It's been quite a while since updating my journal, so I decided to put together a quick entry. In 2 weeks I'll be finished with my first semester of college, which is really exciting and terrifying at once. Good grades so far, so hopefully the finals will go as well. Not much time for art or writing, unfortunately. And that's about it, if anyone cares to read this.

Apparently I have synesthesia, meaning that there's a bit of a mix up between my senses. In my case, it's grapheme -> colour synesthesia, so that letters and numbers trigger colours, as well as ordinal linguistic personification, where numbers, letters, days, and months are associated with personalities, to the point of seeming like people. Numbers are stronger for me than letters - some letters are tricky. N switches from orange to purple depending on the surroundings, and G switches from green to purple. I also have colour -> touch, about which I can find no information except for a brief mention in a list of synesthetic types - but it means that different colours feel different to me, and also skew my perception of the feel of an object. For example, I've been known to pet colour swatches, and they feel like their respective colours, not like the same, shiny material which I know, logically, that they are.

I'd known about synesthesia for a while, but only in terms of sounds -> colours and names -> tastes, not like this. I think that either of those would be a more interesting kind than this, but it's certainly still nice. I looked into it further after a discussion with my mom that started with me commenting on how it was too hot, then acknowledging that it was probably just because of the mustard colour in the room, which felt sticky and warm. That led into the realisation that she didn't feel colours, her random announcement of "five" (she does things like that when she doesn't know what else to say), me saying "is orange, and has nothing to do with this," and her deciding I was insane. Somewhere in there I referred to five as "he" instead of "it," and she thought I was schizophrenic. To prove her wrong, I googled around for colours and numbers and eventually found synesthesia. Since then, I've taken an online battery and scored positively for grapheme -> colour.

Also of interest, it's been discovered that the majority of the population has very mild synesthetic associations. For example, if you are shown two shapes - one pointed all over, like a star, one rounded like an amoeba - and you are asked to name one Kiki and one Bouba, what do you choose? It's amazing how many people agree on it - 95-98%.

Most of dA is liberal, so I think this is a relatively safe topic, but if not, apologies to any passerby who are uncomfortable with it.

The reason my mother is the most amazing mother ever is because of her complete understanding and kindness when I came out of the closet to her just about an hour ago. Though the subject of who I'm attracted to isn't the most pressing issue in my life at the moment, it had been coming up increasingly often, and since I just turned fifteen, I decided it was time to be honest with her and tell her directly. I'm actually crushing on a particular girl right now, and when I told my mom about it she was unbelievably wonderful about it, focussing first on empathising with me, then slowly turning to the actual subject of being gay. If anything, she was concerned about my own comfort with who I am. She discussed the possibility of helping me to look for a local community, though communities aren't really my thing. She spent quite a while talking to me about it, and reassuring me, and even talking about the girl I like. I was very nervous before telling her, but afterwards I felt almost completely at ease.

In terms of actual expression of emotions, this turned out to be one of the less painful experiences for me, even though it took me a while to come to terms with it enough to tell her. She's a wonderful person, and I absolutely could not ask for more. I'm not going to be telling my father or grandparents, but it did somehow make me feel better to have confided in her. And certainly a lot easier to discuss these things in the future.

I'm not sure how it makes me so happy, but knowing how comfortable she is with it, and how supportive she is, certainly helps. And no one probably actually wants to hear my ramblings, so I'll just end by saying that I was really thrilled to have such a positive response from her.

Where I live, nobody ever keeps their dogs on a leash. Ever. They let them out the door and they run around with no supervision whatsoever. The dogs go right onto the highway and run around, and sometimes get distracted by a rabbit or squirrel and run off. Then what happens? I find them miles away from their homes and end up having to call the local SPCA to take care of them. Three times since I've moved to upstate New York. People I know have found other dogs, too. The biggest problem is that these dogs don't even have collars. No tags, no IDs, NOTHING! What is wrong with people? If they let their dogs off leash, they can at least watch them to make sure they don't go anywhere. If they don't tag them, they should at least keep them on leash at all times. But no, they have to let their dogs off leash, no collars, and they end up in danger.

A few days ago I found a dog who had obviously been trained by someone, obviously had a home, but who was standing at the side of the road looking confused. My mom pulled over to make sure there was someone with him, and there wasn't, but he kept scratching at the car and whining. We couldn't leave him that close to the highway, so I stayed with him while she went to find cellphone reception so she could call someone. The dog was hungry, clingy, and had no collar, nor any indication on his fur that he had ever worn one. Two hours later, the sheriff arrived and tried to find the dog's owner. Apparently he did, because they told us they would call us if he didn't, but it still makes me angry. If you care for your dog, keep an eye on it. Keep a leash on it. Keep collars and tags on it. Don't let it run around on the highway. Why would you do that? I panic if my dog so much as sneaks out of the back door to chase a squirrel, and I'm not right next to a road! And really, what is the point of a collar if you neither leash nor tag your dog? You might as well just abandon it by the side of the road.

Finally, it's possible that I can upload some decent pictures. I'm visiting my grandparents, and they have a decent scanner hooked up to the internet. I don't have as many drawings with me as I would like, but it's something. I'm glad to be able to make my account more purposeful.

I'm also currently participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), with the goal of finishing a book of 50,000 words by the end of the month. I currently have upwards of 7000 words, though not a great story. I didn't find about it until Nov 1, so I had no time to plot.

I'm not exactly zestful, but the mood options won't appear.