Things I Haven't Already Said on Tumblr.

[I've missed you guys too. It is all Tumblr's fault. Beyond this bracketed statement, I am going to ignore the existence of the hiatus wheeeeee...]

Oh, you guys. Off at non-compulsory* schooling these days.** While I've just been "over [here] getting into Dungeons and Dragons".

Yeah. That's been happening. It's rapidly becoming the highlight of my week, actually, because a.) I associate it with the start of the weekend b.) it really is genuinely fun and c.) I am a little bit in love with the Dungeon Master.***

It's pretty much the weirdest thing I've ever been a part of. Week in and week out, people are slapped, thrown down holes, used as human shields, and generally abused (in-game, don't worry). There are arguments out-of-game, too, and points when I've felt slightly unwelcome and considered not coming the next week.**** But I've never skipped. Dysfunctional family is still family. No one flips over the table and walks out, no matter what goes down. And I appreciate that sense of solidarity. I won't bore you with the mechanics of the game (unless you ask), but suffice it to say our "Gamers' Guild" should really be renamed "Introverts' Social Club and Support Group with Snacks and Dice." (Admittedly, much less catchy.) Roughly half of the meeting is just setting stuff up and talking, unfiltered, about all the nerdy stuff we like. It's really nice to have a weekly outlet for a.) all the aggression I accumulate in the week (even in a fictional universe, there's something immensely satisfying about repeatedly slashing trolls in the face with a sword) and b.) all the enthusiasm I have for [insert thing]. To quote myself (in a slightly different context) from the one time I blogged in March (and yes I'm rereading all recent-past our posts for nostalgia's sake...): "It was kind of like the internet, which was nice." GG is concentrated IRL internet, let me tell you. Everyone acknowledges "fandom", "ermahgerd", and "kawaii" as acceptable in normal conversation. Every Friday is Nyan Cat Friday, even though that meme is over a year old I think. Whovians and Bronies and Sherlockians and Tolkienites roll dice together in (as mentioned, relative) peace and harmony. I am quickly picking up on Japanese interjections (anyone else have those words you've only ever seen written and thus can't pronounce them? "Weeaboo" was one for me, until recently). I (politely) gave a freshman a feminist smackdown face to face. Corrupted by the Internet: It's No Freakin' Wonder We Play D&D.

It is very late and I should sleep but yes let's talk in comments about things like this post or your life or whatever.

Footnotes (remember those?)

* although that's debatable in this economic climate! *badum-tss* *panicked laughter*

** Things you should blog about hint, hint. *notes own hypocrisy*

*** A title much less kinky than it sounds. I am working through this tiny, confusing, "would rather vomit and die than do anything about it"-crush***** with my Real Life friend Abby via tumblr, where she offers such sage advice as "fuck him i mean literally i'm not insulting him he has pretty eyes go" and "SHOVE YOUR HEART INTO HSI [sic] HEART."

**** Until recently I was referred to only as n00b. Supern00b, for variety. The first time aforementioned DM called me by my name I was surprised he knew it.

Footnote-ception:

***** Which, in all fairness to him, is the only kind of crush I am capable of having.

I miss you guys! Come back to me.

I feel like it's an indicator of the depths of disuse this blog has sunk that I am going to school now--kind of--and I have not written one post about the experience. It's my third week. Also, Vita has started at UNIVERSITY and Rena is over there getting into Dungeons and Dragons.

I apologize for offending anyone but I'm going to have to blame this one on tumblr.

Tumblr did this to us, you guys. It was tumblr. Also, life. But I choose to point my finger at tumblr because it's easier than examining all the things I could have blogged about here and didn't.

I'm going to sleep but first I have a question: what is it going to take to get you two to blog here? I would settle for once a week. I want to know about your liiiiiiiiives. I need to know. I know I'm a part of this too. So I'll promise to write if the two of you will. I will blog until you beg me to stop. How can I persuade you to join me?

Think about it. I'll wait.

"I Love You" is hard.

So tomorrow is Esther Day.

Esther devised a concise, meaningful way for the Nerdfighter community to honor/remember her.

I haven't literally told anyone I'm close to the words "I love you" in a very, very long time. (Long before the previous Esther Day, I admit.) They know I love them, and I know they love me. It's easier to be offhand about my affection for these people:

"Okay, love you, bye."
"You too, bye."

Is how the ends of all my conversations with people I love whom I won't see for an extended period go. But literally sitting someone down, looking them in the face and saying all three of those words apropos of nothing, is extremely uncomfortable to me. I know the point is that it's supposed to be hard. I know it probably shouldn't be this hard, because I should do it more often. The fact remains that I am very, very bad at dealing with things with gravitas. "Serious conversations", whether the subject is good or bad, can literally make me squirm if I go too long without saying anything that elicits at least a slight mildly amused laugh from the person I'm talking to.

But enough about my personal flaws. The reason I typed out this thing is because now I have the internet (or, my notion of people on the internet's judgment of me) to hold me to this. I will do Esther Day.

what is going on in my life

Well. Well. Weeeeeell. Weeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllll. Wouldn't you like to know.

On May 7th, I embarked on this road trip with two of my sisters and my mom and we drove around the Olympic Peninsula (a.k.a. vampire territory), down the Washington and Oregon Coast, inland to Ashland in Southern Oregon and then down the California coast, from Crescent City to Los Angeles. It took about two months to get to Southern California and then I took a two day train ride home with my friend who had joined us in San Francisco, leaving my famjam to head East and North and wherever the road continues to lead them (i.e. away from droughts and 100 degree weather).

Now I am back to Canada and to trees and the streets that I know. I'm living with my dad and The Cat and attempting to resume my brand of normalcy--with varying degrees of success. My work has yet to put me back on the schedule but I've dropped my resume off at the local bike shop and am hoping to intern there for a while and pick up some skills. Maybe make some friends? Wouldn't that be crazy.

I read quite a few books whilst on the road. Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (I think that's the author, or something close to that) is reccommended as well as The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (which is non-fiction and lovely). I've only just finished Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta (sequel to Finnikin of the Rock--excellent, excellent fantasy) and found myself lying in a park yesterday, pounding my fists on the ground and yelling "WHY?!?!!" But in a good way. I've now moved onto A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut which is totally brilliant. And I've gotten a bit carried away with the reading thing so let's move on.

On the topic of friends, since I got back two weeks ago, I've been making an effort to reconnect with friends I don't see a lot or haven't seen in a while (which is everyone considering I was away for two months) and enjoying the fruits of this labour immensely. Can I just say that people are generally awesome? Like, I know people are somewhat aware of that but I don't think we give it enough thought. People are really, really cool--in their uniqueness and individuality and their interests and quirks. I lovelovelove my close friend group but branching out and connecting with different people has been so refreshing and wonderful. Since my return home, I've watched Doctor Who with someone I hadn't seen in a year and eaten the most amazing peach with someone I practically grew up with. On Saturday, I hung out with a friend I met online through school and she printed off my full star chart and we bonded over Sherlock and it was perfect. Then, of course, a week ago, I got turned away from a concert with three of my closest friends and ended up eating gelato and climbing a rope tower at a playground*.

What I'm attempting to get at is that variety is pretty freaking great. I'm unbelievably grateful and priviledged to have such awesome people to spend time--and write blogs--with. You're all excellent company and I thank you for merely existing.

*which is what I reccommend to anyone who gets turned away from something for being too young--embrace your youthfulness and go play at the park!

Let's talk about friends

What's weird to me is less that I was 14 (almost 15) when I met all y'all but that I was a high school freshman (albeit a second-semester freshman) when I met all y'all. I was a baby! A child. A young teenager!*

(Side note about teenage girls: I long for the day when we all cease to use "teenage girl" (also: "teenager") (also: "youths") as an insult. Okay, fine, I've never had to live with a person younger than I, and when my sister was teenaged, I thought she was too cool to truly despise adolescents, but you know what? I like teenagers. I like teenage girls! I think they're awesome. At the very least I think they are just as wonderful and just as flawed as any other demographic, so stop yo' hate, greater population of the world.) (Addendum to side note: I don't feel like a teenage girl anymore. I know I am, but "teenager" to me invokes the 14-17 crowd. From this side of adulthood, I stand with the 13 year olds in hearing high schoolers' silent cry: Okay, fine, technically we'll include you in our demographic, but us real teenagers know you're Out, or yet to be In.)

And now I've graduated from high school (it's been a long hiatus, not much has happened, just became an official ex-student in the public school system in which I've been enrolled since the age of 5, just moving to the absolute opposite side of the continent in two months, no big) and about to be a freshman again and here we are. Wow. Weird. Millions of other people do the same thing, the whole graduating-from-high-school thing (Rena, it's your turn next! What what!), and it doesn't feel revolutionary, I'm sort of over the novelty of it, but I feel I ought to mention it. For posterity? I only recently learned that "for posterity" actually has, like, a meaning? that renders it nonsensical in several different situations.  The learnin' never stops.

Anyway, the nostalgia feels relevant not only because I've abandoned this special corner of the internet for way too long but because there's a post that I posted over on the Ning, not during Beda #1 but in August 2010 (wow, I was almost in 11th grade! I definitely thought it was earlier than that!) that's been floating around in my mind lately:

"I start thinking about my closest friends and how I'm not even THAT close to them. [...] I just don't have that best-friendy connection with them. Do you know what I'm talking about? That person that you're supposed to share a brain with; the person that laughs at all your jokes, whatever. I mentally go through my past and present friends and think, nope, nope, nope, I don't know anybody who qualifies for that. It's like there's a block between me and society. [...] Ironically, I'm not that close to the person (other than my family) that I feel the most comfortable around. Like, when we see each other it's like we're best friends, but we rarely talk that much outside of our shared time together and even though we get on really well, I don't actually know them very well at all, if that makes sense."

Somebody told me in the comments of that post that they found their best friends in junior year of high school, and I think I assumed that wouldn't happen to me. And this was only two years ago, right? But guys, over those two years -- really, especially, over this past year, though it feels much longer -- I've become better friends with people than I ever thought I could.  Like, the person I was talking about in that post is actually one of my best friends now, for serious. Do you know how amazing and novel it is to have a friend -- and several more who come close -- around whom I feel completely, totally, effortlessly comfortable? Good-amazing and also awestruck-amazing.  Maybe it's a testament to how much more comfortable I've become with myself over this past year. Maybe it's a testament to opening up more and trusting people around you to stay calm enough to get to know you better.  All I know is that my two closest friends make me laugh more and understand me better than and make me feel better than anybody else I know. All I know is that when other friends ask me to go out, I hardly ever turn them down in favor of moping around by myself anymore.  Guys, I made so many friends senior year, both my age and younger. Most of them weren't close friends; most of them I'm not going to keep in touch with -- I know that -- but that's okay; we were never going to be friends for life. All that mattered was that they made the time we spent together in the place we were infinitely more entertaining.

It's just such a good feeling. I won't pretend like I'm 100% happy with myself or that I enjoyed every moment of high school or anything, but man, I went from being completely miserable in June 2011 to being so blissfully grateful that I went to the school I did with the people I did by graduation in June 2012. It's ridiculous.  Be friends with people, guys, it's the best.

Speaking of friends, how awesome is it that you guys still make this blog feel as personal and welcoming as it ever did, even after a two month absence (ahem, 7 month absence on my part, oops)? You guys give me such a good feeling, too. Thanks for sticking with me throughout all of my high school years (!) and, I hope, throughout a substantial amount of my university years and whatever may lurk beyond that.

(I think I might do an update blog later this week. A bulleted list feels in order but doesn't feel appropriate to this post. Prepare yourselves (or not, whatever, it's your life).)

* Um, speaking of the flaws of youth, or whatever, I've been considering deleting just a couple of older posts of mine? All the embarrassing-thoughts-of-an-angsty-sixteen-year-old posts are free to humiliate me as much as they like, but I feel like there are just one or two that are straight-up ignorant that I don't really want lurking around the internet because, you know, people tend to think that what you thought two years ago is indefensibly what you think now.

Is it strange to anyone else that 2009 was three years ago?

And that three (at least) years of your life is documented on the internet and preserved for eternity?

Our magnificent internet journey of magic and friendship began in April, 2009. (Remember when? Oh god, the memories.) This was, for me, the beginning of the end of Not a Good Time in My Life Generally. (TM, generic brand name: middle school) On MJ's application, I fudged my age by a month and got grouped with you lovely people.

Some of my blog posts from that year (here and on the Ning) literally make me cringe. Silly 14 year old self. I'm so much older than that now.

The thing is, when I check this blog in another three years (and who knows where it'll be post-wise, but it will still be the same collection of pixels attached to this URL), I'll end up shaking my head wistfully at my silly 17 year old self. C'est la vie. You're never any older than you are in the present, or whatever the saying is. Although hopefully I won't loaf around on the internet when I'm 20 as much as I do now.

And with that sentence, I could begin a whole slew of excuses why I've been 33% responsible for letting this blog fall into a hiatus. I could, but I won't. I haven't blogged here for almost 4 months (and even that was cross-posted from Tumblr. . .), and that's my own fault. Regardless of how (in)frequently I blog, though, it IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER means I value your friendship less and/or want to stop talking to you. Got that? Lessthanthree 5eva etc., other internet memes.

Tumblr's fine, for casual, usually image-based glimpses into each other's minds, and maybe it's a testament to the strength of this particular internet-centric friendship that we no longer feel obligated to devote ourselves to extended monologues about our lives. But it's still nice. It's nice to have this space to come back to. So yes, if you guys are up to it, I will try to frequent this conversation more as well.

Standard updates about my life and such:

This entire summer has so far been busy chunks interspersed with lazy chunks. The upcoming ( < two weeks) chunk promises to be VERY BUSY, featuring my mom and I pinging around most of the midwest looking at colleges, about which my anxiety has turned into slight excitement. (Maybe you've just caught me on a good day. . .)

So, a question (remember when we used to end with questions?) :

What's going on in your life?