Still feeling a little emotionally blah, but I have been all weekend and this is likely to only lift once I get some things figured out. Soaking for over half my life in the Internet's peculiar brand of cynicism and total negativity has been terrible for my self-esteem, to no great surprise, and realizing that those attitudes are embedded deep down inside me has made me realize that it's going to take some real effort to get out of that trap. I've been afraid I'd get the same reaction that I've learned people get for stepping too far into the weird... but I can't deny that I -am- weird. These are completely at odds with each other, and if I'm ever going to be able to express myself happily, I need to learn to get over that fear, and to do that I need to dispel the illusion that the whole Internet is just waiting for me to screw up so they can pounce on me and hold me up as yet another example of What Not To Be.