winter has officially begun. i mean, it began at the beginning of the month, but Starbucks now has the chestnut praline lattes back in, so it’s definitely winter now. this is actually why i’m still awake right now, because i had one at 3pm, like a fool. it tasted good, though, so i’m considering it worth the lost sleep.

i’ve been working on getting my hair to red, and realized this last time why my scalp keeps blistering when i add the dye. the developer we’ve been using is 40% peroxide (aka the strongest concentration available), so i’ve been giving myself chemical burns. i know better now, and maybe this next application will be able to stay on for more than 20 minutes before i have to dunk my head in cold water.

i’ve deactivated my facebook for the time being. i’m trying to decide if i want to go back, but leaning toward no. the most it means is that i’ll lose contact with several old friends, and lose progress on a few games. if nothing else, i feel like i should make a goodbye post there, and let people know where i can be found. still active over on twitter.

on the health front, my fasting blood sugar is still elevated, but overall it’s getting better. depression has reared its ugly, lying head the past couple of weeks. Gana is working on stabilizing with a new med, and i’m sure that we’re in a feedback loop at the moment. my hope is that in the next week or so, things will start to mellow again. it’s been rough on all of us, and we could use the break.

i’m considering cancelling my appointment with behavioral psych this week. i don’t know how well the doctor is equipped to deal with grief, and that’s mainly what i wanted to talk about. i know i’ve relapsed on the sleep thing this past week, and i’m not making any overt moves toward getting back to the gym (one of my goals, but it’s very daunting). i know it relates to the previous paragraph, though, and i know i’ll get through it.

Lila is on my mind a lot right now. it’s been raining and gross, and it’s taken nearly all my self control not to have a Vada/My Girl style freakout and try to warm her up. that urge is there, just under the surface. i know she wouldn’t be the same as when i last saw her. i know that she’s not even in that body anymore, but what i wouldn’t give to be able to kiss her sweet head one more time. today was the first day in a couple of months that i expected to see her in her bed.

i’ve slowly been going back to gaming on the computer. i treated myself to a couple of games while they were on sale and i had a little bit of cash, so i’ve been playing INFRA for the past few days. it’s one of those games that either sounds interesting or boring, and i’m enjoying the heck out of it. you take control of an infrastructure analyst in a city that’s falling apart, and are sent out to document a dam and connecting water tunnels. the only tools you have are a flashlight and a camera. along with surveying damages and solving the occasional issue (like reconnecting a hydroelectric dam back to the city power grid), you can also uncover corruption (like why the dam was disconnected in the first place). i haven’t made it terribly far in, and need to restart again because i missed a collectible early on, but it’s been fun so far.

on the art front, i’ve been working on an outfit reference sheet for my girl Orchid. i started it in either 2017 or 2018, and i’ve finally gotten the sketches where i want them, so i’ll actually start the linework. i want to do one for each of our RWBY OCs (seven total). i have a list of things i need to work on, and a bigger list of things i want to work on. then there’s the tiny list of things i actually have the energy to work on.