Took pill. Sleepy. Etc.

I do feel better overall, though. I can feel the space in my mind where all those medium term memories are stored awaiting REM cycles emptying out, and as it does, my mind gets healthier and stronger.

So the pill works. Sure, sometimes it makes it hard to wake up and that makes me freak out because I feel trapped etc, but that’s honestly not a great reason to skip it.

Not when the alternative is slowly losing my mind.

And yet, because the effects of crap sleep accumulate slowly, it’s a very easy trap to fall into. Especially when I have had a “trapped by sleep” incident.

So I am going to focus on remembering the relief I feel in that place in my mind as it relaxes so in the future, I will be less tempted to slip back into my sleepy ways.

Here’s hoping this cycle of sanity lasts a good long time.

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Been messing around with Skyrim.

Not actually playing it, of course. Where’s the fun in that? I know every inch of the game, more or less.

Part of the journey back to Skyrim has been realizing how well I remember damn near everything in the game.

Which is cool because my buddy Maelkoth is going through the game for the first time and I always know exactly what he is talking about. Can advise.

But it also means I don’t feel a strong urge to play the thing. Not when there’s piratical adventure to be had in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag.

I’m catching up to my previous save pretty fast. One benefit of having gotten as far as I did in my previous incarnation is that I am totally skilled and confident where before I was a noob and hesitant.

For example, the first time through, the part of the game where you do your first serious naval battle took me a shitload of tries to complete.

Got it the first time through this time. I did a lot of naval battles in the previous incarnation and while I would not exactly call myself good at them yet – I tend to end up almost sinking by the time I win – but I can muscle through.

Ditto for all the murdering. So much better at it now.

In fact, I am now taking all the short assassination missions I avoided the first time because they seemed like too much of a hassle.

Plus I got caught up in some bug in the game that kept moving my target from one island to another.

But now, I love them. I especially love it when I can slip in, takeout the target, and slip out during the ensuing chaos.

I am death, motherfuckers.

As for Skyrim, I’m just having fun getting all the perverted mods I love working again.

Really, this whole thing has mostly been about horny nostalgia.

At least I know that it’s pretty unlikely that I will get addicted again.

I barely even want to play the dang thing!

More after the break,

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My dearest Felicity

Sorry for being so argumentative tonight,

Right now, I feel like John Mccain in Die Hard 2 : how can the same shit happen to the same guy two nights in a row?

Clearly I am going through some kind of phase. If so, i hope it’s a short one, because I do not want to end up in the same damned position again.

At least I know I have a problem. And I know I am the problem. Clearly, I need to update my software to include the ability to break off an argument instead of just hammering away at my point till the cows (or rather, the bull) comes home.

Anyhow, for the record, I am ashamed of being so pigheaded and not just backing off and agreeing to disagree and all those other things sane grownups are supposed to do.

But please believe me when I say it comes out of love. When you say negative things about yourself that I know to be untrue, it hurts me so bad. Every instinct I have is telling me to defend you against the mean lies someone is telling about you.

Even if that person is you.

You have to believe me when I say that I am, in my own fucked up way, trying to help you. In my mind, I have this fantasy of liberating you from the ideas holding you back and the scales falling from your eyes and you being so happy.

But that never happens, does it? People don’t get argued into changing their minds. Once it’s an argument, people’s minds close and there is honestly no point in continuing because there is zero chance anyone’s mind will be changed.

So my fantasy of liberation is just that – a fantasy. It’s not something that could ever happen and I need to check my ego and be realistic about what I actually accomplish and learn to ignore that feeling that I am just about to break through.

Because I am not. If anything, my gung ho attitude has made the percent dig in deeper. Whatever problem I think I am on the verge of solving, I am actually making worse.

So from now on, I promise I will call things off if I think they are getting too heated. Even if I think I have said nothing which is out of line, I will recognize that simply by persisting and poking and prodding like I do, I am making things worse.

And please, Felicity, if you think I have gone off the rail, feel free to tell me so. I give you carte blanche to say “Argument over!” and voila, it shall end.

Even if you got the last word in. 🙂

So again, sorry for being a dick. I love you very much, dear, even if I sometimes have a weird way of showing it, and you’re a fabulous friend and a fabulous person, and I feel blessed to have you in my life.

Please forgive me.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Took the pill this morning.

So you know that I am quite sleepy as I type this.

Had a lot of that really intense sleep that leaves me feeling like a shipwreck survivor who barely managed to swim to shore.

So in addition to being sleepy, I am also dizzy, disoriented, and so on.

Maybe that would have happened even if I hadn’t take my Mirtazipine. Maybe not.

But I knew the risks when I took the damned thing. No, risks is the wrong word.

I knew the most likely outcome when I took it. And this is it.

---

So yeah. Couldn’t make friends when I was a kid because of anxiety.

Still feel pretty bad about that, and not just because of the harm to others.

I am sure they got over it pretty quick,

No, this goes deeper than guilt. I feel a lot of shame about the whole thing. And it’s that terrible deep down shame one might normally associate with a bathroom accident.

So what am I so ashamed of?

I think it’s a loss of innocence situation. I had to confront the truth of my not getting along with others as a child and it turned out to be something a lot darker than my usual airy “I didn’t relate to other kids” explanation.

How god damned glib.

Still, it is from such dark seeds that the new light grows. Now that I have expressed (confessed) it, I can process it, and eventually let it go forever.

Right now, I still feel a lot of shame about the whole deal. And it hurts, But it’s fading away over time and I am sure it will be gone soon.

Until then, all I can think of is that sad little boy who wanted a friend so badly but couldn’t accept friendship when it was offered.

Because people did try. Heck, some teachers even tried. Mrs Rogers tried.

But I was so damned scared.

---

Started a new game of Assassin’s Creed :Blag Flag after my previous save got all corrupted and unusable.

Like I found the previous time this happened in one of the other games, these games are inherently fun enough to make it not that big a deal to do stuff over.

The fact that I know what will happen next does not detract from how fun it is to crawl around murdering people, as it turns out.

So while I am still a little pissed off about losing my previous save, I am mostly over it.

Called my new pirate Cockup Yerbum, because I was too tired to be creative about it.

---

And now, my regular reminding of myself that I am actually an extraordinary person of enormous intelligence, profound wit, deep insight, wizard-like mental power, and a heck of a nice fella oi boot.

By all objective measures, I have every reason to not merely like myself but love myself, and the fact that I can’t is a terrible tragedy and not an indictment of me as a person.

I love you, me.

We should totally date.

More after the break.

Equal means equal!

I am really fucking sick and tired of defending free speech from liberals.

I just spent a lively and enjoyable couple of hours debating hate speech legislation with a dwindling number of people (sorry for driving people awayp) on R.Graeme Cameron’s weekly nerd confab.

I am unequivocally against it.

The government does not have the right to punish speech, PERIOD. There is no such thing as “hate speech”. When Canada passed those laws, we betrayed one of the foundational values of modern society by decided that it is, in fact, perfectly fine to punish some words and ideas if the group is unpopular enough.

To me, this is a no-brainer. The right to speech is a human right, so all humans have it. And people do not cease to be human when we hate them.

This is not negotiable. No matter how much the public hates a group,. they do not lose one quintessence of their rights.

And that includes Nazis and their ilk.

And what really makes me sick about the whole thing is that I am arguing this with supposed liberals. It was so called liberals who passed the hateful hate speech laws.

And you know why they did it?

Because they knew they could get away with it.

Because it felt good to crush their enemies.

Because they decided that people they don’t like aren’t human.

Because they were perfectly fine declaring a group of people were less than human and therefore did not have the same rights as everyone else based purely on their beliefs.

Note how when you take the buzzwords like “Nazi” out of the equation,it immediately becomes appalling this belief is.

Name one other group where you would be fine with their beliefs being punished by law. Where you would be fine with having their beliefs declared “dangerous” to point where you would be fine with their going to jail for them?

Not actions, not crimes : just for their espoused beliefs

Don’t worry, I’ll wait. But I won’t exactly be holding my breath.

Equality means equality – no exceptions. In the eyes of the law, no group – no matter how much most people hate them – has less rights than another.

Why do so few people get this?

Listen A Nazi has the same rights you do.That’s what equality means, god damn it. There are no magic words people can say that make them less than human.

If you are willing to take away a Nazi’s freedom of speech, are you find with someone taking away yours? Why?

They came for the Nazis, and I said nothing, because I was not a Nazi.

Right now, Americans should be thanking their lucky stars and stripes that Donald Trump does not have the power to punish speech he does not like.

In Canada, all he’d have to do is declare anyone speaking against him as “hate speech” and he could lock up anyone he wants.

When those laws were passed Canada declared itself okay with persecuting a tiny powerless minority group.

And I will never be okay with that.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.