random thoughts

8/21/26

reasons to remain:

• your future self would be quite angry if he couldn't help all those students you dream of teaching
• "BlindBlindBlind"
• writing. writing poems. writing novels. writing your life.
• love in all of its forms.
• animals in all of their beauty.
• people in all of their beauty. "some hearts are true."
• seeing your favorite artists live.
• people love you, even if you don't know them.
• listening to the birds.
• fidgeting with that little rock.
• sharing your passions.
• fully discovering yourself.
• simply persisting in the face of hardship.
• experiencing wonderful stories for the first time.
• pain. and the growth from it.
• building your record collection.
• making people smile.

8/23/26

I have a lot of thoughts today.

I contemplated my own death today. All of this anxiety is piling up, and it's so hard to ignore the thought. It feels impossible, actually. I did not do it. But, I cried for over an hour in contemplation. I feel ashamed for things that I've said and done so needlessly. I feel like I might be a compulsive liar or something, and there's a very specific lie that I told to a couple of people that I will never quite understand. I will always beat myself up for it, because it's so stupid and remarkably unnecessary.

And I've been like this my whole life. Ever since I was twelve or so, my trust has been betraying itself. And I feel ashamed and guilty for it, as I should. These are not earth shattering lies, but my brain treats them as such. It's just appalling how dumb and careless I can be.

I pledge to both stop the needless lies and the feeding of such lies.

Here's a poem I wrote today (yes, it's named after the SMZ song):

"Goodbye, Desolate Railyard"

There's pesky and incessant biting

As I'm on that rocking bench by the birdhouses

In the concerned oven air

I see the tracks o'er there

Going through the sharp and unanswering fog

And the color vanishes here

As little carts go into the grey

I hear a whisper coming

Some faint light through the thickness

Which I don't know

It's only a slivering glow

The air around me is irreversibly muted

I still see those carts going

And my feet rise from the bench

I see chirping all around

As I walk ahead into the unending black

Those red lines and brown marks

Only drive me deeper inside

Until I'm swallowed up completely

Goodbye, desolate railyard

I wish I could stay a little longer

Actually, no. They might as well be earth shattering lies. It's so FUCKING stupid. Why would ANY sane person lie about that? I fucking hate myself. I've always been told I was an extreme empath and so sensitive (and I do believe that), but nobody like that would lie about that with such ignorance. I guess my mind wanted to give some concrete shape to trauma, but that doesn't really excuse it. I should've known better, and I fucking hate myself. Goodnight.

8/24/26

Today was much better.

It is fascinating how I always tend to carry a great mood the day after I contemplate my life. I felt absurdly productive today uni-wise — got lots of shit done. I find myself very excited for my history and writing classes, which are on every Tuesday and Thursday. Mondays and Wednesdays are worse uni-wise, but still not bad.

My love for A Silver Mt. Zion only grows with each day. They're all I've listened to so far today. Songs like "BlindBlindBlind" (God, will he shut up about that one?), "What We Loved Was Not Enough," "Could've Moved Mountains," and "Goodbye Desolate Railyard" got me through the day. All four are quite different from each other, but oh so great in their own quirky ways.

I felt... confident in my calculus class today??? Armageddon has to be coming soon 'cause there's no way. Insane! But hey, that's a good thing (not Armageddon... my confidence. Okay, I'll shut up).

Someone in that class was wearing a Fallout: New Vegas shirt. Of course, I said nothing. Why wouldn't I? I was wearing a Majora's Mask sweatshirt, and nobody said anything. I wonder if someone had the same experience after seeing mine.

There's a girl who sits in front of me who seems pretty chill. I'm not even sure why I get that vibe, it's just that some people have that aura. God, that was cringe...

I've got to write a short essay for my music appreciation course. I really shouldn't have any issues with that considering I already like to write about music. I'm writing it on what I love about the bass guitar. I also have a few months to do a research project on Sergei Rachmaninoff. I originally wanted to do Swans, but I was a little late to picking who I'd write on so I had to pivot to a different era and artist. I don't give a shit about Rachmaninoff but there's a plethora of information on him, so........

Anyways, good day! Great day! I will likely finish it off by watching some DougDoug, writing a little bit, eating dinner, and listening to more music. Maybe I'll start another video game one of these days, we'll see! I was pretty dedicated to League of Legends for a couple of weeks, but that has slowed down a little, only because of uni. Whatever! Goodnight.

8/25/26

Today was also quite good.

I had my history and writing classes today, both of which were fun. I love writing, but most of the fun I get out of that class is because of my professor — he is hilarious. He has the cover of Brain Salad Surgery on the class page, so I asked him about it! We then proceeded to talk about other artists. He also really loves Without Warning by 21 Savage, Offset, and Metro Boomin. Never woulda guessed. He says he saw 21 Savage and Chris Stapleton in the same month once.

My history professor also really likes music (loves Primus), but I like that class more because of the material and the way he teaches it. It is practically just a discussion, and it doesn't really feel like a traditional lecture, which I think is great! It also helps that I am a history major with aspirations of teaching who just nerds out about it. This specific course covers U.S. history from Reconstruction to the modern era. I've got to do an annotated bibliography for that class, and I think I'm going to do it on the impacts of anarchism from around the 1880s to the 1910s. That's not surefire, though.

Anyways, today was good! Been rotating those same SMZ tracks. Wrapping it up with therapy and YouTube or something. I started Half-Life yesterday, so I will probably play around an hour of that tonight. Goodnight.

8/26/26

Holy day of productivity.

I did the majority of my essay for my music appreciation class, drafted an introduction for my visual rhetoric paper for my writing class, and got extremely ahead on my calculus homework. So I literally have no reason to do anything else today! Hours of free time.

I relistened to A Silver Mt. Zion's debut album today. I still think it's my least favorite album of theirs, which is definitely one of my hotter music takes. I still think it's good, maybe even borderline great, but nothing fully grabs me like their later work. I think A Silver Mt. Zion is at their best when Efrim Menuck is fucking ripping his vocals out all the time. However, "13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed" is still probably one of my favorite songs of theirs. I wouldn't be surprised if further relistens change my opinions. I think I will check it out again tonight.

I have a quiz on Chief Joseph tomorrow in my history class, which shouldn't be too hard at all — I'm not worried about it.

So I'm on a hot streak! Great day again. Goodnight.