Ramblings of Ash
cold medicine and lowered expectations
May 13, 2025
so dont take nyquil and robitussin in the same day, lolol. found that out the hard way. i was horribly sick for like 2 weeks with bronchitis and thought i put enough time between the two medicines but OH BOY WAS I WRONG. thankfully the nyquil knocked me out before the hallucinations got too bad. not that i would call it real hallucinations. everything was just... wiggly? vibrating? it was kinda like seeing waves on water. but everything was doing that. and the shadows were so scary. which leads to my next point..
just never take robitussin, kids. especically if you have a vivid imagination, like yours truly. i havent had a such a vivid and realistic (or least what felt like it) nightmare since i was a child. and of course im here to relay the dream.
i was staying with my grandma in the house she used to have, and the one i lived in, when i was a child. or at least the dream approximation of it. you know how places in dreams seem like exact replicas of what you know in the real world but once you wake up, you realize it was all wrong. that was the case here.
so im at this old house and for some reason i needed to acquire..? maintain..? already have..? this type of energy or resource or mana or whatever to stay where i was..? to maintain my form..? the question marks obviously due to the weird nature of dreams. i know what i mean and can feel it, its just hard to put into words. anyway. this resource was called antons and i needed either 120,000 or 150,000 of it. i cant fully remember now, but myself alone couldnt gather that much. my grandma apparently was helping me but even with her i didnt have enough. so she called on this entity to help me reach the level i needed. and thats where the scary happens, lol.
she mentions this thing and i can immediately feel its presence as it comes down from the second floor of this house. as an aside... i still have chills and am getting paranoid typing this out, HAHAHAHAHA. its funny because of what this thing looks like. moving on, it appears and starts walking backwards toward me, not showing me its face. it stops in front of me and my grandma, it turns around, i start shaking, mouth frozen in a scream. and thats the nightmare. short and sweet but was definitely creepy. i ended up drawing this thing because thinking back on it, it actually looked kinda cute, lolol. see below for a picture, if youre interested. dont abuse cold medicine, there are better ways to get high, i promise, lmaoo
onto some personal stuff im gonna keep hidden under this (it would be kinda cool if you skipped this, sugar child)
its frustrating that im having to lower my expectations for a friendship that became very important to me. my normal expectations for a very close friendship is pretty regularly hanging out and keeping up some form of regular communication. i dont blame the other side of this friendship for my frustration. the reasons for the lack of quality time and communication are valid and understandable based on our former intimacy and the other's (and i hate this term) available spoons. but im still frustrated nonetheless because in my eyes, the friendship has been downgraded compared to what it was. this isnt to say im pessimistic about the future of the friendship, i like to remain hopeful based on the other's words. but ive come to a place where their actions dont line up with their words at times and because of that, i have to act on their actions, and not their words. so lowered expectations it is. even if its frustrating to lose such closeness, even if just for the time being.
click here to see cute nightmare demon
comfort, subconscious, and fatigue
April 9, 2025
the last week has been so rough. i feel like if you were to put my mood into Sims 1 stats, the comfort bar would've been red the entirety of the past seven days. it mainly just because of teeth stuff. root canal spread over TWO appointments -> temporary crown -> SECOND temporary crown. all the while i found out local anesthesia causes me panic attacks. SO FUN. on top of a ton of work stuff, coming off of a month-long crash out, and im so tired, chat =__=
i feel like its always these times of super distress or uncomfortability, i always question literally everything im doing. why am i doing this? why am i NOT doing this? i should give up everything and move to china NOAW. i wonder if its just a way for my mind to try to gain control in a controlless situation. ive actually come to realize recently how much not having control of my life freaks me tf out. kinda fits the box.
second point: the way the mind works subconsciously is crazy. the currently listening song i chose was purely based on.. i had just listened to it, lol. and my choice to listen was for nostalgia purposes. or so i thought! going back to the lyrics it truly does encapsulate a current post-intimacy phase im experiencing. so the question is.. did i listen to that song, choose the song, because of nostalgia or convenience? or had i just heard the song so many damn times in my life (which i have) that my subconscious chose it based on its relevance? i dont know, i just work here lmaoo
ill leave you, gentle reader, with a meme
Boxes within boxes within black boxes within boxes within..
April 1, 2025
what even is a fucking box? a square, four sides, 90 degree angles? or is it just a concept created to torture me?
if you, gentle reader, have ever taken a journey down webmaster lane, you probably know exactly what the hell I'm talking about. Its all just boxes within boxes within another. fucking. box. and trying to figure out what exactly needs a box and what can just be thrown into a box? laugh all you want (cause i'll laugh with you) but, it has taken me DAYS to figure out a simple two column+header layout. yeah, i could've just copied a free layout from somewhere or use the wonderful sadgrl layout creator, but the wisdom of my college professor (we'll name him Stewart) stays in my head to this day. the wisdom and dangers of the ~black box~
so much that we do in our lives is just putting an input into a system to get an output but so little do we know the mechanisms that run the system, the black box. now this isn't some "boomer yells at cloud" moment, though Stewart 1000% meant it to be that moment as even though he is a wealth of information and sarcasm, problematic is additionally an apt descriptor. black boxes are physical, not just digital. do you know how your fridge works? (well its probably running and you should go catch it heuheuheu)
black boxing my way through it all defeats the purpose. not to say the black box isn't useful. what's the point of reinventing the box, right? like i'm not out here going to be coding a whole guestbook or some shit. but i'll definitely code the boxes, even if i want to bash my head against the wall.
are you also bashing your head up against a wall?
linkies that helped me that could help you:
- this program REALLY helped me visualize ~*the box*~
- websites to actually learn HTML/CSS from the ground up. a lot of it i already knew from my ~*'younger years'*~ but a refresher was needed (and i learned a lot more stuff!) the W3 Schools website was especially nice with the "Try It" examples &heartsuit [1, 2, 3]
- browser based HTML/CSS/JS editor
on a more personal note, i asked my partner yesterday what their life goal was. be materially comfortable enough to make music, play video games, and be as lazy as possible. *very* him indeed, the absolute hendonist ♥ i asked him what he thought *my* life goal would be and the immediate response. absolutely read. just end me: you haven't really had the time to think about what that is, have you? HAHAHAHAHA. i might go into the context of the answer later but i wont bore you now, reader. ive been thinking about that ever since. i think my life goal is to simply just experience life. i have so many smaller goals though: mastering webmastering, keep building my silly little dollhouses, start the laborious task of collecting media i like (both physical and digital). it goes on. do i, or you, truly need a bigger plan than to just live?
Devil Zukin's Decentralization of Webspace
March 28, 2025
starting my journey into de-centralized webspace in the year of our lord 2025 feels like im arriving to the party late, lol. all these wonderful websites that popped off in 2020-2023 seem dead or abandoned. not that i havent found spots that are still active. just sad to see that it seemed to just be a fad for some. at least thats my assumption. who knows where the webmasters for all these places.
im not new to this.. let's say "type" of internet (i want to refrain from "era" to emphasis my entrance into de-centralized webspace is not due to pure nostalgia, even if it is a small influence). bAcK iN mY dAy, i used to have such fun making my own websites, customizing my MySpace page, discussing on forums, and the like. yes, i miss that and thats where the nostalgia really comes in. but its not my main reason for my foray into this space. no, modern internet, or what the yesterweb movement called the "core web", feels empty and disingenuous. i could go on in length about why this is but the tldr is as such:
early internet was a replacement for the erosion of real world third spaces (at least in the western world; im american thus my experience is rooted there). its obviously up for debate if this was a good or bad replacement. the movement for a more de-centralized webspace (think yesterweb) was trying to alleviate the lack of real world third spaces, which have continued to erode even further since the days of the early internet. modern internet feels as it does (and is no longer a suitable replacement for real world third spaces) because of the commodification of every inch and corner of it. similar to real world third spaces, capitalism piecemeals the world (real and virtual) so those with capital can further profit, all at the expense of those with no capital.
so thats why im here, starting my journey in relearning HTML/CSS. as a stance against what capitalism has taken from us. as a way to connect with others outside of the sphere of advertisements and consumerism and so on. to de-centralize my webspace.
now if you got this far, you probably think of me as this haughty, big ideas type. trust me, i am. but only like 45% of the time. the other 55%? im a shit-poster, meme-er, sarcastic, dead-pan humor type. and thats what this space is going to be. 55% shit post, 45% big ideas. WELCOME TO ZUKIN PALACE
