I Want Whiskey When I'm Sick

(Title from the song Thin Line by Honey Honey)

I'm pretty sure in my last blog post I said I'd post the next day, and now it's three days later, but that's fine because I was busy working. Plus I don't think many people read this blog anymore. I used to get 30 or so views per post, average, and now I get like 4 or 5 per post. I haven't published anything new in forever and I don't advertise this blog as much as I used to, so it's fair. I'm sure traffic will pick up as I get back into publishing and start blogging more.

Today I finished another short story and polished up the first chapter of this novella 'Glimpse' which I normally don't do, but it needed a few paragraphs added to really set up the story efficiently. It felt wrong to leave it any longer. Tonight I'm going to write at least three more chapters. I'm hoping I can finish it but I don't want to bite off more then I can chew and intimidate myself.

To be honest I've been very exhausted and on-edge the last few days. I'm a generally stressful and paranoid person and I have no real emotional support network because I find it hard to open up to people or trust them, so I tend to just bottle things up until I inevitably have huge emotional and mental breakdowns. It's probably due to my highly chaotic and abusive early life, but in the past few years I've lost several family members, five pets, witnessed other family members devolve into intense drug addictions that caused huge fights and rifts in the family, lost friendships, had several breakdowns, and relapsed several times with self-harming. For a long time I beat myself up for all my bad choices and failures, but recently as I start to come out of it, get back to myself, and engage in slightly healthier behaviours, I've come to realize three vital things:

1. I've suffered a lot more than I allowed myself to acknowledge and it really took a huge toll on me that I was in straight up denial about. Things hit you one after the other and you put blinders on to deal with them, existing on auto-pilot for months at a time, so you can only see it all as a whole months or years out from the fact. In retrospect everything happened so fast it's insane. 2016-2018 have been the single most traumatizing years of my life so far.

2. I can never be the person I was before all this happened. I've spent a long time trying to be the person I was at eleven, or fourteen, or sixteen, and I have to accept those versions of me are gone and I've gone through permanently life-altering and personality-altering trauma. I have to forge a new identity even if the loss of my old self makes me sad.

3. It's not enough to acknowledge what you've been through. You have to forgive yourself and hold yourself accountable at the same time. The only thing I can control is me, right now. I can't take back my past actions or habits, I can't go back and relive my life or get any do-overs. I have to be better in the present and do things differently, having learned from my mistakes.

So that's where I'm at now. I'm slowly getting back on track with writing and publishing. I'm trying to go outside more even if it's just to walk the dogs for five minutes. I'm cutting sugar out of my coffee nine times out of ten. And I'm being more forgiving of myself and getting better at telling the evil, snide voice in my head to shut up.

I should probably be in intense therapy and on medication, but both of those things cost money, even here in Canada, and I can't afford them right now. Even if I could, I'm not sure I'm ready for therapy and may never be, but I'm making healthier choices and trying to be more mindful, and most of the time I'm able to get through the day by focusing on little things. Writing a certain number of words. Rewatching BoJack Horseman. Doing small chores around the house and escaping into video games. Basically trying to do things that make me feel present in the moment while also distracting me from the things I constantly stress about.

Here's a brief list:

• life and death
• the human soul
• relatives I've lost
• friends I no longer speak to
• things I said but wish I could take back
• things I didn't say but wish I did
• relatives I wish I had a better relationship with
• how much I generally hate myself
• how I'll spend my entire life either manic or depressive
• my talent or lack of it
• what if I end up homeless?
• what if the world ends?
• how will I stop from killing myself?
• why don't I talk to X anymore?
• my lack of a high school diploma
• how certain relationships will always be strained because of past abuse
• how I'll never let anyone in again because of said past abuse
• whether or not I'm redeemable
• whether or not any of us are redeemable
• is there an afterlife?
• did my now dead pets know I loved them?
• could I have saved certain people if I knew what I know now?

And the list goes on and on. I imagine scenarios that won't happen and get crazy over them. And even if they do happen in some approximation, worrying about them now only means I have to worry and be stressed twice. So I'm shutting down worries and anxiety and tying to worry about situations as they come. Going with the flow, I guess they say.

The truth is I think I reached such a high amount of anxiety, the part of my brain that handles stress and anxiety just broke or something, and now it barely registers. I overloaded the machine, lol.

Or maybe I'm used to living with such high amounts of stress it's just my new normal.

I wish they would recast me sometimes, like when Marnie from Halloweentown turned into Sarah Paxton/Aquamarine, and Reggie from Riverdale turned into an actor with a less punchable face. If I got to just go away, and someone else had to step into the role of Kai for a day. That would be nice.

Actually, on the subject of Reggie from Riverdale, the actor who played him in season one--who is also in 13 Reasons Why, where I like him better--is caught up in a murder investigation with Kurt Cobain's daughter, over a guitar her ex-husband took in their divorce. It's kind of crazy they do keep asking for the guitar back, though. Her ex sounds like a dick, but if she gave it to him, she gave it to him, and she can't really act like she gets it back now just because she regrets it. Maybe don't give away the last object you have of your dead father's to a man, no matter how much you like him?

Maybe that's just me; I have no problem giving stuff away, including expensive stuff, but I won't if it has sentimental value. I have certain blankets, old stuffed animals, and little ornaments and random statuettes from my dead grandma that I know I'll never give away. It's just too important.

I wish I started keeping a diary when I was younger, but I didn't think my memories would be so precious years down the road.

Anyway, enough of the heavy. I had to get that all off my chest. But tonight is really a good night; I did some good work and now I'm going to make a few little pizzas and do research on Ancient Rome for a fantasy short I might write. I'm excited about the work I have coming up. I stepped on a staple today and squirted blood everywhere and now my foot hurts, so that's not fun, but my dad pulled it out and it's not bloody anymore. Writing will distract me from the pain, I'm hoping.

I've always been very clumsy, especially as a kid, but now it's pretty bad again. If I worked out more my core balance would probably be better, but as it is I run into shit and stumble over nothing and impale myself on splinters. Yikes.

If I hear a weird noise I go explore it, too, so I bet I'd die in a horror movie. The new season of American Horror Story looks like it will be a slasher set in the eighties. The next season the witches come back, apparently, again. So then the show might end. Which is sad. But even if they renew it I think Ryan Murphy is too busy for it, he has a lot on the go, along with his new Netflix deal, so I think he could pass the torch to someone new. I think if he leaves, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, and Even Peters might leave, but I hope fans would stay loyal while the show reinvents itself into something new.

I guess I'll leave you with my current ranking of AHS Seasons from best to worst:

1. Cult
2. Roanoke
3. Coven
4. Hotel
5. Murder House
6. Apocalypse
7. Asylum
8. Freak Show

And if you've never seen the show, but don't like anthologies and want a normal chronological show to watch, go in this order:

1. Murder House
2. Coven
3. Hotel
4. Roanoke
5. Cult
6. Apocalypse

Some people might debate me on this, but here's my reasoning: Murder House is the first season and a good introduction to show as a whole, it introduces The Harmons and murder house, which are important figures, and prepares you for the craziness of the show, and the mythology of ghosts. Coven is next in the timeline, chronologically, and it expands on the mythology of ghosts to introduce witches, zombies, immortals, and also some minor deities and the existence of hell, which is important to the overall story. Hotel then explores ghosts in more depth, introduces the Cortez, and of course features a returning Coven character in an important plot point for the show overall.

Roanoke and Cult may be controversial here for their placement potentially, since they break up the ghosts/coven ARC, but I think they're important asides to explore the 'human nature in times of chaos' and 'the danger of political turmoil' themes that are present in Apocalypse. You could easily watch them in the same order before Murder House, though. Finally Apocalypse reunites characters from Coven and Murder House, and wraps up many of the fan favourite character's storylines in a better way than Coven did. It's interesting to see the casts of two seasons collide, especially when the fate of the world is at hand.

AHS is insanely good but I don't think it's a hugely accessible show for a lot of audiences, so if you haven't seen it, I hope you watch it. I never finished Asylum or Freak Show because I didn't care for them, but I'll watch them all the way through one day, when I get them all on DVD.

I covet AHS, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, American Dad and Family Guy on DVD. Once I have every season of those shows in my collection, everything will be complete. At this point in my life I thought I would have enough money to buy some DVDs, but you win some, you lose some. I do have season one of True Blood, but some of those episodes skip in places, so.

Anyway, that's enough ranting about depression and TV shows today. I'm going to go cook pizza and figure out what to do with my life.

Drink up baby, look at the stars, I'll kiss you again, between the bars.

Title of this post courtesy of "Between the Bars" By Chris Garneau!

Hey guys! 

So today I was supposed to have a mental health meeting at five pm, but I school was let out at lunch due to weather conditions (freezing rain/hail, and high winds) so I got picked up early by my parents. We went out for lunch (chinese food, my favorite) and then got some groceries and came home.

It was a decent day actually, aside from having to call and change the date of my appointment. I bought a new book: Cress, by Marissa Meyer. I've been waiting to read it for weeks so I'm pretty excited, it's the third book in her Lunar Chronicles series, which I'm in love with. It's a futuristic retelling of Cinderella, if Cinderella were a chinese cyborg named Cinder, living in New Bejing in the far off future. This fairy tales and star wars basically.  I also bought some hair dye. I think I mentioned in a post a month or so ago that I dyed my hair a dark brown that doesn't show up well on camera . . . my hair is black, so I buy blonde dye and that turns it a reddish brown that really suits me.

I'm going to dye it when I'm done blogging, so if it comes out nicely, I'll post pictures.

I got a really cool idea for a story today, as well. Or a part of one. The forest across the road from my house is entirely white today; all of the tress lost their leaves, and the rain froze and every branch is trapped inside a thick layer of ice. It looks like the entire forest is made of ice, or crystals. It's beautiful, and I'd like to write something about it.

I'm also reading an ARC of Smoke River by Krista Foss right now, and it's about land dispute between the locals of a town and a Mohawk tribe. The townsfolk want to build some suburbs on the Mohawk's land, and basically everyone in the book is despicable except for the natives, and two of the white characters. It's making me think, though, of this story I wrote for my english course last year: it was about a native girl named Adsilla, who had the ability to shape-shift into a doe, and who was being hunter by a pack of werewolves. It was fun to do the research while I was writing, and I'd like to do more research and revisit her character and story in a longer piece, I think. Maybe even a novel.

Of course, if you've read my FAQ, you know I'm planning a (very tentative) mid-summer release for a project I'm working on now. I'm currently working out the characters, setting, and fleshing out my outline -- I'm huge on outlines. I'm estimating it should take me around 2 to 3 weeks to write the novel itself. The last novel I wrote was my first, and the rough draft took me a month, but I was only writing 1500 words a day. These days I write about 5000 to 6000 words a day, and I've also got a much better, clearer outline, and the novel is YA paranormal, which is more my forte than the last I wrote. It was YA futuristic Sci-Fi/space opera.

Speaking of the future; I tasted it today. If you know me, you know I plug Red Bull every chance I get. It's just that amazing. Well today at the grocery store, I discovered BLUEBERRY FLAVOURED RED BULL!!! (Yes, it deserved the extra exclamation points. I'm excited, okay?) I bought two can, and I'm saving one for later, but I gotta say, this stuff is amazing. They also have cranberry and lime, which I'm definitely going to try sometime soon. More Red Bull is good Red Bull, right?

So that was my day: I got books and chinese food and red bull, but I was pelted by hail all morning, so I deserved those things. It's like, karma or destiny or something. The universe is rewarding me for braving the massive bullshit that is Canadian winter (it's actually spring, which it my favorite season, but spring is being dominated by a too-clingy winter right now).

I'll probably blog more tomorrow, if I have anything to say, or if I just want to hear myself talk/type. And if we're being honest here, I always do! I'm gonna go dye my hair and then go to sleep for a million hours, and when I wake up, I'll be able to change the blog theme to something not hideous. Hopefully this weather will  guarantee  school  is cancelled again tomorrow, so I can just do it then.

FAQs updated, and some news.

I added a frequently asked questions page, so if you're looking to know more about me, or upcoming projects, look there. I'll update it as often as possible.

Also, just some general news: I'm still alive. Probably didn't seem like it since I haven't updated in forever, but here I am! I was going through a sluggish, lazy period for a while, but I'm back to normal and I'm ready to start bogging again, and much more often.

Later today or maybe very early tomorrow, I'll write a much more detailed post, but for now I'l keep things short. First, I'll be updating the blog theme as soon as possible. I don't like it as it; it feels ugly, and not really me-ish. I want something that represents myself, since this is a blog about my life. Also, I'm gonna post at least bi-weekly from now on, or try to even post every other day, if that's possible.

The theme change and next post should go up sometime later today, or tomorrow in the middle of the night/early morning. I've been awake since yesterday evening, and I can't go to sleep until pretty late tonight, because I have school and a mental health appointment to go to, so by the time I get home I may drop  and sleep for, like, ever . . .

So definitely check back for that, or just add me to your blog roll/following/bloglovin' and you'll get updates whenever I update.

Currently listening to: Rather be, by Clean Bandit, featuring Jess Glynne. Enjoy!