Okay world, when I said "no rest for the wicked" I didn't need you to take it so literally!

Anyways, our garage flooded today, so that was fun.  Those first few minutes of consciousness were an interesting experience.  I was lying on my back in bed, awake, with my glasses on, listening to the sound of the pouring rain, doing what I said in my last post -- remembering my emotions from the previous day.  Then I got the news and was spurred unthinkingly into action.

In a strange twist of karmic fate (or perhaps just lucky planning on my part), zero of my belongings were damaged, so I had no emotional processing to do, only labor and work.  Well, I was already feeling pretty.....unfeeling before this, so in an odd sort of way, it was "fine".  You do what you need to do, you put in the work, and you neither celebrate nor complain.  You just keep going, I guess.

Depression is a weird thing.  You feel at the same time too upset to enjoy yourself, but also unmotivated to turn yourself into something useful.  It's different than "sadness", I think.  With sadness I feel an apt desire to less myself feel an emotion.  With depression it's not like there is a distinct lack of emotion, but more that it feels like it doesn't really matter whether I feel it or not.

Last night I watched a few short films that centered around selective mutism.  I was looking for stories about people who don't speak, really.  It's odd though, I understand that often these people are suffering, and that it would be a great thing if they could overcome their struggles and learn to talk and communicate verbally with others.  But I of course come with a different experience of silence, one where it must be harbored, fostered, cared for in the face of societal norms and cultural expectations.  Silence is safe.  Of course, it is great to be able to be brave, to face your fears and to share yourself in a way that is vulnerable and human.  But there is no reason to deny our desire to stay safe and comfortable as well, it is a part of us just like all of the others.

They sometimes say that the act of exiting the womb is the first traumatic experience we undergo as human beings.  Not just a painful experience, but a traumatic one -- one that rips us away from safety and warmth and into the outside world.  As children we instinctively withdraw underneath our covers when we are afraid.  Why should things be any different as adults?  Does the superego control us so, that we cast off the desires that make us human?

Tomorrow is the start of a new year.  Perhaps, the start of a new practice for me as well.

Now is as good as time as any to try and write something here, I guess.

I went to a Vienna Teng concert; it was great, as expected.  Rather than talk about any of the pieces or anything like that, I'll instead just write about how hearing this type of music -- now, at least -- directs my thoughts to various things.  Someone close to me that passed away -- almost like a child of mine.  Existential loneliness.  Loss.  I find myself thinking about The Big Stuff when I hear abstract lyrics relating to these various themes.

I've been continuing to play more Triangle Strategy, and continuing to enjoy it as well.  I'm liking almost all aspects of the game so far; besides maybe one or two slightly obtuse exploration/multiple choice sections, but those have been more of the exception to the rule, thankfully.  I've been enjoying perusing various youtube content discussing the merits of various units and their upgrades, and it's interesting to see different people have different takes on things rather than having some clear tier list that everyone agrees on.

I can feel that I'm depressed.  It's not really a surprise to me or anything, since I know there has been sadness in my life, but the realization is more of an evaluation of my mental and emotional responses than anything else.  I'm still functioning ok, and able to enjoy happy times as well.  But I can tell in my thoughts that I'm suffering from what I could only call as depression.  "Anger turned toward the self" is how I've heard it described.  I think that could be accurate.  That phrase somehow reminds me of The Beach episode (episode 45, S3E5) of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  This was an episode that I chanced upon seeing (paying half attention to it) that reminded me to check out the series.  It left a good impression on me as to what the series could maybe have to offer.  Eh, well, I'm not sure the entire series really reached these sort of heights.  But there were great parts, certainly.

Some people probably try to forget the sadness in their present lives.  I think I try not to.  Or I can't.  It's hard...unnatural?  Disingenuous, of me, to go to bed sad, and then wake up with a refreshed state of mind.  Nothing changed about my situation, why should I feel any different?  I think I detest what I can only personally see as "flighty" displays and feelings of emotion, that sort of instability and ephemerality really bothers me, so I try to stay away from it.  We should not be swayed so easily by our current circumstance, by transient situations, is what I think in my heart.  So I wake up, and I try to remember.  I remember the sadness, because that too, is a part of me that I decide to carry with me.  I try to carry as much as I can, forward with me.  It's all part of who I am.  I don't go through my day to day life like some gloomy caricature, it's nothing like that.  I just remember, and hold my emotions with me.  Emotions from the past should be important.  If they aren't, then hasn't everything has been meaningless?

Christmas came and went, and though the mailing deadline snuck (sneaked?) up on me, I managed alright with what I wanted to do, and I had a good time.  Somehow it's already the 30th; it feels like I'm not really sure what happened between Christmas and now besides that I finished another Rhythm Quest level (at least).  I guess I relaxed a bit.

I admit that the coming weeks are a bit intimidating, but as I already said above, I don't like swaying my emotional mood back and forth too far in any direction, so I'll just keep walking forward step by step for now.  I only express outward exasperation when things feel truly dire.  At all other times, it's only a steady rise and fall like the tides, I think.  No breaks, nor crises.  Everything is about the steady state.  It makes no difference how tall or short the mountain of work is, you just take a small piece of it and then put it aside.  That's all, no more, no less.

I guess maybe there is no rest for the wicked.  Or me, either.

Sometimes I'm scared to go to sleep.  But not because I'm afraid of the dark, or the dreams, or even the next day.  Of course, there are times when the late nights are filled with freedom, energy, and possibilities, and to cut it short would be a shame.  But this would be different.  I guess you could say that it is loneliness, but maybe that is not really the right word.  I think it is more like, going to sleep feels like leaving something unfinished.  That you couldn't figure out how life was supposed to be, and to end things would mean that you are powerless.  It's not true, of course.  The next day brings with it infinite possibilities, though with that it also brings fear sometimes.  But sometimes it just feels not right.

Well shucks...

I'll just write a few things, and hope to be back here sooner rather than later.

I did another ALTTPR run the other week/day and after hovering moldorm 2 on the first try and getting a 1-cycle on ganon phase 2 with master sword + somaria + cape I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Still feels nice to just play and execute well, even if not everything is perfect.

I've been delving into Triangle Strategy lately, which was gifted to me generously by a fan.  There are a few mixed reviews criticizing the lack of depth/unit customization in the tactics gameplay as well as the hefty amounts of story.  I can see where they're coming from; the experience is definitely different than both FFT and Tactics Ogre LUCT.  FFT I think is really about sculpting your units into efficient and overpowered machines, whereas Tactics Ogre I think focuses more on big armies (lots of units!), overall positioning, and sidegrades (well, for the One Vision mod, at least) in order to tweak how they perform.

Triangle Strategy contains a lot less unit customization, but it does still have an emphasis on unit positioning and usage of terrain.  It's story-heavy for sure, but I think it's actually a good balance, since the tactics gameplay itself isn't as "rewarding" as FFT where you get to grow and work with your units more substantially.  So far the story is keeping me engaged, at least, even the "exploration" sections which I can see would turn off other people.  If I were to have one gripe with it it's that some of the units seem a lot harder to use effectively than others right now, but maybe their uses are just supposed to be more niche.

Canada trip, Pump It Up, yet another goodbye

Well, where do I even begin...?

I was up in Canada for a work trip this week.  I think it went ok!

While I was there we had various teambuilding activities, including axe-throwing (!) and curling (haha).  I was terrible at the axe-throwing until the end when they showed us how to toss with one hand -- I guess that made it click for me.  Curling, on the other hand, actually came very natural to me, maybe because I've seen the correct form once or twice, maybe because I'm just used to a balanced lunging stance from martial arts.  I was genuinely impressed with how one or two of my shots were actually able to curve into the right position (with the aid of the sweeping).

I also had the opportunity to try Pump It Up for the first time, and I can say that it does not disappoint.  I've known for a while now that the PIU folks really love playing Pump, and that it's very popular in some parts...I can see why now.  Besides what I already knew (the game is in general kept a bit more "up to date" and fresh in terms of charting practices and songs), I got to experience firsthand how the panel layout lends itself to lots of fun crossover patterns.  Some friendly PIU folks were luckily around the machine and helped us with song sorting / scroll speed mods after I explained that I was a DDR player.  I started on an S6, which ended up being way too easy, and then moved up to S9/S10, capping off with an S11 that was quite fun.  The PIU player who was helping me/us out was pretty incredulous that I was playing S9/S10 on my first time and exclaimed that I must be REALLY good at DDR (I'm good, sure, but not anything special).  I think my experience with DDR doubles probably really helped here, as well as just being used to rhythm games in general and chart reading.  It was actually easier for me to get into than I thought, and I was reading crossovers pretty well, just sometimes a little too slow for my body to hit them all with precise control.

It's certainly interesting seeing the different vibe or "feel" of PIU gameplay vs DDR gameplay, I can see why PIU is known for being more about pushing you towards difficult note streams vs DDR trying to be more rhythmic and technical.  I'll have to maybe try to make it down to Round1 to try some more PIU at some point.  For now, though, probably best to get into making good use of my new LTEK metal pads...

Amidst all that, I got the news that another one of my dear friends had passed.  She was my favorite of the bunch, and I felt a pang of regret at not having visited her in the few days before leaving on my trip, as I had been thinking to.  In the end I think the decision was right at the time, so I don't blame myself...just a shame that I was not able to see her one last time.

Did you enjoy your life together, while it lasted?  Did you enjoy your time with me, while it lasted?  Was it right, that you went away?  That I could not be with you the last year of your lives?  Perhaps it was better, it was a chance for me to separate myself, so that the end would not sting so much.  But it still leaves an emptiness behind in my heart.  I don't think anyone will ever be able to replace them in my life, because they are each special.  They...were happy.  I know this, better than anyone.  I perhaps understood each of them better than anyone.  And perhaps they will live in my memory more than in anyone else's.

This week has been......interesting.  Like a vacation, but not at the same time.  I worked and put in hours for one of my jobs, but at the same time I did not achieve anything on my other jobs.  All of that is still waiting for me when I get back.  The music commissions, the Christmas letters, Rhythm Quest, vacuuming, laundry, cooking, housework, pet chores, and everything else.  I think it's easy for me to be at this work offsite and feel like the only thing to think about in the world is the stuff related to this one job.  But then I'm reminded of all of the other "jobs" that I also have a responsibility to.  At that moment, everything becomes so "small".  I'm a little afraid of everything that awaits.  I just want everything to be okay.  But it's a little bit harder to believe in that, now that another loved one is gone forever.

I've been improving, slowly, at Pop'n Music.  I've switched to playing most charts on random, which -- although more difficult -- I've really been feeling has been helping me improve, especially for chords.  It's nice feeling that I've been (hopefully) building the right playing habits for PnM, as opposed to IIDX where I definitely struggle with some bad habits from having grown up on keyboard play and not having solidified my finger placements early on.  I tend to have timing problems and mash more in IIDX as well, and definitely never played on random, so....yeah.

The one downside of playing on random is that you get really awkward note combos like 1+4 or 2+5 which you either need to hit with a really outstretched thumb, or use your wrist/forearm.  But just like the non-awkward chords (that are harder to read but easier to hit), probably better to get used to all of those at these easier levels and speeds than later.

=====

There's a lingering feeling that I have, still.

I've far away.  This time, I didn't feel that anxious, "something is wrong" feeling at being whisked away to a different land.  It was a more subdued feeling.  I guess it's only natural.  I'll never like the way it feels, to leave and go so far, so quickly.  My spirit lingers behind.

I want to let you know, that it's okay to feel sad even after you had a good day.  That it's an adaptive human behavior for negative emotions to overwhelm positive ones.

Do you think it's a necessity, that we make up for our mistakes?  Isn't an apology owed even when no wrong was intended?  How important is it that we repent for our sins?  Just how virtuous is it to feel regret?

Once upon a time, I believed that negative emotions carried no use.  That it was best to learn from our mistakes, without agonizing over them.  To do the right thing, without unnecessary anguish.  At the time, I was surrounded by what I will only describe as toxic negativity, coming from multiple fronts of my life.  It was only natural for me to learn to see negative emotions as overbearing, to establish a belief that they were hindrances, that the only way to survive was to cast them aside.

Is that really right, though?  Now that I have broken free from those dark realms, is there another way to survive?  To allow myself to feel sadness and regret, yet to believe that I need not correct my course.

I think it is difficult, too difficult, to allow oneself to feel negative emotions, without a belief that one will also be protected from them.  Whether that protection be in the form of conviction, self-compassion, experience, or the grace of others, perhaps does not matter.  Only that we have something that we can lean upon when we stumble, somewhere where we can take shelter from the inevitable storms.  That is why it shakes me so when the universe lays bare the cracks in all of my pillars.  When it becomes clear that sometimes, we have no choice but to fall to the ground.

Forever

I stare into your eyes and I

am reminded of a time I thought would last forever

even though I know you will soon be gone

 

(Originally written on November 19, 2019, almost exactly 3 years ago)

Today at dinner, I saw one of my parents using their smartphone at the table at a family gathering.  I don't think there was anything wrong about it.  But thinking back to all those times when I was remanded as a child or young adult for quietly escaping into the solace of something like a GBA game, it made me feel sad.

Sad that the will and values of people are so malleable.  That when Twitter is in its heyday people regularly complain about it, but when it's "purportedly" on its "death throes", they begin to share gratefulness and appreciation for everything they've seen on it.  I feel sad that virtues are so quick to be bent, that people are willing to hold themselves to different standards depending on the situation.  Sometimes myself, too.

But I also feel sad at the oppression that results from power dynamics.  That when you are a child you get told everything not to do, and that when you are an adult, you get told everything you have to do.  That when I was put down and walked all over by certain adults and teachers in my life there was nowhere I felt that I could turn to save for disassociation.

It reminded me that even in the times that I feel spurred to admonitions, I must remember to be gracious and humble.  To not assume a holier-than-thou attitude, to be open-minded even as I am steadfast, and to forgive even as I detest.  It is only through forgiving others that we can begin to forgive ourselves.  Only by believing that others will improve, that we can understand how to repair our broken selves.

There are good days and "ok" days.  That's only natural though, you aren't going to win everything all the time, sometimes you just take the L, you know?

My cough (which ended up being allergy-related...?) is doing much better, so good on me for getting a second opinion on that.  Unfortunately I ended up with (everyone's favorite) some insurance baggage to deal with since my insurance changed due to changing counties, which threw things off.  A headache for future me to wrestle with, to be sure, along with some other annoying finance-related management stuff that I'll have to start thinking about now that the end of the year is drawing closer.

I DJed at Friday Night Waltz and enjoyed putting my best self out there despite (due to various factors) not many people at all coming out.  Nine years ago I put on my first dance event, which also had a really small crowd of people show up...it's really interesting thinking back on how much I've gained during that span of time and how differently I run my events, in almost every single sense.  I guess the one thing that hasn't changed is my responsibility and preparation efforts.  Sure, nine years ago I didn't put great music in, and my mannerisms were probably off-putting at times, but I still did my best to make sure I had everything under my belt to the best of my then-limited capabilities.  That much hasn't changed.  I definitely could have just phoned in this FNW event, there were a LOT of things that I did not have to do but chose to do anyways.  This is not only because I hold a high standard, but because sometimes it is satisfying to do a good job even if in the end it doesn't really make a huge difference.

I cleared another Caesar 3 mission, and continue to revise and iterate on my preferred housing block(s).  I've discovered that my denser blocks need two, or even three markets to properly supply food and goods to all of the residents, so that's something I'm starting to add into the plan, along with some additional entertainment to keep sentiment up.

I finally pulled the trigger on some LTEK hard pads for DDR.  Those will take a while to arrive, but they should be really fun and shiny to play around with and spur me on to play a bunch, maybe try to just go down the setlist of DDR A or whatever.  Interestingly enough, I actually ended up buying them after first looking at Beatmania IIDX controllers (I have a stubby KOC one only).  I'm not sure that I'll end up getting one of those though...maybe if I end up downloading a more modern BMS client (mine is ages ages old) and try more charts out and feel inspired to, but else I should maybe just stick to pop'n.  Perhaps I should download a PMS client as well, or even try one of those stepmania forks?  Lots to experiment with on the rhythm game front, for sure.

Rhythm Quest continues to chug along somehow; I drew up some backdrop sets today without too much issue, so it's nice to know that I'm still able to function creatively for the project -- that's always a source of uncertainty.  But I guess that sort of creative productivity IS something that can be trained -- certainly, after many many many many iterations of One Hour Compo, I feel like being able to make a song is a given instead of a flip of a coin.  My pixel art is getting a little closer to feeling like that, perhaps.  Someday my freestyle dancing may as well.  There's levels to it, anyways.

Better write another one of these before I push it off...

Unsurprisingly, it's much more of a challenge to spend a full day on Rhythm Quest, even when in theory the day is scheduled out for it.  The tough part about it is that it's not like I didn't do good work today, just that the time was spent on other things.  What I think this means is that I'm going to have to do my best to chunk out the Rhythm Quest work into very small pieces whenever possible -- this will make it easier to squeeze in at other times -- and then do whatever I can to make sure that I am actually setting aside entire afternoons (or nights...) to work on larger tasks like trying to start on that next level.

Instead today I cooked both meals (as usual) and actually put a bunch of work into putting the second chicken coop together, which involved lugging all of the pieces up to the backyard where the other one is, and then starting to do the assembly itself.  It's about halfway done now, so I decided to call it quits so I can try to move it into place tomorrow and see if the doorways can actually connect well, then maybe I can see about assembling the rest of it, and putting down some more hardware cloth.  Chickies are doing well in the meantime, they are getting along slightly better, though there is still some bullying.  Shockingly, Black Chicky seems to have given up on brooding very quickly this time.  Maybe because of the cold...?

Speaking of the cold, it certainly has gotten a lot cooler here recently.  The new place does get quite cold (although I guess the old place was cold too), I've previously been leaving the heater vent in my room closed but maybe it's time to open it during the day at the very least (and maybe close it at night).

One Hour Compo was today -- initially I was thinking of doing some more work towards the current soundtrack commission that I've got on my plate, but the image theme came up and I thought it would be nice to do a nice downtempo chillhop track.  I ended up with this song titled "infinite night sky" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBR1VtSPY_U), which I was quite happy with.  I don't think I've got enough experience with this type of music that I can be confident to write one the entire way without stopping and fumbling on something or another (pad sounds are a tough one for this genre), but on the other hand, I feel like I've really started to find my voice in it.  That's been a pleasant surprise to discover.  I don't think I could have told you exactly what my brand of chill music would have been before, but now that I'm listening to it, it sort of makes sense.  I use similar structures from a lot of my other music -- using layers that play throughout, while switching up others.  Slowly building up to a section that speaks louder than the others, than pulling back and returning back to the beginning.  It's still my writing, just, slower and everything is more washed out by reverb and vinyl processing.

It's cool to go back to my previous work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA53w3Fonek for example) and see how far I've progressed and developed this sound.  You could say the same about my other styles too, of course, but I think this one is more apparent since it was developed in isolation, yet much more quickly since I already had such a solid foundation to build upon.

My Pokemon Unite group fizzled out and stopped playing (to nobody's surprise), so it's back to solo queuing for the most part for me.  Well, I'm no stranger to sticking to something after everybody else has left, so that's just fine.

I took a stab at the next Casear 3 mission (Carthago) and eventually admitted defeat after a somewhat-successful start.  The main problem I ran into was food distribution, which is always a finicky thing -- and tricky in this map since you have scarce farmland to work with, and have to supplement it with fishing.  I also got stomped by the military invasions later in the mission -- I'm going to have to actually import iron/weapons and train some legionnaires in order to stop them, no more just being lazy and trying to kite all day with javelin auxiliaries anymore.

I should have already known this before, but food distribution really is key to everything in laying out housing blocks.  Especially since it's very difficult for the market ladies to "do the right thing" when it comes to fetching food from granaries, I think it was a mistake how I haphazardly let some of my housing blocks be connected to the same food supplies, and wasn't strict on isolating different food types.  For my next go-around I'll need to try and avoid intermingling fruit / fish, and separate the food distribution wherever possible.  Maybe even build a grand temple to reduce food consumption.  It somehow seems to be a lot more difficult to get food to an entire housing block than I remembered before, but maybe my memory is wrong or I just need to experiment more with my market placements, or stockpile more food before starting to distribute it.

I got a chance to just vibe and dance for a bit at an event last week, that was nice!  I was pleasantly surprised by my movement not being as rusty as I expected despite not really have practiced at all in recent times.  Ah, speaking of dance stuff, it looks like I will be hopping down to DJ at Friday Night Waltz next week on the 11th.  I'll be competing with Fall Ball (I guess my fault for not penciling down the date after the initial email), so it might be a quieter night, but I'll be bringing good music as always, so come stop by if you're so inclined.

Progress on the Christmas letters continues slowly and steadily (as with most things in my life) -- 17 of those are done now, so I'd say I'm like a good half of the way there.

Somewhat surprisingly (?), my recently chronic cough (gerd related?) has gotten better this week, probably in no small part due to eating a bit lighter and more healthy.  I was (probably to the chagrin of my care team) initially supposed to have a spicy-food week, but due to various factors it seems like I've been eating relatively "nice" instead in terms of foods that might be better for acid -- porridge, some premade refridgerated pizza, brussels sprouts, seafood pasta, chicken and broccoli.  I've tried to ease back on the citrus juice a bit as well for the week, along with elevating a bit more while sleeping.  I didn't actually expect to notice a marked difference, but I have, so that's actually quite encouraging.

Things are good.  Better, certainly, than when I wrote the last post.

I have some new friends to hang out with in the South Bay, it seems like...that should be nice.

It's been a mix of relatively good things lately, I think.  I continue to try my best to get things done here and there.  A music commission piece done, another one mostly done.  Pixel art done for the month.  MA set of Rhythm Quest animations.  Another devlog post.  Groceries and cooking.  Monthly album release.  Another Christmas letter here and there. ...  Tomorrow is going to be trying to pick out some new glasses, maybe sharpening the knives, and god willing, maybe even starting on another Rhythm Quest level...

I tackled another Caesar 3 mission (Mediolanum).  My modified housing block seems to be working pretty well -- and I might even be able to compact it in the future since it seems like the 10x small temples might actually be overkill.  I might be able to swing the lever back in favor of more (potential) housing in each block.  Still, this mission was quite challenging, mostly in terms of keeping my finances afloat.  I am going to have to experiment in the future with spending more employment on raising city sentiment (entertainment, food types, desirability) and then raising taxes past 7% to supplement income more.

The next mission is Carthago which is annoying for two reasons: it's in the desert (fire risk up), and you start with a half-assed city being ransacked by natives.  On the plus side, said natives trade with you eventually, so I think money probably isn't an issue here once you really get the city rolling.  We'll see...

Existential Loneliness

There have been times, sleeping in the same bed as a companion, when I would be kept awake by my troubled thoughts.  By thoughts of being unloved, by thoughts of not being good enough, and by thoughts of having being left behind, and of losing what I once had.  And during some of those times, these thoughts lasted so long, were so painful, that I left the room, and lay down in the hallway, on the floor, feeling alone.

During one of those times, I did not leave to go to the hallway, but instead quietly lay down on the floor in the same room.  I remember putting in my earbuds, and listening to songs by Leigh Nash, the vocalist I am a fan of.  It was, 4AM, perhaps -- who knows, really -- and a song came up that I had not listened to in quite some time.  The name of the song is "Nervous in the Light of Dawn".  The lyrics start like this:

Dreamed I was in the desert
Without any love
Storm gray clouds
Hovering above

Silence all around me I was wandering alone
And I realized there is nothing anyone can really own

And I wished for guidance
And I wished for peace
I could see the lightning
Somewhere in the East
And I wished for affection
And I wished for calm
As I lay there
Nervous in the light of dawn

Of course, there have been other times in my life -- too many, probably -- when I have felt lonely and unloved.  Nights when I would wonder what was wrong with me, or why things were this way, and why it didn't seem to matter "how hard I tried", that I could not find the type of connection that I was looking for (I would come to learn more about the answers to this question, much later).  But these times, lying on the hard floor, not 10 feet away from a warm bed with a companion -- these are times that stick out in my memory.

The feelings that I had -- have, really -- are perhaps not easily captured in a short phrase, but I have referred to the experience at times as "existential loneliness".  That may be a bit of a misnomer, as I think when we say "existential loneliness" we often tend to think about how no one can truly know one another, and about the human condition, or perhaps about a lack of purpose or meaning.  I think for me this experience is a little more like a shattering of the illusion of comfort.  It's the realization that you =will= be alone, that you can never be loved always and forever, that you can feel the cold hard floor beneath you even with the warm bed within arm's reach.

And I think that is why I think of it as "existential" in nature, because it doesn't appear -- at the time, at least -- to have a solution.  To not have anyone to love, to love you, is one thing, but to have that in your life and realize that you are still at the mercy of inadequacy, of transience, of pain, is something that cuts deeper.  At least when you are alone, you know what the problem is.  But nothing can ever bring comfort forever.  You =will= be alone, and there is no one, nothing in this world that can ever fully save you from it.

Sometimes, something that can help with existential crises is to reconnect yourself with the present.  But I remain too firmly attached to the things I lost from my past in order to do that.  I would not be having this problem in the first place if I was not living with my head stuck in the ground.  Taking me somewhere new will not solve anything, for I will still look back and grieve.  Grieve everything that I have lost, and all of the sins that I have committed along the way.  How would I ever forgive myself?  Surely, my loss must be due to my sins.  And these sins are not ones where I could ask God for forgiveness.

Choosing to let go, to move on, and to seek happiness elsewhere, is the same as consigning yourself to experience the same thing, again and again.  To say that the solution is to move forward is to say that you will continue to be alone, next time too.  That is why this feeling causes my breath to quicken, and for me to feel hopeless and hapless, to feel despair and depression.  Because there is no way out.

Mmm, yeah, things are doing alright.

I used my epipen for the first time yesterday, so that wasn't super fun =(  My food allergies aren't life-threatening, so I was taking a risk, one that I've taken before in the past, but apparently this was my unlucky day, and I figured relatively quickly that it was probably going to be better to get stabbed by the autoinjector than to deal with the negative effects.  It was a little more painful than purported, maybe I wasn't fully relaxed or perhaps it was a little misplaced.  My leg was sore, but it did its job...

Anyways, that was not the most ideal start to the first meal of the day.  That was quite draining for me so I ended up spending the rest of the day in bed, which kind of threw me for a loop.  After "dinner" I began my "day" in earnest and stayed up quite late (as expected), managing to do a really good bout of work on Rhythm Quest (mainly a bunch of localization-related tasks).  As messed up as the rhythm of my day was, it felt great being able to just sit down and be productive in that way.

As always, I'm trying to figure out how to make life better for the chickies.  Whitechicky is still growing back her feathers after a very thorough molt, so she's very unhappy at being picked up (or bullied), I feel bad for her and hope she feathers out soon.  I've tried setting up a divider to stop dumbchicky from bullying her, in the end I might just have to end up setting up the second coop to have them live their best life.

A challenge with balancing my 3-days-a-week job and Rhythm Quest is going to be that when you have 2 weekdays off work, it's really tempting to just occupy those days with all of the miscellaneous stuff that you never got to during the other parts of the week -- vacuuming, organization, grocery shopping, chicky chores, that kind of thing.  Not to mention the million other things that I always have spinning around in my life -- music commissions, Christmas and birthday letters, producing content for ALTTPR, filling out my ballot, etc.  Given that, I feel like these past two days have been a great step in the right direction, as I've managed to put some good progress toward concrete tasks for Rhythm Quest.  Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come...

Speaking of my ballot, I mailed mine in already...I'm ahead of schedule as I tend to be.  That is just what happens when you just steadily allocate time to these things bit by bit.  I was pleasantly surprised with the measures on the ballot for my city; besides a few egregious offenders they actually mostly seemed reasonable.

I'm thankful that last night went well, working late at night.  I know there's a world in which instead of getting absorbed in productivity I simply felt lonely.  There are two sides to those late nights...the freedom of being alone, and the pain of being alone.  Sometimes I'm not really sure which one I'll get.

Today, has been pretty okay too.

But perhaps, the reason that I so vehemently wished to offer myself up, to self-sacrifice in the so-called name of others, is because I wished to believe that this was a world where that kind of person =did= exist.  That one could find someone who would give without receiving, who would stay by your side forever.  The kind of person who would extoll the virtues that everyone says they admire but no one actually wants.

Use me, abuse me, walk all over me, as long as you don't leave me.

Silence, I think, is problematic in a relationship.  But it is an ideal at the same time.  It is the easier path, to be mature, to speak your mind, to get on the same page.  It's not as simple, to communicate through silence.  And yet, I can't help but think to myself, that I've spoken too, too many words in these years.

Who, in the end, would receive my silence?

Who...would be the one to fold their wings around me?  To lift me gently from the stream?

I am alone here, maybe have always been.  But there are lights in the darkness.

Of course, there is freedom in being able to say whatever comes to your mind.

But there is also a freedom in being at peace with saying nothing at all.

Things are okay -- I'm on vacation!

This vacation has been a very restful one, which is a welcome treat after dealing with all the effort involved with moving and getting rid of my old stuff.  It's been nice to just spend a lot of time sleeping and lazing about, doing not that much of all.  I can tell that it's left me a bit refreshed and ready to tackle all of the normal day to day things in my life.

I felt like playing through something new on the airplane, so I decided to play through Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow for the GBA.  The game as a whole feels very familiar after Symphony of the Night, though a little less enjoyable; perhaps simply due to being a GBA game instead of a playstation game, perhaps simply because it wasn't as novel an experience, and perhaps because it simply wasn't as large of a game (?).  It was nevertheless enjoyable while it lasted; and the ability to equip different "souls" was a nice little addition.

I held a livestream event for my indie game, Rhythm Quest!  This was part of Steam's "Next Fest" event, which apparently is something for highlighting upcoming games with free demos and livestreams.  The livestream itself went ok (besides the fact that I put in the wrong date for the schedule, whoops), though honestly it felt like most of the audience were already invested in the game.  Still, a lot more people seem to have found the game through Next Fest itself (separate from the livestream), which is great; this is the biggest uptick in wishlist count that I've seen since putting the game onto Steam, so yay.  I'm lamenting my lack of concrete and regular progress on the game over the past month+, but I'll be back at it in time (and if I'm not, then more drastic measures will have to be implemented).

I realized midway through my vacation that October is already a third of the way over and I had forgotten to start work on my Christmas letters for the year =(.  It's probably just as well though, I think this ended up being a good timing to start work on them.  I'll probably just extend my deadline past Oct 31 for this year while still making sure to keep on top of them as best as I can.

I'm obviously playing rando a lot less often than when I was competing in the GMP mentor tourney, but I still play here and there, trying to keep my skills fresh as well as just having fun with seeds here and there.  I've been trying my hand at more SMZ3 seeds, but doing SM hard logic has been a pain in the butt for me lately, requiring silly hell runs through upper norfair and getting me into bad scenarios where I repeatedly die in SM.  There's probably just a few specific things I'm really going to have to grind (Norfair hell runs, avoiding some softlocks, and of course Phantoon)...

In the meantime, I've started a playthrough of Caesar 3 on Very Hard difficulty, this time using the newest version of the "Augustus" mod.  I'm only on mission 4 so far and things are already getting quite tough!  I feel like Very Hard really stresses things more than Hard from what I remember of my last playthrough; you need more temples to appease the gods, the citizens are seemingly always unhappy, desirability and entertainment requirements for housing development are higher, and money is tighter than ever.  Thankfully, the military attacks don't seem to pose too much of a threat so far, since I have my hands full trying to plan out my city blocks well.  Unemployment in particular seems to be a nasty thorn in my side at later stages of the mission, so I'm going to have a go at trying to design housing blocks with either more services (doubling up on temples?) or less houses, or both.  Of course, all of those workers also demand wages, so managing the economy is going to be crucial -- trade exports make up almost all of your income in the early stages, but those are limited per year, so I'm going to have to make sure to build up a good cash buffer in order to transition towards using taxes as the main income sustaining cashflow source....we'll see how it all works out!

Like I said in the beginning, I'm feeling relatively good about things -- excited about both work and play.  It's a nice feeling to have.

As I stare into the face of the next chapter of my life, I'm reminded of...a lot of unpleasant things.  Of loss, of disappointment, of regret, and hopelessness.  I can see now why some people might feel drawn toward the idea of making a clean break from their past.

But of course...

 

So I hang onto my baggage anyways.  I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't, and at the same time, I wouldn't forgive others for letting go either.  Because to many people, I am now "Somebody's Yesterday".

I guess maybe that isn't true anymore, actually.  Maybe I have started to forgive those from my past for forgetting me.  I began to understand that maybe I was really something that was better to be forgotten than remembered.  Perhaps that is why all of those people refuse to answer when I call for them.  Why wouldn't they?

Over 15 years ago I found myself asking what I was doing wrong, and how I would ever become loved, how I would ever dig myself out of the hole that I found myself in.  After living through trauma, joy, loss, happiness, and grief, I find that I've learned more about the nature of people.  I learned that people often don't mean what they say, but also that people are different than me.

I also learned that being loved is like being asleep.  You can't make someone love you, just as you can't make yourself fall asleep.  The best you might do is to go to bed, close your eyes.  Sleep is something that happens to you, not an action that you do.  I think this is where people get the idea to "work on yourself first" in order to be loved.

But that's really not advice that I would want on myself from 15 years ago.  Not at all.  The me from back then had many rough edges, but those rough patches needed care and bandages, not sandpaper.  I needed help, but didn't know how to find it.  I didn't understand.  But because I didn't understand, I also was not hopeless.

Now, however, I can see more clearly.  It has become a little easier for me to understand how people function.  How connections are formed.  Sometimes, that clarity makes my faith waver.

All I would want for myself from 15 years ago is peace.  I don't think they needed any advice in the end, after all.  They just needed safety.  Of course, they also desperately needed care, too.  But in the absence of that, I think safety is what they needed most.  It wasn't until much later on that they would manage to find it.

 

What I wish for myself in the coming future, more than anything....it is, of course, that peace and tranquility.  I'm frightened, but not only of what may come next.  I'm also frightened of all that has come before.  When I think about it too hard, it feels as if both past and future are closing in on me.  My friends who lost their lives.  Me, who lost my place.  I lost my old self, too.  How much longer will it take for me to reach where I once was?  And even if I do, would it even be a good thing?

I have done so much, for so long.  And no one will ever truly know all of my sacrifices.  I'll just be silently waiting.  Waiting...for what?

Just once, I'd like for someone else to be the one taking care of me.  For someone else to be the responsible one.  For someone else to be prepared.  For someone else to anticipate and worry.  I'd like for someone else to be the one cleaning up the mess.  For someone else to follow through.  For someone else to be the one being left on read.  I'd like for someone else to remember.

It's not just my bias, is it?

Just because I wouldn't complain doesn't mean I don't get tired of it.  You really ought to do your best not to complain.  It's not good.

Would you love me if I let you walk all over me?

Would you love me if I never asked for anything anymore? 

Would you love me if I did everything I could?

 

 

Would you love me if I gave my life up for you?

 

 

 

Would you love me if I changed who I was?

Would you love me if I became perfect?

Would you still love me?

If I stopped trying to make you love me?

It's been an interesting time in my life these days, that's for sure.

I had another trip to the East coast, and for some reason I seem to be being followed around by heat, as it ended up being really hot over there, but of course as soon as I leave they have cooler (rainy!) weather and on the flipside over here we get hit by a record-breaking heatwave.  Sigh...

Anyways the trip was nice!  I got to go sailing, cooked and ate a bunch of food (crepes!), picked peaches and blueberries fresh from the orchard, and planned a somewhat-random excursion to Martha's Vineyard to go pet some alpacas, which was fun and strange.

I played through Mega Man Battle Network 3 over the course of the trip (mostly on the flight there, but also while I was relaxing and trying to just stay indoors away from the heat).  Overall it was definitely fun, though for some reason less fun than I expected.  I remember having fonder memories of MMBN2, for some reason, even though MMBN3 seems to be regarded as a better game.  Maybe it's just rose-tinted lens, but I feel like I enjoyed the boss fights in MMBN2 better; the ones in MMBN3 didn't really seem to click with me and I feel like I brute-forced my way through a lot of them.  I also sort of felt like my folder honestly didn't change a ton over the course of the game after a certain point.  Maybe that's partially my fault because I constantly was equipping the SneakRun program (avoid most random encounters), but I certainly don't regret that.  I made full use of fast-forward to make running around / etc faster, and I also had no qualms using save states to do some random stuff (farming money from the 2 gambling games).  I know there's a lot more to do in MMBN3 after the "ending" in terms of post-game content but I realized that I (somewhat to my surprise) didn't actually really feel like tackling it, so I think I'm putting Battle Network to rest for the time being.  It was fun though!

My time has been a bit divided these days and I find myself bouncing back and forth between multiple things.  I think it's not uncommon for me to work that way in general though; I'm slow and steady over the long term but when you zoom in I think I'm more of an air element type or whatever in that I seem to work well when I'm juggling a few different balls at once.

The main thing of course is moving, which has been proceeding slowly and steadily as expected.  My time there is divided between packing and throwing away stuff, bringing more things from the old place to the new, trying to help organize stuff in the new, as well as doing a bit of research for things to buy that I'll need, such as a new desk (I have an old one, but it's not quite the right size for the space, and I could use a new one anyways) + potentially a diy monitor riser, as well as a small little bug catcher gadget since there seems to be a bunch of buggies around (probably doesn't help at all that it's been so hot...).

I've started making short-form ALTTPR content on my YouTube channel, which has been fun and feels useful.  The first one of those took a very long time for me to go over and setup and rehearse, but I've sort of got a framework rolling now so each new video hasn't actually taken a ton of new effort to make, which is good!  In terms of actual rando play, it's slowed down for me of course, but I'm hoping to do another ALTTPR seed soon and then want to dive into grinding SM.  I was watching a bit of a KPDR any% tutorial tonight on a whim and feel like that might not actually be the worst place to start off...

Pokemon Unite got some major content updates, including a new map, which has been a refreshing change.  There's a part of me that feels like I'll always end up missing the meta from when I started playing, back when buddy barrier was OP and zugrug was tearing things up with good old Snorlax.  The new map has a few issues but it's also been nice in other ways, and feels fresh at the very least.

I'll probably be DJing a couple more Dancebreak events in the coming weeks so feel free to come out and say hi if that is your sort of thing.

Rhythm Quest work feels like it's on the backburner for the most part as I move (and get distracted / take it easy / relax) but I threw in a little bit of work on it this week, so that's something, I guess.  Hopefully I can still maintain some sort of stride in it, but at the same time I also find myself being reminded that there's no reason for me to force it if I don't find it enjoyable.  I do enjoy it though, for the most part; I always appreciate steady progress on my goals...

I'm doing ok, I guess.  We'll see what tomorrow has in store for me, and the day after...

You wouldn't understand.  But...at this point, who would?

 

=====

I've been continuing to stop by and visit the Stanford kids at their Dancebreak events.  Having realized that I'm not so interested in improving my social dance anymore, has been a little freeing.  Even more than before, I feel that even when the voice in my head tells me that I should be dancing more, I can find peace despite it.  But of course, I was always that way.  Unwilling to compromise on my beliefs.

...I've discovered, though, that I've lost a bit of that.  My dancing has become cleaner, more precise, yet at the same time, more crude, more prescriptive.  My technique has improved, but at the cost of my self-expression.  As always, this is a reflection on myself as a person, too.  Just how much of myself have I lost?  And how much can I regain?  I'm not sure, but I have to try.  After all, there are plenty of good dancers out there.  My skill and experience is replaceable at best.  But the temperament that I look up to is not.

Anyways, I'll be DJing next week at Dancebreak, so do come out and stop by, if you'd like.

=====

I took games 1 and 2 of the finals match for my ALTTPR tournament, meaning somehow at the end of this wild ride I ended up as the champion of the entire thing.  I don't know what else to say except that I was really happy with how I played and it feels extremely validating to have my effort and practice pay off like this, even though I know that things could have very easily turned out differently.

My beliefs and practices in ALTTPR mirror some of the tenets that I hold myself to in dance, as well as simply what I believe in as a person.  It's important to me that you can succeed even as an introvert, that you don't have to "put yourself out there" if you don't want to.  That if you work hard and do the right thing, good things can still happen to you.  That the world doesn't always have to be a place where you need to fight for your next promotion.

=====

In the meantime, I've been setting up a new macbook, along with trying to deprecate google drive (tired of the desktop client sucking) and migrating back to pCloud.  I haven't really thrown a ton at the macbook yet (need to try getting it to run Rhythm Quest builds...) but things seem okay so far.  There's been the usual slew of customizations with regards to shortcut behavior, key layout, etc. but since this is one of the new arm64 chips, we also get to try out Parallels and run Windows 11 arm through that as opposed to doing the whole Bootcamp thing.  So far I'm pleasantly surprised with how much promise it's been showing, though it's taken a LOT of fiddling around to get everything to work correctly (so many different things trying to configure key layouts and shortcuts...).

Windows 11 itself on the other hand has been a mess to wrangle into shape -- I feel like the last time I had to work this much to get an OS to really behave well was for Windows Vista and even that wasn't really too bad...Windows 11 on the other hand continues with the push toward bunches of "bleh" settings everywhere but also discards a bunch of old useful functionality (forces the taskbar to be like OSX) along with a few puzzling and/or ugly design decisions (the new alt+tab menu is awful and really breaks screen focus).  I have the thing working a whole lot better now, but it's taken a fair amount of hacking around with different things.  Still, though, it seems quite promising.

=====

I've become a better person, but at what cost?

Another Goodbye

I loved her, and she loved me, too.  This time, we were able to meet each other, one last time.

I'm not really sure how to begin.  Actually, I guess that's not true.  I'm going to begin with all of the other stuff, because if I start with the heavy thing then any words after that will just devalue it.

ALTTPR

I won my semifinals match series 2-1 this week in A Link to the Past Randomizer, which means that crazily enough, I'm in the finals of the gold sword (top) bracket.  It's incredible that I've found my way here; it's taken no shortage of hard work, mental fortitude, and good luck.

I took the longest possible path through the bracket to this point -- losing game 1 in all three of my series and then coming back in games 2 and 3 each time.  I've now played a total of 15 races in this tournament so far, with either 2 or 3 more coming up this next week, and at the end of it all, win or lose, I will be thankful to be done and not have to worry about it anymore.  I'm no longer training intensely for these matches, as I've been long past the phase of really drilling new stuff and preparing (though, despite that I seem to pick up and practice one or two things each week), but still, having to physically and mentally prepare myself for each race has been really tiring.  It's been fun, though, and I've been playing pretty well, all things considered.  It's anyone's game here up at the top, so all I can do is keep playing to my ability and just see how the cards land in the end.

New Job

I started a new part-time / contract gig, which will eat into my time every week -- should be nice to be working again, but at the same time of course concerning as this will eat into my time for Rhythm Quest.  I'll have to be diligent about managing my boundaries as such.  Speaking of Rhythm Quest...

Rhythm Quest

I released my public demo of Rhythm Quest and people seem to really enjoy it!  Of course, with a new influx of attention comes a new influx of people alternately giving valid feedback as well as annoying complaints (sometimes one and the same), so I've had to try and curb how much I'm plugged into that.  It's been hard to find time to work on it a ton lately with all of the other stuff going on, but at the same time after releasing the demo I feel like it's ok for me to let go of the gas a bit...

Moving

Will probably be happening next month, if all things go well.  Like everything else in my life, I have been going about packing gradually over time; it's just how I best do things, I guess.

The Goodbye

The nights have been hard sometimes.

I've been bereaved due to a sad loss that I had to go through a couple of days ago.  It doesn't get any easier, this one was harder than the last.  Maybe it is a bit easier to say goodbye having already said goodbye once.  I knew already, that it would never be the same, after that point.  Sometimes I wonder if I should have done more to be with them, to be with her.  But I guess that was not our fate, to be together.  But this time, I was able to see her one last time, at the hospital.  She was calm, though a bit drowsy.  So peaceful, it was almost too good to be true.  I remember the last time I was in a hospital like this, a long time ago.  At that time, you could see that he was suffering, that he was in pain.  I'm sure this time, she had been in pain before, too...a lot.  She must have been suffering.  But at this time, she was able to simply be with us.  To be with me.  And she looked at me, and I looked at her.  I told her that I loved her, that I loved her so much.  I still do.  I had loved her sister, too, but I realized, as I lay on the floor with her, that I loved her even more than that.

It has been really painful for me.  Painful to grieve, and also lonely, thinking about how she was taken away from me, not just once, but twice.  And it reminds me of the existential loneliness of life.  There are so many connections that I would give up in order to have this one back again.  But I cannot.  And just like so many other things that disappeared from my life, this one has too.  Forever.

I don't know if it made any difference, that I was able to see her one last time.  I don't know if she remembered me, if she remembered the song that I sang to her, remembered the song that I played for her.  I don't know if she felt glad, if she felt at peace, if she felt in pain, if she simply felt tired.  Of course, I would like to think that she remembered.  That she looked at me, and she knew that I had come back for her.  That I still loved her, and that she still loved me.

I don't know how differently it would have felt, not being able to see her.  If things had turned out like it did with her sister.  Would I have still had these feelings, that we loved each other?  Would it have hurt just as much?  Less?  More?

All I know right now is the sadness in my heart, and the fear that no one will be able to take it away.  I never would have thought that I would feel this alone without you.  But I do.  And it hurts a lot.

My run in the ALTTPR Go Mode Podcast Mentor Tourney is still going!  I made it through round 1 of the top 16 bracket and am now fighting to stay alive in another game 3 set.

Last week was very stressful, being the first week that I was facing elimination; those extra stakes really caused me to try and put extra effort into prepping myself for the match.  Fortunately I've been able to relax a bit more this week.  I've been feeling pretty good about my play; so as long as I can finish out while keeping that going strong, I'll be happy, regardless of how far I end up making it.

In other news, we placed 29th overall for our Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam entry!  There are a few finishing touches to put on that, but nothing too big.  That is one of many small items in my work queue, in addition to releasing the Rhythm Quest Demo and getting everything updated on all of the websites and all.

Some exciting changes are across the horizon!  But as always, my eyes are on the path directly in front of me.  You can only do your best to take the next best step, nothing more.

I actually thought I'd have more than this to write, but I guess I don't for now.  That's okay, I should really just be doing some other writing anyways.

I'm doin alright, honest.  Let's see...

ALTTPR has been taking up a big chunk of my life as I practice and try and improve as best as I can -- it seems like some of my fellow mentees have been doing the same.  Nothing like some stakes on the line to encourage you to really grind and put in the work, I guess.  Honestly, after this week (when we move into best of 3 brackets), I may try to cut back on practice time since I'll be playing 2-3 matches a week instead of one.  Yes, I'll feel pressured to perform more than ever, but I want to remember as well that this isn't the most important thing in my life right now, so trying my hardest isn't really something I need to push for.

It's funny how in weeks 1 and 2 my nerves came into play a little more, but here in week 6 was when I realized I needed to think a bit about my mentality and have a chat with my mentor about how my thoughts had been going in directions I didn't like so much -- comparing myself to others, thinking about winning vs losing, that sort of thing.  I came into this tournament with little expectations, but I noticed those expectations creeping in and realized that I needed to take some moments to remind myself that I wanted to evaluate my performance and improvement against my own terms, not against whichever opponent I happen to be paired up against.  Well anyways, I've got my race in 8 hours, so wish me luck on that...

Chickies...I really want them to be safe and happy.  Even when I have to leave for the day I feel bad leaving white chicky alone, even though I know she's happy in her bin for a good portion of the day.  Just want to make sure she's safe and provided for.  I really wonder sometimes, whether they like me.  I know duckies liked me.

I felt a bit of anxiety in recent days -- maybe related to the ALTTPR pressure stuff I mentioned above?  But maybe separate from that.  I felt it in my chest a few times, even at dance -- I remember thinking to myself, oh -- I've always felt some level of discomfort with the social aspect of dancing, but could this be, "social anxiety"?  It was an interesting feeling.

I'll be doing GMTK Game Jam this Friday and Saturday -- hopefully that goes ok!  It's been a while since I've done a 48hr jam.  On the one hand, it's more stressful since you have that much less time than 72 hours for LDJAM.  On the other hand, you're done with it that much faster, so it's probably just less painful in general, which I'm sure I am going to appreciate.  I'll be able to have the day on Sunday to give myself a nice break...

There's been a lot of other stuff to take care of recently as well...everything from doctor's appointments to a smog check, and of course packing and moving...sometimes I wonder if this sort of energy is how everyone else goes through life: constantly without empty space with which to invite others into.  Not replying to everything, not keeping up with everything.  You do less and less for others, have less of a desire for them as well.  Maybe it's just a regional thing.

Don't worry -- I'm just chickyducky.  I miss ducky...

Can't believe I'll never be friends with you all anymore.

You really loved me.

I'm doing okay, I guess.  Better than last week, certainly.  Just trying to keep going, trying to remember what is worth fighting for.

Feels like I haven't really worked much on Rhythm Quest this week because...I didn't yet, actually.  Took Monday off and today I actually found myself doing other stuff -- recording a Patreon video, updating Goodnight Meowmie with added translations, did an ALTTPR ladder race, and went to the post office as well.  Doing my best to slowly work on all of these different things.  I need to start writing more, too.

Chicky ducky.

SimCity 2000 is another one of those games that I've been thinking about recently, so I decided to (after a surprising amount of struggles trying to run it) try playing it a bit.  It wasn't super bad, but wasn't all that great either.  I guess that's not super surprising; I've been spoiled by games like Caesar 3 (particularly the open-source remake) after all.  Beyond the clunkiness of trying to run the game itself (the speed settings are pretty bad...the highest one just disables throttling and basically runs as fast as possible, which of course is a problem when running on modern computers), the game isn't THAT interesting...but it still scratches that sort of basic city-builder itch of trying to lay out things in a grid and make sure everybody is happy.  Still, I don't think it's one I'll feel the need to revisit.  Caesar 3 and Master of Orion 2 on the other hand...I always keep thinking of those.  Maybe someday I'll also manage to finish an X-Com game.

We must put aside many things in order to keep the ones that are important to us.

The wheel continues to spin, slowly but steadily.  Will I be ready for everything that comes?

Forcing myself to write here since I haven't been doing good.  Expelling thoughts is a good practice for these times, though I considered retreating into my shell by hiding them a bit more.  That was until I remembered that one of the main reasons I continue to write here is because I believe in the importance of normalizing the not so happy parts of life as well as the pretty ones.

Today was a day mostly filled with errands -- including a grocery store run.  Those always seem to bring me some amount of joy; so many possibilities to work with and be excited about.  I left the stores somehow already with plans to return for additional ingredients for next time.  But I'll have to get through this first batch of stuff first.  With how much I've been enjoying food I guess it really isn't a surprise that this/these years would be the ones when I came out of being "very underweight" and got to "underweight".  I'm happy that I have found people in my life who appreciate my cooking as well, that is not something that I'd like to take for granted.

I've got another ALTTPR tourney race on Sunday which I'll need to practice a bit more for.  Will brush up on a few route timing questions I have down in my notes and then do some more seeds as well, probably including an expert mode seed to make sure I'm in the habit of being mindful of my health and tight with my execution.  I've lost my last 3 ladder races, which doesn't really feel great, but with each one I'm hopefully gaining more experience to try and avoid repeating the same mistakes when it comes to decision-making as well as execution.

Sometimes the pain comes unexpectedly, as it did today.  I did a good job, was in a safe space, and knew the path forward.  Yet, in that moment life felt so painful, in all respects.  The heat of the room coming at me from all sides through my shirt, the emotional barriers closing in on me as I realized that I was disassociating from myself as a poor man's anesthesia.  I'm reminded of how acutely Tobias's stories resonated with me as I reread his chapters in the Animorphs books -- Tobias, who physically disassociated from his emotions by returning to his hawk form.  Tobias, who would later morph into a human during a moment of breaking down, because "hawks don't cry".

The release date on Rhythm Quest gets pushed back one more time, this time to "Early 2023", purely as a practical measure to throw myself a bone in anticipation of the stuff that I'll have to deal with.  No sense in giving myself one more thing to worry about.

For now I'm just left with the spiral of inadequacy, of feeling "not good enough".  I know that my emotions are not unfounded, because on one hand, I really was not good enough, and never will be.  And on the other hand, I may very well not be good enough.  It's easy to try and wave away those fears as irrational, but it doesn't work because they are in fact very rational fears to have.  I worry that I have become irredeemable through my mistakes, because that may be the truth.  I may still be saved, might still care to accept myself, but that seems nothing but a pyrrhic victory in the end.

I already accepted once that my past will never return to me.  Please, don't make me do it again.  I can't take it anymore.

Everything can change, or be lost, that is why we see attachment leading to suffering.  Up followed by down, down followed by up.

I stopped by Dancebreak, to see how the social dance kids are doing, and met a new person or two.  It was nice; it made me think about a few things.  One is how social dance offers a rare and unique exception to the rule: that change itself is a form of consistency.  It is strange that continuing to meet different people would bring a sense of constancy when normally it would feel the opposite.  But I have seen enough people come and go to know that those who stick around are either devoted solely to the pursuit of dance itself, or manage to continue meeting new people.  Because people always come and go...you can never rely on the same group year after year.

Once upon a time my interest in dance was enough to sustain me through the years.  I can't deny how helpful that was during all those times when the social aspect of it was either tiring or just felt terrible.  There are of course many types of moments over the years that where I have learned to appreciate the company of other people in different ways, but in the past there were just as many (if not more) ways in which I felt uncomfortable with it, or at the very least drained by it.  Now things are a little different as I feel almost zero inclination to improve in my social dance (has been replaced entirely by a wish to improve more in my solo dance).  It is freeing, in a way, to do something with no desire to become better...it makes those self-criticisms carry so much less weight.

Perhaps you reap what you sow -- karma.  The next chapters of my life are starting to be outlined, and I have...some feelings about it that I won't care to elaborate on.  I know the path forward and I know who laid the various bricks, as well as the confluence of factors leading each one to be placed in its particular formation.  I feel like I have the experience to see these things, to understand what really happened, and even to understand what did not happen.  Exposing yourself is hard; that is why it is always safest to not ask a question.  Why would you ask something when you are afraid of what the answer might be?  Sometimes it's too hard, so we just don't ask in the first place.  This, I saw, too, and stumbled upon the path forward.

But it made me a bit sad.  Knowing why things are the way things are does not make me wonder any less "why" it can't be another way.  Why we must ask for everything that we need.  I know the answer, but I cannot deny the sadness in it.  That we might never be cared for simply for existing, for being our selves, and our past selves, and our future selves.  That our minds will never be read, that they will never be attempted to be read, and even when they are, that we will wish they hadn't.  Instead we must verbalize everything.

That, is one of the reasons why Sayuri has remained as an icon for me.  It was an envisioning of a solution for me -- the solution to the problem of expession.  Sayuri was tranquil, calm, and at peace.  If Sayuri was quiet, then surely there must be a way.  Along the way, Sayuri had, perhaps, one or two small caregivers.  But I don't she ever depended upon others to provide what she never said.  Perhaps Sayuri's presence is a lone one as well, yet she is also happy.  Is it a contradiction?  Or has Sayuri followed the precepts, and reached a place where she can survive on her lonesome whilst being truly content?  Surely, Sayuri carries deep attachments within herself, as I do too.  Has experienced pain and suffering, yet carries on quietly with a lightness that belies her troubled past.  Why?  What is the source of her strength?  Perhaps it is simply that tranquility is its own boon -- that the act of carrying oneself with calmness is inherently meditative.  And that practice can ground us.

Who is left, in this desolate inner temple?  Who will be the deity to return to me?  Perhaps I have not been as steadfast with my worship, but I have continued to pray, to hope, and to wait, haven't I?  Will I someday find salvation?  Or will I someday turn away from the statues forever, and walk away in the endless night?  Perhaps I will someday stop moving, and become a statue myself.  Frozen in place, finally free of time, that ceaseless harbinger of death and decay.

Life has been okay, but today was a little rough.  One of the ghosts from my past visited me in a dream and it reminded me of how some things never do come true.  We only grow more distant from them and wonder what else there is in life to keep us going.  Sometimes we find those things, other times we don't.  Either way, I lay in bed for a few minutes before doing anything else.

I've been continuing to spend a good chunk of time doing ALTTPR runs, while at the same time trying my best to maintain progress on Rhythm Quest,which is still going along relatively well; as well as I could ask for I guess.  All I can ever ask for is consistent forward progress for anything in my life, after all.

I'm 2-1 in the mentor tourney and now that I've taken that initial loss, my mental state may be a little bit different.  I've been doing a lot of races on the ladder (3-3) which I think has also been a good way to get into the mindset of racing and having something on the line.  If nothing else, I'm glad that I've been able to put myself out there and put myself in a situation where I'm just as likely to win as I am to lose.  The difficulty of doing that in the first place should not be underestimated.  Of course, my gameplay and decision-making has improved quite a lot as well.  It's always nice to practice something and put in the hours; really think about it and then have that effort pay off in proficiency.  It's just what I like to do, with everything.

Guess it's a shorter update today.  Maybe I'll return here sooner rather than later, though.

ALTTPR GMP Tourney, Outer Wilds, etc

It feels as if I'm beginning to slip up on things that I do regularly.  Writing letters, blogging, and reaching out to friends as well.  I don't think any of it is through lack of discipline, though.  I think it's rather more that after so long, I, too, have begun to question the point of it all.  But in the end I am still me, and so it is easy to return to where I came from before too long.  That, at least, has not changed.

I've been sinking quite a bit of time into practicing for the ALTTPR tourney that is taking place over the next couple of months.  Having matches where something is at stake has provided me with a large impetus to significantly step up my game, and having mentors to discuss my play with has provided me with external knowledge and experience which to take into consideration as I try to improve.  While I'm happy that I'm improving at a faster rate than before, I'm reminded also of the fact that part of my motivation for entering this tournament was to practice taking losses and failures -- not just in ALTTPR, but in general.

I played through all of Outer Wilds, relatively quickly, actually.  I was quite worried when I first played the game that I would not really be able to progress through it due to motion sickness, but after some much-needed twiddling of the field of view as well as some help from a small dangling Cinnamoroll in front of my screen, I was able to play quite comfortably.  The game was quite enjoyable; maybe a bit tedious at certain points but I wouldn't really consider that to be a large failing of the experience at all.  This is the first time that I've played through a game that has you =exploring= in quite this way.  There are a couple of other games that I've played in the past that do a really good job of "exploration"...the example I always bring up is Yume Nikki, but I think Rain World does a good job of crafting an exploratory experience as well.  I'm suddenly reminded of Metroid Prime, actually, which...I can't say I appreciated the exploratory aspects nearly as much, but I think the feeling of exploration is one that Metroid Prime at least attempts to evoke in a big way.  Outer Wilds does stand apart from these other games though, and somehow manages to deliver an open world experience while still delivering a cohesive narrative, along with a distinct form of progression that is rarely seen in other games.

Thinking back on the game after finishing it, I think the most lasting impression I had about it was the rich manner in which it portrays exploration, the unknown, and various recurring themes.  It touches on these subjects in a way that is not heavy-handed nor prescriptive, but instead illustrative -- to me it created a tapestry from which you can derive meaning from if you wish, without feeling like you are some sort of snobby art critic searching for meaning where there is none.  When I watch something like Ping Pong: The Animation, I can tell that it's filled with metaphors and symbolism that are layered in a way that cannot be readily deciphered upon first watch, or even second watch.  What does "blood tastes like iron" really mean?  Why does Peco have a star on his shirt while Smile has a moon on his, whereas Koizumi has a butterfly?  When I played Outer Wilds, there were certainly many mysteries and questions I sought answers for, but those were all concrete in nature -- I never stopped to consider what themes and messages were potentially being portrayed in this game's world.  But after I stopped to consider the experience as a whole, I was really able to see meaning in why these environments and puzzles and mysteries are set up this way, beyond "it makes for a cool game".  This sort of (open to interpretation) symbolic meaning behind the game I think is what will make Outer Wilds memorable in my mind, in the same way that Rain World's story about suffering, attachment, and Buddishm is what sometimes keeps me awake at night.  That is not to say that Rain World wasn't a brilliant game for all of its environments, dangers, and incredibly fascinating ecosystems, and that is not to say that Outer Wilds was not a great game for solving mysteries, exploring planets, and figuring out puzzles, but those alone are not what make these games have a lasting impression.

I've had a busy and relatively stressful last week, but it seems like I made it through that just fine.  Rhythm Quest continues to progress like slow clockwork as I make incremental additions and improvements.

I took an opportunity tonight to go out and do a session outside with my sticks, no filming -- just me and my music.  I think I was motivated after watching some of my old videos and remembering back to how I used to do really, really long sessions out on campus or elsewhere, recording footage as I danced aimlessly -- honestly, without much structure or discipline at all.  But I'm surprised at how I managed to still develop relatively well, even lacking any sort of solid fundamentals.  Over time, you practice, and you improve...you just keep on working at it.  Or at least, I do.

I continue to expand my cooking and food repertoire, just bit by little bit.  I did some sous vide pork shoulder which came out quite nicely; usually I only use pork shoulder for carnitas-style pulled pork, but this time I went with a lower temp and sliced it more like a steak, which worked well!  I also did some slow-roasted lamb shank, which was actually quite easy despite taking a long time.  My go-to grocery story carries them all the time, so that will definitely be a repeat.  Discovering the joy of having cheeses on hand to snack on has been great, as a nice small single-serving cheeseboard with some cheese, crackers, fruit, and cured meat really fills a nice role when it's late at night and you want a nice snack before bed without having to actually cook anything.  I also have found myself a little less allergic to fruits than before (?) these days so I might be trying to eat more of them here and there.

Alright, well.

Fanime 2022

The last Fanime report was here.  It's been 3 years since then (thanks covid) so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Funnily enough badge pickup was extremely quick, but that's because...the main bottleneck was vaccination validation before that, which sprawled into a progressively longer and longer line throughout each day.  It wasn't =too= bad, fortunately.

Overall, things went great for me and I had fun.  It was more crowded than I had expected and I felt a bit uncomfortable at times especially with large numbers of people unmasked outside and other all-too-familiar such things happening, but I guess =that= is the new normal we're facing, truly (not looking forward to my next flight...).

I didn't expect to buy a single thing at the con but surprisingly walked out with some nice stationery sets and even some new Cinnamoroll license plate covers.  I did play some nice TGM3 sessions (alongside some fellow TGM players) but skipped out on anything else that I might have been interested in (3rd strike, melee, etc).  I honestly didn't feel a particular need to do much besides just spend time with my friends and have good company, which went very well.  Maybe if I was dead set on staying at con for more hours, I would have sat down and played more games, brought my laptop, wandered around more, etc, but quite the opposite was true and I was happy to cut back on hours there.

There's not much else to write about it, really.  Some things were definitely different (IPOH and a bunch of other restaurants are closed entirely), but things went well.

Go Mode Podcast: Mentor Tournament

I decided to dive in and enter this year's Mentor Tournament for ALTTPR!  I've never raced before so I figured this would be a good excuse to get my feet wet as well as improve my skills and decision-making with the help of some more experienced runners.  I've been spending a good deal of time trying to brush up on my execution as well as working with my week 1 mentor and it's been relatively rewarding so far; I feel like I'm in much better shape than I've ever been in terms of my play.  All that's left is to put it all on the table when my first race rolls around (in a few days!).

The only downside here is that the training has been eating up into my time for other stuff (Rhythm Quest development).  Hopefully that doesn't continue to be an issue; though I imagine I'll try to put a little bit less time into future weeks so it may be fine.

 

I guess I managed to keep this one rather short and sweet despite how much stuff happened.  Overall things are going well, though really it's more just busy than anything else having just come off of Fanime straight into Mentor Tourney practice.  Being this occupied with things makes me understand how people can go about their days while so rarely reaching out to others outside of immediate reach and...let's just say I have some feelings about that.  If the solution to the loneliness I used to feel throughout life is simply to "be occupied" then I don't know what to say.  When past me asks how to fix things for them I really think I still don't have an answer to that.  I probably shouldn't think about it too much because it's probably too depressing.

100 Games I've Played, off the top of my head

Saw https://twitter.com/invelica/status/1532143448354336768 and decided to give it a whirl as an interesting exercise.

- Straight off the top of my head, no referencing any lists or anything like that
- I grouped together games of the same series that were similar enough
- I didn't count games that I feel like I left unfinished or didn't play enough (this ended up excluding many, many JRPGs, and honestly a lot of older games...)

I ended up grouping my list into three buckets based on obscurity:

The more well-known:

Celeste
Pokemon Unite
Descent: Freespace / Freespace 2
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors / Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Rhythm Doctor
Journey
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Kirby's Adventure / Kirby Super Star / Kirby's Dream Land / etc.
Kirby's Canvas Curse
Kirby Tilt and Tumble
Earthbound
Super Punch-Out
Final Fantasy Tactics
Mega Man 1 - 11
Mega Man X / X2
Ragnarok Online
Puyo Puyo Tetris
Tetris 99
Monument Valley / Monument Valley 2
SSX / SSX Tricky / SSX 3
The Last of Us / The Last of Us Part 2
Little Nightmares / Little Nightmares II
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past / etc.
Soul Blazer / Illusion of Gaia
Stardew Valley
Don't Starve Together
Super Mario Kart
Dance Dance Revolution / Stepmania
Beatmania IIDX
Pop'n Music
Guitar Hero / 2 / 3 / Rock Band
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Gradius 3
Street Fighter: 3rd Strike
Trauma Center Under the Knife / UtK2 / Second Opinion / New Blood / Trauma Team
Neko Atsume
Tsum Tsum
Unreal Tournament
Omori
Yume Nikki
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Narcissu / Side 2nd
Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon
Harvest Moon
Strider
Hollow Knight
Super Metroid
Metroid Prime
Limbo / Inside
Risk of Rain / Risk of Rain 2
Crypt of the Necrodancer / Cadence of Hyrule
Sonic 2
Pokemon - Trading Card Game (GBC)
Picross
Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 3
System Shock 2
Tower of Heaven
Diablo 2 / Lord of Destruction / Median XL

 

The more niche:

Brave Fencer Musashi
Lone Survivor
Abzu
Actraiser
The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
Wandersong
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
SimEarth
Serious Sam / The Second Encounter
Ib
I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game
Tetris: The Grand Master 2: The Absolute PLUS / TGM3
Caesar 3 / Pharaoh / Cleopatra / Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
Metal Slug 2 / X
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Blaster Master
Element Tower Defense / Element Tower Defense 2
Robotron: 2084
Saya no Uta
Tsukihime / Fate: Stay Night
Kanon
Uniracers
Toejam & Earl
U.N. Squadron
Unavowed
Mad Father
Phoenix (TI calc)
A Year of Springs Trilogy

The really obscure:

Fortune-499
Solomon's Keep / Solomon's Boneyard
A Mortician's Tale
Astrologaster
Tyrian
Hero Hours Contract
Nightshade
Where is cat?
Ultimate Universe
Kannons and Katapults
Legend of the Red Dragon
Nair
Pico Park

Things I'm pretty surprised to see on here include Solomon's Keep/Boneyard, Saya no Uta, and Magical Quest starring Micky Mouse.

Things that I'm surprised to not see on here are mainly Hades, Rain World, Undertale / Deltarune, and maybe Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which somehow didn't come up despite being adjacent to Super Metroid.

The most obscure thing on here has got to be the BBS games: Ultimate Universe, Kannons and Katapults.  That, or "Where is cat?".

It's been a little rough lately, but that's something I'm attempting to work on together with my therapist.  We'll see if perhaps I'm on the come-up, or not.

Rhythm Quest

I managed to hit 500 wishlists, which of course is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but still worth being happy over considering the relatively low amount of marketing power I have.

I've been able to continue chugging along with progress on levels despite not being in the greatest place in life, which has been comforting.  Yesterday I managed to put together the first level of world 4 and honestly, it's been surprising to me just how well I've been able to just sit down and try to make something, and have it actually work out well -- whether that be new music, mechanic experimentation, or backdrop artwork.

There are multiple theories as to why this could be the case, but regardless of the reason it's certainly been confidence-inspiring for me.  It could be because I've just already got such a good foundation to work off of...I've got rules in place for how to utilize color palettes throughout my levels, for example.  But even when I tried out a different style of music for world 4, it seemed to just go well without a hitch.

I honestly think a big part of it is just that I'm...simply more skilled at my craft.  More experience has made it easier for me to tackle new challenges.  You can imagine drawing an analogue to cooking -- if you're inexperienced, you might have a few specific recipes comfortably under your belt, but you might struggle more with something that you aren't familiar with.  But after so much accumulated expertise, it's much easier to just throw together something that's still good even if you're unfamiliar with a specific dish/combination, or if you're missing some ingredients.

I think I've been feeling the same thing with my other crafts -- probably to nobody's surprise since I've been at it for so long.  Experimenting during OHC every single week really helps with that, of course -- every week you do something different, and after a while I've started to sometimes really use that opportunity to push out into new and different directions.  This song, for example, is one in which I'm very very heavily leveraging Valhalla Supermassive (a unique and fun reverb plugin) to make otherwise simple sounds really wash over the soundscape and echo everywhere.

Similarly, I feel more confident when I'm trying to come up with new backdrops for Rhythm Quest levels.  Before I sit down it definitely still feels like it's going to be a crapshoot because I don't really have a solid idea of what I'm going to do, but somehow I've just been able to come up with various decent things and not have it be a disaster.

There's more stuff I should probably be polishing up to ensure that the playable demo is nice and presentable, but for now I'm taking this current momentum and just running along with making more levels while I can.

Pokemon Unite

They fixed the exp bug, and it actually does seem like games are a little less snowball-y now, so that's good.  Even if you in particular weren't hit by it, you could just have teammates who were just stuck as a charmander (it's always the charmander...) or wartortle or something because they got ganked early.  Perhaps now you still need to weight teamfighting and showing up for objectives a little more highly as opposed to prioritizing safe farm over everything else, but maybe it's a good middle ground now?

Stuff Coming Up

There actually seems to be quite a bit, actually.  A small gathering, and hair dying, and another meetup after that as well.  And then Fanime is already going to be in a little over a week.  Another friend is visiting from out of town, and then in July I'm going to see if I can finally do the GMTK game jam.  At some point later I have to start packing my stuff up as well.  Got a commissioned piece to do at some point in the next month, but it's just one.

Not really bad...it's not like everything is all happening at once, and not a lot of stress involved probably.  Honestly, it'll probably be a good pace for me overall.

I'll be trying to enter the ALTTPR Go Mode Podcast Mentor tournament as well, which should be fun / healthy for me as well.  At the moment it's just signup and you have to run two async aptitude seeds for them to judge/check your skill level.  I did one so far, which didn't go perfectly but honestly I can't ask for much better.  Will be doing the other one in the coming week or so and then we'll see just how things actually go...

That's about it for now I think...

But what if it =is= my fault?  That we can't go back to the way things were.

I made so many mistakes along the way.  Can they never be undone?

I wrote almost exactly a year ago that "I don't want this to become some massive thing that ends up sucking a year or more of my time from me (and it shouldn't, if I'm doing things right)."  I guess even I am not invulnerable to this sort of thing...

Things are okay.  There's been some good, and some bad, as of course is commonplace.  I didn't get enough sleep, for no good reason...I'll be trying to catch up a little bit.

Rhythm Quest

First things first, Rhythm Quest is now up on Steam for wishlisting!  I've been spamming the link for everyone to hopefully go check it out and wishlist it, and I'm up to a...decent (?) 100+ wishlists after day one.  I'm sure there's a lot more that I need to do in order to get that number up (gotta get those metrics up for store visibility...), but as with everything I do, that's something that I'll try and approach gradually, as it makes sense.

Here's the link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1635640/Rhythm_Quest/

Movies

I've watched a lot of stuff recently -- somewhat uncommon for me -- but it's been nice.  Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All at Once were highlights, but first season of Avatar was not bad either (a mix of "decent", "good", and "eh..." at various parts).  I watched Encanto as well; that one was more just "oh, it's a Disney movie", so more unremarkable in its actual storytelling.  I finished reading Crying in H Mart too...lots of stories about intergenerational relationships.

Pokemon Unite

A new season of Unite released, along with probably the biggest balance patch that they've had so far, nerfing two of the most-used held items, including a massive nerf to buddy barrier, meaning everyone is more squishy in teamfights.  By far the biggest change has been to the way that experience is gained, which has been......interesting.  I can't say I agree with the change, though part of the experience is definitely tarnished by the fact that there's a passive exp bug with evolution-based pokemon now, which somewhat conflates the issue.  But the long and short of it is that games seem much more snowball-heavy now since neutral farm seems to be less rewarding and KOs seem to be much more rewarding.  In theory you might imagine that this rewards more skill in terms of getting a lead and keeping a lead as opposed to having too much comeback potential, but the reality of it is that it just makes the game seem very volatile (especially in an environment where you can't control what happens with the rest of your team) and offers less play to combat an early deficit (or at least that's what it feels like).  This could be partly just due to people not understanding how to adapt to the new balance of things, but...I'm also not confident that the average person's play patterns will change much.  It's a bit of a sour taste that reminds me of the worse aspects of other MOBAs that I've played, so...we'll see.

Chickies

The two chickies are doing just fine still -- dumbchicky has gone through her (apparently regular) cycle of brooding and then molting and is now finally back to laying again (sigh).  They've been getting a lot of outside time these days when I'm around; I think they just prefer it that way anyways and I feel relatively safe keeping them in the run during the day while I'm around.  I'd better look into getting them a real coop and run combo next year, I think they'll probably be more happy if they can go and forage and nest as they please...