02/06/2025

OKAY THE PAST WEEK HAS BEEN REALLY BUSY SORRY

i spent the week either working on a writing project repository site, prepping for my cousin visiting, or straight up hanging out with her. so that's been fun

to once again condense this into a list because i find it to be the easiest to do:

got rained on on day 1 going out on a quest for snacks and ice cream, fully knowing i had my lined jacket in my room and chose not to wear it even though i knew the weather was gonna be shit
taught my cousin parlay and spoons, taught the older of her little siblings (who is in like. 4th or 5th grade now. wild shit, i was around that age when she was born. the passage of time sure is a concept) spoons too while my aunt was shortly here
almost had a meltdown at my sister's high school graduation because of how loud it was, then spent the entire night (which lasted about 5 hours) holding back tears and looking like i wished i was dead
walked around the downtown a little. had a really good burger
got to yap about no straight roads a little on the drive back from a mall
made a replacement button for lucida and added it in the old one's place. it links to the writing project site.

it was a pretty good week tbh. i'm gonna be going to puerto rico soon, looking forward to reconnecting with my culture and maybe a relative i haven't seen in ages. still gotta prep for that though.

15/06/2025

PUERTO RICO.

i just spent the past week in puerto rico, a trip i was actually looking forward to for once because of two things: reconnecting with an aunt who i last saw during my dad's funeral and reconnecting with my culture because i live in a predominantly white suburb and that's not really a great place to do so outside of my mother.

it's nice. (tba later)

18/06/2025

apologies for cutting the last one short! i got summoned to play minecraft and know i could've gone back to it anyways since it was just a video game for a few hours, but eeh. it's been three days, might as well just make it a whole new entry.

to actually continue why i, someone who generally hates traveling, was looking forward to a trip, reconnecting with my culture. seeing what the island is like because i've seen so much of the white half and almost nothing of the cooler one.

the main thing is that my siblings and i got a TON of context for why our mom is the way she is, which was actually really lovely! it was a great change of environment from the midwestern north (lots of pine trees) because of how colorful the natural flora was, but the main thing is that we understood two things:

why our mom drives like that
how her personality was shaped living there

the main thing with her driving is that puerto rican roads are an actual spaghetti disaster. it's a small island so there's not a lot of space for wide roads, and more often than not they're also laid out VERY confusingly (getting to our aunt's neighborhood was a nightmare because the sign for the exit we were supposed to take wasn't visible until you were already in the exit) which made navigation an actual nightmare.

the driving culture was equally chaotic and also made it EXTREMELY apparent why she drives the way she does in a hurry. you could pull the stupidest, most assholeish maneuver possible and no one would give a shit. wouldn't even honk at you. it was insane and also the funniest thing i have ever seen

it was also very nice seeing just how expressive everyone (especially her sister) was. gesticulation and high energy are a lot more common down there than up here from what i saw, so i see why she never learned to regulate her facial expressions. she just didn't need to.

the similarities between her and our aunt was almost uncanny as well. they're literally just the same person in a different font. i would not be surprised if she also has undiagnosed ADHD just because of the overlap between them, even in a few habits i was able to observe.

she was also SO excited to see us (idk if she remembers why she last saw us or not but i definitely do-) and was so affectionate, it was very sweet. i love my aunt :)

mostly the whole family visit was informative because it confirmed something my sister posed: abuelo brought the insanity. it was him. our mom has half sisters from HER mom, and both of them are really low-energy and reserved. meanwhile our mom, who is pushing 60, is the reason passion runs so deep among my siblings and i and is FAR more silly and high-energy than them.

i like that i was able to slowly piece together a little more of what my family's mental health history might look like in just a week (i've been trying to do this because of the behavioral visit. we still need to schedule that, but i think it might help to go in with an idea of what runs in the family? right now the big four i have down are definitely ADHD and substance issues, autism maybe, and either schizophrenia or something like it as a very scary possibly. i'm also like 75% sure it's from my abuelo specifically. makes me wonder what branch of the family tree had fucked enough brain chemistry to pass down the propensity for a psychotic disorder.)

some rapid fire shit because of course i'm putting an itemized list in here:

went snorkeling in an area that my cousin explicitly described as very dangerous. saw some turtles! it was cool
got sick halfway through, spent the latter half of the trip unable to breathe through my nose, and accidentally gave it to my aunt and cousin. sorry guys :(
tanned but didn't sunburn because i was smart about using sunscreen (last time i experienced equator heat, i only half-burned on most of my body. didn't turn red but it hurt like hell to touch anything), unlike my dumbass sister who heard me tell her "hey. you burn way easier than i do. maybe you should wear some sunscreen" and went "NAHHHHHHHHH." then proceeded to cook like a lobster
also hardly got bit by bugs. i had like five total and i'm pretty sure they were all from gnats and not mosquitoes.
tried the local cuisine like Cheese Waffle (was not good) and coconut soda (which was unironically really good). also actual tamarind juice is SO FUCKING GOOD DUDE
my sister and i taught our aunt parlay (she really liked it)
we also asked her to shuffle the deck because she's how our mom learned the cool way. she said she'd probably be really bad because it'd been a really long time, then proceeded to perfectly riffle it vegas-style. wild
had my first alcoholic drink because the drinking age is 18 in puerico, had to do it in the airport at 10am because i almost missed my opportunity the night before, and almost threw up in said airport. it was a pina colada. honestly wasn't half bad, the rum just had the exact same burn as mouthwash which was kind of uncomfortable.
found out that my cousin, who is 20 years older than me, has a very similar taste in movies to me! i also got to explain the writing project to him a little bit but because as of right now, the things i can explain the most in detail are either the classpecting system or the somewhat homoerotic hatred between cromwell and damien, i brushed it off and only said it's hard to explain because so little was done (partially true).

so yeah! puerto rico was good. the main non-trip related update is that i finally got my supports off, which is both really nice and feels really weird. they're a lot harder and hurt more, so i don't intend to wear them regularly outside of sleeping because of it but my teeth are smooth again! both very freeing and harrowing!

anyways, same shit as always, i'll update again if something interesting happens and i remember to actually write it here. habit out