The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.

One last time, and none better than now when spring's finally strolling in...

Discipline is doing what you hate to do but doing it like you love it.

We have one instinct, which is to survive. And one guarantee, which is that we won't.

...is still driving me up the walls.

I haven't had that sniffle for some time though. I'm still taking C-vitamin doses (currently 4-5 g) throughout the day and eating healthier than usual, apart from a recent chips binge over two adjacent weekends. Addictions.

I feel like the C-vitamin is probably keeping potential spring colds and/or allergies at bay too, this time of the year I'm usually down with something, but not now. Not when there's the potential it's not just the common cold. Safeguard yourself at all costs. Up the dosage. Stay in and go all out.

Instead I've had sun rash. Small blisters and itchy skin on my lower right arm, mostly. Looking at pictures it's appreciatively mild compared to what others have, but it's still annoying. It's a thing you can apparently get during spring, when the skin isn't yet accustomed to the harsh sun, and I realize I might have had it before, but never thought as much about it.

I always seem to shed a layer of skin early on during summer though, before I'm really able to get a tan. and sometimes it does itch, but I don't remember blisters, or rashes, or anything like this. It's better now, after a few days of rain. Small scabs remain. We had sun for a couple weeks and now it's monsoon time.

Walpurgis night was yesterday, a time when we usually celebrate with gigantic bonfires that chase away the now fading darkness entirely for one night, a prelude to the midnight sun of summer, but I'm not sure those have been going on this year with everyone keeping to themselves.

We're saving wood, at least. But it's a little disappointing. I don't usually join in on the celebration, but it's a deep-rooted tradition, and one that seems to bring in spring the right way. With an air of festivity and light.

I'm still reading. I wish I'd catch up more. I hope I'm spending my time as well as I can. I get stressed and frustrated all too easily, but it feels like I also enforce that stress and frustration unnecessarily when I don't always do what I know I should be doing right away, and don't throw away some of the more superficial dues that cause such continual frustration. Seems that all shortcomings and flaws are so much clearer when you spend your days in the same place, with the same people; on the same things.

Priorities still aren't ideal. Getting there though. Slow but unsteady like a rollercoaster ride the very first time, and you're riding it blind, so you never know which way it'll go but in the end it's fine. That's it for this one rhyme.

It's a real weekend now though. Finally. Today's a red day. I've big plans, but trying to let go of them so I don't disappoint myself. All you can do is do the one thing at a time, and maintain a zen-like state of mind as you do, and so you shall accomplish all you dream of without unnecessarily stressing out... also really would be cool to build something like this.

Physical work feels like the real cure for depression. That's all.

I dreamt that the bathroom floor was melting last night.

Maybe it's thanks to all my reading on Sunako and her 'creatures of the light', but maybe it's also my tendency to see the worst in things lately.

We have some black mold in the bathroom. I assume. Occasional blotches of black along the lines between the tiles, and I've been wondering what to do about it. I tried scrubbing some off with a toothbrush, but it only brushed away the outermost layer. It's still there, and where the wall meets the bathtub seems the worst off.

So our bathroom is slowly deteriorating, but I was happy to see the floor was still intact and solid when I woke up. It was morbid in the dream, the edges spongy and without resistance, slanting downwards towards the wall, slowly falling away... like you'd plunge through at any second and tumble into a bottomless abyss if you drew too far from the more stable foundations around the sink. It seemed an impenetrable blackness lured below, an endless darkness... or just a very dark keep of black mold.

The bathroom's on the second floor though. Worst case you'd be falling into the washing room below, but it seemed more like a portal into another world in my dream.