9meow | Dopamine

Ahh, this wave of exhaustion just took over me. That's probably what happens when you wear glasses that make you look hot but are just slightly too strong for you. And also don't eat. And are leftover high, and had not the worst shit of your life but a pretty bad one at 10:30 am and re-hydrate after it with coffee.

Been running on that and two pieces of toast with a laughing cow each spread on them, almost 5 PM now. This instant Vietnamese coffee might end up turning into the taste of this anorexia relapse if this anorexia relapse turns into an anorexia relapse. It was Harney & Son's "Paris Tea" at the start of my ED, and Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte last year. Which I actually got to try a flavor-ally lukewarm version of yesterday...

Unless...my body and brain are literally relapsing, but I haven't acknowledged it as a relapse despite relapsing. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. I'll continue this once I get to another computer because I'm receiving a strange but vivid vision of Sofya looking at my fast typing ass weird despite receiving no input from my nervous system that she's noticed it at all. Fun! At least the glasses and perceived weight loss from my not-relapse look good. And please save my draft, Dreamwidth.

Moving on from another computer, I don't have any intention of making this entry solely about how miserable I am. Because really, I'm not that miserable-- things have been looking up over the past...day...but!! They are looking up.

This particular strain of looking up was triggered by Of Herbs and Alters, particularly her latest video, centered on neurodivergency and addiction. Such a hyper-specific release with where I am on The Timeline right now-- and after I just cited her as one of my inspirations for returning to Dreamwidth. Main points were around how many individuals with Autism or ADHD (that's me!!) are susceptible to self medication via drugs due to our different neurochemistry leading to dopamine deficiency.

Dopamine deficiency is a concept I've been aware of for a decent amount of time, and a symptom I recognize painfully often in myself-- there was a quote I'll paraphrase here, something that stuck out to me..."I'm either going to be a successful addict, or nothing at all [due to dopamine deficiency resulting in a complete lack of reward for most tasks]," Because ultimately, I do want to be successful and accomplish both the mundane tasks of daily life and my long-term goals for the future, I decided to get on my Adderall prescription again.

EDIT 09/10/23: This entry has literally been a WIP for three days now D: The Thursday shift I started and intended to finish this entry on ended up being unexpectedly busy, and I've been procrastinating finishing it since then. The days in between ended up being memorable in their own right, so I'll merge them into this post :) Everything after this point is written on Sunday the 10th.

I have a Monday appointment with my general practitioner to get that done, which should put an official end to the weeded out hell I've been talking about this past week. I miss the drive it gave me to actively want to do something, anything. Without it, even the things I want to do feel like a perpetual, nagging argument with myself that could go either way. I also figured now that I'm taking time-sensitive birth control daily, sliding time-sensitive Adderall in that slot as well shouldn't be too much of a stretch. There's a lot of things I now realize I need to do for myself, to build a stable future for myself, and in order to stand on equal ground with the people important to me. I'll have to break this down into further sub-goals later, but a few big ones I'd like to get done by the end of the year:

Actually sending transfer apps out. Knowing that I will transfer...Temple is a big one for me.
Taking classes at my college in the meantime and doing well.
Finishing my PT cert, because I started it.
Getting my real estate license because I want to.
Setting up a regular Japanese language study schedule for the JLPT after that.
Organizing and maintaining my bed and bath spaces, kitchen space.
Cooking regularly again and developing those skills!!

Future entries should be a lot more structured as well once I start. Seeing that substantial difference within myself again would be amazing-- a similar feeling to when I started looking back on my older posts from last year. Yes please.

Moving on, I was able to decide on Samuel's birthday present with a little help from the GC! The easy choice would have been a figure he's had his eye on or something fandom related, but like I said, I wanted something a little more special-- something that could live with him in his day-to-day. The first part of my present is a leather Traveler's notebook set, with a filing set and few different page refills. A few of them are lined, one's a planner insert, and the last few are graph paper. Decided on the Traveler's because I remember how he was looking at this blue notebook with sea life (or water Pokemon??) on it at Anime Impulse in July. The main draw to the blue notebook for him was what was either graphed or isometric paper-- I'm hoping it was graphed, but he should be able to buy the isometric fill online if it wasn't.

I'm not going to lie, I'm suddenly kind of proud of how smart my choice was here, lmao. Garrett also gave me the idea to write something sweet on the first page for Samuel to look back on later, so I'll be doing that-- and buying a card as well, because a birthday present isn't complete without a card.

The second part of my gift to him is an engraved watch I got off of Etsy. I think that it looks pretty classy, and I'd love to see him wear it. As Zeal said and Dev agreed on, men love watches. The watch face is a deep blue, Samuel's favorite color. It contrasts beautifully with the dark brown band and silver case. Wanted something simple for the engraving on the back, settled on "HPD '23/♡MS". I want him to be able to look back on it for years, a memorable item for both of us a long, long time from now.

My desire to gift him something like this is genuine, but the insecure part of me was worried that it might have been too much too soon, until the talk we had this weekend. It started off as our first disagreement, which was quickly cleared up as a miscommunication over a dumb joke and turned into an all-night long phone call-- finally hung up the phone sometime past 7 am Thursday night. Hearing those things from him-- that he could see a future with me, that he wanted me in his life, all that I meant to him, why he was with me-- made me so happy, I no longer think it's anywhere near too much. We're on the same sentence in the same paragraph on the same page. I hope that he'll be able to see that reflected in this gift, and that we can make our relationship even deeper than it is now.

Last Samuel mention for now: he took his LSAT yesterday evening on Saturday the 9th, and it seems to have gone better than he was expecting-- from what I remember he told me, he's getting his results on his birthday. I'm just so happy it's finally over, and so proud of him for taking on the test and experience-- regardless of if law school is something he wants to pursue or not, the test stat boost is huge for me. He's really so impressive, this person I'm dating. There's no basis for it, but I'm hoping that I can see him for a bit today or tonight.

Something unexpected, I downloaded Blue Archive on my phone, and I've actually been playing it?! And enjoying it immensely. It's usually very difficult for me to get into consistently playing mobile games, it 100% has to do with the ADHD/dopamine deficiency thing. All those mini tasks to take care of, no energy to do them, and no internal reward if I do-- the last games to crack that for me were School Idol Festival and Starlight Stage years ago, and even then I'd fall off the bandwagon whenever I'd have to update from the app store and be unable to remember my Japanese store login info. Yeah, I'm a mess. So, Blue Archive-- the art is gorgeous on every level, and the pastel colors and vtuber-esque character designs of the 2020s are at peak performance here. I'm still wrapping my head around the setting and what the story entails, but there's enough to enjoy that I keep opening the app regardless. Favorite characters for now are Yuuka, Shiroko, and Utaha.

| Pulled Shiroko! Love the visual design in this game. Everything comes together.

| Yuuka my beloved

Last thing I wanted to talk about from this weekend: went for a Mitsuwa run with my mom yesterday, which starts off my cooking journey for Fall 2023. Picked up mostly pantry items-- rice, soy sauce, mirin, sake, shichimi togarashi, sesame oil, miso, bonito flakes, and konbu off the top of my head. A big pan for fried eggs and a strainer for myself was purchased as well.

Used the soy sauce/mirin/sake/shichimi combo to make ramen eggs, which are currently in the fridge and have been marinating overnight. I'll be off my Sunday shift going home shortly, so I'll get to cut them open and see how they turned out! I'll attach pics, hoping they're photogenic. I had forgotten how relaxing cooking is when I have all of the ingredients available, can follow a recipe, and adjust based on my own slightly-rigid taste and quality profile. Peeling hardboiled eggs is a comfort activity within cooking for me, too. I love doing it.

| Eggs before…

| …and eggs after! The mush on top are the leftover bonito flakes I used to make the marinade with. The taste is nice— but I learned a few things about the presentation. One, I’ll use a ziplock bag to marinade them and not a Tupperware container, so the nice brown color settles more evenly. And two…cut them with a piece of thread instead of a knife so the yolk is cleaner @_@ I’m giving this run a 70/100. Just gotta refine it now.

I think the next thing I'd like to make again is rice porridge with miso soup-- a throwback recipe from last year. Want to make sure I can still make it to my standards, and then I can move on to something new! Will need to clean my Hello Kitty rice cooker for that...