The Not Happy Thread

Ordered vape juice on the 11th. It usually takes three to five days, so I thought eight or ten would be enough to account for the slowdown in shipping times. NOPE. They haven't even shipped it yet. It "should" go out tomorrow, they said. Then I'll have to wait for ground shipping times. I'm about to go pay SIX TIMES as much at a shop and might have to go again before my order gets here. They should have notified me that one day processing was now ten day processing! First world problem or not, I'm legitimately unhappy. You don't mess with a man's nicotine.

 

I've been, uh, "disgruntled" ever since quitting. It sometimes drives me a little crazy when every other anime I watch has a character with a cigarette 24/7. The physical addiction is nothing (imo). It's the mental that I still haven't shaken.

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I don't know if this is really an unhappy thing or not, but finally forced myself to make an over-the-phone appointment with my academic adviser. Gotta' explain my existential crisis: everything I went to university for feels like a lie, I don't know what to do with my life, it makes me feel like I'm wasting money, etc etc.

 

This is something I wish anime and live-action movies would give up. I'm not going for a full-on ban on smoking, but I think that in this day and age having a character be a smoker should be something that's put in there to reveal something about their personality or for use in the story (like when the hero has one match left for the stick of dynamite to foil the bad guys). Long, long ago I took a short-fiction class at the community college and the textbook had a list of habits you could insert to make your characters three dimensional; things like smoking, knuckle cracking, whistling, etc. I'd like to see the Grand High Council of Writers Whom We All Revere and Obey Without Question remove tobacco from that list.

Anybody got the phone number? I swear one of them gave me his card the other night at the bar, but I think it got washed.

 

I heard recently that Japan no longer allows smoking in restaurants. I wasn't sure how true (or recent) this is. I was still under the impression that bans on smoking indoors were exceptions to the norm in Japan. As in, I assumed it was just left up to the owner of the home / building / establishment.

Anyway, maybe I wouldn't be so bothered by not smoking if I wasn't having an existential crisis. I've been told that this type of thing isn't supposed to happen until your mid-life, so I guess that means I only have 20 more years to live.

 

The type of three dimensionality you achieve by including those traits:

Spoiler

 

Unintentional I'm sure, but this is what showed up:



ETA: Weird, I can see the image in the quote box, but only until I post, then it disappears into RedXLand again.

 

Now you feel my pain. It is legendary.

 

Wish I could sleep better. I feel like I've been hit by ten semis. Not that I know what that really feels like, but I am weary to my bones today.

 

I'm still getting my nicotine, but it's a fraction of what I used to consume in a day when I was still on cigarettes. Back then, cigarettes in movies only really bothered me in the theater. I couldn't stop the movie and have one. It made me antsy. I wanted to walk out of the movie for a smoke.

 

Something is trying to get into my skull. How can I tell it visitors aren't welcome?

 

I went to the grocery store today.

It was a necessary trip and I wore a mask.

I live in a very small residential neighborhood, and the grocery store fits that area perfectly. Not a lot of selection, not a lot of frills, the cashiers know everybody. I wish it was a little bit bigger, but it is literally directly across the street from my apartment and you can't argue with that kind of convenience.

But today there was some gaijin douchebag in there. No mask, which I can forgive having only recently gotten aboard that train, but that is still strike one.

Sunglasses indoors. That's strike two and a half in this country.

And walking around with his phone held platter-style in front of his face, shouting out a conversation on speakerphone in English to his lady friend who could probably hear him without the phone as long as she was somewhere on Honshu. Placing his shopping basket on the displays when he needed to pick something up because his other hand was busy with his phone. I've been going to that store for over a decade, but today every other customer would look at him and then glance at me as if I'd brought the imbecile into the joint.

Gods I hope he didn't move in nearby.

 

I remember that association. I had a couple of particular Japanese restaurants I frequented during my time there, and I got to know most people who owned the places. But every time some loud-talking Marine would walk in and start swearing up a storm or laughing loudly, they all would look at me like I had to do something about it. I could only do that with Sergeants or below, so that got to be a problem sometimes.

 

I've been haunted by freaky visual images for the past several months whenever I try to relax and fall asleep in the dark. Recently gotten used to it and now sometimes the imagery is even nice. Still, I get a little paranoid from time to time and the once subtle sounds of the house settling stand out a lot more now as I attach endless possibilities to them. Again, got used to this state of mind and am able to chill out most of the time. Well, this time, I start hearing a different type of sound which I can't place. And I was getting a little concerned. Do a prayer. Get up, turn on the light. It's a god damn cockroach. It's messing with some papers I have on top of books on the floor. That was what was creating that sound like something was in the room. I laugh at myself a little bit and ready a slipper. It hides behind my bookshelf. I grab my phone to look up some "how to keep roaches out of the house" tips. Read that for awhile until it comes out. Kill it. Now I'm able to go back to sleep. Cool.

Wake up today, after noon. Feel pretty shitty. That roach wasn't the only bug which entered the house: now we have the conflict bug. Parents arguing the whole day. Still. Several hours. There's no set pattern for this. It happens in smaller concentrations but this looks like one that will last at least a few days, disperse, and then continue for a few days. In total, looking at two weeks of conflict at least. But, Ramadan starts tomorrow. Usually, that lessens their conflict. However, we do have the anomalous factor of the quarantine. So, not sure how that's going to play into things. All in all, I think it's basically going to be milder conflict for a week. They'll be pretty tired and in a "holy" state of mind for the month and it'll fizzle out. Conflict will probably pick up again toward the end of summer and extend into September. Better wear a raincoat.

 

You know it's bad when non-natives start breaking out "gaijin". (No slight intended.)

Not to mention, people like that are already the worst here in the states (in my opinion). I could hardly imagine tossing that specimen into the middle of a culture like Japan's lol.

It must be very nerve-wracking, being a non-native around that. I wonder how much of those looks are accusatory, or if they're silent pleads for help.

EDIT: Interesting that I defaulted to assuming they're from the United States. Lots of countries have English as their main language. I think it's because these kinds of people regularly come into my place of work.

I feel you. My parents divorced in the past couple weeks after well over a decade of fights and arguments, my dad talking shit about my mom to me behind her back and then asking me to burden myself with it and keep it all a secret, on top of keeping his plans to divorce a secret, etc.

I think I carried all that weight because I thought at the end when it finally happened, it'd be okay again. But that turned out to not be true, and I now wish I'd never had this on my conscience. Instead I sealed myself away in my room, stayed for weeks at friends' houses with their families, would spend entire summers with my cousins, to try and get away.

But the stoics said something about how you can never get away from yourself.

I'll tell my mom some day, and forgive my dad some other day.

 

I wish sometimes I had the relationship with my mother where she was my best friend and not the one who terrorizes me. I know that sounds dramatic, but I can't even send a text message about plans for my own house without worrying if it's going to make her mad. Every time I think I'm strong enough to be above her years of abusive behavior, I get pulled back down.

But the good thing about it is I've finally got the confidence to tell her she can't come over just because she wants to. I am setting clear boundaries this time because it will be my house for a long time and she won't get to take that feeling of home from me.

 

Oh, how I want to go off about a certain niche sub culture,
but at the same time know it is a legit thing. Even if the
people that participate in it are as intelligent as sea sponges.

(I feel oddly better, though the whole concept and it's
participants are on a whole new level of inept that drives
me bloody mad.)

I will leave it at that, and not bore you all with a lengthy
and scathing rant, filled with my thoughts.

Thank you.

 

Yeah, you're right. Even sea sponges wouldn't be that stupid.

 

When people call me a sponge now, I'm going to respond with this.

 

That's what you get when you don't have the stress of work and just, well, y'know...

 

Or the stress of...ya know...movement ...

 

I AM NOT AN ANIMA--, wait, I am.

 

But they do still worry about current events.

 

You can rant to me later if you like.