There are so many thoughts swimming around in my head.  I don't even know where to begin.

"What would Sayuri do?"  It's a question I find myself asking often when I am lost.  She is an idol of sorts to me, after all.  But it doesn't meant that she always does the "right" thing.  No one is perfect, because actions are contextual; what is "right" is subjective.  It's different for every person, for every situation.  Is the difference simply that Sayuri has the authorial benefit of the doubt?  That because she is an ideal protagonist, her actions are painted in a positive light?

I don't think so.  I think Sayuri knows what her "shortcomings" are.  But perhaps the difference is that she accepts them.  Well, she does now, at least.  Maybe not in the past, when she was more full of doubt.

I found myself asking again and again today.  What is the "right" thing to do?  Or is it nothing?  And then I asked myself what Sayuri would do if she were in my shoes.  My first instinct told me that she would do nothing.  But that's not always true.  There are times, when Sayuri would do something, too.

Of course, Sayuri is more perfect than I, at doing the right thing.  But maybe, one of the other differences, is that I simply believe that she is worthy of love.  But I don't always afford myself the same belief.  Why?  Is it simply because of the bias that I have toward Sayuri as a kindred spirit?  Or is it because I was told, by multiple important people in my life, in some way, that I was not deserving of their love?

I think I talk too much sometimes.  Even if other people think that I am too quiet.

I think part of the reason why I lost a lot of faith in myself earlier was that I was afraid I was too unwilling to budge on my own comfort for the sake of others.  I've known already, for a while now, that my cardinal sin is Pride.  It showed up so many times, even over the course of one day.  Maybe they were right, maybe I am just too "careful".

But as I thought about it more and more over the months, I realized that you shouldn't have to sacrifice your own ideals and comfort for others, right?  Of course, vulnerability is an important part of any relationship between two people.  I think some would argue that change is an important part of it too.  Well, you know how I feel about that second one already.  Is there not value in respecting vulnerability, in allowing people to stay safe?  To stay unchanging?

Isn't it ironic?  That people say to "find people who love you for who you are".  But they also say "you need to work on yourself first".  Aren't those two ideas at odds with one another?  I know, that in the past, I lacked the empathy to consider the consequences of my actions.  I was too steadfast in what I believed to be good.  And it was only later on that I realized what I had been like.  What is to say that I am not making the same mistake again?  There are those back thenn that said "I admire the way you are", but did they really appreciate it, or were they simply trying to get me to look on the bright side by saying something nice?"

Sometimes, you need to find your own way.  What is "good", but also true to yourself.  It's not always easy, and it's usually not what everyone tells you to do.  But when you find =your= truth, you'll know it, beyond a doubt.  At that time, the best you can do is apologize to anyone who is put off by your truth.  But you shouldn't feel apologetic, even as you apologize.  It is not your responsibility, not your duty, to live in the "right" way.  It is more important to live in =your= way.  The way that only you are capable of, and nobody else.

Blogging is great, really.  I always knew that.  It's no wonder why I used to do it daily back in high school.  Such tumultuous times...when I was forced into half of the things that I did, and the other half that I wanted came with so many strings attached to pointed needles.  Yes, I denied my sadness, denied my stresses.  I had to; admitting that they were real would mean unlocking the closet and letting them all burst out.  And besides, I had lost the key to that door, anyways.

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I set out today to do at least one of two things: work on Rhythm Quest or record a bite-sized rando video for ALTTPR.  I set myself to work on Rhythm Quest, so I guess by that metric it was a success.  I definitely felt myself needing to hurl myself over the hump of activation energy required to take a stab at working, but fortunately, all of the little bits and pieces are okay to work on.  Proceduralizing the task, as it were, is so important.  Trying to make X do Y is such a concrete and defined goal, it's hard not to just keep on going at it.  But it's important, too, to have the strength to get over that initial hump.

I wrote two Christmas letters, even did some research for my rando video, and spent another chunk of time sorting out a few of the drawers in the kitchen, so really I ought to be patting myself on the back.  Am I?  Honestly, maybe just writing out my feelings like this is more of a reward than that would be anyways.

I got a new (small!) foundation cushion to try; I like it so far!  I appreciate it being available in a smaller size, not just because it's cute and cheaper, but mostly because it's a product I've never used before; you'd hate to buy something and then discover that you got the wrong shade (spent a good deal of time trying to figure out which one to get...), or worse, that your skin doesn't really react well to it.  But...that's besides the point.  It's just one step along the way, but already, it helps me feel and look better.  It's a nice feeling.

Tomorrow is the start of a new week.  I have some small things to look forward to, and that's all that matters.  Find those small things.  Look forward to them.

There was never really a goodbye.  Not for you, or all those other people.  But maybe, now, I'm a little bit more okay with that.

I've gotten to another point in my life where I seem to not really be too excited about anything.  It's...different, I think, than being depressed.  Subtly.  Or maybe it's just milder than usual.  With depression I feel like there would be things that I know I would normally look forward to or enjoy, but then I just don't really feel like doing them.  But here, I think it's actually because those things that I looked forward to before, are a little less interesting at the moment.  It's not just a me thing.

I mean, don't get me wrong, playing ALTTPR is still always fun, and getting a little more acquainted with Keysanity mode is an interesting little challenge for me.  I just started practicing again to attempt another go at sub-50 for Super Metroid, which I know is within my grasp if I can put everything together.  And I can't seem to stop myself from continuing to go at the kitchen organization.  I see things that aren't in their place, and I just...want to fix it.  That's just how I am...

But there's nothing that's really drawing, pulling me in, you know?  Maybe that means it's time to find a new game.  Maybe that means it's time to find an old game??  I booted up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 game for NES for a little bit today, to try and remember what it was like.  While the gameplay is not super interesting as far as beat-em-ups go (maybe I should have tried playing Rollergames instead??), the music is still as jammin as ever.

Maybe it's just time for some more Caesar 3, or trying a go at Master of Orion 2 again, or...god help me, X-COM: Ufo Defense haha.  Okay, maybe not that last one, but maybe something else, like Serious Sam?  I donno...

The problem is that I haven't yet managed to silence the voice in the back of my head (and in my Discord) telling me that there is still work left undone.  That I should be progressing more on my game, and that I haven't spent any time making the Bite-Sized Rando videos that I still want to get to.

I've been succeeding on many other fronts, so it's hard to get upset, objectively.  Those Christmas letters are rolling along, I've been getting a really decent amount of exercise in, my chickens seem to be doing well, and all of that.  Maybe the fact that my Baldur's Gate 2 playthrough lost steam, as well as my Gran Turismo 3 ventures, is not a bad thing; maybe I need to be putting my nose to the proverbial grindstone for juuust a little bit longer.

I'm not entirely sure, to be honest.  But usually when that voice nags me in the back of my head, I'm inclined to do my best to heed it.

I keep doing my best to push onward.  I wouldn't say it's exactly easy, but I keep on going nevertheless.

Will I be able to be beautiful?  Sometimes, I really feel like I have been.  Sometimes.

Anyways, I ordered some more skincare/beauty products.  Just aiming to add simple things at a time for now, slowly going and seeing what is needed in my routine.  Unfortunately, my skin seems to have broken out a little bit over the past 24 hours or so.  I can't tell yet whether it's because of the bb cream that I used or the face mask; the weird thing is that I've used both of them before, particularly the bb cream.  I'll have to pay a little more attention the next time I use either of those two products, I guess.  Sigh.  I guess it is never really too late to really learn about your body and about these sorts of things.

Trying out a new set of keycaps -- the ones that are going to go in my Cycle7 which hopefully will come in some number of months.  I'm excited about these!  They took some adjusting but they are really quite pretty and pleasant to work with.  They were definitely more clacky than I was used to, coming from the pom jelly caps that I have o-rings installed on.  But it's not unpleasant at all.  It's useful getting to try these since I think it made me feel like they should be used with linear switches.  I mean, I'm sure some tactiles would be OK too, but I think something delicate and soft seems to fit the aesthetic here.  I ordered a set already, but really cheap ones on a budget (otherwise I would have spent some more time deliberating, maybe even ordered a test swatch/kit).

I guess I am trying to just make progress on something, day by day.  Today it was taking care of my monthly pixel art.  Yesterday it was writing up a devlog post for Rhythm Quest.  I gave the oven racks a scrub, ran the self-clean cycle, and wrote another Christmas letter.  Like I said, it hasn't exactly been the easiest.  I wish it felt more exciting and automatic sometimes...I know it has felt that way at various points of time.  But you know, it's not always going to be like that.  Sometimes you just have to just keep walking forward.

I just finished writing letter #1500.  It took me 16.3 years to get to this point...here's to another 500 more letters in the coming handful of years...

There's been various things!  The stuff that I've been spending my time on is a little different now.  Not sure if that's just a temporary thing, but so be it either way...

The kitchen organization project is something that I'm continuing to tackle, at a slow and steady pace; trying to measure out things and figure out which containers are worth getting and which aren't.  It's great doing things incrementally in this way -- reminds me of how I moved into this house in the first place, which I felt very happy with.  Not that there isn't a certain satisfaction with spending a whole day getting a big project out of the way, but in general I think this style of working is something I'm more keen on.

There's been a lot of just plain "thinking" on my end about what to put where and what adjustments (small though they may be) to make.  It's actually been something I've been spending quite a lot of time on.  It feels good to be getting to it, though, it's something I've been wanting to start tackling for a while.  I've been referencing a lot of random images and "perfect pantries" online for inspirations, but I'm resisting the urge to just try and put every single thing in its own little container.  Maybe if I lived by myself, and knew exactly what supplies I would always stock on hand, but with four people in the household that's just an unattainable pipedream, I think.  But I think there are certain things that tend to become a lot more space-efficient or less unwieldy when put into containers or jars, and for everything that's not, it's still worth having some sort of system to optimize the space usage and try to enforce some order, otherwise everything just sort of spills everywhere.  Even if there is just a bin or two of "miscellaneous", it's still tucked away in a bin.

Like I said, the progress has been slow, but I'm optimistic at the few changes that I've started (not finished...) to make.  Just take it one step at a time, really -- there's a lot of different areas that I have ideas for, but they will come in time.  Most recently I just started thinking about how to tackle the fridge organization, which to be honest isn't terrible as is, but isn't super great either.  Our fridge space feels generally quite constrained, so I think it will be less a matter of dreaming up a system that works, and more a matter of trying to make small adjustments that still work within the limitations.

Over the past week I did quite a dive into Rhythm Quest -- specifically working on signal processing to do automatic beat detection.  This was kind of a silly undertaking as it really wasn't a priority for me to implement, but it was a fun little side detour for me to explore and really try to dive deep on.  Unfortunately I don't actually have much in the way of showing it off right now, but I'll have to integrate it properly and make some sort of (hopefully not too lengthy) write-up on that.

I've got a few other things that I've been putting off, unfortunately...letter-writing has fallen sort of by the wayside again, and I've got my monthly pixel art to do, and I've been meaning to get to some bite-sized educational content for ALTTPR.  All in due time, I guess; I've been quite busy just taking on housewife duties -- not only with the organization, but also ordering groceries, along with cooking two meals every day for the household.

Somehow my gaming time switched over from ALTTPR and SM (and some Baldur's Gate 3) over to playing...Gran Turismo 3??  After playing a racing game at an arcade I got inspired to fire it up again -- I had sunk some time into it back around the late 2000s, I think (that was around the same time that I was trying to practice a bunch of BtT and HRC strats in SSB Melee?).  It's been kind of fun learning how to drive in GT3 again (certainly a world apart from mario kart, be it SMK or otherwise), as well as get used to the cars.  I'm playing with save states to reduce the frustration of having to retry races after particularly egregious errors or spinouts, but that hasn't actually really diminished my enjoyment.  It's nice being able to fast-forward through some of the load times, and even some of the straightaways, too.

This time I'm playing with a bit of an adjustment in the fact that I'm disabling some of the automatic "assists" that the game turns on by default -- specifically, the Automatic Stability Management (ASM) and Traction Control System (TCS).  I'm playing with ASM disabled and minimal TCS, which does actually change the way that cornering behaves quite a bit.  With ASM if you throw yourself into a turn at high enough speeds you just sort of....stop turning and start skidding/losing speed.  For =some= cars (my favorite, the Toyota MR-S S Edition) this actually worked relatively OK, but a lot of the time I think it either makes it just difficult to turn enough, or alternatively makes it harder to really "figure out" the oversteer of the car.  Playing without these aids means if I go into a turn too hard then my rear just starts to fishtail and I start spinning out of control entirely, but I feel like that has been better than having the "unpredictability" of the ASM system kicking in mid-turn and sort of disrupting things.

Anyways, I've been having fun trying to earn credits, buy new cars, and compete in the various race series.  Cash is always at a premium though; I'm still waiting to get to the point where I can =actually= get a car that's tuned up well enough.  I've been just gunning on raw horsepower most of the time (and some tire grip / handling where I can), but I haven't had the money to throw around to unlock things like being able to customize the suspension and get lower to the ground and adjust all of the other crazy little things like the angle of the tires or whatever.  Maybe at some point I'll just throw all of the upgrades onto the dinky little MR-S and see how fun it is to drive.  I didn't actually use it much this playthrough, sadly (I opted to try the bigger brother, the MR2 GT-S), and its engine is rather lacking, so it probably isn't going to be able to win anything else for me that I haven't already done, but...I have a soft spot for the car since it was the first thing I drove way back when that felt like it handled nicely.  That experience really gave me a favorable impression of mid-engine cars!

Things are still alright.  I have a weird lack of excitement and motivation, maybe I need a dopamine break or something...but other than that, things are still good.

I started doing some kitchen reorganization, which feels great as I've been thinking of tackling that for some time.  Doesn't hurt that I get to buy some new organization supplies and such.  Snapped off some keycaps that I had been eying for a while while I was at it...

Recovery for my knee pain is going just fine, it seems like, I'm feeling pretty confident and optimistic about it at this rate, so that's real nice.  I played on a DDR machine for the first time in quite a long time the other day, it actually felt nice!  For most of my earlier DDR career I was just on soft pads and never got the hang of playing on a metal pad or machine, but now since I'm playing on my two metal pads mostly, it felt like a natural progression.  They feel a little bit different - the raised platforms make it a little interesting to feel out exactly where to aim for, but the tactile feedback is really there in a way that it isn't for my pads at home.  It's interesting.

Went to Golfland for the first time in ages, though this time it was at a different location than my usual place.  I didn't do terribly...got 3 under par for the second side, but I went back and dug up my old scorecards and my performance is definitely a bit shabby compared to those.  In my defense, the alternate course setup had some tricky hurdles that it threw at you -- deceptively sloped floors in various places.  Overall I think my hometown Golfland is better, but I did appreciate a few things about this one.

I haven't been to tea in a while, hopefully I can make it out tomorrow.  Perhaps I can try to get some nice productive hours in while I am there, too.  Maybe?  I have been losing some hours recently due to the sort of funk that I've been in.

Chicky seems to be doing ok!  She's got another checkup later this week, but I don't expect any bad news to come of it.  Good chicky.

I reworked my skincare routine, to pretty great effect...I had been thinking about trying to figure out some better skincare practices for myself and I think I've made some positive changes in that regard.  I have oily skin but the cleanser I was using was apparently just way too harsh and was exacerbating the problem.  I'm trying to keep things simple and using just a light oil-based cleanser now and it's been working a lot better for me.  I use a hydraluric acid thingy as well (and sunscreen when I go out), but for now I'll just keep things at this before trying to mess with it more.

I'm really thankful for some of the times I've been able to connect with people lately.  It's sad to think of how much I wanted these sort of relations and how hopelessly far I was from having them earlier in my life, but I feel grateful that I am here now and able to look back upon the long road that I have somehow traveled along the way.

Last night was one of those many-dream nights.  I usually take it as a good thing when that happens...feels instinctively like I'm hitting the good parts of my sleep schedule.

I had dreams about two traumatic periods/contexts of my life, one from high school and another one from more recently.  But in both cases, the people involved were different, and...the experience was entirely different.  I felt supported when I made mistakes, I felt excited and optimistic, and happy to be there despite encountering unfamiliar scenarios.

I don't really know what having those dreams means for me -- maybe nothing, really -- but it gave me a bit of extra perspective.  Reminded me of what it is like to be surrounded by people who are supportive and loving rather than those who are toxic and negative.  It is a real shame that it took me so long in my life before I was able to realize that.

Last night I also took advantage of the warmer weather to take my first nighttime walk out in my new neighborhood.  The feel of the streets at night are entirely different where I live now compared to the city where I used to live...it's not necessarily better or worse, I guess, just very different.  It feels much less "open", due to being in a more wooded area.  The air still feels very fresh, but I think just being able to see less of the night sky at once, makes a big difference in feeling.  It's a more interesting feeling; there's certainly more variety among the streets here, more to explore.  But it feels very unfamiliar, too.  It doesn't really feel like home.  Well, of course it doesn't.

But despite that, it still brought back a nostalgic feeling.  Being alone at night brings a unique sensibility that I'm well-acquainted with.  It reminds me of something important.  It can feel lonely, but in a familiar sort of way.  It's not really anything grand, it's just a certain feeling.