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.