I feel restless and anxious. Probably because it’s nearly 3 in the morning - GO TO BED TORI. 

All the same, I gots the anxiety. That gnawing existential feeling. Right now I’m thinking about cognitive dissonance. It’s a concept I think about a lot these days. I have a very hard time with it. Even if I rationally know that it is ok to believe and feel totally different things simultaneously, there’s a part of me chomping at the bit to return to a binary. This or That. Black and White. I know that’s a huge part of my mental illness. Living somewhere in the middle is important. 

But when it comes to lofty concepts like justice or ethics or morals, the middle isn’t always comfortable. The middle isn’t always right. And I feel shame sometimes for not operating as a %100 Guaranteed Good Person. 

I know this is like, the human condition or whatever, but sometimes I just wanna stop being painfully aware of how flawed my quest for perfection is. 

I obsess over perfection. I have always obsessed over perfection. When I stop myself from obsessing over perfecting one thing, I transfer the perfection to another. And it’s just fucking dawned on me that in the same way I used to obsess about having the perfect body or being the perfect student, I obsess about being the perfect moral entity. And like, feeling shameful over a less-than-moral decision isn’t the worst thing in the world, but ALSO humans are known to do bad shit sometimes. That’s fucking living. Everyone does something immoral every now and again. Shaming myself for this to the point where just the potential of doing someone wrong ties my gut in knots isn’t fucking helpful. 

I am flawed. That’s okay. I am going to fuck up. I am going to make mistakes. I am going to hurt someone without meaning to. I am going to hurt someone intentionally. I don’t anticipate any of those circumstances leading to grand or disastrous results. Probably I’ll just feel guilty and apologize. That’s healthy. That’s living. 

Go to bed Tori. Stop freaking out over all the bad things you haven’t even done yet. 

I have epiphanies like Meryl Streep has acting credits. Often times I have to have the same epiphany more than once for it to really sink in. This can be frustrating for those who know me well. They have to put up with my “aha!” moments when they’re fresh and then also have to say “yeah no fucking shit, Tori” the second and third times around.

I have had epiphanies about my relationship with empathy numerous times. On the whole, I consider myself an empathetic person – to a fault at times. It’s hard for me to separate what I feel from what is true. I may feel like the girl who just left the outdoor table beside me was judging me when the lid to my yogurt flew toward her in the wind. I may worry she left because of me or because of something I did. But the truth is, I have no clue why she left her seat. Though, it’s probably because of the aforementioned wind.

Humans like to fill in gaps. It’s how our brains operate on a basic level. But I fill in more than just the logical gaps. I fill in emotional gaps. I try to predict an outcome. I make assumptions about the behavior of others in a backwards attempt at self-preservation. That’s pretty much just what anxiety is, airtight sealing the gaps of reality with the worst case scenarios. In doing this, I at least become focused inward to a degree that some would call self-obsessed. Now, I’m not egotistical. Quite the opposite, actually – but I am inclined to believe that every action others take around me must, in some way, be because of my actions. Usually this skews negative, See: The Girl Who Left Her Table.

Rather than protect me from cruelty, which I imagine is my brain’s goal in its own primitive way, this alienates me. It’s not ALWAYS about me. I’m just not that important, and thank fuck I’m not. In the same way we find vain individuals exhausting to be around, this negative vanity is equally tiresome. It also limits our ability to empathize. If you’re busy demonizing yourself through the false lens of those around you, that doesn’t leave much time to listen and respond to other people.

I’ve understood this for a long time, the inherent selfishness in how my mental illness operates. It’s something to be overcome as much as any other symptom. There’s another way, though, in which my mental health interacts with empathy and this one is harder to deny: Comparison.

This has been a bitch for me in recovery. I have this kneejerk reaction to anyone presenting any sort of positive aspect of their life. I envy them, even if I already have the thing they have. Somehow I am missing out. Somehow I do not have enough, and by association I am not enough. That idea, that I am not enough, is the root of a lot of my issues. It’s certainly where my eating disorder comes from (a combination of “I am not enough” and “I am too much.”) For a long time I lived so steeped in what other people had, what other people were doing, what other people were achieving, that I only functioned from a place of what I lacked. It didn’t matter what I did. It would never be enough. There would always be someone out there doing more and being more. In a lot of ways I am still learning how to operate from a place of what I am instead of what I’m not.

I catch myself – feeling the weight of envy in my gut and not knowing why. There is a disconnect sometimes between what I know to be true and that old reaction. I have to stop and collect myself and remember that envy is a choice. I can choose so many other things instead. I can choose joy and appreciation for others. I can choose to compliment instead of silently resent. Those choices are so much more satisfying. They don’t leave me wallowing in what I fear I can never become. But the feeling itself – of wanting what another has – it isn’t wrong. Shaming myself for feeling it is just as bad as living my life by it. So I try to live somewhere in the middle. It’s a sliding scale most of the time. But it’s working for me. It may take a few more epiphanies, a few more blog entries, to really hit the mark, but that’s okay. That’s enough.

So I had to pay $2.99 to upgrade my photobucket account because my bandwidth for the month has already been exceeded.

Am I an actual blogger?

Do people actually look at my stuff?

If you lead...

Lost another follower. It's been a bad week for followers.

Sometimes when I follow someone and they follow back I'll periodically check to see if they've gotten sick of me yet.

And sometimes they have.

And sometimes they're still following and I just kind of go "WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE DON'T YOU HATE ME YET???"

I don't know. Followers are a funny thing, because it's not something that I'm consciously concerned about. I don't make posts with the hope of gaining followers.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't aware of that little number in the corner.

I think it's an easy way to feel validated and that's all well and good. It's making sure you don't allow that validation to manipulate your movements that's the hard part. You can't allow that number to bother you, or change what you're doing.

Some of the posts I'm proudest of have the fewest note. You have to be able to validate yourself and not just rely on the validation of others. And that kind of applies to life in general.

Lunch is over. Back to work, I guess.

- Tori 

Tried to give a fandomy friend of mine some blog starting advice. 

Oh, facebook. 

You never cease to amuse me.

So this isn't great quality and I mess up a little in the middle

but given that I'm actually posting this

instead of trying and then giving up and never letting it see the light of day

I'm cutting myself some slack.

So there. 

My contribution to the Tumblr community. 

Lyrics:

When I wake up,

I know what I’m gonna do

I’m gonna open up a browser onto to you

And when I go out

Which I almost never do

Yeah I’ll use my phone to log right into you

When I get drunk

Well I know I’m gonna be

I’m gonna be drunk blogging til I fall asleep

And when I feel things

Well I know I’m tell

I’m tell all of those feelings straight to you

Cause I follow 500 blogs and I’ll follow 500 more

Just to be the blog who reblogs every gif and makes you smile for sure

When I’m working

You know what I really do

I spend every minute logging on to you

And when the money

Comes in for work I don’t do

I use it to by fandom gear from you

When I’m alone

Which is almost all the time

I’m not lonely cause I’m scrolling straight through you

And When I grow old

I will still be on my blog

Laughing at gifs through my canula with you

Cause I follow 500 blogs and I’ll follow 500 more

Just to be the blog who reblogs every gif and makes you smile for sure

Etc. Etc.

This is my blogging though process

I'm really boring and I've been a terrible blogger lately.

I'm gonna leave this picture I made of Giuliana Rancic as an ant/witch here to show you all how much I love you. 

I don't quite remember why I made this but I remember it was important. 

The end. 

Something Kinky: A kind of sort of flash-fiction that has no discernible market

I'm supposed to write something today. but I'm exhausted and I still haven't studied for the huge History test I have tomorrow. I think I might just cheat a little bit and post something I've been working on. This is a long edit of the piece. I've already trimmed it down into a 199 word flash fiction, but I really enjoy the full edit. It just doesn't work as a sharp, cohesive story. It's rough, hence why I've since edited it further, and it can be a little clunky. I just like the shifting perspectives and the turn it takes. 

My time-machine-self lives in an art deco apartment complex just outside Seattle. The city is strong with dead leaves and rain gutters. Wind is a friend and it wraps around her chest and invites her to all the best parties. She lives in rain boots and thick sweaters that clash spectacularly with everything she owns. She gets fish at Pike’s. She runs along the shore and watches tourists snap pictures of fancy hotels and skylines. She remembers when she took the same snapshots and how last week she tossed them out with some expired yogurt and shredded pantyhose. She works as a secretary. Her boss, a man ten years her senior, sports a receded hairline. He writes encouraging messages on post-it notes and leaves them stuck to her desk.  

He knows about her real job. He knows that, while she e-mails by day, she lounges in hipster coffee shops by night and listens to beat poetry. And slowly her boss and she are falling into the gutters of the city. They are such romantics in a world of hard concrete and marble.

And my time-machine-self is independent.

And my time-machine-self is happy.

  But, I can’t have that time at all. I can’t create it, or trade it, or buy it. And anyways, I wouldn’t buy it. Even if I could. So, I’m stuck with Dr. Who and “what if?”

I don’t even watch Dr. Who. Never seen an episode. Know it vaguely as ‘the British television show.’  And yet, I have burdened my time-machine-self with existing in the very same fictional world, ether. I can’t think of the word: liminality, doublethink, Schrodinger’s time-machine-cat. Throwing Angels in America references into blog entries and facing the backlash. Buying Apple laptops with, illegally obtained, legal tender from my adoring fans. I have no order. Without my spectral daydreams, I would cease to function. Robots would die in the streets. The melodrama of my inner self would spill out of my mouth and lie, sticky sweet, on the tiles of my coral tinted bathroom. Overwrought, incoherent, ornate, Dickens-ian, adjective, adjective, adjective.

My boss, most of all, is the constant object of these fantasies. Sometimes he’s a grad student, a professor, a young adult novelist, or really anyone who could be deemed an ‘inappropriate’ receptacle for my affections. I steep myself in unhealthy relationships, towel off, and face my peers prune-fingered like my love interests.

But soon my time-machine-self grows weary of my desperation. She hops back into her time machine and sets off to assassinate her former-pathetic-self.

- Tori

Commitments, Abortions, and Owls

This blog today will come to you in several parts (Vlogbrothers style)

Part 1:

I have decided to try and blog something to Tumblr everyday. From what I've read about the creative process it seems the more you stretch your "creativity muscles" the better you get. People become skilled at what they do because they do it everyday. So, in an attempt to better my writing skills and creativity I'm going to write everyday and document it on this Tumblr. 

Part 2: 

The other day I was at a thrift store looking to buy furniture for college and I was presented with a very odd occurrence. This thrift store in particular is directly next to the Arlington Pregnancy Center which does pretty much what you think it does. The thrift store and the Center literally share wall space. In fact any purchases at the thrift store help fund the Pregnancy Center. As I am pro-choice, I see no problem giving them my business. 

After browsing through the furniture, and finding nothing but a quirky painting, I made a bee line for their quite extensive literature section. I had never for shopped for books their before and I was shocked to find an excessive amount of Christian texts. Now as a general rule I try not to judge anyone for their religious preference. I'm not inherently religious but I see no issue with religion of any kind if it can help someone be happy, find peace, and feel connected to the world. I'm a "whatever floats your boat" kind of girl. That said, I do also generally find humor in the ironic. An abortion-funding thrift store that also happens to shelve hundreds of christian self help novels is irony at its best. It's also just plain funny.  

Part 3:

I have an owl problem. You could call it an infestation.

Let me explain.

A few years ago I decided that owls were my favorite animal. They're cute, they're fluffy, and they're a symbol for intelligence. What's not to love? So I bought myself a couple of owl trinkets: a necklace, a shirt or two. Now as I began to sport these pieces I was complimented on them which led, of course, to a discussion on my love of owls. 

From that point on I received nothing but owl themed presents for birthdays, Christmas, and all other major holidays. I now have quite a collection. I have at least 8 statues, 2 necklaces, a jewelry box, a body pillow, a plushie, a painting, and a native american dream box. All of these items feature owls. Many of these things I wish to take with me to college but now, if I do, I will become "that" roommate.

I can just see it now: I'll meet my roommate and begin to unpack only to watch her eyes grow wider and wider as the owls take over. I'm was already going to be the freaky roommate who watches reruns of modern family on Saturday nights instead of going out. Now, to add the cherry on top, I'll be DROWNING IN OWLS.

-Tori

P.S. Did I mention that my school's rivals are the RICE OWLS. Oh no I didn't? Well then isn't that just peachy.