So. It's been a minute.
What a massive fucking understatement. It's been about two months since I last updated and we got some stuff to cover okay? Sit back, relax, puff out your petticoat and take one sip from your cup. Or two. Or three. Or ten. Point is: this princess party's back on.
So, that last update right? "The absence of god doesn't always bring you comfort, baby." Couldn't be any truer, it really does not. But when things look down they can either do one of two things: get worse or get better. And it definitely got a lot worse before it got better. I mean technically my circumstances are still pretty iffy but my brain is so hope-pilled I can't see just how shit things are. These circumstances are pretty much my fault (Note: if you aren't stressed out about college, stress harder. Your future self will thank you!) and now I'm really paying for it. But somehow even when things were looking REALLY shitty (being unable to get a letter of recommendation from a teacher I needed one from), it just somehow??? Worked out??? That's the weird thing about me, I'll be completely butt fucked by life—like really getting my ass handed to me—and somehow it all just works out. I've dubbed it my Spidey Luck, but it's really just the principle of life that makes itself really apparent to me: When you think life's gonna work one way, it'll usually go another, and that's not necessarily as bad as it seems in the moment. That doesn't mean you shouldn't develop a plan and stick with it of course, but sometimes life has other paths for you and it's not bad to give those other paths some thought every once in a while.
At the moment though, college applications have been taking up about 80% of my brain space, like to the point where my dad says I should probably take a break. Which is insane to me by the way, because he's the type of guy who usually encourages me to be on top of my shit and working always. But I think it's because I've been letting school take a backseat to getting this college shit done, which is bad. Currently my grades are looking okay, I've got straight B's and one C I'm working to raise to a B before the end of the quarter. I've only got like four classes and only one of them is a really hard class (god I hate pre-calc so much) so I don't have any excuses to do bad this year. Accountability is important, and I am trying to hold myself as accountable as possible!
Don't know why I feel depressed when my life is not that hard the more I think about it. Really goes to show how much you do not choose your headspace, huh.
But anyway, guess what else I've been stressing over: MY BIRTHDAY. GASP. I'm gonna be turning seventeen soon and I have been putting making plans on the backburner in favor of getting my academic and college work together, turning seventeen is like the last thing that's on my mind. But the moment I choose to pull that string out of the depths of my brain I realize oh my god I have so much shit to do to plan.
I've been getting more into collecting CDs, this is a surprise to literally no-one. I'll blog more about this later, but it's been a hobby of mine that I really like, and I find CDs to be a more convenient way of listening to albums than I do Spotify tee bee aych. Or any digital streaming service for that matter, I can't stand any of them because of all of the damn ads and "smart" shuffle nonsense. It is really wonderful that instead of having to jump through hoops to find a song a million times and put it into a playlist to loop it, I can pop it into my player and put it on repeat until I get sick of it. Life is just so wonderful, honestly. But anyway, I've been enjoying buying CDs, and I want to ask for more for my birthday. Problem is that I heavily suspect that my parents kind of look down upon me for my little hobby. I mean my dad hasn't ever been shy about the fact that in the modern era of having everything on Youtube or Spotify he doesn't exactly *get* the point of CD collecting, the guy never allows me to buy CDs whenever we go thrifting which sucks because you can find them at the thrift for dirt cheap.
I found an old copy of Fiona Apple's "When The Pawn..." while I was out thrifting, like to the point where it still had the fiona apple website sticker on the front. I regret not buying that CD severely just because my dad wouldn't let me. I have such an appreciation for old CDs that mostly boils down to "Original = Older = Cooler." That's why I prefer buying my discs secondhand, usually from online thrift store vendors. It's supporting the community and it's getting older stuff. So Vintage, as the youth say.
But anyway, my dad doesn't get my hobby because of modern advancements which have made music more "accessible" (in theory), which I guess is fair. I don't think all of the explanations in the world could ever get him to get it, and I'm okay with that. It's not exactly like I'm pining for him or anyone to "get it" for that matter, I'm very content with just buying my discs even if people think it's a waste. My mom's opinion is another story, though. She hasn't made her thoughts on it very explicit but it's pretty obvious she think's it's a stupid hobby too. And I'd be okay with that if she didn't give me this look and scoff every time I talk about my CDs or if one comes in the mail. It was fine the first few times but after a while it becomes annoying. I was going to ask for CDs for my birthday, but I've been contemplating just not doing it outright because I really get the feeling she doesn't vibe with it. At the moment the CDs on my 'GOD I WANT THIS FOR MY BIRTHDAY' List are as follows:
- Arular by M.I.A. (purrsonal favorite album of mine.)
- The Score by The Fugees. (I've been meaning to give this album a proper listen.)
- Illmatic by Nas. (yet another favorite album of mine that I listened to when I was first getting more into hip-hop.)
- The Anthology by A Tribe Called Quest. (compilation album which has a lot of my favorite Tribe songs and Vivrant Thing. God I love that song. Q-Tip makes me feel Things.)
- Beats Rhymes and Life by A Tribe Called Quest. (considering removing this one to be honest, it's a good album but I'm not sure if I like it *that* much.)
- We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service by A Tribe Called Quest. (fuck I've grown to love this album so much more than I did when I first listened to it, it's so good.)
And that's about it! Only like five discs, very short list. I don't know, I'm not the type of person who enjoys asking for much. I might ask for a homestuck shirt or something, I've always wanted either a Jake or Roxy shirt to live out my Jake Kinnie Dreams, and a roxy shirt because she's awesome and I want to cosplay her in the future.
Also because of my secret third reason: wearing homestuck merch in public can either attract the people I want or give the former tumblr kids cosplaying as normal, everyday people flashbacks to a better (or worse) time. Both of these are ideal scenarios. I have no shame about being a homestuck, and outing myself as one in public is fine by me.
But yeah, birthday's on the mental bulletin board containing my "To-Worry-About" list.
Also, I ended up going out with my friend Jules (Viv's their name now, so I'll be calling them such from now on.) and I had so. much. fun. We mainly just walked around the mall and caught up on life, and our chronically online lives too. It's really nice knowing someone who's about as woke as me in opinion that I don't feel like I have to walk on eggshells around when discussing like. Anything. We bought some Popeyes, talked about the shitty job market, took a few photos, and then went our separate ways. It was a really nice hang-out, would love to do it again sometime! Well I guess it's gonna happen if my birthday planning turns out right, so I'm pumped for that! I also gotta invite my bestest friend ever Filbert. We haven't talked in a hot minute aside from last week when I volunteered to help out with decorating a hallway for our school's hallway decorating contest.
Each class has to decorate a hallway with a theme, and whoever does it the best wins! We had the theme of Broadway Musicals, and I was given the task of drawing a huge Elphaba cut-out for the Wicked section of our hallway. I didn't really like how she turned out honestly, so none of you are ever seeing it. In my defense, it's really hard to draw a body when you are hyperfocused on going at it section by section instead of sketching it out fully first and THEN doing line-art, colors, etc. I don't even know if the class of 2026 won or not, I'll have to ask Filbert about it. I really miss that guy.
Speaking of friends. Flattie Project is finally starting soon! I'm so excited, in case you're unaware it's this thing that was organized by John and his friend August where we make a flat stanley and mail it to each other to take pictures and shit. This was supposed to be starting like last year but 1. It took a WHILE for people to mail their flatties to August and 2. Trump got elected which makes international mail about ten times more difficult because everyone fucking hates America. Talk about the Century of American Embarrassment. But anyway all of the flatties should be with him, so we can send them to each other through the mail.
Though while this was all going on I kind of had the realization that if you have fags in your phone who you trust with your life, the US Postal system is your oyster. So one day I was like, "You know what, sure, I guess I'll start using this thing." and now me and Teeg have this mail project thing going on. She's probably already started collecting stuff to send me given she's an adult with a Job and I have been SO. BUSY. but I have ideas on what I'm gonna send, not saying them here though because she's probably gonna read this. Hi friend! Love you! But it's not like I haven't given the idea of mailing my online friends things some level of thought, it's just I've never actually done anything with it for some reason.
Like take the Losers/Sugoi Sauce Squad. I've always had this idea that at some point I'm gonna make a personalized playlist for each of them, burn it on a disc, and then send the CDs with decorated jewelcases and all. It's the ultimate gift; the gift of music. Problem is I don't really have the means of burning CDs, well that's a lie technically. My dad left over a bunch of blank CDs before he moved out, I just need to find the time to go to the library and figure out the art of CD burning or find a laptop that still has a functioning CD/DVD player in it. Sucks that they phased those out, they were my everything.
I'll get around to it, hopefully. I need to manage my time better so I have more space for not-essential-but-still-important tasks.
But yeah, that's it for now. Thank you for coming back! I appreciate it, really. Join us for another tea party whenever I choose to have one.
This is spidey, signing out.
