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Every Dad is Made in a Factory

28/01/2025

Whenever I talk to people my age about our parents, we all end up having the same if not similar stories. So many kiwi dads just behave in this bizzare, almost passive state where shit happens to them and they either explode, just completely ignore it or do both. My dad isn't from New Zealand - hes from Northern Ireland - yet he behaves in the same way most kiwi dads do and it's... a little confusing, but I suppose he has been living here for 21 years now. I haven't lived with him for around 8 years. I fully cut contact with him just before christmas in 2024.

The most difficult part of it all is that nothing he did was intentional, I know that. He has no idea how he's affected me after all this time. How terrified I am that I'm going to become like him one day. I think it was his trip back to Belfast in 2024 that made him realize how little of a connection we share now, because the second he returned he was trying to call me constantly. Asking where I am, what I'm doing, if I plan to visit my hometown anytime soon. I remember sitting in a session with the university counsellor when my phone rang and I saw it was him. I know I didn't have too, but I picked up. I don't remember what we talked about. Once I hung up, the counsellor looked at me and said during that call, with each passing second, he could see me retreating into myself. Going away. This isn't a new revelation. I'm very good at going away.

Sorry, this is a little heavy for a second journal entry, isn't it? But then again, I made this site for me. And I rarely have a place to talk about the things that bother me in such detail. There's only so much content you can squeeze into a twitter post until it becomes annoying to read.

TLDR; my dad sucks but it wasn't entirely his fault. He's an undiagnosed, depressed, probably autistic old man in a foreign country with no friends and no job. Did you know I've been employed for longer than he has?

Every kiwi dad is bizzare, emotionally stunted, a little bit stupid, and a little bit absent. Every dad is made in a factory.

HTML and Hot Afternoons

27/01/2025

This is the very first journal entry I've made for this site. The whole reason I even made this place was because of how badly social media has gone down the shitter - if a site isn't owned by a scumbag then it's populated with scumbags instead.
I'll be honest; It get's a little upsetting watching people be at eachothers throats all the time. It takes less than a minute for me to run into a tweet from someone shitting on trans people or black people or disabled people and fucking hell it makes me feel like shit!!!!!!!!!

But real life has been good. These past few days have been horrendously hot and humid but still nice. I see friends regularly, I'm outside a lot, for the first time in a while I haven't been as stressed as usual. Just a few hours ago I got perscribed testosterone, and will be starting it next week!

Being honest again, I'm only writing all this so that this page looks less barren. Eventually I'll write something sincere but for now I'm focusing on the html and css behind the site. A big thank you to my high school digitech teacher that taught me all of this. I forgot how much I love web design! I've had to tear myself away from Brackets to go eat or clean because I've been too intensley focused on getting as much done as I can. I like that this is *my* website. I made it from scratch and made it particular to me. I miss the chaos of the old web.