What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[Michi]

Betrayal of the highest sort. Moving a chair from the curb into an apartment is a bond for life.

Not to mention the hair cut. That shit is sacred.

jinx and apple AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH

+1

[AppleQueso]

I'm only kinda popping in to say 'hi' and let the folks wondering about me know i'm still alive. Life's been taking some pretty wild turns lately.

tl;dr - I live in Austin now, all I have is a backpack of clothes and a laptop, and mayyyybe my guitar/amp if it ever shows up in the mail. Also my girlfriend and I broke up after 9 1/2 years together, but I've started seeing someone new and i'm very, very happy. Couch surfing, but things are looking very positive overall.

Okay, about 2-3 months ago we lost our apartment in San Antonio. My job literally couldn't pay our bills, the sheer math didn't work, and after months of feeling utterly swamped and immensely stressed, we had absolutely no way out and had to throw in the towel. A friend of mine (and sorta/kinda romantic interest, it's complicated) offered to let us stay at their place, and we took up the offer and convinced the apartment to not file an eviction if we left quickly. They drove down, we tossed everything we could into their car, left most of our furniture behind, and relocated to Lawrence, Kansas. (That was a hell of a drive btw)

Anyways, we're there for about a month, my computer monitor is destroyed during the move, along with various other hardware issues, and it's rendered pretty much unusable. Our host's apartment managers found out we were staying there, and gave us like a week to leave. At a complete loss for what to do or where to go, me and Merri decided to split ways. My friend paid for plane tickets to fly us from Kansas City to Dallas, we packed a suitcase full of clothes and necessities, and upon landing, split our luggage up and Merri went to live with her family in Abilene, while I hopped on a Megabus to Austin.

So yeah, technically homeless in Austin, but I chose this place because it's where I already knew the most people, and that's been working out well. After a few weeks of a lot of talking, me and Merri reached the conclusion that our relationship was no longer maintainable, was rife with issues that couldn't be fixed, and that ultimately the both of us had different, conflicting needs, ending a 9 1/2 year long relationship. That was hard, to say the least, and it's still something i'm trying to heal from.

I then later met Samantha at a local Trans/Queer social event, and while we'd initially intended to just be friends, we quickly fell for one another and have been dating now, and it's absolutely wonderful and I couldn't be happier. I'm not sure i've ever felt so enamored with someone in my entire life. (She's a receptionist at a haircutting place, it's how I got Jinx a freebie)

Anyhow, I still don't have a permanent place to stay yet, but I've got some good leads and I'm not worried or scared. I'm only having to take care of me, and that alone has been an entire universe off of my shoulders. I've got some amazing friends here, and I'm making more all the time, and I've basically had it completely assured to me that no matter what, I won't wind up in the streets.

annnnnyhow here's some other cool shit that's gone down:

Saw Melt Banana in Kansas City, p sure I have tinnitus from that show alone and it's the last time I see any live music without earplugs. Was fucking AMAZING though, even if the crowd was the rowdiest i'd ever seen. Shitloads of people jam packed into a tiny venue, moshing and stagediving and shit. My then-roommate got kicked in the head a couple of times. :X

JINX! - So yeah she lives here too as y'all are aware, we hang out sometimes, we have a lot of fun and have spent a couple of nights at least wandering around downtown until the wee hours of the morning, being goofballs, going shopping together, hitting bars, and having the odd more serious discussions about life and love. We haven't been able to hang out as much in the past few weeks, but it's been really nice. She's not really in my 'main' social circle, so hanging out with her is kinda it's own unique treat.

I kinda wound up at a queer kink/play party. It was one of the most strange, beautiful, bizarre, wonderful, and outright unbelievable experiences of my life. I participated, of course, but perhaps that's not something i should go into detail with on here.

...and that doesn't even touch all the awesome new friends, places, and shops i've been to. Austin's kinda proving to be, at least at this point in my life, the perfect place for me to wind up. Things aren't quite out of the woods, and i'm sure life has plenty more curves to throw me, but overall my outlook is positive, i'm less stressed, and i feel like i'm going to be able to finally put things together.

[Ack]

Hey Apple, regardless of whether you just stop in to say hi or go back to regular visits, we're all just happy to hear you are OK. We hope that, even with rough times, things keep on improving for you.

[MrPopo]

Frown: No death'd Metal Warriors all the way to the communications tower, died twice due to me making dumb mistakes, then realized I was making it too complicated and went into the final level with four tries available. First three were pissed away with me being bad and screwing up my run to the Havoc, but once I got it I was into the second part of the level. Then I utterly noobed out and got squished between moving geometry. What an ignoble end to what was possibly a game winning run.

[Luke]

Good to see you around again cheese head.

Smiles: My ECU pulled off one heck of a comeback and ended up destroying the SMU ponies. Good times with friends was had.

My wife's album is currently #37 on itunes, which is incredible as it's her debut album.



You can listen to her single on youtube.

[AmishSamurai]

oh, guess we're doing "what happened?" after long hiatuses. Cool.

So 2015 was... rough. I spent most of this year jobless, or with a doomed to fail job only giving me 200 a week, but I managed to eke out an existence in part to the fact I wasn't paying rent. Situation with mom was getting more tense, she basically said "I will never acknowledge you as who you really are" and I was just kinda in a depressive stasis for a while.

I did however start up a relationship. Hope and I have been dating since February, and in June I got enough money to fly out to meet her family in Arizona. she's staying there for the time being because it's more financially sound and her parents need the help, and I miss her every day.

In early August I accepted a job back in Charleston. I always wanted to stay here, but having not found a job immediately after graduating I had to go back home to Florida. I spent a month and found someone to room with, but they were both deceptive about the state of the duplex (it was basically a crack den) and the status of roommates (he stated he had a third person, but lied) and was just rude to me (kept smoking in front of me immediately after I said I was allergic to nicotine). So I bailed before I signed anything, and stayed with a friend for a few weeks while I found a proper apartment, met two awesome ladies, and have a decent place in a not-so-decent part of town. But I'll live.

New job is great. I'm presenting as myself full time, and have never felt so open or "myself" in my life. I'm getting my shit together bit by bit and it's great. They've actually stuck their neck out a lot and bent over backwards to accommodate me and respect me.

However, I have realized that the big "collecting" mindset is really not me anymore, and most of it is just sitting in my room gathering dust. so once I get my desktop set up and get emulation going, I'll probably start selling off my cube collection, just keep my handhelds and a PC. Or gut my cube/DC and make it a dedicated emulation machine. Either way, I don't consider myself a "collector" anymore, or even much of a "gamer". It kinda represents a negative, darker part of my life where I thought I could fill a hole and drown repressed feelings with material "stuff" and make an identity around that stuff instead of just admitting who I was.

[samsonlonghair]

@Jinx, Apple, and Amish,
Good to hear updates from people. Sorry to hear you've been having it rough. 2015 has been a challenging year for me too. Stay Awesome.
Love and Peace,
-Samson

[jinx]

Really hope things are going well with you and Kit (and more importantly the kid). None of my business, and I will leave it at that.

Or will I?

Being comfortable with yourself, to me at least, is more important than success. In fact I believe if you have a functioning brain financial success is a given, but being comfortable in your own skin can always provide a challenge.

In all sincerity, I hope you are in a better "place" Jinker Janker.

A bit off topic for the picture thread so I'm moving it here.

Luke, I would be worried if someone wasn't concerned. Kit and I are still good friends and talk every day. The little one is going to daycare and making friends, and I miss her a great deal. The'll be coming out this way for a visit and I can't wait.

Happiness and true self is what I sought, and my head is spinning from how quickly I was able to find it. Instead of locking myself in the house, crying day-in and day-out, too afraid to even walk to the grocery store or take the kid to the park, I'm now much more confident in myself and my abilities. It seems odd that a 26 year old would be putting "Can pull up her own pants without help" as a life accomplishment, but that's how it feels. Even though I have a wonderful boyfriend to lean on, I feel like I can take on the work myself. I talk to strangers, chat with whoever is checking me out, I'm not afraid to be who I am.

As far as success? It feels good to tackle the SysAdmin career path again and conquer it as much as I have. When I came back, I was this "fabled girl from a distant past" that everyone immediately looked up to, since I was from a different era of this company. I have to say, I've lived up to their ideas of me. Despite all that... I really just want to feel happy. If I felt like I did when I worked here previously? Stressing out every night and worrying about my job? I'd go back home in a heartbeat.

I'm looking forward to what else this city has to offer and where my current path is headed. It hurts that I had to move further away from my child, but I'll never abandon her. She's always in my heart and always on my mind. I'm just trying to make a better me, so I can support her without struggling and despising life. I want to love life, because life is beautiful.

[Luke]

Happiness and true self is what I sought, and my head is spinning from how quickly I was able to find it.

...

I want to love life, because life is beautiful.

I once said something stupid that a friend of mine thought was insightful.

In short he and his gal split, he moved into a one bedroom apartment and he told me "I don't think I give live alone". Knowing the feeling, I told him "If you can live with yourself, you're not alone".

I still have no idea what that means and why I said it, but a light in his attic went off. What I meant to say was that you can't rely on others to make or keep you happy. And as I'm thrilled you have a partner and a shoulder to lean on, keep your emotions self sufficient and never rely on a person to keep you happy. People that keep you happy are the cherries on the split. You and only you can control if you are happy or not.

Now that I'm done impersonating Danny Tanner...

Smile: Dudes, Dudettes, and Super Duders...I hope you all catch a cold soon. I hope boogers flow from your nose like snowy powder on an Alpine mountain. Why?

There is a facial tissue (Kleenex for us 'Mericans) made by Puff's with both lotion and Vick's Vapor Rub IN THE TISSUES! By far the best Kleenex not made by Kleenex ever.

*Insert Monica and Chandler joke here*

Even if you don't have a cold, buy some. They're like cocaine for your nose.

[samsonlonghair]

They're like cocaine for your nose.

I see what you did there.