It's almost time for me to check the diaries and blogs I read, which of course puts me in a writing sort of mood. I should try to integrate this into my Internet routine: start the browser, start a blank page in NotePad, check the webmail and write whate'er enters my beautifully vacant head.
I talked the other night with Peanut about some things, some emotional-type stuff. Knowing oneself and all that psycho-babble. (I should discuss this with TJ this weekend; he's a psych major. I'm a bit afraid he'd start realizing just how fucked up his dear sister is, and I'd hate for him to look at me clinically just when he's starting to behave kindly around his siblings.)
I get hung up on the details sometimes. This isn't always a bad thing; if I manage to keep working at computer programming, for example, I'll need to work out the details to make the big picture work. When it comes to interpersonal communications (talking & co.), details keep me from making changes that would probably be helpful.
I was sitting here today, feeling rather good about myself. Look at me, I'm so self-aware and self-improving. I'm such a healthy human being. And I had to realize that isn't true -- I was going to say "isn't true at all", but I am doing better about it. I'm not totally borked emotionally. I'm certainly not perfect, though, and I need to stop with the "I'm not 100% so I must be zero" attitude. (Yes, Erin, I know you keep telling me this. See? If you says it many times over, some of it eventually reaches my brain!)
The thing that tripped me up in my self-congratulation today was the self-harm. It caught me and knocked me down. Opening veins, wearing lots of red because it doesn't show bloodstains, and carving my leg like it's a Thanksgiving turkey are NOT healthy ways to cope with stress. I would like to point out that there are other ways that may be more harmful. I don't drink myself stupid, I have never done any illegal drugs, I don't abuse animals, I don't assault people -- the list goes for miles once I get going on it.
There are lots more healthy and physically safe ways to deal with life too. I could try to entrap my angst in a well-formed poem; I could climb the tree in the backyard and ponder how little my problems are, relative to the stars; I could slam pillows into the floor and walls; I could play video games and send my character into certain doom after christening it with the name of whomever I'm most upset with at the time. (I really like that last one. It's fun to rename Mario and run him off cliffs and into Goombas. I'm not much good at the game, or I'd rename the Goombas, but you gotta rage at the thing you're actually able to attack. Or something. Come to think of it, maybe that isn't such a healthy way.)
Ahh, the big paragraphs, they hurt my eyes! *cuts them into bite-size pieces* That's better.
I'm handling life better. I've only cut once in the last two months, and that was only three red lines. Sometimes it's been -- lots more. I'd rather not give a number. It was quite a lot though. I'm not going to forget that time, and I shouldn't. I need that memory to remind me why I don't want that anymore. I'm sparing everyone the details because they're not appealing, but I remember. My short-term memory is awful, but once something is recorded in my long-term memory, it crops up again and again at opportune moments. I won't forget.
I can handle being alone better now. I still don't like it. I'd much rather cloister myself upstairs when the living room below me is alive with sounds of housemates and friends. Just having them near, even when they're not interacting with me, makes me feel better.
Me me me. I'm a bit ashamed right now of how I prattle on about myself.
...later...
I would just like to point out something for people who use CSS on their diaries.
If your CSS looks like this:
a:link {font-weight: bold; color: #000000;}
a:active {font-weight: bold; color: #000000;}
a:visited {font-weight: bold; color: #000000;}
a:hover {font-weight: bold; color: #000000;}
....DON'T DO THAT. Honestly, do Diarylanders actually learn CSS or do they just steal code and change the hex colours? --don't answer that. Feh.
Do this instead:
a:link, a:active, a:visited, a:hover {font-weight: bold; color: #000000;}
If your links change colours depending on if they've been visited or not, but they're still all bold, do it this way (and ignore my hex colours, because I'm just spitting out numbers without paying any attention to the ugly hues they probably make):
a:link {color: #000000;}
a:active {color: #9966FF;}
a:visited {color: #9999CC;}
a:hover {color: #666666;}
a:link, a:active, a:visited, a:hover {font-weight: bold;}
I have toyed for well over a year (probably much more than that) with the idea of setting up a sort of diary design help diary. The term may sound redundant; I don't care. Initially I thought I'd just cover a few bits of HTML, but since the default diary templates are apparently anathema, perhaps I'd have to branch out and cover full-page design instead of "here, this is how you make a link already". I'm not really keen on it, having little patience to start with, but somebody needs to educate people who insist on using coding they don't even understand.
Eh, I doubt many of them care to learn, else they'd hit WebMonkey and do the tutorials instead of borrowing code.
...later...
I rather like this method of diarising (keeping a text file and continuing when I have something to add, and posting once a day if there's something worth the trouble). I can add silly little tidbits without cramming everyone's inboxes with the notification emails.
Man, this sucks. I should seriously just leave this part off and update my diary anyway, burn my edited files to CD-RW and read my latest thrift shop acquistition (Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown) while I wait for the finished disk. The poor book got drenched from the look of it. Maybe its last owner was that laid-back sort who read it in the bath and accidently dropped it in. Poor book. It reads well enough anyway. There's an unsightly brown tinge to the inner front cover (which is lumpy) and the margins of the first pages (which aren't). Someone has mistreated this wonderful tale's worldly form. I hope they at least read the story through and enjoyed it; completing the first task should assure success in the second.
Come to think of it, the formula is rather rote. There's magic that is downplayed to something almost scientific, because of course magic -- pure, wild, unwieldly magic -- must be transformed into something calm and containable instead of strong and frenetic. Our modern world and its scientific law dictate this. There's the princess, who is kind and hardly belongs among the other nobility, who are pretentious and cruel. The princess, though, of course outranks them, and yet she does not belong and is charming to behold. She is strong of heart and fair of face...
...and I am irresistably drawn to the gentleman who shows up at some point in the book. Luthe. Even the name reminds me faintly of a certain squirrel-no-more, and Luthe certainly acts much like that dear real-life fellow writes his characters. There's always something there, just beyond the reach of an ordinary mortal, that sings of untamed magics and ages of wisdom remembered.
I'm being silly. I'm no princess and I quite belong in my loving and mixed-up family, but I rather like Aerin, heroine of the book. She's redheaded -- naturally; it's positively eerie how many heroines of my most beloved books have hair of that hue -- and stubborn as a mule once she finds a task she wants to complete. Oh my. I admire her determination a great deal. I can't be certain until I re-read, but I do believe her height set her apart from her people as well. Either she was tall and they were short or the inverse. For some reason, although I am "blessed" with hair of muddy blonde and legs of stature, I like heroines with petite structure and carrot-colored tresses.
I am a most silly girl. I will never be short or thin of limb, but someday I mean to stock up on becoming red hair dye and contact lenses that correct my horrible astigmatism and myopia as well as changing my irises to a vibrant green.
Perhaps there is magic in the world after all, if a mousy bookworm can remove her wirerimmed goggles and assume a place at social gatherings, secure in her apparently perfect vision and colouring. Maybe that's enough, for now.