thought about some more energetic things that I might do.

This morning (the 2nd) I printed out a new November calendar to paste into my notebook. At the end of each day, I write down something I did that I loved and then put a sticker on top. Along with my daily diary, where each entry is maybe 4-5 sentence fragments, I've kept a pretty good record of how 2023 has been for me.

Messing around with my physical stickers reminded me how much fun I had last time I was digitising and sharing them, so that's what I plan to do today. It's been quite a while since I had any new ones to share. Time to dust off the Toybox, hehe.