How easily are feelings changed?

I have always believed that consistent effort and dedication should be put forth into relationships, even during the times when I didn't.  But maybe the bonds that last are those for which that process is natural and easy.  I wonder how much of it is two people consciously trying to come to enjoyment with each other, and how much of it is just finding the right needle in a haystack?  The whole green vs. blue argument--destiny vs. free will, and nature vs. nurture.  I guess the simple answer is that both are necessary...

How can we teach ourselves to fail?  How can we learn to accept imperfection?  And how do I stop judging myself and others?  Why does it seem like everything that I turn to in my life, whether work or play, is a test, a trial, a pointed question of "are you good enough?"

Music Commissions!

Some of you may already know about this, but I've been working on some music commissions lately!

First up, Lunar Love is the theme song I made for CarlyontheMoon, a friendly twitch streamer who has used my music for quite some time.  Go check her channel out, it's going to be featured on the front page soon! :D

You can buy Lunar Love for $1 here: https://ddrkirbyisq.bandcamp.com/album/lunar-love

I've also signed on as the composer for Copy Girl, a Mega Man-esque platformer game that looks super sweet!  Here's the first finished song that I've scored for the game: https://soundcloud.com/ddrkirbyisq/acrylic-action-stain-the-painter

You may not know this, but I also wrote the soundtrack for the Steam game Mysterious Space, a space shooter/exploration game that was originally written in 7 days and has since been greenlit on Steam.  I'll be releasing the current soundtrack very soon, but until then you can stream the unreleased tracks on my soundcloud, like this one: https://soundcloud.com/ddrkirbyisq/afterglow

As a final note, my policy on commissions and music services can be found at http://ddrkirby.com/music/music-services.html.  I don't like to take random commissions too often because I'd rather spend time on my own work, but feel free to hit me up if you have something that you think I'd be interested in!  (Though my commission schedule is currently booked up until I finish the Copy Girl OST)

Can't sleep, can't stay awake.  Trapped in the delirium between life and nonlife, both wanting to do something, to do =something=, but also to not do anything at all.  I guess I just need to try my best to do "bite-sized" things.

Hang in there, body =(  Whatever I did to you, I'm sorry!

Things that are awesome:

- Broiled salmon.  Omg.  Why is this dish so delicious and easy to make??  If I ever need to host a dinner party or cook to impress, forget ribeye steak (which is also good but way harder), forget jambalaya and jerk chicken and curry and pot roast and whatever.  Just add salt, pepper, olive oil, and soy sauce, and broil the salmon filet in the toaster oven, tried and true.  I even got it to come out with a crispy skin this time, and used lemon juice....ridiculously good for the amount of effort required.  I've tried a mizo-glazed salmon recipe that called for marinating the salmon, and I've tried pan-seared salmon (which does make crisping the skin easier), but I don't think anything beats the broiler with the toaster oven.  Okay, maybe sous-vide salmon (?) but come on, just 5-10 minutes in the toaster oven!
- Bandit endgame in Risk of Rain when you stack ukuleles and brilliant behemoths with 4x heaven cracker.  Too good!  Getting through the early game wasn't even that hard when I did this run -- war banner is really the key to having good starts.
- La Danse Macabre.  Still the most amazing song.  Wahhhh
- Calligraphy!  In addition to finally ordering an instant read thermometer (finally I will cook meat and fish to medium rare without so much fuss) I ordered myself some basic calligraphy supplies; excited to start practicing!
- Steven Universe!
- Potentially getting to see B this weekend! wahhhhh

Things that are not awesome:

- Having a headache =(
- Having to wake up and go to work tomorrow =(  If my headache is not feeling better I might skip or go home early; we'll see.  At least there is the potential promise of JLFs on the sf3 cabinet =X

"I asked my ex, now good friend, if she would ever have an open relationship and she said, 'No, I don’t think I could do that' then after a pause and a smile, 'but what about love affair friendships?' 
She went on to describe an impenetrable fortress of female friendship, her own group of best mates who’d known each other since school and had supported and loved each other through almost all of their lifetimes. They sounded far more bonded to, and in love with one another, than their respective husbands. It struck me that we don’t have the language to reflect the diversity and breadth of connections we experience. Why is sex the thing we tend to define a relationship by, when in fact it can be simple casual fun without a deep emotional transaction? Why do we say 'just friends' when, for some of us, a friendship goes deeper? Can we define a new currency of commitment that celebrates and values this? Instead of having multiple confusing interpretations of the same word, could we have different words? What if we viewed our relationships as a pyramid structure with our primary partner at the top and a host of lovers, friends, spiritual soul mates, colleagues, and acquaintances beneath that?" —Rosie Wilby, “You’re More Polyamorous Than You Think”

(originally shared by Kylie, thanks!  I guess the ol clickbait stream can be good for =something= sometimes...)

Been slacking off on blogging lately, heh.  Maybe I should do a little bit of catchup?  Just came back from FNW, which was pretty decent this week.  Not crazy good or anything, but not bad either!

Lots of music commission stuff going on lately--I did two commissions this past week, one for Copy Girl and one for CarlyontheMoon.  Both went pretty well, so that's great!

I should take this opportunity to mention that I always really appreciate the personal messages that people send in sometimes with their bandcamp orders, or just random emails of support.  Sometimes I wonder whether I should reply personally to each one (maybe??), but regardless, those are always really nice to read.

Christmas letters are..eh.  Behind, of course, but I guess that's par for the course when you think about it.  I've got 6 done so far, hopefully I can get some more done this weekend?  I don't know what I'll be doing yet this weekend actually.  Been missing C, K a lot, even Y, who I haven't seen in quite a while.  Maybe I've kind of been holing myself in a bit.  I had a great chat online with P though, that actually felt really wonderful!

Work has been tough at times, not in the long hours way, but in the difficult way, and also needing to get a bunch of stuff done.  I think I'm getting on the right foot at the moment though, which is good; hopefully I can keep it up!  I feel like I've been talking about work with everybody lately, I guess it's been on my mind.

SF3 cabinet at work is theoretically getting sanwa JLFs installed this weekend, so I guess cross your fingers that that goes well!  I bought some octagonal restrictor gates to put in in case people don't like the square one.  I want to say I should get used to a square gate but I'm not 100% sure that I can =X

BFZ drafting has been going alright...I went 3-0, followed by 0-3, then 2-1, haha.  I think I'm at least starting to get a handle on what cards to take and such, but somehow I find that playing the format itself is just super demanding and challenging and I'm making mistakes everywhere.  Well, maybe not necessarily =mistakes=, but bad judgment calls.  Trying to decide whether to offer trades, whether to trade damage, and all that stuff is somehow really difficult.  Ugh!  MTG is just really hard =P  But I think sometimes, I gotta just loosen up a bit and concentrate on having fun too.  In 3rd Strike too, I feel like sometimes I let myself get too frustrated by my mistakes, though I try my best not to show it.  Sometimes you don't play perfect, you know?

Waltz feels so awesome!  Gah!  WCS is super cool and amazing and all, but nothing beats the feeling that I get when I'm having a good waltz.  When I'm dancing with someone who understands momentum, pressure, rate of spin, tracking, and how to line each other up for the "catch", it's great.

2/3rds of the way through Tale for the Time Being!  It's been fun so far, hope to read through more of it soon.

I finished watching Gakkou Gurashi...I actually got quite emotional at the end, I feel like it hit some poignant moments that really reminded me of things that are important to me.  The part with Kurumi "coming back", and Rii-san seeing her again, hit me really hard, actually--it's that dream that you (I?) have, of being able to get back something that you thought was lost forever.  Of reuniting with your past.  Even the part about the dog made me sad; it made me think of "Chalk", and loss.

Caught up on episodes of Steven Universe too!  Some of those episodes were super super good...can we just make this show mandatory viewing for all kids and parents?  They handled some really important issues, I feel like...parent-child relationships, how to cultivate healthy trust, all that stuff.  Just, really good.

We played Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which was a blast! (pardon the pun)  Definitely much fun, I'd recommend it highly.

Got one more week to go, of wandering through life like this.  Let's hope that I can try my best this week.

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Oh, I almost forgot!  I tried cooking "jerk chicken" the other day, roasting it in the oven.  It came out pretty nicely and I'd definitely try it again!

It wasn't =really= jerk chicken though; it came out much wetter and moist, and doesn't have that really brown caramelized coating.  I tried to improvise a lot -- I threw in a shallot, and some cumin and oregano, and didn't have any nutmeg, allspice, or cloves.  Also replaced the peppers with the only pepper I had on hand which was a thai bird chili.  I probably could have stood to leave it in the oven for a bit longer, too.  But roasting chicken in the oven is great and I will definitely have to try it more...the only other chicken stuff that I do right now is stirfry/saute pieces (usually thigh), and then coke chicken wings (which I have been having slight difficulties with lately, it ends up making my stomach feel a little weird =/).  Looks like I will have to expand my spice cabinet a bit! :D

I will go and watch some videos and read up on it a bit (seems that serious eats has some writing on it too!), but if I had to do it again I would try to use less of the "chunky" ingredients (shallots, green onions), or try to mince them more, then maybe use a bit less liquid?  And cook it longer.  Maybe even brown it in the steel pan I have and then transfer to the oven.  Man, I really need a cast-iron pan!  ...and an instant-read thermometer.  And to sharpen my knives....and some good red wine.  These are all wishlist items...Oh!  I should also score the chicken next time so that the marinade penetrates deeper, I think that's a thing...

Anyways it ended up coming out pretty good regardless, even if it wasn't actually real jerk chicken.  Yay, success!  This is a dish I've had twice recently -- once at this "coconut caribbean" restaurant out in palo alto near FNW (it was pretty dang good!), and once as dinner at work, and both times were pretty good, so I decided I should try it myself...

- Benefits of being a producer: getting to roll your windows down and blast out an awesome unreleased tune that you wrote yourself, before anyone else has their hands on it.

- Somehow the world depresses me today.  Can I just go and escape to my music?

"I see only positive results from encouraging ALL my students to learn both lead and follow roles as soon as they feel grounded in their traditional role basics. Men and women who both lead and follow learn to have more empathy and compassion for their partners. Women who know how to lead can now dance all night long where in the past the ratio of men to women would normally dictate that many women would sit out most of the evening. Men who can follow can directly “steal” moves and advanced techniques from some of the more experienced leaders making both themselves and their subsequent followers happier. Men and women alike get to stretch themselves in skills of leading and following in a relationship and perhaps discover skills and preferences they didn’t even know they had. In the traditional role of male lead, female follow, many men only get acquainted with women, and many women only get to know men. This breeds a sense of competition for partners, which is not always healthy to a good, friendly social environment. When everyone knows both parts, men develop more friendships with other men and women with other women. Win-win for everyone as far as I can tell."
--Kelly Casanova