Formed Frontal Lobe Thoughts

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Fifa World Cup 2026

Like any typical American, I don't particularly care about soccer. But, I will say, the World Cup being hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico has been quite nice in terms of uplifting my spirits. I feel like I'm getting a break from all the chaos that's happening in the U.S. (among other existential crisis tha I have been having lol) and that I'm able to appreciate my country from a fresher set of eyes from all the people coming in from all over. Here are some moments that made me smile:

The people from Kansas being Algeria's fans after Algeria decided to set up their base camp in Lawence Kansas 

Seeing how excited and hyped Japan is and how they also clean up after themselves. It's just wholesome. 

People reacting to Texas BBQ

People going to Buc-ee's for the first time

People celebrating and pulling up in general: 

 

People reacting various culture shocks (like A/C, Walmart, Costco. and free refills to start) and them reacting to our radioactive food 

It still kills me that they're freaking out over mid food like Chick-fil-a and Chilli's and they are discovering ranch sauce. It's to the point where TSA had to give a warning saying that the ranch dressing has to be in the checked baggage since it's a liquid lol. I remember seeing a comment that said something along the lines of how the foreigners trying our food is like them getting their first hit of drugs while we're all used to it because we're just cracked out. 

Then, there is the beer shortage in Boston after the Scottish fans came in: 

I cannot find this on Youtube but I turned on the local news on TV the other day and they were talking about how the World Cup is temporarily boosting mental health in the U.S. because of the festivities and all the communal events. There was a watch party along with food trucks that was set up in a park that I live close to and there was a pretty good turn out. 

 

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I feel like this video also coincides with the post I made about commodifying human connection. It mainly talks about how third spaces have become a buzz word of sorts. 

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What is Punk Rock 

I was definitely one of the "emo" kids back in high school who listened to alt rock from the 90s and pop punk from the 00s despite being in 2016. I was born too late to be one of the proper emo kids of the early 2000s and I was born too early to be e-girl. Instead, I was born in the best time to be made fun of lmaoooo. 

A couple years ago, I was listening to music as I was comuting to my corporate job and as I was sitting in traffic, I was listening to Fat Lip by Sum 41 and I got to the part that was like "I don't want to waste my time, become another casualty of society. I'll never fall in line, become another victim of conformity," I remember blasting this music when I was 14 years old after a day at the mall coming back from Hot Topic thinking it was based and let's just say, it hit different at 24 when dressed in business casual. 

Then, once I got to the office, I sat in my car for a solid 10 minutes thinking *damn.....did I become a casualty of society?*

And I came to the conclusion that, no, I'm not a casualty of society. Rebellion just looks different when you're in your mid twenties compared to what it looked like when you were in your teens. Sure, 16 year old me might look at me and say *yes you did become a casualty of society because you're in a boring office job you don't like.* But 16 year old me also didn't know how taxes worked and didn't live through a global pandemic so I'm not taking her opinion TOO seriously. Yes, I do have a boring office job that crushes my spirit. But, I also value work life balance and I'm not a hustle culture bro or a snitch at work. I'm not exactly conforming to upper management and I do try to stand up for myself and my coworkers in a way that makes sense and is helpful. Outside of work, I still have hobbies, still listen to a lot of the same music (though I have expanded), I still care about what's going on in the world, and I'm thinking critically about my life decisions instead of conforming for the sake of conforming OR rebelling just for the sake of rebelling. I also thought of this quote from Innuendo Studios in the video below: 

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16:40 and onwards: "Jaded sarcasm and isn't brave in 2020, it's the path of least resistance for edgy chan lords. It does not imply a deep and abiding morality. This is the new sincerity generation. Nowadays bravery is being a gender nonconforming socialist queerdo who refused to let the ugliness of the world close them off from human connection. And young people don't feel trapped by the future, because nobody believes in the future anymore. But to wrap this up with a bow, we're not getting anywhere by looking back. Progress is going to come from trying things we've never tried before." 

The video was talking about how Daria as a show and as the character was against the grain regarding the overall cultural zeitgeist of the 90s and how it doesn't land in the same way in the 2020s. And since punk is what's against the status quo, and since the status quo can change over time, what is punk can change over time based on context. That context can be historical like comparing the 90s vs the 20s or it can be regarding your stage of life like in my situation with comparing my teens to my mid 20s. 

But more on the cultural note, the reason why I thought of this again and why I wanted to write this post is because this video came up on my Youtube feed: 

I feel like this is the epitome of what is considered punk in 2026. I also liked the comments under this video: 

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Maybe affordable housing is the real punk rock

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Revolutionary optimism, antifascism, and radical unwavering kindness are punk as fuck.

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The contrast between a guy suit a fancy suit, stepping out of a fancy car, surronded by body guards - to a guy dancing shirtless.

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people think punk just means being the opposite of whatever is the mainstream. but it’s really about community, protecting each other, protecting the poor and the outcasts and giving them a space they can call theirs. It’s about coming together to make the world a better place for everyone. And yes sometimes that comes with anger and frustration but the point is to find an outlet for that that’s constructive, that can be used for good, and not just taking your anger out on everyone around you. And I think a lot of people who call themselves punks forget that.

Lyrics: 

See me driving down the street
I'm bored with looking good
I got both hands off the wheel
The cops are coming

I listen to the music with no fear
You can hear it too if you're sincere

'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am

I see you stagger in the street
And you can't stay on your feet
And you're faking in your sleep
You wish that you were deep

But you can't hear me laughing to myself
If you could, you would be someone else

'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am

See me die on Bleecker Street
I'm bored with being god
See me sneering in my car
I'm driving to my star

I'm listening to the music with no fear
You can hear it too if you're sincere

'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am
Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am

[soos_mite_ah]

 

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The comments under this are killing me lmaooo 

"If he would have been born a thousand years earlier, we would all be speaking norwegian now"
"Using someone's face to score a goal has to be one of the most badass football moments ️‍"
"Imagine 1000 years ago that dude comes at you with a sword"

[soos_mite_ah]

The Superficiality of Adult Friendships

I wrote the following like a month ago in my private journal and I don't know why I never posted it. 

I wrote in a previous post about how the landscape of making and maintaining friends changed as you move into adulthood and how that has resulted in shallower connections for me. I’m pretty sure I have touched on these points before but I want to dedicate an entire post to this and talk about it more in depth.

The decreased frequency of interactions:

Due to jobs, conflicting schedules, and just in general life, even if you’re trying to be proactive with maintaining friendships, you still find yourself seeing people less often just by design of y’all no longer going to school together and seeing each other on a regular basis. This decrease of frequency can result in a lot of deeper friendships to turn into catch up friendships or friends who show up on special occasions. That doesn’t mean that the degree of effort that it takes to catch up or show up to major life events is diminished but it does mean the degree of interaction has changed.

The way I see it is the following:

Meals: People who you interact with regularly and as a result, people who are actively in your life. I compare this to a meal because a meal has many different parts. They can be healthy or unhealthy, balanced or off balance. If someone is actively in your life, you guys have a number of different types of interactions. It can range from sending little memes back and forth, catching up, having light hearted conversations, showing up for each other during heavier seasons etc. It’s multifaceted, like a meal. I would say these are people you hang out with or talk to at least 2-3 times a month or more.

Snacks and Desserts: These are people who used to be in the meal category but have since dropped down due to various logistical and life situations. You aren’t in a place to actively be in each other’s lives but you still make the effort to show up in their lives during the important moments and maintain the connection. The connection might not be getting deeper but it is something that keep up with. As opposed to the meal category, I think of snacks and desserts as dormant friends.

Snacks: This is where I put the catch-up friends at. The catch up friends can still be multifaceted like a meal but they are much smaller. Healthy snacks are often like mini meals to help you get through until you get to a full meal (think of a veggie tray with hummus). Like meals, you can have healthy and unhealthy snacks (i.e. Hot Cheetos) . I feel like a lot of people love or hate “low-maintenance friendships” but I think a lot low-maintenance friendships fall on a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy.  Healthy low maintenance friends have proactive communication, still maintain friendship with boundaries, and had a foundation established before they became low maintenance. Part of the health in low maintenance friends is understanding that in adulthood, not everyone is going to be available like they were growing up and that you can still have that love while giving each other space. Unhealthy low maintenance friendships can look like a lack of proactive communication, ghosting, and acting like you’re best friends despite only seeing each other 2x a year without investing in the relationship prior. You’re not maintaining a friendship that you built up before like in the healthy example, rather you’re expecting full friendship benefits without any commitment or work beforehand to establish trust.

Desserts: This is where I would put the special occasion friends at. These people are much like the catch up friends in that they aren’t actively in your life but you show up to maintain the connection. But, unlike a snack, they are even less multifaceted and aren’t like mini meals. Rather, it’s people you see at parties, weddings, religious events etc. They are sweet and it’s nice to be able to share these big life events with people who have been in your life for a while. These people might be so busy that they cannot schedule the catch-up sessions but the care is still there. That’s in a healthy situation where the connections have more substance (think fruit cups as a dessert since they have more nutrients and fiber than say a handful of M&Ms). But desserts can also be unhealthy/ nonsubstantive. I think a lot of people’s party/ clubbing friends can fall in this category. They’re sweet and here for a good time but they aren’t super substantive and filling. It’s alright if you have some friends like this, but they cannot be a part of your social diet in the same way your diet shouldn’t just be a handful of M&Ms.

The Buffet: The buffet is like your larger social circle comprising of people outside of your friends. It includes your general sense of community extending to people like your coworkers, the family members of your friends, your friends significant other you don’t know very well, friends of friends etc. They aren’t your friends but they have the potential to be your friend, kind of how you can look at a buffet and decide whether or not you want to incorporate it into a meal. But that potential needs to be acted on by the parties involved.

People who straight up not in your life at all: These are people you know but aren’t connected with anymore. I’m talking about people you went to high school with, ex friends, the significant others of the people who fall in the buffet category etc. These are people who I would say “hi” to if I ever ran into them in a grocery store.

 

I would say that I’m socially malnourished as opposed to socially starved. I feel like I have a 2-3 people who I put in the meal category and everyone else is in the snack and dessert categories. It’s been difficult to see friends who used to be actively in your life drop down into being dormant friends. And while I will say this paradigm is not a linear expression on who I’m closest to (for example, there are people in the Dessert category I would say is closer to me than those in the Meal category just because the people in the Meal category, I’m still in the process of building a relationship with), I do think that there is a correlation. The problem with the snacks and desserts is that you don’t really know what’s actually going on in someone’s life. You might get a general idea but because you’re not seeing the day to day, there is only so much you can know. It’s not necessarily fake, but it can be inauthentic at times. There is only so much you can cover about what’s going on in your life during a catch-up call or by meeting up for coffee. There is only so much you can disclose when you see someone at a special occasion. Like you can say you’re going through a rough time at a party, but you don’t want to go in depth of it because of the social setting in question. Or even if it’s something positive like a trip you went on and enjoyed, there is only so deep you can go at a party.

The infrequency of interactions can also result in certain types of socialization to be seen in a different light.

For example, let’s say you’re going through a difficult breakup and you feel like you need to talk to your friend 5 times to fully process it and debrief about it. You have two friends. The first friend is someone who is actively in your life and you see them once a week (52x a year) and the second friend is someone who is more of a catch up friend you see once a month (12x a year). If you talk to Friend 1 5 times about the break-up, that’s like 10% of your yearly interactions. If you talk to Friend 2 5x, that’s almost 50% of your interactions in the year. The second friend is more likely to feel like you’re constantly negative or “trauma dumping” due to the extent of interactions. You don’t have as many additional interactions to round out your debrief sessions so as a result, it can feel heavy.

The infrequency of interactions can also exacerbate various social consequences, miscommunications, and the ways people fall short in relationships. 

For example, I remember growing up in high school not thinking it was a big deal if one of my close friends cannot make it to my birthday. Hey, sometimes things come up and because I’m seeing this person on a regular basis, I have countless examples of how this person treats me and the quality of our relationship. But I have seen now in adulthood, people take things like birthdays more seriously with this attitude of *It’s literally one day out of the year, what do you mean you can’t show up this one time? What does that say about our relationship and the way we prioritize each other?* And growing up, I saw this attitude to be stunted and weird, but I kind of get it now. Let’s say you have two college classes. The first class has a daily attendance grade, weekly discussion boards, a bunch of assignments, a handful of group projects, along with a couple of tests, and papers.  The second class has 2 tests and a paper.  In the first class, if you fuck up on any one of the assignments (even if it’s a major test), you’re still fine because you have the rest of the course work to make up for things. In the second class, if you fuck up on any one thing, you’re cooked. And as a result, I think with friends you see on a regular basis, there is more elasticity, more room to make mistakes and learn, and more opportunity to repair when things go wrong. However, with your catch up and special occasion friends, things are weighed more heavily when you fuck up and you have fewer chances to redeem yourself.

Finally, the infrequency of interactions also makes it harder to build new relationships. I think I read some where that in order for someone to become your friend, you need to spend about 100 hours with them. Those 100 hours are much easier to log if you see them every day in school as opposed to going on friend dates when you’re older and trying to make friends outside of your work-place. I think I have been able to successfully make two friends outside of my workplace and I cannot help but think about how if I were in school with these people, the depth of friendship I have created in the course of a year or two is the depth of the friendship I could have made in a semester. The timeline of establishing a friendship is more stretched out in adulthood and it takes more patience to garner a sense of trust even if they are actively in your life. And that can be frustrating for people who are starved of friendships which can result in people going after intensity over intimacy (think the platonic equivalent of love-bombing) or put waaay too much of an emphasis on charisma and personality as opposed to someone’s character and getting to know someone in a sustainable pace (like if you don’t click instantly with a person, they aren’t worthy of being friends with).

And I find that to be kind of discouraging for me personally because I’m not a super charismatic social butterfly. I feel like people can fall into three categories: a fan favorite, an acquired taste, and a niche interest. I have friends who are fan favorites and can instantly make friends wherever they go. I myself am more of an acquired taste. It take me a moment to warm up to people and people to warm up to me. Rather than being the life of the party, I think I have an observational period where I sit back and do a vibe check before interacting. It’s not a lack of  confidence rather it’s just the way that I operate. I think the fan favorites are like a bright light. They attract everyone, and that includes bugs (weirdos and crazies). I think as an acquired taste, I have more of a natural filtration process built in so while I don’t attract a lot of people, the people who do end up being my friend usually aren’t weirdos. I like to think that my resting bitch face has protected me from insane people and situations. Finally, you have the niche interest which is where I put my boyfriend. He doesn’t click with people or make friends often but when he does, y’all are locked in for a long time. That goes for platonic and romantic. Most of his friends are people he knows for a decade plus and even with our relationship (the only romantic relationship he has ever had), we’ve been going strong for 4 years. The downside of this is that you can have long stretches of not having a lot of people in your life. But the upside is that you have that sense of commitment and stability.

To tie it back, I think when you’re trying to make friends in adulthood, the fan favorites thrive much more than the acquired tastes and niche interests. The later two takes more time and effort and not a lot of people are into that, much less know that this is what they have to do in order to make friends in adulthood. And to avoid the work and time it takes to make friends, some people try to speed up this process by resorting to apps to see if they can get that instant click. And those apps can lead to it’s own form of brain rot.

As a result, due to the nature of interactions, the increase of social consequences, and the amount of time it takes to build close friendships (or friendships in general). I think people are more incentivized to keep things more surface level. I remember growing up seeing my parents have trouble with opening up and being vulnerable with people. Some of it is trauma but I think a chunk of it is the changing landscape of friendships as you go into adulthood. There is more of an emphasis on saving face. There is less of an emphasis on holding people accountable and having difficult but real conversations. In my opinion, in order to hold someone accountable and give life advice, you need to really know the person and what’s going on in their life so that you have that degree of trust established and you know it’s good faith, and so that you can give well thought out advice given the nuances of the person and situation. And when you don’t see people super frequently, it’s harder to establish that sense of trust, good faith, and genuinely good advice. I think that’s one of the reasons why my parents would say things like “your family is the only person to have your best interests and that you can take advice from”, “your family knows you the best” and “ you can’t be honest about what you’re going through with other people because they will be quick to judge”  because to my parent’s, family was the only group of people who were actively in their life. That advice didn’t make sense to me while I was in school and I think was toxic for me because I had people I was friends with in school who did see me on a regular basis, who knew me well, and established trust with. But now as an adult, I can say that all of the Snack and Dessert friends fall into category of people who I care about and who cares about me but in the end of the day, we don’t really know each other, what’s really going on in each other’s lives, or what kind of people we’re growing into. I think some of my Meal friends also lack a degree of context as well.

First is my friend who I will call Sam. Sam is more of a Snack friend. She had a chaotic year and we had lots to talk about when catching up. Then, later in the year, Sam explains that she’s been dating someone for a year and is engaged. This was surprising given the chaos of the year and a little concerning. Then, the guy turned out to do something crazy right after proposing, she broke off the engagement, and then started dating someone new in a relatively short period of time. This rang alarm bells in my brain but also, I don’t know what the grief process looks like and what her day to day life looks like so it’s hard to give advice or insight for this situation. I don’t know Sam well enough anymore to comment and hold her accountable since there is only so much I can know about someone who is a catch up friend. I don’t think she is intentionally hiding things for me, rather just by the nature of out interactions, there is a lot of incomplete information there and I hesitate to say anything because I don’t want to give advice that may accidentally backfire due to specific nuances.

Then there is my friend who I will call Sophie. Sophie is regularly in my life and I know some of her friends through mutual interactions. She has a friend (lets call him Cayden) who she has had to utilize conflict resolution with. From the initial description, it sounded like normal conflict resolution skills that are important for people to strengthen and grow within in a relationship. Later on, she had a bad falling out with Cayden and then it is revealed that Cayden was abusive. The advise that made sense in a normal situation, to give people chances, to communicate what’s going on, to have patience as people are trying to improve, would make this situation worse if dealing with a bad faith actor. Despite me knowing Sophie and regularly talking to her, I still didn’t know what was going on. There is a degree of unintentional inauthenticity on Sophie’s end and a malicious fakeness coming from Cayden’s end that I wasn’t able to clock within him because of my limited interactions with Cayden.

Being Fake vs Being Inauthentic

Both of these situations also highlight a safety level of not interacting with people on a regular basis. I think that the infrequency of interactions can be a breeding ground of fakeness and inauthenticity. I would characterize fakeness as a deliberate action towards concealing things mixed with malicious intent. Inauthenticity can be unintentionally not giving the full picture, or giving a more curated version of the truth due to the nature of interaction and to be empathetic to the other person. Let’s say you have a coworker named Heather who you don’t like. Being fake would involve you trying to be chummy / besties with Heather to get the tea and so that you can spread office gossip. Being inauthentic may look like being cordial with Heather and concealing your feelings of dislike because you want to maintain your professionalism, keep good professional relations with Heather and your coworkers by not creating unnecessary drama, and because even if you don’t like Heather, that doesn’t mean that you betray your morals on how to treat people with basic respect. At the same time, you’re not going out of your way to be besties with Heather and be weird.

Since I’m not surrounded by weirdos, I think a lot of my Snack and Dessert friends can come with a sense of inauthenticity as opposed to them being fake. But I have had to deal with a fake person before who hung out with me for months as if nothing was going on and then cut me off with little to no explanation. And I couldn’t help but wonder if we were still in a school setting that I would have been able to clock the weirdness, her changes in personality and values etc. quicker. It’s easy to put on a mask when you’re hanging out with someone for 3 hours every 2 months. It’s harder to maintain a mask when you see someone 8 hours a day every day. On a similar note, I remember when I was a kid being shocked about how my parents didn’t know how toxic the other adults around them were. Now that I’m an adult, I get it because that stuff is easy to conceal when you don’t see people on a regular basis. I knew about the toxicity of the other adults around me because I saw their kids who were my age on a semi regular basis and we would have actual conversations of what was happening in each other’s households. I was actively in the lives of those kids, my parents weren’t actively involved with the other parents.

Sometimes, I’m surprised on how inauthentic and put together I can seem to other people unintentionally. I have talked to my friends about mental health stuff going on coherently. I even touched on somethings with coworkers I trust. But my partner who sees me on a daily basis sees me ugly crying and crashing out since he lives with me. He sees the full extent of how things are affecting me, messy emotions and all, while my friends get a more analytical, clean cut, spark notes version. 

Speaking of being fake/ inauthentic, I think this is exacerbated in the work place. I think most people (unless they are a corporate pick me) have a work personality of sorts. I don’t think it’s advisable to show up as your full self at work and it’s important to maintain some boundaries. I’m not going to go off on an anti-capitalist rant at 7 am Monday morning and I’m not going to talk about my drunk night out with my coworkers. As a result, to maintain my professional relationships and have a sense of credibility at work, I kind of have to be the most vanilla version of myself. It’s also out of respect of the people around me because I don’t want to pry into personal life stuff they don’t feel comfortable revealing at work and I understand most people are just trying to do their jobs, get their check, and live their lives outside of work. So since most people have a degree of inauthenticity at work, thought it’s not inherently malicious, I think before becoming actual friends with people at work, you need to vibe check the living daylights out of them even though y’all spend a lot of time together and it’s easier to log those 100 hours it takes to build a friendship.

I mentioned this in a previous entry but I have always expected my relationships to change as I got older. I don’t expect people to stay the same and I think dynamics shift based on that. But what I didn’t expect was that relationships will change and that can sometimes mean they become shallower and fade out. I think there is real grief around that. I also feel like this can cause me to feel disposable, forgotten, and replaceable. I know I’m around genuine people but due to the shallow nature of interactions, there is a certain element that feels dehumanizing, not because people are personally slighting me, but because of the overall landscape of adult friendship. It’s in the same way where your coworkers and your boss are decent/ fine, but the fact that you have to continue working like nothing is happening in this chaotic world feels like an attack on your sense of humanity as you’re attending meetings and answering emails amidst a war, a genocide, ICE kidnapping people, and more. It’s the system that is dehumanizing, not the treatment I’m getting from individuals. I miss actually knowing what’s happening in people’s lives and people actually knowing what’s happening in my life. While I know that you can still care about people and have people care about you without them knowing every detail about your life, I think there is a level of dehumanization that comes from only knowing parts of people and them knowing parts of you due the surface level interactions rather than the whole.

[soos_mite_ah]

The Catchup Friend Epidemic 

I deleted my social media for the last 2.5 months and I think that was really helpful for my mental health and where I have been with this whole journey about figuring out my friendships. 

I think social media can distort how close you actually are. Going off the previous post about how I decribe the difference between people actively in your life (Meals), versus people who are more so dormant friends (Snacks and Desserts), I feel like social media can make it seem like your Snack and Dessert friends are Meal friends if you see your friends frequently posting their lives. It gives you the illusion of being in their life and them being in yours when really, you guys are spectators rather than participants in each others lives. 

Again, I think there is a very real grief that comes from changing relationships or not being close to people anymore like you used to be. But I think holding on to social media isn't always helpful in the same way that it's not helpful to follow your ex on social media after y'all broke up. It prevents you from fully moving on and accepting reality. 

I think social media also contributes to the changing landscape of adult friendships as I have described above. I think there are some existing phenomenon that social media exasserbates. For example, people talk about how your compare your bloopers to other peoples high light reels because people are posting the most curated versions of themselves on social media. Well, this still would happen in 1996 but on a smaller scale, mainly with acquaintences. Unless you saw people on a regular basis (which adulthood isn't really built for), you don't have an accurate picture of what's going on in people's lives and you're more likely to just compare yourself to the idea you have of them or the image they are projecting. Comparison, flexing, gossip, unrealistic body standards, fad diets, misinformation were always problems but now they look different and are magnified on a global scale. Social media isn't creating new social issues, rather it's making old issues bigger. 

However, while the social issues social media exasserbates isn't novel, you can't deny that technology changes material conditions. I would say that because of social media, it's so much easier to keep up with dormant friends (your snacks and desserts). And that's a very beautiful thing. Now, instead of losing touch with people and seeing them decades later, it's much easier to keep in touch with people you care about. It's easier to keep in touch with family and  your culture if they live abroad. If my mom had to immigrate to the U.S. a 100 years ago, she would basically lose touch with her entire family and I wouldn't have the same relationship that I have with my culture today. Maybe she could visit them once every 15 years. Instead, now, she can keep up with her siblings and talk to them on WhattsApp every day and visit them every 2 years. That is amazing. Now, I don't have to say good bye to all my childhood friends because I moved to a different part of the country. I can still share things like my wedding and my college graduation, and other big moments in my life and have them be a part of them in the way that we would fantasize when we were children. Even if we don't see each other regularly, we still have a medium to keep in touch. 

At the same time, I think there is a way that the catch up friendships and special occasion friendships can get excessive and being able to keep in touch with everyone can backfire. Like I said earlier, social media can prevent you from grieving properly and accepting the reality that you are no longer in some people's lives since there is an illusion of being a participant through things like comments and likes, when really, you're not participating in their life, you're just a spectator. There is nothing wrong with catching up with a friend you haven't seen in a while because they're in town or inviting a friend you haven't seen in a while to your wedding because they are still an important part of your life. But the problem is when these types of interactions dominate your social calendar to where you don't have the room to be actively in people's lives.

Like I have two friends who live near me and despite that fact, I have to schedule out hang outs 6-8 weeks in advance just to see them rather than just being able to incorporate them in my life. That's because they have their social lives booked out like a google calendar with a bunch of catch up friends and special occasions they have to show up for. And hey, due to the nature of the interactions, I cannot say for sure how exactly this is affecting them. But I do know that there are limitations to Snack and Dessert friends and that causes me to question the degree of interaction and depth they have to the people they are dedicating their time to. I'm not saying that I expect special treatment because I live closer to them. I know that the way that they are treating me is similar to how they are treating all of their friends and they seem a bit spread thin to say the least. Again, I'm not friends with weirdos who don't value me. I guess I started thinking of this because I was thinking about why people aren't actively in each others lives  and have a lot of Meal level friendships. If we're still using the food example, I would say it's kind of like spoiling your meals or your dinner because you ate too many snacks and desserts before hand and now you feel too full to have a proper dinner so as a result, you just resort to girl dinner, aka more snacks masquerading like dinner.

It's not that people don't have friends when they're adults. I know people don't have room in their lives for a lof ot reasons like work, family, mental health, etc. But if we push all of that to the side, It's that a lot of people don't have room to actively be in the lives of people it makes logistical sense to pour into because we're still carrying over old connections now that we have more avenues of communication to keep in touch with people. Another social phenomenon I think of is modern wedding culture. Because we keep up with people now, even when people move, that doesn't mean we lose touch. And people are moving around now more than ever because it's easier to do so due to cheap travel and a lot of people need to do so due to economic instability/ opportunity. So lets say in 1976, you might have a season in your life where you have a bunch of weddings to go to because you're in that stage of your life where your friends are getting married. In 2026, that season may involve you having to travel across the country multiple times and pretty much every wedding is a destination wedding since your friends are much more spread apart. Attending 4 weddings in a year to people who are close by in your proximity is just having 4 parties you have to go to in a year. Attending 4 weddings in a year that basically feel like destination weddings is a financial commitment, a hit to your PTO, and a logistical nightmare for many who have to choose between people they care about.

In 1976, the friends who were spread apart will naturally fade out and you are more likely to be friends with people immediate to you since it's likely that people aren't moving around every 2 years. Communities were much more localized and the years together along with proximity ensured that you were less likely to have people drop from the meal category to the snack or dessert category. So as a result, instead of having nourishing meals, social media and modern life has incentivized and made it easier to maintain a host of snacks and desserts. Again, nothing wrong with snacks and desserts, they are still part of a healthy diet. And again, it's beautiful that we can still keep in touch with people that would have other wise completely fizzled out. But we cannot have the snacks and desserts get in the way of having meals. Which is why a lot of people can be booked and busy socially yet still feel lonely or feel like something was lost along the way. 

[soos_mite_ah]

An Increase in Introspection 

It's no coincidence that my time off work means that I am writing significantly more. I have a lot more time to ponder and one of the reasons why I wanted to take time off was to be able to sit with my thoughts and process various things that were going on up there. I compared how much I wrote from May 20th to June 30th in each of my active journals and compared the amount I wrote in previous months. 

I have made 5 posts in Processing Negative Emotions, 13 posts in Formed Frontal Lobe Thoughts and 20 posts in Contemplating Motherhood in the past month and a half. To put it in perspective, I made 5 posts in Processing Negative Emotions from February 23 to April 5. I made 13 posts in Formed Frontal Lobe Thoughts from November 23rd, 2025 to May 13th, 2026. And I have made 20 posts total from the start of my Contemplating Motherhood journal in Septembr 2023 to April 5th 2026. Note, I'm also counting posts as entries I have wrote at least a paragraph or two on, not just entries where I link YouTube videos. In other words, I feel like the amount I journaled in the past month and a half rivals how much I have journaled over a 6 month plus period. 

I feel like I have cleared out my mind and worked through a lot of existential crisis I had going into taking this time off for myself to a more manageable, less dread inducing place. I don't know how exactly this is going to translate into actual growth but I think I'll get a better idea in the coming months. I know that I have felt rather stagnant since graduating college simply because of how life is structured. Back when you're in school or in college, you job was to educate yourself and in your free time, you're socializing with other people, you're meeting various milestones, and you're experiencing so many new things. Basically, your life is built around self development in a way. However, once you graduate, your life is built around creating shareholder value for 8 hours a day and then suddenly, you have to schedule things like socialization, investing in hobbies, self development, and self education into your day to day or else it will get neglected. As a result, a lot of adults start to stagnate after school, either because their jobs and families are so demanding that they are just taking care of themselves but not necessarily growing, or because some people lack the internal motivation to pursue growth so as a result, since their lives are no longer built around growth externally, they kind of fall flat on their face. 

I wouldn't say I felt like my development was at a standstill rather I felt like I was developing and processing things in a slower rate compared to where I was in the past because of my job being a time sink.  That's just the self development/ emotional processing sphere. I would say that the larger problem still applies even if you aren't working because of how everyone elses lives are structured. Like friendships I have developed in adulthood in the course of 3 years are friendships I would have been able to develop in school in 1 year. Life twists and turns so much when you're in school because you're in so many activities and being exposed to so many people on a regular basis to where you can totally restructure your life within a year or two. Whereas now as an adult with bills, an apartment lease, and a committed career path, there are more working variables you have to navigate to make various changes in your life. So as a result, instead of taking a year or two, it might take much longer if you're trying to do something in a sustainable, constructive way (unless something big happens in your life that turns everything upside down). 

Another point I want to add is that I think there is a difference between settling in to your life, settling down, and just settling period. Settling into your life is more along the lines of your life and sense of self stabilizing. I remember when I was a teenager, I would change so much from year to year to where looking back a year or two was cringe inducing. But now, I was looking back at journal posts and I don't feel all that different even when I look back 3 years ago. When it comes to stuff 5 years ago, it is a bit cringy but not in a *I'm embarrased* way but more of a *the amount of change feels a bit jarring (key phrase, a bit), I feel like I'm reading posts written by a different person, and I feel a bit exposed* way. That's not to say there wasn't growth and additional life experiences from when I was 23 to now at 26 but it is to say that I'm not wildly changing myself and my mental health isn't having the same volatile swings as before. As a result, I would say settling in is largely a good thing. 

Settling down is more about knowing what you want from a long term life style sense and either working towards that or enjoying that. I think it's typical for people in their early to mid 20s to try to answer large questions like *where do I want to live long term?* *what kind of career do I want?* *what kinds of relationships do I want to engage in?* *what does marriage and kids look like for me?* etc. And settling down ideally is the process of making conscious choices in those big questions in a way that feels authentic to you after you have gathered the data on a number of life experiences. However, in practice, a lot people just either go with the flow of what they think adulthood looks like, copy their peers, or stumble into really permananent decisions like getting a 30 year mortgage and popping out a kid or two. They do this without thinking through things, or being exposed to alternatives, or really questioning if this is how they want to do their lives or if this is the only way they have been taught to do their lives. Settling down isn't inherently bad. I think it's very age appropriate and if anything, if I encountered a 42 year old man that still had no idea what they were doing and they were just drifting through life, I would side eye him a little bit because what have you been trying to figure out and build during all this time? Settling down can be only as healthy as the people who are settling down and the process they have used to arrive to the conclusions of what settling down looks like for them. As a result, I would say settling down is neutral because whether it is positive or negative really comes down to the individual.

Finally, just settling period is about stagnating and just giving up on your life. I don't mean this in a *oh I'm in a place where I'm content and I don't feel the necessity of subjecting myself to this constant cycle of self/life optimization.* I mean it's more like *welp.. this is my life now, this is it. I can't do any better.* It's like the difference between deciding to get married to a partner because you have found a great person, built a great relationship and you at a place of contentment to where you don't feel like you have to keep looking for a hotter, sexier partner because you accept the other person, flaws and all, versus getting married to a partner because you have nothing else going for you and this is just what you do when you're an adult. I would also say this is where you get a lot of older adults who haven't updated their world view since the 90s and are disconnected with reality. These are the types of people who often think that their lives end at 30. These are the types of people who haven't read a book since highschool. I know these are some more extreme examples of how this mentality can manifest, but I'm just trying to paint a picture for the archetype. Overall, settling period is not good. 

I think some of the stagnation I have experienced is healthy when it comes to me settling in to my life and me trying to answer what settling down looks like. Some of the stagnation is more systemic because of how long it takes to make changes in  your adult life. And I think this leave was me really trying to address the negative forms of stagnation that comes in the form of "settling" when it comes to my personal development. 

[soos_mite_ah]

On 11/2/2025 at 5:09 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

An Inventory of My Social Skills + Paths for Improvment

• Moderate Proficient on conflict resolution skills: This is something I have been working on a lot over the past year. I think I'm pretty good at it considering my current romantic relationship as well as the sometimes difficult/awkward conversations I had with friends. I think I have a good foundation of coming at things in good faith and being mindful of how I may come off to others and vice versa which I am going to elaborate on the Proficient section. But I do feel like I have room for improvement here as I watch a number of creators who I feel like have a good handle on this skill. 
  • I have a few youtubers I look up to on this. They include Chelsea Fagan from the Financial Diet, Dr. K from Healthy Gamer, Brittany Simon, and Ramit Sethi. 
    • Chelsea has pretty good takes around community building and what that can look like as you move from your 20s and 30s. 
    • Dr. K is pretty good at talking to people that I feel like I would either otherwise disagree with or have trouble with enagaging with. Granted I don't think  I will ever be on that level as I'm not a professionally trained therapist , but I do find it interesting the way he deals with red pill guys. 
    • Brittany Simon has a good way of thinking and questioning when it comes to why other people do what they do and how to navigate that in a wise way. While I feel like I don't get a lot of answers from her content, I do think that my discernment skills get sharpened because she asks the right questions. 
    • Ramit Sethi mainly deals with financial advice but I do like his series on couple's finances because of the way that he mediates the conversations in a constructive way. 
    • 7/2026: I think I can put this in the proficient area since I'm pretty good at managing conflict and mediating things. 
• Moderate on dealing with kids: I think I have the basic skills to make sure that kids don't hurt themselves and do something stupid and I have the skills to relate to teenagers without talking down on them or coming off as someone who isn't safe for them to go to. I think I also know a decent amount of healthy parenting strategies to prevent kids from internalizing common toxic societal things (i.e. teaching kids how to identify and regulate emotions instead of yelling at them and saying they're bad or worse, weak for crying). But at the same time, I do feel like I can be a little awkward around kids and that I lack certain life experiences to be truly proficient in this area of life.
  •   I feel like this is something that will just come in time and increased exposure to kids. 
  • 7/2026: hasn't changed/ need more life experience
• Moderate on finding like minded people: I feel like a lot of this stems from me being in environments where I've had to adapt and assimilate in some way. As a result, I think I'm better at creating bridges with people and prioritizing diversity over relatability.I'm not so lost to where I'm bending over backwards to fit in with people, but sometimes my social life feels like an upward climb because of a lack of relatability. I do think this is a skill I want to strengthen because I'm noticing some things being in common that are foundational for me to have good friendships with people. At the same time, while I want to improve on finding like minded people, I do think that that I still to value diversity of thought and life styles to where I would never want to be surrounded by carbon copies of myself in different fonts. That's why this is blue instead of green. 
  • I don't know how much this has to do with me versus how much of it has to do with my social environment and surroundings. But I do think that putting myself out there more and having a feeling of social abundance does help in casting a wide net and I think that's something that I can learn from one of my friends. 
  • 7/2026: hasn't changed
• Low on making friends and finding new partners: I think while I'm good at hanging on to current connections, I'm not the best at making friends wherever I go. I think part of it is that I can be a bit of an acquired taste socially where it takes me a moment to warm up to people and it takes a minute for people to warm up to me. But another thing is that I think I can be kind of to myself, isolated, and guarded at times. And of course, I think the lack of social abundance you face after school/ college plays a role in exasserbating that. And sometimes I wonder how much of it is me versus the environments I find myself in. 
  • I have a couple of people in my life who are really good at making friends anywhere they go and I'm just trying to watch and take notes lol. 
  • 7/2026: hasn't changed
• Low on managing group settings and parties: I can get overstimulated in parties and group settings with a lot of people to where I get so focused on observing others to where I don't really contribute. I also think in general I'm not used to settings like this and this is just a muscle I don't work on very often.
  • I think it's a simple fix of needing to get out more lol. 
  • 7/2026: hasn't changed
• Low Moderate on socializing in corporate: I just feel like I'm still figuring my shit out in this area of life and it's just taking longer since I only go into the office once a week at most for the past year and a half. Before, that, I would go in very sporadically. I'm capable of working together in a team and just being friendly with coworkers so they don't think I'm a weirdo. I'm not also behaving in a way that would jeopardize my professional relationships. But at the same time, I'm not good at navigating office politics or the event when people are coming at me crazy. 
• • I think this is something that will just come in time. And I think that I also need to focus on the next point. 
  • 7/2026: I would put myself at moderate. I'm a good judge of character. I'm good at building solid professional relationships and even friendships on occasion. I can navigate office politics and get a good read on situations. However, I wouldn't say I'm at a proficient place to where I can be a leader because while I'm good at analyzing office politics, I'm not the best at navigating them in terms of standing up for the interests of the people around me and deal with situations where people are coming at me crazy. I think I just need more life experience for that. 
• Low Moderate on healthy anger, debate, and healthy defensiveness: I tend to freeze up when people come at me crazy and I think that comes at the expense of me standing up for myself at times. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stick around in a bad situation, I'm going to ignore the crazies or remove myself from a situation. But sometimes, you do need to put up a fight and clap back and I'm just not good at that. Debates also freak me out because I feel like my default way of operating is to find common ground and engage in good faith discussion rather than focussing on the optics of my arguments or the best way to convince others. And while it's good that I can engage in good faith without lashing out and getting defensive, I do think that people can take advantage of this and hurt me in certain situations because I'm not defensive in a healthy way. 
  • My boyfriend is pretty good about this type of thing. Heis good at dealing with angry and crazy people and good at not letting them get to him. 
  • 7/2026: I think I'm gettting better at this given the work I have been doing in therapy. I remember I had a lot of issues around repressing my anger and not being able to pick up on it at all. I don't think I'm at a place of repression any more and I am still good at communicating how I feel without being overly withdrawn or explosive. I'm also working on some self-esteem related issues around my repressed anger and I think that has been helping me have a healthy degree of defensiveness. However, I'm still not good at debate or clapping back when people come at me crazy. 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

It's Crazy On How Much It Didn't Happen

I frequently start thinking of this scene from Mad Men when thinking of my plastic surgery experience.

The context of this scene is that Peggy had a traumatic pregancy (since she didn't even know she was pregnant) and went into labor. Don on the other hand had a whole secret life that he left behind during the Korean war. He was originally a man named Dick Whitman and after he got drafted, he didn't want to go back to his old life so he stole the identity of a man in his unit who died. Don is the only one who knows about Peggy's delivery other than her family and to preserve her professional reputation, Peggy lied and told everyone else that she was in quarantine with tuberculosis. Don's way of being encouraging to help Peggy be resilient after such a traumatic instance is to basically tell her to carry on as if nothing ever happened and eventually, this whole thing will be a blip in her story and she would have moved on. 

While I don't have nearly as much of a traumatic and dramatic story around my surgery, no one knows what happened other than my family and my boyfriend. I recovered well from the surgery and it's something that I don't think about in most days. I'm happy with my results and I feel good in my body over all. The results, while very noticable to me, are fairly natural so it's not like my proportions are so exaggerated to where I know everyone is talking about it. Since the surgery, I only had a couple of people take notice and say something along the lines of *girl, your waist looks snatched* to which I said a simple thank you and that was the end of the conversation.

I was expecting more people to notice my surgery results, comment, and have a whole conversation about it. I even took a while to socially prepare for the reprucussions of this surgery in case anyone brought it up so that I can approach the topic in a responsible manner. But honestly, not much has changed in my life externally. I have heard stories of people who had work done and suddenly, since they are more conventionally attractive, people are nicer to them, more opportunities are available, and life is overall better. I had no such experience. I think part of it is because I'm working a normal corporate job and that I'm not in an industry that is dependent on my looks or that hyperfocusses on my appearance. I'm also fortunate that I'm not surrounded by superficial people who switch up on me after I altered my appearance or people who constantly comment on people's bodies and evaluate them on those basis. And honestly, thank god my external world didn't change all that much because I never did this with the external world in mind. I never really wanted my surgery to be brought up or speculated on. I just wanted to keep this aspect of my life private. 

At the same time, despite wanting privacy, I am shocked on how easy it has been for me to hide this aspect of myself from the people in my life. The bulk of recovery was during the first 2 months after the proceedure and then after that, the only symptom I had was some minor swelling that I only noticed. I worked from home a bit more than usual during those 2 months. I reduced down my social obligations. And I carried on like normal afterwards. While this surgery was very important for me, I'm glad I did it, and I don't mean to downplay the recovery process to trivialize this, it is wild on how this feels like a blip in my story. It feels like a blip medically, emotionally, and even financially due to the way I planned this out and the way that I carefully thought through and prepared for this proceedure. The only reminder that I have is the scar across my hips that is fading and that I don't really see very often because of how low down it is. Even if I wear a really skimpy swimsuit, no one would be able to see the scar. It's like this never happened. 

[soos_mite_ah]

 

[soos_mite_ah]

The Big 250

I went to Washington D.C. to see what the 250th Independence Day was going to be like. I was a bit wishy washy on my decision to go but I went ahead and decided since I had a friend who was going to be in the area. I flew in on the evening of July 3rd and then flew out early in the morning in July 5th. 

During the day, I did go near the National Mall. It was completely blocked off for Trump's fair. I didn't bother to go in because I didn't want to support that man and I heard it was a shit show from the quality of the vendors, the stage accident that almost killed the performers, and the reflection pond that turned green with algae because Trump painted the bottom dark blue, causing the water to heat up and become a breeding ground for the swamp. I did see the crowds around the area. It was very white with a chunk of people that looked like they were from Duck Dynasty. There were also some Christian extremists around the crowd that were yelling out "JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS REPENT!" on top of their lungs with a group of people who were trying to convert people into Christianity. There were also a handful of Chinese and Indian tourists that were there just taking everything in. I also saw a few military grade vehicles and a few people who work for the National Guard on duty as security there. And all of this was under 100 degree weather with the sun beating down. I also ran into huge crowds at the subway stations. The lines were huge. The crowd made me feel like I was in a pack of sardines, and most of the people were just confused with the public transport. I know there wasn't as much of a crowd in the mall itself according to reports and because a ton of people in D.C. were just boycotting the event all together. 

I avoided the crowds and I went to the National Museum of the American Indian and afterwards I went to the National Holocaust Memorial. Of course the Trumpies wouldn't be at the museum lol. But I had a good experience in both of these places. It just felt right to go there to pay my respects for Independence day and also keep in mind what is going on in the world from people getting kidnapped by ICE gestapo style and with what's happening in Palestine. I'm not a huge museum person but I do think that they are good places to go in order to reflect on various topics. I found myself thinking of course about things like genocide and state building, the way that it affects people immediate to that experience, and the ways that people live on afterwards. In this country, we had mass death in the way that we treated the Native Americans as well as through the Atlantic Slave Trade. Then there are the multiple genocides of the 20th century from the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Congolese Genocide, the Bengali Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Bosnian Genocide. And of course, we have the present day conflicts in Palestine, Sudan, the Congo, and Armenia. 

But amongst that, I also saw evidence of people living their regular lives along side these big historical events and doing regular human things like working, living amongst each other, making art, and telling their stories. I find that regular live proceeding while shit is constantly hitting the fan is both grounding and disorienting at the same time. It can be disorienting to feel like you have to carry on as normal and not have the space to feel when things are going on. It's like you're being gaslit. At the same time, it's grounding in the sense that there is some sense of normalcy you can hold on to in order to regulate your emotions and not just succumb to what's going on and bed rot. I really liked the Native American museaum and how it showed the ways that Native Americans contributed to the military, the way that lived their lives, the way that the continue their practices, the way that they continue making art in various genres, and the ways that their vocabulary, customs, and culture still show up and are embedded in day to day life. 

I think that the 250th annivesary is happening at a very disorienting time. On another hand, you have ICE terrorizing people and the U.S. causing chaos internationally whether it be Cuba, Venezuela, Iran etc. You have the government mistreating people socially, economically, and politically and creating a cluster fuck. At the same time, on the other hand, you have the World Cup being hosted here, you have a bunch of tourists enjoying American culture outside of the plethora of issues this country has, and you do have some semblance of people coming together. And then finally, on the other hand, you have people trying to keep their head above water and live their mundane day to day lives amongst the chaos and amongst the excitement. 

While I don't feel patriotic because of the festivities in the National Mall, I enjoy going to the museums whenever I'm at D.C. because it makes me feel patriotic knowing that a small amount of my tax dollars goes to things like the Smithsonian. I like on how there are so many free things to do in this city and I thought going to these museums was the best way for me to celebrate my patriotism because of the ways that they approach complex topics, the way that they show a variety of perspectives and stories from different communities, the way that those perspectives overlap and contribute to the overall culture, and the way that all of those things apply to what we are going through as a country right now. 

Later that day, I went down to the National Harbor to meet up with my friend, her boyfriend, and later her boyfriend's brother so that we can see the fireworks but not deal with the crowds. The scheduling for the fireworks got delayed like 3 times. Trump did a long ass speech around 11 pm when everyone was tired and over it. It was raining at random times throughout the evening, and at times it was raining pretty hard. But instead of doing the fireworks at 11 when it wasn't raining during Trump's speech, the fireworks started when it started raining hard. As a result, the fireworks would get extinguished right when they would go off so it kind of looked like an explotion with a ton of smoke with a little bit of glitter thrown in there. The fireworks were also mainly red and orange thus adding to the explotion/ end of the world vibe. It was giving nuclear mushroom from where we were standing. Apparently on TV, it looked good, but in person, it was train wreck. Eventually, I managed to get back to my hotel at around 1:30 am. We weren't planning on being out that late. Usually the fireworks would happen arount 9, right after sunset, but Trump wanted to be different so that he can have his big speech and moment. I would have gone back earlier but the only reason I gave this event any grace was because it was the big 250. I felt bad because my friend had to be up early the next morning for work. I felt bad for the little kids there who were also antsy about waiting so long. I also had to be up early to go to the airport to fly back to Dallas. I saw a lot of traffic as I was driving back but thankfully, I had less traffic in the direction I was going. There were a bunch of cars parked along the highway to get a glimpse of the show. It was chaotic. 

My flight was at 8 am meaning I needed to be at the airport at 5 am. I tried to sleep from 2 am to 3 am so that I could wake up, pack, and take a shower. But I ended up sleeping from 2 am to 5:42 am. I woke up in a panic. I didn't brush my teeth or wash my face. I put on my pair of pants, threw everything in my suitcase, rushed out the door, and checked out of the hotel by 5:50. I had half of a left over turkey sandwich that I ate as I waited on my uber. I ubered to the airport and the only thing I was thinking was how badly Trump fucked up my 4th of July and how I'm not going to let this man cause me to miss my flight. This whole trip from the flight, to the hotel, to the food (D.C. in general has an expensive food scene) and how the uber has been expensive. I wasn't about to add to the cost by missing my flight. Thankfully, I didn't encounter any traffic going to the airport and I didn't have much of a line in TSA so I managed to get to the gate with about 30 minutes to spare before boarding began at 7:15. During that time, I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, did my makeup, and put on deoderant so I would feel like an actual person. Then, I went to one of the airport stores and got myself some tea and some yogurt so that I has something in my system. I got to the plane and fell asleep soon after. 

Apparently my flight also got delayed because of some issues with the engine. I remember overhearing it vaguely as I was mostly asleep. It got delayed by an hour so instead of landing at 10:30 in Dallas, I got there at 11:30. I woke up after a couple hours and I was sitting next to a lady and we talked about a number of things ranging from her experience working for an airline years ago, her family, caring for her aging relatives, and her experience at the National Mall the night before. The lady said that there was about 150,000 people there and that they had to evacuate the area because of the lightening and the storms. The "evacuation" in question was everyone rushing out and either going to the train station or to any other building near by. Then, every time it would stop raining, people would try to go back to the mall again by rushing through security. It's not like they had wristbands or anything so the crowd had to go through security multiple times. She mentioned that she was lowkey scared on how disorganized and mishandled this event was and how people were rushing back and forth because it looked like it could go crazy and start a riot where people would get trampled. She also told me that it took her until 3 am to get back to her hotel because of how packed the trains were and how she didn't even sleep at night so that she wouldn't miss our flight. Let's just say that I'm glad I wasn't at the National Mall during this time given the story I got from her. 

Anyways, the big 250 felt like a mess but I'm glad that I experienced it and I think I have a couple of interesting stories to tell when I'm 76 during the 300th Independence Day. Hopefullly it will better and I do wonder where we will be at as a country by then, for better and for worse. 

Edited 3 hours ago by soos_mite_ah