Hyperbole and a Half

There is this other Allie on the internet.
Surely, there are many many Allies on the internet and I count myself among them. But this one is special. This Allie is the creator of Hyperbole and a Half and she's internet famous. Many a meme launched from Allie's posts.
For example:

You can't appreciate the quality of her work unless you read through her whole blog. Grab some Depends, because you will piss yourself laughing.

You might also cry a lot.

It depends how the darker humor strikes you.

For me, it often hit very raw nerves.

Then Allie disappeared. She didn't post for a long time and the internet became concerned about her welfare. Where did she go? Why didn't she post? Was she okay? After a long gap from May to October in 2011, she posted Adventures in Depression, which answered those questions. I felt like my face was melting with tears by the end. Allie and I have a little too much in common on the depression front. What I saw in that post I had been through multiple times since I was 10. The endless lows. The spirals into terribleness. The feeling of invincibility that followed.
Rinse. Repeat.

She disappeared again (aside from confirming her alive-ness on reddit a year ago)... until today.

Depression Part Two

Took a while to get through it.
Scroll. Sob until no longer able to see. Tissue-mop face and wait.
Scroll. Sob until no longer able to see. Tissue-mop face and wait.
Scroll. Sob until no longer able to see. Tissue-mop face and wait.
Rinse. Repeat.

This other Allie, I don't know how she does it. With the shittiest BEST drawings in the world she manages perfect accuracy. Her year has looked remarkably like my year. And while I wouldn't wish that suffering on anyone, it's a comfort to know other people get it, because they've been through the same shit and are still dealing with it. Plus, have the creativity and courage to depict the experience and share it with the world.

Dear Allie,

You have brought me comfort... and I hope that brings you some comfort.

Sincerely,

Allie

27

The backyard is blooming.

Kind of a Fibonacci birthday this year. 5-8-13. At least under the day-month-year model.
27 years old. Going on 7.

A football morning.
Real Madrid vs. Malaga. An exciting game, which ended 6-2 in our favor. All eight goals came from different players. Rather unusual. One of the six was Özil's.

A break sent him sprinting down the pitch. He didn't have much help, so Mesut dodged and danced his way to this lovely right-footed shot. He also nutmeg-ed a linesman from behind when he was setting up a corner. CHEEEEEEEEKY. I'm still giggling about it. Sadly, he got clipped awkwardly by a Malaga player late in the game. His ankle did something funny and he went down, stayed down, and looked like he was in a lot of pain. Tried to stand on it, nopenopenope, and sat right back down. Got stretchered off. ;;___;;
He has such a supple, delicate quality to his football, and is so contact-shy, that he's barely ever been injured. It's very disconcerting. Not to mention the Copa del Rey final on the 17th... the only chance for RM to show that this season wasn't an absolute failure. Yeesh.
MESSSUUUUUUT!
ANIMO MESUT!!!!!

Asa Butterfield was sweet/hilarious in a reddit AMA this morning. He's playing Ender in the very very very very very long awaited film adaptation of my favorite book ever (for sentimental reasons). I've followed the happening, not happening, happening, not happening progress of this movie for what feels like half my life. Lol. While Orson Scott Card has gone completely hyper Mormon crazy, I still love these books dearly.

The trailer was released yesterday.



The blockbuster-ification was inevitable and expected. Whoever made the trailer either never read the book or is teasing on purpose to confuse us. Wouldn't be the first time a trailer gave the impression of a very different movie. That being said, it's... better than I thought it would be. It won't be true to the books, but that never bothers me about adaptations. I like the look of it though. I like Asa as Ender. All the shiny lens-flares make it look like a kid's version of the newer Star Trek, which is funny to me.

The Ender's Game in my head is far darker and grittier, but I have no objection to this crystalline bright look. It still trips me out that a lot of the technology Card put into the novels in the 80s, which was fantasy at the time, is part of our daily lives now. The computer 'desks'. The digital palm-reading locks. THE INTERNET. Haha. It makes sense that they had to up the ante on the tech for the movie. Much of what was very futuristic then, is very normal now.

I want funny Dink. I want intense Petra. I want the Giant's Drink.
I require Bean.

If that happens, I'll be cool with the result, no matter how much of a departure it is.

Until then...

The Enemy's Gate is Down.

Irksome winds...

The wind picked up in the last hour. It's that hot, stuffy, claustrophobic kind of wind. Wind is one of those things that I'm obnoxiously sensitive to. It's akin to that damn scratchy tag in your shirt that feels like it's stabbing you every two seconds. Except it's all over my skin and constant. Wind gives me a headache, makes me itchy everywhere, and makes my eyes and nose hurt, even if I'm not outside. Something about the atmosphere changes. Barometric pressure something-or-other. It makes me feel crazy. I want to peel all my skin off. Rip my hair out. Beat my head against a wall. Like... crazy crazy.

Wind like this makes it impossible to sleep and that makes me feel especially crazy crazy.

Illustrated a baby shower invitation for my sister-in-law. Here's a little thumbnail. Beach themed, obviously. Sandpiper and a sand dollar there. 'Twas fun. Good test for my fingers after not doing much since the new year. Taped them up thoroughly. No problems so far. Though the nails have grown out looking all warped and discolored from the last time they blew up. Lovely.

Oh yeah, Champions League... *cough*

...

Ahem, speaking of irksome. -_______-

Things were going splendidly in Madrid there for a while. Mesut even got a couple of braces in their last few games. Then the first leg against Dortmund happened. Mourinho made kind of an odd starting 11 choice and we lost spectacularly 4-1. Ouch. Barcelona lost 4-0 to Bayern, too. Bigger ouch.

2nd leg was this morning. A 3-0 was the required scoreline to advance to the finals. The game was 0-0 for freaking ever. In the last 20 minutes or so, Real scored. Mesut assisted. Then scored again.

We had the momentum. We were one goal short of the finals.
Of course, Dortmund was smart and time-wasted, fouled, had a player stretchered off with an injury, fouled, time-wasted some more, aaaaaaaaaand...

That was it. Real Madrid won 2-0, but lost on aggregate. *sigh* La Decima?
Not this year.  
waaaaaahagainwaaaaahhhhh.

WE WERE RIIIIIGHT THERRRRRRRRE.

Really bummed for Iker and Sergio and the rest of the dedicated Club players.
Distraught for Mesut.
But... my teams, in order:
1. German National Team
2. Real Madrid
3. Borussia Dortmund
4. Bayern Munich

I love me some Germans. Barca's 2nd leg is tomorrow. If Bayern can crush them further, the Germans will have pwned the Champions League. This would please me greatly. If it can't be Mesut and Sami, at least it can be a bunch of their teammates.

I just keep thinking of the power of the German team for the World Cup next year and my mood improves significantly. They. Are. Beasts.

Go away wind!
You aren't wanted here!

What a week...

What. A. Week.

Boston bombing and manhunt. Bombing in Iraq. Texas fertilizer plant explosion. Earthquakes in Iran and China. Of course, deadly things are happening all the time. It's inescapable. But it still feels like a week of especially strange deadliness.

I followed the mayhem in Boston closely. Reddit was always up. The police scanners were always running. I know a couple folks in the area. And my dad ran the marathon just a few years ago with the local running club, so I know what kind of effort and special planning is required to take part. There were 14 locals there this year. A handful of them had just finished or were a few minutes from finishing at the time of the explosions. Eerie.

Reddit really was quite incredible. A blog post was just put up, which summarizes what happened there. I didn't really participate, but it was fascinating to watch it unfold in real-time. I was grateful to the site as the traditional TV news media is increasingly abysmal at reporting during such incidents.

Many Youtubers weighed in on Boston, but I liked mickeleh's video the most.


Now that days have passed, I'm noticing more how unsettled I am about Boston and the suspects. I know I'm not alone in this. Many are vengeful in their reaction. Execute him, skin him alive, make him suffer for the rest of his days. But many feel like I do.

I can't go there. I simply can't. This 19 year old kid (as far as can be assumed with what we know) was responsible for at least some of the carnage. The bombing victims, the murdered officer, the firefights, and the potential will to cause more harm with stored up explosives. Yes. All of that. He's the scum of the universe for his part, whatever it was. But I desperately crave the 'why'. This kid's Twitter feed could easily be one of my own friends. The bits of his life recorded to the net over the years build an image that is the polar opposite of what he did in Boston. For this... I want to know. I want to understand. I can accept that he might be a sociopath. His persona carefully orchestrated. Sure. But this feels too easy. Too simple. There is more story here. The brother. The broken family. The isolation.

If not the sociopath, then what? What pressure? What threat? What desperation or fear drove him to do this? I'm eerily reminded of an episode of LOST. Sayid's backstory in season one. Weird.

I wonder if he'll provide answers... silently if his voice never returns. Maybe he will answer. Maybe it will be all lies. But I want it. I want to know what justification, what reason, was in his head. Whatever it was, it will be wrong. But I want to know it. The craving for it lingers with me. Enough so that if the answer never comes it will bother me for a long time.
It shouldn't. But I can feel that it will.