Back Back Train- Fight The Power

There's been some rocks lately. I haven't talked much about it, because I'm sick of sharing about my rocks. I'm sick of being on the rocks. I wonder if I'm just rocks and that's all I am, you know? Throw me in the water and I'll sink like a stone, can't swim anymore.

This is sounding crazy grim, no? So Mom, if you're reading, or aunts and uncles, let's not get crazy. Surely, before, you've had a point in your life where you feel like everything's upside down, or even just one thing you really care about is upside down.  Surely you've felt like a big lumpy box of rocks. It's human. It sucks, and it's human. Ever notice how most of the things that people consider the most human are sucky? Just a thought.

There's something else there though, and maybe it takes being a sad sack of rocks for a while to get to it.  There's fight. There's struggle.  There's the urgent need to get things back online.

I need to get things back online.

I need to fight.

If I feel, or am made to feel, like a worthless, shitty person, I need to take a long look at it.
Yes, there's the part where you analayze and go "Hey, did I do something crappy to someone?" "Have I maybe hurt someone or stepped on toes or crossed lines? How can I fix this?"
It's hard to look at yourself and realize you can be selfish, rude, oblivious or downright crappy.
It's hard to realize you've wasted a lot of time.

But it's stupid to stay down. It's stupid not to fight. It's also incredibly stupid not to realize the things you are that are good, too. Don't throw yourself out with the bathwater, you know?

It's stupid not to try again. Try harder. It's stupid to stop if you fail again.
It's stupid to look at something or someone and say I can't.

So...no stupid.
No worthless.
Now's the time to use the drive I've always had to prove myself for good, and not to my own detriment.

I don't care what you see when you look at me. I don't care if you think I'll sink or swim.
Watch me fly.

New Wave- Day One with the HTC Vive

You guys...it's the future outside. Hold onto your hats, and I'll wait here while you look outside. Dancing, sorting, emoting robots...little tiny pocket computers you take everywhere...VR.

That last part just came to be in my realm today, when the HTC Vive arrived.  I pause here to say I am only writing this for my own amusement and to hopefully help others who are curious know what it's like, I've not gone all product placement on all of you.

I'm not going to go specs, suffice it to say your computer has to be pretty darn decent to be able to run it. If you're blessed enough to have that and are able to get a Vive...it is pretty amazing. We set it up within a half an hour, and as soon as we played around with the first little programs, it was impressive. The Lab software you get with it is a LOT of fun, and everything has that sort of Valve/Aperture/Portal flair to it.

The controllers fit your hands really well, are rendered perfectly whenever you're wearing the headset as if you were actually looking at a non virtual copy, and for whatever reason, make everything you do that much more immersive, from shooting a bow and arrow, to picking up and manipulating things, to becoming....

LORD OF THE SONGS!

One of my favorite moments in the few hours I've been around the Vive came in playing AudioShield. It's a simple concept, and kind of a simple program. It's not trying to make you feel like you're in the real Atlantic, or the real anything. What it IS is you and your music in space, as an incredible, surrounding game a la Guitar Hero. For some reason, the pure fun of punching/shielding out the beat to any song you have on your computer just got me all misty-eyed. It's the meeting of playing a game and actually doing things, kinda like DDR, but...even more amazing.  Instead of you hitting arrows on a pad lying on the floor in front of you, it's you and this open space and all sorts of crazy, pretty, glowy orbs waiting to be blasted into colorful confetti as you move along to the music.

I *love* the ability to have a big play space to move around in.
I love the controllers.
I love the Valve/Steam/Portal flair.
I ABSOLUTELY love AudioShield and can't wait to try TiltBrush, which is an immersive art experience.

I think Vive knows exaaaaactly how to produce a sense of awe with the technology it delivers. I think it knows that fun is fun is fun, and I'm really, really excited for the whole thing to become a little bit more accessible to everyone and more refined.

Is it a little weird wearing what feels like a slightly lighter brick on your face and having a cord running down your back? Yeah, a little. But with no motion sickness to report (coming from someone who gets motion sick from regular PC games and 3d movies sometimes) and all the amazing fun I'm having...I fail to care. Vive is really, really neat, and a whole new kind of fun, and I'm looking forward to more adventures.

Rough Around The Edges

Hello world.

I'm still here, even though it's May. I'm trying to stick to my word better, here and everywhere else.
Today, I'm trying to even go above and beyond a little bit by enduring sleep deprivation to wait for a package that has to be signed for even though my "shift" waiting is up, because m'dear love has not gotten enough sleep lately. So I shall share the deprivation with him by taking his other shift so he can sleep. Hopefully, I shall receive the box triumphantly, present it to him, and immediately fall into blissful slumber.

This should also explain any anomalies whilst typing. Blah.

I'm feeling a bit...down again today. I seem to have double-booked myself this weekend, and while I have a feeling that it has self-resolved, it makes me a little sad that it has. If you haven't seen me posting elsewhere lately, well, dammit. Cuz I haven't either. I'm going to continue to keep my nose to the grindstone, my head up, dedicate myself to doing better and better work each time I get a chance to, and hope that someone takes me up on the offer. Trying hard not to focus on the stories I wanted to tell that aren't being told. Feeling, today, a bit like I let myself and possibly my love down with the way things happened with the double-booking though. There's good reasons for not pushing to make it happen, but I still worry that I'm gonna disappoint.

Lots to look forward to and lots to do this week. Got the  garden under way, even a few things planted, like strawberries and a beautiful dahlia that I'm hoping to keep alive just as my own little baby project. Put some beauty out there.

I feel less good than I thought I even did when I started this. Perhaps the tired is messing with my emotions more than I thought. Even so, I need to make more of myself than what I've made in the past year or so, for me first, but for the people I love too.

I think I'll chew on that and try to breathe through the sads.
Rambling about sadness is not gonna get me anywhere.

The Closeout

Well, it's time to roll on out from prompts and start on my own two feet, all of you that took this journey with me.

I faltered, I missed, and indeed, I'm doing the last two days of April on the first day of May, but one thing I can say is that I finished. Instead of starting things only on Mondays or firsts of the month, I did the work, even if I was behind, and I finished.

Or I will, as soon as I roll out our last two and sew it up with a pretty little bow.

So! My 21st birthday-
I was still a dedicated pizza girl, so much of the crew I was close with was well aware I was turning 21, and excited to see me party it up.  So they and many of my other good friends met up with me at TGI Friday's to start, and thus began my immediate education on liquor. First drink I ever had was an amaretto stone sour.  And when I liked it, several more followed. Then the jolly rancher shot, then a lovely trick drink made to embarass the drinker, and probably a few more. The idea was that perhaps after Friday's, we'd hit another bar, but I don't think that we did. Instead, I opened presents, did the drinkin' that comes without the heavy bill, and managed to get away from my 21st with no wicked hangover or regurgitation. Yayyyy!

And now: Something I'm excited for...
Hm. It's felt rough around here lately. One of my close relatives has been sick, some work things are not great, and I've got a lot to think about as far as how life continues from here, and it needs to be thought out now...

There is something I'm excited about, but it's a bit of a secret for now, and I can't spoil that for this post. Some people already know.

I tend to want to have goals in my life, things to look forward to that drive me through the week or month or year, and I think I need to find some. Being so moorless is a bit of an issue. I don't know exactly what I'm excited for today, but I do know I need to find out, so I have something to carry me through.

Now: to the future! To promptless May!
And in May? I think I'll challenge myself to post at least 3 times a week. And take new photos to use for those posts. And find things to be excited about, day by day.