Lonely.

I miss Ridgecrest...

When you have an ear infection they give you a set amount of antibiotic to totally curbstomp whatever's got you feeling under the weather. It's important to take EVERY SINGLE DOSE, even if you feel perfectly fine, because just because you don't feel it doesn't mean that STANK-NASTY BUG GERM ISN'T FESTERIN' IN YOUR HEAD. If you skip it, it comes back stronger for being struck down and you actually have to get a different antibiotic as it becomes a resistant strain and is evermore determined to wreck you.

I think I screwed myself and skipped a dosage regarding that nasty emotional cold I've been dealing with. I was feeling better and I shrugged it off and it came back with a vengeance. But BEING SAD REALLY IS A PRODUCT OF HOW YOU REACT TO THINGS! I handled it pretty badly yesterday night. I threw a little tantrum.

Not even a good tantrum. If you don't know me, I'm kind of indignant when I get angry and sad.

It winds up coming out a lot like This. Because I'm a bit of a push-over and I know myself well enough to know that I'll be fine in the morning, so I'm just like, "Well guys, I'm angry. I'll be okay though!"

 Today, I decided how I'd deal with it. I drew a picture of the mountains of Ridgecrest. I listened to some music I've never heard. I had a slice of Pizza Margherita. I cleaned up my shit. I took a break from GetAmped 2, and I mailed out the letter I wrote to Emily. 

The music by the by is pretty amazing. It's Chiptune. With vocals. Done by the talented Space Boyfriend. "Bug Spray" is a story-ballad about a boy from space chasing a little Earth girl. And their lovely WATERMELON-DATES and all sorts of HAPPY and SAD moments that follow. 

Kind of like MASS EFFECT WITHOUT GUNS AND NOTORIOUSLY POOR ENDINGS.

Please give Bug Spray a listen. It's really a heartwarming album for anyone who's nerdy and been in love.

Be sure to go in-order. The songs segue into each-other!

Anyways, my Navy stuff is finally squared-away. I swear-in next Thursday after another physical exam.

I'm not really sure how to feel. I'm in-love. I'm scared. I'm excited. I'm a lot of things.

I'M SCARED AND INSECURE, MY DEAR.

All the same, I'm excited to be doing something with myself. I'm actively working towards a better life. Towards a position from which I can help more people. Towards a happy and more-permanant look at those mountains I miss so much, and the person who lives beside them.

In conclusion, a ways back Liam, his squeeze Swing, and I had an intentionally over-the-top roleplay in the middle of Maid Army's Skype-chat. It's spawned a few in-jokes and kind of threatens to live on in infamy. There's some parts that are less funny because you don't hear us laughing over our microphones, but here's a Transcription of our terrible adventures in a WORLD OF PIZZA AND SEMEN.

Headcolds, Hospital Children, and Fasting.

It's not uncommon to find religions, doctrines, and philosophies that divide the Human Body into various planes of existence; most commonly the Spiritual Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Mental.

Often times these are looked at, perhaps incorrectly, as almost an alternate dimension - a "Different You" or something that exists solely in the context of whatever aspect of yourself you are considering or observing.

But, to me, they seem to be very much an extension of the physical body. The reason I bring this up is that I find it entirely possible for someone to catch a figurative 'Headcold'. Not in the sense that it's traditionally understood to be "Mentally Sick," but rather a bout of poor judgment. A span of disillusionment. A sudden restlessness. Dissatisfaction with what you love.

There are off-days on occasion when I look out upon my yesterdays and I feel this disenchantment; this bitter disconnect where instead of the progress and happiness I've made and shared, I see dull routines of working out, waking up at 5:00, dealing with people who aren't my favorite, cold and bitter coffee, dull muscular aches, dramatic evenings with Liam and Swing, lengthy goodnights, and waiting for the Navy to whisk me away.

My perspective sours for a moment. My outlook catches a cold.

I think I was sporting a headcold for a bit without knowing it.

Today, I took off the gymshorts and tank-tops I've been wearing one after the other and I put on the Red Jacket Emily gave me. My favorite. My prized possession. I got dressed up like I was doing on a date, and I walked the good distance to the lakeshore. I climbed out onto a rocky outcropping in the water and I just sat there.

A muskrat peeked out of the stones I sat on before retreating within them. I stood up tall and held my arms out. It began to rain. I called Emily and talked to her while the water began to plip and splash. When we parted ways, the rain turned into a downpour and the lakeshore looked to be boiling and black - when the sky turned dark, so too did the waters. It was beautiful.

I stood there, high on that outcropping with my arms out while the rain soaked me down to my shoes, watching the lighthouse flash on the opposite shore grow harder and harder to see.

I was so happy. A call from Emily and a thorough soaking from the sky was all I needed to get over my cold.

By the same token, I've been on fast all day. It was quite frustrating. I crave tofu and eggplant, and rice, and peanut-butter. On Thursday, I receive my ship-out date and I've begun to worry about it among other things. A curious man I met - a Chechen - advised me to pray, meditate, and fast. I listened.

In closing, here is a piece of art done by Ten. I'd mentioned it in my prior post. It's the piece I'd wanted to buy an artbook for. I don't know what's so amazing about it, but it's downright amazing to me. I feel a kinship to the boy in the picture, because I have done similar things. The style. The everything.
I just enjoy it very much and I hope you do, too. It really puts me in a state of wonder.

Please be sure to click on it, as it's too wide for my tiny Blog's dimensions, and thus will not display fully.

Artbooks, Dark Souls, and Swagchirin.

The Navy is still processing my information - as of most recently, they'd requested an unneeded Doctor's Write-Up. Brown was pretty miffed about having her time wasted, and spent the entirety of my call saying, "I stamped 'Normal Physiology' on the front, what don't they get?" My Father, however, assures me that they are being intentionally slow about processing me to make certain I am the kind of person capable of wading through red tape. Thankfully, I wade through red tape quite casually. Just about every day in fact, so I should be passing that test quite readily.

Things are going kind of well. Emily's eagerly anticipating the release of Dark Souls on PC, and we've been fawning over people dishing out mad carnage with caestus, silly whips, and mad two-hander dead-angles. Money's going to be a little tight, but I'm hoping the Navy will finally get the lead out and I can give her the remainder of my cash before shipping-out where I won't need it. If I ever wind up Dark Soulsin', I'd love to wear the Maiden's Outfit and a pair of battle-mittens. And probably work for Gwyndolin. Because he's a violent religious trap, and they just don't make Good-Guys like that anymore. They're almost exclusively the generic villains now.

Also, Quelaan's pretty cool, too.

As Sabina put it, "I never thought I'd want to hug a spider."

I could stand to forgo Gwyndolin on a different character and do some Daughter of Chaosin'. Yeaaah, and I'd use that silly Summoner's Trident. And I'd Humpty-Hump my way to victory.

I've got plans with Dustin today - I'm hoping to write a firework scene. I wanted to write something that was really showy and neat, and had a lot of sensory information. That black gunk you get on your hands. The sulfur-smell of a dead firework. All the bright colors. The clouds of smoke that hang in the air afterwards. All the little paper casings that are left-over. That's a lot to write about. I hope it goes over well.

Tomorrow, I'm probably gonna skip lifting weights to go another stint in cardio and do a timed push-up and sit-up routine. I've yet to beat nine minutes and some change as my best time, but I can do ten minutes after walking the three miles one way there. However, I've been working my abs and legs, so I'm anticipating better time on account of being fitter.
I think I'm finally getting results for my abs. I came back from the shower in my boxers and an undershirt and my sister'd remarked, "I'm starting to be disturbed by the amount you're working out. I can see your abs through your shirt."

That's precisely the result I'm looking for beyond simply 

being able to manage the fitness circuits for the military.

If you hadn't read earlier, I'd shared my really terrible Touhou Raps on GetUmpt's community boards. I've considered posting them on Tumblr as well, and after my first post regarding them, I got a really delightful image from a stranger. Without further ado, I'd like to offer you a second helping of Swagchirin, courtesy of the lovely Plus1000Years:

Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I appreciate this silly stuff.

Talking with Rigel, I'd received a really wonderful album - the fourth installment in the HOSPITAL^ anthology. I'd considered buying the second installment for a very beautiful picture and some really curious music. I can afford it right now, but the solid quid I've got left is kind of saved for an emergency. When September comes around, I might treat myself to it. I really like it because it's an innovative idea:

HOSPITAL^ has more or less gotten a bunch of very skilled artists to draw amazing pictures depicting the mindset, emotion, idea, misconceptions, and other sensations of being interred in a hospital. These range from the atypical moeblob pictures to beautiful paintings and fullblown comics. Afterwards, they'd taken a bunch of very obscure but quite talented musicians and assigned them a picture to build a track around. So essentially, it's a pair of small artbooks that have a soundtrack for each picture contained.

When I was a kindergartener, my father had left a copy of Calvin and Hobbes on his work-desk and I'd begun reading it in secret. It was amazing. Prior to that, I'd read small stories but none in particular that really enticed me enough to read casually. It had pictures fulls of whimsical playing that I could relate to. It had silly depictions of things I was being taught in school. It had words I didn't understand like 'Tyranny', and things I loved like Spaceman Spiff and Tracer Bullet. I own a small few comics in paper. No real artbooks. But the concept behind owning them is quite the same. I really hope that someday, a child or person cracks it open, and it's unlike anything they've seen prior and they're changed a little - understood, inspired, entertained - I don't know. Just better off for having opened it up, like I was.

Anyways, I've got to go to the Gym and Church now. And after that, I've got to do my laundry and tidy-up.

My bed has been unmade for two days, I have a pile of gymclothes in the "I'll wash those later" corner, and after sorting my socks last night, I'd dumped them lazily on the floor. Kind of a busy morning, I suspect, but it'll be alright.

Also, I'd had an odd dream - I had kidnapped several people as advised by my father to collect ransoms off of them. They were nice people. A mother and her daughter. Some guy. They were sitting in the back of a covered truckbed. It was kind of dark. When I saw how worried they looked though, I thought "I can't do this - they're really good people, and I'm troubling them and stealing from their families," I tried to explain that my background check was in work for the Navy and that I couldn't afford to have it compromised because it were my only chance at respectable income in the day's economy. I pulled up to an apartment complex that the people lived in. I let them out and I apologized and requested they not turn me in and compromise my career. I abruptly woke up after this. It was an odd dream - apparently even in my subconscious I'm just not that great at being an utter villain.

First World Problems and Buddhist Swag.

There's just a few sensations quite like going to bed exhausted, knowing you've left a Torrent running and will get to listen to really slick music in the morning, only to wake up and realize your ISP is doing maintenance and has turned-off your connectivity, and so your torrent has capped out at two-percent. One that comes to mind is finding a respectable gift-box addressed to you only to find it contains a two day-old fart left by an amusing if not rancid hobo; you're initially sort of amused by the sheer chance of it lining up like that, but at the same time it's a pretty bad stink.

Things have been a little weird - as they never fail to be less - and I've been in a bit of a rut; a variation on that old Recipes for Life bit I'd given you some time ago that I'll introduce to you later.

Lately, my days have been concluding pretty early - at 9:00 or 9:30 PM depending on how hard I've worked-out and how much crap it's mandatory I do. That's also like, 6:00 PM for Emily, which makes it feel a good deal more outraging than it is at face-value to me.

It dawned upon me yesterday that there has not been a single day within the past two months where I have traveled less than six miles using muscular force. I usually do this from 12:00 to 3:00 or so.
For the first time in a long time my legs are pretty shot because I took two days to work them while letting an injured wrist rest on one day in between. My left hand's been really pained and sensitive every time I press it palm-first.

Typically, around 5:00 AM I play a few rounds of GetAmped2 with Liam and the Maid Army, but I don't see that lasting for too terribly much longer; I've just about maxed my little character there, at which point I don't think I'll see the appeal of just wailing on newbies without reward. I might make a new character or something, and just go about doing everything -right- this time around, now that I know what I'm doing, but I don't know. I really just don't.

Moreover there's been this massive cloud of interpersonal drama hovering around Maid Army as of late. And it's really unfortunate. I don't really know how to fix it, and I don't like the way its going. To put it in a nutshell, a really cool ex of mine is on rebound for a hemophiliac I bought a pizza for. It sounds really absurdist when said like that, but that's what's going on. Rebound-romances are almost exclusively pretty terrible, though, and while I'm trying to be a force of reason regarding it, if you've ever tried reasoning with someone whose slightly enticed and massively irate at the same time, you'll understand that I made very little headway whatsoever.

Speaking of interpersonal drama - that's another big part of my day. Usually around 3:00, I get onto Steam 'cause that's noon for Emily, and I've got a fairly good chance of seeing her around and chatting about silly things in Dark Souls, getting the Metaphysical Forecast, and just generally being happy and talking. The only problem with this is that the moment I get on, I wind up with a whole bunch of not-Emilies telling me their woes.

And they're not good woes. They're what I like to call "First-World Problems." I sincerely just don't get it, so I have a bit of a hard time feeling any sort of empathy or sympathy for people who come to me with them. People who tell me, "Videogames aren't fun anymore. I don't have fun anymore," or "I don't care about anything."

I don't know what to say - "If you're bored, you're boring," comes to mind. I sincerely want to tell people with these problems about caring and problems about videogames (and these are benign problems that they claim send them "spiraling into fits of depression," mind you) to just go out there and do some volunteering like I did. Go and work-out like I do. Get into my kind of rut - maybe some relaxation will suit you more then. Moreover, instead of bitching incessantly to me about your privileged lifestyle, you'll be benefiting a someone else who's down on their luck. Or maybe an animal - I fostered a lot of kittens in my time volunteering for Saint Joseph's Animal Control Department.

Just a footnote - if you're sincerely distraught about videogames and your ability to care about things, I'd like to refer you to this Comic that explains how I misperceived you somewhat, and warn you that I'm not exactly interested in helping you. I encourage you to get over yourself and go do something different.

Now then - excuse me while I do the same thing myself!

Also, I feel I should tell you, I recently filled out a small "About Me," blurb on GetAmped2's community page. It looked a little something like this:

"Hello - my username is AnIchirin.
In-game, my username is also AnIchirin.
I am a member of Maid Army.
I enjoy wearing Tryhard Panties in the form of my Magenta Grappler's Arms.
I prefer the map Waterfall as it's slightly less obnoxious than Great Avyon.
Hit-Accessories and Explosives are also pretty awesome.
I often pretend to have swag. I do not, in fact, have it.
I use AutoGuard like a talentless nerd.

Offline, I am an aspiring Naval Intelligence Officer.
I live in New York.
I enjoy working-out, classical literature, and the U.S. Postal Service.
I am a respectable chef.
I've done a lot of community service in my time.
I try and take care of my friends.
I enjoy Toohoo, among other silly things like .flow and webcomics.
I am in a relationship with a beautiful woman.
I think Onikobe Rin is pretty boss and save a lot of his work. "

In response to reading this, a man I do not know but now greatly admire, Cwas, drew a picture of what he perceived me to look like. I hope you'll appreciate his attention to detail and accuracy in depicting me:

The following is a muscular sailor in a chef-hat with a book in one hand, swaggin' shades on, and pictures of Ichirin Kumoi and a ⑨ stuffed into his boots.

Thank you, Cwas.

 

The Sexy Buddhist Rap.

Listen to it Here

I don't even know.

I wrote crap on a napkin while walking to the gym.

I blame the Humpty-Hump.

Pseudouninterrupted.

So-called because I'm going to leave in four minutes to ride a bike to the post-office and deliver these letters, and because I've added these pictures in hoping to somehow work them into whatever I'm going to write here. I'll be back in a little. But expect wall-of-texting, because that's how just about every one of these Uninterrupted posts goes. Expect it, and expected it hard. Shit. Claire's writing me, and I leave in three - nope, two now - minutes. Well, this is turning into a hot mess pretty fast. I don't think I've ever explained Uninterrupteds as a thing - I got the idea from Liam. That is to say, I shameless stole it. Whenever Liam had shit on his mind, he would begin writing without pausing for a long while until he was so mentally-drained that he wouldn't have anything to talk about. Uninterrupteds are typically long-ass posts written in one witt- one sitting, with little to no regard to grammar. I tend to correct mistakes by simply re-writing whatever it is I were trying to say, or overlooking them entirely. They're uninterrupted.

Well, I'm back from the post-office. I biked seven miles or so only to arrive and become painfully aware of the fact that it's Sunday and the ops-...post offiv-...Post office doesn't operate on Sunday. I mailed my letter to Kevin but that's about it. I only had one stamp, and was hoping to have the others posted when I arrived. I hope my pedaling didn't crumple the remaining letters too badly. It began raining and I didn't want them to get soaked-through.

I've been in an odd mood as of late. I've been reading about the personal lives of people I admire. I'm never sure how to-...Well actually, I think I'll just scrap this post for now. I've got to shower and do other things.
Important things.

Here's two pictures without context.

A simple change is all it takes

to see things a little differently after all.

Inside Jokes with Liam and Co.

GetAmped 2 is likely the only game I've been able to play alongside Liam in two years or so.
It's not fun, on occasion. You get a lot of people who don't type coherently. And half of those who do are really, really good trolls with no intention of befriending you, and every intention of griefing you mid-match. And probably post-match, too. All the same, to cope with this Liam and I have developed a lot of inside jokes.

The most recently is SHOWERBATS, and the most distant of which was probably developing SNRK, SNRK, SNRK as an onomatopoeic sound for uppity laughter. Another pretty good ongoing one is KHEZU, which you see often-illustrated in this blog's Tag-Listing.

Let's talk about 'em. After typing this, I realize this is a terrible idea, because jokes are never funny explained, but I'm already half-invested:

"So you're sitting there. It's getting sort of late at the gym and your work-out has long concluded. You're nervous. You pan your eyes from left, to right, to left again making certain you're alone, and it would see you are. You slip out of your clothing and into a towel, tip-toeing into the showers. No sooner do you lose the towel do you notice that you're not, in fact, alone. There's that creepy guy who's been watching you work-out all day. He's bigger than you. Stronger than you. and he pins your dainty and naked frame into the tiled corners of the shower. You slump down trying to be free, but he rapes you while you're down instead."

Such is life in GetAmped 2 and this is more or less the explanation of SHOWERBATS. SHOWERBATS is a fond nickname for a pair of primitive clubs you can use as a fighting style. They're large stone bats with the ability to hit people while they're down - a useful, annoying, fatal, and quite rare ability in GetAmped 2. Its ability to rape players on the floor much akin to a shower-prowling rapist explains our gag.

KHEZU is sort of a mean joke. Or at least it is when I use it most often. Liam and I share a talkative friend who often can't take hints as to when a change in topic would be nice, and he tends to take his gaming a bit too seriously at which point he looses a colossal, extended rant. If you give him an ear you give him a mile, and suddenly he's on a podium trying to lead Deutschland. KHEZU was invented to slightly cure that. With quiet giggles. If you're not familiar with KHEZU, it's the most-awesome monster to ever grace the Monster Hunter franchise. It looks Something like a colossal uncircumcised penis crossed with an equally large leach. With legs. A ways back, I spent a good deal doodling, enjoying, and talking about Khezu. While trying to do so, our friend began to rant about games:

• "Cripes, I really hate it when people use intentionally-bad classes."
• "Oh yeah. Khezu does that all the time. He's actually really good though."
• "And fuck Sun Rings."
• "Khezu uses a set of those, too - but he's a Top Ranker, so I think he can get away with it."

Needless to say, KHEZU is not a person, nor does he exist. It just became an ongoing joke that KHEZU is perpetually-relevant. Much like fart-jokes. Or political promises from floundering candidates. There's a slight variation of this inside joke shared by Emily and I called HORNED-KID. HORNED-KID was the character of a very experienced modder in the Skyrim Community. We didn't know his character's name, but the character was an adorable small little boy with a pair of curling ram's horns. And he did everything from posing lazily chewing the end of a wheat-stalk, to charging into fights, to nursing his horns self-consciously when people asked if he were evil.

It began with "...You know who I bet is doing something awesome right now? HORNED-KID." and continued to manifest into KHEZU-like relevance. Sadly, we've seen very little work since of the modder that brought us our charming little horned child, and the joke has slowly started to grow cold...

I don't really know why I felt compelled to explain these, but I have.

Now please excuse me - I must escape to the Gym and get my cardio in.

Also Frosted Flakes? GRRRREAT! start to any morning.