Mike Parsons is a murderer

Tonight the state of Missouri decided to murder an innocent Black man simply because they felt like it. 

Rest in Power, Marcellus Williams. 

happy? lonely?

I'm trying to be more social and meet people, but I'm definitely not trying hard enough. My world feels empty and lonely lately. I hate how lonely and lazy I've become. I hate how tired I am. And most of all, I hate being around other people. Ultimate irony! Ya gotta find the humour in it, eh?

2020 really changed everything. I've never truly understood "loneliness" until 2020 happened. I'd been lonely before, but never really, truly felt & thoroughly understood what loneliness genuinely felt like. It's so dark, so deep, and so SPECIFIC. At the same time, I've had a lot of VERY wonderful things happen to me over the past few years, and that's an understatement. I'm so luck, grateful, and thankful for a lot of things right now. It makes the contrast between loneliness and joy feel that much stranger, though. Huh. What discord!

....but I guess that's a strange thing to say. I mean, joy and gratitude for things going amazingly in one's life, and feeling despair from the crushing weight of unwanted solitude are NOT mutually exclusive by any means. But it still feels so absurd to experience both simultaneously.

I keep telling myself how important it is to work on any aspects of my life that I'm not happy with as timely and as strongly as I can. And I am, but at a snail's pace. Anything more is just so exhausting. Or is it? Am I just being lazy and complacent? I am a lot of things, but I'm not complacent, am I? There's no way. That's one thing I can never be. (I think!)

All I know is, I'm not doing enough. "All movement forward is progress, no matter how slow." <--This is very true, but, sometimes I found myself in situations in which slow progress just won't cut it. I only speak for myself--everyone has their own speed, their own pace, and their own situations, and their own limitations and goals--but right now, I'm in one of those positions in which I need to put in the effort to try harder. It's good to be comfortable, but then nothing changes.  

Makenai! Ashita e Sailor Yell!

I've been rewatching Sailor Moon lately and I'm back at Stars (the final season, if you didn't know); once it's done, I'll be free to watch the remake/reboot/whatever from 2014. My best friend and I tried watching it when it first aired--iirc, we watched the first 4 episodes, and the animation horrified us, and it was weird, and we just couldn't get into it. Fast forward to a decade later and it's a huge hit and everyone talks about it (some modern day Sailor Moon fans have only seen the reboot, not even the original!), so to say all this talk has gotten my attention is kind of an understatement. I'm totally intrigued (and I notice the animation got fixed bigtime after season 1), so I'm gonna go into the newer series excited as hellll. Just once Stars is done. It's taking me forever, though, because I'm watching so many different anime series (and Western TV series! And K-dramas! And J-dramas!) at the same time, hahahah! 

OH hey, let's talk about Sertraline

 Why did I revive my blog just to leave it un-updated for 6 months? I mean, January? That's the last time I updated? Really?? 

Anyway. 

Cross-posted from my social media platforms, but: I'm trying to write about the trouble I'm having toggling my dosage of Sertraline: half of me doesn't want to talk about it "publicly", and the other half of me wants to help others & let them know they're not alone. So I'm half-assing it by mentioning it casually. 
ha!! 

5 years

After all these years, I still think EVERY DAY about what a luxury it is to walk around my own home in bare feet and feel the wooden floor beneath me. It's not something I ever thought I'd miss while I was in the hospital, but months of not being able to walk anywhere without hard slippers on is an odd, cold, constant reminder of the odd, cold, sterile and uncomfortable environment you're imprisoned in while you're an in-patient--one that I had never previously anticipated. There's a Björk song called 5 Years. In it, she sings the lyrics "You think you're denying me of something....You're the one who's missing out But you won't notice, til after five years, if you'll live that long. You'll wake up all loveless." Why yes Björk, I did indeed live that long (and will hopefully live many years--nay, decades--longer!), but I haven't woken up all loveless. More like...all cancerless! HA! Take that, leukemia. "You think you're denying me of something." Can I sing those words to cancer? hahaha...

According to Facebook Memories, on this day 5 years ago I was being quarantined in isolation at the hospital because I had woken up with the sniffles. I was also happy because I wasn't nauseous that day. (Chemo is such a bitch!)
Forward 5 years later to today, I woke up coughing and achey. My throat is sore and my head hurts. But I'm sick in the coziness of my own home so I'm happy. :)
I'm EXTRA happy that it's been 5 years! 5 years post-transplant is considered full remission. That will be in August. I'm excited!

I celebrated my 4-year anniversary last year by going to Greece. What should I do this year, now that I'll be gaining the official remission title?
I have a lot in mind, but the one thing I want to do more than anything is return to Japan. The main obstacle in my way is lack of funds (as usual), so we'll see.... I need to make this happen though. My plan is to look for a 2nd job...or more likely, to do some freelancing on the side. :)

Sayumi Michishige has OCD

I can’t tell you how I feel when someone famous and/or someone I admire announces they have OCD. It’s such a unique type of hell. It’s always good to know you’re not alone, but it’s a whole other level of comfort when someone who seems “bigger than life” suffers from the same thing.

It’s yet a whole other level when it’s someone from Japan, considering how incredibly conservative Japanese society is compared to the west, and considering how getting help for illness is so deeply frowned upon, especially when that illness can be classified as “mental”. 

It’s yet a whole OTHER level when it’s someone from MORNING MUSUME.
And this is SAYUMI MICHISHIGE we’re talking about here. Queen Sayu! The one & only.

Sayumi Michishige has gone public with her struggles with OCD. 

Her OCD is so bad that she needs to take a break from the public eye to deal with it.
As if I didn’t love & adore her & flat-out obsess over her enough already, now there’s this?
Not only am I so proud of her for being public about this, but now I feel, like, a special kind “bond” with her, if that makes sense?
I swear I don’t mean that in a creepy way! Hopefully, what I'm trying to say is clear--knowing someone has gone through the same type of struggles as you makes you feel more of "kinship" with that person, even though you don't know them personally, and it's just someone in the public eye whom you admire from afar. 

It’s horrible, though, some of the comments poor Sayumi has been getting on socials--as you might imagine. There are men out there who have been saying that she just needs a man in her life to cure the OCD. Misogyny & grossness aside (is it possible to put those things aside?), I don’t know how ignorant you have to be to not realize that getting a partner will most likely make the OCD much worse, not the other way around. 

I mean, it’s OK to not know things, but it’s definitely not OK to use your ignorance to spread hateful, incredibly gross sexist comments.  

It’s definitely not OK to think mental illness can be cured by having a sexual partner. 

“This woman needs a man in her life to cure her COVID!”
“If she actually got a boyfriend, her IBS would be cured.”
That’s about how much sense that makes. Except with the added caveat that dating or being in a relationship will likely exacerbate OCD!

(Not to mention…I believe (or rather assume) that Sayumi is gay. I think she’d prefer a girlfriend or wife, not a boyfriend. But that’s a whole other topic for another time. )

All about rage

 ....yeah, I'm not good at coming up with snappy titles for my blog entries. :P 

Anyway, this post is about rage and why and how different people express it, and what their reasons are.
I was just writing about this on Facebook, making multiple posts about it as there was just too much to say, and finally I gave up and decided to just make one centralized big blog post about it, because hey, that's exactly what blogs are for. 

I've been trying to express my feelings on this matter a lot over the years, as I constantly have people saying to me "oh, no one will listen to you if you express things to angrily"; "tone it down"; and "if you get mad nicely, people might listen." 
I'm tired of being subjected to these comments that do have some truth to them, but don't apply to my situation, as I don't rant to inform or educate people, or even to get anyone to change their minds. 

I rant to get things off my chest and feel better. I rant to -- quite literally -- vent. 

I don't expect to change anyone's minds. If I wanted to, I'd definitely take a different approach to doing so. I wouldn't rage at them. No, that's just something I do for my own sanity. It's emotion. It needs to come out somehow. The same can be said of sadness and anxiety. 

Would you say "oh, you'll never get anyone to understand if you say things so sadly" if someone's crying too hard because they're sad? 

Or "oh, you'll never get anyone to understand if you say things so strangely/excitedly" if someone's freaking out because they're anxious? 

No, because that would be absurd. You know they're just feeling emotion and not necessarily trying to debate or argue or make a point. 

It's just emotion. That's it. 

Anger is the same. When I lose my temper or need to get something off my chest, it's not necessarily because I think I'm "right". It's most certainly not because I want to debate*. It's just an emotion I need to express, something that I can't hold in any longer. 
(*On that note, a lot of people need to stop conflating "I don't want to debate" with "no one is allowed to disagree with me." Come on, folks. This should be socializing 101!)

Like, for example, imagine it this way. You're carrying a very full, heavy box. You can't carry it forever! At one point your arms will buckle, and you'll drop the box, spilling the contents whether it's "appropriate" or not. You can't make the contents spill out "nicely" or in the "right way"; they're just going spill out as they will. You're physically incapable of holding them in any longer. 

All that being said, of course--there are toooons of people who use anger as a way to attempt to inform/educate others, and this is something I really try to distance myself from. I know when I get yelled at constantly, I eventually mute or unfollow.

If you truly want to change people's minds (and if you're being honest with yourself here, and that's what you REALLY want to do, as opposed to just wanting to vent like I do), you also need to remember that--wildly hot take here, but--people don't like being yelled at!

I know, I know. Neither change nor progress are made through being nice. Obviously. You know, when it became really trendy for awhile to say "don't tone police me!" I was really happy because I finally felt validated in my (very vocal) anger about important issues.
But you can't be that way all the time about everything, then act shocked when people (very justifiably) walk away. Everyone's dealing with enough shit as it is. NO ONE needs people screaming at them on top of it all. It's one thing if you're ranting to let off steam, but expecting people to listen to you while you do so is rather tone-deaf, if you asked me. I mean, do you expect people to nod their heads and be like, "Yeah! You know what? You're right! Thanks for yelling at me in a blind rage, you really helped me see the light."

Like, for sure that's going to work sometimes--hell, it's worked on me in the past. Just in general, I think, the reality is that people are going to pay attention if you make a fuss. 
But, that only goes so far. Not everyone is going to be persuaded by you if pure fury is the road you take, and you have to learn to be OK with that. What's really important, I think, is to not dismiss these unfollowers as lazy, disinterested, or bad. And I see a lot of this. It's just completely unreasonable. How can you blame people for wanting to walk away from you when you're constantly being unpleasant? It's one thing if you don't care what they think, but so many of you do. You get so mad when people choose to distant themselves from just constant negativity, and it's totally absurd and flat-out irrational of you to do so. 

People aren't "apathetic" just because they don't want to listen to you rage and insult them.