(Christmas, 2024)

[14:47PM]
I feel that the joy has
come to pass. I'm back
to my old self once again.
Woke up, my room was very
cold, but the air quality,
for once in the history of 
this shitty town, is in
the 30's! The air doesn't
have the smell of fire in
it anymore. It smells 
fresh, almost like cucumbers.
Everything fresh registers
like cucumbers for me.
Replacing the water filter
on the fridge, cucumbers,
a clean floor, cucumbers,
everything good in this 
world eventually leads 
back to cucumbers in some
way inside my mind.

Watched Metalocalypse a bit
back, saw a post on youtube
using a metalocalypse clip.
It felt so recent, tangible.
A problem I had faced after
I left my father, mnemonically
was how backgrounds were
handled in memories. It 
scattererd to the wind and
everything led back to one
simple conclusion, the
office of the middle school
I used to go to. It might
just be the clearest 
background cached within 
my head or something 
sentimental about the box.
Everything led back to it
though, every memory 
took place in it for about
two months. This was until
something clicked inside
of my mind, backgrounds
within my memories started
to take form. The problem
was, each background, hell
everything down to the 
implicit was dated by era,
that's how I defined dates.
When backgrounds are given
improper form, so is my
perception of time. Wanting
to see when I watched 
metalocalypse I checked
my texts using the search
tool. Down to the very
end of 2023 not a peep
about metalocalypse even
popped into the query. 
This was alarming given
how I remembered the
moments I watched
metalocalypse, inside
the condo with my mom.
This gave me a timeframe
of late 2023 to mid 2024.
Given a bit of inference,
I realized that I had 
watched metalocalypse in
mid 2023. This sent me 
down a bit of an existential
crisis, if I had remembered
this moment wrong, what
else is completely wrong.
My very understanding of
myself as an individual
started to come into 
question. All from a 
lazily shat out meme.
To help cope with this
I made some instant
noodles and tried to
ignore the giant
patch of astroturf 
missing from my
sanity. 

Christmas is a time
of year. Usually 
associated with one
gift that nobody 
can buy. The gift
of watching drunk
people make stupid
bets on sports and
then ball their eyes
out when they lose a
bunch of money at
a family gathering.
I have been able
to watch this every
christmas, but this 
one I will not. I 
will quite possibly
never see my in-laws
again. In some ways 
I am fine with this. 
I was always the 
wisdom tooth at the
gatherings, awkward 
and painful to be
around. This was
in part due to the
fact that everyone
my age lived in town
and thus, could just
skip the gatherings 
and do other shit. 
Everyone else there
was drunk, so everything
was fun to them. I
only really understood 
this after I got
a bit more than tipsy 
at one of the
gatherings as well.
Some weird korean
strawberry shit and 
ultras. Had only
one of the ultras
and 8 or 9 of the
weird korean shots.
They weren't shot-
shots high in alcohol.
About 1.5 shots equaled
an ultra. Still, it
was enough that I started
singing Chevelle songs
with my dad for karoke.
It felt good, but I 
didn't want to drink.
I was peer-pressured 
into doing so by my
father and my uncles.
A silver lining in
that is I found out
why people enjoyed 
the parties.

Usually, when I had
christmas at my mom's
we'd have it the day
before or after. 
Joint custody is a 
bitch when one side
has a better lawyer.
They were still magical
though, we'd sit around
our fireplace and play
games, eat three different
types of meats plus 
potatoes. Nothing can
beat a meal like that.
This christmas is the 
same, we're going to
have it tomorrow with
my brothers, she has
to work doubles to meet 
her contracted hours
at work. Still, tradition
is kept. We probably 
would've done it on the
26th even if she didn't
have to work, it is
natural to us. 

Jesus christ it has
been an hour. I will
probably write more
later. 


[23:26 PST]

Nothing happened today,
this is expected since
this isn't my official
christmas. 

I often think about how
these words will ring in
the distant future when
I read them. If I will
become apathetic to 
the thoughts of my 
past self or cherish 
them. It seems that 
whenever I lose something
I yearn for it until
I have it. Which then
I could care less about
it. This happened with
the photos on my old
phone. So much worrying
over an archive of 
photos two years long.
The moment I get ahold
of the pictures through
iCloud? I stop caring 
about it, the photos
didn't have any sentimental
meaning to me, it was
just the fact that I 
didn't have them that
affected me so much. 
I am working on this
aspect of myself,
there's no point in
worrying about photos
that hold no real 
substance to my present
self. Maybe something
I'll learn in the IOP
group I'm going to
in a couple of weeks
will help me with that. 

At one point or another,
I will have to talk to
my aunt and the rest 
of my family. When I
do I'll also have to
confront my dad. I
had this recurring
thought that my aunt
would call me while 
I'm playing cards 
with my family, my
dad is on the phone
with her. I'd have
to explain that I
was on psych meds when
I contacted him and
that I wasn't myself.
It'd devolve into
an argument, ending in
me cussing him out 
before hanging up. 
I bought my little
cousin a gift at
gamestop that I need 
to dropoff to him. 
It's a shame that 
I cannot be in his
life as much as I
feel I need to be.
But until he gets 
to an age he can
drive, I'll most
likely never see 
him. He'll probably
hate me by then though. 
Blame me for leaving
my only family. The
lies they'd most likely
pump into his head 
about me. But that's
future me's problem,
and I am not future me
(yet).

I get contacted by people
from the SDF.org community
sometimes, it's very
pleasant. One person stood
out in particular though, 
gef. I have been reading
some of his logs and 
one thing he wrote out
really struck me. Taking
a break from the surface
web. Addiction
is a bitch, I am addicted
to multiple social media
platforms, it might be
wise to disconnect for
a bit, see what good it
does for me. Gef, if you
are reading this I hope
you are doing well.

That's about it for tonight,
tomorrow will be interesting.

Goodnight SDF
-May