15ImaginaryRabbit15

I figured here's a good a place as any to mark an important time in my life. I've been eighteen for about a year now. I renewed my driver's liscence and retired the old one to a box I keep under my bed. I figured I'd want to see them years from nowto gawk at all the terrible smile's I've given to DMV cameras. On a moreimportant note, it's been a little over a week since I've claimed my Mom's house as my primary place of residence. Unfortunately, this is going to make continued visits to Dad's awkward simply because step-mom Nancy takes every opinion set out on the table as a personal assault. However, since I'm at Mom's most of the time, I have more free time... which is starting to mean I procrastinate more which rather makes sense however is also rather disappointing. Other than school, though, I'm trying not to stress about college. Filling out scholarship applications and meeting 20 deadlines each week for college and high school things is never fun, but I seem to find time between it all to play tabletop D&D as well as online D&D on top of I'm going to go see a movie today. On Friday. I bet you were wondering why I wasn't in school. Mandatory teacher work day. Not completely sure how this was possible with all of the snow days we've had, but I guess some teacher work days aren't allowed to change.

So yeah life isn't being particularly helpful to my anxiety right now, but mystress level has dropped significantly since living in only one house and not switching off every other day. Now I only see Dad every other weekend, and I'm conflicted about that. I really don't want it to be awkward. Maybe I should plan something for that Saturday I see him next...

To end on an up note, my best friend and I have restarted our original text-based role-play that we began in the sixth grade! It was on hiatus for the longest time after being in its part 2 phase, and now we are restarting it completely to fix characters and plot, and I'm very excited for it! I get to revisit my old OCs and, hopefully, finally end their stories so they're not hanging out in Limbo indefinitely. Their stories will finally come to a close! Then I can be satisfied that I finally finished telling this nearly six-year tale. It won't come soon, but now I'm satisfied with the idea that it will come at all.

So this past week has been especially strange- like a spike among everyday routines that cause this week to be collectively different than every other week for the past... long while.

Last weekend, my sister, mother, older brother, and I went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. Very fun and all, it was my second time going (the first was during the Halloween season, so they had the Dark Side of the Gardens theme). Mom was being... stubborn and irrational and arbitrary as usual when she drinks too much late at night (I argued over turning the television off so that I could go to sleep like she told me to- longer story than will fit here).

Then Memorial Day came on Monday, and wasn't THAT fun? DDD: My step-mom had a BUNCH of family over, and I was expected to act congenial and welcoming when, really, I just wanted to be by myself because I felt like a stranger in my own home (and one of the younger ones kept messing around in my room... #>>).

So then came Tuesday where, right before bed, Dad drug me outside for an hour long talk about how he's worried I'm becoming depressed and antisocial. The conversation started out very serious and awkward but ended on a very light, very understanding note that ultimately made us both feel loads better.

So I drifted through Wednesday in peace before coming home and riding out on Jetskis with Dad. Though toward the end of that, he said that I had to apologize to my step-mother for causing extra stress on Memorial Day. It wasn't a conversation I was looking forward to, but I told my Dad I would. Lo and behold, I got back home, apologize, and she exploded on me all of this arbitrary, irrational garbage (that I admited begrudgingly had an actual 5% truth to it) (this was after she made me explain what I was sorry for which, in truth, I wasn't sorry for at all and almost couldn't remember what I was apologizing for), and I was struggling with holding myself together (emotionally- because she's ask my honest opinion, I'd give it to her, then she'd say my opinion was wrong). I got all hot and bothered, but I kept my head together and got her to talk herself in circles (which she was doing herself anyway). When the half hour harrangue ended, I departed to my room and waited for my crying-induced nausea to end so I could finish my dinner (which I hadn't previously finished in order to go on that JetSki ride with Dad) then put my dishes away. In the kitchen, Dad approached, and he said he was proud of me and a couple of other things that made me smile because we both knew that neither had told anyone else of the conversation we had before bed on Tuesday (which was obvious by the conversation with my step mom). So that day ended on a happily strained note.

Thursday were the final testing days of school that my sister and I were required to attend (two tests in one day, each 25% of the overall class grade, one significantly easier than the other, neither any fun).

So then Friday was only roughly an hour ago in which I woke up this morning knowing I didn't have school. At one point today, I went out on a JetSki into the lake, found a nice, little island, and camped out to try to gather inspiration for the challenge I submitted over half an hour ago (Challenge 22). While on this island, VERY little progress was made with the challenge itself, but I met a nice lady and her two Schnouzers. I wasn't there for an hour before the time predetermined by my Dad for me to leave came, and I bid goodbye to the lady. She was friendly, but I felt bad because she thought I was leaving to get some privacy elsewhere. She thought she was being a distraction to me (which she really wasn't because my lack of progress was mostly the lake itself's fault for reasons I won't go into right now), but, honestly, I enjoyed her company and when she turned on the radio to 102.9 "The Lake" though the only song I distinctly remember hearing from it was "Baracuda" by Heart. I told her that it wasn't her fault I was leaving but my own. She really didn't seem to buy it though. So I came home, refused to show my doodlings to anyone when asked, watched some TV, played some MineCraft, did Challenge 22, and wrote this entry.

I'm not completely sure why I felt like putting this all here where the entirity of the internet can see it, but I felt like I had to put it somewhere, and I guess always seeing it on my DA profile page will help me remember how... eccentric my life can be sometimes.

So I live toward the north in an area deemed "Southern United States". You know, the corner East of the Mississippi and south of Virginia? I'm in there. And let it be known that today, in the middle of February, I have seen more snow fall from the sky than in the past five years. Now that doesn't mean ice- we've had pretty bad ice before, but this was snow. This is nice, fluffy and not the usual wet slush that turns to ice and causes power outages everywhere. I still have power; as far as I know, my friends still have power. And when I look outside and see the thick, white blanket, it just seems... (okay, admitedly, a little creepy because there's no one outside, and there's a sharp, yellow streetlight that's causing shadows to scower menacingly from out of the darkness but...) serene. After hours of snowing non-stop, it's now been silent without a peep from anyone for somewhere around two hours. I kind of feel like this odd, little blessing means something, but I don't know what.

So I've been featured in one of AsheRhyder's Roomates comic pages- number 279, to be exact. And my brain is still... well, buzzing, yes, but actually rather sore because the sudden increase in heart rate. And I know that not a lot of the people out there on DA will see this journal or even bother to read it- I'm not dumb, I see my watcher count, and I don't expect it to go up anytime soon. So, in that sense, I'm using this journal more as a self-commemorative to this event that I never thought would get here. To be completely honest, I thought AsheRhyder had forgotten for a second until I read that she was frusterated in finding Erlkonig's colors, and then I got excited again.
So, yes, my lucky number was 922 which I received from being a backer for the +5 Book of Eating which I expect to arrive in the mail... early October, still can't wait for that.

Geez- everytime I look at the page, my headache spikes again. I can't help it- I'm sure anyone else would act the same. It's just so... squee.

Once more, I'm really not trying to brag to anyone who might happen to actually read my journals, but if I don't write it down somewhere, I'm going to forget it happened, much like a dream. I've got to stop typing now before I explode.

Okay, so this is my first ever journal. Why? Because I never can find anything worth letting everyone else know to say. So, on that note, this journal comes with a purpose. Since it is Saturday, and challenges are to be due as well as topics posted, and taking into account the change we three (4th-Wall, Suiraitei, and I) have agreed to, I must post a new topic. On another note, I've noticed that no one else has made an update on these challenges- shame on you two. I just posted challenge 10, and am currently working on Challenge 11.

Challenge 12 Topic: Take an image from a specific piece of a room in your house that you draw and add a Halloween-themed, or at least just scary, thing to it. For example, you could draw your closet with a cracked door and later go back and add a monster coming out of it. Things like that. Monsters under beds, skeletons in closets, vampires in... I have no idea. For all I care, Dracula could be sitting in your kitchen eating a bag of Doritos. Now, generally, it's supposed to be scary, but I wouldn't mind if you didn't want to make it scary. One additional requirement is that if you want to color it, the picture must be in Halloween colors (black, orange, purple, and green, namely.) Even if your fridge is bright pink, you'd have to make it some Halloween color or a shade of grey.

This challenge will be due three weeks from today. Today is Saturday, September 22, and this challenge will be due Saturday, October 13.