A Fine Start

       Last night I had the most amazing bath. Normally they don't calm me down, but I came out so incredibly relaxed and happy. I still had a headache and I didn't even care! And like that wasn't good enough by itself, when I fell asleep, I stayed asleep.

      My dream involved my phobia, naturally, but that was still the best damn day I think I've ever had!

      My game is going pretty great, too. Last night I finally killed off enough Sims to fit them all under one roof, so now I can add the finishing touch to upload them to the Exchange. And if you don't speak geek, I'm going to immortalize them forever so that I don't have to start at the bottom if my computer conks out. Which it will. It always does; you should see it. When I turn it on, the screen sometimes flashes and has green bars. I'm surprised it's lasted me this long.

      You. You who? I don't know why I insist on addressing someone who's not there. But I don't care about that so much, either, because I slept!

...

      I don't even know how to begin.

      I just read a message telling me to go commit suicide. How awful is that? Well, as one who actually was going to, I can tell you it hit home pretty hard. And speaking of home, in the middle of Covid, I may actually have to move.

      I am so tired of moving! Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?! Seriously, my mother is racking up a grand total of one fucking hundred moves! I haven't tallied up how many moves I've made; namely because I know it's never going to last. I'm sitting here literally knowing that if we don't have to move now, we'll have to move later, to another place we'll have to leave.

      I don't know where I had my best and worst days. What I do know is, if there's a permanent gas stain on a driveway, it used to be my house. If there's a house with an elevated bathroom, and you have to sit on the toilet to close the door, my stepfather built it.

      With him long gone, it feels safe now to finally admit something. One of the reasons we had to move so much in my childhood (which has been gone longer than he has, I'll say that much) is because he used to skip out on the rent. I swear, this one house, we moved in and then a week later we moved right back out. If there was a contest for instability, we'd be loaded!

      So that's it. That's my 2020. I could be losing my home, people want me to lose my life, and my family thinks we could all end up on our own. Sometimes I thought it could be nice, to sleep in without somebody dramatically stating that I'm alive every single morning. But I think I still need someone there. Someone who knows when garbage day is, someone who knows when payday is. Someone who can tell me who I am when I forget.

      And okay, it might do me some good to take initiative. Who knows? I used to be worse, believe it or not. I wouldn't go anywhere alone, even into a store with someone I trusted waiting just outside. It blows my mind to look back. It embarrasses me. Now I go out by myself every chance I get, I'm not as afraid as before, and I can even find my way in the hospital. Which is good, because back when I was still figuring it out, I had to help a stranger. It was a learning moment for both of us.

      Oh, good grief. I think my best times are in that hospital. That's where I had to grow and change, it's where I helped that woman, it's where a man helped me.

      He was the sweetest guy. He was like a million years old, he had a bad foot, the ground was covered in snow and actual glass, and he offered to help me to the car. I remember telling him to rest his foot, and I remember his name, but I cannot remember for the life of me if I thanked him.

      Moving sucks. Getting old sucks. I always have to pee, I keep forgetting stuff, and lately I haven't been able to sleep because I get so dizzy when I lay down. My hair is turning gray....and I'm only 28. People think it's so funny. The people who say they love me laugh and laugh like it's the best damn joke they ever heard. We'll just see how funny it is when I forget who they are and die of old age in my forties. I'll probably get a senior's pension before my mother will.

      Well, whatever. I've got to go. We've got the photographers coming much too soon, so....this old fogey better skedaddle. And then when they're gone, I'm taking a nap.

Movie Thoughts

       I never noticed until now, but the 2010 Disney movie Tangled is very much like What A Girl Wants. The main characters both spend their lives knowing something is missing. Following that, they both leave their homes, get taken in by at least one British person, have the potential to become queen someday, have their first kiss on a lake, and give their crowns to someone else. They both play guitar, their motherly figures are both singers, and in both movies the queen makes a late appearance and does not talk. They're even both locked up in a room by a British person. And both movies have twins.

      And obviously they both move into the big house, have both their parents and their boyfriend by their side. Daphne should have com-pared herself to Rapunzel instead of Cinderella.

      Then again, I always thought the typical, locked-in-a-tower princess was way too optimistic. They should be shut-ins. It might have improved Tangled if Rapunzel had been torn between her fear of the world and her love for the light. I mean, I go out into the world all the time, and it's always going to be something I'm afraid of.

      Daphne ventured off on her own without a proper goodbye. You'd think Rapunzel would do the same; sneak off when Gothel is asleep. The rest of personality does not match up with her meek, sub-missive, "Yes Mother" behavior. In every other aspect she's basically fearless. Jumping off a cliff, stealing from a criminal, telling him she trusts him when they've known each other for two minutes. That's not realistic. It's not relatable. And yet, it is every Disney princess...ever.

      Even in Frozen, when true love's kiss was not actually the cure for Anna's frozen heart; she was still no different. Jumping off a cliff, giving her full trust to two different guys. It was nice to see a sisterly love, for once, coming to the rescue, but I would sure love to see a movie where the main female is not losing her mind over some man.

Traumatized

       Yesterday morning I was roped into watching videos of a recent school day in America. It was awful! Kids vomiting, pooping, tripping on vomit and poop. Crying. Cussing.

      You can't benefit from school when you're like that. They need to go home and rest. And to all you Americans, I'm sorry Trump is an idiot.

      To all you people still saying Covid is fake, you're a bigger idiot than he is.

Update

      Hello, nobody. It's me again, nobody.
      My life is going fine. I've been busting my ass on my book; which has gotten to 230-some odd pages. And I'm only on chapter thirteen! And nowhere near finished. Hey, what's up with this wacky new pre-post layout? Not crazy about Facebook's new look either. To quote Sheldon, "Everything's changing and it's simply too much."
      I went to the store yesterday; what a wild walk that was. These kids came in with their skateboards, left them just lying all over the place, and then on my way back a group of bikers almost ran me over. They weren't looking where they were going and I had to jump out into the street. Darn kids. Little tip; watch where you're going. Don't even do it for other people, you egotist; do it for yourself. Just because your head is a hot air balloon, doesn't mean you can fly.... you're still earthbound where there's traffic.
      Much too soon and running on no sleep, I have to do it again. I'd like to not. What I really want is to drink hot chocolate and watch something new. But nothing's been updated yet....and one sip of hot chocolate would land me in ER. I think at this point we can all agree, it sucks, being unable to do the things you want. In fact there are many things I want! To say something profound, to not feel tired, to hear from a relative I don't live with. Preferably not the ones spreading a rumor about me. Well....that's the thing with religious folks; they make up their own truths. I was stunned when I heard what they were saying; I've never been included in gossip before.
      It's actually nice, in a twisted way. It makes me feel like a different person. I've been needing that my whole life.

....

      So I finally got my Sims 3 working again. Actually, that's incorrect. Turns out it was working the whole time. All I had to do was start a new game. Now it's running just fine; no missing content, no missing options, no objects with missing interactions. I guess all my other saves became corrupt. I'm playing now without even one expansion pack and it seems to have fixed all the problems. It feels so weird and so good to be playing again. But, my ports die with annoying frequency; forcing me to restart my computer, typically every second time. It's pretty hard to play that way, but at least I'm playing.

      I also tried to give Young Sheldon a chance. But after nine-year-old Missy started flirting with her sixty-something doctor, it lost its appeal really fast. Hopefully I can find a different show that deserves to be seen. I've been checking into Chicago MED, but I spend most of the time cringing and looking elsewhere.

      So just since January I've read all five Partholon books, completed two marathons of Friends and one marathon of Fresh Prince. I rearranged my bedroom and now I'm on season four of another Big Bang Theory rerun. I've made wonderful cookies, horrible fudge, and pudding that's rather chewy. And about every second day, I lose interest in my home life, put on my mask and go out. I'm fine so far, keeping my distance and being hygienic; which is more than I can say about the rest of the world. My brother actually saw some idiot pick up a discarded mask covered in phlegm and put it on her face.

      I don't know why people don't believe or understand that pandemics can happen, germs can spread, and they can die. It's like they think it's a joke.

      The only joke I see is the assumption that sense is common....

Fanbashing Memoirs Of A Geisha....Again

      I've been thinking again about Memoirs Of A Geisha. I love the movie, or at least most of it; but the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. I wrote about this here already, five months ago; about Hatsumomo being a pointless character—in that she has "never even had a patron," yet has also "earned back her purchase price," "brings in good money" and "was a maiko once." This totally implies that she has become a Geisha, while simultaneously tells us that she has not earned the title because she does not have a danna.
      But more has occurred to me. Mameha tells Mother, "If Sayuri erases her debt in the time allowed (which she does), you will have no part in her future earnings." Yet, Mother keeps "all 15,000 yen to (her) estate." But we can put that aside for a second, because the biggest plothole is this: The highest bidder for Sayuri's mizuage is the baron, but Mameha "lets it go to Dr. Crab." Unless the baron's bid was higher than 15,000 yen—which would mean that she sabotaged her sister's okiya—it would mean that Mameha had to pay off the difference, giving Sayuri money that no one else could ever know about. Unless I'm mistaken, Mameha is a criminal, Sayuri is a mule, Mother is a thief, and Hatsumomo is pointless.

      Can anyone tell me I'm wrong?