I'm not sure why it's happening now, of all times...but somehow, right now, I just feel...=alive=...I spent a good part of the day being more on the lethargic side, not quite feeling like I could really get ahead of the rolling wheel, so to speak.  I'm not sure what changed.

Looking through social media sometimes makes me forget what these online spaces are good for, and that has been true lately as well, as I can only see posts that are about....the election and coronavirus.  That's not to say that these things aren't good to talk about, it's just...social media isn't really the place where I'd like to look for these things.  I ask myself the question "what am I actually hoping to see on social media?" from time to time and I've definitely been asking myself that often lately.  At least with twitter I can see things like random fighting game glitch videos (thx @DNOpls) and get updates and just general musings from indie devs and musicians that I follow like npckc and ChevyRay.  I can scroll through the entire feed on FB and struggle to find anything that I actually find meaningfully relevant in a positive way.  It happens every once in a long while, but it's rare.  You know it's a problem when the ads start becoming more relevant to my interests than the actual content.

Of course, I know what I'm looking for, it just hasn't existed for probably 10 years.  But as always, I believe firmly that you shouldn't complain unless you've tried in earnest to avoid being part of the problem yourself.  So here I am trying to create the kind of content that has always been a home for me in my online spaces.  And if I can't find anything out there that resembles what I'm looking for, then that's fine, because I've got plenty of it stockpiled in here.  Let's look at some entries from years past, around the beginning of March, through the years:

March 2019: "Timmies Top 5 Tips: Cooking" - http://ddrkirbyisq.blogspot.com/2019/03/timmies-top-5-tips-cooking.html

These tips are still pretty relevant.  Washing mushrooms and cooking them separately is probably still the underrated tip I'd give to most aspiring home chefs, but maybe that's just because I cook with mushrooms so often despite not being a fan of them as a child.  Part of the reason is exactly because they were prepared so differently -- watery and flavorless as opposed to browned, with rich savory notes.  This is also an instance where traditional knowledge is absolute hodgepodge -- one of the most effective ways to cook mushrooms is by crowding them in a pan and cooking them =in water= and I've started actually doing this more often for larger quantities of mushrooms. 

March 2018: "Physical Social Media Recap, Stardew Valley, Melee" - http://ddrkirbyisq.blogspot.com/2018/03/physical-social-media-recap-stardew.html

Right, so in February 2018 I did an experiment where I went and did all of my social media interaction (blogging, comments, etc) by handwriting what I wanted to say on stationery and then posting photographs on it.  Very similar thought process to what I've been going through lately -- again, trying to bring back the intimacy, personality, and "human" element to social media.  Here I recap what that was like -- the TL;DR was that it was kind of fun and interesting, but overall not something I'd be interested in doing more of, at least not very often.

March 2017: Seeing Kiki in my dream - http://ddrkirbyisq.blogspot.com/2017/03/things-are.html

I miss Kiki.  She is someone who is always worth writing about, of course.  I thought of both her and myamie last night, during a break at Dancebreak.  I thought about them very intensely, though of course in very different ways.  To many, the courtyard of Roble Gym may bring memories of social dance, but I was a regular visitor of Roble Gym 10 years before I ever attended Stanford as a student -- going there to practice martial arts with my brother.  But the courtyard won't ever remind me of those two things, because it instead reminds me of a person that is special to me.  A person who told me that the sound of the water fountain was beautiful.

I've never listened to that fountain in the same way again.

Practiced some more poi, last night and today, with actually some really nice results -- I'm getting pretty comfortable with some things, and am even getting a handle on antispin flowers (!), something which formerly seemed like a totally unattainable advanced move.  It's been great.

There is more, of course...there is always more.  But perhaps that is enough for now.  Long gone are the days in which I would return to this space every day, to write out my thoughts, to process my emotions, and to share my life in a little corner of the internet, to those who were willing to listen and read.  But I am still here.  Always still here.  And I always will return.