I mean I think if I get really real with myself, I feel like I wronged myself.

I think sometimes that really stings because out of all the people in the world myself is the one who has really been through it all together with me.

Yeah, but...we're allowed to make mistakes.  We all do.  It happens.  And we keep on going, most of the time better than before, even if a little worn and battered.  Sayuri is "perfect", but she is not perfect, because no such thing exists.  She is only an idealization in that her traits carry her to success solely because she exists only in a framework where she can succeed.  Or even when she is in a situation when she "fails", it's still "admirable".

In the real world, she, too, would need to give herself compassion for the things that she could not do.  It wouldn't be her fault.

Performing surgery is always scary, especially when you're inexperienced with it.  I hope that everything will be alright, that things will take root, heal, and grow again.  Even if we end up staying in the exact same place that we were before, sometimes we still need to be repotted, to make sure that we are healthy and growing well.

There's a weird feeling of emptiness that I have right now.  I guess that, is better than anxiety, at least.  I think it's a combination of rolling the credits for Silksong and then just...not knowing whether beyond the door my path continues, or comes to an end.  It's weirdly ungrounding.  But!  The turmoil and struggle that I wrote about last time is past...

Tomorrow is the start of an odd week for me.  A week where I simultaneously try to relax, try to get stuff done, try to enjoy myself but be disciplined, try to be social yet spend time to myself, try to be hopeful yet pragmatic.  It's weird to try and know where to land in all of it.

But I guess, I will at the very least, start by doing laundry and vacuuming, I guess.  Past that, I'll drink my white tea.  Try to figure out lunch and dinner, which I don't actually have too much of a plan about, for once.  And write a letter, at least.

Feels nice to be done with my pixel art drawing for the month, I guess.  I should have probably tried to sleep earlier, but maybe I can at least wake up not too late tomorrow...?

My mind keeps on refusing to learn the lessons that my body so desperately tries to tell it, I guess.  So here I am at 4AM, anxious and sitting in the company of the doubts that I swatted away like those buzzing flies that kept me on edge even as I tried to do what I normally do.  It may not be "fair", but suffering rarely is.  But just because it is not "fair" doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't earned.  I may not "deserve" to feel this way, but I certainly earned it.

It's hard to look back at what I did to arrive at this place and trace the "mistakes" that led me here because it is difficult, simply put, to label anything as "mistake".  If I am acting in accordance to what I believe and what I think best, how could it be a mistake?  More often than not we are simply victims of the fact that we are set up for certain outcomes.  "Failure", you could call it, but that word has the same problematic connotation as "mistake".  I did many things that could be called "success", but is it really success if it leads to negative outcomes?  It it simply a matter of perspective, sometimes.

Emotional security is, perhaps, sometimes like financial security.  Well, not really, in many ways, but maybe in some ways.  It's unfortunate, but many times the easiest way to earn money is to already have money.  We don't have such thing as an emotional savings account, or (good lord) emotional mutual funds.  But the concept is the same; when you are living paycheck to paycheck (or worse), you can't really secure a future for yourself that doesn't carry some element of risk or instability.

Some people just work their way toward financial stability and security, others kinda just have it handed to them.  And of course sometimes disaster strikes and that can take so many forms.  "Invest in yourself" is maybe a saying that gets tossed around, but the thing is that investment requires capital.  You can also make something from nothing, but it's something that requires more work, and...oftentimes, a more frugal lifestyle.  In the worst case you might have to take out a loan.  But it's funny because in some of the best cases you end up taking on a mortgage and what is that but another type of loan?  In one case you might not really be considered to be financially independent, but in the other case you might be considered to be very financially independent?  There is probably some sort of analogy in terms of the emotional loans that we take on, too.  It's not that it's inherently bad to take on a loan, it just depends.

I'm always pretty vague in these posts so I guess I can spell it out more in plain English, too.  I'm pretty unhappy.  I had a long week and I'm suffering from the residual effects of it.  I have some aspects of myself that are pretty frustrated at the other parts because they have been trying to get me away from unhappiness but like, you know how it is.  We often ignore what our body is telling us, or ignore what our mind is telling us, one or the other usually.  I didn't take good care of myself this week, not at all, and it's all starting to hit me as an accumulation of debt that I guess I need to start paying back somehow.  It's kinda sucky.  I didn't really want this but I don't have anybody to really "blame" but myself.  I'm trying to be sympathetic and write all this stuff about how "mistakes" aren't really a thing but yeah, I mean I think if I get really real with myself, I feel like I wronged myself.

I think sometimes that really stings because out of all the people in the world myself is the one who has really been through it all together with me.

It is one thing to want something for so long and then to realize that you will never reach it.  It is another thing to come to the understanding that you will still keep trying despite knowing that you will never reach it.  And it is still yet another thing to realize that what you believed in was a lie all along.

When I first learned the story of Sayaka Miki I think it was difficult for me to resonate with her struggle keenly.  I understood the tragedy of her story, but I saw her as brash, naive, and stubborn.  However, I wrote in 2013 in that I realized some things that made me feel like I started to understand her struggle a bit more.  I think I had begun to understand the idea of believing in something flawed, and had a greater appreciation of that "stubbornness".  And I also realize now the feeling of being betrayed by an ideal.  You could argue that Sayaka's naivety makes her story more "human".  That this is a flaw in her character, one that makes it resonant.  I think that's true to some extent, but humans are not the only species that are naive.  Perhaps what makes her struggle truly human is her struggle to maintain her beliefs despite being proven wrong.  In a way you could say this is an attachment to the past -- a sort of sunk-cost fallacy, if you will.  But I think it's more than that, too.  The idea of choosing to spend effort on something that is known to ultimately be futile, I think is something that feels to me to be uniquely human.  Like most good stories, Sayaka's portrayal to me doesn't have a defined single message or "moral" -- indeed, her story resolves in different ways depending on the universe.  I think this is by nature, as you can't simply "fix" this struggle by finding an answer.  It is simply something to be experienced and to learn your way through.

--September 7, 2021

Alright well, I've actually not been doing well, not really.  I keep feeling tired and a little depressed, and uneasy, which probably means I've been burning out a bit or something, despite my attempts to try and relax and not worry about being so uptight?  It's some sort of weird feeling that something is wrong, that things are not going to work out, and that I can't screw up, or shouldn't show it, like Elsa or Rumi or whatever??  I keep on thinking to myself that I need to figure out what's wrong so I can fix everything, but maybe that's actually not the move and I'm "supposed to" stop trying to do whatever I'm "supposed to" do or whatever.

On the plus side, I'm feeling a lot better than I was a couple of hours ago!  Sure, the flamin' hot dill pickle cheetos probably weren't the healthiest thing to be eating, but they tasted good and I was happy eating them while having a laugh watching ShinyZeni play "Uptroid Down" (a romhack of Super Metroid that's mirrored vertically, apparently it's gotten some pretty impressive updates).  I'm having round 3 of the chicken soup that I made from leftover thigh bones, broccoli stems, and some leftover fennel, and it's nice and comforting.

I've been working really hard recently!  I sank a bunch of hours into Rhythm Quest work, including putting out a new devlog and getting one step closer to being rid of Discord woes by officially transitioning bug reports onto Github.  I finished a letter yesterday, scheduled a car interior service for tomorrow morning (should have gone to bed earlier, I guess...) -- something I've been meaning to do for ages -- did some good grocery shopping, did the laundry, ordered some more gift wrap online, and today I spent most of my day working on my monthly pixel art drawing.  It feels good to put a bunch of time into something and see it actually develop and pay off.  I was really concerned when I started because it seemed the drawing was kinda just off everywhere and I was kind of fighting a few parts to look okay, but somehow it's really turned the corner and it's looking pretty decent now.  Seems like I've been doing ONLY drawings of Sayuri for the past 4 months, but honestly, I'm here for it.  Might as well get more practice with something I kinda know how to draw, and see progress that way.  I can really feel some of the learnings coming in, which is a nice feeling.  There's still more work to be done on this piece, though, maybe tomorrow?

What way do I need to live to be relaxed, happy, tranquil?  Do I just need more quiet time, whether it be alone or shared?  Do I need to reconnect with my past and mourn what is gone?  Do I need to get away, or do I need to go closer?  What is it that the inner me wants?

So far what I've learned from the various mutterings about Silksong is that modern game discourse is "weird".  Weird, but not unexpected when you think about how we've gotten here.

It's less of a deal what people's thoughts actually are and more that they are constantly being framed against a backdrop of whatever the societal zeitgeist is perceived to be (by that particular person?).  Like, it's not a big deal if you think game X is hard or game Y is easy or you thought game Z was lame.  But there's this extra thing now where instead it's like "wow I've been hearing everyone say game X is hard but come on, this is what it is?" or some sort of presumed "how could 'they' make this game like this, developers are so out of touch" or "everyone should calm down and just play the game the way it was made".

Even the fact that Silksong was not provided to review critics far ahead of time is somehow this "notable" thing and like, yeah, I guess technically it is, but I think that just goes to show that there is such a strong expectation of "the way things should go".  Isn't it weird?  Maybe I'm just old-fashioned though and like, yeah, this is nothing new at all, of course everyone is just on social media or whatever and hearing about all this stuff and blahblahblah.

And I dunno, I guess it's normal, but as a game developer I feel a little sad because like, I feel like I'd just want people to play my game and think whatever they want without this thing where you're either in camp A or in camp B or in the "I'm not =IN= either of those camps, y'all are wrong" which is actually just camp C".

But I guess that's fine I mean when I release Rhythm Quest I'm probably going to be plugging my ears to whatever most of the world has to say

Things are ok!

The first half of this week hasn't been as productive for Rhythm Quest as last week was, but there's still time to remedy that.  I was quite happy with how I did last week, hopefully I can keep up that pace.  Of course, it's already midway through September, so I do need to keep balance in mind, since I have my monthly pixel artwork, a good handful of birthday letters to do, and getting a head start on Christmas writing...On the plus side, I'm doing good on the 200 voter postcards that I'm mailing out next month, so that'll be one thing safely marked off the checklist soon.

Playing rando has been fun, as always.  Tonight I played a casual boots seed and beat all 12 of the people who ran it, by a margin of like 8-9 minutes...that's with like a minute of stupid brainfart timeloss too.  It's always surprising because like, I thought the seed was super straightforward, but apparently nobody else routed it the way that I did.  People just think about the game differently, I guess.  This is why metrics are important...

I started playing Silksong, too!  I wasn't sure when I was going to get on with that, but it's been fun so far, though surprisingly there's a very tiny bit of nausea when I play for a while.  Maybe that happened with Hollow Knight too, I'm not really sure.  Maybe this is just part of getting old...anyways, I'm switching to playing in a window to see if it helps, but it's really slight to begin with, thankfully.  The game has been fun.  I definitely feel like (as claimed) the beginning of the game is more difficult than Hollow Knight's beginning was, not that that necessarily means anything about the rest of the game.  I mean, it's fine, it's just...I guess, a little surprising, I think.  But fun.

Despite all the stuff I wrote before about wanting to get better at cooking and all that, it's...actually been nice to step back from the kitchen and take it a bit easy.

DDR has been fun too, though unfortunately something seems to be up with my layered nails recently when I play, oops.  Still, I'm glad I've been making an effort to play, especially today since I was unexpectedly dealing with some anxiety (!) and such.  I guess that's what I get for not having healthy habits last night (eating unhealthy before bed...) and having a random nightmare in the morning...

There are things to look forward to in life and I'm making some forward progress.  Really, what more should you ask for...?

I mean, there is always more.  I can be doing more work.  I can be a better person.  I can be thinking about more.  Doing more.  Cleaning more.  Cooking more.  But like, I can't do infinity things at the same time either.  It's just one step at a time.  More will come, with time.  Thing will get better, with time.

Somehow I've ended up with all of these different projects that involve a nigh-infinite amount of work, it seems...

I've got Rhythm Quest, of course, which it's felt good to sink more time into.  I still have nothing exciting to show for it, but work is work.  I've been doing a bunch of performance improvements and refactors, among other things, which is all invisible work but it feels great seeing how the game runs at a solid smooth framerate on Switch now, even on the later levels, which it wasn't doing before.

Then I've got the ALTTPR site, which has a billion things of its own to dig into and work on.  You'd think that after doing all the pages in Eastern Palace I'd either start covering more of the other dungeons, or just continue my work on Ganon's Tower, but no...I'm back at working on Eastern Palace, lol.  Not only did I find some frame saves in the map chest room, but I'm starting to want to compile not only strats but organized timing data for each room in the dungeon, which I can =then= use to create concrete numbers and charts around dungeon efficiency and timings.  All stuff that will be super exciting to see, but of course it goes slowly when it's just all me doing everything myself...well, at least I managed to integrate a nice table plugin and a chart renderer.  It feels cool knowing that I can build a slick and well-crafted site by myself!

I sent off my Vote Forward letters (only did 40 so far) already, but I still have a whole lot of postcards to send out for Postcards to Swing States.  I slapped on about 100 stamps earlier today as I was hanging out with my housemates, but there's a lot more addressing to do there.

In less than a month I'm going to be hopefully starting on my annual Christmas letters, too.  I just looked it up and Ludum Dare is in a month, too, ha ha ha.  I've not really paid LD any attention for the past years, and it looks like this one is probably going to be no different just based on the timing, but at some point it would be nice to do another one of them again, maybe (?).

The good thing about all of it is that like, yeah, I'm really built for this kind of thing where you just have to keep on working steadily at the same stuff over and over again and accumulate efforts over long swaths of time.  That's supposed to be my biggest strength and all that.  And when I think about how I've also got a pixel artwork to do at some point in the month, and then some other letters to write, and stuff like that, somehow I'm still at the capacity where I'm like "yeah, ok, let's do this, let's go".  It's good. 

Today was kind of really what I needed.  Little things to remind me how to enjoy life.  I've been so busy working for myself and others that I forgot to spend enough effort on just having a good time.  "Healing" after all is only one part of care.

I didn't have the best sleep last night so I took a nap in the evening before having some "me time" as I did groceries.  It was a good trip!  Maybe even too good; we'll see how much of the food I end up using before this weekend, ha ha.  Perhaps despite my better judgment I'm actually going to be trying a few new things -- roast fennel, and some hasselback potato gratin.  I'm curious to see how those are going to turn out...

A caretaker pointed out some things for me; helped me see some of the signs that I needed some space, needed some care, but most of all just needed a break.  Not a long one, of course -- it's really rare that I need anything like that.  But a short one, just reminding myself of that so-called "live every day like it's a vacation" energy.  I'm not sure if I really need to live each day like a vacation, but I think envisioning it can remind me of some things that are more important than I perhaps have been giving them credit for. 

I played the weekly ALTTPR seed today, it was a pretty interesting one, fun to follow the journey through it as I got strung around.  I didn't really hit "the route" but did relatively well considering most people spent over two hours on it.  Perhaps the most satisfying part was taking a magnifying glass to how I've been handling Misery Mire, especially the cases where you get to just defeat Vitreous and leave behind 1 or 2 items in the rest of the dungeon (2 in this case).  Unfortunately my program to time and puzzle and average that out still needs a bunch of refactoring (someday...), but I managed to back-of-envelope estimate a bunch of it and reaffirm my conviction that it's generally a good idea to just leave if you have a good amount of other better checks available.  Timing-wise it's just like left side swamp (maybe like 60 seconds per item on average), a bit worse if you have only one item left (80+ seconds).

Like sure, if your options are just Pyramid Ledge, Catfish, Bombos Tablet, Magic Bat, and Spike Cave, then you'd better just go back in and get those two items because all of your checks are gonna take a minute anyways, and you do pay a cost of like 21 seconds if you leave and have to come back later.  But if you've got some good density left, it's not a bad skip I don't think.

I need to be careful not to be =too= greedy with my efficiency though, and sacrifice too much of my long-term full clear speeds.  60 seconds per item is slow, but it's not =that= slow.  Maybe I should be changing from "skip all the slow stuff" to "be a little more thorough" a little more readily after I've exhausted most of the efficient check strings available in a given seed.  It's always a tricky balance, of course.

Anyways...I'm feeling better!  Hopefully the rest of this week will treat me alright, too.  I'm looking forward to more of the fun things in life.  White tea, ALTTPR, cooking.  And some other important things, too.

It feels nice, doesn't it?  To work, and to play.  Certainly, it feels better than either of the two on their own...

I've been working on Rhythm Quest some more, which of course, always makes me feel good, regardless of if anything exciting is happening with it.  I'm deep in the trenches of some experimental performance optimizations, alongside more level charting, bugfixes, and trying to make sure that I get the level editor functional again.  At some point I need to actually get on the task of revamping the graphics for the first half of the game...I keep on saying it, maybe someday it'll actually be time?

I got a nice confidence boost in ALTTPR as I finished running 4 of the final seeds from this year's mentor tournament and managed to beat the mentees in all four of them.  I actually wasn't quite expecting that; you know, there's always an element of luck that can outweigh everything else, but it's kind of cool seeing efficiency, execution, and good practices actually result in consistent time savings.  Feels good!

Working here and there on these voter letters and postcards has felt good, too.  Doing these has been one of the most relevant and lasting changes in my life that came out of all of the..."interesting" stuff that happened in the past handful of years.  Not sure if I've ever felt as invested in an election that doesn't really directly affect me.  Part of me just wants to see results from something that I've contributed to.  It's not a bad feeling, though.

I keep telling you that I love you.  Sometimes I'm not really sure whether you know it in your heart or not.  But maybe it doesn't matter.  I just want you to stay in my life.  You want to stay too, right?

As much as I keep on talking about how I want to get better at cooking, I have some misses here and there too, like today's lunch.  Well, we aren't always on our A game all the time, right?  Tomorrow I'm tasking myself with doing some groceries, but this weekend I'll be hoping to really put on my best metaphorical apron and put some extra effort into things.  Hopefully I'll be able to feel good about it. 

You are *happy campers*, but already you know.

it is *frumple* too much and we are *dancing* for *dissolving* the *campers*.

I am clear!!

You are not so *silly*!

I didn't do toooo bad, given how hard it was for me to even get out of bed in the morning.  After that whole struggle, I did manage to do the work I needed to do, take care of two meals, I solved a steamdeck issue for Rhythm Quest and finished up the easy/hard difficulty charting for level 4-4.  I didn't check on the chickies today; that'll have to wait until tomorrow when it should be less warm.  I'll also make a stop to the donations center and head to Teance to go work there -- either finishing up my pixel artwork or doing more Rhythm Quest charting probably, or maybe some letter writing.

I've been doing really good in ALTTPR after coming back to it.  The other day I ran one of the seeds from the gold sword bracket races that the top mentees are doing and beat the times there, and today I got what will probably be the fastest time in the /r/alttpr weekly.  Not to say that some amount of luck isn't involved in that, but I felt like I played well, too.  It's just a good feeling.

There's this weird feeling of balance between being "who you've always been" vs pushing yourself to be something different.  It's important because of the whole "what you do defines who you are" thing.  Honestly, it's...not always super difficult to find that balance, though.  I think sometimes you find that you're really just super aligned with what you want to do.  Those are the times when you don't even really think about it because everything just makes sense.  Sometimes you "already are" someone different, it's just not something you realized through action yet.

But then there are those times when you =think= you're super aligned with it because you "should" be, and then that's where things can get into trouble.  Sometimes you're just not ready, or sometimes you actually just don't want to.  "Fake it till you make it" can work sometimes, I mean it's good practice if nothing else, but like, that's not really just the answer all the time.  You can of course "work on" who you are, but you can't just shove everything else in the closet and expect it to just stay hidden forever right?

I mean, I wish my cooking could solve all my other problems for me, too (spoiler alert: even in Chef Hua, it doesn't).  I wish all the knowledge and skills I put into ALTTPR could help me feel a sense of self-worth.  But contrary to what you might lead yourself to believe you don't become a better partner just because you know more about dance.  You can't just master some craft and have it magically make your life better.  Maybe that is part of the fantasy of stories about spellcraft and sorcery -- you get to imagine what it's like to be in a world where being well-studied or powerful =does= affect your day to day life in all of these meaningful ways.  (Of course, the good ones aren't actually about that sort of power fantasy, but have something more to say about the human condition.)

All of these skills =do= help, though.  Being able to manage the rest of my life makes it easier for me to spend time where it really matters.  Blogging doesn't pay the bills but it helps me practice one form of self-introspection.

But there are all sorts of other things that take practice, too.  How to talk to people.  How to remember people's names.  How to avoid judging everyone you meet for being different than you.  How to give people the benefit of the doubt.  How to get rejected.  How to reject someone.

Sometimes certain things come more naturally than others.  There are things that I can pick up really easily, without even really thinking about it.  And then there are other things that are just really hard for me.  It's like that for everyone, right?  Some people really struggle with rhythm.  Some people don't really hear when they're singing out of tune.  Predicting how the first F2L pair moves around during inspection seems like this impossible thing that I'm never going to be consistent at, but I remember thinking the same thing about many other things that I can do now, too.

It's not a matter of whether I believe I can or not.  It's just a matter of time and patience.  Luckily, =that= is something I already know how to do. 

What exactly do I want life to be like?  I don't think I'm quite sure...I don't think I'm sure...

JaSmix went really well, almost perfectly to be honest.  The only real blemishes were the almost-snafus (that thankfully didn't end up coming to fruition), and then me not having enough time to host a workshop I guess, but that second one is a blessing in disguise since it let me rest easy during the event itself.  The "right" number of people showed up at the end of the night and we were blessed with a relatively cool summer evening (2019, was it...?  the year where we had a ton of people and it was really hot too...).  It was great getting to see everyone out and having a good time, validated the work that I put into the event.

Going to try and take tomorrow as a day to focus on Rhythm Quest stuff -- at the very least, just do a bunch of charting, if nothing else.  Maybe I can take a break by working on my monthly drawing (which has been a WIP for a while; started it over a week ago and then got busy with other stuff).  It's not exactly the most encouraging when people tell me that my progress is too slow, but hey, that's life.  This is why I'm hoping to engage less and less with people who want to tell me things about my game...

I'm always a bit weirded out....disgusted...?  Mmm...ashamed?  Maybe those are too strong words....it always feels a bit "icky" when I conform to gender stereotypes and roles.  Probably because when we think about them (or when I think about them), they always feel like they're so often framed in a negative light.  Men are like this, women are like this, gay people are like this, asian people are like this.  None of it really feels good and I guess that doesn't just cut one way, it just....cuts everyone in every way, really.  It feels bad to hold those judgments, like feeling like I'm not supposed to talk about feelings with other men or whatever, it feels bad to "be a man" because there is so much negativity bundled with it.  Sure, it makes life difficult when I don't conform to gender norms, but it's also "safe" in a way because I get to just be something different.  It offers the hope of not having to feel shame for all of the negative stuff that's normally associated with whatever bucket you lump yourself in with.

So when I'm able to take pride in my cooking, it's "safe" not just because I'm bucking the norm (like the rebel I am...), but because it means I'm safe from judgment in men not knowing their way around a kitchen or how to use a sewing kit or whatever.  Sure, I may be in a male-dominated profession, but "it's different" because of how I engage with my work, or even how I "show up" or even carry (or dress) myself.

But when I think about being avoidant or emotionally unavailable or afraid of vulnerability or being unable to express feelings, or being a loner, not being able to support other people's emotions, all that stuff, of course it just feels bad because those are "bad" things, but it stings a little bit extra that these are stereotypically associated with my birth/main gender.  Maybe hurts even a little bit more since there are times when I think I didn't use to have some of these issues, and then maybe I did later on.  Eh, or maybe they just didn't have a chance to manifest...

Of course, it shouldn't =really= matter what gender things are typically associated with, least of all for someone like me who doesn't bother trying to slot into any bucket or anything like that.  But the negativity associated with it is still pretty ingrained in me, it's hard to escape.  All those years ago I wanted to make sure that I could escape it entirely, just become someone else, perhaps.  But I think that's just pretending, at least for me.  It's not like I can truly become someone else, right?  I would still be me in the end, in some way.  My shame is my own to carry, to feel, and to release and set free. 

I've been putting in a lot of work!  It feels good to be productive, I feel like somehow I'm back on my game.

I sank a bunch of time into Rhythm Quest, which is always a good feeling.  Nothing sexy, in fact really ugly work including debugging device-specific errors, so yeah, there were a bunch of times when I was waiting for compilation to happen while doing other things like idle Rubik's cube solves or drilling some COLL algs.

But yeah, I fixed a bunch of accessibility/screenreader navigation issues (just realized that I need to update some localization stuff.....sigh), debugged a bunch of switch-specific bugs, even did some performance fixes.  At some point I need to actually work on more actual features (get custom levels working again?) or more importantly, actual content (level 6-5, or redoing some of the earlier levels...), so I can have something interesting to report on for my devlog.  Maybe at the very least I can spend some more time charting the easy/hard difficulties for world 4?

I've learned all of the COLL algs for two cases (H and U), though the U algs I still need some more practice to be able to associate which is which.  I'm working on learning the cases for T, I technically know all of the algs for it now, but recognizing and associating them with each of the cases is still a struggle for now.  COLL is definitely the alg set that's first to go in my memory since it's a special case (well, that, and some of the really rare OLL algs like the superflip one).  But it's something to keep me occupied, I guess?

JaSmix is tomorrow! Assuming all goes well with setup (*nervous grimace*) I'm excited for the event.  Honestly, putting together the setlist is really almost second-nature to me by now.  It's weird because I remember really spending a LOT of time a couple years ago (?) on one of my setlists trying to really balance everything out meticulously and now...I dunno, maybe I just feel like "good enough" is fine, or maybe it's because JaSmix is easier than something like FNW which has a lot more structure and restriction to it.  Hopefully my selection of dances is still generally in tune with whoever ends up showing up??

Either way, as usual, most of the work that goes into making my setlists enjoyable is not only due to me having practice and experience with how they should be constructed, but also just...most of that work I've already done ahead of time by editing and trimming so many of the songs.  I can probably count the number of unedited songs in my setlist on my hands...it's such a simple thing to do, "just make everything shorter", but of course it does involve a certain sort of finesse and expertise.

Cooking has been going ok too.  I'm not going to have a ton of time on my hands to cook this weekend so I'm going to just be making some simple stuff, but hopefully my ingredients will survive until I'm back in action on Monday Tuesday or whenever.  I did a cider-braised pork shoulder yesterday and that time investment paid off since today I was able to just boil some pasta and then throw together a quick roux and reheat the meat and sauce and just throw it all together quickly.  My household has an interesting love/hate relationship with pork shoulder; I got into this phase where I was doing roast pork shoulder a bunch and that goes fantastic together with caramelized onions as pulled pork sandwiches, but they haven't been a big fan of all the leftover meat.  Maybe if it was more fatty?  but eh, I get that it's not super appetizing to just be eating fried rice with pork shoulder, pasta with pork shoulder, etc etc.

Carnitas tacos seemed to do a bit better (I....think I still have some in the fridge, ha ha ha...oops), and I remember the cider braised pork shoulder being a hit the other time I did it so that's why I decided to opt for it again.  We'll see how it goes over as I use the rest of it, but I also have a bunch of other stuff planned -- bunch of eggplant, palak paneer, etc.  Before I know it it'll be the end of August and I think I'm feeling like I'll do either sushi or grilling around that time, maybe both if I'm feeling up for it...

Guess I'd better do my best to go get some sleep.  Can't wake up too late tomorrow...

It feels good to be validated for your efforts, doesn't it?

I've been watching "Chef Hua" -- part of what inspired my previous thoughts on cooking and everything like that.  It's not the most engaging (kinda trashy...), but they do a good job with their slow-motion / macro photography of all of the dishes and everything.  And if nothing else, it inspires me to not only think more about my cooking (and plating...), but also about expressing gratitude and excitement towards others.  Yeah, that... 

I got back from my trip and it was a good one.  I felt fulfilled, relaxed, mostly relieved, I guess, too.  It was a good balance of things, I felt accomplished yet also not like I had pushed myself too hard.  Various things went well...I went to the tea place once, but also brought my own tea with me.  I felt quite pleased with the cooking that I did -- made everything work out.  Got to see the same tuxedo meowmie and have him sit on my lap again.  Even had the good fortune of getting to see a shooting star.

JaSmix is this Saturday!  I'm busy tidying up the last of the logistics, but hopefully it will go well, or at least smoothly if nothing else.  It'll be a long day, but no longer than what the folks used to do back in the day (7 workshops, from 2PM all the way until 9:30!).  Since everything is just in one room, I won't be running around like last time, so once I'm done with my whirlwind of private lessons, I'll have a chance to just sit back and relax (and eat dinner), maybe I'll bring some postcards to work on or something.  If I'm feeling ambitious and energetic maybe I'll participate in the workshops, but eh, kicking back and just sitting and relaxing sounds good, too.

Finally made and found time to run an ALTTPR seed -- was kind of a doozy, with some challenging (yucky) decisions.  Made a pretty big mistake sequence breaking Ice Palace when I was missing somaria + flippers, I honestly am beginning to wonder if somarialess sequence broken ice palace is =ever= a good play.  You by definition have to already have the mitts to get entry into ice palace, and the flippers can't be there, so it's mainly stuff like the mirror that can help out if you get it there, but...waiting around for somaria to show up might just make more sense in general. 

Someone really close to me seems to be hurting, a bit.  I hope that they are okay.  Every moment of their company is precious to me.  They seem to be feeling alright, I just...yeah, I hope they are okay.  I love them a lot.

Speaking of which, the chickies got checked out (expensive....) and they are doing all ok!  I wasn't super worried, but it was a relief to get confirmation that they are doing healthy and that I'm doing alright taking care of them.

Made it out to Teance today and enjoyed some nice white tea while doing some work before doing groceries.  Tomorrow I'm going to be printing some stuff for JaSmix and giving my setlist another lookover, hopefully trying to catch up on Rhythm Quest, and drinking tea at home.  I already know I'm probably going to cook fish for lunch and then I'll be working on braised apple cider pork shoulder, but that probably won't be ready in time for dinner, so dinner will have to be something else, maybe eggplant or tofu or something.  Guess I won't have a ton of extra time to throw around given that I'll be doing a little more cooking than usual and I have OHC to take care of, but...yeah, I mean, I'll try to do some stuff.

Did some dancing, randomly, the other night.  Sometimes it's a little discouraging to be honest, to look at how sloppy my dancing is, but I mean, what should I expect given how relatively little I work on it?  It's...fine, really.  I've come a long way, I know, it's just...it's still hard.

Life overall is...I can't really say anything other than it's good, right?  Nothing has really been bad, aside from maybe the fact that I've been sleeping too late (as usual) and yeah, I could be a little more on top of some of my work, but honestly I'm not even mad about it given that I just got back from a trip.  The floor of my range is still relatively high-functioning, I mean the first things that I did when I got back were to unpack, do the laundry, vacuum the floor, and start using the carpet cleaner...and then what, after that I drafted out the JaSmix setlist, did some work, etc. etc.  It's really not bad. 

The winds of change continue to blow, for me, in my life.  But I don't let myself get swept away, they simply act as the wind beneath my sails.  I chart a course and I make my way toward my north stars, slowly and steadily.

Love Languages

I talked about love languages in my last post and how when we see them in a more mature and nuanced lens we begin to see things like how "gift giving" doesn't necessarily have to be something really shallow and transactional and how "words of affirmation" doesn't have to mean a bunch of trite compliments, but have you ever thought about how you can make positives out of the opposites of each of the love languages, too?

Maybe you like physical touch, but sometimes you might like having physical space, too.  Acts of service are nice, but what about letting someone be independent?  Quality time spent together, alone, doing nothing else -- maybe sometimes you just need people who will be open to running errands together or just working side by side on completely different things.  And instead of words of affirmation, we can be realistic and frank with people, or even just enjoy silence together with them.  Maybe gift-giving is the least obvious one since the "opposite" of giving a gift is...not giving a gift?  Receiving a gift?

But I think it's easy for all of us to imagine twisted overdone versions of all of the love languages, right?  Too much gift-giving.  Too many acts of service.  Too much physical touch.  Too many words of affirmation.  And yeah, even too much "quality" time spent together.  And this applies regardless of whether you are imagining the giver or the receiver of love.  (What's worse, someone who is overbearing with their gift-giving or someone who incessantly needs to receive gifts?)

Love is...complicated.  Giving it and receiving it.  That's why it's a good thing that it's often so vital and powerful, it motivates us to discover the messy nuances of connecting with other human beings. 

Cooking

Cooking, is, of course, a craft, and a skill.  When I'm really enjoying the process of cooking I get a similar enjoyment out of it as I do when I'm playing a videogame, or making music.

But it's more than that, too.  Cooking is a way that we can connect with other people.  To help bring them happiness.  I mean, sure, videogames and music can do that too, just...it's in different ways.

Sometimes when I watch these cooking videos and content I get this smile on my face from knowing that there is this shared understanding of craft.  Seeing someone that "gets it", someone who you feel aligned with in terms of your process, always feels satisfying, like you're a little less alone in the world because somebody else has this shared understanding with you, even if you've never met them.

But there's other cooking content that makes you appreciate that you can really create something beautiful out of cooking.  When people think of "gift giving" or "acts of service" as a love language I think there is an impulse to think of them as really impersonal, but of course when you really think about the great examples of this kind of love expression they are anything but that.  That special hand-made thing that you always treasured, or that surprise party that your friend helped organize for you.  Cooking is the same way, like, cooking can be "sustenance for life" in that it can just be this necessary aspect for physical health and survival, but it can also be "sustenance for life" in that it can remind us of joy, remind us to connect with our bodies, remind us to connect with other people.  I think this is why presentation is important when it comes to food, as much as I often neglect it (efficiency is also important to me...).  It can help to create a moment, as much as the packaging on a gift, or the hand-written note that goes alongside of it.

Seeing someone really express their happiness when you cook for them is a really special feeling, I guess it is similar to seeing someone express their happiness and gratitude when you give them something special that isn't food.  Thinking about it makes me a little emotional for some reason.  I think it's because the desire to be loved and appreciated is such a core desire -- if not for all people, then at least for people like me.  Of course, there is also the desire to be respected and acknowledged -- that can be really important too -- but cooking is perhaps a little unique in that it's a craft that can connect with people on a more personal level.

I want to become better at cooking.  I want to be able to bring more moments of joy to the people around me.  But thinking about this, also makes me think about how I struggle, too.  Not with creating a meal, but with being on the other side -- with expressing my appreciation for others.  How can I seek connection with others through this "love language" if I am so reluctant to connect with them in the first place (or in the "second place"?).  Do I "deserve" to hear words affirming my effort if I have not yet learned to give those same words back?  Why should people express thanks to me if I am so reticent?

Why is it so hard to express love, and to accept love?

...would be a nice place to end the post, but I think we kinda already know why it's hard to express love, and to accept love.  It's because sometimes love often comes bundled together with all of these other emotions and feelings and thoughts and memories.  Maybe to you love means control.  Maybe love is intermingled with lust.  Maybe jealousy.  Maybe when you tried to accept love you ended up accepting shame along with it.  "Fear of love" isn't really something we talk about, I guess maybe it is really not an apt phrase to describe it anyways, we dress it up in phrases like "avoidant attachment" or "rejection sensitivity" or whatever.  But there's a good reason it exists, right?  We all want to have those =good= experiences with love, but there have usually been so many bad experiences too, it's easy to forget how to let our guard down.  Love takes time.  And if we are to be open to it for ourselves, we have to also be open to it for others, too.

There's no rush, though.  There's no need to "fix" something that isn't "broken".  It's ok to not bring your whole self to every encounter.  You will, in your own time, when you are ready.

I mean, what is there to say???  ...is my first thought, but I figure I should write something anyways.  I've had a long day.

 

Empathy is important, we all know that, at least on a conceptual level, probably.  But maybe sometimes a calm head and being open to understanding and curiosity are part of it too.  Or maybe it's just the same thing but under a different name.  When people ask "Why?" or say "I don't understand" sometimes the other unsaid half of the sentence is "and I don't like it" or "I think it's wrong".  Starting from an assumption that there is a =mistake= in the world can predispose us to looking only for the answer that we want to see.

But usually things have a good reason that they are the way they are, or even a mediocre reason, at worst.  Sometimes we can shove aside the question of "why" and ignore it in our quest to figure out "how" to move forward with whatever we want, but sometimes maybe you really can get some good insight into "why" if you start by assuming that it is something that DOES make sense, given some sort of missing information that you are not taking into account.  If we give the benefit of the doubt, what are the possible reasonings we could try and derive -- or even contrive -- for "why"?

Why do you have to wait at a red light even when it's 3AM and you're the only car on the road?  We know there are often sensors that are used to detect whether cars are at intersections (and which lanes they're in -- this frequently affects left turn signals).  Why couldn't we use those same sensors to deduce that there is only one car at the intersection and that it should be let through immediately?

There are probably any number of reasons you could guess at here, but consider that pedestrians are probably too light to trip most of these inductive sensors (which are probably designed for cars, right?) and also take significantly longer to cross the road.  It wouldn't be a great situation if someone saw a green light and started to walk slowly across the road, only for cross-traffic to suddenly get switched on.

Of course, all of this applies to our selves too.  We get caught so often in the mistake of assuming that we are "wrong" for our unwanted behavior or that there's no reason for it.  But humans are astoundingly rational creatures, we really do most things for good, or at least important, or sensible, reasons.  You can call your behavior "maladaptive" all you want but there's a reason for those to exist too, right?  Sticking to something that worked in the past is an effective life strategy, it =should= take conscious recalibration and effort to change our working patterns.

 

Anyways, I guess I get at least some credit for today.  I did some work, wrote a letter, came up with a pretty good last-minute birthday gift, scheduled a vet appointment, got some JaSmix stuff resolved even.  This week I decided to break down a whole chicken so that I could have richer parts leftover for some soup, in addition to simply saving some more money.  Cooked two pretty decent meals.  I have a bunch of various things in the fridge that I'll need to try my best to use up before my next trip, I think it should mostly be okay, though.  Have the laundry going...

Failed in delivering a Rhythm Quest devlog this month again, but that's okay, right? ...ehh...

I've got some stuff to do tomorrow, I guess.  More writing, one hour compo, an album release, maybe thinking about anything else that needs to be squared away.  A nail trim.

Perhaps the biggest thing I should be proud about today is releasing some of the tension in my back.  Was sort of nagging at me the entire day, but I've just realized that it's gotten a lot better now.  I always had the inkling that when I get back pain it's a combination of physical soreness and stressors manifesting in pain (previous experiences with psychosomatic issues cluing me in), but this past week perhaps more than other times have convinced me of the existence of the psychosomatic portion of it (thanks therapist!).

Despite everything I may or may not say and write about, I'm doing pretty good.  I got this random comment that I might be having a rough time.  Probably not very informed, but even if it was, probably not an unreasonable conclusion to reach given the energy and mood that my posts these days often have.  There's this constant feeling of "well, life goes on, for now", I basically wrote that in like 3 of my more recent posts?  Well, I mean, it's =true=, though.  I'm not really one to hop and skip my way along, but also not one to dig in my heels or start kicking and screaming, am I?  At my worst maybe I'm slowly plodding, at my best, my steps are probably a little lighter, but we like to try our best to go at a steady pace.  Nothing more, nothing less is needed.  Just what we've always done.

Time for another update...

 

I'm doing okay.?  Feel like time is flying by since I've got all these various things that I'm dealing with, but I'm managing somehow, amidst all of it.

 

We've just wrapped up with the first half of our annual ALTTPR mentor tournament!  I put in my time and mentored for 13 races this year (last year I did 15).  Last year that resulted in 9 wins, 5 losses (we're not counting the cheating fiasco...), this year I got 10 wins, 3 losses, which is fantastic!  An improvement from going 2-5 in 2023, ha ha.  I guess my lifetime record is 21-13, a win rate of 62% or so.

Of course, my "mentor skills" are only really half the story there, I mean at the end of the day the mentees are the ones running the seeds, we're along to do the best we can and try to pilot these mentees into good routes and decisions and remind them of little things as they improve.  It's been satisfying, as it always is, but I think this year in particular I finally managed to really brush off the impostor syndrome that I felt two years ago.  The hard work that I've put into understanding the game and analyzing things in my own way comes through when I'm able to chime into discussions and give my thoughts on decision making in a structured and informed way (or at least I think so).

People have a funny way of thinking about things sometimes (I'm not talking about people making bad routing decisions).  I overheard in an opposing mentor/mentee video once about them discussing a little bit of what they knew about my routing style, and I was really taken aback because like...how would you know?  This person probably popped into my stream maybe once or twice, is that really enough to determine how I do things?  It's not like I play in tournament matches or anything like that, it's odd (I also don't know that their conclusion was on point).

But probably the stranger/more interesting one was a mentee who talked about how like, they knew DDRKirby(ISQ) would sniff out ___ item that was at ___ location.  And it's like...I donno.  Sometimes there is this weird ethos about experienced runners being able to like see The Matrix or whatever and trace through chains of logic and progression and predict where items are likely to be and it's like...okay, there is some small element of conditional probabilities, but really, we just try to be faster and more efficient than our opponents and try to estimate the risk/reward of each decision point.  This applies to me even more so given that I consider check efficiency to be king over almost anything else, I am probably the last person who is going to "sniff out the logic" pointing toward something specific unless I'm using it as a tiebreaker.

I felt really validated when one of the top runners said as much, that no, the experienced players don't just magically find the right path, they're just efficient and open more chests faster.  But I dunno, maybe people have this weird fascination with trying to "make the right predictions" instead of just putting in the work to just continually optimize things.  I still get baffled when people basically call out recency bias as a reasoning for their decisions rather than just going by the odds of something happening in a vacuum.  Like, in any sort of competitive TCG or poker or whatever you'd be crazy to use this sort of thing as a reason, right?  Bleh.  But maybe it's just like me to just be like "yea it's just all the unglorious improvement that's really important".  I wonder if sometimes people think in real life I have this magical ability to just get things done really fast but no, it's not magic, I just learn to do things quickly and try to cut out everything else that's unnecessary.  It's.......the same thing that I do in randomizer, lol.

 

JaSmix planning continues, hopefully I can put out the event announcement this coming week and then start working on the setlist and private lesson signups and all.  Unlike in previous years I'll probably just have everything in one room; I can just do my private lessons and then have our three workshops all in the same place afterwards.  Less efficient in terms of time, but it's fine; I'll just be able to hang out and relax as the workshops go on, and actually watch them as opposed to last time when I was busy running around doing other stuff and worrying about reparking my car and all.

Had another go at Master of Orion 2, haha.  Had a win on an Impossible game (woo!) using a standard UniTolProd+1 race.  Think I've gotten to understand a little bit more how the early game should look, prioritizing colony bases a lot earlier (and scrapping your initial starbase) and stuff.  I've not had any luck winning with a Repulsive race, I think it gives you too little time to set up before people start coming after you.  And no luck with a research-oriented race either.  Game is hard.

Had a lot of tea this past week, including a white tea that I really "needed" at that time.  Felt like it was reminding me of how to try and be at peace instead of just worrying about stuff like I was at the time.  I still struggled a bit with it afterwards, but it helped to set me on the right direction, I guess.

I watched this video a while back (or maybe not that long ago in the grand scheme of things) that basically was emphasizing how I shouldn't ignore my inner experience of things.  And it's like, I never felt like I was super out of touch with my thoughts and feelings or anything like that.  But I think I'm starting to reach an understanding that "acknowledging my feelings and then proceeding to ignore and not do anything about them" perhaps doesn't necessarily really count as being in touch with them either.

But I mean these things are hard sometimes.  That's how we get into trouble, sometimes there just isn't anywhere for our inner thoughts and experiences to be "received", whether that be because you don't have the time, or you don't have the friends, or you don't have the love, or you don't have the capacity to receive them by yourself.  And then maybe they start to leak out because I mean, thoughts and feelings usually have to go somewhere, right?  That's what lead me to my run-in with psychosomatic pain and all.  I recall that as I feel this weird suspicion about my back being sore over the past couple of days and wonder whether that is related, whether that is somewhere where I'm carrying some unresolved emotional energy.

 

Feeling happy about the artwork that I've been putting out; last month's was a big success and I was happy with this month's too.  I worked on that instead of Rhythm Quest this past week, but I mean...work is work, right?  There's always a million different things, but somehow it seems ok if you just take it one piece at a time and resolve to slow progress.

 

The chickies are doing ok maybe.  Maybe?  Not sure whether dumbchicky has figured out the treadle feeder, I'll have to do some more testing on that when I have the energy to do so.  Never seem to have a ton of energy and motivation for these extra chicky tasks =/  I really ought to replace their bedding inside, and honestly their outside could use some help so it's not so rocky.  And trim their nails / soak their feet... at least I managed to get them some supplement for their calcium, and I've been hand-feeding dumbchicky and letting them out.  They seem to be really enjoying dirt bathing outside, so at least they are happy about that.  Somehow feels like as time goes on I'm being less and less of a good chicky parent.  Don't know that I'll ever have ducky again at this rate.

Weather continues to be really cool and cloudy here and I'm all for it; this has been the best late july weather ever, haha.  I'm sure we'll have some additional heat at some point, but I really don't mind this at all.  It's at least one thing to help give me some extra energy.  And hey, the mentor tournament is over, so that's one less thing for me to have on my plate, right?  (swap in JaSmix stuff, lol)

 

I've got yet another trip coming up, so this is again my week to try and see if I can get one or two things taken care of before that happens.  I missed a Rhythm Quest update this month, bleh.  I keep meaning to go out to dance again, and also to play some DDR, but it's been hard to fit it in with everything else happening lately. 

 

But yeah, yeah.  Sympathy for myself and all.  It's not like I feel like I've been lazy or not performing well or anything.  Life continues, for now.

Okay, yeah!  It's been a while...let's see where things are at.

 

The rest of my trip went okay!  I felt really exhausted toward the end, in like, every way -- honestly think a big part of it was the heat getting to me since I spent a little extra time outdoors.  It honestly felt super surreal coming back, the weather was a complete 180 and I came back home from sunny + dry to a dark, damp, foggy night.  I'm all settled back in now, but that first 24 hours or so was a little weird...

 

That tea place that I mentioned ended up redeeming itself -- the bai mu dan that I had the first time just was really....not it.  Rather than try their king's grade peony or whatever I actually just ended up going for their pressed white tea cakes and those fared much better for me, there were two that I ended up enjoying, I think maybe the last one wasn't as great but eh, I'll take it.  I had some good times there, including one afternoon where I just sat there and felt really productive. 

 

Ended up bringing a knife home, as I was hoping to.  Yeah, I...didn't really need another knife, but I wanted to have something nice to bring home, and I've been using it and enjoying it so far!  Not replacing my favorite knife, but it's nice to use and even made of the same powdered R2/SG2 steel, which I've had great impressions of so far.  Also ended up ordering myself a diamond sharpening stone, I'll have to see whether I like that one better or worse than the traditional water stone experience.  I think it's a little less meditative, but also like....less hassle, and potentially faster?  I'm afraid to use it on my more precious knives, but I'll have to just give it more experience and see what the difference is when I use the different stones.  I'm experimenting with some new techniques too. 

 

I promise you もう迷わない

強くなる…あなたに証すよ

逃げないで　向き合っていく

姿を見せてくれた　to heart

It's a song that I'm pretty sure Kiki sent to me a long long time ago.  I don't think I ever really associated it strongly with her though, it's just a song that I just kinda had and remembered.  Can't help but think of it a little differently now, though, I guess.

The mentor tournament has been continuing on -- the mentees are on week 5 now and there's only one week of mentoring left!  I coached two races this week -- both victories -- and I have two mentees signed up with me for next week as well.  One of the victories this time seemed like it was going to be a heartbreaker as a hardware issue caused us to lose 22 minutes (!) of progress, but somehow we managed to pull it all together and figure out what plays to make to keep us in it.  Definitely one for the books, sheesh, what a wild ride (was on restream, too...).  Sitting at 8-2 now in my mentor-coached races, which is...incredible actually, haha.

I'm continuing to do some additional work here and there on my ALTTPR site.  Currently doing some of the first few rooms in the GT climb (complicated rooms...).  Once we're at the end of the swiss rounds next week I am considering whether I want to put together a tips/tricks video covering common themes or areas of improvement that I've seen throughout various mentees, but...I'll have to see if I have time to edit that all together.

 

Ended up finally putting another Rhythm Quest release out, including a ton of minor improvements and restructuring that I've been doing over the past month(s).  As usual there are still other bugs and stuff related to the new functionality and changes that I'll need to go back to address.  The work just continues like this...

 

I think we have a date for JaSmix!  Assuming everything can go through, of course.  I'm planning to have the event on August 16th.  I actually could have one more workshop in my schedule, but I...don't think I'm up to the task of teaching it.  Maybe if I think of something fun and simple that I could do, but I just don't think I want to dedicate the bandwidth to it; may as well just let the others do their job and teach some cool stuff and I can just sit back and handle the rest of the night, do some privates, etc.  At this point I'll just be happy if the event goes through and runs smoothly.  It's a little too much to ask for me to also put in a workshop...

There's been a bunch of other life learnings too, I don't know if this is the right place or time to really detail them, but there's been stuff about attachment styles and how I work and stumbling blocks or blind spots that I have been carrying in certain situations and all that.  That stuff is still a work in progress, but then again, we all are, right?

 

I received the news that Andrea Gibson -- a poet whose works I'm acquainted with -- passed away recently.  Was a weird coincidence that I had just recorded a one hour compo piece where I had recited one of their poems.  I never knew them on a personal level and I had only ever attended one of their poetry readings, but they have some really cool works and every once in a long while when I'm not busy thinking that I should be digging into my past I end up reaching for some poetry and, them being one of the few poets whose works I'm acquainted with -- more often than not it's their work that I pull out of my friend's bookshelf and see whether I can glean any feelings from.  Like I said, I don't feel like I really =know= them, but they seemed to....I don't know, like, have lived a really special life?  Full of hardships I'm sure, but also full of strength, connection, crazy experiences and life lessons, and all of that.  I guess I don't want to assume too much, I mean on some level you have to think, somebody who wrote all these grand (or not even grand, just like, heartful?) words about their life experience, surely had to have lived such a full life.  But it's not just like, that their poems are all dramatic or whatever, it's more like...wow, this person went through some stuff, but not only that, they came out the other side, and they did even more.  I dunno.  I guess it just felt like this was a pretty cool person to exist. 

Going to be going back down south a bit this weekend, which should be good, since it's been so long.  Not sure if I'll stay an extra day and stop by Dancebreak or whatever (I've been so MIA at dance stuff...), but either way it should be good.  I'm planning to stop by Teance again finally tomorrow, really looking forward to hanging out there.  (actually reminded me to sign up for the next upcoming tea social...)

 

What else...it's getting toward the latter part of the month so it'll be time for me to start working on another pixel art piece soon.  Looking forward to that, hopefully it'll turn out okay?  I watched The Colors Within / Kimi no Iro, really enjoyed it!  Fun, joyful, kind of touching, not too heavyhanded, pretty, all things that I really appreciated.  Keyboard-wise, I had been using my usual two boards for awhile (and will probably go back to them), but the past couple of days I actually pulled out the Evo80 for a change of pace.  Variety is nice!

 

Chicky stuff continues to be interesting; the "training setting" is now off on the treadle feeder and I'm notttttttt 100% sure dumbchicky has managed to figure out how to get her food out of it, but I know at least white chicky has.  We're still having rodent issues; pretty sure the whole chicky food situation contributed quite a bit to it, but at least we're taking a bunch of the appropriate measures now, and we're learning more and more about how to keep everything safe.  Heh, just thinking about how if I ever have duckies again it'll just be even more learnings...guess the pet stuff never ends, really.

 

Been having this weiiiirddd funky combination of feeling like sometimes I'm super lazy and not really great about my normal rhythms, but also been being pretty productive at the same time?  It's a little weird, but I'm rolling with it for now.  Contrary to what you might think, I don't feel the need to always be on exactly the same rhythm as I normally am.  Progress is still progress, work is still work, fun is still fun.  I still manage best I can to take care of all the different things...

Showing up for yourself means understanding that you deserve love even when you don't think you do

Showing up for yourself means learning about what makes you undeserving of love, too

Showing up for yourself means dragging yourself outside even when you feel like hiding under a rock

Showing up for yourself means letting yourself stay home even when you feel like you should be dragging yourself outside

Showing up for yourself means taking care of your body, putting on your best even when nobody else can see it

Showing up for yourself also means staring at your hideous face in the mirror afterwards

and telling it "I love you"

even when you don't believe it.

You'd do the same for someone else

Wouldn't you?

And even if you wouldn't

that's okay too

 

Deep down, you'd want someone to do it for you

even if you feel like you don't deserve it

right?

I'm doing ok, here, in this place away from home.  As much as I like to always keep the same pace and do the same things, it's hard to argue that taking a little break away from myself isn't good every once in a long while.

My last trip out of town wasn't super "relaxing" in that I was basically always doing stuff every day, though I still managed to take a day on my own to go pet cats and drink tea and everything (wonderful!).  This time I may have some more time to do...okay, normal stuff that I'd probably do if I was out and about at home too, catching up on some work, maybe writing a letter, maybe getting a head start on this month's pixel art, blahblahblah.

There's a tea place here, too, though my first experience there left me feeling half-dubious.  I'll give them one more shot to see if it'll be a nice place for me to stop by again, but I miss my home tea cafe(s) already haha.  It's too bad, too, I think both of the spots that I went to during my last trip were really nice, particularly that second one.  But I guess nowhere is perfect, really.  Maybe I should have brought some of my own tea with me, I guess...

The mentor tournament has continued to be fun I think!  I'm starting off the season strong with 6 victories and 1 loss (heh), somehow I'm actually catching up to that crazy 8-1 record that I had at one point last year before the losses started rolling in.  In my mind the mentees are kind of at the point where their journey and destiny is really under their own control; you can (probably?) really see the difference between mentees that just keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, versus people who put in the work and really learn how to execute every screen in the game well.

I've probably talked about this before, but it's always weird to try and coach people through the process of learning.  Like, I feel like most of my learnings have just been a matter of "expose me to something new" or whatever and then I go and learn the thing myself because it's just EASY for me to figure out how the thing works on my own.  Even if it's not immediately obvious, I can just look up the appropriate resources myself, =or= I can do the science on my own.  So it's really weird to think to myself, how am I supposed to interact with, and =help=, people who don't just figure everything out on their own?  My first instinct is always like "here's a video, go and watch it".  And I mean on some level that's valid, right?  The reason we have these videos is to serve as a nice and (hopefully?) concise explanation of concepts, with prepared footage to accompany it.  Wouldn't that be better than some on-the-fly half-baked runthrough that's unprepared?

But of course, like, people don't always know how to diagnose what they're doing wrong, right?  Again, I have to like, understand that rationally rather than experientially because if you put me in the same situation, 9 times out of 10 I =will= be able to diagnose what's going wrong.  Like, if you see something and try to replicate it and it doesn't work, you should isolate different factors, look at the inputs and outputs, etc.  I dunno, isn't that just...basic? (it's not)

It's real hot here, and =dry= too, so I've been trying my best to make sure to take care of my skin.  Tomorrow I get to give that tea shop another chance, but also get to shop for some knives -- hoping to find something to take home, or at the very least buy as a gift!  I'll probably try to get some work done, but I want to vary that work, too, you know?

Life goes on, for now.  We'll see.

Words to Remove from the Dictionary (Part 1)

Good

Bad

 

Right

Wrong

 

Proper

Improper 

 

Defective

Maladaptive

Inadequate

Inferior

Insignificant

 

Hopeless

Worthless

Unlovable

Unforgivable

Coward

Stupid

Idiot

Broken

Pointless

Powerless

Meaningless

Useless

Impossible

Hate

Normal

Perfect

Never

Can people really change?  I mean, of course, people do change, but I wonder sometimes if that change is slow and hard-earned, or whether change is more like something that just "happens" to you.  Like how you can go to bed, but you can't actively "fall asleep", it's just something that "happens to you".  Maybe the difference is more semantic than anything, but thinking about the changes in my life and in other people's lives, it makes me think about how much of it was really under our control at all.

I've certainly become a little more comfortable talking and interacting with people in certain ways.  (Others...maybe still needs some work)  Was that really something that I did out of my own will and power?  Maybe.  I think it's weird because I'm used to looking at things like skills and techniques, like you know, my execution in ALTTPR, or knowing my way around cooking, or even the craft of making music?  These are all things where I can go like, "hey, yeah, I really worked on that, I put effort into both learning and practicing it, and it resulted in growth and progress".  But like, when it comes to the deeper stuff, like social skills or my personality or even the little componens that make up who I am, those are a lot harder to boil down.

Like, yeah, maybe I feel a little more secure than I used to, but like, I struggle to even feel like that's something that I really "worked out", it just feels like I was "lucky enough" to get through the right circumstances to make it happen.  I think some of the stuff about self-care, yeah, sure, that stuff I feel like I've put in work on, both myself and with my therapist, so that stuff makes sense, but the other stuff...it's harder for me to connect the dots, I guess.

The other weird thing is that change is something that traditionally I've just tried to avoid in the first place?  So like, maybe it makes sense after all that it's something that "happened to me" rather than something I really pursued.  But I donno, are there really good examples of how I've seen people change over time out of their own will?

Yeah...yeah, I guess there are.  But like I said, it is slow, and hard-earned.  I think that's why it's hard to imagine, because usually that sort of change takes many years, I guess, and usually starts so early on.  Like when I decided I would try my best to avoid having so many things that were half-done and never-finished.  I was so young when I tried to decide that, it really took many years before I could really go and say that this is something I'm not only good at but am known for.

I guess I see that in other people, too.  People have told me about how they had experiences that made them figure out that they wanted to be a certain way or wanted to learn how to be a different way than they were previously.  It's cool, I guess, seeing that people can actually make it happen.  That if you want to, you can grow, and shift.  I think it's more rare to see now, because people have settled more into their ways, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen at all.  Even someone who claims to want to stay the same as much as me, feels the shifts happening as I try to understand things in a different way.  Maybe I won't change as drastically as I did during some of my more formative years.  But it still happens, I guess.


I've still been feeling a little off, physically.  Headaches and fatigue and all that.  But I've been doing my best despite that.  Finished that Rhythm Quest devlog, did some mentoring, even squeezed in an ALTTPR run and got some voter outreach postcards started.  I'm overdue on some letters still, but that can come in time.  Everything in its time, one by one, steadily.  I can do it.

Been putting in some good work, recently.  The mentor tournament has been going well so far, I'm trying my best to route these mentees through the seeds, somehow they've managed 4-1.  I've learned one or two things along the way, so that's always a good thing, too.

Rhythm Quest work continues and I'm really putting a lot of time into the settings menu refactor, which feels really good.  I have a devlog drafted for all of the work I've done over the past two months, just need to capture all of the gifs for that tomorrow and hope to publish it.  I was going to work on that part of it today too, but instead I took care of some other things, including some household research and then also getting my package ready to mail out for Sakuradragon's stationery swap.  Nice to have those things checked off!

Chicky needs a nail trim as always; hopefully I'll be able to manage that tomorrow.  We seemed to have stopped one of the intruders but there's definitely still a problem, found one of them living in the food dispensers again =(  I ordered a treadle feeder to try and help, I'm not sure whether it will work out but I figure I might as well try, assuming I feel like it's safe for them to use (TBD).

Besides the Rhythm Quest work I have some letters to write (really haven't had too much writing time recently...).  I haven't been taking great care of the other normal household stuff (been keeping up with regular vacuuming at least, but haven't been managing the kitchen as well as I feel like I normally do), and I've had some uncharacteristic misses on my meals too, but I think that's just bound to happen sometimes.  It happens.

Weirdly enough I've been feeling some energy/dopamine problems near the end of the days, something feels a little off.  Maybe it's because I'm just exhausting my reserves earlier in the day, or maybe I just need a little more sleep, or whatever, but I've noticed that despite working really nicely and feeling good I've been hitting this point where my motivation kind of falls off a cliff, it's not just like the work motivation either, like the play motivation really peters off too.

I guess being in the summer months doesn't really help, though I don't think it's the heat sapping away my energy (otherwise it'd be worse in the afternoon...).  But it probably won't hurt to try and make sure that I'm taking care of myself in all of the usual ways, a little extra.  You know, eating a little healthier, trying to make sure I can get some good sleep, all that stuff.

I have another trip coming up, I'm looking forward to it!  I don't feel like I have a ton of stuff to take care of before then, just a few things that I think I'll be able to take care of okay.  My main question mark is whether I'll end up making time to head south before then, but I think either way is okay, honestly. 

Things have been...good!  I'm starting to find my pace, I think.  The new and old are starting to integrate together.  It's a nice feeling.

The Mentor Tournament (for ALTTPR) is in full swing now.  I don't think I'll be able to swing the type of win-loss record that I did last year (it was crazy, and probably just lucky, at one point my mentees were 8-1, that's an 88% win rate...), but I'm going to try my best to help out those who are seeking guidance, best I can.  At the very least, I know there are things that only I really teach.  I'm...not really sure why I'm the only one, but whatever.

The other day was super satisfying as I spent a long time working on this month's pixel drawing, which has now become my new avatar -- the nicest one yet, too.  The past 8 months or so have all been traced, which of course is not the =worst= thing, I still get practice on working with pixels in general, antialiasing, coloring, selective outlines, etc.  There was one piece I worked with in particular where the colors were fascinating, really interesting to try and translate them into a limited palette, and I didn't just copy/paste/quantize the colors from the source image either.

But I did get called out on it at one point, started to feel a little iffy about it myself, made those albums into free downloads only, and this month I used a reference but took it in my own style and didn't do any tracing or anything.  Honestly expected the result to be much more lackluster, but somehow it ended up better than most of the actual traced drawings...go figure.  Anyways, tracing was a nice and easy fallback that honestly mostly just saved me creative "effort" and energy and provided with me with a nice and easy way to take care of my monthly commitment without thinking too hard, but I guess this works, too.

Been trying to take care of other things in the meantime, too.  Took care of the laundry today, and mailed out some letters as well.  There is minor trouble going on in chickie-land, as usual -- some mild problems with eggs (calcium deficiency, perhaps), but also another unwelcome food thief, which surprised us at first because we sealed up the outsides of the coop, but we realized that it's been coming through the opening in between the "duplex" structure.  That's something that probably won't be =too= hard to fix up, just need some sort of "tunnel" that I can use as a mini skybridge.  Just another thing to take care of at some point, I guess.  Have some gift shopping to do as well, at some point...

More importantly, I'm finally getting back at working on Rhythm Quest.  Had some nice, I mean =nice= work time on it today, for the first time in a while.  I pretty much skipped working on it all of last month, so it's nice to finally be back at it.  Not only did I do some charting work, but implemented some fixes here and there, and even improved some functionality (camera smoothing) and tweaked some UI flows.  Hopefully I can keep it up...

My happiness is here, too.  I donno how much to really describe or talk about it, but there have been some things that I think have made a big difference for me.  I can really feel them.  All that stuff about self-confidence and self-forgiveness and all that.  I always kinda knew that I was valuable, admired, lovable, all that stuff.  But I think I had trouble "believing" it.  I asked myself a few weeks ago what it would be like to believe in it and at the time I like...didn't really know, it felt like I couldn't really imagine it.  But I think I'm beginning to.

You're ok

I'm a little scared today, to be alone.  But today, perhaps more than before, I'm starting to realize that it's not the "alone" part that's the bigger deal, it's the "scared" part.  Or the "sad" part, or whatever it is.  Because I know I can feel that way when I'm not alone, too.

I'm beginning to understand what the different feelings I have mean.  If my stomach feels a certain way, maybe it means I'm hungry.  If it feels a certain other way, maybe it means I have anxiety.  And similar to that, maybe if I feel a certain way, it means I simply have emotions that are bouncing around inside, with nowhere to go.  That's why it's tempting, to wish that someone else were there, so that they could have somewhere to be received.

But like, just because another human being is there with you doesn't mean your emotions and thoughts will just settle down and magically go to some better place.  Being with someone brings its own emotions, too, right?  It brings new emotions for you, and also new emotions for them.  Connection can be a wonderful thing.  But we live lives where we cannot be in a constant state of connection, no matter how many different "friends" you may have on each social media platform.

I could tell sometimes, that I was trying to distract myself from my emotions, even though I knew what they were.  At other times, I try to sympathize with myself for them.  Sometimes it helps to just talk at myself about them.  We are all human.  We all have feelings, needs, and desires.  And at each moment, there are so many of them that can't possibly be fulfilled.

What will you do with those feelings?  What would "she" do?

5 out of 5

When I'm evaluating my overall state of being and happiness, I usually find it easiest to go with a 5-point scale...

A 3 out of 5 is the default score.  Notably, 3/5 is above 50%, so it feels like it's "generally, slightly positive".  Things aren't great, but they aren't bad either.  They're just "good" in a normal way.  Doing the things that I normally do.  Getting some amount of forward progress done -- not necessarily on many things, but one or two things, at least.

A 4 out of 5 is not entirely uncommon, but still something to be celebrated.  It either means I'm having a really good period of my life, or just that the day itself went well.  Maybe I was able to do a good mix of the things that make me feel accomplished and good (writing letters, working on my game, doing art, cooking).  Maybe I just really enjoyed some nice white tea.  Maybe I went to a social dance event and it went well.  Or maybe I hung out with a friend and it was nice.

A 2 out of 5 usually means something is wrong.  It could be something discrete, like being stressed about something coming up, or feeling sick, or not having enough time.  But often the "2 out of 5" days are the days where I'm just feeling that slight dissatisfaction with life.  A lot of the time it manifests as long-term mild loneliness or depression -- depression of the type that makes normally-fun activities and daily life seem not as exciting or pleasant.  But sometimes it could just be that I kind of let the day while away and didn't get to any of the things that really give me sustenance.

The 1 out of 5 days are, thankfully, rare, at least nowadays.  It usually means something particularly bad happened, usually of an emotional sort in nature, but every once in a while it could be something physical too, like covid or having an allergic reaction or whatever.  Strings of 1 out of 5 days are almost unheard of, but they have happened.  Usually those are the big disasters in life -- the things that end up forming into trauma afterwards.  I can think of a few times when that happened, and they were really bad.

Every once in a while you get a 5 out of 5 day, too.  These are probably as rare as the 1 out of 5 days.  Sadly, sometimes they don't get remembered as much in a specific sense, but that's because in order to be this happy it's not necessarily the case that something specific has to be happening.  It's not like the 5 out of 5 days only happen on special occasions, rather, it's a matter of things really lining up in life to make it happen.  It's really easy to call a day a 4 out of 5, it's much more rare to really go all the way and say it was a 5 out of 5.  Often the fact that my day =can= be a 5 out of 5 is already something to celebrate, because so often life has some negative factor or other that seems to simply precludes it in the first place on most days.  The nature of happiness means that consecutive 5 out of 5s don't really tend to happen very often, but it has been possible, too.

Today...was one of those rare days.  Again, it's not even so much the day itself that deserves celebration, but rather the fact that life is in a place where it's even possible to reach this level of overall happiness and satisfaction.

Look at me

I will never pass for a perfect bride...

...or a perfect daughter

Balancing / Fanime 2025 / Self-Worth / Burnout

Life is indeed, like a balancing act.  But the analogy extends to more than just the act of weighing different parts of life against each other, trying to find the right equilibrium for yourself.  Sometimes, life throws unexpected things at us.  If we are already struggling to find our balance, it's more likely that we'll drop what we are carrying as we scramble to catch these things.  And when we do, it takes more effort to bend down and pick back up the pieces that it does to simply maintain something that was already in harmony.

Sometimes you need to adjust your balance.  Other times you might need to move to a new location.  It turns out that walking (or running) while doing a balancing act is hard, too.  Sometimes you have things that are securely buckled down, things that you are holding onto tightly such that you know they won't fly away.  But not everything is like that.  When you need to, what will you do?  Will you walk more slowly so that you can keep things steady?  Will you try to tilt the tower in the direction of your goal, and then run after them to catch up?  Will you put something down, to lighten your load and let you move more easily?

=====

I didn't really write about Fanime 2024, but I guess I can say a few words about this year.  Fanime 2023 continued a trend of being "chill".  This year continued a different trend where my experience has become more and more about supporting and celebrating those friends of mine who staff at Fanimaid Cafe.  And I didn't really have a problem with that, really.  I was happy to lie low and to "condense" the other parts of my con experience.  All in all, I had a surprising amount of success with that.  I played some TGM2+ and got doubles clears with A-zu-ra and Kitaru, including a new PB (by like, 1-2 seconds, after 12 years lol).  I didn't spend a ton of time shopping, but I browsed a bit and picked up some nice things.  I stopped by Sakuradragon's booth as well and had a nice time chatting with the folks there.

Thanks to me not really spending as much time wandering the halls (or maybe just a sign of the times...) there was only one person who stopped me for a photo, but it was someone who was happy to see Journey representation and we chatted a little bit; I told them about the yearly anniversary event that happens and how I still try to play every year (....though I haven't been these days, sigh).

So yeah.  It was good...it was enough.

=====

There's been a lot of internal work and struggles, confronting sadness and all that, about self-worth.  I don't really know what to write about it here, I guess I've sort of touched on it a little bit already.  I always knew that I easily take things personally, that I have a lot of insecurities, all that stuff, but I think what really hit hard for me was the thought of "what would it be like to think that I'm enough" and having a lot of trouble even visualizing or comprehending what that is like.  I don't know if I've like =never= felt that way, but it feels so foreign and out of reach to me now and I was =sad= about that, like downright sad.

And it's not like the thoughts and feelings around this are anything new, I've already =done= a lot of feeling sad about being discarded, or being unloved, or all the frustrations that my younger self had, blahblahblah.  But just because I've done a lot of feeling sad about that doesn't necessarily mean I'm =done= feeling sad about them, and also doesn't necessarily mean that I've healed from those wounds either.

It takes work to heal from those things.  Maybe a lot of the time we don't think about it because like, it seems like the natural way that the body works is to be all resilient and heal from things gradually -- almost automatically -- over time.  Wounds close and even if there is some scarring there, things get fixed up, patched up.  But like, I had a surgery many years ago and there's actually a part of myself that maybe hasn't fully "healed" yet, it's something that if I want to ever restore it actually requires active effort.  And like, I don't know if that will ever happen, actually, but shouldn't I be trying to do that, not just letting it be?

=====

I may not have learned how to be in a healthy two-way relationship from all of those letters I wrote to all those people, but I did learn a thing or two along the way about my side of relationships.  What it's like to put in effort, what it's like to put in =too much= effort.  There is this really natural tendency that when a relationship is not working out I just want to put more into it in order to "fix" it.  The problem is that there is this point where I just don't actually have enough capacity and positive energy around it, and it just ends up burning me out and making me bitter.

I've learned to recognize that feeling and to try and rein myself in, but it's still a difficult balance to strike at times.  Because there =is= merit to making sure that you push yourself to show up in relationships during the times when it isn't necessarily the most easy or "fun" and all that.  Being deliberate and consistent and all that has always been one of my strengths.  But as I said, there is still a point when putting more into the relationship makes it worse, not better.  It's something that I'm trying to be mindful of.  I've certainly been on both sides of that balance, I think.  There was times when I put too much effort into my Christmas letters and felt really bad.  But then there was also a time when I put too =little= effort into my Christmas letters and felt really bad.  It took me some calibration to find what was best for me.

And it's...complicated.  I still have complicated feelings about all that energy and effort that I spent back then.  I have complicated feelings about how I don't spend as much effort now as I did before.  Is it "good" or "bad"?  I think it's easier to say that it's "good", but I also don't think it makes sense to just place a value judgment on it.  I think it's because it's not obvious to me anymore what a "good" relationship is like.  Maybe that is in itself a sign of maturity (?), that I don't think that is a trivial answer, because maybe it just depends.  Just like it seems like a folly to chase after "rules" for relationships because isn't the whole point of a successful relationship that it's tailored to bring happiness to the actual people who are a part of it?

On feeling like shit

This is probably not what you think it's about, but...sometimes we make mistakes, and it's like, yeah, we shouldn't be rewarding the people that make mistakes, right?  We call them out for a reason?

But like, think about all the times when you made mistakes in your life, what was the thing that you needed most then?  Sometimes you need humility, yes, but what about all those times when you needed forgiveness, grace, acceptance even?  When was it that you felt most motivated to pick yourself back up, admit that you could do better, and feel good about it?

What if becoming a better person didn't involve feeling like shit first?

 

This is a weird and perhaps hidden (insiduous?) problem with our online spaces, it usually doesn't feel like the right move to offer forgiveness, grace, and acceptance because when we're in these spaces everything falls down to the lowest common denominator and if there is something to be taken advantage of, it will.  That random stranger on the other side of the interaction has as little accountability toward you as you have patience for them, and so perhaps it just "makes sense" to adopt an antagonistic attitude because that's been proven to at least illicit a response, regardless of if it effects positive change.

And it's like...feeling like a piece of shit DOES work, it =does= make you want to change.  But not only does it not feel great, it also comes with all of these nasty long-term side effects, ones that I'm sure you've all realized a thing or two about (if not, maybe a therapist can tell you about it).

It's sad because some of us don't even need the other person telling us we're shit, we tell it to =ourselves= whenever we make a mistake, and what then?  There's no such thing as a safe space to make a mistake anymore, because there's always someone there to judge us for it.  And so we just live life in a way such that we just never feel like we're making any mistakes anymore.  Maybe we learn to stubbornly ignore everything that goes wrong and assert that we're always right.  Maybe we learn to just work three times harder than anyone else, we learn to prepare for every possibility so that nothing will go wrong.  Or maybe we just learn to never try anything that we don't already have a guarantee of success at.

I want to believe there's a better way, even though I've never really known one.  But I think it takes time, and love.  A lot of love, from a lot of people.  One in particular.  Maybe not the one you're thinking of.