Today felt good!

I woke up a bit late after sleeping in.  I might have caught a slight cold (?), maybe something going around our household, but it felt pretty mild, mainly just a little bit of fatigue (could explain why I felt more tired than usual lately, or maybe...just vice-versa).  I didn't get any exercise done today, but I've been generally doing good with that elsewhere -- did a booty workout yesterday and played a good session of DDR earlier in the week.  Checked up on the chickies yesterday and restocked them...

Anyways, I managed to start figuring out some travel logistics this afternoon, for an upcoming trip, including ordering a power adapter.  Still need to do a few more things for that, most importantly making some sort of allergy card for myself so I can hopefully NOT have to use my epipen while abroad... and then making sure that I've got my laptop all prepared with a bunch of entertainment that I might want to have on hand.  I'll have my fair share of things to occupy myself, not only on the plane but hopefully during downtime as I'm sure I'll want some introvert time to myself where I'm just not doing anything and am just chilling.  I think there have been one too many times where I've gone traveling without really making a conscious effort to get some of that time in... anyways, I can do anything from working on Rhythm Quest, learning cubing algs, playing rando (of course), or perhaps I might even start a playthrough of FF6 T edition???

I also started working on a new Rhythm Quest level for the first time in quite some time (wooo).  Not a new campaign level, but just a bonus level, as that felt more low-stress, and a good way to experiment with the newest mechanic.  There's not really such thing as too many bonus levels for me to make, so this is a good way to feel like I'm making progress while also getting other people excited about the game (all they want is to have the game in their hands and see more levels.......) and make sure that I don't completely forget how to make levels.  Plus it's just good to bounce around between different aspects of the project from time to time, anyways.

Made some good progress on that...didn't finish, but I had to transition over to doing OHC, which actually went quite well today.  I had released my single yesterday and today I took care of the release work for my monthlies album, so really feels like I'm sort of firing on all cylinders as far as music work goes.

Made dinner as quickly as I reasonably could and spent some time with my housemates before doing a rando run.  I still make mistakes here and there of course, but overall it went well, I felt like it was an interesting seed and for the most part I was happy with how I played it!

Tomorrow's another day; I'll probably hope to do laundry as well as maybe hopefully finish the brunt of the work on my new Rhythm Quest level.  I still haven't started sitting down and re-recording that Ice Palace Routing video, sigh...someday, though.

Viennese Ball is coming up soon!  Fortunately, it's in the usual familiar location (more convenient and better for sure than the other one where we were last year).  Unfortunately I have to make a pretty huge detour for carpooling purposes, so I'm planning to just pack myself a sandwich to eat while wading through traffic or something I guess, and I'll just change later when I'm at the venue or whatever.  Honestly, changing at the venue is something that felt quite nice before; kinda just takes a bunch of hassle off when you can just show up in comfy warm clothes and not worry about anything.

Speaking of not worrying about anything, despite the minor hassle I already mentioned, I'm feeling...overall quite, erm...easygoing?  About VBall this year.  I donno, I mean I guess it's not like I was super stressed out about it last year (besides it being in the weird location...and a weird snafu where I wasn't sure if I could get my car out of the lot), but you know, in past years it was this big thing that I wanted to make sure I was all prepared and equipped for.

I won't be bringing my Journey outfit out for the ball this year; perhaps it's fitting then, that my attitude toward the event seems to have changed somehow as well.  What are my hopes for the ball?  Really, to just relax and enjoy myself, whatever that means.  Honestly, that probably just means "trying to see if I can have fun being with people, or even by myself".  That's rather nebulous, I guess, but I think it's because I've not felt that much of a need to invest in dancing as much as before.

I guess last year was a little interesting because I was in the middle of "figuring out" my dancing.  I had been unhappy with the way that I was dancing for some time and was struggling to really land on how I should be or ought to be dancing.  Of course, looking back on it, everything is pretty obvious in hindsight...

Perhaps something else that's different this year is, oh, actually, the event itself has some odd curveballs (rotary waltz contest at 1:00AM...?), but more than that, well...thinking about those "contests" themselves, I realize that I feel a sort of liberation knowing that I...don't feel any sort of responsibility to the dance scene any longer.  I danced in many of those events (okay, maybe a little presumptuously), out of a sort of funny sense of obligation because, ....okay, I really don't want to get into it here.

I felt a sense of commitment when putting together JaSmix, too.  Like I had this need to give back to the dance community that I had ostensibly been a part of so long (albeit a bit on the outskirts at times).  But I...don't really feel that way anymore.  I guess the passage of time sorta does that, maybe.  Maybe it's because I feel like I already "paid my dues".  Sure, I know that JaSmix was consistently a night with the best dance energy and music among comparison events that I've been to, but I no longer feel like I "need to" keep that going.  If I want to show up in force, then sure, so be it.  But what if I don't want to?

Like...what's really in it for me?

The shifting of the crowd I think is also part of what did it for me.  Like, sure I can be respected or appreciated or whatever, but like, if I stop running JaSmix is it really going to be something that's bemoaned?  Or are people just going to move on with their lives and nobody is going to bat an eye?  People are interested in their own things.  It'd be rude of me to presume what they may or may not want.  If everyone really cared about the same things that I did, maybe I'd feel more of a burden of responsibility for making those things happen.  But I think I'm starting to bring in learnings from other parts of my life -- learnings that frankly, people just don't really give a shit about the exact same things that you do.  I don't really have to ask them about it; it already showed clear through all of their actions.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel sort of at peace with that part of things, when it comes to dance, and Viennese Ball, at least.  The problem, perhaps, is that I feel a little less okay with it when it comes to life.  But you know, perhaps I'm still learning to see things in different ways.  How to accept that not everyone is the same as me, or each other.  We are all different.  It makes us so very alone, until we can find the ways to navigate and construct the bridges between us.