I've been playing Sky Children of the Light a lot lately. It helps me feel better. Today I got into an intense honking competition with a chibi who scoped me out because I resized really tall. It went on for a long while and ended because my thumb started cramping. It was nice. I had fun. I'm blotting out the last entry with this because, in the end, no matter how terrible I feel, it's just a feeling. It'll go away eventually if I just let myself experience it normally. Everything will be okay because everything is already okay.

I ate expired ramen so you don't have to. Considering how everything about packaged ramen is dehydrated, I got cocky and considered the best-by date just that: best by and not expired by. It was like the modern reenactment of a small-scale Greek fable meant to warn people about the dangers of things that one should not do and I proudly stood in the center of that fable like a dumbass, hubris my downfall, and the ramen didn't even taste that good. It tasted, sure, and it wasn't a dangerous smell, either. It was just ramen-ish. Ramen adjacent. I'd eaten one of these things dry a month ago and so I think it was the seasoning that I had to break apart because it had solidified into a crumbly sheet of red flags I ignored because it was dry and I've never had to deal with expired dry food that wasn't moldy or obviously bad.

And I ate all of it. Everything. Nothing went to waste, not even the broth. It was fine, I felt fine, and it didn't even give me food poisoning. Instead I got sick and am still sick. My throat is sore, my head hurts, my body aches, and I will never do that again. It didn't even taste good and I'm suffering for it. In the end it's entirely my fault because it isn't like it'd been a few weeks or months past the best-by date, no. It'd been two years and my grew-up-poor ass couldn't fathom ramen of all things ever going bad because I never checked the date on a package of ramen and mistook the luck of playing food roulette and winning with there being no danger. Of all the toxic concoctions I consumed in my life, I'm disappointed the thing to humble me was a packet of ramen.

Today is my and my husband's 5 year anniversary! Yay! Five years of a lot. I could joke about it, but I'm also just really happy. I hope these years go well into the future and that the road may rise to meet us. Even if it doesn't, I think it'll be fine as long as he's here with me.