Being a little bit social, working on self-actualization, and happy Valentine's Day.

I have lately been a little bit social. This is in part because my wrists are getting incrementally better (although most socializing in my geek life does something or another to set that back a pace—go figure), but this is more than a weekend trend. I have been growing, in my way, bit by bit, more social.

Over the weekend, I played video games with Express (a longtime friend of mine from Second Life). We wanted to play ilomilo but for whatever good goddamned reason (read: there is none) it doesn't have online co-op; we ended up playing Halo together, even though we are both wonderfully awful at that shooting thing. We talked on voice and sprayed bullets in general directions and it was awesome. I've known Express for years and years, and this was the first time that we've ever properly talked, voice to voice. When I met him, back in college and on my way towards dropping out, living in a basement apartment and playing Second Life all day, I never would have considered talking to him on voice. At that time, I was so goddamned scared of people that anything more than online avatars terrified me.

Over the weekend I also went to visit my parents and eat French toast. Papa and I took Jamie for a walk and to visit the pet store, and we talked about hacking the Nook Color and his upcoming surgery, and he bought me a mocha for the walk back. Mum and I talked about the creative process and I wish that I could show you the step-by-step of the piece that she's working on because not only is it fascinating, the approach she's taking is making for the best possible, always improving, finished product.

In the last week or so, I've made another friend on Tumblr—another someone-I-want-to-get-to-know friend, the second such relationship that Tumblr has turned up for me, which ain't bad considering I only went there to natter on to myself about video games. I still don't know any better way to say "hello, let us have a strange and unprecedented personal conversation! oh and also I admire you" than to say just that, but these days I will—and it is still awkward and nerve-wracking but what the hell, it's just the internet: where else can you better take that sort of stupid risk than here?

So it is a weekend trend.

But I also went up to visit Dee. I met Lyz. Express and I have been throwing around tentative, premature plans for a possible vacation for him and a chance to meet for us. And the more of this there is, the more of this I want there to be. Don't get me wrong: I got off of voice with Express and crashed like a crashy thing, because talking is talking is talking and it wears me the fuck out, even if it's just voice, even if it's not in person. But even when I was curling up exhausted in bed I was wondering what other games we could play together, and thinking about how I want to do this more: with him, with others; to play games, and simply to interact with and ... know, not Biblically but as intimately. It is more than a weekend trend.

It leaves me in the place I've been in for a while now, that combination of quixotic and desirous and frustrated and scared—about friends, about Portland, about self-presentation, about creativity, about becoming who I want to be. I want, and I think the wanting is wonderful, but it terrifies me; I have some, but I want so much more, and that not-having is heartbreaking.

I mention some of this to Bart and he tells me, certain as can be, not to worry: I will meet him. And the thing, you know, the thing these days is that I believe him.

There are things I hold in my heart. Dee and Lyz and Amy and Express and Bart and Kiir. Meetings and bookstores and Seattle rain. Ghost and Aaron, Florence + The Machine. Cats and cat-eared hoodies, skirts and boots, afternoons at Starbucks. Unexpected conversations, silly fandoms, falling in love in a different way. A lot of this seems like it should be silly. A lot of it began online, and so it's all too easy to dismiss. But it doesn't matter. I love them, I love you, I carry you in my heart. It turns out that I can pack an awful lot in there, if I try. It hurts a little, to feel it stretch to hold so much. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all—because this is part of what it means to me.

Notes while watching DBZ: enjoying the rewatch and admiring Vegeta (and his forehead)

Oh hey look it's that episode where Vegeta's forehead is THIS BIG.

Rewatching DBZ has been immensely enjoyable thus far—for the chance to see it all in a row, instead of with missing episodes and a time skip (given that I've never been good at catching things as they air, and was moving between nations when it did air); for the chance to see it without editing, in Japanese, and elsewise in the way that I think it should be; to discover and rediscover the characters. I find I'm coming away liking most of everyone, which is incredible. In the past, Vegeta is what I came here for and most everyone else was incidental, but this time I'm impressed to find that everyone is surprisingly awesome, as the main cast is concerned (there's some questionable villains, but what can you do).

And as much as I appreciate the whole cast, to my great pleasure and relief I find Vegeta still has my heart of hearts. This matters. If I'm entirely honest, I put off rewatching the show because I was afraid I'd find that my lifelong obsession with Vegeta was nothing more than a 16-year-old's fantasy trumped up to nostalgic idolization, and that the actual character was ... well, not deserving of all that. Because Vegeta's always been my darling, you see, in ways I rarely talk about because no one wants to see such unrepentant fanning. He's always been my favorite of favorites, the character I wrote fic and essays about, the character I empathized with and admired, the character I loved in a way that "love" is not an exaggeration and yes, I know, that's silly. But you know what, he deserves it. I'm not saying that he should be everyone's darling, but he's proudly mine: he is as enjoyable and compelling and conflicted and complex as I remember, he's badass and beat-up and I love and admire him both ways. I feel like ... I've reunited with my high school sweetheart to find that it wasn't all a poor-remembered adolescent fantasy: he is as amazing as I remember but here, existent, and still wonderful now.

Except of course that the show is never quite sure how tall he is or how big his hair is or how INCREDIBLY OVERSIZED his forehead is. This isn't really a drawback. He's hardly the only one to suffer the whims of inconsistent art, and the quality improves and standardizes as the show goes on.

But today, I give you my beloved: Massive Forehead Man.