April 11, 2009 (idea)

Does it bother anyone else how vague the directions for microwaving different foods are? For example, the "Pop-Secret Premium Popcorn" I'm eating right now says "Stop microwave when popping begins to slow down (about 2 seconds between pops)" (emphasis from original). What the hell does that mean? I understand that anything beyond a certain degree of precision is impossible with microwaves having different strength laser beams or whatever they are but that's still a lot more vague than it could be.

When it says "two seconds between pops", what does that mean? Stop the microwave after the first time there is a two-second difference between pops? Wait until most pops are separated by two-second intervals? I'm not asking for something absurd like, "Wait until the average length of time between pops for the last 50 pops is below 2 seconds", but a little more information would be nice. I don't want the difference between burnt popcorn and delicious popcorn to be an issue of interpretation, is all. And what the hell's with the bolding, anyway? Is the word "stop" really going to be overlooked if it isn't emphasized?

Went to the mall yesterday with two girls from my Physics class (I am a high school student and it is terrible, please do not bring it up if we ever have a conversation because it will just make me sad) and it was pretty alright. If you feign interest in clothes and shoes for long enough you eventually convince yourself and start to enjoy them. It was a little frustrating because I kept seeing all of these nice shirts that I would definitely want to wear and realizing that they were either a) way too low-cut for a skinny muscleless pale boy to look anywhere close to good in or b) extremely fucking expensive. The whole thing put me off of buying clothes at places other than thrift stores... but I haven't been to a thrift store in a while, either, so I may go to one and find out it's just as terrible there and the whole process of buying clothes in general is much more painful than I had imagined. An aside: with the exception of a few shirts from anime conventions and such I haven't really ever purchased clothes for myself. Department store-bought clothes from relatives and occasionally friends was enough to sustain me, but now that I find myself longing to be social and go to parties and network, my lust for some kind of distinct "wardrobe" is becoming harder to suppress. Plus lately I am in the mood to date a boy and year-old collared shirts from Sears are like stealth bombers on gaydars, which makes things difficult if I'm trying to find other people who share my interests.

Anyway, the two girls were nice, and both very friendly to me (I had no doubts that they would be, but I was a little nervous about the situation because, frankly, outside of my small group of longtime friends I hadn't really done anything social in a long, long time) but we were sitting in the food court and I guess I looked mopey or something because one of them said, "Wow, you are so depressed." It wasn't intended as a slight or anything malicious or harmful or mocking or even anything more than a side comment maybe to start conversation or something, I don't know, but it's been turning over and over in my head since.

I no doubt have or had some form of depression, but I have no real way of measuring its severity except by relying on comments from people around me. And apparently I'm depressed enough for someone to spontaneously comment on, which came as a shock to me. I'll deal with it, though. The appropriate advice in situations like this is "oh, go see a professional!" but somehow, maybe foolishly, I don't feel like I'm at that point yet, and I don't think it's so severe that I can't work through it. I'm open to the idea of getting some sort of help and I've seriously entertained it in the pass and I revisit it from time to time, but something makes me think I'd be happier if I worked through it on my own.

I think I'm on the right path, or getting there. I basically recognize what all of my problems are: I get no exercise, I spent obscene amounts of time on the computer (which, in my mind, would be acceptable if I was actually doing interesting or mind-expanding things like reading cool stuff or playing all sorts of interesting games or even just watching decent movies or TV shows, but I spend most of it refreshing the same six or seven forums or imageboards or news sites. This is a habit I've maintained probably since middle school.), I probably don't eat as well as I could, my social life is lacking and I have no interesting hobbies or artistic/creative outlets. I think this spontaneous urge to start daylogging might be a response to hearing that girl call me depressed. Maybe writing all of this down will help me, and maybe writing it all down in public will keep me from reneging on all of the promises I make to myself. I'm already making progress in some areas which I'd go into detail about but I think I've prattled on long enough and besides I need something to write about tomorrow. Will this be a daily thing? A weekly thing? Something I do once in a while on a whim, or when I find myself with free time? I don't know yet. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

I represent myself as bisexual whenever the topic comes up, but around the two girls mentioned above I have pretty much given off the impression, while still using the word "bisexual", that I'm basically 100% gay (plus, a lot of people assume bisexuals are just gays-in-transition/denial, though I have no real reason to assume these two share that view). I'm attracted to one of the girls (the one that called me depressed), and I feel a little guilty about it. I doubt I would ever make a move or anything, but it's a little strange. I've been on a (wannabe) gay streak for a while and have been in a pretty homosexual mindset for the last six months or so, and suddenly finding myself attracted to someone without a penis is a bit of a (not unwelcome) surprise. Just another thing to roll with and another chemical impulse to enjoy, I guess.

But the dynamic between me and these two girls basically operates on me being "the gay friend", i.e., not interested romantically or sexually in either of them and thus non-threatening, safe, and trustable. So by being attracted to one of them, am I somehow betraying that trust? Have I portrayed myself dishonestly to them in exaggerating my gayness? I'm probably overthinking it but it's kind of an interesting conflict and it reflects a lot of stuff about bisexual identity and inter-sexual-orientation reactions and gender roles and stuff that I've been reading a bit about lately, mostly here or on Wikipedia. It's fun to watch the theory about that sort of thing actually express itself in my real life. I live in a very interesting time and I need to convince myself that my life isn't boring, because it isn't. Maybe that realization is one of the keys to overcoming my rut.

Since this is my first daylog -- my first substantial node, actually, if a daylog can be called that -- I'm a little insecure about the whole process. If you found anything here enlightening or entertaining or at least less boring than staring at a wall for the same amount of time, a /msg would be greatly appreciated, just to let me know that I'm on the right track, or that people are actually reading this garbage and finding some value in it. Thank you.