i got a lotta feelings about my apartment, folx.

when i think about it, i first and foremost think of all the other people who have passed through it. as you know, i’m a people-centric kinda girl.

there was kairi, whom i moved in with first. then hazel. then imogen.

y’know, that’s not actually that many.

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of course, a lot of bad shit has gone down here. more than one suicide attempt, but one in particular that will stay with me forever. the incredible tension that has existed within these walls when things weren’t working out with me and a partner. (fucking pro-tip to ashe: do not live with a partner. not for a long time. it does not work.)

but there’s been a lot of good too. excluding those already-mentioned, i’ve had five other partner(?)s stay the night, and it usually has been mostly just relaxing together, listening to music and enjoying each other’s company. it’s almost always been pleasant. i’ve worked at github since before moving here, so it’s always been my place of work, which has for the most part been a steady and stabilising part of my life. i’ve had friends over to play games and have food. friends with their animals, sometimes. i cat-sat milton here. it wasn’t that long after moving here that i started therapy with my current therapist and finally got past the worst of my panic disorder.

there’s been a lot of self-discovery. a lot of self-implosion, too, and that’s always hard to face. there’ve been sleepless nights and more restful ones. some nights where i’ve felt hollow to the core, and some days where i’ve felt like life was full of meaning and wonder.

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i don’t know what’s to come. i struggled to reclaim this space as my own after everything with imogen earlier this year, but the last week has seen me go from hermitude in the study to spending time all over the apartment again, and enjoying it. i’ve let go of something. i still don’t know if i’ll want to remain here by year’s end when the lease expires. joni’s suggestion was that moving might itself be unsettling, and i can sympathise with that view point. on the other hand, a fresh start might be valuable.

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we’ll see how i’m feeling then.

it’s time for some “twinings pure green tea”. i made it with 98° water.

the mug is really pleasantly warm. it’s a little cool inside and i’m wearing my fingerless gloves, so i can cup it in both hands and feel the heat radiate. steam’s rising from the cup, and that’s an impossibly relaxing thing to see and feel as it brushes your face.

as it steeps the lightly stringent aroma begins to develop. my neck or throat is a little sore so taking that first sip is a little more difficult than i’d have expected. it’s still steaming hot, maybe 90-ish degrees, and the flavour barely comes through. at times like this, all you can do is keep smelling the roses. or the camellia sinensis, as the case may be.

blow a bit on the tea and the steam rushes to fog up your glasses.

i’m still struggling to taste it, and i don’t think it’s because it’s too hot. my taste buds might be a little out of it today. but one thing never fails: you let the tea flow into the back of your mouth — not yet swallowing, but letting it sit there and stimulate the taste buds at the back of your tongue. the bitter notes come out. works every time. the more bitter the tea, the more i love to do this — it’s like finally getting the full experience. (in reality, what’s probably happening is that it’s just stimulating more of your taste buds. the taste bud “map” suggests the bitter ones are at the back of your tongue, but that’s been thoroughly debunked.)

my throat is really getting quite sore by this point, and the tea isn’t something i’m very much able to focus on, or be mindful of. but it’s worth trying; when the going gets tough, etc. etc. it’s cool enough now (probably 70°) that i can take a relatively big sip and just hold it, swish it around my mouth. the temperature difference is really wonderful. it reminds me of a hot shower.

the blanket on top is red, soft, velvety. i don’t know what it’s made of. it’s the kind of material that isn’t especially thick, but feels warm. too warm under it and you sweat easily for some reason.

i think it came from kairi, it rather, that she brought it with her with belfast and then didn’t want to take it with her when she moved out. almost everything like that i’ve gotten rid of, donated, given to a friend. but not this. not because it reminds me of her. it’s just a really nice blanket.

there’s a purple blanket underneath it. same size, purple not red, and just a slightly different material. i’ve been snuggled up in it in many different places; couches, chairs, beds. it doesn’t mean anything specific. it’s just a nice blanket.

under that, a sheet. i had no idea you were “supposed” to sleep under a sheet for most of my life. i didn’t understand the concept of flat sheets whatsoever; fitted ones worked better, so why did they exist? it’s microfibre or some fancy word like that, which is another way of saying $20 at woolworths.

this place feels like something i’ve slowly reclaimed.

hypomania: “a mood state characterized by persistent disinhibition and elevation (euphoria). […] According to DSM-5 criteria, hypomania is distinct from mania in that there is no significant functional impairment; mania, by DSM-5 definition, does include significant functional impairment and may have psychotic features.”

this is kinda a thing that keeps occurring to me on and off, as you’re aware. i wanted to try to describe the subjective experience. because it’s a mood state defined by a set of symptoms, i’ll do so according to the list of criteria.

pressured speech: i’m fucking talkative lately. i can’t stop expressing myself. i tweet a lot and i talk a lot, but inside my head when i’m alone it’s like a freight train. the thing is, it feels good. it feels like i’m putting together some unified theory of the world and psyche and essentially every damn thing i’m talking about, like it All Makes Sense™. the desire to keep talking and theorising is fuelled by this sense that i’m making sense of things, and that if i keep doing so, i’ll have made sense of everything.

inflated self-esteem or grandiosity: my self-image is really good lately. this isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it contrasts to my baseline of “this is fine”. i feel much more associated with my body, much more accepting of it, and i’m much more willing to express the idea that i’m good or even excellent at certain tasks. similarly, i have less qualms with putting myself out there.

decreased need for sleep: this is pretty simple. lately i’ve not been tired, have had trouble falling asleep if i’ve gone to bed early (e.g. with you), and still not been tired in the morning when i wake up.

flight of ideas or the subjective experience that thoughts are racing: see ‘pressured speech’. it feels like everything is related.

easily distracted and attention-deficit: this one hasn’t hit me as much, subjectively, though i have struggled to accomplish much work-wise lately.

increase in psychomotor agitation, or occasionally in some, increased irritability: maybe.

hypersexuality: from ace to 8 hours of fucking in 48 hours. yeah.

involvement in pleasurable activities that may have a high potential for negative psycho-social or physical consequences: yes. there’s the whole 8 hours of sex with someone you just met thing, but i’m willing to excuse that as simply queer life sometimes. but we didn’t use any protection! hello disinhibition. :/

i need “elevated mood” plus three of those for the DSM-IV-TR definition. i have elevated mood plus six, so …

today i’m looking at my laptop. it’s covered in a variety of stickers and there’s a lot of history recorded in them.

honestly, i’m not a fan of keeping history around; i don’t mean “delete or trash everything a day after it’s gone” — i like to hold onto things for as long as they’ve held their relevance. but in a habit i picked up from marie kondo, once something has served me in life, i appreciate it one last time and then move on.

i used to hang onto everything. starting from when i was 12, i’d hang onto every text document i wrote or acquired, every picture i downloaded, every project i worked on, every piece of music, everything. when i’d get a new computer or reinstall an OS, i’d collect them all into a folder (usually called “old” or “archive”), and stick in my new, empty documents folder. next time, i’d do the same. up until last year you could go through the onion layers of “old” folders, reaching further and further into my history, right back to when i was 12.

preserving this was an effort, because i’ve had how many new computers, how many reinstalls in the last 15 years? but it felt like something had to do to, like throwing that away would violate a sacred principle i lived my life by. turns out that principle was OCD.

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so, this laptop. the cats in the top-left corner were sent to me by my coworker aaron. he’s kind of a Big Deal in the ruby and rails communities, so when he tweeted about sending these to anyone, i DM’d him on slack and was like “omg would you??” and he just mailed me out an envelope full of them. i was ecstatic, so they went straight on my laptop. (there’s one in the front cover of my diary too.) now it’s kind of surreal that we’re “friends” who video call every week.

there’s a variety of work related stickers without much backstory: the four big octocats along the middle line, the vinyl octocat covering the apple logo, the pride octocat. they are what they are. this is a work laptop and it seemed appropriate. same with the git and the datadog (purple woofer up top) stickers.

there’s a bunny sticker on opposite corners. they were from a sticker set i got to give to kairi. there were others but i removed them because of all the negativity they were associated with. but i couldn’t bare to drop the bunnies.

the bottom-right corner is the logo of my favourite band, school food punishment, now disbanded. it came with a limited-edition cd release.

“gender is not binary” is actually from a member of parliament in nsw (!). she sent them and a bunch of other stickers out. that was pretty cool.

idk why i have the slack pride one. whatever. more rainbows on a laptop is always good.

there’s two stickers from github constellation, an event held last november in melbourne where i attended as staff. they were handing those stickers out. one is the octocat “constellation” on the bottom of the laptop. the other was a grim reaper (!?), which i’ve covered with the “invasion day” sticker. i covered it because it was actually really grim: that night was the one i was raped. a bit too much to leave a literal grim reaper sticker from that night on there, y’know? whereas i support indigeneousx on patreon.

“be pawsitive”. cute furry artist put these together. my keys have a little charm of the same design on them.

finally, the bunny girl drinking a milkshake. it’s from a LINE sticker set i used with emma a lot.

there’s a lot i’m ready to move on from with this laptop. it kinda documents the last 2 years of my life, the 2 years i’ve had it. i’m giving it to a friend when my replacement laptop arrives, which is pretty soon.