Another medical appointment today. I'm anemic again, so I have to go back and get blood drawn again to determine whether the anemia is usual for me. I'm sure it is.

I constantly feel dehydrated. It's like water goes right through me, with little effect. I used to deal with this by adding a bit of lemon juice to every cup of water, but the lemon juice went bad after the fridge died. It costs only a couple of dollars, but I don't have that. I read somewhere online that ibs can cause dehydration.

I got my new fridge late this morning. It looks nice. I'll do a better job keeping this one clean. I did my best to clean the old one, but it still had remnants of mold in it when they took it. I didn't have the cleaning supplies I needed. I dumped boiling water in it and mopped the liquid up with a paper bag. I defiled one of my two kitchen scrub brushes.

I am tired of learning useless Mandarin vocabulary like "pork knuckles." I have another set of bootleg Mandarin textbooks; I haven't studied them much, but I do listen to the accompanying audio, and the vocabulary seems saner, so I'm going to pivot to those books for a while, maybe just until I finish the first volume. Then I'll pivot back and forth between the two as needed.

I think I will just start buying fruit juice to manage the dehydration. A store in town has fresh-squeezed orange juice that is to die for. I used to be worried about the empty calories in juice, but I think maybe handling my hydration better will moderate my hunger, so things will even out.

I'm afraid that I've gone back to being unable to sleep without tofu and salad greens before bedtime. I didn't sleep at all last night, and with no discernible cause other than having missed my usual last meal. That progesterone did more than I gave it credit for. No, now I remember writing about being able to skip this last meal while on the medication. I just forgot about it. This blog also serves to remind me of stuff.

According to NBC News, Trump pardoned over fifteen hundred of the people convicted of crimes associated with the Capitol riots. Maybe kinda sorta he's taking responsibility for egging them on?

My medical phone appointment ended a while ago. I'm low in D3 (even though I supplement daily), omega 3, and, as I already knew, iron. She said I can take double my D3 dose every other day. More money I don't have. I have to try iron supplements until we find one that doesn't hurt my stomach; the one she's ordering first might be covered by insurance. The iron shots probably won't be covered by insurance because my levels aren't low enough. I can also add a bunch of stuff to my diet that I cannot afford: more greens, mushrooms, etc. More produce. I've been dying for chard, actually, but it's not in the budget (and the local stores have only rainbow chard, which gives my dishes a weird color).

The cheapest dietary change I can make will be increasing my tofu consumption, and I think I need more protein anyhow. I'm hoping tofu has omega 3. I was thinking of ditching the protein powder (fourteen bucks per month and the discount grocery store probably won't have any more of it anyhow), but I found that one serving contains 20% RDA of iron. I was surprised. But it's still better to use that money on greens or tofu, even though fifteen measly bucks won't buy me much produce.

The tofu comes out at about thirty cents less per serving with twenty fewer calories and twenty-five percent less iron, but just over half the protein. That should balance out enough so that I'm not eating many more calories. I haven't been as satisfied as I was with the protein powder, and I think the lack of fat during that meal may be the culprit. So I'm hoping that the fattier tofu will help me.

Also I have this Japanese seasoning that is insanely high in iron (because, I assume, it's largely made of kelp): 8% RDA for just one tablespoon. It's addictive and I had already been planning to buy more of it. I'll get three bottles next month.

I've been eating rice for two months now without gaining any weight, so I know for sure now that I can actually have it. That means that I can deploy a powerful poor person eating strategy: buying a ginormous bag of rice and thereby saving the bulk of my money for produce. I can get months worth of rice for like twenty bucks or less at the Asian market. There's just two problems: I'm worried about that rice being non-organic, and rice still isn't very filling. Not as filling as the more-expensive mung bean noodles, that is. (Bananas, rice, mung bean noodles, tofu, and potatoes, those are my staples.) So I could remain stuck where I am now, unable to lose any more weight. (I've got just five more pounds to go.) And hauling a twenty-five pound bag of rice home on public transportation would be a pain in the ass. So I need to work out a compromise between the amount of rice and the amount of mung bean noodles I purchase.

I slept for only maybe an hour or two this morning and I feel weird, numb, like I'm on a very mild, subtle downer, like everything is slightly muted. My stomach hurts, yet I'm cut off from the pain somehow. It's somewhat peaceful yet vaguely disturbing, like a big field that's empty and quiet because it was bombed recently.

My facial peels, mild as they are, have improved the area around my mouth but seem to have worsened the sides of my face. So I guess I've no choice but to give up on peels until summer or spring, when the air is more humid. My face will be half healed on its own by then. Simply leaving it alone works, although it takes forever. So I'll look like this or slightly better for months and just remain stuck. I get more time to figure out where and how to find a boyfriend.

I'm taking my profile pictures down. There are no eligible guys on those sites anyhow, plus I don't want any more people looking at my pics. There's just no point in compromising my privacy right now. I took most of those pics when my skin looked better, so they don't accurately represent me anyhow.

It's late afternoon now and coverage of my iron supplement was rejected. The pharmacist checked the price and even added a discount. It came to five dollars. I have negative forty-six dollars in my bank account and two dollars worth of quarters for laundry. So back to the clinic the prescription must go. Sad. I don't know how long this will take or whether we'll ultimately get anything covered.

I have an iron supplement I bought a long time ago and I'm considering taking it just before bed so that whatever cramping I have will take place while I'm asleep. But what if I have more nights without sleep? Lying in my bedroom, cold, awake, tired, and frustrated is bad enough. Adding crampy to the mix would be awful. But I'm desperate to not be freezing all the time. I just looked up some tips and I'll try starting with a lower dose and having fruit juice to aid digestion of the iron. Maybe I can get something covered by the VA. My civilian health insurance is crap.

My new suppositories don't work very well but at least the cramping is mild.

One thing I dislike about this country that's not as serious as the crime and social dysfunction are the giants everywhere. I'm not talking about obesity this time (although that contributes to the overall effect of monstrousness), I'm talking about how tall people are here. I bet it's because of the excessive amounts of animal protein in our diet. I should look it up someday but I'm not sure what to look up because tallness is considered normal in this society, as well as desirable, so people are less likely to investigate it and write about it. Once I watched an interview in which a six-foot tall guy, in this country, was rejected by a modeling agency for not being tall enough.

One of the reasons I never really felt attracted to men is how huge they (the ones I've been exposed to the most) tend to grow. There's an unnaturalness about it. They look like ogres to me, with their towering statures, their huge hands and feet, their hairy faces and bodies. I dislike craning my head up to look towards their faces. People weren't this big throughout history, and it wasn't just because they were malnourished or part of a pygmy tribe.

From time to time I find myself in the men's shoe department, marveling at a shoe size 10+. It seems like human beings aren't even in our developmental period long enough to grow such a large foot. Tall womyn strike me as odd as well, but womyn are never as ugly and unhuman as men are.

On occasion, I would come across a guy who wasn't tall, who was less than 5'7 or so, usually Latin American, possibly an immigrant. I was always struck by how pleasing to the eye, how neat and tidy, how normal they looked. They're human-sized. I can take them all in without craning my neck. They look like normal human beings to me even though I grew up in this society of giants. And one day it occurred to me that I could be around people like this all the time. And on another day, it occurred to me, to my delight, that I could date one of them.

I would prefer to live some place where people are human-sized. I dislike being seen as or called "short" by these overgrown brutes. I would prefer to live some place where tallness is not considered superior or more manly. I dislike people ragging on men who aren't tall. I don't know how big people are in Taiwan, but I hope to find out. It seems to be a rule that people in developed countries start over-consuming animal products once their region grows richer (I guess the exception would be in the Artic, where people have had no choice, throughout history, but to rely heavily on animal products). I was reading something about South Korean men being the tallest in Asia (not sure whether that's true), and it reminded me of something else I'd read about South Korea's economy expanding rapidly after the Korean War. There's not enough time to look up all the things that pique my curiosity.

I'm sick of being in pain. If it isn't a migraine, it's stomach cramps or menstrual cramps. Or me burning myself trying to heat my bedclothes, cutting myself on unseen sharp things without realizing it, or the ear piercing that still hasn't entirely healed.

I got some blood test results in the mail yesterday, and, despite my period being lighter since I changed my diet, I'm still iron anemic. The doctor with whom I had the birth control consultation added a note to the results reminding me that the IUD we discussed might help with the anemia (by stopping my cycle).

Eh. Can't I just consume more iron?

I got these results early this morning, on my way out for my walk. It's too cold to check the mail in the afternoon, when it usually comes. Walking the silent neighborhood, I had a good think about this IUD. Having this thing squirting hormones into my body sounds horribly unnatural. I'm worried about weight gain. Will the hormone do anything to my mind? I don't feel like being a lab rat, and I inevitably will be because I've always been sensitive to medication.

Plus the risk of pregnancy is still rather high.

I've never seen an IUD. In my imagination, it's an awkward, hard plastic contraption, so large and with edges so sharp that I could practically feel it sitting inside of me. It's so painful to put in, to freaking install, that the doctor brought up painkillers. Shudder.

Ah, but wouldn't it be great to have more energy? I've been assuming that my low energy has been caused by the lack of sleep and overdosing on sleep-related supplements, but low iron might also be the culprit. And then there's sex.

I just started my period yesterday, and it's lighter than ever. What if I just keep altering my diet to minimize blood loss so that I won't be so anemic? Trying, at least, seems the safer option.

Savory food has begun to make me nauseous again. I can hardly wait for grocery day so that I can get more fruit.

For Mandarin I'm now using a Taiwanese textbook called A Contemporary Course in Chinese. I can already hear a difference in the pronunciation. Praise Allah for these people who upload PDFs of textbooks. The five volumes of this book would cost a small fortune. I'm a bit relieved to know that I'm now getting the proper vocabulary and pronunciation for Taiwan. As a beginner, differentiating between accents and such is next to impossible.

I had to quit Taiwanese podcasts and youtube videos for now. I'm just not ready yet. Trying to absorb the more advanced vocabulary, especially since I would have to learn at least half the words in each sentence, was taking too much time and effort. Once I've learned some more basics, I'll return to it.

So my Mandarin roadmap is all planned out and will take less study time that what I've been putting into it; now I can pay more attention to other languages and SQL.

I've been doing the SQL tutorial on w3 schools and it is so boring. I like to learn broad concepts, not details like syntax. I already understand databases, so for me SQL is largely about learning syntax. It's mostly memorization, so I'll have to use the language to retain it, but I have no database that I actually need to manage, so I'll have to resort to exercises with fake databases ugh. If I can get a job soon after finishing the tutorial, I could be getting paid to use/retain it.

Now that I'll no longer be doing Pimsleur, I'll have more time to listen to other languages while I'm out walking. Pimsleur audio lessons are half an hour each, but that half an hour draaaags aaaaaassssss. I've started listening to a new Spanish-language horror podcast.

My new shoes are supposed to be here on Jan 2! That's fantastic considering that they are coming from Germany.

125 on the scale today. So I weigh a couple pounds less than that.

My hunger is surprisingly manageable. Instead of feeling very hungry, I've started to feel tired on the diet. I can keep mechanically forcing one foot in front of the other, nearly stumbling through the dark during my walks, but I'm losing the ability to focus on foreign-language lessons.

I'm guessing the reason I haven't slept in three days is the dark chocolate bars I've been having. They have a strong caffeine kick (minus the insane sexual arousal I get from coffee), so I've been using them in the morning to cope with the previous night's lack of sleep. That strong kick, however, also seems to be behind them keeping me awake over twelve hours after I've eaten them. So I had none today even though I rather wanted some.

Yesterday, I finally spoke to the integrative health practitioner to whom I'd been referred months ago. We went through my diet, my daily routine, my supplements, all the things I've tried to improve my sleep, and more. She agreed with my primary care practitioner that my blood sugar should be monitored, but the damned insurance company won't cover a glucose monitor unless I'm diagnosed with diabetes. She said a monitor costs about forty bucks. More shit I cannot afford, more medically necessary shit my health insurance won't cover. I also need to provide blood work because there might be some vitamin imbalances responsible for my feeling cold all the time.

I voted today. I marked the wrong choice on one of the items, something about making current low-income medical insurance funding permanent, but I didn't have the energy to go in and ask for another ballot. My vote on that particular item doesn't matter much anyhow.

I voted against all the bond measures. The state and city need to learn how to budget instead of paying for everything with sudden new bonds. I especially don't want any bonds implemented for affordable housing nor improving schools. Too many people want to live here. They should spread out, go to Wyoming or another one of those states that has more livestock than people. I don't want to see our cities any more crowded than they already are, especially not crowded with massive apartment complexes. They're ugly and depressing, and the ones that have fences around them are rather like prisons.

I've heard it said that the high cost of living will transform California into a state in which only the very poor (homeless and/or supported by welfare, I assume) and the wealthy can afford to live here. I've begun to wonder whether that's such a terrible thing. The homelessness certainly is a negative thing, but...traffic, job competition, and other things I cannot think of at the moment would improve if we lost some of our population in the middle classes to the COL. Maybe some of the criminal class would go? I'm too tired to think through this right now.

I'm trying to stay away from my apartment so I won't be so fatigued. It's difficult to do because I need to eat every three to five hours plus a place to use the restroom. It's extra difficult when it's chilly out. It's spring and summer is coming, so that'll help.

I have to be here to search for apartments because online is the only means I have of searching. I try to pop in and pop back out but I get distracted by watching videos online and playing a stupid computer game. They're things I do to pass the time while I'm waiting on my food to cook, then I struggle to pull myself away from them after I'm done eating.

This evening, I watched part of the trial of the womon who was convicted of torturing her special needs teenaged son to death. I read through the comments on one of the videos and was bothered by people saying that the defendent was "unlikable." These comments were left on a video of her testimony, before she was convicted. The defendant was speaking rather quickly and perhaps giving too much detail, and it did seem that she was lying about what she remembered, but she didn't do anything I'd describe as "unlikable." I would certainly understand people disliking liars, but I really doubt the lying is what they were talking about.

One of the most disgusting normie traits I've noticed is a sort of knee-jerk, unreasoning dislike of, even disjust with, some people they have. I'm sure there is some pattern to it that makes sense from the perspective of normie psychology, something to do with people being "different" somehow, but I don't know what that pattern is. What bothers me is that it isn't necessarily based on anything but brief observations, and that it's yet another example of people being overly concerned with other people. If they just paid less attention to others, they'd be less likely to find people "unlikeable."

I am one-third of the way through Girl in Ice, and it's gotten on my nerves. Probably the thing I hate the mos about modern writing is the endless, inescapable drama. It seems that almost no type of story can be told without some added drama, not even sci-fi most of the time. I checked this book out because I wanted a story about a linguist in the field trying to decode a mysterious language. But most of the story is about the linguist's struggle to cope with her brother's recent death, which I don't care about at all.

I'm sick of all the drama. It does nothing for me but ruin stories. It's like the main story is split up with commercials.

My Lovecraft volume arrived today, so maybe I'll quit the novel and start in on Lovecraft instead.

I've been fantasizing about being in the Arctic since I started reading this book, especially since I saw a few images of Icelandic glaciers in a youtube video yesterday. I wouldn't be able to handle the cold, but that doesn't deter me because I cannot even imagine that level of coldness. I simply think about standing on a plain of white desolation, away from other people. Away from their expectations and their random judgments.

What wouldn't I give to get away from people?

I don't mind being judged for my principles. But, as I tried to articulate above, there's a sickeningly personal bent to some people's judgments. Personal, random, utterly subjective. Utterly subjective makes sense to me for favorite foods and colors. It's weird to me as a way to judge people...one second thought, maybe it's not utterly subjective, maybe I assumed it's that way because I don't instinctively see the cultural pattern behind it. Maybe a lot of it is common and normal among normies. Sniffing out people who are too different seems to be like an instinct for them. Maybe it just seems weird because I don't have that instinct.

Nearly every time I compose a journal entry, I try to think of a way to put into words what I'm going through psychologically. And I fail. Well, maybe this used to happen every time I composed a journal entry; now, after so many failures, those attempts have tapered off. I don't even bother sometimes. It wasn't quite accurate when I said that I hated people (is that what I posted?) It's like I'm being drowned in a cascade of ugly memories, many of which I've only recently interpreted properly, and all of them pointing to something ugly about people, so many people in so many situations thatt he ugliness seems more and more like a humanity thing rather than an individual thing. And I'm drowning in disgust, so I haven't the peace of mind to properly describe my drowning. It's like I grew up thinking that people were people and then, one person at a time, began to discover that they were actually just giant tarantulas (I hate arachnids).

I'm not sure whether I'm becoming more precise or simply repeating myself. The repetition would be appropriate at least, because I'm spinning my wheels, getting nowhere. Like I have a medical problem that there is no known treatment for.

Today my bank denied me a small personal loan. It threw a wrench in my plans (and I planned a lot on how to use the money) and put me in a gray mood.

After months of job searching, I've noticed a pattern of bullshit, low-paying jobs.

I don't know what I'm going to do now (except wait and try to save up I guess). I need a humidifier and I'm not going to waste my money on some cheap piece of shit from Amazon or Walmart.

I tried to take a nap again this evening and failed again. I've found that lying down next to my living room heater increases my heartbeat. I don't know what else I can do to improve my sleep aside from sleeping in the bathroom maybe.

It seems like the main source of EMF that was affecting me was my own laptop. The casing was busted and the wiring was exposed, but I was still using it, and keeping it on 24/7 even. I'm keeping it shut off now and I have much more energy.

I felt the worst when I woke up each morning, in my bedroom, which is away from all computers and appliances. Because I had nothing electronic in that room, not even a clock, I assumed the source was someone's wi-fi. Was it my own laptop causing me to feel terrible first thing in the morning, in another room? I don't know. It's weird that I wouldn't feel as bad when I was sitting right at the laptop and using it.

Now I sleep in my hallway. Or try to sleep, at least. It seems I'm getting much less sleep than before, yet I feel much better. The hallway arrangement is killing two pedestrians with one SUV: not only am I sleeping away from whatever other source of EMF haunts my bedroom (if there actually is one), it's also solved my heating problem: in the hallway, I no longer feel cold enough to keep the heater running all night. My low body heat issue seems to have improved right along with the fatigue, but, in addition, the hallway is small and enclosed, so, I suppose, heating is not necessary to keep the space warm. That means I can continue to live here without having to worry about my winter heating bills! Hallelujah.

I've actually managed to get too warm in the hallway with nothing but my stash of five rocks heated in the toaster oven.

Without the constant sensation of cold and fatigue and having to worry about finding a new place to live before winter comes again, my life is more peaceful. Goddess knows I needed some peacefulness.

I'd been looking into a place out-of-state someone sent me info about. A place with more extremes in weather, more crime nearby, etc. It made me very conscious of how good I have it here in my town specifically and in California in general. The weather is good here (especially now that I'm no longer freezing to death all the time), the town is safe and clean, and the people are sane. The public transportation is good, the air is clean, the markets are full of organic produce.

I never really wanted to leave. I know that finding a place as good as this would be difficult, and moving is exhausting. I just felt forced because of my health problems. Now my only problem is the lack of places where I can be alone.

I've become more sensitive to light, because, I'm guessing, I sleep so little. When I'm out walking at night (which I can do so much more easily without the sensation of cold), I have to turn away when cars approach because the headlights cause me pain. I could go out later, but I'm trying to get to bed earlier. I feel that the strict sleep schedule I was forced to have has...dissipated, for lack of a better word. I still cannot sleep whenever I want, but I have a broader range of possible bedtimes, I think. I can't say for sure because I've been sticking to my old routine so far and not sleeping much. It's just that I don't think that the tim at which I go to bed is responsible for the insomnia.

I should be better positioned to heal from most of the things I need to heal from, but the not-healing has gone on for so long I feel that the healing has been compromised. Problems had the chance to fester; now, I have not only the original injury to heal from, but a sort of infection caused by inaction. The autistic stuff, the sensitivity to noise, people in my peripheral view or line of sight, and, evidently, light, I don't see myself healing from that quite as easily. Maybe once I finally start to get a full night's sleep. I still kinda feel like I need to be away from people for that sort of healing.

I need a trip to Sacramento. My skin needs the humidity. Saving up for a hotel would take forever. I'm going to have to take out a loan. The loan should be easier to pay back now that my energy bill will no longer be so high.

I'm relieved to feel better, yet I feel vaguely disgusted and depressed that so much of my life was wasted on illness. Maybe it's not even entirely over; maybe my insomnia won't resolve. Although it's great to be relieved of immediate needs like poor health and hunger, the aftermath can be worse in a way because one is then free to face problems that are more complex, more difficult to solve, more insidious because they are psychological rather than material. I think I felt the same way the times when I got into an apartment after being homeless. No more worrying about the lack of a home...but now what about everything else that's lacking?

I'm behind on my studies so I have to end this now.

I just spent about an hour talking with ChatGPT in Czech and Spanish. I struggled to understand it's responses in Czech but I was surprised that I understood as much as I did.
It's uncanny, suddenly noticing myself able to handle the language in a way I couldn't seemingly not so long ago. It's something akin to watching a baby grow: like a miracle no matter how many times one experiences it.

What's notable, however, is how motivating these chats are. Often when I read something I don't understand in a foreign language, I groan inwardly because looking up the unknown words is a pain in the ass. I've made it an even bigger pain in the ass by having studied so many languages that using dictionaries is borderline unbearable at times. What's worse, however, is that, rather than try to understand the unknown words via context, I tend to just give up and stop reading or skip ahead. But I found myself trying more to understand from context.

It seems the personalized nature of a chatbot makes it a great language learning tool.

The magnesium I've been taking has helped me but there is still something wrong with me. Since electrolytes help, I decided to try taking another electrolyte, potassium. I just bought some today and started taking it today, so I'm not sure whether it's doing anything yet. I hope that the combination of magnesium and potassium eliminates my stomach cramps and allows me to get off suppositories. If the supplements work by themselves, I can stop having bananas, which I'm looking forward to because bananas taste gross.

The magnesium seems to have increased my nightly sleep duration to six hours. Still not enough sleep. I'm keen to see whether the potassium will make any difference in my sleep or energy level.

I feel like I'm closer to getting a job but I don't have much of a solid basis for that feeling. I did finally finish editing my resume, and yesterday I found two solid positions to apply for.

I scored a German-language copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales at the local used bookstore today. Finally I have something I can regularly read that isn't too difficult for my low-level German. Fairy tales are perfect. I gave up studying German and have no intention to continue. I'm curious whether reading this book every day (it's between four and five hundred pages long, at least) can improve my German even though I'm not studying. Can I figure out enough words from context and retain them enough to level-up in the language? It'll be interesting to observe.

I just need to figure out the part of my day I'll use for this new routine.

I'm so goddamned tired of having unpleasant interactions with people.

This is why I've quit all the forums I was on (which was not many). But I took a risk and went back to one because I needed some information. But there was a misunderstanding I think (as there often is, apparently). I guess I can be done with it now.

Or try, at least.

I feel irritated when this happens now because I should know better at this point and simply avoid. But I needed the information, dammit.

I hope to never go back to that forum.

It seems that I must go to southern California to get warm. Places within a hundred miles of here get plenty warm in the summer but are all rather cold in winter. I don't know anything about that region so I have some more research to do, then I'll have to travel and check it out. I don't want to move that far.

I have a medical appointment coming up, so I will again try to get help with my chronic coldness but I don't expect it to be resolved.

I'm exhausted and irritated and I'm trying to soothe myself with a story I wrote, but I cannot find the damned story on this computer.

Ok, I just found it. Too bad nothing in reality is soothing. I need to do something about my reality. But I'm so tired all the time. I finally got around to seeking a doctor with autism expertise. No, this is the second time; I gave up last time because I couldn't find the resources I needed. If I find this doctor, maybe I can finally get a solution to my chronic insomnia, which is one of my biggest, most devastating problems.

I'm looking forward to next month because I will be prepared to buy some graded readers (which I need to progress in Czech) and perhaps some sort of heating aparatus for my bedroom. The heated blanket does indeed emit too much radiation, which I verified by shutting it off early and not using it at all, to which my body responded with less fatigue. (Ok I guess that doesn't actually prove that radiation is the problem, but what else can it be? It's not the temperature. ) But I get too cold to sleep or stay asleep without the blanket.

So I'm back to heating up rocks in my toaster oven, but I don't have enough rocks to heat all the bedclothes, and I wake up early, once the bedclothes have chilled. I'm stuck in some sort of bizarre tragicomedy, unable to sleep with the heated blanket and unable to sleep without it.

I've spent so much time trying to get either email encryption + this website or Tor + this website working that I can't even remember what I wanted to say.

All I had to do was allow cookies. Lack of sleep really makes me stupid.

I have a kitchen full of food I cannot eat because I've been sleeping so little that my stomach cramps are back. I bought junk food for this, but it turns out that Mikey's Plant-Based Cheese Pizza Pockets are too high-fiber and too high-FODMAP to fit the bill.

I tried to save money this month by using regular bar soap as laundry soap. It hasn't worked. My laundry comes out of the washer caked with globs of sticky soap, and I can't even use the bar soap to bathe with because it's too drying. Besides laundry soap, I need a new bar of facial soap and more quick-release melatonin (I could try to go without it, but that never goes well). I've got forty dollars left for the month.

My skin gets worse and worse as I try soap after soap that does not work. I've finally figured out that I have some type of eczema. It started when I was a teenager, but of course my negligent parents never took me to a doctor for it. My dad instead counseled me about keeping the scales on my back covered up during the eighth-grade waterpark field trip so that nobody would see my skin and think that I had "AIDS." Absolute moron. This is what happens when a child drops out of school in junior high.

I've had more and more memories of my childhood coming to me lately, forcing me to see what garbage parenting I endured and how much it messed up my life. I used to think I got off easy because I was never sexually abused nor really physically abused (not more than a few times anyways) and because I was functional enough to figure out how to attend and finish college on my own and not be a psychologically disturbed wreck. But I was simply using the many worse childhoods people have in this country as a standard of comparison. The kids who were raped, brutally beaten, even murdered. The kids who had drug addicts for parents.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly remembered my dad being arrested at our house, all the adults (except my mom, who was already in prison) going outside to meet the cops, who must have been yelling over a megaphone, while I sat in a bedroom having no idea what to do. The police coming into my house with guns drawn after they had my dad. The arrest wasn't for anything violent but they came in with their guns pointed at an unarmed teenager. I felt the tension in my body as I relived this event, and it occurred to me for the first time that I had been traumatized.

Actually, even though my worthless father had been a criminal his whole life, I think he was innocent of whatever he was being charged with at that point. So it was the police that were the ultimate cause of the trauma. Excessive force.

But there were plenty of other shitty situations that were my parents' fault. Like the time my dad randomly brought a prostituted woman half his age home when I was twelve, and she became his third live-in girlfriend. Or the times he used to drive us into shady neighborhoods late in the evening to look for drugs and sometimes even light up with his kids in the back seat. With the windows rolled up. Or the time my two-year-old sister got sick and no one took it seriously until she was dying of pneumonia.

A month ago, I'd reached the normal weight category (no longer overweight according to the CDC's body mass calculator). This past week, however, I started feeling fat and heavy again, which I hadn't felt for some time. It's quite a disturbing sensation and makes me extra self-conscious of my body. Can't have too much female-pattern body fat because that will attract the attention of males. But I can never get thin enough because of female physiology and hypoglycemia. I wonder what it feels like to be able to go all day without eating. I get SO damned sick of eating every few hours.

I think I have figured out that I need to be on electrolytes long-term. I don't know why, perhaps some sort of absorption issues