he glycine dose is getting cut in half again tonight. Or maybe I'll take even less than that. Yes, I will. And later than last night because taking it two hours before bedtime changed nothing.

Why isn't there some societal mechanism to warn girls and young women about men (and teenaged boys) sexually preying on them? Not necessarily anything formal (men would probably never allow that), just parents teaching their children. All children actually. I guess it doesn't exist for reasons similar to the reasons for some parents not teaching their kids other basic things.

It sure could prevent some life-altering devastation. It's quite eye-opening when one notices that we get warnings about recreational drugs in elementary school and warnings about wearing seatbelts and junk food and other things throughout life but no warnings about male sexual predation. It's because preventing this sort of victimization isn't broadly important enough.

Out of sheer boredom, I messaged some guy who liked my profile a while back. I had to pay for a subscription, but it was just two dollars and fifty cents. He might never even respond. A lot of people create profiles and never return to these small dating sites. He is good-looking but sooo tall. And I wasn't able to figure out where he lives. Anyways, I'm out of the dating game for now. I have to keep reminding myself. I need to fix my skin first.

I don't think my life is going to turn out well. I'm living it, but my expectations are not high. I have so much psychological baggage, I doubt anything can fix it. I can't find a job, I cannot even get the medical care I need. Things aren't looking good.

I have a couple of long playlists of music by EXO, who are probably the best vocalists in kpop. I've only recently made it to the end of either of these playlists. There is some really good music. Sometimes it makes me happy, but sometimes the memory of the songs makes me depressed. Sometimes when I come across nice things, I feel depressed because I'm reminded of having missed out on nice things in life.

Somewhat against my will, I've been thinking about this a lot, what's going on with me. Why I cannot focus. I figured out, a short while ago, that it's simply unprecedented for me to see an adult male human being who is actually very attractive. Some or handsome, sure. But not actually attractive. I'm used to men being hairy, rough-hewn, overly muscled, thick-skinned, and generally gross. Ahh, but not the kpop stars.

Second thing: in their videos at least, they are unmoored from Western masculinity. It's like there's almost nothing they won't wear, no bodily movement execute. There's no such thing as "that's gay" or "unmanly." And it humanizes them. In contrast, it makes me see more clearly how repulsive macho bullshit is. It's not just ugly, exasperating, and scary, it's limiting. To avoid liking, wearing, or doing something because somebody considers it unmasculine is to represent oneself as having less than one's full humanity. Fully actualized humans wear what they like, not what is gender-appropriate. And that is intensely attractive.

And the last and most mundane thing is that epicanthal folds are simply gorgeous.

I am in a kind of shock. At first I was just watching youngsters and thinking, "the music is mostly boring but the dance moves are great." Then I saw a video of an adult kpop group. And I've been in a state of arousal ever since. Plus the actual song was beautiful. Physically and behaviorally (keeping in mind I'm discussing the skripted and narrow range of behavior specific to music videos) they're so close to what I'd want in a girlfriend, closer than most womyn I've come across (which is not saying much because, like men, most womyn are also caught up in performing a gender role rather than fully being themselves).

My world is turned upside down. This is a kind of torture for me. Something that's almost perfect yet missing something crucial (the correct sex). I was already grappling with the reality that I was unlikely to ever find the type of girlfriend I'm really into. Now on top of that I find this tantalizing thing that is like an alternative but simultaneously out of the question. Not that I ever really had much of a chance of dating the equivalent of a Korean kpop star anyhow. But going from one state of awareness to another is still something.

And as I keep watching, I'm finding more songs that I actually like. The Stray Kid's videos that were overwhelming to me at first, now I can handle them. They're chaotic because they switch from rapping to singing and back, but I've got the hang of them now. The dancing is still mind-blowing.

More and more people recognizing that Reddit is a shithole?

https://old.reddit.com/r/HumanMicrobiome/comments/148ecj4/meta_a_farewell_from_umaximiliankohler_moving_off/

Today's another shitty day of pain and discomfort. On account of my other days of pain and discomfort, I forgot and ultimately waited too late to re-order my medications. So now I'm unable to have a bowel movement (despite feeling painfully stuffed due to constipation) and unable to ease stomach cramping. Fortunately, the stomach cramping mostly comes after bowel movements, so I guess I won't have to worry about that for a while at least.

Also I haven't slept for two days. Day before yesterday, I had too much chocolate (one-third or close to one-half a bar) too late in the day, and the caffeine kept me awake. Took me forever to figure out what I did wrong yesterday, but I think it was the tiny bit of stress vitamin I took. I took maybe a sixth of the contents of a capsule I broke open, but the capsules contain lots of B6 (among other things), and B6 inhibits sleep in my experience.

I was going to make this post about mumble rap, but to hell with it. It's just more misogynistic garbage. Surprisingly, rap is now allegegly the most popular form of music in the united states. I don't know what the metric behind that is, but it's something I've picked up from several different sources as I explored rap online. Rap being full of annoying male bravado, I bet that's the reason for the popularity.

At some point I started coming across articles or maybe videos about how shitty mumble rap is. I didn't know what mumble rap was, so, a bit at a time, I found some on Youtube and listened. I've spent the last half-week going a bit deeper, and I tried to figure out what is this thing called drill rap as well, but sub-genres are annoying and confusing and I was wasting time and not searching efficiently, so I gave up. I've listened to Migos, Desiigner, Lil Pump, 21 Savage, Future, Lil Yachty, and some others whose names I can't remember right now. Yes, I'm years behind, I have no idea who is current, but I don't care at all.

Oh it looks like this is about mumble rap after all. Anyways, mumble rap is the best rap sub-genre I've ever heard. Since the main complaint seemed to be the mumbled and stupid/lowbrow lyrics, I tried extra hard to understand what the mumble rappers were saying. It wasn't easy, but that didn't make a big impression on me because understanding lyrics has never been easy for me. Plus I've never really cared about what rappers are saying. It's a genre full of dudes who talk too damned much and often repeat the same shit other dudes have said. And lyrics aren't important to me in any form of music.

Mumble rap seems the best kind of rap because 1. the flow is way more musical and 2. it has an air of apathy about it that seems appropriate to the genre is way more entertaining.

I am one of those people who aren't into rap because it's not very musical. Mostly just talking over snippets of music that repeat over and over again, which is boring. But the mumble rap flow tends to have a more rigid and defined rhythm, plus it is kind of unique with those triplets. I love the triplets. They are hypnotic.

Something I've never been consciously aware of until I started thinking about the contrast between mumble and other rap, especially the 90s rap that I heard growing up: rappers tend to take their bullshit too seriously, or that's what they sound like in their songs at least. Being lectured at, aggressively half-yelled at, continually told how badass they are while listening to songs is something I now recoznize as fatiguing and not at all in line with the sonic pleasure I'd generally associate with music. The tone of voice, the attitude behind it, is tiring, and it's something that's present in many songs. It's like listening to someone who's angry all the time.

The mumble rappers are more laid-back. The tone of voice is less aggressive. Whereas other rappers act like they're saying the most important shit ever, I get a sense of "I could tell you this shit or not, lolwhatever" from mumble rappers. And that to me is a more appropriate attitude because rap is really not that big of a deal anyways. Like it's kind of a garbage genre, I don't know how else to say it. I said it before: talking over repeating snippets. It's nothing profound. Mumble rap is catchy and most other rap is not.

I actually do care about what the mumble rappers are saying because they're entertaining. It's high theater, what they're doing. I get laughs out of them talking about gang-banging just like I get laughs out of news stories of ridiculous criminal activity in this country: the United States has become such a cesspool of crime that it's funny and almost unbelievable. Plus the mumble rappers are very simple, straight-forward, and explicit in describing their crimes. So I don't have to try to guess what they mean like I did with some mainstream rapper that's using obscure street slang that I guess was supposed to sound cool. I dunno, maybe I'm making an unfair comparison between rap I heard as a kid (when too young to understand some of the references) vs. now. And I cared about what a couple of them were saying because I actually wanted to "sing" along. The song got stuck in my head.

But ultimately I had to cut my experimental listening sessions short. I closed videos mid-song. From what I could understand, still plenty of misogyny in rap. Actually, I think 90s rap didn't have that much. (I've heard almost no rap from the 2000s until recently, so I can't really speak on that). So I can't enjoy the songs and here is yet another thing men have ruined with their disgusting natures. Misogyny is worldwide and transhistorical; only in its details does it differ from culture to culture.

Anyways, I find it funny that rap fans dislike mumble rap and think (or merely hope?) that it's a "fad." To be a fan of such a garbage music genre and take it so seriously is just...something. Interesting. I have looked at the r/rap and r/hiphopheads subreddits a couple of times and it's kind of...mildly cringe/pathetic? I can't think of a good word right now. I think it's probably full of young people, so that should be taken into account. Most recently, I came across this thread:

https://old.reddit.com/r/rap/comments/wlafch/what_takesopinions_of_nonrap_listeners_about_rap/?rdt=58678

There is a comment from someone who is annoyed about people downplaying Eminem's talent "Just because I'm a fan." Like...person wouldn't care if not a fan? Doesn't care about whether Eminem is talented or not, is just upset due to being a fan? Or maybe was just inarticulate in the comment. Some idiot who thought rapping takes more skill than singing.

One that's funny to me is when rap fans are bothered by people thinking rap is all shallow, unintelligent b.s. about sex/drugs/crime. There are these people called "conscious rappers" who rap about stuff some might call "deep," politics and social issues. To me they are the most dull, annoying, and pretentious of all. 100% would rather listen to gangsta rap that's about senseless slaughter or a mumble rapper getting high off Xanax.

But I'm the sort of person who thinks that trying to communicate serious messages in a form of art is stupid. If the message is important, state it as clearly as possible so that as many of the target audience as possible will understand it. Art is never the clearest form of communication. If the message is not important...well, shut up about it. Otherwise, it seems pretentious. That's my attitude. Why put something important in a song in a genre that's known for being about bullshit? It's like putting something important in a 400-page novel—most will never read it, those who do may not understand it or take it seriously. The message is being hidden.

And the comments about non-fans judging rap without listening to lots of rap. Ha. Someone on there talking about listening to a full album. Who goes out of her way to listen to a full album in a genre she doesn't like? If a person hears two or three songs and the listening generates zero interest in that genre, what's the motivation to go track down more, let alone a whole album? Full albums generally cost money. Unrealistic.

"Any opinion spouted by a non-rap fan is bound to be ignorant, whether I actually agree with it or not." So non-rap fans don't have informed opinions about rap. What about the opinions people had before they became rap fans? The opinions which eventually led to them becoming rap fans.

Anyways. Probably a thread full of young people. Ridiculous opinions.

In other news...I feel like the only way I can heal even a little bit is to leave this country. Nothing is in the pass when I'm still surrounded by white racists, sexual predators, and such a punishing and exploitative economy. Also I think I would be much more comfortable in a more introverted culture, some place where people don't talk so much and aren't so fake.

The more time goes by, the more disgusting I find normies to be. Was just browsing an unpopularopinion reddit post about disliking watching sports and a bunch of people chimed in about enjoying the drama aspect of sports. Normies view everything as a social drama: school, their jobs, even an Internet thread about mathematics. It's like smearing mud and feces on everything in life. Nothing comes out clean, everything ends up soiled, still smells and reminds you after you've tried to wipe it clean. Yet another reason why I want to be away from people. I'm interested in finding out what normies are like in other cultures. I'm sure there are some more bearable out there.

I'm tired of cheap earbuds that stop working after a month or two, and having some kind of working earphones is very important to me because I have to listen to things a lot in order to improve and maintain my language skills. My most recent pair of earbuds has died, so, it's time to go shopping.

Since I know I'll find nothing but shit made in third-world countries at the electronics stores and department stores, I've been searching online for some American-made headphones. I've been getting earbuds, not because I really prefer them, but because headphones are too bulky and uncomfortable to wear on a one- to two-hour walk, which is when I mostly use earphones. (I just today found out the difference between headphones and earphones).

The high-end audio company websites are annoying as hell, full of pretentious irrelevant bullshit about the professionals who use the products. Takes too much clicking to find information about the actual products, and, when I do find it, I'm greeted with useless fluff: "The Flagship Headphone series embodies our uncompromising dedication to pure audio." That's from audeze.com.

Maybe I'm not their target audience. In between the fluff, there is audio equipment jargon that non-specialists would not understand: "With magnetic flux generated by our Fluxor™ magnet arrays or our breakthrough carbon nanotube electrostatic technology..." I don't know what any of that shit means. I didn't even know that headphones contained magnets.

Then my search landed me on the sub-reddit r/headphones and a sister sub-reddit for headphone recommendations. lol lol. Somebody was asking for a recommendation and specified that the equipment would be used to listen to indie rock and indie pop. lol again. One off-topic response was just a list of brand names of equipment that the commenter uses. Cringe.

It just now occurred to me why I hate wading through audiophile shit: most of it seems pointless. It's probably similar to the reason why music articles and magazines annoy me. There is very limited utility in describing auditory experiences in words, at least in the English language. The words just cannot convey much of the sensory experience. When I read, for example, that audio sounds "smooth," that says pretty much nothing to me. I can guess that the sound wasn't staticky or jumpy...but that's what I'd expect from any new pair of headphones, so the information is not useful.

And spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to listen to pop music. Come on.

This is the closest to an objectively true opinion you'll ever read: pop music is inferior to skilled forms of music. "Skilled" is a term I just now came up with to refer to music that requires real musicianship, such as jazz or European classical. Any idiot can learn to play guitar by herself and bang out some repetitive pop music. At least, I'm assuming that a lot of the indie pop musicians play instruments. Maybe there's a bunch of singing over electronically created melodies, as in mainstream pop music. Anyways, you can't do that amateurish shit with an English horn or a cello. Plus, pop music is so simple and repetitive, usually has no dynamics, little variety in tempo, it's just *yawn*.

I don't really even understand why people bother with pop music. I guess it's ok for dancing, but I don't know how people don't get bored with it. Most pop songs have the same verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus format; how do people listen to that over and over again? Maybe the indie pop doesn't have that? But what would make it pop music, then? I sure as hell won't bother listening to try and find out. I've found that the overwhelming bulk of music is boring, so I'm usually unwilling to waste time trying it out. Even a lot of classical music is boring.

Yeah, so the idea of expensive headphones for a genre that fundamentally lacks nuance is kind of ridiculous to me.

And just to show that I'm not full of shit, here's an example of cringe indie shit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/v5ors0/does_anybody_else_feel_like_indie_music_as_both_a/?rdt=40833

I didn't bother much with the comments, but the original poster...first of all, pathetic and cringe that she wants to feel like she's in touch with what's hip, but the sine qua non of an indie music discussion is a long list of artists that no one has heard of, a list of songs no one has heard of.

It's like a...display of sorts. A way to show that one is part of the in-crowd. I can also see autistic shit hiding out in this kind of space...a space where a kind of self-absorbed, non-communicative, detailed listing of one's own niche band preferences wouldn't be entirely out of place.

I guess I also don't understand the point of music communities at all. Listening to music is just necessarily a very subjective thing to me. It doesn't matter what other people have to say about music because I can't share their experience no matter what they say; I hear what I hear, and that's all that matters in terms of enjoying the music. Since most music is garbage, reading other people's recommendations is also pointless: it's unlikely that we'll like the same things, so I won't waste my time trying out someone's recommendation. Honestly, other people tend to seem rather indiscriminate with their music tastes, so I would not trust their recommendations even if I was willing to try out some new music. No, "indiscriminate" is not the right word because there don't seem to be very many people with wide musical interests. It's more like "indiscriminate within the confines of popular forms of music," rather than "willing to listen to almost anything of any genre."

Which reminds me: contrary to what I posted in a previous entry, I don't really like Reggaeton much. The faster songs are just good for doing cardio to. I wouldn't spend much time listening to the genre outside of exercising. It's just as repetitive as other pop music, but I find that some of it tends to have more pleasant melodies.

I was once again looking for new music to listen to during my otherwise boring daily cycling sessions when I decided to see whether the Velvet Revolver had ever released a new album. I stopped buying albums over a decade ago, never set foot in record stores and don't keep up with music news, so I never know when the bands I like release new albums.

So I ended up looking up the singer for this band, Scott Weiland, who, I realized at that point, is my favorite rock vocalist. I guess I just love his intonation. I have a very love/hate relationship with the sound of human voices. Thus I found out that he died five or six years ago! That news made me feel so weird. I guess I was kind of sad, but not really because I care about the guy as a person (I can't since I don't know him, although the way he died, possible cocaine overdose, is kinda pathetic), but because it means I'll never hear his voice in any new songs (not including his work that I haven't gotten to yet).

So I got nostalgic and listened to the albums he released with his first band, Stone Temple Pilots. Lots of gorgeous melodies. Most bands, I don't like many of their songs, but STP is one of the bands that put out pretty solid albums.

I was so affected by the knowledge of this guy's death, the death of his voice, that I felt the urge to tell somebody. But music is so subjective, no one would ever really know how I felt, really experience his singing the way I do. So I guess there would be no point in telling anyone (not that I have anyone to tell). It's all trapped inside of me. Me and my experience of music.

I know that some people care about lyrics a lot. I don't. That and all the other little differences between me and others, even just differences in genre preferences, tells me there's no point. No real sharing. They can't hear what I hear nor feel what I feel. And it almost seems like things shouldn't be that way, that people should be able to share that way. But of course we cannot.

Now that my dermatology appointment is no longer taking up mental space, my next focus is my virtual appointment with someone from the sleep medicine department. I got a card in the mail from this department several days ago; all it says is that I don't have sleep apnea. The lower threshold for sleep apnea is five breathing cessation events per hour; I scored 1.3 per hour, which seems odd, because i didn't sleep at all.

So the card didn't give me any usable information (I already knew that I don't have sleep apnea), and now I'm waiting for the appointment to get some help sleeping. I'm afraid the doctor or whoever won't be able to help me. It's gonna be a tough life if I have to go on like this, never getting a full night's sleep. I'm a bit worried that the sleep medicine department and my primary care provider will think my insomnia is a somatic response to a psychological problem and want to send me to therapy. I'm pretty damned sure it's a medical problem, particularly since my sleep is so easily and consistently affected by purely physical changes like temperature, noise, and lighting. Making doctors see this, however, might prove challenging.

I can see my chest getting bigger, and so I am pleased. Right now only a bit of extra muscle near my armpits is visible, but I'm sure they'll be more in good time. I'd like to develop some muscle striations in my chest, but I'll probably never be lean enough for that. There isn't a lot of fat on my upper chest, however, so maybe it'll happen. What would really be insane is if I got shredded enough to have visible thigh muscles. My thighs are always the fattiest part of my body and the last to lean out. They're also the body part I always want most badly to lean out.

The diet is still fairly effortless, and I'm not sure at what point it might begin to require real work. I'll probably abandon it at that point; the whole point of changing the way I eat was to lose weight and keep it off with little effort. Actually, instead of abandoning the diet at that point, I will probably be able to tweak the way I eat yet again. I'm being a bit lax with some things that I can tighten up on if necessary.

I would like my breasts to shrink as well. They aren't large, but my ideal is a bit smaller. I used to wonder why men's chests looked so alien to me, particularly since I really dislike the look of prominent breasts, but I realized one day recently that it's because they have no breasts. My ideal human chest has small, not very round breasts. I apparently held that ideal unconsciously for some time.