You're Gonna Have to Try Harder.

For those of you with Steam/those of you with an interest in wicked sweet games: have you yet to experience the Humble Bundle?  The glorious bundle where you get mad games for wicked cheap.  Please investigate it.  They are doing something new, a weekly sale, and this week's item is Bastion.  I mentioned it a while ago, and it is a pretty sweet game, and also relatively easy.

Ugh, just watch the trailer:




The Humble Bundle (http://www.humblebundle.com/weekly) lets you get this game for ONE DOLLA.  If you pay the average price ($2.62 at the time of posting), you also get BONUS CONTENT.  It is totally worth it.  Mega cheaps.

As far as adventures go, I have been up to absolutely nothing.  I did nothing glorious over the last spring break I will ever have.  No sir, I got a cold and I worked 8 hour days the whole week.  Grandpa's also not doing so well either.  Repeated head trauma has rapidly increased the rate of his (impending) memory loss.  He's still got long term memory going on, but short term is severely limited.  He doesn't hold conversations anymore.  It's difficult; he is not the same person.  Things are difficult.

Some Nicolas Cage brought a little light back into my life, though.  Cage match.  Hoy's.  Things aren't so bad.  Not bad at all.  Impending debt, uncertain future, and here I am feeling better.

What's the deal with that?



Bonus music Tuesday:



(Pomplamoose is French for grapefruit, or so I have heard).

Spring in Winter

So despite snow storms and having to unearth my car at the crack of dawn this morning just to get to class, I feel like Spring is in the air. Renewal mixed with nostalgia, you know? (renewal in that it was kind of warm today, all things considered, and nostalgia because I found Sailor Moon on the internet a few days ago and have been revisiting some old books and I keep thinking Hey! I'm going to see Those People I Like soon!)

Though I don't think a lot of our spring breaks match up and not everyone is coming home for break.

STILL! Spring break means we're closer than ever to summer break and then

AND THEN

I think we ought to have a gathering. With food and drink and maybe it can be outside and it will be lovely.

School's going alright--this semester is the first time I'm taking less than the maximum amount of credits and holy crap how have I been doing this all this time I don't even

But I think my lack of classes miiiight have had a negative impact on my motivation to like, do anything. Oops?

And sadly I think my plans to head off to ye olde Baltimore are going to have to be postponed, cuz I keep having mild panic attacks about debt and I don't think having to pay rent and whatnot is going to help that at all. AT ALL. And waking up in the middle of the night with the crushing weight of all the things I need to pay back doesn't strike me as horribly healthy.

But one day it'll be okay.

Sigh.

All things considered, not doing too bad. Pretty excited for April's Camp Nano (and if you've been too intimidated to do Nano in November cuz of the whole 50k words thing, try Camp Nano! They've adjusted it so you can set your own word count goal so long as it is at least 10k AND you can do scripts for like screen plays and stuff).

MOTIVATION.

(also, anyone got any good book recommendations? I AM LE BORED)

This song has totally been my jam this past week.

Notes from a new insomniac

Gah, it's a dismal day outside. Here's some rainy day tunes to go with my post.

I slept through my alarm this morning. This is odd for two reasons. 1. My alarm is set on my phone which sleeps with me in the bed all night next to my ear for the sole purpose of avoiding sleeping in, and 2. I've been having this terrible insomnia lately which means I'm usually up way before my alarm anyway.

So imagine my surprise when my second alarm goes off at 9:15am and I'm still in bed, feeling rested for the first time in...a week? Or has it been two weeks? Time has been weird so who knows. I think it's the rain. Rain always soothes me, and despite the fact that it was the most beautiful snow a few days ago (and spring the day before that), suddenly it was raining. People blame global warming, but I still think I'm a weather goddess. Before I realized that my mood was INCREDIBLY weather sensitive, I used to think that the weather was actually responding to my mood instead of influencing it. And now, even though I'm apparently an adult about 90 days from the adult world, I'm starting to go back to that line of thinking. Maybe the weather is so crazy erratic because my mood has been so crazy erratic. It was snowing these fat, happy contented flakes when I was feeling at peace, then the next day that gave way to sun and warm weather, just when I was feeling happy and optimistic. Now though, after another battle with insomnia, I'm beginning to feel doubtful, and a little bit afraid.

It's always the odds and ends of thought that keep me awake, things I can't change or don't understand or both. Death. My future. Things I've done wrong that haven't caught up to me yet. Things I've done wrong that I haven't even realized. Loneliness.

I've tried self-medicating a bit, but I don't like the way Z-quil makes me feel, and I'm totally unwilling to try anything harder. I've started doing yoga before bed and meditating, which helps some, but mostly I've been camping out on my couch. I do too much work and homework on my bed, which I know psychologically makes it harder for you to sleep in your own bed (because it becomes a place you associate with work and stress instead of rest), so I've started using a desk for the first time in years, pressed up against my bedroom window. But mostly I've been couching it up, watching movies on Netflix where everyone is more stressed than I am until the weight of everyone else's heavy burdens push me down to sleep. Some times this happens at 2:00am, sometimes it happens at 6:00am. After four or so hours of sleeping and dozing I wake up and start my day.

I've never considered myself an anxious person, but I know it's mostly anxiety that's keeping me up. Again, there's no way I'm taking meds for that (I don't even use shampoo anymore because I'm that wary of chemicals; thanks for the help in finding alternatives by the way Trish!). So I'm hoping talking about it with you guys, or at least sharing it with you, will help take some of the burden off.

Some of it is coming from too much work/homework and not enough time.

Some of it is coming from sadness over having to graduate and say good bye to my friends. And of course the uncertainty surrounding my future.

Some of it comes from (GOOD NEWS ALERT) the fact that I got the Alaska job as a horseback guide! Which I'm am thrilled about but also sooooooo incredibly nervous about. Is it childish of me to run off to Alaska and ride ponies for five months? How will this help me get a future career? What if I'm putting off finding a real job, and thus I never get one? How will this help me pay off my loans? Should I just stay in Chicago and work in the bookstore? What if what if what if?

What if what if what if.

Less Content, More Music

Not a whole lot to say at the moment, to be honest. Classes are going alright, the end is in sight (I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO THAT CEREMONY), and if they push back the BioShock: Infinite release date one more time I'm going to scream.

BUT ANYWAY.

I need music. But a certain kind! But not the kind I can just tap into a search engine and hope for the best for, because it's an idea rather than a genre, so I am asking you lovely folks for ideas. 

What kind of music belongs in a playlist called "Urban Decay?"

GO. 

DO ME PROUD.

Though I will still love you if you can't think of anything.

...Probably. 

Note: music does not need to be The Birthday Massacre or even The Birthday Massacre-esque. Which is why trying to use Pandora can prove difficult, since they get a little *too* into the genre and I'm aiming for variety. Also interested in seein' what y'all can come up with :)

We're Chained

I want to be positive. 
I want to be upbeat. 
But really, I'm just hoping everything will finally fall into place.

But it's not.
Not yet, at least. 

If anything, everything is falling apart.


I feel like I am less certain of what I want to do with my life than ever before.

With decision time looming closer, I am just backing myself further and further into a corner. 

I don't want to think about the future.


I just want to sit down and play video games.

I'm feeling pretty trapped right now. 

What kind of job experience do I have?  It's pretty useless, whatever it is.

What do I even want to do with it anyway? 
Where do I even want to go? 
Who do I want by my side?
What am I willing to sacrifice? And to what end?


But somehow, I really am not that worried about it. 
I mean, what good will worrying do?

Everything seems to work out for everyone, in some way, shape, or form.
Life's been good to us so far...


I'm sure we'll all be fine, with whatever it is that we're going to do.

New Zealand, man. Fuckin New Zealand

I aint got much to say, except

You're in the Wrong Part of Town, Buddy

I can taste the sweet freedom of winter break.  I have completed the treacherous Nine Project Week.  I have lost several days of sleep, survived many hours of car-sick feelings, and thwarted some minor hallucinations.

I return to this mortal realm only to see all of you struggling, and I would like to give you words of comfort.  It is hard!  You will be tired!  But you CAN do it, because you are all fucking fantastic.
You all make me as happy as this cleavage bird:

Please let me know if you guys need any help!  I have a lot of free time until the end of the semester.  I can research for you.  I can distract.  I can recommend games or movies or TV shows.  I can chat.  Let me help all of you!

When I was working on my projects, I found that ingesting too much caffeine and listening to instrumentals really helped me focus and write.  Also, video game music.   Lone Star is a song from a quirky indie game I picked up in a Humble Bundle.  You can tell it was designed for a touch-screen tablet or phone, but is workable on a computer as well.  It's kind of like a puzzle/action/mystery game, where the main character is on a quest to conquer some unconquerable power at great cost.

It is full of interesting, original music and incredibly silly and witty one-liners.  Colorful, yet dark pixel scenery sets a good tone for the gameplay.  The world is a little small, but there is a lot of originality behind the way it is laid out and the events that occur in it.  It's even a thought-provoking game, in a "what the heck is going on and whyyyy" kind of way.  Most indie games these days are platformers, puzzle, or physics games, so this was a refreshing game to play, and something I'd recommend to others.

Ugh.  Rainbows.  Scythians loath rainbows.